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The History of Art Survey
Lecture 23
Early Medieval Art in the Western Europe
Gardner 428-451
A
B
Historical Periods: Animal Style 1st Millenium BC - AD 1st Millenium
[Early Germanic Art]: 500-800
Hiberno-Saxon Art: 600-750
Carolingian Art 768-936 Charlemagne r. 768-814
Ottonian Period: 936-1024
16-
—1 Frankish looped fibula, 4” 6th
2 Sutton Hoo purse cover c 655
—3 Animal-head post from Oseberg ship burial c 825
4 Wood-carved portal from a stave church, Urnes 11th
—5 Man (symbol for Saint Mark), Book of Durrow, 9 5/8ths” c 660-680
6 Ornamental page, Book of Lindisfarne 7th c
—7 Chi-rho-iota page, Book of Kells, 1’1” 8th -ea 9th
8 St. Matthew, Lindisfarne Gospels, 1’1 1/2” c 698-721
9 The Scribe Ezra, Codex Amiatinus, 1’ 8” early 8th
10 High Cross of Muiredach, 16’ Monasterboice 923
* Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths, (Ravenna) Aachen ???
11 Equestrian portrait of Charlemagne (?), 9 1/2” early 9th
12 St. Matthew, Coronation Gospels (Gosp of Charlemagne) 800-810
13 St. Matthew, Ebbo Gospels Hautvillers 816-835
14 Psalm 43, Utrecht Psalter Hautvillers c 820-835
—15 Psalm 57, cover of the Psalter of Charles the Bald, 5” c 865
16 Crucifixion, cover of the Lindau Gospels, 1’ c 870
17 Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, plan, Odo of Metz, Aachen 792-805
18 Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, interior Aachen 792-805
19 Torhalle (gatehouse) Lorsch 9th c
20 Monastery of St. Gall, plan (Switz) c 819
21 Monastery church of St.-Riquier, drawing (1612) c 800
22 Abbey church of Saint Pantaleon Cologne 966-980
23 Abbey church of St. Michael’s, plan & sectionHildesheim 1001-1031
24 Abbey church of St. Michael’s, interior Hildesheim 1001-1031
25 Doors with Genesis (left) and Life of Christ (right), St Michael’s, 16’6” 1015
* Adam and Eve Reproached by the Lord, St Michael’s, 43” 1015
—26 Column with life of Christ, St Michael’s, 12’6” 1022
27 Crucifix of Archbishop Gero, Cologne Cathedral, 6’2” c 970
31 Annunciation to the Shepherds, Lectionary of Henry II, 1’5” 1002-1014
32 Otto III Enthroned, Gospel book of Otto III 1’1” 997-1000

Art Historiography
Art history is a field of divided interests. The historians base value of their work in attempting to focus on the major historical issues and trends of the period under consideration. That is, by focusing on significant issues of the time, not just a random selection of interesting artifacts. The art connoisseurs and chroniclers of beauty are focused at the most pleasing remains. These are often quite different things.

Thus, though the survey text tends to seek objects and that connect the two approaches, they are often forced to choose their subjects out of one or the other perspectives alone. So we get imagery in poor shape or of quite uninteresting quality such as the paintings in 11-1 and 11-3, or the mosaic 11-12 or even the reconstructions of items no longer existing like old Saint Peter’s in 11-7, because they establish historical issues we ought to know about.

Or we shift gears entirely, dropping a theme like the classical Roman traditions for the Christian traditions of the empire, not because all art has changed or the best art is now in the new tradition, but because we have to be selective and It is the Christian art of the empire that will be more important theme from here on. The classical tradition didn’t end with Constantine, though its funding and so the number of items did diminish greatly.

Through the course of the 20th century, as Post-Impressionism triumphed in the market and museum worlds and abstract art replaced naturalistic art at the heart of the highest interest, there was a parallel movement in art history, arguing the same issues in terms of past history. Medieval art, indeed the entire movement away from naturalism we have seen in Roman Christian and Byzantine art was looked at in the 19th century and well into the twentieth as the distinctly degraded work of artists who had lost the skills as well as interests of classical times. As late as 1950, Bernard Berenson devoted a book to this, by then thoroughly lost cause.

So, we are recommended—by our recent predecessors—to look at the following materials with eyes fixed on the design and esthetic qualities they do have, not the ones they do not.

Medieval Art
Historically 400-1400 has been a vilified period, called the Dark Ages, for the lack of knowledge we had of it, or the Middle Ages, for its lying between the more important classical and Renaissance periods. Indeed it was considered a crude and uncultured period, during which brutal Germanic tribes overran the more sophisticated Roman Empire. Of course this is in western Europe, for as we have just seen, eastern Europe’s Byzantine culture went on with great energy.

Early Medieval Society
Early medieval is marked (in our text) 500-1000 CE. The culture is seen as a fusion of classical and Christian culture with the culture of the Celtic and German, ‘barbarian’ tribes. Some of these peoples were already citizens of the Roman Empire when our period begins. Others arrived in western Europe, [which will be the subject of our book from here on] only during the second half of the first millenium. Several important conflicts mark the period. The church versus state conflict was quite different than anything in the Islamic or Byzantine world. “In the West the Christian Church not only possessed extensive properties but also early on assumed major governmental responsibilities. Frequently, secular and ecclesiastical authorities fond themselves in open opposition.” These oppositions still reverberate today.

It will be interesting to see if this is an imortant theme of our discussion or if this is a theme of our discussion or just another repetition of the “West is different from the East” formula.

The Art of the Franks
A number of so-called “barbarians” circulated around the “European” lands that Rome supported itself by conquering. At first they were Rome’s intended vassals, but in time they became her competitors and eventually the predators who first encircled and then alternately laid her waste and occupied her. Huns, Vandals, Franks, Visigoths (Western Goths) and Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths). The Visigoths ended in Spain, the Franks in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and parts of Germany. The Ostrogoths under Theodoric ruled northern Italy before Justinian’s generals took it, and they quickly to the Lombards, the last to arrive in Italy. Celts inhabited Ireland, Angles and Saxons from Germany took Britain. The Vikings ruled in Scandinavia.

As invading and conquering tribes of warriors these were not monument builders, but horsemen, who owned largely what they could carry. Otherwise they patronized local crafts as they settled. The churches were the most stable institution during these years. The largest landowner and so controller of serfs. The cities of the Roman Empire, and the trade that kept them above the level of subsistence farming, were largely depleted by the subsidence of the Empire into feudal, serfdom ruled by local petty aristocracy and the church.

Graves of the day have preserved some lavish personal ornaments. the 7th century (?) Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf leaves the images of “the hero who is cremated and his ashes placed in a huge tumulus overlooking the sea. As an everlasting tribute...his people ‘buried rings and brooches in the barrow’”.

1 Frankish looped fibula, 4” 6th-7th
The fibula is the garment pin that goes back to the Romans and Etruscans. This one is silver gilt worked in filigree, with inlay s of garnets and other stones. There is a similar one on the figure next to Justinian in the San Vitale mosaic (12-10). This one has red gems and blue enamel. Aside from the fish, all the designs are abstract ones.

2 Sutton Hoo purse cover, 7 1/2” c 655
The mound at Sutton Hoo was constructed over a ship burial with a good deal of treasure. This included a silver place with the Byzantine emperor Anastasius (491-518). 7th century Britain held polytheists and “pagans” as well as Christians. The cloisonné enameled purse is 7” long. Inside an outer register of bars there is a white ground with four pairs of elaborate decorations, and a few circles and half circles. On the hinge side are trapezoidal boxes filled with geometry and frets with animal heads at either end. On the clasp side the outer motifs are men flanked by opposed lions (?). We can find parallel images going back to 2-10 or 3-1, thousands of years earlier. At the center large predatory birds are perched on smaller duck like birds.

All the figures are composed of cloisonné-segmented and interlace animal abstractions and linear frets that burst irregularly into animal heads and or legs. This is a vocabulary of metal horse trappings, we fins spread across most other media.

—3 Animal-head post from Oseberg ship burial, 5” c 825
793 marks the beginning of Viking raids on the British coast. The kept appearing irregularly until the mid-11th c. They did hit and run and also colonization. They were also called Norsmen and were those who eventually settled in Normandy, and so the source of William the Conqueror. This is an animal-head-post. The overall head is a cartoon animal. Its surface is filled in with an interlace fret. These are the standard elements of this warrior art: animal forms and interlace patterns.

4 Wood-carved portal from a stave church, Urnes, 1050-70.
We can see the same forms on the Urnes stave church door panel. “By the 11th century, much of Scandinavia had become Christian.” So here was the barbarian interlace adapted to the decoration of the church. High relief animal interlaces flank a subtle key-hole outline doorway, filled with very subtle, basrelief animal interlaces. In each the animal parts are abstracted and continuous and punctuated with circular joints and ends that have eyes or fingers or legs or heads. What was flat ribbon interlace in the animal-head post, here is thick flattened sausage animals connected by spaghetti thin plant vines, with leaves and berries. i

There is a clear statement of the ambiguity of life in the world of the unknown, as animals and plants are animated spontaneously and ambivalently out of inanimate.

—5 Man (symbol for Saint Mark), Book of Durrow, 9 5/8ths” c 660-680
“In 432 Saint Patrick established the church in Ireland and began the Christianization of the Celts.” (431) And the Celts though nominally subordinate to the Pope in Rome developed monastic orders quite independent of Rome. It was they who brought Christianity to Britain and Scotland. In 563 St. Columba founded a monastery on the island of Iona. Monks from Iona founded the monastery of Lindisfarne in 635, which became a great center of learning, sending monks out and bringing them in from as far away as Switzerland, Germany and France.

The Hiberno-Saxon or Insular style is the name for the art produced in the British Isles. It was particularly noted in manuscripts copied there. Books were rare and many luxuriously illustrated. And most were lost to the Vikings and other pillagers. The Bok of Durrow is a rare survivor, probably from the Iona monastery. A characteristic of the Insular style is whole pages given to decoration that is neither illustration nor text, but pure embellishment. There were carpet pages of abstract patterns. There were initial pages covering whole pages, (e.g., `16-7).

This is a carpet page for the Evangelist Mark, whose symbol is a man. Our text calls him the “checkerboard-cloaked evangelist.” The bulk of the image is pattern with only a head and feet added to make it a figure. There is very little figurative presence. Not just little weight of mass, little physical presence. It was the book that was prestigeous, not its embellishments, and certainly not responsiveness to the beauty of the human form,

[which would have no meaning here if it were not the center of value in the classical art of the Greco-Roman classical world.

6 Ornamental page, Book of Lindisfarne, 7th c
Our text calls this “cross-inscribed carpet pate...[a]n excellent example of the marriage between Christian imagery and the animal-interlace style of the North.” (432) It was produced at the monastery on LIndisfarne island. This is the Hiberno-Saxon. According the colophon it was written between 698 and 721. The intensity and density is amazing. The pretty spirals are, on close inspection, fantastic serpentine animals “devour[ing] each other, curling over and returning on their writing, elastic shapes. The rhythm of expanding and contracting forms produces a most vivid effect of motion and change...held in check by the design’s regularity and by the dominating motif of the inscribed cross.” (433-4)

Each of the laces is an animal or series of animals, swallowing its own tales and those of the others. It is a world of animal effulgence and mitosis, boiling between the only slightly less animated geometry within the cross’s arms.

—7 Chi-rho-iota page, Book of Kells, 1’1”, 8th -early 9th
An even more elaborate example of the Insular style is found in the Book of Kells. Owned by Kells, illustrated by Iona or a connected monastery. Its lavish pages were created for display in the church. XPI, chi-rho-iota, the initials letters of Christ in Greek, occupy an entire page. “h generatio” at the bottom of the page stand for “Now this is how the birth of Christ came about.” The holy words are transformed into elaborate art. There is a cloisonné like interlace here too. And here too elements end in animal heads, e.g., at the end of the Rho.

I am fascinated by the way living being keep manifesting out of the swirl of inanimacy. There are two constants here: the intricacy of the weaving of the interlace and the enlivening of it.

8 St. Matthew, Lindisfarne Gospels, 1’1 1/2”, c 698-721
A major source for these spirals and intricate linear imagery is in the metalwork of the period. Another source is other manuscript illuminations. Take this image of St. Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels. It seems to be largely adapted from an Italian work which was also the source for The Scribe Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus of the same moment.

9 The Scribe Ezra, Codex Amiatinus, 1’ 8”, c 689-716
The Codex Amiatinus version of the scene has a lot more of the late antique source, in the more consistent use of perspective cues in establishing spatial relationships. Color is used more representationally and less decoratively, so as to produce a more consistent visualization of space. Lights and darks are coordinated to produce facets of different sides of things, rather than to produce the elegant contrasts of the Lindisfarne. The Lindisfarne figure is more linear and more patterned. The figure here is posed more proportionately and less awkwardly.

The summation is interesting. “The result, however is not an inferior imitation of a southern prototype but a vivid new vision of the Evangelist, unencumbered by distracting details such as the book case and the scattered writing instruments on the floor present in the Codex Amiatinus picture.” (436)

The point here is that the artist we see is not just a crude copies of the southern source, but a stylist of another ideal. This is certainly true. And yet, without familiarity with the style a whole, one can only wonder how crude this is. or is not.

10 High Cross of Muiredach, 16’, Monasterboice, 923
“The medieval artist did not go to nature for models but to a prototype—another image, a statue, or a picture in a book.” Books were copied, so there was no reason not to copy pictures. Natural models were not of interest. Authority was not in closeness to nature but in closeness to previous scripture.

By copy here it is intended to repeat what one has seen, not to internalize the idea and reproduce it in a variation, though that is what happened. There was no premium put on independent invention. Though, again, that did occur naturally enough.

Most medieval scribes before the 13th century were monks. Most sculptural imagery was of the miniature and portable, personal, variety, not the monumental, public, sort found earlier. High Crosses were a contradiction to this rule. The Muiredach High Cross is a typical example. Its central upright slants inward to an extent, as it rises from a thick base. The halo-like circle identifies the work as Celtic. Earlier ones were filled in with interlace. This one and those to follow were filled in with figurative scenes from the life of Christ (or Celtic saints), though patterning remains a strong element. Sometimes a fantastic animal is included. The main subject here is the Last Judgment, with Christ at the crossing (transom) presiding over the weighing of souls. The Last Judgment is the most popular church entrance imagery of the 12th century.

Carolingian Art 768-936
On Christmas day 800 CE,, Pope Leo III crowned Charles the Great (Charlemagne) king of the Franks, since 768, Emperor of Rome, the first Holy Roman Emperor (r 800-814). It was in Old Saint Peters. After consolidating his Frankish kingdom he had moved south of the Alps, to Italy and conquered the Lombards, then ruling there. Later European call the period after him. His Renovatio imperii Romani, reads his seal, Renewal of the Roman Empire. Some version or another of his ideal union of European states lasted for the next millenium, until Napoleon destroyed it.

Now, three centuries after the fall of the last Roman emperor to the [Visi or Ostro ?] Goth Theodoric, we have the a conscious revival of classical art. This revival is led by the king of the Franks, one of the German speaking lineages who had brought an end to the empire. The impetus was cultural. It wasn’t a change in taste, but a change in policy. It wasn’t a return to another esthetic ideal, but adoption of an identifiable set of cultural symbols intended to legitimize a political goal.

* Equestrian portrait of Theodoric, (Ravenna) Aachen ???

On his return from his coronation in Rome, Charlemagne had the equestrian statue of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, brought to Aachen, his capital, from Ravenna. That statue (now lost) and the equestrian statue of Justinian at Constantinople (also now lost) stood as standard memories of the Roman tradition we still see in the surviving Marcus Aurelius in Rome (10-59), thought during the Middle Ages to be Constantine.

11 Equestrian portrait of Charlemagne (?), 9 1/2”, early 9th
This tiny image of Charlemagne is clearly modeled on this imperial model. If not Charlemagne, it likely represents his grandson Charles the Bald. As in the Marcus Aurelius, the rider here is inflated in comparison to the scale of the horse. “Quiet dignity replaces the torsion of Marcus Aurelius’s body and the bold gesture of his right arm. Charlemagne (or Charles the Bald) is on parade.” (437) He is on parade, wearing imperial robes. His sword is sheathed. He holds a globe “symbol of world dominion.”

If this isn’t a maquette for a larger work, it is certainly a minor image. pathetically passive and diminutive in comparison to the over-life-sized Marcus Aurelius.

12 St. Matthew, Coronation Gospels (Gospels of Charlemagne), 1’1”, (Aachen) 800-810
“Charlemagne was a sincere admirer of learning, the arts, and classical culture. He, his successors, and the scholars under their patronage placed a very high value on books, both sacred and secular, importing many and producing far more.” The Coronation Gospels (Gospel Book of Charlemagne) is written in gold ink on purple vellum. This book is of his time. This is an important subject, with illustrations of reading going back to 10-72 and 11-4, and writing 16 8 & 16-9.

Carolingian illuminators returned to classical technique, modeling their work in illusionistic painting brushwork, rather than the line drawing of their medieval predecessors. The figure is shown shaded carefully, rather than diagrammed. Colors are modulated, not filled in between lines. There is also a return to some classical details of subject matter: the saint’s dress is a Roman toga, the cross-legged chair and lectern are also Roman. The landscape background is classical. The frame is filled with acanthus leaves. “If a Frank, rather than an Italian or a Byzantine, painted the Saint Matthew and the other Evangelist portraits of the Coronation Gospels, the northern artist accomplished an amazing feat of approximation.” (438)

That is, a feat of approximating the classical. Clearly they were aware of classical sources. We should be careful of the racial or communal element in that sentence. Being born in Italy or Byzantium isn’t the issue, but training in one place or the other. If Charlemagne was willing to travel to Rome to be crowned, it is not hard to conceive of him sending his artists there for training.

13 St. Matthew, Ebbo Gospels, 10”, Hautvillers, 816-835
A reemergence of classical style is seen elsewhere in the Carolingian as well. The Gospel Book of the Archbishop Ebbo of Reims is another example. The Saint Matthew there is much like the same subject in the Coronation Gospels. Here too there is a painting approach to the image, though quite a different one. There is modeling in color, but also inclusion of a strongly agitated linear element. His hair is vigorously marked. The landscape behind is drawn in color, “drapery writhe(s) and vibrate(s).” “Matthew appears to take down in a frantic haste what his inspiration (the tiny angel in the upper right corner) dictates.” (438) The work is much more dramatic and calling attention to itself than the previous style.

“The native power of expression is unmistakable in the Ebbo Gospels, and became one of the most distinguishing traits of late medieval art...This master painter brilliantly merged classical illusionism and the North’s linear tradition.” (438).

Again here, we want to be careful to remember that it is cultural expression we see in the blending of styles, not inherited expression, as “native” might suggest.

With Charlemagne’s interesting in reconstituting the Roman empire on a contemporaneous, Christian basis, it is not surprising that he encourages parallel reconstitution of that era’s art and culture to bolster his efforts.

14 Psalm 43, Utrecht Psalter, Hautvillers, c 820-835
The Utrecht Psalter (book of psalms) is fully illustrated. The text produces David’s Psalms in three columns of Latin in capitals, returning to a long out-of-fashion manner. Each psalm receives a page with drawing in a actively accented style, and some humor. Here is Psalm 43, with a lament on the plight of the oppressed Israelites: “Thou has made us like sheep for the slaughter.” We see a walled city where the faithful grovel before a temple. “Our belly cleaveth unto the earth.” The lord is above with six angels. Here as in the Ebbo Gospels, the style of drawing is strongly agitated. Both works are from Reims. Specialists see details common 4 centuries earlier. This isn’t a copy but the work of someone who has studied earlier work and is consciously exploiting it. The penchant of the artist to pick out “candid observations of human behavior” is quite typical of the Middle Ages.

The lean to the right, like a writer’s slant is a striking element of the composition found throughout the illustrations in just this manner.

—15 Psalm 57, cover of the Psalter of Charles the Bald, 9.5”,
c 865
“The taste for sumptuously wrought and portable objects, shown previously in the art of the early medieval warrior lords, persisted under Charlemagne and his successors. They commissioned numerous works employing costly materials.” (439) [The powerful wanted to show off what they could control.] Charles the Bald, Charlemagne’s grandson was a patron of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis just north of Paris. It was to be church of the Kings of France. The cover of the Psalter he had produced in the church’s workshops (?) included ivory set in a silver-gilt frame with filigree work and precious stones.

It illustrates Psalm 57: “Oh God, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge...My soul is among lions; and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongues a sharp sword....They have prepared a net for my steps; they have digged a pit before me, into the midst thereof they are fallen themselves.” Which we see depicted in the ivory. It appears to be a miniature reproduction of a design worked out on a larger piece.

16 Crucifixion, cover of the Lindau Gospels, 1’ c 870
The Crucifixion, front cover of the Lindau Gospels has a gold cover with pearls and other jewels. It was made in the workshops of Charles he Bald’s court. A youthful, beardless, Christ is nailed to the cross. He stairs open-eyed in gold repoussé (hammered out from behind). Mary and Saint John and two other figures crouch below, angels plus personifications of the moon and sun flit above. The staring Christ is local and “Frankish;” the flitting figures more classically refined. [?]

According to our text the Latin script developed by Charlemagne’s scribes was a forerunner of the one there. [It is Platino looking.]

Architecture
17 Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, plan, Odo of Metz, Aachen, 792-805
The Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne’s palace at Aachen is a central planned octagon, around 120’ in diameter. As part of his effort to revive Roman power Charlemagne endeavored to revive Roman building and artistic techniques, and had his monuments modeled on those he had seen in Rome and Ravenna. That is on the Latin and the Greek styles. The book has already mentioned the basing of an equestrian portrait of Charlemagne on one of Theodoric. The porphyry (purple marble) columns of the Aachen chapel were imported from Ravenna. The chapel may be based, to an extend upon the central hall of San Vitale (12-7). Odo of Metz, the architect is the first with a name recorded north of the Alps.

18 Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, interior, Aachen,
792-805
By comparison the Palatine chapel is simpler. The choir reaching from the exterior into the center of the hall at San Vitale, is not in evidence here. The sophistication and rich subtlety of the older plan is replaced by the clearer, simpler geometry of the new one. The result is not unlike the (Romanesque) style we will fine two centuries later. So is the exterior of the chapel, with its geometrically defined stair towers (?). Charlemagne had a throne set on the second floor from which he could observe the service. His son was crowned here.

Even more strikingly the exedra—the curving, apsidal, niche-shaped bays between the inner piers—that are so rich and so complex, have been simplified and flattened. The stories here are distinctly separated, unlike those in Ravenna. But like the Colosseum there were tunnel vaults running around the octagon on the second floor, and there was generally employed a rationalizing regularity and clarity of engineering based forms. We can also notice an early example of an decorative element drawn from the Arabic or Islamic architecture to his south, the alternating blocks of dark and light marble in the arches. We can trace this motif to the Umayyad, Dome of the Rock (13-2) and closer geographically to structures line the Mosque of Cordoba (13-12)

— 19 Torhalle (gatehouse), Lorsch, ninth cent.
The gatehouse of Lorsch Monastery was once thought to be of Charlemagne’s time, though it is now seen as later. It has been likened to a Roman triumphal arch but is more like a Roman city gate. The exterior wall is finished in colored inlays modeled on Roman opus reticulatum: lozenge shaped bricks s an ornamental surface. Pseudo-Ionic pilasters carry a zigzag ornamental molding. The total is a local play on long past Roman formulas.

20 Monastery of St. Gall, plan, (Switz), c 819
The layout of the vast and important Benedictine monastery at Saint Gall has been preserved because it was recorded for Haito, the abbot of Reichenau and bishop of Basel and sent to the Abbot of Saint Gall to be used as a guide for a rebuilding there. A central purpose was to separate the monks from the laity, who also lived and worked there. The design is based un a 2.5 foot module. Its rationality parallels the [scholastic] theology of the day.

The church and its cloister stood near the center. The cloister was like the atrium of the early church, a square open to the sky surrounded by a covered porticoes on all sides. It was a place reserved for the monks to be alone for contemplation.

Many have handsome gardens at their centers and sides.

21 Monastery church of St.-Riquier, drawing (1612), Centula (France) c 800

Our text defines the discussion of Saint-Riquier by calling it “The basilican church transformed.” We are now about to embark on the last major traditional development of our course, the evolution of the Medieval cathedral, one of the most striking designs of human history, the Christian equivalent of the Islamic mosque or the Hindu temple.

As can be seen already at Saint-Gall, it was the longitudinal, basilican tradition that was to continue in the Latin Catholic countries, not the central plan of the Greek Orthodox. Though no Carolingian basilica has survived, Saint-Riquier’s form was recorded in this easily read 1612 engraving, that copies an earlier, now destroyed miniature painting.

We see a three aisle basilica—side aisles flanking a clearstory nave—like the early Christian basilicas, with the new phenomena of a towered lateral crossing at each end. The church at Saint-Gall had apses with altars at each end as well, though there is only one apse here. The transept and nave are of equal width and height, and so a convenient location for a large crossing tower. The round staircase towers at each end yielded a multi-towered plan and elevation.

The drawing shows the church and its attached cloister buttressed by two large churches and a chapel. The basilica of Saint-Riqier included a small separate parish chapel on its upper floor. The main floor was reserved for the use of the monastic brotherhood.

Ottonian Art 936-1024

As we move from the rule of Charlemagne to that of his grandchildren, we see the attempt at a united Holy Roman Empire disintegrated in the division of the kingdom among the descend ants of Louis the Pious (in 843): Charles the Bald, Lothair, and Louis the German. The division roughly corresponded to a German kingdom, a French one, and one between the two. Viking raids were among the events of the time that further reduced Carolingian power in the north, Magyars in the east and “the Saracen (Muslims) corsairs in the Mediterranean.” (445)

OK, I ask without knowing, what are the Saracen corsairs, and how Muslim, and what religion were the Vikings and Magyars, and does it matter? Magyars were a linguistic group, the Hungarians named for their language. Vikings were Scandinavian pirates and traders. Scandinavians are the speakers of the north German dialects of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The Saracens were Arabs, that is speakers of Arabic. They are all linguistic designations, the most appropriate and consistent anthropological and historical designations. Of all these pirate raiders only one, the non-Christian one is labeled by religion, though religion had nothing to do with being pirates.

A new Saxon dynasty consolidated rule in Germany in the early tenth century, named for its three most important rulers, the Ottonians. Otto I (r 936-973) had himself crowned i n Rome by the Pope in 962 with Charlemagne’s title. “The Christian church, which had become corrupt and disorganized, recovered in the tenth century under the influence of a great monastic reform encouraged and sanctioned by the Ottonians, who also cemented ties with Italy and the papacy.” (445) “[T]he pagan marauders had become Christianized and settled, and the monastic reforms had been highly successful. Several signs pointed to a cultural renewal destined to produce greater monuments than had been known in the West since ancient Rome.” (445)

In sum we are reminded that the hegemonic history of western Europe is the history of the “West” and that it is largely a history of the success of organized Christianity. Saxons were the speakers of the German dialect that developed into English.

22 Abbey church of Saint Pantaleon, Cologne, 966-980
In architecture the Ottonians followed the direction we have seen in the Carolingians. The Carolingian basilica’s evolution out of the Early Christian basilica, was continued in the Ottonian basilica. Saint Pantaleon in Cologne (on the Rhine) is one of several examples of this tradition. It is the burial site of Archbishop Bruno, brother of Otto I, and consecrated in 980. Its towering westwork (entrance facade) is comparable to Saint-Riquier’s. There is a three story portal, arched below and pent above. Behind it rises the west crossing between paired turret stairway towers. Key architectural details of story and bay are picked out in a darker stone. Walls predominate over windows. The structure’s forms are an assembly of simple geometric blocks.: cubes, polygons, pyramids, cylinders, cones.

As the Carolingians sought legitimacy of striving for Roman imperial power in appropriating Roman and Byzantine cultural models, so the Ottonians sought legitimacy in the same political goals through appropriating Carolingian cultural models. Saint Pantaleon is a Benedictine Abbey church. The Benedictine order was an important institution within the church at the time.

23 Abbey church of St. Michael’s, plan, Hildesheim 1001-1031
Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim, in Germany, began his career as the tutor of
Otto III (r. 983-1002), in Rome, where he was able to see and study examples of the most prestigeous, lavish, and earliest Christian art. He turned Hildesheim into a center of learning and the arts. At the center of his work was the creation of Saint Michael’s. According to his biographer he was an expert at bronze casting.

Saint Michael’s has the same double transept plan we have been following, with apses in both the east and the west, so that its entrances are along its side aisles. The Bishop Bernward may have been aware of the Roman basilica’s use of such an orientation, as in the Basilica Ulpia (10-41) It is constructed on a modular system. The nine bays of the nave arcade are divided into three squares by white piers, separated by dark stone columns. Architects call this an alternate-support system. The transepts are essentially three bays of the same size each.

24 Abbey church of St. Michael’s, int , Hildesheim, 1001-1031
On the interior this logical organization is fairly distinct. Though the predominant aspect of the interior is the flat, uninterrupted wall and the Arabic striping of the triumphal arches, in the manner of Cordoba and the Dome of the Rock.

The larger, and undoubtedly more important, altar, on the west, is over a crypt. The effect of the interior is taller and narrower than the Italian basilica. What we see today is the church as it was carefully (and accurately) rebuilt and restored after it was devastated in the bombing of the second world war.

Saint Michael’s also is a Benedictine Abbey church, the church of a Benedictine monastery.

25 Doors with Genesis (left) and Life of Christ (right),
St Michael’s, 16’6”, 1015
The great bronze doors at Hildesheim were commissioned by Bernward in 1015. They are situated at the entrance to the church’s cloister, where only monks could pass through. The eight narrative panels on the (viewer’s) left are devoted to Genesis, the eight on the right are given to the life of Christ. When he visited Otto III in the Aventine Palace in Rome, Bernward would have undoubtedly have seen the renown wooden doors of nearby Santa Sabina, filled with narrative carvings.

The left door begins at the top with the birth of Adam and extends to the murder of Able by Cain at the bottom. On the right the New Testament parallel runs from the Annunciation to Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene following the Resurrection. That is the story of Original Sin and of Redemption. The fall of Adam and Eve is juxtaposed to the Crucifixion.

* Adam and Eve Reproached by the Lord, St Michael’s, 43” 1015
The individual panels were created by the lost wax method. They are 23 x 43” or just under two feet high and four feet wide. There is great energy in the individual panels. In the panel on god’s reproach of Adam and Eve, we see the deity in human form leaning toward his creations and pointing directly at them as he condemns them for disobeying his orders, with the curse of mortality. At the same moment both Adam and Eve are bent forward, trying vainly to hide their nakedness, their bodies eloquently expressing their psychic states. The background is bare except for the props of two trees and the dragon beneath Eves feet. A band of decorative plant forms on the left is a part of the scene.

A viewing of several of these panels reveals their style to be very consistent, it was well established, not a work that came out of this moment. The plain background and the staccato ballet of two or three figures is the basis for each cell. And then there is the use of the quite compelling use of the human figure to express emotions. After centuries of diagrammatic figures, here we seem to be witnessing a return of artists to using the depiction of the human figure as a major instrument for the display of human meaning. There is more than diagrammatic indication of meaning here; there is dramatic demonstration.

—26 Column with life of Christ, St Michael’s, 12’6”, 1022
The bronze column was commissioned a few years later. It do may be traced to the art Bernward saw in Rome. In this case it was the Trajan or Marcus Aurelius columns that were the most likely sources. It includes 24 scenes, from Christ’s Baptism to his entry into Jerusalem.

27 Crucifix of Archbishop Gero, Cologne Cathedral, 6’2”,c 970
The life or nearly life-sized Christ on a six-foot cross was created around 970. It was commissioned y the Bishop Gero for Cologne Cathedral. It is carved in oak, painted and gilded. It is not only an image, but also a reliquary. There is “a compartment in the back of the head [that] held the Host” from the Mass.

Which means it was intended to hold ritual as well as figurative properties. But the text does not explain this apparently significant fact.

“This was a dramatically different conception of the crucified Savior than that on the cover of the Lindau Gospels (FIG. 16-16) which revived the Early Christian image of the youthful Christ triumphant over death. The bearded Christ of the Gero Crucifix is more akin to the Byzantine representation of the suffering Jesus (see FIG. 12-20), but the Ottonian work’s emotional power is greater still. The sculptor depicted Christ as an all-too-human martyr. Blood streaks down his forehead from the (missing) crown of thorns. His eyelids are closed, and his face is contorted in pain. Christ’s body sage under its own weight. The muscles are stretched to the limit—those of his right shoulder and chest seem almost to rip apart. The halo behind Christ’s head may foretell his subsequent Resurrection, but all the worshiper senses is his pain. Gero’s Crucifix is the most powerful characterization of intense agony of the early Middle Ages.” (450)

Having worked in Oak myself I want to attest to its being so hard it is almost impossible to mark, much less carve with control. Such an image is carved with great care, because it means so much to those whose understandings it is intended to express, and those who will see it. That is, to the patron who commissioned the work for the church, the Archbishop Gero, and to his parishioners, who would be judging him as well as the artist by its qualities.

If we look back we will see only a few depictions of the Crucifixion in our survey of Christian art. The earliest, known examples, from around 420, the ivory image on a casket in the British Museum (11-21) and the image from the doors of Santa Sabina (lecture 16) show a Christ who is unshaven and classically calm and psychologically unmoved. The later Byzantine figure, from the mosaic at Daphne, is bearded and grimacing in pain. Or is it? You may want to look at that one again yourself.

What we are now discussing is the conception the viewer takes of the figure in the art. Is Christ shown as youthful and unmoved or mature and suffering. Our text offers us the choice and characterizes both. There is the Byzantine image of the “suffering Christ” and the contrasting Early Christian image of the “youthful Christ triumphant over death.”

Most texts on this image emphasize that this is an image of Christ as dead.

31 Annunciation to the Shepherds, Lectionary of Henry II, 1’5”,1002-1014
The Lectionary of Henry II was intended to be as luxurious as possible. It included full page illuminations such as this one. The subject is the Annunciation of Christ’s birth to the shepherds. It shows winged angel alighting on a hill. His drapery is still swirling in the wind. “Although the angel is a far cry form the dynamic marble Nike of Samothrace (see fig. 5-82) of Hellenistic times, the framed panel still incorporates much that was a the heart of the classical tradition, including the rocky landscape setting with grazing animals, common also in Early Christian art (see fig. 11-15).” (450)

This is a bit of what I have called survey myopia here. In order to explain the return to a more dramatic imagery the author refers to an earlier example as if the Medieval artist was here consciously basing this work on earlier work. It is probably better to think of adopting the same sort of goals of pictorial dramatization, than copying of earlier motifs.

“The golden background betrays, however, knowledge of Byzantine book illumination and mosaic decoration. (Otto II, r. 973-983 had taken as his bride the Byzantine princess Theophanu, who ruled as regent from 983 to 991, while Otto III was still a minor.) “ (450)

This continues the view that we are observing artists under the influence of other specifics, when it may be that the use of gold grounds was an accepted standard for visions of the supernatural. I don’t know enough to make a determination here. I will study the evidence in the future, but I am mentioning it here, as a model for how one reads critically and then goes about finding if one’s criticism is useful or not. I may be on a wrong trail.

“The angel looms immense above the startled and terrified shepherds, filling the golden sky, and bends on them a fierce and menacing glance as he extends his hand in the gesture of authority and instruction. Emphasized more than the message itself are the power and majesty of God’s authority. The artist portrayed it here with the same emotional impact as the electric force of God’s violent pointing in the Hildesheim doors.” (450)

Again: look carefully. Do you agree with the characterizations of the “startled and terrified shepherds” or the “fierce and menacing glance” of the angel? If you do you can accept the judgment about the “power and majesty of...authority.” That is how to read: do we see what the author says we should?

The style includes strong outlines and emphatic, if abrupt modeling of a dark line on the edge and white highlight at the center of a mass to demonstrate volume. The painter has a sure text. “But the Ottonian figures have lost the old realism, inherited from late antiquity, of the Carolingian Coronation Gospels (FIG. 16-12) and move with an abrupt hinged jerkiness that is not “according to nature” but nevertheless possess a sharp and descriptive expressiveness.” (451)

So we have here the decision of how to characterize a slow return toward the illusionistic, or is it a wavering between the illusionistic and the diagrammatic? How much importance do we give to the local expressive interests of the artist at hand and how much to the power of earlier models?

The diagrammatic demonstration seems to characterize the Medieval artist more than any interest in modulated illusionism. But it is also clear the expression of emotion seems important. Neither of these are classical qualities.

32 Otto III Enthroned, Gospel book of Otto III, 1’1”, 997-1000
Otto III, seen here in his own gospel book, was obsessively interested in the revival of a Christian Roman Empire. His mother’s Byzantine parentage indicates his grandfather’s moving in this direction. Otto’s court was organized on Byzantine ceremonial lines. [Apparently they didn’t see them as particularly foreign.] He moved the court to Rome, to be near the center of church power, and to display and demonstrate his interest in reviving imperial power.

A step toward recreating the empire was reuniting the divided church, not yet officially divided until 1054, half a century later. We need to remember that the church was the most economically powerful institution in the Medieval world. Church lands were more extensive than any royal lands. Though the hegemonic history seems intent upon the division between the “East” and “West” of the Latin and Greek churches, for most royal figures the major conflicts were between local royal and church power, and between the power of the royal monarch and his independent barons.

The emperor has himself “represented as an enthroned emperor, holding the scepter and cross-inscribed orb that represented his universal authority, conforming to a Christian imperial iconographic tradition that went back to Constantine (see FIG. 10-82). He is flanked by the clergy and the barons (the Christian Church and the state), both aligned in his support.” (451)

“On the facing page (not illustrated), classicizing female personifications of Slavinia, Germany, Gaul, and Rome—the provinces of the Ottonian Empire—bring tribute to the young emperor. Stylistically remote from Byzantine art, the picture still has a clear political resemblance to the [Justinian] mosaic in San Vitale (see FIG.. 12-10).”

I’ll see if I can get that image for Plato’s Cave. You can find the two pages yourself on the web at:
<http://sottodelsole.arth.udel.edu/LPell/AT161.HTML>

As you can see we have a striking conceptual vision. The question we need to ask ourselves is, is this connected continuity between traditions or is it a matter of similar interests and expression?

This is a subject close to the heart of royalty: indeed it is the heart: the bringing of tribute. We saw it in our first historical lecture, in FIG. 2-27, the frieze of figures in Darius’ Apadana at Persepolis. But does the fact of some possible reference to an earlier famous image have meaning here? Are we talking about historical “influence” and the diffusion of artistic style? Or is comparable subject matter or style coincidental and insignificant, and should we be focused on indigenous creativity and expression.

“The vestigial ideal of a Christian Roman Empire—awakened n the Frankish Charlemagne and preserved for a while by his Ottonian successors—gave partial unity to western Europe in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. To this extent, ancient Rome lived on to the millennium, culminating in the frustrated ambition of Otto III....The Romanesque period that followed, in fact, denied the imperial spirit that had prevailed for centuries—but not the notion of Western Christendom. A new age was about to begin, and Rome—an august memory—ceased to be the deciding influence. Europe found unity, rather, in a common religious heritage and a missionary zeal. By the year 1000, even remote Iceland had adopted Christianity, The next task for the kings and church leaders of Europe was to take up the banner of Christ and attempt to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims” (451)

“Europe found unity, rather, in a common religious heritage and a missionary zeal....The next task for the kings and church leaders of Europe was to take up the banner of Christ and attempt to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims.”

Our history of art continues to find the “East versus the West” as its guiding theme. Otto’s interest in creating a vast empire is conceived of as a goal of the Europeans to go to war with Muslims.