The crowning achievement of Gothic art was the cathedral, where architect, sculptor and painter combined to create monuments which rank with the greatest works of human genius. Never has sculpture more perfectly adorned architecture; never has architecture more beautifully expressed the hopes and aspirations of a people. In this age the plastic arts were truly “the language of faith.”
From France, Gothic art spread to other lands, to Germany, Flanders, Spain, and England, and even to Italy. During the XIII and XIV centuries, the highest development of Gothic art took place in France, but, in the XV century, Burgundy and the merchant cities of Flanders gained pre-eminence. France required many years after the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, to recover from the exhaustion brought about by internal conflict and foreign wars. In the meantime, the rich cities of Flanders and the powerful Dukes of Burgundy offered the artist generous patronage.
If the artist in this late period lost something of the spirituality and noble simplicity of earlier times, he was more skillful technically and more realistic. Not that the earlier artist had not observed nature! On the contrary, he was eminently successful in discerning significant truths, but he subordinated objective representation to the requirements of a monumental style.
Save for a distinguished list of painters, headed by the great Flemish masters, the Van Eycks (?-1426, 1381-1440), Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464), and Hans Memling (1425-1495), Gothic art is largely anonymous. In the minor arts, such as glass painting, the illumination of manuscripts, metal work and enameling, furniture, and textiles, woven and embroidered, the Gothic Age excelled, and the rare surviving examples of these beautiful crafts are treasured among the most precious relics of this great period of the world's art.
Head of the Virgin, Stone. French, late XIV Century
A View of the Gothic Room
The large well-head of Istrian stone in the foreground comes from the Palazzo Zorzi in Venice, and is a fine example of Venetian stone-carving in the XV century. The well-head, with its acanthus leaves at the four corners, reminds one of the Corinthian capital of classical times, and, as a matter of fact, ancient capitals were sometimes used in later periods for well-heads. On one side is an angel holding a shield supported by two lions passant. Doubtless, this shield was originally painted the owner's coat of arms.
