The purpose of this research is to find out insights regarding the topic of early medieval art in the West. The reason for choosing this topic is that there many people, especially students of history who do not have any idea regarding the historical as well as cultural developments that happened in the West before the year 1000. Researchers have sufficiently provided information regarding the history of the West after the year 1000. However, much remains to be desired when it comes to the history of the West before 1000. The specific topic that has received the least attention from history researchers is that of the early medieval art of the West. This paper fills the information gap on the history of the early medieval art in the West.
The research paper is based on five scholarly secondary sources such as books and articles related to this topic. It is built on the thesis statement that the period after the winding up of the Roman Empire up to the year 1000 stands as a significantly formative time of the Western early medieval art culture, which was marked with impressive innovations and creation of standout artifacts.
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This paper notes that the early medieval art of the Western world covers most parts of Europe, a few regions of the Middle East and North Africa. As will be observed in this paper, the early medieval art includes movements and periods of art, its genres, revivals, artists and crafts. It was learned through studying the secondary sources that art historians normally use styles and periods of art for its classification. For instance, the classification that this paper gives its focus to is based on the period of the art, hence the early medieval art. History teachers and scholars can use this paper to inform the students within this field about the kind of art that existed during the early medieval time.
The paper begins with an annotated bibliography, where the sources that were used in the research are identified and briefly described. These sources are a total of five. After the annotated bibliography, the real body of the research paper is done, where important points about the early medieval art are written. After that, there is a bibliography section for the main paper body.
Phase 2:
Annotated bibliography
Beckwith, John. Early medieval art . Vol. 2. Connecticut: Praeger, 1964.
This book gives a wonderful overview of the non-architectural arts of the medieval period, which are organized into brief and clear thematic units. This book is an effective survey of the existing architecture ranging from the Carolingian to Romanesque period. However, it puts much focus on the British and the North-Western European illustrations. Starting with the swearing in of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West in A.D. 800, John Beckwith takes readers through the architecture, painting, illuminations, sculpture and the ivories of the early medieval art. I chose this book for my topic because it is very useful in terms of its relevance to the subject of discussion.
Lampl, Paul. "Schemes of Architectural Representation in Early Medieval Art." Marsyas, ix (1961): 6-13.
Despite the fact that this particular article pays less attention to the contextual as well as cultural analysis of the early medieval artifacts, it gives a very comprehensive survey of the topic of study. I chose this article because, just as its title suggests, it is very relevant to my subject of study and adds more insights into the whole issue of early medieval art. There was high need to learn about the schemes of architectural representation during the period of early medieval art, and this article passed as the most useful in terms providing this information.
Nees, Lawrence. Early medieval art . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
This book tracks the development of early medieval art from c. 300 AD through c. 1000 AD. It provides the revelation of the artistic expression starting with the beautiful illuminated manuscripts to the decorated chairs. It also touches metal work, a medium that was invented during the early medieval art. Nees presents an exploration of the surrounding artist patronage, craftsmanship, and monasteries. Nees presents a holistic approach to religious and secular early medieval art, instead of treating them as opposites. The focus of this book is also set in the medieval Europe. This book is highly useful to my paper because just as its attention is towards early medieval art, so is my focus in this paper.
Reynolds, Roger E. "Image and text: The liturgy of clerical ordination in early medieval art." Gesta (1983): 27-38.
This article pays much focus on one section of medieval art, which the religious work. It elaborates the religious works of art and explains the reason they have managed survive for a very long time. Reynolds mentions about the wealth of the Christians during the medieval period and how they put their massive resources in creating lavish and long-lasting artifacts. The churches were rebuilt on many occasions, and that is the reason they have been in existence for a very long time. This article is very useful for analyzing the religious artifacts.
Ross Nancy. “A New Pictorial Language: The Image in Early Medieval Art.” Khan Academy, n.d. Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-europe/a/a-new-pictorial-language-the-image-in-early-medieval-art on 18/10/2015.
Ross Nancy provides an analysis of how images were used in the early medieval art as a form of language. Images in the early medieval art were used to pass a message of status. The images would indicate the opulence and power of a person. These are the important insights that Ross highlights in her website article. This article is very essential to this paper because it gives an explanation regarding the use of illumination in early medieval art.
Phase 3:
Final paper
The period after the winding up of the Roman Empire up to the year 1000 stands as a significantly formative time of the Western early medieval art culture, which involved impressive innovations and creation of standout artifacts. The major early medieval art in the West experienced changes that were the outcome of the merger of three significant traditions. The traditions referred to in this case include the Graeco-Roman heritage, new Christian faith and different new people who had just settled in Northern Europe. It is important to understand that despite being regarded as barbarians by the Romans initially, the new settlers in Northern Europe were very swift in adapting to the Roman community life and even managed to rise to very high-profile positions of leadership 1 . Furthermore, there were also other new settlers who came from Central Asia. They decided to stabilize their communities instead of being assimilated into the Roman community. Their intention was to challenge the previous structures 2 . This movement and migration, which had a huge impact on the early medieval art, took place during the 4 th and 5 th Centuries.
It is vital to lay emphasis on the theme of early medieval art as a kind of symbol for status. This paper asserts the fact that early medieval art was not aesthetic purely. However, it also served as a symbol that showed one’s status of socialization, wealth, education, identity and culture 3 .
The first major object in the early medieval art is the golden buckle , which is a cultural symbol of the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxons is a society that dominated the medieval Roman Britain. A lot of artifacts have been established about the golden buckle object in the Anglo-Saxon England. The central location of these artifacts is the Kent region, particularly at burial sites like Sutton Hoo, near Suffolk. Notably, Sutton Hoo is home for over 56 burials of the 6 th and 7 th Centuries. There was a variation of the burial customs since there were those who used inhumation while others believed in cremation 4 . Therefore, the golden buckle is a cultural object of early medieval art that indicates the time of transition between the culture of the old pagans and the new Christians.
The early medieval period was characterized by struggles and conflicts for power, which resulted in the need for luxury objects that would then assert one’s class or status. The golden belt buckle object found by archaeologists proved that the people who had it were wealthy and powerful. The buckle object was a symbol of opulence and power 5 . Moreover, it is vital to note that the material of the belt buckle itself was very significant during the medieval period since it represented a status of power, wealth, and royalty. In categorical terms, gold was a precious material and the shiny buckle would attract onlookers. This buckle has a very special shape and is decorated with two serpents within a circle 6 . From this circle, there emerge huge heads of an eagle that have curved beaks. The design of the large plate entails a cover of crouching quadrupeds, which have more serpents.
This kind of art is known as the animal style II and gained popularity after c. 560–70. Style II artifacts involve animal bodies being elongated into ribbons. These animal bodies hardly have legs hence the serpent references accorded to them, regardless of whether the shape of the head resembles that of a dog or eagle. The animal body accentuates the ornamental pattern beauty in animal Style II art.
The Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts are also another piece of early medieval art in the West that was unique and impressive. The style and kind of this particular early medieval art is an integration of Celtic and Christian cultures. The Celts occupied most parts of the western strip, currently known as Ireland, despite initially inhabiting large sections of Europe. Ireland was able to evade the Roman conquest as well as the Germanic invasion of the 5 th Century. Ireland provided refuge to most Christian missionaries who were fleeing other parts of the continent because of its safety. Therefore, with the incoming missionaries and scholars from other parts of Europe, Ireland became a center for knowledge exchange through learning and art. Significant art products included manuscripts. These manuscripts were written by hand and made of animal skin. The monks in monasteries painted words and images in them. By then, the manuscripts were the major means of knowledge exchange, being used for liturgy and other missionary activities. Illuminated manuscripts are those that contained images.
An example of the Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts is the Book of Durrow, which is an early medieval art. This book has four Gospels, which are very essential for the teaching of Christians and liturgy. This book depicts the layout of the Roman Christian models. It has a layout that is vertical with Hiberno-Saxon decorations and illuminations. It is worthy to note that every Gospel in this book has a sequence of images as its introduction, which resembles most of the Gospel manuscripts 7 .
A view of the Book of Durrow shows a man who is believed to be the symbol of the Matthew the Evangelist. It is the first page in the sequence of images that come before the text of the Gospel. This man is quite distinct from the Greco-Roman form of human body. The distinction is that the man shown on this page of the Book of Durrow has no arms and his torso is flat with a colorful checkered pattern 8 . The entire body of this man is schematic, containing tow eyes that stare at the viewer. The artist of the man image in this book concentrated on stylization, symmetry, design and ornament. This image of a man is an indication of the persistence of the local pagan cultures as well as its integration into the Roman Christians.
Early medieval art in the West was created through various media. This early medieval art is presently identified by historians using the remaining sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, metal-work and the stained glass. This tools of history have had a very huge rate of survival than the other media used in early medieval art like the fresco wall paintings and tapestry 9 . Additionally, it is vital to understand that medieval art in Europe developed as a result of the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire coupled with the iconographic cultures of the early Christian church. However, it is the early medieval Christian art that has managed to survive for a long time. The impression created by these surviving works of early medieval art is that all of it was religious. On the contrary, this impression is not true. What can be attributed to this state of affairs is that the church grew and became quite wealthy during the Middle Ages. The church always used this massive wealthy on its art in a lavish manner 10 . It has to be known that there was also secular early medieval art of the same quality as that of the church, but it was affected by its higher rate of wear and tear, loss as well as destruction.
One important thing that must be said of the Middle Ages is that people artists did not have any concept of preserving the older works of art. A lot if the expensively illuminated manuscripts done in the early Middle Ages contained luxurious treasure binding book-covers of precious metals, jewels as well as ivory. It is only the re-bound pages and the ivory-made covers that have managed to survive for a long time with other materials being stripped off. Many churches have also been re-built for a lot of times, but the medieval palaces have been left to disappear.
One characteristic that is identified with early medieval art is the use of valuable materials. More was spent on acquiring the valuable materials for doing the art than paying the artists. For instance, churches and palaces used Gold. During the Gothic period, the artists used the expensive pigment called ultramarine, which was exclusively obtained from Afghanistan. Another important valuable material was ivory 11 . Paperwork was only introduced towards the end of the medieval period.
It is also quite important to note the fact that early medieval art did retain a number of forms belonging to the past Classical world. However, there were also new designs and forms that transformed the art world. The early medieval artists got much joy in creating relief sculptures. Relief sculptures are carvings, which look like the modern 3-D pictures 12 . These early medieval artists sculpted complex designs on panels, doors, caskets and the book covers; using ivory as the medium. For the Christian early medieval artists, the subject matter was religious. Some of the themes of the religious medieval art include the life of Jesus, His death and resurrection. Metal working was invented by the Anglo-Saxons and Celts of the British Isles during the early medieval art period 13 . These are some of the interesting facts about the early medieval art. The intention of this paper was to provide insights about the subject of early medieval art.
Bibliography
Beckwith, John. Early medieval art . Vol. 2. Praeger, 1964.
Lampl, Paul. "Schemes of Architectural Representation in Early Medieval Art." Marsyas, ix (1961): 6-13.
Nees, Lawrence. Early medieval art . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
Reynolds, Roger E. "Image and text: The liturgy of clerical ordination in early medieval art." Gesta (1983): 27-38.
Ross Nancy. “A New Pictorial Language: The Image in Early Medieval Art.” Khan Academy, n.d. Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-europe/a/a-new-pictorial-language-the-image-in-early-medieval-art on 18/10/2016.
1 Beckwith John, Early medieval art , Vol. 2 (Connecticut: Praeger, 1964), 14.
2 Ibid., 17.
3 Ibid., 19.
4 Lampl Paul, "Schemes of Architectural Representation in Early Medieval Art," Marsyas, ix (1961): 6.
5 Ibid., 9.
6 Ibid., 10.
7 Nees Lawrence, Early medieval art , (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2002), 37.
8 Reynolds Roger, "Image and text: The liturgy of clerical ordination in early medieval art," Gesta (1983): 27.
9 Ibid., 29.
10 Ibid., 30.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 32.
