Medieval Art: Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic
Medieval art here runs from the Constantinian peace of the Church (313) to about 1400. The PAU tests plan types, vaulting systems, iconography, the role of light, and the function of images in worship and pilgrimage. You should be able to date a building approximately and explain why its structure and decoration fit its purpose.
Early Christian
- The basilica plan is adapted from the Roman secular hall: nave, aisles, apse, sometimes a transept. Old St Peter's establishes the model for Western churches.
- Catacomb painting uses shorthand symbols - Good Shepherd, orant, fish, anchor - because images work as identification and comfort under persecution.
- Sarcophagi carry continuous friezes; Santa Maria Maggiore's mosaics (432–440) show Old Testament narrative in a still-classical style, proving continuity with Roman art.
Byzantine
- The centralized domed church culminates in Hagia Sophia (532–537): pendentives transfer the circular dome onto a square, and forty windows at its base make the dome appear to float.
- San Vitale, Ravenna (526–547), sets Justinian and Theodora in hieratic, frontal panels with gold ground; imperial and sacred authority are fused.
- Iconoclasm (726–843) banned figurative icons; after 843 the icon returns, with the Pantocrator and Theotokos as core types. Gold ground signals non-earthly space.
Romanesque
- The pilgrimage church uses barrel and groin vaults, thick walls and small windows; the ambulatory with radiating chapels lets pilgrims circulate without disturbing the liturgy (Santiago de Compostela).
- The portal tympanum carries the Last Judgment (Autun, c. 1130, signed by Gislebertus); historiated capitals and apse frescoes teach doctrine to the illiterate.
Gothic
- Pointed arch, rib vault and flying buttress concentrate loads so walls can open into stained glass; Chartres (after 1194) and Sainte-Chapelle (1241–1248) are the canonical examples, the latter in rayonnant tracery.
- Light is theological: Abbot Suger describes it as access to the divine. Verticality and window size carry meaning, not just style.
Worked example: Hagia Sophia and Chartres
Both buildings use light, but the means differ. Hagia Sophia's dome rests on pendentives and its walls dissolve into mosaic shimmer; the plan is centralized and the effect mystical. Chartres uses rib vaults and flying buttresses to open the walls for narrative glass; the plan is longitudinal and the effect didactic, guiding the viewer from portal to choir. Naming the structural device first, then its visual and theological effect, is the pattern examiners reward.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling all medieval art Gothic; Gothic begins around 1140.
- Mixing Romanesque barrel vaults with Gothic rib vaults.
- Forgetting iconoclasm when discussing Byzantine icons.
- Saying Byzantine art is flat without explaining gold ground and hieratic function.