Gothic in the literature of the Middle Ages. Cathedral in Western European medieval culture. Directions, currents, styles in Western art

Western European Middle Ages culture architecture

Gothic (from Italian gotico, lit. - Gothic, from the name of the German tribe Goths) is an artistic style that arose in the second half of the 12th century. and completed the development of medieval art in Western, Central and partly Eastern Europe. He changed the Romanesque style due to the onset of a new stage of the Middle Ages: feudal fragmentation gave way to centralized states. The cities' struggle for independence from the feudal lords reached its climax, knightly culture flourished, literature and art became secularized.

The Gothic building is a frame, skeleton of a pointed vault, flying buttresses and buttresses. The basis of the frame is made up of star-shaped intersecting pointed arches - ribs, which are supported indoors by powerful columns or bundles of narrow columns. The thrust of the vault is transmitted to the pillars (buttresses) placed outside with the help of reversible arches (flying buttresses). The junctions of the flying buttresses with the buttresses are crowned with decorative pointed turrets - pinnacles.

The largest early Gothic buildings are represented by the cathedrals of Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Chartres (France). Their architectonics still bears the features of the Romanesque style. This is manifested in the clear horizontal division of the facades, in the heavy heaviness of the towers, in the restrained sculptural decoration, which produces a general impression of the severity, grandeur and inviolability of the temples.

The cathedrals in Reims and Amiens (France) became generally recognized classic examples of Gothic, repeated by architects throughout Europe. Their facades, unlike early Gothic buildings, have a composition that rapidly increases upward. While maintaining the three-part facade surface, its decoration elements extend beyond the boundaries of their tiers. The interior space is well lit through stained glass windows. Architectural details are decorated with floral patterns.

The masterpieces of mature Gothic are Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in England, Freiburg and Cologne Cathedrals in Germany. In the late Gothic era, the desire for external effects became increasingly evident. Vertical divisions become the main ones. The design of the vaults becomes more complex; star-shaped and mesh vaults are used. Gothic cathedrals begin to resemble “frozen rain” or “petrified flame” (hence the term “flaming Gothic”).

The frame system of Gothic architecture made it possible to create cathedral interiors of unprecedented height and spaciousness, and to cut through the walls with huge windows. The upward thrust of the cathedral is expressed by giant openwork towers, lancet windows and portals, and complex ornaments.

With the disappearance of blank walls, monumental paintings also disappear. They are being replaced by stained glass - a kind of painting made from pieces of colored glass held together with lead strips. Stained glass windows fill the narrow, high openings and round “rose” windows. Almost colorless on the outside, the stained glass windows glow with rich colors inside, creating unusual artistic effects in the interior of the cathedral. Permeated with sunlight, the stained glass window most fully embodied medieval ideas about the spirituality of matter.

The most complete picture of stained glass ensembles is given by Chartres Cathedral. The total surface area occupied by stained glass in its many extensive openings was in the 13th century. about 2600 sq. meters. And it was this cathedral, unlike other Gothic churches, that retained the bulk of its stained glass ensembles. Currently, its interior contains 173 stained glass compositions with a total area of ​​two thousand square meters. meters.

Gothic art was religious in theme. The leading place in the culture of that time was occupied by the cathedral, around which the life of the medieval city was centered. The cathedral hosted ceremonial events, religious and theatrical performances.

The Gothic cathedral is based on a somewhat simplified Romanesque basilica, transformed into new architectural forms and outlines. To increase the capacity of the room and create a feeling of spaciousness, it was necessary to expand its internal space.

The architects ensured that the ceiling of the hall became lighter, making it possible to reduce the thickness of the load-bearing columns and combine the space of the three naves of the cathedral. The essence of the Gothic design consisted in the frame ceiling of the building, constituting, as it were, its skeleton. It combined three main architectural elements: a vault on pointed ribs (arches), a system of open semi-arches that transferred the thrust of the vault to powerful buttresses, that is, vertical projections of the walls, often tapering upward, increasing the stability of the structure.

The walls of the cathedral were cut through with windows with multicolor stained glass windows, which in the mysterious twilight glowed with bright red, blue, and yellow colors creating a special spiritual atmosphere.

The upward movement of the cathedral was emphasized by towers, high portals and windows, numerous elongated statues, and rich decorative details.

The cathedral, unprecedented in height and size, towered over the city and could sometimes accommodate its entire population. All this had an emotional impact on believers.

One of the basic principles of Gothic style is that a person who has found peace perceives the cathedral as something completely intangible. The cathedral contributes to the achievement of this state by man with its complexity and synthetic nature, combining tragic affectivity and lyricism, fantasy and reality, religiosity and satire.

The cathedral was a place where many arts came together: sculpture, architecture, theatrical art (worship), music (chants). The cathedral combined all this to help a person escape the unpredictability and duality of the world around him, drive out depression and fear from the soul, and come to faith. The entire space of the cathedral was subordinated to the desire to escape from the earthly, to awaken the Christian in man.

Religious scenes coexist in the decoration of the temple with the real tragedy of human life. This juxtaposition of the religious and the secular in the cathedral is explained by the fact that the church by the 12th - 13th centuries. became the largest feudal lord and was too closely connected with the secular world not to succumb to its influence. The cathedral, thus, combined Christian and life motives close to medieval people.

Introduction

Culture of the Western European Middle Ages

1 General characteristics of Western European medieval culture

2 Sources of the formation of the culture of the European Middle Ages

The cathedral as a symbol of an event within Western European medieval culture

1 The significance of the cathedral in the Western European Middle Ages

2 Romanesque cathedrals

3 Gothic cathedral as a reflection of medieval ideas about the world and God

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The Middle Ages is considered to be the period from the collapse of the Roman Empire (late 5th century) to the emergence of Protestantism (early 16th century).

XII - XIII centuries. For most countries of Western Europe, they were the period of the highest flowering of medieval Christian culture, the time of “its new mental equipment.” Gothic art was an integral part of it - a reaction to changes of a political and social nature. The growth and strengthening of cities, the final formation of knighthood, the formation of guild unions of artisans, the development of social consciousness and other features played a key role in the formation of Gothic.

At the same time, people become aware of the great differences between the world in which they live and the Christian world. This leads to the formation of superstitions and signs. The world is not at all what it seems. Each thing is endowed with a soul and power, often hostile.

The oppression of the surrounding world forces people to seek refuge. It becomes a cathedral, devoid of everything negative and hostile. The cathedral awakened a devout Christian in an individual, inspiring sacred awe with the “wonderful and unfading light penetrating through the sacred windows.” We should not forget that religious purpose is not the only one. People flocked to the cathedral “to listen to the visiting preacher and watch a theatrical performance at its walls.” The cathedral was a place for scientific debates and university lectures.

The cathedral was a reflection of the political and economic well-being of the city. The cathedral, located in the center of the city, dominated all the buildings. Construction was carried out with the expectation that the cathedral could accommodate the entire population of the city.

Historian Robert Delors estimates that by 1300 there were 350,000 churches in Western Europe, including about 1,000 cathedrals and several thousand large abbeys. The entire population of Western Europe at that time was estimated at 70 million people. On average, there was one Christian church per 200 inhabitants. In some areas of Hungary and Italy this ratio was even higher: one church for every hundred inhabitants.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the cathedral in the Western European Middle Ages.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

analyze the culture of Western European Middle Ages;

study the sources of the formation of the culture of the European Middle Ages;

consider the cathedral as a symbol of an event within Western European medieval culture;

explore the significance of the cathedral in the Western European Middle Ages;

consider Romanesque cathedrals and Gothic cathedrals.

1. Culture of the Western European Middle Ages

.1 General characteristics of Western European medieval culture

The Middle Ages (Middle Ages) is a generally accepted designation for the period of world history following the history of the ancient world and preceding modern history. The concept of the Middle Ages (lat. medium aevum, lit. - “middle age”) appeared in the 15th - 16th centuries. among Italian humanist historians (F. Biondo and others) and became established in science from the 18th century.

The culture of the Middle Ages is an inseparable and logical stage of world cultural development, possessing original content and original appearance.

It is deeply contradictory, and this contradiction was the driving force behind the development of culture, during which man gradually began to turn to himself, and not just to God.

The main achievements of medieval culture were:

Formation of viable nations and states;

Formation of modern European languages;

The formation of the historical and cultural unity of Europe;

Expanding the horizons of European culture;

5. creation of works of art, achievement of scientific and technical successes that have enriched world culture.

According to the periodization accepted in modern medieval studies, the following are distinguished:

Early Middle Ages (end of the 5th - mid-11th centuries). In the V-VII centuries. barbarian tribes formed kingdoms that were constantly at war with each other. The culture of this period still lags far behind the cultures of Byzantium and the Arab East.

Mature (classical, developed, “high”) Middle Ages (mid-XI - late XV centuries). The feudal system reached its peak. The main European states are created (England, France, Germany, Italy). There is a continuous series of wars, unrest and uprisings. In the XI-XIII centuries. Europeans make a series of crusades to the East. In the culture of this period, an important role is played by the interaction, and sometimes the struggle, of pan-European and national principles.

Late Middle Ages (XVI - first half of the XVIII centuries). A high culture was created that creatively rethought ancient traditions, Byzantine and Islamic influences. This is a period of decomposition of feudalism, in the depths of which bourgeois relations characteristic of the New Age arose.

The main conditions for the cultural development of medieval Western Europe were:

1. feudal form of ownership, based on personal and land dependence on landowners who appropriate the labor of farmers;

The dominance of subsistence farming - self-sufficiency, underdevelopment of commodity-money relations, lack of mass production;

The rigid class-hierarchical structure of society, permeated from top to bottom with class isolation and relations of vassal service to the lord;

Frequent wars (eight only the largest crusades in the XI-XIII centuries);

The Inquisition, which operated from the 13th century. as a regular church court;

Epidemics of infectious diseases;

Chronic malnutrition of the majority of the population (crop failures inevitably led to famine, recurring every three to four years).

The average human life expectancy was 40-45 years for men and 35 years for women. Every third child did not live to be 15 years old - the age of majority and marriage; less than a quarter of people (mostly nobles and monks) lived to be 50 years old. Wars, diseases, and famine constantly reduced the population and gave medieval people a feeling of the tragedy of life.

1.2 Sources of the formation of the culture of the European Middle Ages

It is customary to distinguish between internal and external sources of the formation of the culture of the European Middle Ages.

European culture itself was born from the fusion of three contradictory internal principles:

heritage of antiquity,

barbarian cultures,

traditions of Christianity.

During the period of formation of medieval culture, a certain type of spiritual life of Western European society crystallized, the main role in which began to belong to the Christian religion and church.

An external factor in the formation of the culture of medieval Europe is the influence of Byzantine and Arab cultures on it.

Medieval culture was formed in a region where the center of a powerful Roman civilization had recently been located and where the social relations and culture generated by it continued to exist. The medieval education system was based on the Roman school tradition, the system of the “seven liberal arts”.

A huge role in the formation, development and development of European medieval culture was played by the Middle Latin language - the language of the church, state office work, international communication, and education.

However, the assimilation of the ancient heritage was not carried out unhindered and not on a large scale. The struggle was to preserve only a small part of the cultural values ​​and knowledge of the previous era. But this was also extremely important for the formation of medieval culture, because it constituted an important part of its foundation and contained opportunities for creative development, which were realized later.

The ancient Greeks and Romans called foreigners barbarians (barbar - onomatopoeia for an incomprehensible foreign language; another interpretation: lat. barba - beard). Throughout antiquity, the main content of this term was to contrast backward tribes and nationalities with the “cultured” Greeks and Romans. However, the barbarians had their own distinctive culture, which had a noticeable influence on the culture of the European Middle Ages.

The peoples of Western and Northern Europe developed a heroic epic that replaced history. The barbarians had a unique vision of the world, a sense of inseparability from nature, the inseparability of the world of people and gods. The art of the barbarians was mainly applied - various ornamental decorations of weapons, harnesses, utensils, clothing, etc. using precious stones, cloisonne enamel, filigree - made in the “animal style”.

The Germans also brought with them a system of moral values, formed in the depths of the patriarchal clan system, where special importance was attached to the ideals of fidelity, military courage with a sacred attitude towards the military leader, and ritual. All this left its mark on the emerging medieval culture.

2. The cathedral as a symbol of an event within Western European medieval culture

.1 The significance of the cathedral in the Western European Middle Ages

In 325 AD e. The Council of Nicaea officially recognized the episcopate in the cities. Supported by the Roman Empire, bishops often received vast lands as gifts from the authorities. They also appropriated many pagan temples. After the Roman Empire collapsed, the church continued to exist and became even more influential in the Middle Ages. French historian Georges Duby called this time the “era of the cathedrals.”

Between the 7th and 14th centuries, the population of Europe tripled. This rapid growth contributed to the prosperity of cities. Rich episcopal cities turned out to be the most suitable places for the construction of large cathedrals.

According to church laws, the entire life of a Christian from birth to death must be connected with the temple.

In the temple, all members of the parish must take part in divine services and religious ceremonies. Therefore, as soon as the persecution of Christians stopped, the construction of Christian shrines began. Pagan temples<#"justify">For centuries, the cathedral was not only a place where worship was held. For a person of the Middle Ages, the cathedral represented a smaller copy of the universe, a symbol of the relationship between heaven and earth. The cathedral is a place where a person became familiar with the macrocosm, comprehended moral values, and became acquainted with the world of painting and music. E. N. Trubetskoy was right when he wrote about the Orthodox church: “This is much more than a house of prayer, it is a whole world, not that sinful, chaotic and broken world... but a world brought together by grace.”

Cathedrals were built by order of city communes, which, as a rule, did not spare money on their construction, since the cathedral was a kind of symbol, the city was judged by it. At times the cathedral was so large that the entire population of the city could not fill it.

The medieval city was small and enclosed by walls. Residents perceived it holistically, as an ensemble, a feeling lost in the modern city. The cathedral defines the architectural and spatial center of the city; with any type of urban planning, the web of streets gravitated towards it. As the tallest building in the city, it served as a watchtower if necessary. Cathedral Square was the main one, and sometimes the only one. All vital public events took place or began in this square. Subsequently, when the market was moved from the suburbs to the city and a special market square appeared, one of its corners is often adjacent to the cathedral. This happened in a number of cities in Germany and France: Dresden, Meissen, Naumburg, Montauban, Monpazier. In the city, in addition to the main cathedral, as a rule, there were also parish churches; part of the functions of the cathedral was transferred to them. In large cities their number could be significant. So a contemporary notes in London at the end of the 12th century. One hundred twenty-six such churches.

The watchful eye of the church accompanied the city dweller from birth to death. The church accepted him into society, and it also helped him move into the afterlife. Church sacraments and rituals were an essential part of everyday life. Baptism, engagement, marriage ceremony, funeral service and burial, confession and communion - all this connected the city dweller with the cathedral or parish church (in small towns the cathedral was also the parish church), allowing him to feel like a part of Christian society. The cathedral also served as a burial place for wealthy citizens; some had closed family tombs with tombstones there. This was not only prestigious, but also practical (as historians note, robberies of parish cemeteries occurred constantly).

Cathedrals were supposed to accommodate the entire city population. The cathedral was built by order and at the expense of the city community. The construction and strengthening of the temple, which took decades, was a national undertaking. The cathedral was the center of public life. Preachers spoke before him, professors and students argued, and theatrical religious performances were staged.

2.2 Romanesque cathedrals

The first independent, specifically European artistic style of medieval Europe was Romanesque, which characterized the art and architecture of Western Europe from about 1000 until the emergence of Gothic, in most regions until about the second half and end of the 12th century, and in some later. It arose as a result of the synthesis of the remnants of the artistic culture of Rome and barbarian tribes. At first it was the proto-Romanesque style.

The term “Romanesque” is relative. It originated in the 19th century. to designate the style of European art of the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. The buildings of this time, mostly stone, with vaulted ceilings, were called Romanesque, i.e. built according to the Roman method. The Romanesque style - an expression of the era of feudal fragmentation - was widespread primarily in the art of Germany and France, which at that time represented conglomerates of separate, closed and warring feuds (estates). It is not surprising that the spirit of belligerence and the constant need for self-defense permeates Romanesque art. The Romanesque style absorbed elements of late antique and Merovingian art. Its main distributors, primarily in the field of religious architecture, were monastic orders, and the builders, workers, painters, sculptors, and decorators were monks. Only towards the end of the 11th century. wandering artels of lay stonemasons (builders and sculptors) appeared.

Based on their functions, two types of Romanesque buildings are distinguished: defensive (castles) and religious (Christian churches and monasteries). Individual Romanesque buildings and complexes were usually erected among the rural landscape and dominated the area either as an earthly semblance of the “city of God” or as a visual expression of the power of the feudal lord. Romanesque buildings were in harmony with the natural environment, their compact forms and clear silhouettes blended organically into the natural topography, and the local stone, which most often served as a building material, combined very well with the soil and greenery. The appearance of the buildings is full of calm and solemn power.

Since the bulk of the surviving fundamentally important monuments of the Proto-Romanesque and Romanesque styles are architectural structures, the various styles of this period are often distinguished by architectural schools. The architecture of the 5th-8th centuries is usually simple, with the exception of buildings in Ravenna (Italy), built according to Byzantine rules. Buildings were often created from or decorated with elements taken from old Roman buildings. In many regions this style was a continuation of early Christian art. Round or polygonal cathedral churches, borrowed from Byzantine architecture, were built during the Proto-Romanesque period; later they were erected in Aquitaine in southwestern France and Scandinavia. The most famous and best-developed examples of this type are the Cathedral of San Vitalo of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in Ravenna (526-548) and the octagonal palace chapel built between 792 and 805 by Charlemagne in Isle-la-Capelle (in the present time of Aachen, Germany), directly inspired by the Cathedral of San Vitalo. One of the creations of Carolingian architects was the westwork, a multi-story entrance facade flanked by bell towers, which began to be added to Christian basilicas. Westworks were the prototypes of the facades of giant Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.

Important buildings were also designed in the monastic style. Monasteries, a characteristic religious and social phenomenon of that era, required huge buildings that combined both monks’ homes and chapels, rooms for prayers and services, libraries, and workshops. Elaborate Proto-Romanesque monastic complexes were erected at St. Gall (Switzerland), on the island of Reichenau (German side of Lake Constance) and at Monte Cassino (Italy) by Benedictine monks.

The outstanding achievement of the architects of the Romanesque period was the development of buildings with stone voltae (arched, supporting structures). The main reason for the development of stone arches was the need to replace the highly flammable wooden floors of early Romanesque buildings. The introduction of voltaic structures led to the general use of heavy walls and pillars.

The main role in the Romanesque style was given to austere architecture: monastery complexes, churches, castles were located on hills, dominating the area. Their appearance is distinguished by clarity of volume, massiveness, heaviness, and squatness. The most complete expression of the spirit of the era was the cathedral.

In plan, the Romanesque church has a clear Latin cross - the rectangular building is divided by columns or pillars into three longitudinal parts (naves) and crossed by a transverse nave - transept. The entrance to the temple was on the narrow side of the building, away from the transept. Opposite the entrance, the middle nave ended in a semicircular protrusion - an apse, where the altar was located, the most sacred place of the temple, where worship takes place. The entire building is oriented with its apse to the east.

The leading beginning of the temple building is the wall. Massive and heavy walls were decorated with paintings, flat reliefs and sculptures, expressing the frightening power of the deity in conventional, expressive forms. The figures are squat and static, depicted from the front, crudely primitive and arbitrary in proportions. However, they feel powerful and spontaneity, a combination of physical and spiritual strength.

The most widespread were the huge relief compositions above the portals of temples. The sculptural relief “Royal Portal” of the Cathedral in Chartres (1145-1155) is interesting. It presents subjects characteristic of Romanesque art: “Christ in glory” in the tympanum, narrative scenes on the capitals, images of angels, apostles, allegorical figures personifying rural work, signs of the Zodiac, “liberal arts” on the archivolts and slopes of the portal. The synthesis of these plots embodied the entire symbolic-allegorical system of the Christian worldview.

Metal and wood processing, enamel, and miniatures have reached a high level of development.

The most characteristic monuments of Romanesque architecture are the monastery complex in Cluny (France), the cathedrals in Worms and Mainz (Germany). The masterpiece is the ensemble in Pisa (Italy), which includes the cathedral, the Leaning Tower (belfry) and the baptistery (baptistery). Slender arcades located on the walls in several tiers and cladding with colored stone gave the ensemble a light, festive sound.

2.3 Gothic cathedral as a reflection of medieval ideas about the world and God

Western European Middle Ages culture architecture

Gothic (from Italian gotico, lit. - Gothic, from the name of the German tribe Goths) is an artistic style that arose in the second half of the 12th century. and completed the development of medieval art in Western, Central and partly Eastern Europe. He changed the Romanesque style due to the onset of a new stage of the Middle Ages: feudal fragmentation gave way to centralized states. The cities' struggle for independence from the feudal lords reached its climax, knightly culture flourished, literature and art became secularized.

The Gothic building is a frame, skeleton of a pointed vault, flying buttresses and buttresses. The basis of the frame is made up of star-shaped intersecting pointed arches - ribs, which are supported indoors by powerful columns or bundles of narrow columns. The thrust of the vault is transmitted to the pillars (buttresses) placed outside with the help of reversible arches (flying buttresses). The junctions of the flying buttresses with the buttresses are crowned with decorative pointed turrets - pinnacles.

The largest early Gothic buildings are represented by the cathedrals of Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Chartres (France). Their architectonics still bears the features of the Romanesque style. This is manifested in the clear horizontal division of the facades, in the heavy heaviness of the towers, in the restrained sculptural decoration, which produces a general impression of the severity, grandeur and inviolability of the temples.

The cathedrals in Reims and Amiens (France) became generally recognized classic examples of Gothic, repeated by architects throughout Europe. Their facades, unlike early Gothic buildings, have a composition that rapidly increases upward. While maintaining the three-part facade surface, its decoration elements extend beyond the boundaries of their tiers. The interior space is well lit through stained glass windows. Architectural details are decorated with floral patterns.

The masterpieces of mature Gothic are Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in England, Freiburg and Cologne Cathedrals in Germany. In the late Gothic era, the desire for external effects became increasingly evident. Vertical divisions become the main ones. The design of the vaults becomes more complex; star-shaped and mesh vaults are used. Gothic cathedrals begin to resemble “frozen rain” or “petrified flame” (hence the term “flaming Gothic”).

The frame system of Gothic architecture made it possible to create cathedral interiors of unprecedented height and spaciousness, and to cut through the walls with huge windows. The upward thrust of the cathedral is expressed by giant openwork towers, lancet windows and portals, and complex ornaments.

With the disappearance of blank walls, monumental paintings also disappear. They are being replaced by stained glass - a kind of painting made from pieces of colored glass held together with lead strips. Stained glass windows fill the narrow, high openings and round “rose” windows. Almost colorless on the outside, the stained glass windows glow with rich colors inside, creating unusual artistic effects in the interior of the cathedral. Permeated with sunlight, the stained glass window most fully embodied medieval ideas about the spirituality of matter.

The most complete picture of stained glass ensembles is given by Chartres Cathedral. The total surface area occupied by stained glass in its many extensive openings was in the 13th century. about 2600 sq. meters. And it was this cathedral, unlike other Gothic churches, that retained the bulk of its stained glass ensembles. Currently, its interior contains 173 stained glass compositions with a total area of ​​two thousand square meters. meters.

Gothic art was religious in theme. The leading place in the culture of that time was occupied by the cathedral, around which the life of the medieval city was centered. The cathedral hosted ceremonial events, religious and theatrical performances.

The Gothic cathedral is based on a somewhat simplified Romanesque basilica, transformed into new architectural forms and outlines. To increase the capacity of the room and create a feeling of spaciousness, it was necessary to expand its internal space.

The architects ensured that the ceiling of the hall became lighter, making it possible to reduce the thickness of the load-bearing columns and combine the space of the three naves of the cathedral. The essence of the Gothic design consisted in the frame ceiling of the building, constituting, as it were, its skeleton. It combined three main architectural elements: a vault on pointed ribs (arches), a system of open semi-arches that transferred the thrust of the vault to powerful buttresses, that is, vertical projections of the walls, often tapering upward, increasing the stability of the structure.

The walls of the cathedral were cut through with windows with multicolor stained glass windows, which in the mysterious twilight glowed with bright red, blue, and yellow colors creating a special spiritual atmosphere.

The upward movement of the cathedral was emphasized by towers, high portals and windows, numerous elongated statues, and rich decorative details.

The cathedral, unprecedented in height and size, towered over the city and could sometimes accommodate its entire population. All this had an emotional impact on believers.

One of the basic principles of Gothic style is that a person who has found peace perceives the cathedral as something completely intangible. The cathedral contributes to the achievement of this state by man with its complexity and synthetic nature, combining tragic affectivity and lyricism, fantasy and reality, religiosity and satire.

The cathedral was a place where many arts came together: sculpture, architecture, theatrical art (worship), music (chants). The cathedral combined all this to help a person escape the unpredictability and duality of the world around him, drive out depression and fear from the soul, and come to faith. The entire space of the cathedral was subordinated to the desire to escape from the earthly, to awaken the Christian in man.

Religious scenes coexist in the decoration of the temple with the real tragedy of human life. This juxtaposition of the religious and the secular in the cathedral is explained by the fact that the church by the 12th - 13th centuries. became the largest feudal lord and was too closely connected with the secular world not to succumb to its influence. The cathedral, thus, combined Christian and life motives close to medieval people.

Conclusion

After the difficulties of the period IX-X centuries (civil strife, constant attacks by Hungarians, Arabs and Normans) in the 11th century. A new stage of development began in Europe. Feudal relations took shape, crafts developed, cities grew, and the influence of the Church increased. The importance of monasteries and their associations increased, the most powerful of which was headed by the Abbey of Cluny. Many pilgrims appeared on the roads of Europe. IN This period saw the birth of the first pan-European style in art - Romanesque (the term appeared in XIX century). The main form of art during the Romanesque period was architecture.

Romanesque architecture was replaced by Gothic architecture. It symbolizes the shift of the cultural center from secluded monasteries to the bustling quarters of the medieval city, the spiritual center of which becomes the cathedral. The city cathedral, just like the monastery, which performed primarily religious functions, turns into the bearer of new architecture. Thus, the Gothic cathedral was the most important manifestation of a new era in the cultural development of the peoples of Western Europe.

Contrary to popular belief today, the vast majority of medieval cathedrals were owned neither by the church nor by the nobility. The medieval cathedral was the center of public life. Everyone could come there, primarily to pray, but also to simply eat and even sleep. People came there with their dogs; there were noisy discussions of various problems, lectures were given, mysteries were held - theatrical performances on biblical subjects, especially important agreements were concluded. They even treated the sick right at the entrance to one of the chapels. That is, it was the place where doctors officially treated - it is no coincidence that until 1454 the medical faculty was officially located in Notre Dame of Paris. The cathedrals belonged to all citizens of the city, and they also maintained them.

List of used literature

1.Gnedich P.P. World Art History. M., 1999. - 241 p.

2.Grinenko G.V. Reader on the history of world culture. M., 1998. - 247 p.

.Grushevitskaya T.G. Dictionary of world artistic culture. M., 2001. - 315 p.

.Dmitrieva N.A. A Brief History of Art. M., 1985. Issue. 1 - 321 p.

.Emokhonova L.G. World Art. M., 1998. - 542 p.

.History of art of foreign countries: Middle Ages, Renaissance. M., 1992. - 215 p.

.Kondrashov V.A. Ethics, Chichina E.A. Aesthetics. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2000. - 341 p.

.Culturology. / Ed. Bagdasaryan N.G.<#"justify">9.Culturology. / author-compiler Gurevich P.S. 2003, 336 p.

.Culturology. / ed. Dracha G.V. 2002, 608 p.

11.Tyazhelov V.N. Art of the Middle Ages in Western and Central Europe. M., 1981. - 211 p.

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4. ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ROMANCE AND GOTHIC STYLES, LITERATURE, FOLKLORE, ICON PAINTING. MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL AS A MODEL OF THE WORLD

The figurative and semantic system of medieval art expressed the central idea of ​​the worldview of medieval man - the Christian idea of ​​God. Art was perceived as a kind of biblical text, easily “read” by believers through numerous sculptural and pictorial images. Since the language of the Bible and worship was Latin, unfamiliar to most laypeople, the sculptural and pictorial images had a didactic meaning - to convey to believers the foundations of Christian dogma. In the temple, the entire Christian teaching unfolded before the eyes of a medieval man. The idea of ​​the sinfulness of the world was reflected by the leading plot in the design of churches, sculptures and reliefs - scenes of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse. Looking at the cathedral, a medieval person could, as it were, read Holy Scripture in the images depicted there. The same image of the Last Judgment clearly represented the theological scheme of the hierarchical structure of the world. The figure of Christ was always depicted in the center of the composition. The upper part was occupied by heaven, the lower by earth, on the right hand of Christ there was heaven and the righteous (good), on the left - sinners condemned to eternal torment, devils and hell (evil).

Strictly following the universal church canons, medieval artists were called upon to demonstrate divine beauty in figurative form. The aesthetic ideal of medieval art was the opposite of ancient art, reflecting the Christian understanding of beauty. The idea of ​​the superiority of the spirit over the physical and carnal is represented in the asceticism of the images of monumental painting and sculpture, their severity and detachment from the outside world. The extreme conventionality of the entire figurative system of medieval art was reflected in the canons of constructing the human figure: linearity, solemn immobility, elongated oval faces and figures, wide open eyes, “disembodiment,” ethereal figures. Medieval painting does not know the perspective that reveals the depth of the picture. Before the viewer there is a planar development of the composition and the only visible movement is upward, directed towards the sky.

The most important feature of medieval art is symbolism. A sculptural or pictorial image is, first of all, a symbol, a certain religious idea captured in stone or paint. Like the Bible, icon painting is, first of all, a revealed word (the complete identity between painting and verbal texts was confirmed by the church already in the 8th century). The entire figurative structure of medieval art is symbolic (the long, almost sexless bodies of the apostles and saints express the idea of ​​the spiritual principle overcoming sinful matter - the flesh).

The diversity of figures is another feature of medieval art. The size of the figures was determined by the hierarchical significance of what was depicted (which, by the way, made it easy to “recognize” the characters depicted). Christ is always greater than the apostles and angels, who, in turn, are greater than ordinary laymen.

XI - XII centuries in Western Europe, this is the period of greatest power of the church. The creators of the Romanesque style were monasteries and episcopal cities. The Church during this period reduced the task of art to the need to show not visible beauty, but the true beauty of the spirit. The aesthetic ideal that arose in Romanesque art, the entire figurative and semantic system of Romanesque art was designed to solve the problem.

The contrast between the heavy, squat outlines of the cathedral and the spiritual expression of its images reflected the Christian formula of beauty - the idea of ​​​​the superiority of the spiritual over the physical. The Romanesque cathedral was a symbol of the stronghold of the human spirit in art. Architecture, paintings, door reliefs necessarily complemented each other, forming a unity based on the subordination of the small to the large, reflecting the principle of the medieval hierarchy. The paintings of the Romanesque church create a special closed world, where the layman became a participant in the depicted scenes. Drama and expressiveness, intense spiritual expressiveness of pictorial images, characteristic of Romanesque painting (scenes of the Last Judgment, the struggle between angels and the devil for human souls - a common subject of temple paintings) had a huge emotional impact, reflecting the idea of ​​​​the sinfulness of the world, the idea of ​​redemption and salvation. The flat, two-dimensional image of paintings and sculptures of the Romanesque style, the generality of forms, the violation of proportions, and the monumental significance of the images symbolized the timeless, eternal in the understanding of the world.

Romanesque architecture was based on the achievements of the previous period (in particular, the Carolingian Renaissance) and was formed under the strong influence of the traditions of ancient, Byzantine or Arabic art, featuring a wide variety of forms. It exhibits many movements that existed in various areas of Western Europe and reflected local traditions and artistic tastes (for example, Italian Romanesque art was more strongly influenced by Byzantine traditions). Nevertheless, the Romanesque style by the 12th century. became the first pan-European style. This is the historical style of the mature Middle Ages, characterized by a commonality of building types, their constructive techniques and means of expression.

The main structures of Romanesque architecture were the monastery complex of temples and the type of closed fortified dwelling of the feudal lord - the castle. In the 10th century A type of fortified dwelling developed in the form of a tower - a donjon, which was surrounded by a moat and rampart. By the end of the 11th century. They begin to build a separate building for the feudal lord’s home. The donjon now plays only defensive functions, serving as a refuge when taking defensive walls. The architecture of castles was deeply functional. As in temple architecture, thick, massive walls and towers, narrow windows, and a general expression of severity constituted their characteristic features.

Along with sculpture, painting was an indispensable component of the Romanesque architectural ensemble. Biblical scenes and episodes from the lives of saints are widely represented on the inner surfaces of the walls. Romanesque painting was formed under the influence of Byzantine traditions. Following the iconographic canon, artists created flat figures with elongated proportions, with stern, motionless ascetic faces, which were perceived as symbols of Christian beauty - spiritual beauty that conquers sinful matter.

Outstanding monuments of Romanesque architecture include the Notre Dame Cathedral in Poitiers, the cathedrals in Toulouse, Orcinval, Arne (France), the cathedrals in Oxford, Winchester, Norwich (England), and the cathedral in Lund (Sweden). The cathedrals in Worms, Speyer and Mainz (Germany) became examples of late Romanesque style.

By the end of the 12th century. Romanesque art is replaced by Gothic (the term was first used by Renaissance historians to characterize all medieval art, which they associated with barbarian art).

The Gothic era (late XII - XV centuries) is a period when urban culture begins to play an increasingly important role in medieval culture. In all areas of life in medieval society, the importance of the secular, rational principle increases. The Church is gradually losing its dominant position in the spiritual sphere. As urban culture developed, on the one hand, church restrictions in the field of art began to weaken, and on the other hand, trying to make maximum use of the ideological and emotional power of art for its own purposes, the church finally developed its attitude towards art, which found expression in the treatises of philosophers of this time. Medieval scholastics argued that art is an imitation of nature. Although didacticism, the ability to express religious dogmas and values, was still recognized as the main task of art, the scholastics did not deny the emotional power of art, its ability to evoke admiration.

The design of the Gothic cathedral revealed new ideas of the Catholic Church, the increased self-awareness of the urban strata, and new ideas about the world. The dynamic upward thrust of all forms of the cathedral reflected the Christian idea of ​​the aspiration of the soul of the righteous to heaven, where it is promised eternal bliss. Religious subjects retain their dominant position in Gothic art. The images of Gothic sculpture, personifying the dogmas and values ​​of Christianity, the very appearance of the cathedral, and all forms of Gothic art were intended to promote a mystical perception of God and the world. At the same time, the growing interest in human feelings, in the beauty of the real world, the desire to individualize images, the increasing role of secular subjects, the strengthening of realistic tendencies - all this distinguishes the Gothic style from the Romanesque as a more mature style of art, reflecting the spirit of its time, its new trends - awakening of the mind and feelings, growing interest in a person.

The first Gothic forms in architecture appeared in Europe at the end of the 12th century, but the Gothic style flourished in the 13th century. In the XIV - XV centuries. there is a gradual “fading away” of Gothic (“flaming Gothic”).

Gothic architecture became a new stage in the development of the basilica type of construction, in which all elements began to obey a single system. The main feature of the Gothic cathedral is a stable frame system, in which the structural role is played by cross-rib pointed vaults and pointed arches, which largely determine the internal and external appearance of the cathedral. The entire weight of the cathedral's bulk fell on its frame. This made it possible to make thin walls in which huge windows were cut out. The most characteristic motif of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch, which seemed to stretch the building to the heavens.

The construction of Gothic temples was carried out not only by the church, but also by cities. Moreover, the largest buildings, and above all cathedrals, were erected at the expense of the townspeople. The purpose of the Gothic temple was not only cultic, it also served as the center of public life in the city. University lectures were given there and mysteries were played. Various kinds of secular and church ceremonies were also held on the cathedral square, attracting crowds of citizens. Cathedrals were built “by the whole world”; their construction often lasted decades, and sometimes several centuries.

The Gothic style received classical expression in France, which is rightfully considered the birthplace of Gothic. (Notre Dame Cathedral was founded in 1163 and was completed until the mid-13th century.) The most famous monuments of French Gothic are the cathedrals of Amiens and Reims (13th century), and the Church of Saint Chapelle (13th century).

Mature Gothic is characterized by an increase in verticalism, a greater upward focus. One of the most remarkable monuments of mature Gothic is Reims Cathedral - the place of coronation of French kings.

English cathedrals were somewhat different, characterized by their great length and peculiar intersection of pointed arches on the vaults. The most famous monument of English Gothic is Westminster Abbey (XIII - XVI centuries).

The development of sculpture, which played a leading role in the fine arts of this period, is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. Gothic sculpture is more subordinate to architecture and has a more independent meaning than Romanesque. Numerous niches on the facades of cathedrals housed figures personifying the dogmas of the Christian faith. Lively poses and slight bends give them mobility and dynamism, unlike Romanesque ones. The images of saints themselves have become more diverse, specific, and individual. The most significant figures were attached to columns in the openings on the sides of the entrance to the cathedral. Along with those placed in niches or attached to columns, there were also free-standing monumental statues (that is, sculpture in the modern sense of the word).

Thus, Gothic art revived sculpture itself, unknown to medieval culture since antiquity. Like Romanesque churches, the Gothic cathedral often contains images of monsters and fantastic creatures (chimeras). The characteristic features of Gothic sculpture can be reduced to the following: interest in the phenomena of the real world; figures representing the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church become more realistic; the role of secular subjects is increasing; round plastic appears and begins to play a dominant role (although the relief does not disappear).

In the Gothic cathedral, painting is represented mainly by painting of altars. As the frame system was established and the wall became more openwork, the space in the cathedral for frescoes became increasingly narrower - they were more often replaced by stained glass windows. Stained glass opened up new possibilities for the medieval artist. Christianity gave light a divine and mystical meaning. The light pouring from the sky symbolized the light coming from God. The play of light penetrating through the stained glass led the laity away from everything concrete, earthly, and led to the intangible, luminous. The stained glass window seemed to muffle the physicality, expressiveness, and concreteness of the images of Gothic plastic art. The luminosity of the interior space of the cathedral seemed to deprive matter of its impenetrability and spiritualize it.

The Gothic style changed the appearance of the medieval city and contributed to the development of secular construction. Town halls with open galleries are beginning to be built in cities. The castles of aristocrats increasingly resemble palaces. Rich townspeople build houses with peaked gable roofs, narrow windows, lancet doorways, and corner turrets.

Traces of pagan beliefs of peasants can be traced in folklore, especially in fairy tales and sayings. Peasant folklore expresses a negative attitude towards the rich. The favorite hero of Western European fairy tales is the poor man. Heroes of folk tales often became Jean the Fool in France, Stupid Hans in Germany, and the Great Fool in England.

Secular and ecclesiastical literature used fairy-tale material from the Middle Ages quite widely. Around 1100, the Spaniard Petrus of Alphonse compiled a whole collection, which included 34 stories, including a number of tales about animals - “common stories”. The clergy compilers gave these stories a moralistic interpretation.

Fairy tale-narrative material was widely used in chivalric novels, in the short stories of Mary of France (12th century), in urban short stories of the 14th - 15th centuries, and in individual works of the Mastersingers. However, in all cases, this is only material; often only individual episodes, motives and details are used. Only from the middle of the 16th century. we can talk about the introduction of fairy tales themselves into literature.

Various kinds of evil spirits are a frequent hero of Western European folk tales. In many stories, the characters are animals with human abilities. In the 13th century These numerous stories were combined and translated into poetry - this is how the already mentioned famous medieval folk poem “The Romance of the Fox” arose.

Peasant ideas about a just life, about nobility and honor are heard in tales about noble robbers protecting the orphans and the disadvantaged.

Anglo-Scottish ballads based on this subject became a genre of medieval folk art. Their anonymous authors were peasants, artisans, and sometimes the ballads were composed by professional singers - minstrels. These works circulated among the people. The origin of the ballad as a genre of folk art is unknown. The earliest ballad dates back to the 13th century. English and Scottish ballads are divided into several groups: ballads of epic content, which are based on real historical events, so-called robber ballads, lyrical-dramatic love ballads, fantastic and everyday ones.

The hero of the robber ballads is the noble Robin Hood, the folk hero of England, and his army. The first ballads about Robin Hood were recorded in the 15th century. In the ballad it is easy to trace the sympathy of the people for the forest shooters who went into the forest as a result of oppression. For the first time in European poetry, a person of ignoble origin became the ideal. Unlike the knights, Robin Hood fights against the oppressors of the people. All the good feelings and deeds of the brave archer extend only to the people.

The main thing in the plot of love ballads is the celebration not of a feat in the name of a beautiful lady (as in chivalric poetry), but of a genuine feeling, the emotional experiences of lovers.

Fantastic ballads reflected the beliefs of the people. The supernatural world with its fairies, elves and other fantastic characters appears in these ballads as a real, actual world.

In a later period, everyday ballads appeared, characterized by greater prosaicism and a predominance of the comic element. The ballad often uses artistic techniques of folk art. The language of ballads is peculiar - concrete words, without pompous metaphors and rhetorical figures. Another feature of ballads is their clear rhythm.

Peasant work and rest were associated with songs - ritual, labor, festive, folk dances.

In the countries of French and German culture, at fairs and in villages, joggers (players) and shpilmans (literally - a player) - wandering poet-singers, bearers of folk culture - often performed. They performed spiritual poems, folk songs, heroic poems, etc. to musical accompaniment. The singing was accompanied by dancing, puppet theater, and various kinds of magic tricks. Folk singers often performed in the castles of feudal lords and in monasteries, making folk culture the property of all layers of medieval society. Later, from the 12th century, they began to perform various genres of knightly and urban literature. The folk art of jugglers and shpilmans became the basis of secular knightly and urban musical and poetic culture.

Medieval literature had a number of common characteristics that determined its internal integrity. It was literature of the traditionalist type. Throughout its existence, it developed on the basis of the constant reproduction of a limited set of figurative, ideological, compositional and other structures - topoi (commonplaces) or cliches, expressed in the constancy of epithets, pictorial cliches, the stability of motives and themes, the constancy of canons for depicting all figurative systems (be it a young man in love, a Christian martyr, a knight, a beauty, an emperor, a townsman, etc.). On the basis of these clichés, genre topoi were formed that had their own semantic, thematic and visual-expressive canon (for example, the genre of hagiography or the genre of courtly novel in knightly literature).

Medieval people found in literature a generally accepted, traditional model, a ready-made universal formula for describing the hero, his feelings, appearance, etc. (beauties are always golden-headed and blue-eyed, rich people are stingy, saints have a traditional set of virtues, etc.). Medieval topoi, clichés, and canons reduced the individual to the general, typical. Hence the specificity of authorship in medieval literature (and in medieval art in general).

Medieval art did not deny the originality of the author. The medieval reader (and author) saw the author’s originality not in a unique, individual (author’s) understanding of the world and man, but in the skill of implementing a system of topics common to all authors (in the visual arts - canons).

The formation of medieval topics was significantly influenced by the literature of antiquity. In episcopal schools of the early Middle Ages, students, in particular, read “exemplary” works of ancient authors (Aesop’s fables, works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, etc.), learned ancient topics and used them in their own writings.

The ambivalent attitude of the Middle Ages towards ancient culture as primarily pagan led to the selective assimilation of ancient cultural traditions and their adaptation to express Christian spiritual values ​​and ideals. In literature, this was expressed in the overlay of ancient topics on the topics of the Bible, the main source of the figurative system of medieval literature, which sanctified the spiritual values ​​and ideals of medieval society.

The second feature of medieval literature is its pronounced moral and didactic character. Medieval people expected morality from literature; without morality, the entire meaning of the work was lost for him.

The third feature is that the literature of the Middle Ages was equally based on Christian ideals and values ​​and equally strived for aesthetic perfection, distinguishing itself only thematically. Although, of course, the very appearance and development of secular principles in culture was of fundamental importance, reflecting that line in the formation of the spiritual culture of medieval society, the development of which would later prepare the flowering of Renaissance literature.

Throughout the centuries-long development of the Middle Ages, hagiography - church literature describing the lives of saints - was especially popular. By the 10th century The canon of this literary genre was formed: the indestructible, strong spirit of the hero (martyr, missionary, fighter for the Christian faith), a classic set of virtues, constant formulas of praise. The life of the saint offered the highest moral lesson and captivated people with examples of righteous life. Hagiographic literature is characterized by the motif of a miracle, which corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - “legends” - began to be read in church, and the lives themselves began to be collected in extensive collections. The “Golden Legend” of Jacob of Voragin (13th century), a collection of lives of Catholic saints, became widely known in medieval Europe.

The penchant of the Middle Ages for allegory and allegory was expressed by the genre of visions. According to medieval ideas, the highest meaning is revealed only by revelation - vision. In the genre of visions, the fate of people and the world was revealed to the author in a dream. Visions often told about real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. Visions had a significant influence on the development of later medieval literature, starting from the famous French “Roman of the Rose” (13th century), in which the motif of visions (“revelations in a dream”) is clearly expressed, to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.

The genre of didactic-allegorical poem (about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.) is adjacent to visions. Didactic genres also include sermons and various kinds of maxims borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. Sentences were collected in special collections, original textbooks of worldly wisdom.

Among the lyrical genres of literature, the dominant position was occupied by hymns glorifying the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. The hymns had their own canon. The composition of a hymn about saints, for example, included an opening, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his exploits, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.

Liturgy, the main Christian service, known since the 2nd century, is strictly canonical and symbolic in nature. The origins of liturgical drama date back to the early Middle Ages. The Catholic Church supported liturgical drama with its pronounced didacticism. By the end of the 11th century. liturgical drama has lost touch with liturgy. In addition to dramatizing biblical episodes, she began to act out the lives of saints and use elements of the theater proper - scenery. The intensification of the entertainment and spectacle of drama, the penetration of the worldly principle into it, forced the church to take dramatic performances outside the temple - first to the porch, and then to the city square. Liturgical drama became the basis for the emergence of medieval city theater.

CONCLUSION

The decline of medieval culture consisted in the destruction of the ideological system of culture, based on the principle of the supersensibility and superintelligence of God as the only reality and value. It began at the end of the 12th century, when the germ of a new - completely different - basic principle appeared, which was that objective reality and its meaning are sensory. Only what we see, hear, touch, feel and perceive through our senses is real and meaningful.

This slowly gaining weight new principle collided with the declining principle of ideational culture, and their fusion into an organic whole created a completely new culture in the 13th - 14th centuries. His basic premise was that objective reality is partly supersensible and partly sensory. The cultural system that embodies this premise can be called idealistic. The culture of the 13th - 14th centuries in Western Europe was predominantly idealistic, based on this synthesizing idea.

However, the process did not end there. The idealistic culture of the Middle Ages continued to decline, while the culture based on the recognition that objective reality and its meaning are sensory continued to accelerate in subsequent centuries. Beginning around the 16th century, the new principle became dominant, and with it the culture based on it. Thus arose the modern form of our culture - a culture that is sensory, experiential, secular and "worldly."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Introduction to cultural studies: Proc. allowance / Ed. E.V. Popova. M., 1995.

3. Dmitrieva N.A. A Brief History of Art. Part 1. M., 1986.

4. Le Goff J. Civilization of the medieval West. M., 1992.

5. Lyubimov L. The Art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. M., 1984.

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Abstract topic:

Gothic style in the Middle Ages

Table of contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………. 3
Chapter 1. Architecture………………………………………………… …… 5
Gothic Cathedral……………………………………………………... 5
1.1. France………………………………………………………8
1.2. Germany………………………………………………………. eleven
1.3. England…………………………………………………………. 13
1.4. Italy…………………………………………………….... ...... 15
Chapter 2. Sculpture…………………………………………………………… 17
Chapter 3. Painting
3.1. Stained glass………………………………………………………. 19
3.2. Miniature……………………………………………………. . 20
Conclusion……………………………………………………………... 22
Literature………………………………………………………………………………... 23
Application…………………………………………………… …………. 24

Introduction
Gothic (from Italian gotico, literally Gothic, from the name of the German tribe Goths) is an artistic style that was the final stage in the development of medieval art in Western, Central and partly Eastern Europe (between the mid-12th and 15-16th centuries). The term "Gothic" was coined by Italian Renaissance humanists as a pejorative designation for all medieval art considered "barbaric." From the beginning of the 19th century, when for art 10-12 centuries. the term “Romanesque style” was adopted, the chronological framework of Gothic was limited, in which, in turn, early, mature (high) and late phases were distinguished.
In the ideology and culture of the Gothic period, feudal-ecclesiastical foundations were preserved. Gothic developed, like the Romanesque style, in areas dominated by the Catholic Church. Gothic art remained predominantly cult in purpose and religious in theme: it was correlated with eternity, with “higher” irrational forces. From the Romanesque style, Gothic inherited both the undivided primacy of architecture in the art system and traditional types of religious buildings. The leading type in the Gothic era was the cathedral as the highest example of the synthesis of architecture, sculpture and painting, represented in Gothic mainly by stained glass windows. The huge space of the cathedral, incommensurate with man, the rush to the sky of its towers and vaults, the subordination of the statues to dynamic architectural rhythms, the bewitching glow of the stained glass windows had a strong emotional impact on the believers.
In different countries, the Gothic style has its own unique features. However, this does not deny its commonality and internal unity. In France - the birthplace of Gothic - works of this style are characterized by clarity of proportions, a sense of proportion, clarity, and elegance of forms. In England, they are distinguished by their heaviness, congestion of compositional lines, complexity and richness of architectural decor. In Germany, Gothic acquired a more abstract, mystical, but passionate character in expression. To Italy, where cities flourished by the end of the 13th century. Only individual, mainly decorative elements of Gothic style penetrated, not contradicting the principles of Romanesque architecture.

Chapter 1. Architecture
Urban planning and civil architecture began to develop intensively (residential buildings, town halls, guild houses, shopping arcades, warehouses, etc.). The main city square was lined with houses with arcades, trade and warehouse premises in the lower floors. Typically, radial streets radiated from the square; narrow facades of 2-5-story residential buildings with high gables lined the streets and embankments. Fortification construction was improved: cities were surrounded by powerful walls, passage towers were richly decorated; The castles of kings and feudal lords gradually lost their inaccessible appearance and turned into complex complexes of fortresses, palaces and places of worship. In the center of the city, dominating its buildings, there was a cathedral or castle. Grandiose Gothic cathedrals differed sharply from Romanesque monastery churches. They were roomy, tall, elegant, and spectacularly decorated. Their forms were striking in their dynamism, lightness and picturesqueness. The slender silhouette of the cathedral with sharp spiers and towers determined the character of the city landscape. Following the cathedral, residential buildings rushed upward, the number of floors in them increased, and gable gable (pointed) roofs stretched upward. Closed by a ring of fortress walls, the city developed upward. Intended for a large crowd of lay people, the cathedral was the main social center of the city.
Gothic cathedral
The Gothic cathedral, in comparison with the Romanesque, is a new stage in the development of the basilica type of building, in which all elements began to obey a uniform system. The main difference of a Gothic cathedral is a stable frame system, in which the structural role is played by cross-rib lancet vaults, cut through a network of protruding ribs (laid out of stone), internal (columns, pillars) and external (buttresses) supports. The efforts of the architects were aimed at highlighting and strengthening the main, load-bearing skeleton of the building and lightening the vaulted ceilings to the limit. For this purpose, the distribution of gravity and arch thrust was changed. The main nave was now divided into a number of rectangular sections. Each of them was covered with intersecting pointed arches. The shape of the pointed arch reduced the expansion of the vault. Lightening its weight was facilitated by a network of ribs, dividing the vault into small sections filled with thinner vault shells than before.
From below, the load of the rib vault was carried by powerful pillars. For each pillar there were several ribs converging into a bundle; their weight was borne by the service columns surrounding the pillar. Most of the lateral thrust and part of its vertical pressure were transferred to the outward buttresses - pillars-pylons with the help of flying buttresses (open supporting semi-arches). Flying buttresses were thrown over the roofs of the side naves to the base of the arches of the central nave.
All this made it possible to cover wide spans and sections of space of various shapes, as well as raise the vault to dizzying heights. The temple was filled with light. The wall, freed from its supporting functions, was cut through with large lancet windows, niches, galleries, and portals, which lightened its weight and connected the interior of the temple with the surrounding space.
A characteristic feature of Gothic architecture is the pointed arch, which largely determines the internal and external appearance of Gothic buildings. Repeatedly repeated in the design of the vault, windows, portals, galleries, it enhances the lightness and energy of architectural forms with its dynamic outlines. The Gothic cathedral inside makes a strong impression. Its interior - spacious, bright, designed for a crowded crowd - immediately opens up to the viewer and captures the rapid movement to the east, since the main entrance is now on the western short side. The boundaries between the transept and the longitudinal space of the naves are almost erased. The chapels merge to form a continuous wreath. They are separated from the temple by a colonnade, in which the walls seem to dissolve. The vast space of the temple becomes united and easily visible, dynamic, giving rise to an endless change of visual impressions.
The appearance of the cathedral has also changed significantly, because the internal structure of the building is projected onto the external one. The internal divisions of the longitudinal part of the building are visible in its facade. The image of the temple has lost its harsh isolation, and the temple seems to be facing the square. The role of the main western façade with monumental, richly decorated portals, which were previously located on the side walls, has increased. Tall, light towers, numerous vertical rods and spiers, pointed shapes of windows and portals with wimpergs (pointed ends above the windows and portals) gave the impression of uncontrollable upward movement and transformed the cathedral, according to Rodin, into a “symphony of light and shadow.” A complex system of sculptural decoration turned the stone wall into a kind of light lace; the contours became airy, as if dissolving into the environment. Colored windows occupying the upper part of the wall and through galleries contribute to the fact that the building seems to lose its materiality, but this does not deprive it of the impression of monumentality - the details are subordinated to a clear, logical and strict design.

France

Germany

England

Italy

Chapter 2. Sculpture
The development of plastic arts is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. She held first place in the fine arts of this time. It enhanced the emotionality and spectacle of Gothic architecture. The Gothic cathedral was especially richly decorated. The main place in its external and internal decorative decoration belonged to the statue and relief. The compositional and ideological concept of the sculptural decoration was subordinated to the program developed by theologians. In the temple, which, as before, personified the image of the universe, the religious history of mankind with its sublime and base sides, with its vital complexity, was now most fully represented in visible sensual forms. The focus of the sculptural compositions was the portals, where large statues of apostles, prophets, and saints were arranged in rows, as if welcoming visitors. Tympanums, arches of portals, spaces between them, galleries of the upper tiers, niches of turrets, vimpergi were decorated with high reliefs, decorative reliefs and statues. Many small figures and individual scenes were placed in transepts, on consoles, plinths, pedestals, buttresses, and roofs. The capitals and cornices were filled with images of birds, leaves, flowers, and various fruits; along the ledges of the cornices, the ribs of the turrets, and the flying buttresses, stone half-bloomed leaves (crabbies) seemed to run across them; the spiers were crowned with a flower (crucifer). All these ornamental motifs seemed to breathe a sense of natural life into architectural forms. Such an abundance of floral ornamentation is not found in other architectural styles.
Gothic sculpture is an organic part of the cathedral's architecture. It is included in the architectural design and is part of the functional elements of the building. The statues retain the closest connection with the wall, with the support. Figures of elongated proportions seem to echo the vertical divisions of architecture, obeying the dynamic rhythm of the whole, forming a single architectural and sculptural ensemble. Statues were often separated from the wall and placed in niches on separate pedestals.
The heyday of sculpture began at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. in France, when the process of national awakening was on the rise. The simplicity and grace of clear forms, smoothness and purity of contours, clarity of proportions, and restrained gestures served in French sculpture as an expression of moral strength and spiritual perfection.
The highest achievements of Gothic sculpture are associated with the construction of the Chartres, Reims and Amiens cathedrals, numbering up to two thousand sculptural works that are distinguished by high aesthetic pathos. Here classical techniques of sculptural decoration were developed, and a synthesis of all arts was developed under the protection of architecture. The draperies of the clothes, emphasizing the plasticity and flexibility of the human body, its life in the spatial environment, gave the statues great emotional expressiveness. In the Tent Cathedral, the sculptures have very characteristic folds of robes. They are elongated in long thin parallels, sometimes widening along the lower edge into beveled folds. The repetition of lines creates an impression of unity and stability, corresponding to the serious rigor of the design. This is the so-called “wet fold” technique. In the 13th century, the image of draperies changed. The thinness and elongation characteristic of the last century are gone. In their place were sharp folds, emphasizing the emptiness of the space between them. Over time, the style of figures and draperies changes. In the Amiens Cathedral, gracefulness, liveliness and movement appear in the figures. In Germany, sculpture was less developed. More ponderous in its forms than the French, it captivates with the power of dramatic images. German Gothic sculpture was characterized by a strong exaggeration of emotions in order to shock the viewer and make him empathize.
Chapter 3. Painting
3.1. Stained glass
An important role in the decorative design of the interior of the Gothic cathedral was played by its light-color design. The abundance of gilding in the interior and exterior decoration of the cathedral, the rose window, the openwork of the walls, the luminosity of the interior, the crystalline dismemberment of space deprived the matter of impenetrability and heaviness and, as it were, spiritualized it. This was facilitated by the stained glass windows that filled the huge surfaces of the windows; their compositions reproduced apocryphal tales, historical events, religious and literary subjects, as well as images of scenes from the life and work of craft corporations and peasants, representing a kind of encyclopedia of the medieval way of life. Each window is filled from top to bottom with figurative compositions enclosed in medallions. The stained glass technique, which made it possible to combine the color and light principles of painting, imparted increased emotionality to these compositions. Fiery, garnet-colored, deep scarlet, red, yellow, green, ultramarine, blue and dark blue glasses, cut out according to the contour of the design, letting in the outside light, burned like precious gems, transforming the entire interior of the temple, tuning a person into an elevated mood.
In the middle of the 13th century. complex colors were introduced into the colorful range, which were formed by duplicating glass (Sainte-Chapelle, 1250). The contours of the design on the glass were applied with brown enamel paint; the shapes were planar in nature.

3.2. Miniature
In the Gothic era (13-14 centuries), the art of miniatures reached its peak. Their development was caused by the strengthening of secular trends in culture. Even illustrations with multi-figure compositions of religious content included finely observed realistic details: ornaments of plant motifs, images of birds, butterflies, animals, and everyday scenes, the poetic charm of which was conveyed by the French miniaturist Jean Pucelle. He introduced grisaille into miniature - painting done with only gray paint. A leading place in the development of French miniatures of the 13th-14th centuries. belonged to the Parisian school. In the Psalter of St. Louis (1270, Paris, Louvre) multi-figure compositions are framed by one motif of Gothic architecture, which gives harmony to the narrative. The figures of knights and ladies are full of grace - their forms are drawn with flowing lines, creating the illusion of movement. The decorative architecture of the drawing, the density and richness of the colors turn the miniatures into a decoration of the page.
In the English Psalters there were large illustrations at the beginning of the book, and to decorate the text they were limited to small scenes inserted inside the capital letters. The hallmark of the East Anglian school was the extravagant border pattern. Miniatures, images of animals and leaves were placed inside a border of a regular quadrangular shape.
A restless angular rhythm, pointed forms, and the subtlety of the sinuous lines of an openwork pattern distinguish the style of the Gothic book. In the 14th-15th centuries. They also illustrated secular manuscripts - scientific treatises, books of hours, chronicles, collections of love songs. In works of courtly literature, the ideal of knightly love was embodied in miniature; scenes of surrounding life were reproduced (Manuscript of Manes, c. 1320). The storytelling has intensified. In the “Great French Chronicles” (late 14th century), the artist sought to penetrate the meaning of the event depicted - these are real illustrations of a literary work. At the same time, the book was given a decorative elegance with the help of fancy frame shapes and exquisite vignettes. The miniature brought a living current into medieval art, influencing painting as well.

Conclusion
The bold and complex frame structure of the cathedral, which emerged in the Gothic era, made it possible to overcome the inertia and massiveness of Romanesque buildings, lighten the walls and vaults, create a dynamic unity of spatial cells and greatly enlarge the interior. The cathedral became the center of city life, often housing the entire population of the city. The ideological and artistic content of the cathedral is complex, multifaceted and synthetic: it was thought of as a kind of body of knowledge, a symbol of the Universe. Feeding on the ideas of Christianity, this art penetrated deeply into the inner world of man. The interest of medieval art in the moral character of man was enormous.
The synthesis of arts in Gothic is incomparably richer and more complex than in the Romanesque style, and the system of plots is much wider, more harmonious and more logical; it reflected all medieval ideas about the world. The main type of fine art was sculpture. Sculptural groups received rich artistic content and developed plastic forms; the rigidity and isolation of the pillar-shaped Romanesque statues was replaced by the mobility of the figures, their appeal to each other and to the viewer. There was a renewed interest in real natural forms, physical beauty and human feelings. The appeal to the diversity and contradictions of life, reflecting the clash of social forces of medieval society, determined the complexity, conflict and drama of Gothic art.
Also, the Gothic era is the time of the heyday of book miniatures and the appearance of easel painting, the time of a high rise in the decorative arts associated with the flourishing of guild crafts.

Literature

Brigitte Kurmann-Schwartz. Gothic stained glass windows.
General History of Arts - M., 1960;
History of foreign art - M., 1980.
Martindale E. Gothic - M., 2001.
Nesselstrauss Ts. G., The Art of Western Europe in the Middle Ages - M., 1964.
Ute Engel. Gothic architecture in England.
Ehrenfried Kluckaert. Book miniature.

Application

Diagram of flying buttresses and buttresses

Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris

Chartres Cathedral

The figurative and semantic system of medieval art expressed the central idea of ​​the worldview of medieval man - the Christian idea of ​​God. Art was perceived as a kind of biblical text, easily “read” by believers through numerous sculptural and pictorial images. Since the language of the Bible and worship was Latin, unfamiliar to most laypeople, the sculptural and pictorial images had a didactic meaning - to convey to believers the foundations of Christian dogma. In the temple, the entire Christian teaching unfolded before the eyes of a medieval man. The idea of ​​the sinfulness of the world was reflected by the leading plot in the design of churches, sculptures and reliefs - scenes of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse. Looking at the cathedral, a medieval person could, as it were, read Holy Scripture in the images depicted there. The same image of the Last Judgment clearly represented the theological scheme of the hierarchical structure of the world. The figure of Christ was always depicted in the center of the composition. The upper part was occupied by heaven, the lower by earth, on the right hand of Christ there was heaven and the righteous (good), on the left - sinners condemned to eternal torment, devils and hell (evil).

Strictly following the universal church canons, medieval artists were called upon to demonstrate divine beauty in figurative form. The aesthetic ideal of medieval art was the opposite of ancient art, reflecting the Christian understanding of beauty. The idea of ​​the superiority of the spirit over the physical and carnal is represented in the asceticism of the images of monumental painting and sculpture, their severity and detachment from the outside world. The extreme conventionality of the entire figurative system of medieval art was reflected in the canons of constructing the human figure: linearity, solemn immobility, elongated oval faces and figures, wide open eyes, “disembodiment,” ethereal figures. Medieval painting does not know the perspective that reveals the depth of the picture. Before the viewer there is a planar development of the composition and the only visible movement is upward, directed towards the sky.

The most important feature of medieval art is symbolism. A sculptural or pictorial image is, first of all, a symbol, a certain religious idea captured in stone or paint. Like the Bible, icon painting is, first of all, a revealed word (the complete identity between painting and verbal texts was confirmed by the church already in the 8th century). The entire figurative structure of medieval art is symbolic (the long, almost sexless bodies of the apostles and saints express the idea of ​​the spiritual principle overcoming sinful matter - the flesh).

The diversity of figures is another feature of medieval art. The size of the figures was determined by the hierarchical significance of what was depicted (which, by the way, made it easy to “recognize” the characters depicted). Christ is always greater than the apostles and angels, who, in turn, are greater than ordinary laymen.

XI - XII centuries in Western Europe, this is the period of greatest power of the church. The creators of the Romanesque style were monasteries and episcopal cities. The Church during this period reduced the task of art to the need to show not visible beauty, but the true beauty of the spirit. The aesthetic ideal that arose in Romanesque art, the entire figurative and semantic system of Romanesque art was designed to solve the problem.

The contrast between the heavy, squat outlines of the cathedral and the spiritual expression of its images reflected the Christian formula of beauty - the idea of ​​​​the superiority of the spiritual over the physical. The Romanesque cathedral was a symbol of the stronghold of the human spirit in art. Architecture, paintings, door reliefs necessarily complemented each other, forming a unity based on the subordination of the small to the large, reflecting the principle of the medieval hierarchy. The paintings of the Romanesque church create a special closed world, where the layman became a participant in the depicted scenes. Drama and expressiveness, intense spiritual expressiveness of pictorial images, characteristic of Romanesque painting (scenes of the Last Judgment, the struggle between angels and the devil for human souls - a common subject of temple paintings) had a huge emotional impact, reflecting the idea of ​​​​the sinfulness of the world, the idea of ​​redemption and salvation. The flat, two-dimensional image of paintings and sculptures of the Romanesque style, the generality of forms, the violation of proportions, and the monumental significance of the images symbolized the timeless, eternal in the understanding of the world.

Romanesque architecture was based on the achievements of the previous period (in particular, the Carolingian Renaissance) and was formed under the strong influence of the traditions of ancient, Byzantine or Arabic art, featuring a wide variety of forms. It exhibits many movements that existed in various areas of Western Europe and reflected local traditions and artistic tastes (for example, Italian Romanesque art was more strongly influenced by Byzantine traditions). Nevertheless, the Romanesque style by the 12th century. became the first pan-European style. This is the historical style of the mature Middle Ages, characterized by a commonality of building types, their constructive techniques and means of expression.

The main structures of Romanesque architecture were the monastery complex of temples and the type of closed fortified dwelling of the feudal lord - the castle. In the 10th century A type of fortified dwelling developed in the form of a tower - a donjon, which was surrounded by a moat and rampart. By the end of the 11th century. They begin to build a separate building for the feudal lord’s home. The donjon now plays only defensive functions, serving as a refuge when taking defensive walls. The architecture of castles was deeply functional. As in temple architecture, thick, massive walls and towers, narrow windows, and a general expression of severity constituted their characteristic features.

Along with sculpture, painting was an indispensable component of the Romanesque architectural ensemble. Biblical scenes and episodes from the lives of saints are widely represented on the inner surfaces of the walls. Romanesque painting was formed under the influence of Byzantine traditions. Following the iconographic canon, artists created flat figures with elongated proportions, with stern, motionless ascetic faces, which were perceived as symbols of Christian beauty - spiritual beauty that conquers sinful matter.

Outstanding monuments of Romanesque architecture include the Notre Dame Cathedral in Poitiers, the cathedrals in Toulouse, Orcinval, Arne (France), the cathedrals in Oxford, Winchester, Norwich (England), and the cathedral in Lund (Sweden). The cathedrals in Worms, Speyer and Mainz (Germany) became examples of late Romanesque style.

By the end of the 12th century. Romanesque art is replaced by Gothic (the term was first used by Renaissance historians to characterize all medieval art, which they associated with barbarian art).

The Gothic era (late XII - XV centuries) is a period when urban culture begins to play an increasingly important role in medieval culture. In all areas of life in medieval society, the importance of the secular, rational principle increases. The Church is gradually losing its dominant position in the spiritual sphere. As urban culture developed, on the one hand, church restrictions in the field of art began to weaken, and on the other hand, trying to make maximum use of the ideological and emotional power of art for its own purposes, the church finally developed its attitude towards art, which found expression in the treatises of philosophers of this time. Medieval scholastics argued that art is an imitation of nature. Although didacticism, the ability to express religious dogmas and values, was still recognized as the main task of art, the scholastics did not deny the emotional power of art, its ability to evoke admiration.

The design of the Gothic cathedral revealed new ideas of the Catholic Church, the increased self-awareness of the urban strata, and new ideas about the world. The dynamic upward thrust of all forms of the cathedral reflected the Christian idea of ​​the aspiration of the soul of the righteous to heaven, where it is promised eternal bliss. Religious subjects retain their dominant position in Gothic art. The images of Gothic sculpture, personifying the dogmas and values ​​of Christianity, the very appearance of the cathedral, and all forms of Gothic art were intended to promote a mystical perception of God and the world. At the same time, the growing interest in human feelings, in the beauty of the real world, the desire to individualize images, the increasing role of secular subjects, the strengthening of realistic tendencies - all this distinguishes the Gothic style from the Romanesque as a more mature style of art, reflecting the spirit of its time, its new trends - awakening of the mind and feelings, growing interest in a person.

The first Gothic forms in architecture appeared in Europe at the end of the 12th century, but the Gothic style flourished in the 13th century. In the XIV - XV centuries. there is a gradual “fading away” of Gothic (“flaming Gothic”).

Gothic architecture became a new stage in the development of the basilica type of construction, in which all elements began to obey a single system. The main feature of the Gothic cathedral is a stable frame system, in which the structural role is played by cross-rib pointed vaults and pointed arches, which largely determine the internal and external appearance of the cathedral. The entire weight of the cathedral's bulk fell on its frame. This made it possible to make thin walls in which huge windows were cut out. The most characteristic motif of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch, which seemed to stretch the building to the heavens.

The construction of Gothic temples was carried out not only by the church, but also by cities. Moreover, the largest buildings, and above all cathedrals, were erected at the expense of the townspeople. The purpose of the Gothic temple was not only cultic, it also served as the center of public life in the city. University lectures were given there and mysteries were played. Various kinds of secular and church ceremonies were also held on the cathedral square, attracting crowds of citizens. Cathedrals were built “by the whole world”; their construction often lasted decades, and sometimes several centuries.

The Gothic style received classical expression in France, which is rightfully considered the birthplace of Gothic. (Notre Dame Cathedral was founded in 1163 and was completed until the mid-13th century.) The most famous monuments of French Gothic are the cathedrals of Amiens and Reims (13th century), and the Church of Saint Chapelle (13th century).

Mature Gothic is characterized by an increase in verticalism, a greater upward focus. One of the most remarkable monuments of mature Gothic is Reims Cathedral - the place of coronation of French kings.

English cathedrals were somewhat different, characterized by their great length and peculiar intersection of pointed arches on the vaults. The most famous monument of English Gothic is Westminster Abbey (XIII - XVI centuries).

The development of sculpture, which played a leading role in the fine arts of this period, is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. Gothic sculpture is more subordinate to architecture and has a more independent meaning than Romanesque. Numerous niches on the facades of cathedrals housed figures personifying the dogmas of the Christian faith. Lively poses and slight bends give them mobility and dynamism, unlike Romanesque ones. The images of saints themselves have become more diverse, specific, and individual. The most significant figures were attached to columns in the openings on the sides of the entrance to the cathedral. Along with those placed in niches or attached to columns, there were also free-standing monumental statues (that is, sculpture in the modern sense of the word).

Thus, Gothic art revived sculpture itself, unknown to medieval culture since antiquity. Like Romanesque churches, the Gothic cathedral often contains images of monsters and fantastic creatures (chimeras). The characteristic features of Gothic sculpture can be reduced to the following: interest in the phenomena of the real world; figures representing the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church become more realistic; the role of secular subjects is increasing; round plastic appears and begins to play a dominant role (although the relief does not disappear).

In the Gothic cathedral, painting is represented mainly by painting of altars. As the frame system was established and the wall became more openwork, the space in the cathedral for frescoes became increasingly narrower - they were more often replaced by stained glass windows. Stained glass opened up new possibilities for the medieval artist. Christianity gave light a divine and mystical meaning. The light pouring from the sky symbolized the light coming from God. The play of light penetrating through the stained glass led the laity away from everything concrete, earthly, and led to the intangible, luminous. The stained glass window seemed to muffle the physicality, expressiveness, and concreteness of the images of Gothic plastic art. The luminosity of the interior space of the cathedral seemed to deprive matter of its impenetrability and spiritualize it.

The Gothic style changed the appearance of the medieval city and contributed to the development of secular construction. Town halls with open galleries are beginning to be built in cities. The castles of aristocrats increasingly resemble palaces. Rich townspeople build houses with peaked gable roofs, narrow windows, lancet doorways, and corner turrets.

Traces of pagan beliefs of peasants can be traced in folklore, especially in fairy tales and sayings. Peasant folklore expresses a negative attitude towards the rich. The favorite hero of Western European fairy tales is the poor man. Heroes of folk tales often became Jean the Fool in France, Stupid Hans in Germany, and the Great Fool in England.

Secular and ecclesiastical literature used fairy-tale material from the Middle Ages quite widely. Around 1100, the Spaniard Petrus of Alphonse compiled a whole collection, which included 34 stories, including a number of tales about animals - “common stories”. The clergy compilers gave these stories a moralistic interpretation.

Fairy tale-narrative material was widely used in chivalric novels, in the short stories of Mary of France (12th century), in urban short stories of the 14th - 15th centuries, and in individual works of the Mastersingers. However, in all cases, this is only material; often only individual episodes, motives and details are used. Only from the middle of the 16th century. we can talk about the introduction of fairy tales themselves into literature.

Various kinds of evil spirits are a frequent hero of Western European folk tales. In many stories, the characters are animals with human abilities. In the 13th century These numerous stories were combined and translated into poetry - this is how the already mentioned famous medieval folk poem “The Romance of the Fox” arose.

Peasant ideas about a just life, about nobility and honor are heard in tales about noble robbers protecting the orphans and the disadvantaged.

Anglo-Scottish ballads based on this subject became a genre of medieval folk art. Their anonymous authors were peasants, artisans, and sometimes the ballads were composed by professional singers - minstrels. These works circulated among the people. The origin of the ballad as a genre of folk art is unknown. The earliest ballad dates back to the 13th century. English and Scottish ballads are divided into several groups: ballads of epic content, which are based on real historical events, so-called robber ballads, lyrical-dramatic love ballads, fantastic and everyday ones.

The hero of the robber ballads is the noble Robin Hood, the folk hero of England, and his army. The first ballads about Robin Hood were recorded in the 15th century. In the ballad it is easy to trace the sympathy of the people for the forest shooters who went into the forest as a result of oppression. For the first time in European poetry, a person of ignoble origin became the ideal. Unlike the knights, Robin Hood fights against the oppressors of the people. All the good feelings and deeds of the brave archer extend only to the people.

The main thing in the plot of love ballads is the celebration not of a feat in the name of a beautiful lady (as in chivalric poetry), but of a genuine feeling, the emotional experiences of lovers.

Fantastic ballads reflected the beliefs of the people. The supernatural world with its fairies, elves and other fantastic characters appears in these ballads as a real, actual world.

In a later period, everyday ballads appeared, characterized by greater prosaicism and a predominance of the comic element. The ballad often uses artistic techniques of folk art. The language of ballads is peculiar - concrete words, without pompous metaphors and rhetorical figures. Another feature of ballads is their clear rhythm.

Peasant work and rest were associated with songs - ritual, labor, festive, folk dances.

In the countries of French and German culture, at fairs and in villages, joggers (players) and shpilmans (literally - a player) - wandering poet-singers, bearers of folk culture - often performed. They performed spiritual poems, folk songs, heroic poems, etc. to musical accompaniment. The singing was accompanied by dancing, puppet theater, and various kinds of magic tricks. Folk singers often performed in the castles of feudal lords and in monasteries, making folk culture the property of all layers of medieval society. Later, from the 12th century, they began to perform various genres of knightly and urban literature. The folk art of jugglers and shpilmans became the basis of secular knightly and urban musical and poetic culture.

Medieval literature had a number of common characteristics that determined its internal integrity. It was literature of the traditionalist type. Throughout its existence, it developed on the basis of the constant reproduction of a limited set of figurative, ideological, compositional and other structures - topoi (commonplaces) or cliches, expressed in the constancy of epithets, pictorial cliches, the stability of motives and themes, the constancy of canons for depicting all figurative systems (be it a young man in love, a Christian martyr, a knight, a beauty, an emperor, a townsman, etc.). On the basis of these clichés, genre topoi were formed that had their own semantic, thematic and visual-expressive canon (for example, the genre of hagiography or the genre of courtly novel in knightly literature).

Medieval people found in literature a generally accepted, traditional model, a ready-made universal formula for describing the hero, his feelings, appearance, etc. (beauties are always golden-headed and blue-eyed, rich people are stingy, saints have a traditional set of virtues, etc.). Medieval topoi, clichés, and canons reduced the individual to the general, typical. Hence the specificity of authorship in medieval literature (and in medieval art in general).

Medieval art did not deny the originality of the author. The medieval reader (and author) saw the author’s originality not in a unique, individual (author’s) understanding of the world and man, but in the skill of implementing a system of topics common to all authors (in the visual arts - canons).

The formation of medieval topics was significantly influenced by the literature of antiquity. In episcopal schools of the early Middle Ages, students, in particular, read “exemplary” works of ancient authors (Aesop’s fables, works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, etc.), learned ancient topics and used them in their own writings.

The ambivalent attitude of the Middle Ages towards ancient culture as primarily pagan led to the selective assimilation of ancient cultural traditions and their adaptation to express Christian spiritual values ​​and ideals. In literature, this was expressed in the overlay of ancient topics on the topics of the Bible, the main source of the figurative system of medieval literature, which sanctified the spiritual values ​​and ideals of medieval society.

The second feature of medieval literature is its pronounced moral and didactic character. Medieval people expected morality from literature; without morality, the entire meaning of the work was lost for him.

The third feature is that the literature of the Middle Ages was equally based on Christian ideals and values ​​and equally strived for aesthetic perfection, distinguishing itself only thematically. Although, of course, the very appearance and development of secular principles in culture was of fundamental importance, reflecting that line in the formation of the spiritual culture of medieval society, the development of which would later prepare the flowering of Renaissance literature.

Throughout the centuries-long development of the Middle Ages, hagiography - church literature describing the lives of saints - was especially popular. By the 10th century The canon of this literary genre was formed: the indestructible, strong spirit of the hero (martyr, missionary, fighter for the Christian faith), a classic set of virtues, constant formulas of praise. The life of the saint offered the highest moral lesson and captivated people with examples of righteous life. Hagiographic literature is characterized by the motif of a miracle, which corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - “legends” - began to be read in church, and the lives themselves began to be collected in extensive collections. The “Golden Legend” of Jacob of Voragin (13th century), a collection of lives of Catholic saints, became widely known in medieval Europe.

The penchant of the Middle Ages for allegory and allegory was expressed by the genre of visions. According to medieval ideas, the highest meaning is revealed only by revelation - vision. In the genre of visions, the fate of people and the world was revealed to the author in a dream. Visions often told about real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. Visions had a significant influence on the development of later medieval literature, starting from the famous French “Roman of the Rose” (13th century), in which the motif of visions (“revelations in a dream”) is clearly expressed, to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.

The genre of didactic-allegorical poem (about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.) is adjacent to visions. Didactic genres also include sermons and various kinds of maxims borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. Sentences were collected in special collections, original textbooks of worldly wisdom.

Among the lyrical genres of literature, the dominant position was occupied by hymns glorifying the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. The hymns had their own canon. The composition of a hymn about saints, for example, included an opening, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his exploits, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.

Liturgy, the main Christian service, known since the 2nd century, is strictly canonical and symbolic in nature. The origins of liturgical drama date back to the early Middle Ages. The Catholic Church supported liturgical drama with its pronounced didacticism. By the end of the 11th century. liturgical drama has lost touch with liturgy. In addition to dramatizing biblical episodes, she began to act out the lives of saints and use elements of the theater proper - scenery. The intensification of the entertainment and spectacle of drama, the penetration of the worldly principle into it, forced the church to take dramatic performances outside the temple - first to the porch, and then to the city square. Liturgical drama became the basis for the emergence of medieval city theater.