Characteristics of Gothic painting

What makes up the Gothic

style is not quite so easy to

grasp in painting as it is in

architecture, where pointed

arches, rib vaults and

multiple-rib pillars usually

offer rapid points of

reference. What distinguishes

Gothic painting is first of all a

predominance of line, be it

scrolling, undulating or

fractured, and ultimately an

ornament tied to the plane.

This calligraphic element may

be seen as a fundamental

constituent of the Gothic

style. It is found in its purest

form in the gently undulating

hems of robes in French

painting and sculpture

towards 1300, and above all

in the draperies which fall in

cascades, like thickly waving

locks of hair, from the bent

arms of figures viewed side

on. The style rapidly spread

across a broad geographical

area; it can be seen in

Sweden and Norway  by the

first third of the 14th century.

 

    

The rich play of draperies reaches its high point in the years around 1400. Granted a presence virtually of

their own by their emphasis and size, they now frame figures viewed frontally.

Draperies in the preceding Early and High Gothic periods assume — again in painting as in sculpture — a far

greater variety of expressions. Predominant, however, are thinner, more close-fitting robes with long,

parallel folds. Narrow pleats are common. In the final phase of the Gothic style, which follows a "Baroque"

phase of overspilling, rounded folds, one stereotype replaces another. While robes remain lavishly cut, their

folds now assume a crystalline sharpness. Analogous to the draperies, hairstyles and beards are

characterized by thick, regular curls.

This emphasis upon line in the Gothic figure is paralleled by a symbolic and ultimately unnatural stylization

of the human body itself. The contours of even the earliest Gothic figures are lent a rhythmic sweep.

Particularlycharacteristic of this trend are the frequently very high-waisted figures of the 14th century,

whose silhouettes often trace a decidedly S-shaped curve. This love affair with line cannot be entirely

divorced from another constituent of the Gothic ideal, namely the very slender, oval facial type which

remains a constant throughout the entire period, regardless of all new trends and changing ideals.

Such pointers can only highlight the most obvious features of an epoch; they cannot do justice to all its

individual expressions. Thus within High Gothic sculpture there exists a small group of works which come

extraordinarily close to the harmonious proportions of the classical human figure. In the midst of the

extremely refined art of the French court in the years around 1300, there suddenly appear flat faces of

strikingly broad and angular outline, which subsequently became one of the most distinctive features of

Lotharingian Madonna statues. In painting, Master Theoderic (doc. from 1359-c. 1381) set himself

apart from the overrefinement and stylization of the Master Hohenfurt (active c. 1350) and the

Bohemian Master of the Glatz Madonna (active c. 1345) of just ten years earlier with the powerful,

heavy heads of his massive, thickset saints. Here, as never before in Western art, they are people of real

flesh and blood. One of his colleagues, later known as Master Bertram of Minden (c. 1340—

1414/15), emulated him to some degree, but overall Theoderic's excursion into powerful individualization

was carried no further.