It is impossible to date any period of art with absolute accuracy; for art
is always in the process of change, and the flourishing of any period of
art is long anticipated by preliminary manifestations. In a general way,
however, it may be said that the Gothic period extends from the second
half of the XII century through the XV century. Italy presents an
exception. The tentative Gothic art of the XIII century in Italy gave
place to the new movement, founded upon enthusiasm for antiquity, as well
as for nature, which we call the Renaissance. The classical element in
Renaissance art is the feature which principally distinguishes it from
Gothic. In the latter part of the XV century, the Renaissance spread from
Italy into the northern countries, and, in the XVI century, accomplished a
triumphant ascendancy over the late Gothic style.
The crowning achievement of Gothic art was the cathedral, where architect,
sculptor and painter combined to create monuments which rank with the
greatest works of human genius. Never has sculpture more perfectly
adorned architecture; never has architecture more beautifully expressed
the hopes and aspirations of a people. In this age the plastic arts were
truly “the language of faith.”
From France, Gothic art spread to other lands, to Germany, Flanders,
Spain, and England, and even to Italy. During the XIII and XIV centuries,
the highest development of Gothic art took place in France, but, in the XV
century, Burgundy and the merchant cities of Flanders gained pre-eminence.
France required many years after the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, to
recover from the exhaustion brought about by internal conflict and foreign
wars. In the meantime, the rich cities of Flanders and the powerful Dukes
of Burgundy offered the artist generous patronage.
If the artist in this late period lost something of the spirituality and
noble simplicity of earlier times, he was more skillful technically and
more realistic. Not that the earlier artist had not observed nature! On
the contrary, he was eminently successful in discerning significant
truths, but he subordinated objective representation to the requirements
of a monumental style.
Save for a distinguished list of painters, headed by the great Flemish
masters, the Van Eycks (?-1426, 1381-1440), Rogier van der Weyden
(1400-1464), and Hans Memling (1425-1495), Gothic art is largely
anonymous. In the minor arts, such as glass painting, the illumination of
manuscripts, metal work and enameling, furniture, and textiles, woven and
embroidered, the Gothic Age excelled, and the rare surviving examples of
these beautiful crafts are treasured among the most precious relics of
this great period of the world’s art.
[Head of the Virgin, Stone. French, late XIV Century]