Gothic art and architecture is striking. For its beauty and its engineering feats certainly, but also for its hypnagogic qualities. Psychedelic mandalas of stained glass, archivolts and arcades, towers and niches, gargoyle sculptures that fiercely guard cathedral entrances and courtyards, the surreal drolleries found in manuscripts, and the phantasmagorical paintings of artists like Hieronymus Bosch. Even Gothic armor is singular in its construction and decoration. It is highly ornate, with precious metals worked and filigreed into designs and apertures, creating an imposing presence, but with a practical purpose.

The visuals of Gothic art and architecture seem hallucinatory and sometimes whimsical. Not the kind of thing we would expect from a period having many famines, including the Great Famine, the Black Death, and two famous wars - the Hundred Year’s War and the War of the Roses2.

However, in spite of these horrors or perhaps because of it, the grotesque and the beatific coincide. Spanning between both hidden in the arches and artistry is logic, mathematics, and reason. More than eight centuries later, its aesthetic is still inspiring art, design and even fashion.

he Gothic period originated in 12th century France and lasted into the 16th century. It was also known as Opus Francigenum1 (“French Work”).

STAINED GLASS

Stained glass is beautiful, ethereal, and one of the first interactive art forms. Natural light is the medium for its viewing and enjoyment. When incorporating images of saints and Jesus in the paneled windows that fill its arches, it became an early version of visual media. A way to trance, engage and tell a story to an often illiterate audience.

A work of stained glass simply hanging on a wall might impress you with its execution and craftsmanship, but use it as a window, with sunlight streaming through it, and suddenly you have a kaleidoscope of light, color, shading and imagery that changes not only each day, but each hour.

Photos: http://free-stock-illustration.com/reims+cathedral+rose+window?image=48867457

It’s curious that Christian craftsmen and the clergy who employed them would use abstract shapes that are very similar to mandalas – the Hindu and Buddhist symbol for the universe. While many do contain Christian imagery – a portrait of Christ or a saint, the images don’t seem to be as noticeable as the overall effect.

This one, from the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims, is very reminiscent of a mandala. Another, the North Rose Window, depicts the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Though not abstract, it does reflect the same idea of the all encompassing universe – and at its center, God. It seems to reflect mystical ideals, and not by accident or oversight3. The Reims Cathedral once had a labyrinth (removed in 1778) much like the Chartres Labyrinth on the floor of the Chartes Cathedral. The Reims dromenon was built around 1200, as was a circular maze or labyrinth meant to aid in meditation. As one walked the circuits on its path, you were making a representational journey from the outer world to the inner world to be one with the Divine4. Of course no religion has a “copyright” on a circle or one containing geometrics, still it’s intriguing that these archetypes seem intrinsic. Were they meant as a focal point for meditation or simply as a beautiful way to fill the interior with what they believed to be the beauty of God and Heaven?

Photo: http://free-stock-illustration.com/reims+cathedral+rose+windowPhoto: http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/France/Burgundy%20Champagne/Reims/Reims_Cathedral_North/Reims_Cathedral_North.htm

MANUSCRIPT

Photo: http://www.medievalists.net/2014/10/13/week-medieval-manuscript-images-5/

Photos: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/luttrellpsalter.html

Commissioned sometime between 1320 and 1340, by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, of Irnham (England)5 the Luttrell Psalter is an outstanding exemplar of a Gothic illuminated manuscript. Psalters contain the 150 Psalms of the Bible, which at the time were a focal point of Christian faith. The Luttrell Psalter is famous for its strange illustrations known as “bestiary”. These chimeric creations are meant as allegories of a sort, representing human failings. A drunken ox like creature shows how ridiculous overindulgence can make you seem, or what could be a treacherous man, with shield or mask of a ferocious beast, when he is actually rather small, holding a scythe with the body of a donkey. They were also used to remind the reader of the nature of God, or an episode in the life of Jesus. This illustration of a unicorn be stabbed with a spear – reminds the reader of the sacrifice and purity of Jesus, and the Roman soldier who pierced his side with a spear.

Many who research manuscripts believe that some of the illustrations are simply the fanciful renderings of the artist, since many times the illustration is not representing anything found in the text, they are thought to be for decoration alone. For many of these manuscripts we do not know who the artists are. Works were commissioned with churches or monasteries and done elsewhere and worked on by several people. The Luttrell Psalter is a huge work encompassing over 600 pages and is thought to have had as many as five artists responsible for the work6. The Luttrell Psalter is not unique for the strange beings and imagery inhabiting its pages – the “MS Bodley 764” in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, The Croy Hours, Book of Drolleries, the Ormesby Psalter, and many more, exhibit the same world of fantastical creatures7.

Photos: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/11/marginali-yeah-take-2-the-incomparable-luttrell-psalter.html#

Painting

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Hieronymus Bosch was born Jeroen Anthonissen van Aken (1450 – August 9, 1516). His paintings, though meant to inform religious sensitivities, are as wildly imaginative, if not more so than 20th century surrealists such as Salvador Dali.

Though none of his paintings are dated and only seven are signed (he used the town of his birth for his signature name), his work is dated to the late 1400’s. Hieronymus Bosch is considered one of the greatest and most significant Gothic painters, having influenced such artists as Pieter Bruegel and some propose surrealism itself 8.

In one of his most famous paintings “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (c. 1490 – 1510) you would be hard pressed to take in all of the work in one viewing. Today, 600 + years later, people are still finding new points of interest in this overwhelming, and highly populated garden. In 2014, an Oklahoma Christian University student, Amelia Hamrick, found “sheet music” painted on the derriere of one of Hell’s torture victims who is being crushed by a harp9. You can actually listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnrICy3Bc2UPhoto: http://www.gnosis.us.com/30106/top-ten-paintings-by-hieronymus-bosch/

Photo: http://www.esotericbosch.com/Garden.htm

The triptych is made rather like a cabinet. When closed, the outside of the cabinet is monochromatic and is painted with a transparent Globe. Floating inside is our world, showing what is surmised to be the Great Flood, and outside of the world, floating in the void is God, holding a book believed to be the Book of Judgement.

When you open the cabinet doors…

Photo: http://www.gnosis.us.com/30106/top-ten-paintings-by-hieronymus-bosch/

You are overwhelmed with an extravagant panorama, a wide and wild vista filled with color – green, blue, white, and flesh colored pink.

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The left part of the open triptych is paradise, with God giving Eve to Adam. Creatures are everywhere – insects, fish, birds, an elephant, a giraffe, but nothing too outlandish. A three headed crane here, a small detail in the corner of a fish/platypus (a platyfish?) reading a book there, but for the most part, all very serene, with open spaces of green, filled with beautiful, exotic animals.

Photo: http://www.gnosis.us.com/30106/top-ten-paintings-by-hieronymus-bosch/

The middle and main panel is another matter. This is meant to represent man’s corruption of

himself and his world.

Filled with strange creatures, people cavorting in lust-filled poses, three headed lizards, people inside

of giant rotting fruit, riding horned cats, a person (two?) caught inside a giant oyster being carried

away by another person, people being fed by birds, people stuffed inside the carcass of some kind of fish-lobster-scorpion. Even interestingly enough, people of color – something you don’t see very often in European art. In one image a woman is

behind a clear glass convex screen, a man is pointing at her from inside a green hillock, and he seems to be looking at the viewer, pointing her out to you.

Next to his head is another face, who also seems to be looking at the viewer.

Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights

In the right panel, Hell is depicted. It is dark, with blacks, umbers, dark greens, and of course the orange of the “furnace”. A hallowed out torso of a man, aware and

alive is looking back on the shell of himself, changed into a sort of tree-egg, with people using the inside of what is

now his “shell” for a dining hall. He seems to have been amputated, no legs, and his hands removed and boats

put into their place. His flesh has been somewhat morphed into a tree as well, with his arms and the boats

now serving as “legs” and “feet” for support. Around him are more gruesome scenes, a pig in a nun’s habit

seemingly forcing her lust on an unwilling victim, and a man crucified in the strings of the harp that is crushing

the person with the “sheet music”. There is much more. The weirdness goes on and on.

Bosch represents what I like about the Gothic – it is not

restrained. It reminds me of that old English saying -“In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Photo:http://www.wga.hu/html_m/b/bosch/3garden/central/

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture of the Gothic era is a combination of overwrought elegance, and brilliant engineering. Masons began developing new and innovative ideas in the 1120’s that allowed for literal heights to be achieved. Ribbed vaults provided support of vaulted ceilings which could now use light stone paneling, reducing outward thrust and channeling the stress through the ribs to attached vertical beams. This in turn eliminated the need for the continuous running support of thick masonry walls. Instead of the low rounded Roman arch that pushed the load of the structure to the middle of the walls, the Gothic pointed arch transferred the weight straight down10. Exterior flying buttresses counter balanced load pressure from the interior ribbed vaults. All of these factors made for thinner walls, which equated to greater expanses of height and length. High ceilings, high windows, high towers and high balconies. Heady stuff for builders who had previously been confined to huge thick walls that could support the massive buckling weight of the previous arched barrel and groin vaults11.

Incorporating all of these elements is the Cathédral Notre Dame de Reims. A Gothic cathedral located in Reims, France.

Built on the site of an older church that was destroyed in a fire in 1211, that church having been built on the site of the Basilica where Clovis was baptized in 496 AD, and that Basilica having been built on a site where Roman baths were known to have been located. Construction of the cathedral began the year of the fire, in 1211. It was halted in 1233 due to a tax revolt by local town’s people, and did not begin again until 1236. It was finally completed for the most part in 129912.

It is 489 feet long with the nave spanning 377 feet. Its two towers reach a height of 266 feet. At the end of the nave is the “chevet” it holds the choir and five circular chapels. The width of the transept (the “cross piece” to the nave) is 201 feet wide. It contains high stained glass windows and two famous rose windows at its west entrance and central portal13.

Reims is highly decorated with another innovation of its time – tracery. A decorative carved stone molding at the arches and windows. Like other cathedrals it is known for its masonry, saintly sculptures and gargoyles. Unlike other cathedrals the architects for Reims are known. Four Master Masons – Jean d’Orbais, Jean-Le-Loup, Gaucher de Reims and Bernard de Soissons14.htt

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SCULPTURE

Photos: Gargoyles at Cologne Cathedral / Wasserspeier am Kölner Dom | by Georg Sander

On the outside of Reims and many Gothic cathedrals, you will be looked at, pondered on, watched, and perhaps frightened by, Gargoyles.

Like other Gothic characteristics, there is more to them than meets the eye. They usually have a very practical purpose. They are “working” sculptures in that take in and divert rainwater from the roof or runoff from overhangs, and then “spit” it out and away from the building. Giving the water a place to go other than down the façade where it would

loosen and deteriorate mortar, and pool and soak into the ground around the foundation, eventually undermining the stability of the structure.

The name “gargoyle” comes from the French word “gargouille” and means gurgling – as in the sound the water makes as it passes through and out the statue. Gargoyles can be made of stone, wood, terra cotta, copper or lead15.

“What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters under the very eyes of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, strange savage lions and monsters? To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man? I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body. Here is a quadruped with a

serpent's head, there a fish with a quadruped's head, then again an animal half horse, half goat ... Surely if we do not blush for such

absurdities we should at least regret what we have spent on them.”~St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th Century.

There are so many wonderful sculptures of gargoyles in so many cathedrals - Cologne, St. Denis, Ulm Munster, but I chose these two from the Strasbourg Cathedral in Strasbourg, France.

As is often the case we don’t know who sculpted them, they are sculpted of the same sandstone that the Cathedral is made of. Building of the cathedral began in 1015 on the on the site of what had been a Roman temple16. Gargoyles are sculpted on the ground and then put into place, usually at the end of construction. As imaginative and artistic as these sculptures are most of the masons of period had no formal training – only arduous apprenticeship17. Though the carvings are not “fine”, and it would not make sense for them to be so, since they are not meant for close viewing, their features would need to be rather large and outset in order to be made out from a distance, they are well sculpted with fingers, supraorbital ridges above the eyes, clutching toes, and musculature. I chose these two because like many gargoyles, they aren’t frightening so much as comical. These two seem to be enjoying haranguing passersby. I can almost hear them heckling St. Bernard as he walks past… “Hey, Bernard! We heard what you said about us – somebody carved our faces to look like this, what’s your excuse?”

Precious Metal Craft

http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=Armor&x=0&y=0

Photo: http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/helmschmid/Interesting

Photo: http://www.medievalwarfare.info/armour.htmPhoto: http://www.oakappledesigns.com/Medieval_Knight_on_Horse_Misericord_Cathedral_Carving_Jousting_Gift/p645787_2822117.aspx

The term “precious metal craft” is commonly used for jewelry, and with good

reason. The many beautiful crowns, scepters and other adornment of the

Gothic era are legendary. The Crown of Charlemagne and the hilt of his coronation sword, and the Crown, Orb and Scepter of

Austria, to name a few.

But the Gothic era was also a time of war and crusades18. Armorers worked in

precious metals too, and were influenced by the style of the time just as other artists were. I am sure an armorer of the time (or even today) would tell you that no metal is more precious than the one that protects

you from being killed, or maimed.

This French suite of armor (c.1415) is on display at the

Le Centre Historique Médiéval │ Azincourt19.

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on Saint Crispin’s Day, Friday, October 25, 1415 between

the French and the English and was a major victory for the English during the Hundred

Years’ War20.

As can be seen, Gothic armorers were highly skilled artisans, capable of not only making a utilitarian suit of steel, but highly decorative

with beautiful metal work. Armorer's not only used steel, but also copper, gold, silver, and

enamel. They sometimes stained, blackened or blued the steel for color21. Etchings and flourishes could be used as additional

embellishments, and are often found on Spanish, or Italian armor. German, English and

French armor is usually more restrained22. Photo: http://www.themcs.org/places/MCS%20France%20Tour%202006/MCS%202006%20France%20Tour.htm

Weighting only about 45 to 55 pounds, the weight of composite

armor is well distributed across the body. It is surprisingly capable of very

articulated movement with ball joints in the elbows and knees, each

piece fitting tightly with the next, and formed to the specifications and

requirements of the user23. Quite a feat, considering this is before

machinery, computerized measurements, and industrial

production. Gothic armor such as this was the bespoke suit of its time. It was labor intensive and depending

on who was ordering it and for what, it could take as much as a year.

Though armor for the “common” infantry did exist, it was much less

ornate and may have only consisted of a breastplate or helm (helmet)24.

Photo: https://www.pinterest.com/genkenLovemlm/shoes-boots-and-foot/

Photo: http://www.illucolor.fr/7_vallees_comm/Azincourt/centre-historique.html

Photo: http://www.themcs.org/places/MCS%20France%20Tour%202006/MCS%202006%20France%20Tour.htm

he Gothic period lasted from approximately 1120 to the 16th century and was eventually subsumed by the

Renaissance. When you consider the innovations of its time, the creativity and the unique blending of function and form, it is no wonder that some 800 years later we are still in awe

of these structures. When you take into account the limitations of their technology, you cannot help but admire

the craft, effort, skill and imagination these artisans, artists, architects, stone masons and scribes used in realizing their vision and imagination. It is no wonder that modern art and

design is still be informed by a gothic sensibility. The surreal with the sacred, its flourishes embellished with logic,

elegance entwined with practicality. It was, and is a seductive mix.

Photo: http://kuksi.com/

1 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100252535

2 http://www.vlib.us/medieval/lectures/black_death.html

3 http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah188/mandala/influencespage/influences.html

4 http://www.luc.edu/medieval/labyrinths/reims.shtml

5 http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/the-luscious-luttrell-psalter.html

6 http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/pages9and10.html#content

7 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/

8 http://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/biography.html

9 http://www.cnet.com/news/hear-the-music-a-16th-century-artist-etched-on-a-mans-butt/

10 http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/gothic-architecture.htm

11 http://history-world.org/gothic_art_and_architecture.htm

12 http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/601

13 http://structurae.net/structures/reims-cathedral

14 http://www.britannica.com/topic/Reims-Cathedral

15 http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-art/gargoyles.htm

16 http://www.strasbourg.info/cathedral/

17 http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1530.htm

References

References continued

18 http://www.insidescience.org/content/middle-ages-societies-surprisingly-responsive-natural-disasters/1493

19 http://illucolor.fr/7_vallees_comm/Azincourt/centre-historique.html

20 http://www.history.com/topics/british-history/battle-of-agincourt

21 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dect/hd_dect.htm

22 http://www.forensicfashion.com/1494GermanKnightArmor.html

23 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm

24 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm#time_b