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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On Thursday, December 9, 2004, at 8:40 am, chris crockett wrote: > From: "John B. Dillon" <[log in to unmask]> > >>>[Me:] in "Gothic" buildings, the frescoes are replaced by stained glass > > >>Er, _some_ frescoes are replaced by stained glass. There's lots of >>unwindowed space even in "gothic" churches. > > >>Tamara Quirico wrote: > > >>We have lots of frescoed churches in Italy - which maintained the > > tradition rather than replacing it with the new stained-glasses windows. > I would say it is more an exception, an italian characteristic. > > > i'll agree with the latter, and ammend my hasty generalisation to "in French > 'Gothic' buildings" or even "in Northern French 'Gothic' buildings". I would be happier with Tamara Quirico's formulation here if it said "extensively frescoed" rather than just "frescoed". There are lots of late medieval frescoes in "gothic" churches outside of Italy (or at least, what are called "frescoes" -- in some cases, I gather, what's described is either a combination fresco and secco or else secco painting mis-described). A few examples: Maria Hilf Assumptio, Malta, Carinthia (in southern Austria), frescoes middle and bottom of page: http://www.bda.at/dm/_2003/02/default.htm One of these got international publicity only two years ago and may thus be familiar: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_714510.html Frauenkirche, Memmingen, Bayern (in southern Germany): http://home.t-online.de/home/unserfrauen/history.htm Bellinge kirke, Bellinge, Fyn (Denmark): http://www.dis-danmark.dk/kirkeimg/view_stor.asp?KirkeID=1315 Vault frescoes (from 1496) in photo at bottom this page: http://www.virgo-fyn.dk/html/wm_kirker.html Details of frescoes start here: http://www.kalkmalerier.dk/vr/beskrivelser/Bellinge/index2.html Again, I still wonder about the presence of _extensive_ frescoing being a purely _Italian_ characteristic. Did Italians commission (as opposed to paint) these 13th-century frescoes at this church at Ocsa in Hungary?: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/22933/photo99.html Or the mid-fourteenth-century frescoes from Birkero/d in Denmark? See: http://www.kalkmalerier.dk/e-Publisher/e-Publisher.acgi http://www.hjemstedet.dk/eksempler/kirker/birkerod/pic4.html http://www.hjemstedet.dk/eksempler/kirker/birkerod/pic3.html Or the fifteenth-century choir frescoes in heilige Katherina, Dornbach (in the same Austrian valley as Maria Hilf Assumptio at Malta)? See: http://www.bda.at/workinprogress/dornbach/index.htm Or the fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century wall paintings (often referred to as "frescoes") in Denmark's Aarhus cathedral: http://www.aarhus-domkirke.dk/rundtur/Engelsk/rundtur2.htm See too the secco paintings (late 15th- / early 16th-cent.) at this cemetery chapel at Peggau, Austria: http://www.bda.at/workinprogress/friedhofskapelle_peggau/index.htm These show something of the _horror vacui_ characteristic of Italian exemplars, e.g. the recently restored Chapel of the Holy Cincture in the cathedral of Prato (Tuscany): http://www.po-net.prato.it/artestoria/citta/htm/cintogr.htm > the Italian tradition of extensive frescoeing certainly appears to continue > without abatement --aided by the proclivity towards smaller windows, even > though the structural advantages of the "Gothic" would have allowed for much > larger ones. > > or, was the opposite the case: the taste in Italy was to continue the fresco > tradition, and the windows were deliberately kept small to allow for more wall > space to paint on? Perhaps both. I don't think a fully satisfactory explanation has been proposed. Climate control (esp. the desire to keep things relatively cool inside these buildings) could have had a lot to do with this choice. Do we know why the windows on Danish "gothic" churches (a few major cathedrals excepted) are also relatively small? > what survives of "stained" glass windows --i.e., colored glass panels with > extensive narrative detail-- in Italy? > > surely the very French-looking Dominican(?) church we were looking at > yesterday --the one with the large, bar tracery windows-- would not have had > "clear" glass, but perhaps grisaille, at a minimum. I'm not sure to which church you refer: most likely San Lorenzo or Santa Maria Donnaregina. Both were Franciscan. Those windows and the apse windows of the other Neapolitan churches previously shown (all of which had major patronage, mostly royal) are said to have been stained-glass, though I'm not sure how much of that view is based on documentary evidence rather than inference. How much of that was figured and how much grisaille is, I think, unknown. In any event, it wouldn't have been "clear" glass. But large-cut grisaille can let in a lot of light, if the glass is light-colored in the first place. I recall having read somewhere that surviving fragments indicate that the standard stained glass of Naples (i.e., grisaille, not figured) was yellowish. With all the sulfur in the native tufa (the same yellow stone most of Santa Chiara is made of), that's not at all unlikely. > but that place appears to have been something of an exception --or at least in > the minority-- among Italian buildings(?). That's the standard line. Naples was, after all, a royal capital. "Gothic" windows in chapels, smaller churches, and baronial residences elsewhere in the kingdom are likely to have been grisaille. But there were a _lot_ of cathedrals in the kingdom and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a number of these acquired "gothic" ornamentation including special windows: some of those may have contained multi-colored stained glass. Outside the kingdom, probably the most famous examples, and the only two mentioned by name in the corresponding Grove encyclopedia article, are the two Jim has already mentioned: San Francesco at Assisi and Santa Croce in Florence. Most of the older figured stained glass windows in northern and central Italy's "gothic" cathedrals are of the fifteenth century; their predecessors in many cases, at least, may have been grisaille. <BIG SNIP> > yes, frescoes are not a "maintenance free" medium, even if one can avoid the > occasional catastrophic roof leak, etc. > > and white-washing over the somewhat garrish, "primitive" painting which would > have been newly visible once the colored glass windows were replaced by clear > ones (a favorite 18th c. practice) would have been a logical thing to do, > within the context of suchlike vandalism. > > certainly in France --my only region of [near-]expertise, there was quite a > lot of painting in Early and High Gothic buildings. > > "frescoes", however, are a different matter. Given the variety of techniques involved, quotes around "frescoes" are certainly in order (I wish I had been using them earlier). The examples shown above (and there are lots more where they came from) show that later medieval wall painting, often extensive, is not exactly unheard of in "gothic" churches. "Gothic" windows reduced the amount of space available for painting and therefore for painted figures but the notion that they altogether replaced the latter (whether done in fresco or some other technique) is a bit over the top. Think, for another example, of various doom paintings in England: Holy Trinity, Coventry: http://members.aol.com/htchrch/Doompaintingphotos.html http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robert.orland/cov/tour/doom-large.html St. Thomas, Salisbury: http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/wilts13.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/wilts14.html Others at Dave Postles' English History site: http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/leicleft.html include Blythe and Pickworth: Blythe: http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics2/blythe6.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics2/blythe5.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics2/blythe7.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics2/blythe4.html Pickworth: http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/pcik2.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/pcik3.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/pcik5.html http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/leics/pcik4.html On "chevrons": > the same is true for various architectural elements --i have seen colonnettes > in the triforia of early gothic buildings which are painted with the most > outrageous "chevron" patterns, totally destroying the calm, "rational" clarity > of the quitessentially Gothic ambiance. A largish number of the examples above (and other instances looked at while preparing this) show "chevrons" at various places (e.g., archways, rib vaults). Since they're a form of "wavy" pattern in polychrome, I wonder if they're meant to suggest (or were taken as suggesting) radiant light (as in the heavenly Jerusalem)? Best again, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html