art and culture of the middle ages. 1. visual arts a. gothic architecture i. greatest examples of...
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ART AND CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
1. Visual Arts
a. Gothic architecturei. Greatest examples of religious feelings
were found in churchesii. Built in the Gothic style
1. Churches were taller and brighter than earlier churches
iii. Advances in engineering1. Flying Buttress
a. Most important advanceb. New type of supportc. Supported church was from outside
i. Allowed for higher ceilingsii. Will give church a more airy feeling
d. Allowed for larger windowsi. Churches hire artists to create stain glass
windowsii. Showed scenes from the Bible or depicted lives
of the saints
iv. Churches were decorated inside and out1. Exterior
a. Had statues of saints, kings and figures of the old testament
b. Gargoylesi. Craved in the
likeness of hideous beasts and served as water spouts to drain water from the roof
2. Interiorsa. Number of decorative elements
i. Murals were used to depict religious scenesii. Candleholders, crosses and statues were
decorated with gold and precious stones
b. Illuminationi. Process of
decorating manuscripts with pictures and designs
1. One common technique was to decorate the first letter on the page
c. Tapestryi. Large woven hangingsii. Hung in castles to prevent draftsiii. Showed scenes of daily life or fantastic
creatures like dragons or unicorns
2. Literature
a. Religious Textsi. Create all sorts of
works, from sermons about how people should live to interpretations of passages from the Bible
ii. Hildegard of Bingen1. A nun and medieval
poet2. Wrote dozens of
poems and music to accompany them
3. Wrote in Latin
b. Epics and Romancesi. Long poems that tell stories of heroes
and villainsii. Works differ in their subject matteriii. Often performed by wandering singers
called troubadoursiv. These poems were written in the
vernacular (common language)
c. Major Worksi. Geoffrey Chaucer
1. He wrote the Canterbury Tales
a. Characters come from a wide rage of social backgrounds
b. His descriptions help historians know what life was like for people during the middle ages
c. Wrote in English and help spread the language in England
ii. Dante Alighieri1. He wrote The Devine
Comedya. Book is composed of
three parts: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise
b. Tells the story of the magical trip he made through the afterlife
c. The poet Virgil acts as his guide for part of the trip
d. His writing led to the increase of Italian
3. Thinking and Learning
a. Alchemyi. People began to conduct experimentsii. Practiced an early form of chemistry
called alchemyiii. Gained practical experience in chemical
reactions
b. Universitiesi. Helped increase the flow of Greek
learning into Europeii. Liberal arts
1. Study of Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music
iii. Also taught theology, medicine and law
c. Thomas Aquinasi. Taught at the
University of Parisii. Argued that both
reason and faith were necessary for understanding truth
iii. His approach was called Scholasticism
1. Tried to show that Christian teachings were also knowable and provable through the use of logic
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