Gothic art
From the12nd century to the beginning of16th century, an art in Europe, which mainly focused on new architecture, included sculpture, painting and arts and crafts. This architectural style, contrary to the church style with thick dark semi-circular arches in Rome, widely uses pointed arches with light lines, small minarets with beautiful shapes, light and transparent flying buttresses, slender columns or cluster columns, and windows inlaid with stained glass, resulting in an illusion of upward sublimation and the mystery of heaven. It reflects the prevailing concept of the Christian era and the material and cultural concept of urban development in the Middle Ages. Representative works include Notre Dame de Paris, Cologne Church in Germany, Lincoln Church in England and Milan Church in Italy.
1. The Terminator of the Roman Empire: Goths
Goths are an aggressive and combative people in medieval Europe and one of the so-called barbarians. They lived in the easternmost part of the Germanic tribes, occupied the land in the south of the Danube River basin and along the Black Sea, and were divided into two independent tribes, ostrogoths and Visigoth, by the Dnieper River. Visigoths were good at migration, captured Rome and were finally assimilated by Roman culture established in Spain. They were conquered by the Moors in the 8th century and mixed with Iberian Latin elements. In 396, the visigoths occupied Athens. Ostrogoths crossed the Balkans to Italy, occupied Italy in 493 AD and overthrew the Roman Empire (that's them! ) was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire in 555 AD.
The word "Goth" originally came from this Gothic nation, which has the meaning of barbarism and strangeness.
During the Renaissance, people called all the creations in the Middle Ages "Goths", that is, they were created by uncivilized and uncivilized Goths. Medieval art was once regarded as grotesque art, the product of foreigners and barbarians. Later, people tried to use this definition to express the art that originated in France in the middle of17th century. But Gothic art is not made by Goths. When it appeared, "Goths" had already merged into other ethnic groups in Western Europe. Therefore, Gothic art can never be said to be "ancestral". "
2. Gothic commanding heights: Let's get closer to God.
/kloc-in the 0 th and 5 th centuries, people generally had the idea of Renaissance and hoped to return to the classical era. The period between the classical era and the Renaissance is called the Middle Ages. Because Italy hated the Goths for destroying their Roman empire, people in the Renaissance always had a negative name for the Middle Ages. They called this period "Goth", which means barbarism and rudeness. Of course, we should see both sides of things. The Middle Ages left many precious cultural heritages and excellent works of art to the world.
Gothic art includes architecture and sculpture, especially in architecture. After the12nd century, especially from the12nd century to the15th century, European religion reached its peak. Some cathedrals are becoming more and more spacious and towering. People are shrouded in a strong religious atmosphere and are eager to get close to God. 1 1 at the end of the century1at the beginning of the 2nd century, France created a high-rise structure on the basis of Roman architecture, and its image has a sense of towering into the sky, so it is also called "tall building". This kind of architecture later developed into the largest architectural system in medieval western Europe: Gothic architecture.
Gothic architecture is characterized by protruding doors and windows, slender spires towering into the sky, carved with imaginary monsters, and its local decoration is full of strong expressive force, which occupies a dominant position in church architecture in this era. The structural system of Gothic architecture is developed from the cross arch of Roman church, skeleton coupons and spire coupons used by Arabs in the 7th century, and the flying buttresses are mature. By skillfully using the pillars perpendicular to the roof, flying buttresses, pointed vouchers and ribbed arches, it bears the solid thick wall supporting the weight of the vault in Roman architecture (all of which were over 60 cm in Roman times), thus greatly reducing the thickness of the wall and giving it exquisite artistic treatment. This is a creative structural system, which improves all the imperfections in the Roman structural system and solves all the problems existing in the Roman structural system.
Gothic art style spread to European countries as a powerful artistic trend in the13rd century? It combines the artistic traditions of all ethnic groups well, and its great influence is rare in art history, so Gothic style is called "international Gothic style" in art history.
Gothic art is not only embodied in architecture. From the12nd century to the early16th century, sculptures, glass products and decorations were labeled as Gothic art, and religion played an important role in Gothic art works. Painters and sculptors use religious feelings more than realistic methods to express their themes. In any case, people in the Renaissance obviously implicitly denied the word "Goth".
Gothic style has not been clearly formed as a form representing the whole era in music, but it began with the rise of Garnum's polyphonic form, which clearly shows the characteristics of Gothic style. In addition to Gregory Saint's solemn and fixed melody, there are also melodies of dancing and sleeping love songs, accompanied by different traces and rhythms, which remind people of Gothic architecture.
English Renaissance drama inspired later Gothic novels. British drama in this period was deeply influenced by Seneca, an ancient Roman playwright, and was full of revenge, conspiracy, violence and murder, and even haunted by ghosts, so the plot was thrilling. Shakespeare's plays and James I's tragedies, in particular, have exerted great influence on the appearance and development of Gothic novels.
3. Romanticism: Only one step away from darkness and terror.
In the romantic movement around 1800, medieval culture gradually became the fashion in some people's eyes. Romanticism became the center of this cultural movement. Romanticists hope to transcend the boundaries of history, some hope to return to the Middle Ages, some seek ideals from religious or mysterious concerns, and some writers try to get answers from nature. They achieve their goals in different ways. In the whole romantic movement, Goth began to be associated with darkness, strangeness and ghosts. Romantic and Gothic writers such as Byron, Shelley, Baudelaire and Wei Erlun are keen to show the dark side of human beings. Gothic sentiment is also clearly reflected in visual art, and painters like Caspar David Friedrich show darkness and desolation. In architecture, the neo-Gothic style has gradually become fashionable. Many Gothic novelists emerged in this period. They not only showed the dark side of human beings, but also challenged the orthodox thinking mode of society at that time. They were a mixture of horror and mystery. The typical characters in Gothic novels are vampires, such as Frankenstein in mary shelley's works, Dracula in brian stock's works, and descriptions in Edgar Allen's poems. The description of vampire incarnation in Stoke's novels has entered an opposite angle compared with the past. Anne rice's Interview with a Vampire and Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Soul are also the continuation of Stoke's style. )
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, medieval art was once regarded as grotesque art, which was the product of foreigners and barbarians. Later, people tried to use this definition to express the art that originated in France in the middle of17th century.
By the late18th century, the word Goth had become the name of a new novel genre. This kind of novel is usually set in castles, ruins or wilderness, and the story often takes place in the past, especially in the Middle Ages. The story is thrilling and exciting, full of murder, violence, revenge, rape, incest, and even ghosts and other supernatural phenomena often appear; The atmosphere of the novel is gloomy, mysterious, scary and full of suspense. Gothic novel, as a novel genre, came into being in 1764. That year, Horace? Horace wapol published the famous novel The Castle of Otranto. The novel was an unexpected success, and the second edition was published in less than four months. In this edition, Valpur added the subtitle "A Gothic Story" to the title. Therefore, this novel was named Gothic novel.
4. From form to spirit: the modern development of Gothic art
For more than 200 years, in Britain and America, not only popular writers are keen on the creation of Gothic works, but also many first-class poets and writers, such as Scott, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Dickens, Bronte sisters, Connard, Foster, Golding and Brown, and Washington? Owen Allen. Poe, Hawthorne, Mark? Twain, James, Faulkner, O 'Connor, Morrison and others directly created well-known Gothic stories, or applied the techniques of Gothic novels in their creation, which made Gothic novels enter the center of literature and the mainstream of literary development from the "marginal position" of popular novels, thus gradually forming a very prominent Gothic tradition in British and American literature. Washington star
In 1980s, the modern Gothic movement began to be staged in Britain, and the appearance of Gothic movement may be regarded as the continuation of the previous punk movement. In any case, the Gothic spirit began to show its influence in music. Gothic music focuses on the gloom and emptiness of human nature, and also has a strong interest in death. Slowness, sadness and even horror are the characteristics of his music.
5. Summary: The essence of Goth
Goth's aesthetic foundation is magnificence related to fear. As early as18th century, Edmund Burke, a famous British aesthete, called the strongest emotion of human beings fear when discussing magnificence, and linked magnificence with fear. He divided beauty into beauty and sublimity. Generally speaking, beautiful things are small, exquisite, harmonious and familiar. They arouse the joy and excitement of sweetness, warmth, love and security in the hearts of the audience. In contrast, when faced with steep mountains, rolling rivers, ancient wasteland, vast forests, ancient ruins or lightning, we seem to experience a mysterious transcendental power, and our hearts are full of awe and even fear.
If we study these scenes carefully, we will find that they are all about the conflict between light and darkness, good and evil. From the Christian point of view, this conflict is, in the final analysis, an eternal conflict between God and the devil. This conflict between light and darkness, good and evil, and God and the devil is the most prominent, universal and lasting theme of Goth, which runs through the whole history of Goth art development.