What is Gothic art?

After progressing into the Age of Reason,the Renaissance and then Mannerism,we have got a query that will take us back in time. Economics student,Jaideep Marwar wants to know about the Gothic Age.To clear the first doubt,the Gothic Age and the Visigoths are two very different realms,unrelated in any way.While the first is a 12th Century art movement that originated in France and spread to the rest of Europe,the Visigoths were a Germanic tribe who settled in the area of the Black Sea in 3rd Century AD. The knowledge of the human anatomy was not explored by artists at the time and the forms of human beings were rendered in a schematic almost decorative manner. At first,the art was purely Christian and religious in nature,limited to depictions of Christ,the Virgin Mary and the Saints. However by the 14th Century it evolved towards a more secular style now known as International Gothic. Noticeably,the saints and holy figures began to look more humanistic. The Virgin moved from being depicted as the stern and iconic Byzantine image,designed to instill fear and piety to the more accessible form of an affectionate mother with a baby on her hips. The growth of cities and commerce,literature and the arts led to the commissioning of large cathedrals like the Chartres Cathedral and the Bamberg Cathedral to name a few. This age also saw the emergence of a painters’ guild that formalised the membership and the identities of artists. Artists even began to sign their works. Gothic sculpture was not free standing as yet and relied heavily on the walls of the church from which it jutted out to give it support. Gothic painting emerged much later after architecture and sculpture. A gap of about 50 years ensured that the figures became more animated and pictorial. Panel painting took over from where stained glass left off and by the 15th Century narrative panels telling the parables and stories of the Holy Bible was a rage.

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