Medieval Christian Art
European Religious Arts During the Middle Ages: Religious Sculpture, Illuminated Gospel Manuscripts.
Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art - HOMEPAGE - Timeline For History of Western Art: Movements, Styles

Evangelist portrait page from
The Book of Dimma (c.620 CE),
one of the earliest illuminated
gospel manuscripts.

Re-Emergence of European Art (c.450-1100)

For centuries after the decline of Rome, Europe was cloaked in barbarian darkness. No city - not even Rome itself - could compare with the magnificence of Constantinople, Cordoba or Baghdad. Europe produced no science, no schools of art, no architecture to compare with past achievements. For 600 years (400-1000) it remained a cultural backwater. Only one institution survived: the Church. Indeed, the role of the church in maintaining Western civilization and culture was pivotal. One could say that the line between Christianity and paganism was also the line between Roman civilization and barbarism.

The Christian church was the main sponsor of monumental architecture and sculpture: see, for example: Medieval Sculpture.

First page of Saint Jerome's
Translation of the Four Gospels
into Vulgate, from the Book
of Durrow (c.650).

Early Christian Art: Irish Illuminated Manuscripts (650-900 CE)

The earliest outstanding examples of Christian fine art were the Irish and Anglo-Saxon illuminated gospel manuscripts dating from the mid-sixth century CE. They were succeeded by Carolingan and Byzantine illuminated texts as well as a host of Persian Islamic illuminations. This Insular art form combined Celtic artistry with Anglo-Saxon metallurgical skills in numerous abbeys and monasteries across Ireland, such as those in Durrow, Clonmacnois, Clonfert, Kells and Monasterboice, as well as English and Scottish centres of religious scholarship like Iona and Lindisfarne. Created by anonymous medieval artists (mostly artist-monks), the earliest examples of this monastic Irish art are the the Cathach of Columba (Colmcille) (c.610), and the Book of Dimma (c.620 CE); others include the Book of Durrow (c.650), the Lindisfarne Gospels (c.700), the Lichfield Gospels, the magnificent Book of Kells (c.800) and the Echternach Gospels. Their decorative content incorporated different combinations of red, yellow, green, blue, violet, purple, and turquoise blue. Some even used gold and silver text. With their fabulously intricate Celtic spirals, rhombuses, carpet pages and miniature pictures, these treasures must have appeared dazzling to the monks and people of the day. That said, most of this early Christian art remained portable and hidden, largely due to Viking banditry and the general insecurity of the Dark Ages.

Detail of illustration contained in
The Book of Kells (c.800).

WORLD'S GREATEST ARTWORKS
For a list of the Top 10 painters/
sculptors: Best Artists of All Time.
For the Top 300 oils, watercolours
see: Greatest Paintings Ever.
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see: Greatest Sculptures Ever.

Early Christian Art: Carolingian

On the Continent, by the late eighth century (c.775), the Frankish Empire of the Christian King Charlemagne had become the strongest of the new states formed since the collapse of Rome. Over the next century, it extended itself across France, Germany, Holland and Belgium, and part of Italy. Charlemagne's court in Aachen attracted scholars, monks and theologians from all over Europe, and in the process sparked a cultural revival that took over from the Irish art renaissance (c.650-900), which itself was beginning to come under pressure from the Vikings. Strongly inflenced by the Late Antiquity and Byzantine era, Charlemagne's scriptoriums and calligraphy workshops produced a number of outstanding illuminated Christian manuscripts, such as: the Godscalc Evangelistary, the Lorsch Gospels and the Gospels of St Medard of Soissons. For information about Charlemagne's contribution to architectural visual art, see: Romanesque Architecture. For details of Carolingian sculptures, see: Romanesque Sculpture.

Detail from the High Cross of Moone
(8th century) showing Daniel in the
lions den. Medieval High Cross
free-standing sculpture was another
visual art kept alive by Ireland's
Christian monastic culture.

Power and Patronage of the Church

With the religious support of Rome and the secular support of Charlemagne, European bishops - often men of powerful families - became key figures in local and regional affairs. With a new Millennium on the horizon, the church was poised to extend its influence and patronage of the arts across the rest of Western Europe. Beginning with the stimulation of Romanesque style murals and illuminations in France and Spain, along with large-scale cathedrals at Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Autun (France), this stirring of Roman power gathered momentum with the founding of new religious orders (Benedictines, Cluniacs, Cistercians), who helped to expand the genres of architecture, sculpture, and other visual arts, exemplified by the construction of the great European Gothic style cathedrals and by the consequent upsurge in stained glass art. See also, Gothic Sculpture. This Christian stimulus to the growth of European art culminated in the great Italian and Northern Renaissance movements which swept across the Continent in the fourteenth century.

• For other art movements and periods, see: History of Art.
• For styles of painting and sculpture in Ireland, see: Irish Art.