The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists' crafts, and the artists themselves.
Art historians attempt to classify medieval art into major periods and styles, often with some difficulty. A generally accepted scheme includes the later phases of Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Byzantine art, Insular art, Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque art, and Gothic art, as well as many other periods within these central styles. In addition, each region, mostly during the period in the process of becoming nations or cultures, had its own distinct artistic style, such as Anglo-Saxon art or Viking art.
Medieval art was produced in many media, and works survive in large numbers in sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, metalwork and mosaics, all of which have had a higher survival rate than other media such as fresco wall-paintings, work in precious metals or textiles, including tapestry. Especially in the early part of the period, works in the so-called "minor arts" or decorative arts, such as metalwork, ivory carving, vitreous enamel and embroidery using precious metals, were probably more highly valued than paintings or monumental sculpture.[1]
Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire and the iconographic traditions of the early Christian church. These sources were mixed with the vigorous "barbarian" artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce a remarkable artistic legacy. Indeed, the history of medieval art can be seen as the history of the interplay between the elements of classical, early Christian and "barbarian" art.[2] Apart from the formal aspects of classicism, there was a continuous tradition of realistic depiction of objects that survived in Byzantine art throughout the period, while in the West it appears intermittently, combining and sometimes competing with new expressionist possibilities developed in Western Europe and the Northern legacy of energetic decorative elements. The period ended with the self-perceived Renaissance recovery of the skills and values of classical art, and the artistic legacy of the Middle Ages was then disparaged for some centuries. Since a revival of interest and understanding in the 19th century it has been seen as a period of enormous achievement that underlies the development of later Western art.
^Heslop traces the beginning of the change to "around the twelfth century", quoted, 54; Zarnecki, 234
^Kitzinger (throughout), Hinks (especially Part 1) and Henderson (Chapters 1, 2 & 4) in particular are concerned with this perennial theme. Google books Archived 2022-10-27 at the Wayback Machine
The medievalart of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia...
music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and various vehicles of popular culture. Since the 17th century, a variety of movements have used the medieval period...
religious art on their own initiative. As a secular, non-sectarian, universal notion of art arose in 19th-century Western Europe, ancient and Medieval Christian...
Period art, notable for metalwork, especially jewellery (the largest pieces apparently mainly worn by men). [citation needed] German medievalart really...
federations and kingdoms within what is now Scotland. Pictish art was the only uniquely Scottish medieval style; it can be seen in the extensive survival of carved...
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period (also spelt mediaeval or mediæval) lasted approximately from 500 AD to 1500, although some...
of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with its mission to bring art and art education...
mainly consist in the European use of Mongol 'Phags-pa script in Medieval European art, as well as the representation of "Tartar" cloth and Mongol soldiers...
sensibilities. For art historians, Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age. The body of art, including...
making monsters in Medievalart. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Pontius Pilate, anti-Semitism, and the Passion in medievalart. 2009-12-01. Merback...
the art of the Classical period waxed and waned throughout the next two thousand years, seeming to slip into a distant memory in parts of the Medieval period...
representation. Medievalart frequently portrays scenes of Pilate and Jesus, often in the scene where he washes his hands of guilt for Jesus's death. In the art of...
Gothic art was a style of medievalart that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development...
with art made elsewhere in contemporary Britain, but early medieval Anglo-Saxon art saw the development of a distinctly English style, and English art continued...
centre, not only of the Carolingian art, Ottonian art of the Holy Roman Emperors, Norman art, but for the Byzantine art of Ravenna and other sites. Italy...
Early Christian art grew out of Roman popular, and later Imperial, art and adapted its iconography from these sources. Medievalart can be broadly categorized...
Western art history. An art period is a phase in the development of the work of an artist, groups of artists or art movement. Minoan art Aegean art Ancient...
The theft of medievalart from Quedlinburg was perpetrated by United States Army Lieutenant Joe T. Meador in the days prior to the end of World War II...
subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern fantastic literature. The Greek...
Mellinkoff, Ruth (1970). The Horned Moses in MedievalArt and Thought. California Studies in the History of Art. Vol. 14. University of California Press....
anatomically correct proportions. In Byzantine and Medievalart of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of subjects about biblical...
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the...
found also in Indian art. Similarly, sphinxes appear as winged lions in Indian art and the Piasa Bird of North America. In medievalart, animals, both real...
Serbian art refers to the visual arts of the Serbs and their nation-state Serbia. The medieval heritage includes Byzantine art, preserved in architecture...
rest of Europe. Art historians usually group Insular art as part of the Migration Period art movement as well as Early Medieval Western art, and it is the...
most of the medieval artistic production. Medievalart went through several phases, from Paleochristian art, through pre-Romanesque, to Romanesque and...
ISBN 9780901714541. Hourihane, Colum (2012). The Grove Encyclopedia of MedievalArt and Architecture. Vol. 2. OUP USA. p. 225. ISBN 9780195395365. Retrieved...
of the Medievalart movement known as Pre-Romanesque. For the first time, Northern European kings patronized classical Mediterranean Roman art forms,...