Art

From Medieval Wiki

By Leah Mills

"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."-Pablo Picasso.

An example of a medieval painting.

Paintings

European artists based their paintings on religous images and symbols rather than realistic images. Most of the paintings had pictures of holy people and important Christian figures. Most of the paintings look nothing like the Greek art even though the artists were influenced heavily by Greek and Roman artists. There were many paintings in churches and chapels. The paintings would be transferred from the drawing to the wall. Here are some examples of medieval paintings: http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/PaintingBeforetheRen.html

Stained-Glass

This is an example of stained glass from the middle ages.

"Swirls of antique stained glass, blazes of brass, forests of carved wood and waterfalls of crystal combine to make up the city’s most fabulously festive interior." -Mimi Sheraton. Stained-glass windows mostly tell stories about Charlemagne and of his knight and nephew, Roland. Theophilus, a metal worker and an artist, described in his text, On Diverse Arts, how he carefully studied glaziers and glass painters at work in order to provide detailed directions for creating windows of "inestimable beauty". The main ingredients for making stained glass windows are sand and wood ash (potash). It all is melted into a liquid which becomes glass when it is cooled. To color the glass, they added special powdered metals to the mixture while the glass is still molten. Molten glass can be blown into the shape of a sausage, then slit on the side before being flattened into a sheet. It can also be spun with a pontil iron into a round sheet called a crown. The image on the window is created by arranging the pieces of colorful glass over a design that was drawn on a piece of board. If the artist needs to make shadows, outlines, or other small details, he would paint them on with black paint. To assemble the window, pieces of glass are laid out on the design board with the edges of each piece of glass fitted into H-shaped strips of lead called cames. These cames are soldered to one another so that the panel is secure. When they finished a panel, they would put putty in between the glass and and the cames to waterproof it. Then they put an iron frame (armature) around it and place it in the window. Here is more information on cathedrals: Cathedrals

Illuminated Books

This is an example of an illuminated book.

"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."-Barbara Tuchman. Handwritten texts are called illuminations because of the radiant glow created by the gold, silver, and other colors. The word illumination comes from the latin word, illuminare; It means to light up. The gold and silver was added by sticking a kind of red clay or gum. After that, the gold or silver was shined to make the pages sparkly when turned. Illuminated books were written on parchment instead of paper because paper wasn't invented yet. To make the parchment, you had to use the skin of a goat or sheep. First you soaked the skin in a lime solution to make it easier for the fur to come off. Once it was wet enough, they scraped the skin using a knife. While the skin dried, they stretched it with a stretcher. They repeated this process again and again until it was exactly as thin as they wanted it to be. Then the scribe wrote with a quill pen. A quill pen was a pen they used that was made of a feather and it was used a lot for calligraphy. They cut and scraped out the feather.They also lined the parchment with a red or black pen to make it easier for the scribe to write. Here is some more information about illuminated books: Writing. Here is an activity to learn more about how to make illuminated books:http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/sections/making_art/manuscript.html