Exam #3 Study Guide Questions Flashcards
Muslims date the beginning of their history from what event in what year?
- The Hijrah In 622 Muhammad moved to Medina
- Hijrah” (which means ‘emigration’ or ‘flight’).
- Muhammad formed a tribe of those who accepted him as the Prophet, and gradually Islam grew in strength and acceptance.
- Result of Muhammad fled Mecca after hearing of a plot to assassinate him
What are minbars?
- a short flight of steps used as a platform by a preacher in a mosque.
What are muqarnas?
- Muqarnas (Arabic: مقرنص; Persian: مقرنس) is a form of ornamented vaulting in Islamic architecture,
- the “geometric subdivision of a squinch, or cupola, or corbel, into a large number of miniature squinches, producing a sort of cellular structure”,
- sometimes also called a “honeycomb” vault.
What are mihrabs?
a niche in the wall of a mosque, at the point nearest to Mecca, toward which the congregation faces to pray.
What elements are used in the surface decoration of Islamic architecture?
- Arabic writing
- Geometric patterns
- Folage/Floral designs
Who was Muhammad?
- Muhammad is considered by Muslims to be the last in the line of Old and New Testament prophets.
- Had visions from Gabriel
- He founded the religion of islam
What are the Five Pillars of Islam?
1) Shahada: Testifying to God’s One-ness * Declaration that there is one God (Allah) and Muhammad is his prophet.
2) Salat: Prayer * Five prayer times each day * Raq’ah: Bowing and prostration. Represents submission to God. * Qiblah, direction for prayer towards Mecca, designated by Mihrab. * Masjid (Mosque): Minaret used to announce services.
3) Zakat: Giving charity * General rate: 2 1/2% of income annually
4) Sawm: Fasting * In memory of the revelation of the Qur’an (Koran). * During month of Ramadan, daylight hours. * ‘Id al-Fitr, Feast of Fast-breaking at beginning of next month.
5) Hajj: Pilgrimage * Every Muslim man and woman, if physically and economically able, should try to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their life-time. * Symbolic reenactments of past events. * Tawaf: Circling black stone of Ka’bah counterclockwise seven times
What is the earliest Arabic script called? How would its style be best described? The script was derived from inscriptions on what?
- kufic
- An ornamental, angular Arabic script.
- Earliest type of calligraphy.
- Skinny, linear lettering.
- Inscribed on koran and mosques
Who was Charlemagne? What were his goals? What influenced his decisions?
- Charlemagne (742-814), or Charles the Great,
- king of the Franks (carolingians) and emperor of the West
- Became Christian
- He founded the Holy Roman Empire,
- stimulated European economic and political life,
- fostered the cultural revival known as the Carolingian Renaissance, intrest in scholaticism, reading, writing, art, architecture, stanardized script - caroline minuscule; lower case
- Goal was to unite the germanic peoples and create an empire opulant and powerful like that of the Romans.
- Poe Leo Crowned him on Christmas day after he helped him drive the Lombards out of Italy
- Also he desired to convert pagans to christianity
- Desired recovery of the true text of the bible
- renovatio imperii Romani (renewal of the Roman Empire) - This was his main goal that influenced his decisions.
- Connections with church and expanding his power also influenced him
Describe Mozarabic art. Where would you most likely find examples of this art?
- Found in Spain
- Made by Mozarabs; Iberian Christians
- influenced by islamic style
Describe the basic compositional framework of the Scandinavian animal style.
- symmetrical - controlled pattern
- interwoven animals; serpentine-like figures, biting and snapping
- complex
- usually found on small utilitarian objects
- ornate
How were the books of the medieval period created?
- Usually made by monks
- Hand written manuscripts copied from other text (bibles)
- Handrawn pictures
- Took months to create (month for one page?)
- Made from parchment; animal hide
- Decorated with gold, precious and semi-precious jewels on cover - to ward off evil.
Discuss the important characteristics of Charlemagne’s palace chapel at Aachen.
- chapel resembles San Vitale - but more simple, no apse-like extentions reaching from central octogon into ambulatory
- Two cylindrical towers with spiral stair cases flank entrance portal
- Only part of the atrium
- Framing arch where Charlemagne appeared
- behind it was his marble throne
- first vaulted medieval structure north of the Alps
- geometric and clear design
- The construction, including barrel and groin vaults and an octagonal cloister-vault in the dome, reflects late Roman, or Pre-Romanesque, practices rather than the Byzantine techniques employed at San Vitale, and its plan simplifies the complex geometry of the Ravenna building.
- one part basilica and the other part central plan
- Imperial gallery similar to Hagia Sophia
- foreshadows Romanesque style
- There is a sixteen-sided ambulatory with a gallery overhead encircling the central octagonal dome
What was so important about monasticism? How did it impact the development of Western Europe?
- Only stable element of western Europe at the time; kept europe from total collapse
- Continued reading, writing, architecture and copying of the bible as well as roman traditions
- Presevation of history, latin, the bible allowed Europe to recover from dark ages and advance, borrowing form knowledge of the past, on architecture, writing, and other things
- If Monks had not preserved the church, roman culture, and latin then Charlemagne would have never become christian, none of the cathedrals would have been built and european culture would have become stagnant.
- They were repositories of knowledge
Describe the meaning and style of the Chi Rho and Iota page, Book of Kells
- from early medeival Irish book
- XPI, chi-rho-iota = initial letters of Christ in Greek
- these words occupy nearly the entire page
- page corresponds to opening of Matthew’s Gospel - opens the story of the nativity
- embelished script; transformed biblical text into abstract pattern (artwork)
- humans/animals interwoven with intricate designs, similar to earlier metal work
- Meant to impress illiterate people
- Rho ends with male head
- Angels appear left of Chi
- Only plain text is; autem/ abbreviated as h and generatio - read on Christmas eve and stated “this is how the birth of Christ came about.”
Discuss the history of the Ottonians. What were some of their most important aesthetic developments?
- Carolingian empire collapsed withing 30 years after Char’s. death, power divided btwn 3 decendants of Char.
- In mid 10th century eastern part of former carolingian empire consolidated under Saxon line of German emperors called the
- Ottonians*
- free of viking attacks
- encouraged monastic reform to combat corruption in the church
- continued and added on to the Carolingian legacy
- made ties with Italy, the papacy, and Byzantium
- Ended with death of Henry the II
- Developments:
- elaboration and more extensive use of galleries, often, in the 9th century, restricted to use in the western blocks (Westwerk)
- the development of an alternating system of supports-columns and heavy piers which divide a wall into a repeating pattern of bays, and clearly defined crossings of transept and nave, again seen as four bays meeting and reflecting each other.
- Externally, wall arcades, blind arches around windows, and both horizontal stringcourses and vertical pilaster shafts were used to divide wall surfaces into well-defined areas to emphasize and explain structure.
- All this imposed on buildings a far more clearly expressed and self-conscious “design” of both space and wall. Proportions are often simple geometric relationships, harrmonious and easily understood.
- second half of the 11th century, first on capitals and then in decorative moldings, figural decoration on portals, tympana, wall-surfaces, and especially on the west fronts of most churches,
- Relief covered bronze doors
- desire for order in architecture; large decorative schemas of wall painting.
- Developments:
What is the cloisonné technique?
- a decorative metalwork technique employing cloisons or metal strips
- saudering/melding small metal strips edge up, to a metal background, then filling compartments with semiprecious stones, colored glass, enamel etc.
Describe the period known as the “Dark Ages” in Europe
- The “Dark Ages” is a historical periodization traditionally referring to the Middle Ages, and in more recent times specifically the Early Middle Ages, between about the 5th and 10th centuries AD
- The term emphasizes the demographic, cultural and economic deterioration that supposedly occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire
- relative scarcity of written records from the period
- Contrasted with enlightened (light) and stable civilizations of the past.
- The concept thus came to characterize the entire Middle Ages as a time of intellectual darkness between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance
What is unique about Durham Cathedral’s vaulting?
- earliest example of rib groin vault (placed over a 3 story nave)
- In nave’s western parts rib vaults have slightly pointed arches, brought together for the first time elements that determined the structural evolution of Gothic architecture
- This was church was still considered Romanesque but it had percursors to Gothic elements.
- Also the nave vaults supported by buttresses; used quadrant arches (quarter circle) precurser Gothic flying buttresses.
What are reliquaries?
- Containers that preserved and protected a relic
Compare the Basilica of Old Saint Peters, Rome, with the Abbey Church of Saint-Foy, Conques, France. Note the similarities and the differences. Discuss what advancement in architectural design has taken place
Old Saint Peters (Rome):
- resembled roman basilica
- wide central nave
- flanking aisles
- apse at the end
- chancel arch divided nave from transept
- worshippers entered through narthex
- btwn transept & apse; St. Peter’s relics housed
- Colonaded courtyard or atrium
- austere exterior, ornate interior
- timber roof
Abbey Church of Saint Foy (Conques, Fr.):
- houses relics of Saint Foy
- could enter through western portal
- circulate through ambulatory
- 5 radiating chapels for multiple relics
- ambulatory in gallery
- crossing
- choir
- also had chancel
- stone roof?
- “pilgrimage church” allowed pilgrims to visit relics without interupting service.
- Had all the parts of St.Peter’s except atrium?
- It was more complicated than OSP.
What role does pictorial narrative have in the Middle Ages? Explain your answer using examples from manuscripts, sculpture, tapestry, and stained-glass.
- Pictoral narratives allowed illiterate people to be converted and learn about the bible with out learning to read.
-
Gospel Book of Otto III
- contained medieval paintings of the life of Jesus
- ex. page where it shows an interaction between Jesus and peter from gospels of new testament.
-
Last Judgement Tympanum
- Over portal at St. Foy, Chartes Fr.
- Instilled the fear of God in Church goers, inspired God-concious living to avoid fires of hell.
- set the mood for service
- warning to non-christians/sinners
-
Gospel Book of Otto III
What are the major parts of a sculpted Romanesque portal?
- Voussoirs (individual stones)
- Archivolt (entire row of stones)
- Tympanum
- Lintel
- Door Jambs
- Trumeau
Label the parts of a Romanesque cruciform-plan church
Plan of St. Sernin, Toulouse, France
A) Crossing
B) Choir
C) Apse
D) Radiating Chapels
E) Ambulatory
F) Transept
G) Porches
H) Nave
I) Side aisles
J) Narthex
K) Cruciform plan
- largest cruciform church
- barrel vault over nave
- expanded on Roman building techiques
- every Romanesque church is like this
- arcade-bottom floor
- gallery-top floor
- Cruciform piers-hold up the weight of the ceiling
- groin vaults in aisles
Why is the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis considered to mark the beginning of the Gothic style? Your answer should consider the accomplishments of Abbot Suger
- the first church to be considered “Gothic”
- style was unique and new at the time, invented by Abbot Suger
- Both stylistically and structurally, it heralded the change from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture.
- One of Suger’s most striking innovations was the incorporation of stained glass windows into the structure.
- Increased light in the church; thought to elevate a person to the presence of God
- The west front has three portals, a rose window and one tower, on the southern side.
- Church needed repair could not accomodate vast groups of pilgrims
- rib vaults used; allowed the elimination of walls between radiating chapels
- pointed arches
- slender columns
- 3 front doors
- crenelations- military architecture
- flying buttreses
Compare and contrast Cimabue’s Virgin and Child Enthroned with the same theme painted by Giotto di Bondone. How does Giotto’s style depart from his teacher Cimabue?
Cimabue’s Virgin and Child:
- not natural
- no focal point
- no use chiaroscuro
- no depth; seems 2D
- Not anatomically correct
- people seem compressed
Giotto di Bondone Virgin and Child:
- Chiaroscuro; gives depth; illusion of light source
- Naturalistic
- superior composition
- some forshortening
- more maternal connection with Christ and Mary
- overlapping helps to create depth
When and where did the flying buttress originate? What is its function?
- Gothic builders introduced flying buttreses as early as 1150 CE in smaller churches
- Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. ca. 12th-16th century
- a specific form of buttress composed of an arched structure that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall outwards, which are forces that arise from vaulted ceilings of stone
- Holds walls up
Compare the two distinct schools of Gothic architecture identified by Jean Bony
1) Northern School (Laon Cathedral):
- retained many romanesque features
- combined ribbed vaults w/ pointed arches
- new feature = triforium
- huge rose central window begun in the late 1150’s by Bishop Gautier de Montagne in south transept and choir, - first appearance of wall passages at triforium level in Gothic architecture, - four-story elevation (arcade, tribune gallery, triforium with passage, and clerestory). - Pier alternation only in first four bays of nave, sexpartite vaults.
2) Parisian School (Notre-Dame, Paris):
- Introduced a new form of tribune gallery.
- The four-story elevation was altered in the 1220’s when a single enlarged clerestory widow replaced the triforium and smaller clerestory window.
- introduced and developed the flying buttress. Original plan, no transept.
- windows filled 2/4 stories
- Flying buttresses
- Transept more in the middle
Compare the style and visual logic of the Rayonnant and Flamboyant periods.
Rayonnant:
- Term Rayonnant (radiant) from radiating referring to the tracery of a rose window.
- A light skeletal system with all-pervasive windows.
- Not innovative in ground plan or structure but a refinement of the Gothic system and visual logic.
- linear and slender
- 3/4 glass
- very large windows; less walls
Flamboyant:
- Term flamboyant refers to the “flame-like” tracery patterns of the windows.
- Patterns formed brittle webs
- Formal Considerations. Rich surface decoration, high level craftsmanship,
- smaller structures (e.g. parish churches, chapels, transept facades).
- It evolved out of the Rayonnant style’s increasing emphasis on decoration.
- Its most conspicuous feature is the dominance in stone window tracery of a flamelike S-shaped curve.
Asethtic Developments of Ottonians?
- ivory plaques w/ narrative reliefs (influenced by
- byzantine art, revived monumental sculptures (Gero Crucifix) and Bronze doors at St. Michael’s
- Paintings combines motifs and landscapes from late antique art and golden backgrounds from byzantine art.
- Buildt basilica style churches with towers, westwerks like carolingians but introduced alternate support system and galleries into the interior nave elevation.
Transverse arch
Label an example of a four-iwan, central, and hypostyle mosque plan
A) qibla wall
B) mirab
C) qibla iwan
D) Sahn - religious court yard
E) Iwan
*qibla is direction where muslim faces when they pray, mihrab or niche to indicate direction
Book of Kells
- The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin
- containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables.
- 9th century
- It was created in a Columban monastery in either Britain or Ireland and may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from both Britain and Ireland.
- The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina.
