Early Europe and Colonial Americas, 200–1750 CE
What this domain tests
From Late Antique and Byzantine through Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and into colonial Spanish America. Core concepts: basilica-plan and central-plan churches; mosaic and icon; manuscript illumination; Romanesque barrel vaults, thick walls, tympana, and pilgrimage; Gothic rib vault, pointed arch, flying buttress, stained glass, and Rose Window symbolism; humanism, linear perspective, chiaroscuro/sfumato, and patronage in the Renaissance; Baroque theatricality, tenebrism, and Counter-Reformation rhetoric; colonial hybridity, mestizaje, and Andean/ Mexican adaptations of European models.
Traps
- Romanesque vs. Gothic: round vs. pointed arch; heavy vs. skeletal walls; dark vs. glass-filled interiors. Don't swap them.
- Byzantine figures are elongated, frontal, gold-ground, and theological - not "bad anatomy."
- Renaissance linear perspective is a mathematical system; atmospheric perspective is separate.
- Colonial works are not passive copies: look for local materials, local iconography, and indigenous hands and meanings.
Rule of thumb
Link structural system → light → theology. Gothic structure admits light; light carries divine meaning. That chain answers many questions.
Worked example
A church with pointed arches, rib vaults, and huge stained-glass windows is Gothic; if the vaults are round and the walls massive with small windows, it is Romanesque.