 Medieval Painting
Medieval painting
The Medieval painting developed in the Europe in period from 8th to 14th century. This period was classify Medieval art into major styles that include: Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Byzantine art, and Gothic art. The medieval painting owed much to cities of Florence and Siena, that, because of political and cultural alliances with Church, produced the Western Europe gothic style. Almost the whole art of this period was produced under commission of popes and bishops and depicts scenes holy figures and people important in the Christian religion in a way that emphasized symbolism rather than realism. During the early Medieval, lot of paintings were actually illustrated manuscripts, form of painting which remained the chief until the invention of the printing press. In fact the wealth of the church which allowed monks to copy books and manuscripts. Just later, painting extended huge frescos in churches or in form of mosaics in place of mural on the church walls. However the Medieval art is known not only for painting but for many kind of other media too, such as sculpture, metalwork and mosaics, manuscripts, stained glass.
The Medieval painting style
The early Medieval painting served the role of church decoration and images pertained almost to symbolic depictions of Christian concepts. So the style were intended to give an heavenly atmosphere throughout highly decorative, symbolic, and flattened representations of Christian saints, gold backgrounds and figures having halos to represent their divine status. This helped either to create an atmosphere of devotion or to illustrate Christian stories to a largely illiterate public. Images of Virgin and Child enthroned was another popular icon. They are always the center of the composition surrounding angels, and hierarchic scale also makes sure that she is the focus of attention. The gold background reinforces their divine status. With influences of Sienese and Florentine schools the medieval painting artists paid attention to making humans and animals look lifelike, creating natural looking landscapes, or creating a sense of depth and space in their paintings. They defined their images in more three-dimensional terms in soft, stylized, decorative features and sinuosity of line a tendency which was developed the Renaissance period..
Examples of Medieval Painting
Successive, some examples of Medieval paintings:
Announcing angel icon - Simone Martini
Biccherna 'Gabella' - Giovanni di Paolo
Madonna and Child - Duccio di Buonisegna
Madonna of the Book - Sandro Botticelli
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