Pre-Romanesque art
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Pre-Romanesque art is the roughly 400 year period in Western European art from about the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th century, to the beginning of the 12th century Romanesque period. The primary theme during this period is the introduction and absorption of classical Mediterranean and Christian forms with Germanic ones creating innovative new forms, leading to the rise of Romanesque art in the 12th century. In the outline of Medieval art it was preceded by what is commonly called the Migration Period art.
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[edit] Carolingian art
- Main article: Carolingian art
Carolingian art is the roughly 120 year period from about 780 to 900 AD, during Charlemagne's and his immediate heirs rule, popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Although brief, it was very influential—northern European kings patroned classical Mediterranean Roman art forms for the first time, while also creating innovative new forms such as naturalistic figurine line drawings that would have lasting influence.
[edit] Ottonian art
German pre-romanesque art during the 136-year period from 919 to 1056 is commonly called Ottonian art after the three Saxon emperors named Otto (Otto I, Otto II, and Otto III) who ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 936 to 1001.
After the decline of the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon (Ottonian) dynasty. From this emerged a renewed faith in the idea of Empire and a reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic fervor. It was in this atmosphere that masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin.
Much Ottonian art reflected the dynasty's desire to establish visually a link to the Christian rulers of Late Antiquity, such as Constantine, Theoderich, and Justinian as well as to their Carolingian predecessors, particularly Charlemagne.
Ottonian monasteries produced some of the most magnificent medieval illuminated manuscripts. They were a major art form of the time, and monasteries received direct sponsorship from emperors and bishops, having the best in equipment and talent available.
[edit] Anglo-Saxon art
- Main article: Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers the period from the time of King Alfred (885), with the revival of English culture after the end of the Viking raids, to the early 12th century, when Romanesque art became the new movement. Prior to King Alfred there had been the Hiberno-Saxon culture (the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs) which had ceased (in Britain) with the Viking raiders. Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts.
[edit] France
After the demise of the Carolingian Empire, France split into a number of feuding provinces, so that lacking any organized patronage, French art of the 10th and 11th centuries was produced by local monasteries for the purpose of spreading literacy (and piety); however the primitive styles produced did not match the techniques of the Carolingian period.
Multiple regional styles developed based on the chance availability of Carolingian manuscripts (as models to draw from), and the availability of itinerant artists. The monastery of Saint Bertin became an important center under its abbot Odbert (986-1007) who created a new style based on Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian forms. The nearby abbey of Saint Vaast created a number of works. In southwestern France at the monastery of Saint Martial in Limoges a number of manuscripts were produces around 1000, as were produced in Albi, Figeac and Saint-Sever-de-Rustan in Gascogne. In Paris there developed a style at the abbey of Saint Germain-des-Prés. In Normandy a new style developed from 975 onward.
[edit] Italy
- See also: Lombard Romanesque
Southern Italy benefited from the presence and cross fertilization of the Byzantines, the Arabs, and the Normans, while the north was mostly controlled first by the Carolingians, and then by the Ottonians. The Normans in Sicily chose to commission Byzantine workshops to decorate their churches, Monreale and Cefalu where colossal iconographic programmes of mosaic were made possible by the qualities and potential of Byzantine art. Important frescos and illuminated manuscripts were produced.
[edit] Spain
- Main article: Spanish Pre-Romanesque art
The first form of Pre-Romanesque in Spain was the Visigothic art, that brought the horse-shoe arches to the latter Al-Andalus arab architecture and develloped jewelery. After the arab invasion, Pre-Romanesque art was first reduced to the Kingdom of Asturias, the only Christian realm on the country at the time which reached high levels of artistic depuration. (See Asturian art). The christians who lived in moorish territory, the mozarabs, created their own architectural and illumination style, the Mozarabe art.
[edit] References
- Joachim E. Gaehde (1989). "Pre-Romanesque Art". Dictionary of the Middle Ages. ISBN 0-684-18276-9
