Ravenna, S. Vitale, (532-548 CE)

• It is located inland from the Adriatic Sea, with which it is connected by a canal. It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ad and of the Ostrogothic kingdom and Byzantine Italy in the 6th–8th centuries. Ravenna’s art and architecture reflect a fusion of Roman forms with Byzantine mosaics and other decoration; sites include the 6th-century basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and the octagonal church of San Vitale. It became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and today is an agricultural and industrial city

Saint-Sernin,Toulouse, France,ca. 1070-1120

• The Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, France, is the former abbey church of the Abbey of St. Sernin or St. Saturnin, and was built in the Romanesque style between about 1080 and 1120. It is located on the site of a previous basilica of the 4th century which contained the body of Saint Saturnin or Sernin, the first bishop of Toulouse in c. 250.

 

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

• Notre Dame Cathedral  (full name: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris")  is a beautiful cathedral on the the Île de la Cité in Paris. Begun in 1163 and mostly completed by 1250,
• Notre Dame Cathedral is an impressive marvel of medieval architecture. Started in 1163 and completed in 1330, Notre Dame Cathedral has a striking gothic exterior, two broad towers, and plenty of sweeping arches. The gothic exterior is full of intricate details and the ornate interior is light and airy. Notre Dame is an important example of French Gothic architecture, sculpture and stained glass.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris,West Rose Window (c.1220)

• The stained glass windows of the Notre-Dame are very beautiful and a good part of them date from the 13th century when the cathedral was constructed
•  The west rose window at Notre Dame is 10 meters in diameter and exceptionally beautiful. Dating from about 1220, it retains most of its original glass and tracery. The main theme of the west rose is human life, featuring symbolic scenes such as the Zodiacs and Labors of the Months. On the exterior, it is fronted by a statue of the Virgin and Child accompanied by angels. Unfortunately, the interior view of its colorful medieval glass is now more than half blocked by the great organ.

 

A Chapel Built to be Painted,Giotto Di Bondone,Interior of the Arena Chapel , 1305-1306,Padua, Italy,

• The “Arena Chapel” gets it name from the Roman amphitheater that is near by and was built for a local Paduan merchant.
• The design of the building so perfectly fits the illusion that its is suggested that Giotto may have been the architect as well. The rectangular barrel-vaulted hall has six narrow windows in its south wall only, which left the entire north wall an unbroken and well-illuminated surface for painting.
• The result of such a large “canvas” on which to paint was a complete pictorial cycle of Christian Redemption, created in 38 framed pictures on 3 levels. The top level contains images of Virgin Mary and her parents, the middle level contains imagery from the life and mission of Christ, and the bottom level depicts Christ’s Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.
• The pictorial levels are on a neutral base with imitation marble veneer alternates with the virtues and vices painted in grisaill (monochrome grays, often used for modeling in painting) to resemble sculptureThe ceiling is blue, an azure sky symbolic of heaven, the same blue is found in the backgrounds of the panels and acts as a unifying effect. The borders are complex and contrast the simple images they surround.
•  The figures are sculpturesque, simple, and weighty, but this mass does not preclude motion and emotion with postures and gestures expressing a broad spectrum of grief

 

Momentous Changes in Pictorial Style Masaccio, Tribute Money, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, ca. 1427

• The individual figures are solemn and weighty, but also express bodily structure and movement. They do not appear as a stiff screen in the front planes. Instead, the artist grouped them in circular depth around Christ, and he placed the whole group in a spacious landscape, rather than in the confined stage space of earlier frescoes.
• Although ancient Roman painters used aerial perspective, medieval artists had abandoned it. It disappeared from art until Masaccio and his contemporaries rediscovered it. They realized that light and air interposed between viewers and what they see are parts of the visual experience called “distance.”

A Visual Call to Prayer Fra Angelico, Annunciation,Fresco Painting.

 

• This fresco painting by Fra Angelico appears at the top of the stairs leading to the friar’s cells.

• Appropriately, Fra Angelico presented the scene of the Virgin Mary and and Archangel Gabriel with simplicity and serenity.
• The two figures appear in plain loggia, and the artist painted all the fresco elements with a pristine clarity.
• As an admonition to heed the devotional function of the images, he included a small inscription at the base of the image that reads “As you venerate, while passing before it, this figure of the intact Virgin, lest you omit to say to say a Hail Mary.”

 

An Elegant and Cultured Woman Domenico Ghirlandaio, Giovanna Tornabuoni

DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO, Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488.

• Oil and tempera on wood, approx. 2' 6" x 1' 8". Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Spain
• Domenico Ghirlandaio's portrait shows a refined and sensitive aristocratic young woman in a profile pose.
• Domenico Ghirlandaio produced this portait of an aristocratic young woman, probably Giovanna Tornabuoni, a member of the powerful Albizzi family and wife of Lorenzo Tournabuoni.  
• Though artists of this age had moved away from employing the profile pose to convey a character reading, this portrait reveals the proud bearing of a sensitive and beautiful young woman.  
• It tells viewers much about the advanced state of culture in Florence, the value and careful cultivation of beauty in life and art, the breeding of courtly manners, and the great wealth behind it all.
• The painting also shows the powerful attraction classical liaterature help for Italian humanists; in the background an epitaph quotes the ancient Roman poet Martial.

FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI, dome of Florence Cathedral (view from the south), Florence, Italy, 1420-1436

• The Florence Cathedral was recognized as the center of the most important religious observances in Florence. It was begun in 1296 by Arnolfo di Cambio and was intended to be the “most beautiful and honorable church in Tuscany.”
• The building’s surfaces were ornamented in the old Tuscan fashion, with marble-encrusted geometric designs matching it to its eleventh-century Romanesque Baptistery of San GiovanniBrunelleschi's double-shelled dome for Florence Cathedral is original in section and designed around a skeleton of twenty-four ribs, of which eight are visible on the exterior. The structure is anchored at the top with a heavy lantern.
• To minimize the structure’s weight, he designed a relatively thin double shell--the first in history--around a skeleton of 24 ribs. The eight most important are visible on the exterior. The structure is anchored at the top with a heavy lantern, built after his death but from his design.
  

Hagia Sophia Istambul, Interior

• Hagia Sophia the main church of the Byzantine Empire. It is one of the most important early Byzantine buildings in Istanbul.
• Formerly the Church of the Saints Sergius.
• Later converted into a mosque during the Ottoman Empire.
• Daylight is flooding the church through 91 windows, illuminating the incredible beauty of the interior, which is adorned with marble tiles, elaborate, colourful mosaics and pictures, created from ceramics, precious and semiprecious stones, gold... The structure of the interior and the play of light convey the impression of weightlessness, which certainly contributed to the churches legendary fame.

Hagia Sophia Istambul, Interior.

Capital,Hagia Sophia Istambul.

• Motifs of scrolls and foliage, derived from classical architecture, but effect is radically different- no longer look as if they cushion the impact of the weight of the column- now is delicate and pattern defies the weight of the stone.

Hagia Sophia,Istambul,Dome's Interior.

• The grand dome of the Hagia Sophia, an impressive technical feat for its time, is often thought to symbolize the infinity of the cosmos signified by the Holy Soul to which the church was dedicated.
• Massive dome of Hagia Sophia measures 31 meters wide and 56 meters high

Panal Of "Gate Of Paradise"

• LORENZO GHIBERTI, Isaac and His Sons , east doors, baptistery, Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy, 1425-1452. Gilded bronze relief, approx. 2' 7 1/2" x 2' 7
• In the foreground are the women attending the birth of Jacob and Esau, with Rebecca in labor in the middle ground. Also in the foreground are Isaac sending Esau on the hunt and on the right Jacob receiving Isaac's blessing, with a beautiful classical Rebecca, the conspirator, standing nearby. In the background Esau is seen in low relief hunting and on the roof Rebecca is hearing God's warning about the eventual conflict between her two unborn sons.

The "Gates of Paradise" Baptistery, Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy

• Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" are comprised of ten gilded bronze relief panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament. In Isaac and His Sons, Ghiberti creates the illusion of space using perspective and sculptural means. Ghiberti also persists in using the medieval narrative method of presenting several episodes within a single frame.

Chartres Center Portal: The Apocalypse: Judgment Day

• Tympanum: Christ enthroned as judge and ruler of the universe w/ four evangelists Lintel: 12 standing apostles and two extra figures, probably Elijah and Enoch Voussiors: 24 seated elders holding musical instruments: Old Testament prophets Capitals: Life of Christ

Laon Cathedral Interior

•  The nave interior of Laon Cathedral shows the usual features of an Early Gothic cathedral: a four-part elevation (nave arcade resting on the floor, a tribune gallery on the second level, a blind arcade called a triforium on the third level, and clerestory windows at the top), ribbed groin vaulting in the nave, sexpartite vaulting (6 sections to each vaulting module), and pointed arches. At the east end, you can see the rose window which was to grace all succeeding Gothic churches. The columns of the nave arcade, you will note, are rather heavy and undifferentiated...a striking contrast to High Gothic lean composite columns.

Muhammad Ibn al-zayn Basin

• The Baptistère of St. Louis is one of the great masterpieces of Islamic art. Its perfection - and the mysteries surrounding it - are a source of fascination. It was made by the master craftsman Mohammed ibn al-Zain, who signed his work six times. A second inlaid metal bowl of his making is also in the museum's collections. The basin is decorated with scenes of human activity, inlaid with precious metals.

Painted Chest from the Tomb of Tutankhamen

• "Its outer face was completely covered with gesso; upon this prepared surface there were a series of brilliantly coloured and exquisitely painted designs—hunting scenes upon the curved panels of the lid, battle scenes upon the sides, and upon the ends representations of the king in lion form, trampling his enemies under his feet. The illustrations (Burton's photos)… give but a faint idea of the delicacy of the painting, which far surpasses anything of the kind that Egypt has yet produced. No photograph could do it justice, for even in the original a magnifying glass is essential to a due appreciation of the smaller details, such as the stippling of the lions' coats, or the decoration of the horses' trappings."

THUTMOSE , Nefertiti , Painted Lime Stone, from Tell el-Amarna , Egypt,ca 1353-1335

• The extremely famous and elegant bust portrait of Nefertiti,Egyptian royal sculptor Thutmose carved piece of limestone ,plastered then richly painted.Flesh tones on the face give the bust life.Her full lips are enhanced by a bold red.Although the crystal inlay eyeball is missing from her left eye ,both eyelid and brows are outlined in black.The neck is extended in contrast to the tall hat, chin narrowing and cheeks flaring.,it is also crown contrast the yellow brown of her smooth skin.Masklike face,and enormous shadow eyes,present modern Nefertiti like modles in Fashion Magazines.

                                      

The throne, from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (c.1370-1352 BC) New Kingdom (gilded wood inlaid with semi-precious stones)

• Without a doubt, this is a seat fit for a King. Built from fastened pieces of wood and then covered in gold sheeting or painted gilding, the detail was then carved and completed with semi-precious stones and coloured glass. The throne is almost completely intact, with the only missing piece being the vertical struts between the seat and the leg braces. Dating from the start of Tutankhamun's reign, the throne bears the name of King Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhsenamen

Death Mask of Tutankhamun

• The death mask of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun is made of gold inlaid with colored glass and semiprecious stone. The mask comes from the innermost mummy case in the pharaoh’s tomb, and stands 54 cm (21 in) high. The emblems on the forehead (vulture and cobra) and on the shoulders (falcon heads) were symbols of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt and of divine authority. The vulture Nekhbet and the cobra Wadjet protected the pharaoh.

The Lamentation over the Body of Christ By Giovanni Bellini

•  Christ's body is held upright by the Virgin Mary on the right and St John on the left. The legs are foreshortened and the depth of field accentuated by the inert arm on the edge of the sarcophagus and the small bottle of ointment. Mary Magdalene kneels on the right, hands joined and almost in profile in relation to the other three figures. Her pose stresses the image's diagonal thrust, which is further emphasized by the angle of Christ's head and torso, the Virgin's arm holding his body, and the distancing of St John's shoulders. With its focal point set in the left-hand part of the sheet, the composition is imbued with the emotional dialogue taking place: the body of Christ is surrounded by a cadence of curves that seems to magnify the suffering and tender grief of the other figures.

Man with a Turban By Giovanni Bellini