Due to excavations in Pompeii, we know that the Romans used the fresco technique. Fresco Technique is a mural that is made on the still wet lime mortar, which is applied with lime water and colorant. During drying, the paint is chemically bonded with the lime. This dry quickly and faults are not to improve, which makes it a difficult technique. These were often applied to walls in dining rooms. The Romans worked with perspective and they often painted ancient frescoes. Also, there was a lot of mosaic applied, particularly in floors. But also in walls. Mosaic is two-dimensional, which is made of tiny colored stones, pieces of glass or glazed pottery. The light is mostly reflected in all ways, which make a lively image. These pieces are by cement or glue attached on a base. ‘Fresco’ in Italian means ‘fresh’, they gave it this name because the still wet lime mortar is fresh.
Sources:
‘ http://kunstgeschiedenis.jouwweb.nl/klassieke-kunst/de-romeinen
‘ The Booklet
Painting: Gothic Art
A two-dimensional background maakt de figuren artistiek. Er waren donkere, dikke zwarte contours, dat merkbaar gelijk is aan de randen van de glas-in-lood ramen. In some paintings is even talk of shadow and reflection. Een van de eerste schilderijen waar dit te zien is, is the painting “The October” from Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1413-1416). In elk schilderij waar iets van natuur in zit, is de natuur door de schilder in detail getekend.
The painting evolved in the same way as sculpture. There was more emotion in the anatomy was better. The painting was stimulated by the churches. So the topics were mostly religious and were sometimes portrayed in Their own time. There were three important Developments:
– There was a kind of entity of the figure and the background
– There was a plan to be connected in perspective with space and depth.
– It was desirable to realism. (In miniature painting)
Everything was displayed as the artists saw it. An important example of a Flemish primitive Jan van Eyck. He and his brother were the first to use a new paint material called oil. Oil made it possible to use space in the painting. Because the paint didn’t dry fast the colours can be wonderful overlay with other colors. And, you can also correct it. Before oil, people used the Tempera, which is a mixture of egg yolk and pigment, it dries very quickly. Here you can’t make beautiful color transitions, and you couldn’t paint large surfaces with it. The invention of oil was so revolutionary and genious!
As in the Romanesque period, was made in the Gothic period frescoes. New were the stained-glass windows. The stained-glass windows were used in church, the windows showed biblical scenes. To the glass (mixture of sand and potash) was added metal oxides in order to get color, and the painting itself was done with lead paint.
‘ http://www.collegenet.nl/studiemateriaal/frames_verslagen.php?verslag_id=11695&site=
‘ http://www.kunstkennis.nl/kunstgeschiedenis/gotiek/gotische_schilderkunst.htm
Architecture: Romanesque
The Romanesque architecture is a style of architecture developed between the Roman and the Gothic styles after 1000 AD.
The castle design and Romanesque architecture needed to convey Fear, Awe, Domination, Envy, Submission, Respect, Power and Wealth.
The Romanesque architecture had some characteristics:
‘ Stone was cut out with precision
‘ Because of the construction of the arch the stone could support on it.
‘ The window openings of the castles had to be small, so the walls were stronger.
‘ The most important structural development was the vault. The vault made it possible to build roofs of stone. Wooden roofs were an obvious fire hazard.
‘ The barrel or tunnel vaults consisted of a continuous surface of semicircular or pointed sections resembling a barrel or tunnel which has been cut in half lengthwise.
‘ The groin vault is a intersection of two barrel vaults. The arches of the groin vaults were either round or pointed.
‘ A balance of horizontal and vertical lines and dimensions
‘ At the ceiling of a church you can see barrel vault ceilings. They are pushing downwards, but also sideways. Because of the big pressure of the sideway barrel vault, the walls had to be very thick. On the crossing you will find the heaviest pillars. They form a nave. (Nave is the main body of the church)
‘ Walls were initially solid but the walls and shell keeps designed in the Romanesque architecture style were hollow and distributed the weight of the stones.
‘ The stone used was extremely heavy. The weight of the ceilings would tend to buckle the walls outward and large piles of stone would be stacked along the wall in intervals to buttress (or support) the walls from pushing outward – these piles of stones became features of Romanesque Architecture and buttresses were introduced to the basic design and a major characteristic of Romanesque architecture.
The basilica
When the Romans had any activity they wanted to do in groups, but inside, out of the weather, they generally met in a basilica. It was really big so it was big enough to contain a large number of people. There was an apsis, there the judge would sit. The basilica is built up from three rooms next to each other: the central nave and the two side. The walls in the nave were build high up, so there was much light trough. At the other end, the apsis was replaced by an altar. The apsis was expand so the judges could accommodate the choir. Also, a crossing building was added called a transept. One difference from medieval or modern churches is that people usually went into a basilica through a door in the middle of the long side, instead of on the short side.
Architecture: Gothic
The most basic element of the Gothic style of architecture is the pointed arch, which was likely borrowed from Islamic architecture. Rather than having massive columns as in the Romanesque churches, the new columns could be more thin. This slenderness was repeated in the upper levels of the nave. In fact, the column basically continued all the way to the roof, and became part of the vault. In the vault, the pointed arch could be seen in three dimensions where the ribbed vaulting met in the center of the ceiling of each bay. This ribbed vaulting is another distinguishing feature of Gothic architecture. Forget the association of the word “Gothic” to dark, haunted houses, Wuthering Heights, or ghostly pale people wearing black nail polish and ripped fishnets. The original Gothic style was actually developed to bring sunshine into people’s lives, and especially into their churches.
Comparison: Architecture
In the I south, people had been building churches in the Romanesque style, but for these new churches the architevts wanted a new style, which we call Gothic. The easiest difference to see between the two styles that while Romanesque churches have round arches, Gothic churches have pointed arches.
ARCH
But there are a lot of other differences as well. Gothic cathedrals have many more windows, and much bigger windows and so they are not dark like Romanesque churches. This is because the architects have learned some new ways of making roofs and of supporting walls, especially the groin vault and the flying buttress. Gothic churches are also usually bigger than Romanesque churches. By 1200 AD, people had more money available, and they could afford to spend more on building great churches. And, where many Romanesque churches had wooden roofs (wich were always catching fire), Gothic churches had safer stone roofs.