The medieval world
Gothic
c. 1140–1500
Cathedrals that dissolved their walls into stained glass, and a new naturalism in sculpture and painting.
Overview
Gothic architecture began near Paris in the 1140s. Pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses carried the weight of the building to the outside, so walls could be opened up for enormous stained-glass windows and interiors could rise to unprecedented heights.
Sculpted figures gradually separated from the columns behind them and gained natural poses and expressions. In Italy, painters such as Giotto gave their figures weight and emotion, a shift that prepared the ground for the Renaissance.
What defines it
- Pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses
- Walls of stained glass and great rose windows
- Increasingly natural, expressive figures
Works to know
- Choir of the Basilica of Saint-Denis
- Chartres Cathedral
- Sainte-Chapelle
- Scrovegni Chapel frescoes