Gothic Art Outside France? Any Good? Central Europe, etc.?

French Gothic art is very renown, and for good reason. French cathedrals are magnificent, totally awe-inspiring.

Sadly, often it is only Gothic art known to travelers in Europe, and I understand that. Time and money can be a limiting factor. I consider myself lucky, growing and living where I could just take a walk and could step in a welcoming interior of a Gothic cathedral. Or a Gothic church, or a Baroque one, and other international styles. For sure this can nourish your aesthetic sensibilities. This is one reason I write this blog, to be able to share what I got for granted.

Sure, Reims, Chartres, Notre Dame, etc. are worth the journey, are iconic. So are Paris, Giverny, Carcassonne, and other beautiful places. So is Cologne with magnificent and finished cathedral towers.Stump-like towers of French cathedrals are unfinished, you know, those towers with flat tops? Those are unfinished ones, not just the intention of the builders.

Other German cathedrals or Gothic churches are also worth the visit. They look very much like the French ones, but the towers are usually much taller, truly the intention of Gothic, often with open work spires, lacy. Gothic was architecture which ambition was to grow as much in height as possible, the ideal was  to get the numbers of the ratio of walls and floor space as much different as possible (1:1 would be a bad ratio!) Cologne cathedral has 1:4 ratio of surface vs. height. French cathedrals get to 1:3 ratio. It was like a racing toward the sky, and often the attempts of getting the ratio to the extremes resulted in collapses of the cathedrals.Here is shown what you can see, and hear at the Cologne Cathedral.

And here are the magnificent bells an the exterior of Cologne Cathedral

  But there is of course beautiful lot of Gothic art in other countries too: England, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland, Baltic States. Poland and Baltic States have examples of brick Gothic.

Portal of St. Vitus Cathedral wit rose window, stone masonry, Prague, via wiki commons courtesy of Vaylag

With mass tourism being such lively enterprise, many people are able to see a lot, but often this is knowledge given by the tour guides. Pity when among Gothic cathedrals only Chartres or Notre Dame rings the bell, but Amiens is a total mystery. I mean I don't argue to visit all possible sites, but to read. I wonder, maybe it is the fault of art historians, or popularizes, or people like me who can't make the subject interesting? For ex. authors who make Chartres a place of mystery reshaping its once famous cathedral school, (but one of many cathedral schools of the day) into some esoteric tradition school have the upper hand, as captivating story is given. Facts can be captivating? I think so, but then I am an art history geek.

There is also a curious situation regarding the Middle Ages: most popular knowledge deals with Western, parts of Central Europe, little with Eastern Europe. Byzantium is kind of a lost empire. Prague, luckily, developed into a tourist attraction. Krakow (Cracow) seems to be on its way now. I am Polish, and I am sometimes surprised when some people are surprised when they see that this country had Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, etc. It seems that it was such an empty hole in European history, regarding some countries, due to long slumber behind the iron curtain. Once I felt like someone coming totally out of empty space when I watched supposed to be educational video (US produced VHS), about Battle of Vienna. It made me laugh, as the video mentioned only prince Eugene of Savoy, as army commander. No mention about Polish army, even though it was a bi-national enterprise, and actually the Polish king, Johan III Sobieski was more in charge than Prince Eugene. Not that I care so much, and during times of Wikipedia such things are corrected, but it was really funny, how big of  a hole in knowledge can be created in one piece of material. One of the most decisive battles in European history, two big armies of two nations, and you totally forget one army plus the commander in chief? What a curious and amusing case of selective blindness! Cold War legacy? ;-)

Along the line of random info spreading, the Czechs had their own brand of Protestantism, c. one century before Luther (Jan Hus, Czech Brethren, etc.). Poland had religious tolerance guaranteed by law, including Statutes of Kalisz, about the protection of Jews. (Not as bad as in other countries, but it didn't mean it was a totally safe heaven). Religiously different people lived there, including the Cathars. The Kinghts Templars too. Or other crusaders who went for Northern Crusades, (often turned against Poles) . One blog writer from Czech Republic claims that every village in his country has some legend about the Knights Templars. Templar legends in general are not so very French-centered.

 Lots of mysterious, interesting stuff in other parts of Europe. For example devil in Polish art was treated as humorous nasty  figure and was often ridiculed, not a scary being like in the Western Europe. Devils form St. Mary Church in Cracow were painted in strong colors. In another Central European country, Germany, devil was feared, and stakes witches were burned. The conspiracy theory about witches came to Poland during the Renaissance, when the witch hunts intensified, but it was less common, and actually the Latin Church was not by law excluded form participation: only secular power did it. Strange? No. This is info is to point out the diversity of Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

I don't have links about Gothic art in Slovenia, but Gothic went there via Prague, and Parler.I am mentioning Slovenia, as it it a very pictoresque country, (my hubby loved it), which enjoys, rightly so, many tourists visits. Very, very interesting landscapes, history, architecture, coasts in general.
A beautiful Corvin Castle in Romania you can see clicking on this sentence.

Here is a link to a site, in Polish; I apologize, but just for the sake of the pictures. There are iconic examples, such as Chartres, Nuamberg, Limbourg Brothers, Sluter, Crucifix of Geron, but also believed to be a miracle working crucifix from Cracow, and other examples, like the biggest Gothic altar in the St.Mary Church in Cracow, or probably the first authoportrait by Peter Parler in Prague, and wonderful St. Vitus Cathedral, Malbork Castle, and  "armor Madonnas" (Crusaders art, can be opened as cabinets!), and other exciting examples. The other is the link to St. Vitus Cathedral Wikipedia article. Enjoy!
http://www.historiasztuki.com.pl/001_KANON_GOT_2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vitus_Cathedral 

History of Science at Chartres Cathedral, and Zodiac

In the previous post there was Zodiac window form Chartres, today is the astronomical clock. Strange setting for such symbols?

No way. Zodiac then was nothing unusual in churches. So, why all the mystery so many tourists talk about? Actually there is nothing mysterious about it. Explanation follows.

Chartres Cathedral Choir, Astronomical Clock, via Wikimedia Commons, thanks to Harmonia Amanda

First, the clock comes form XVI c. but its ideological roots are medieval, and proto-scientific, not really esoteric. Astronomy, astrology, the synthesizing medieval minds didn't see the difference.

 It is a common misconception that the Middle Ages were not interested in science, only in religion, or there was no reading of Classical texts before the Renaissance. Actually the classics were read, not as widely as  during the Renaissance, of course, but were not unknown, rather kept in high esteem. Many Classical and Arabic texts of science were translated into Latin. Arabic texts about astronomy, mathematics, anatomy and chemistry, and medicine contributed a lot in development of Western medical sciences, we often forget about it. Or simply don't want to know. And there was no agreement about if the Sun was the center of Universe or moved around the Earth. The official decision   in favor of the Earth as the center of the Universe came later. Science was fine as long it didn't oppose any dogma. For example the theological idea of dignity of the human body was applied to the medical field, and this particular idea didn't allow dissecting human corpses for anatomical research. Dead animals were dissected instead, specially pigs. Sometimes, rarely, human bodies were dissected also.

Chartres itself had a cathedral school, as often was the case with such buildings: there were also centers of learning, not only part of religious live of communities as today. Chartres was one of such centers, and was among the famous ones. Neo-Platonism was flourishing there, sciences were treated as separated from theology. A number of so called than natural philosophers (philosophers interested in science) came from Chartres. School of Chartres became less influential when universities started to compete with cathedral schools, but this was a case with all cathedral schools.

So, if the clerics of Chartres were so scientifically minded, why such thing as Zodiac in the cathedral?

 Here we need to understand the mind of people who lived before us, and don't project our XXI c. world view on them. The clerics form Chartres were still products of their times, and during their times astrology was science, before the Catholic Church opposed it, and before it was mocked  by the scientists of the Enlightenment era as superstition, not a scinece. Medicine was part of curriculum at Chartres school, and astrology was officially part of medicine also. Here is the illumination dealing with the human body as related to Zodiac.

Anatomical Zodiac Man, Limburg Brothers, Book of Hours of Duke de Berry, illuminated manuscript tempera on vellum, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, thanks to Petrus Berbygere

In addition to proto-scientific reasons, Zodiac was a very popular motive in depictions of passing time. One  was very common:  the labors of the months. Frequently months and Zodiac signs were tied together, and this is often found in medieval churches and religious  manuscripts. Labors of the months showed secular world. Zodiac window at Chartres belongs to this popular category. Here is incomplete list of  zodiacs and labours of months in churches.

 Another example, most famous of this type is the series of illuminations from the mentioned  Book of Hours of Duke de Berry, (the same book from which the illumination above comes from). It is not the only example of this kind, but among the most beautiful ones, if not the most skilfully rendered, so far. Here it is, via Wikipedia article and picture gallery.

The Book of Hours of Duke de Berry is  of the most beautiful examples of book illumination in International Gothic style, and contains a very good example of Gothic blue, specially loved and used in France.

 Art history itself is an interdisciplinary endeavor, and understanding history of science or cultural history can enhance knowledge of art. Art doesn't exist in historical vacuum. It is connected to the world around, it exists in historical contexts. Striping old art form its historical context can give us only partial insight, and lead to some  misunderstanding too, some of them can be quite funny.