Medieval Art in a Modern World

625 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The end of middle ages

Medieval Art in a Modern World

When I was looking at different works of art from the Middle Ages in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (medieval wing), one in particular caught my attention. Entitled “Plaque with the Crucifixion and the Stabbing of Hades,” this piece embodies life and death, triumph and defeat, divinity and humanity. Carved in ivory, this plaque, depicting the Passion of Christ with an allusion to Hades (god of the underworld), is from the mid-tenth century, or Middle Byzantine era, and was made in Constantinople. The plaque depicts the death of Christ as a triumph over Hades and thus presents a victory for man’s salvation. Centered in the plaque is Christ’s limp body, his head hanging low to the right, arms outstretched, and knees slightly bent. On the left side of the plaque is Mary, Jesus’ mother, mourning the death of her son, the Messiah. On the other side is John the Baptist, also in mourning. Beneath Christ’s feet are three Roman soldiers, shown dividing his garment. Mary, John, and the soldiers are many times portrayed as the main witnesses of Jesus’ suffering for his mercy on humanity. To the immediate left and right of Christ are two angels waiting to escort their Lord back to heaven.

Its title is self-descriptive. The plaque itself is intense in representation and represents more generally the religious devotion present in the medieval period. Since Christianity was a very large part of medieval society, the Crucifixion was a central theme in Go...

Show More
Related

  • Explaining Sacred Space in The Sacred & The Profane: A Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    explanation of the sacred being “the opposite of the profane” is the comparison of a modern religious man and a modern non-religious man (a profane man). Eliade compares the two by explaining how each would react to space, time, nature, and life. This essay will explain the idea of sacred space, how a religious and a profane man would experience it, and how the idea of sacred space might be applied to the study of medieval art and architecture. Space is something everyone experiences. However Eliade points

    Read More

  • The Middle Ages

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    immobility about many descriptions of the medieval world” (Davies 291). However, these descriptions he refers to do not capture the true essence of the Middle Ages of Europe, which were a continuation and a formation. They were a continuation of old Rome in race, language, institutions, law, literature, arts, and in cultures independent of Rome. Nevertheless, the Middle Ages were not merely a continuation; they were the formation of our world. Many modern-day historians argue that the so-called

    Read More

  • Deconstructing the Map: The Hereford World Map

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Hereford World Map is the world’s oldest surviving map of the world; it was made in 1300, during the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe. There was a wider range of influences on mapping during the later medieval period. With an increase in exploration, Europe began to evolve into an international continent; widespread travel can be seen by the influences of the Islamic world on architecture. While map making in China had flourished in the 11th C, mapping was beginning to evolve in Europe

    Read More

  • Italian Renaissance Art Essay

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    was the purpose of art for the Italian Renaissance artists? Definitions: Renaissance: The activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world. Classical Antiquity: Ancient times in the Greek and Roman world Medieval time: Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or in the style of the Middle Ages Argument: The purpose of art for Italian Renaissance

    Read More

  • Medicine Timeline

    1671 Words  | 4 Pages

    from Florence, Marco di Coppo Stefani. This was the unfortunate situation during the medieval ages when diseases swept through Europe, baffling doctors, and medieval medical theory. The medical field has seen many advances over the centuries, and the practice has progressed

    Read More

  • The Rise of Universities in Medieval Europe

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the present modern day, and seemingly for an extensive period of time, society has tended and still does, hold a predisposed idea that a university is associated with a building and the location that it is in. What society does not realise however the fact that it is a place to study where the location does not matter because towards the end you still achieve the same degree as anyone else. In early modern periodization, the medieval term for university was ‘studium generale’ meaning ‘school of

    Read More

  • The Extreme Change in Western Europe From 1450 and 1750

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    revolution. In the arts, there was a change from the mostly religious art of the middle Ages to the Renaissance focus on realism, and humanistic ideas during the enlightenment revolution, also new scientific ideas during the scientific revolution. Politically, in the 1400's parts of Europe had a feudalistic government and some, feudal monarchies but overtime Europe adapted to absolute monarchies, parliamentary monarchies, and nation-states. The dominant social system in Medieval Europe was feudalism

    Read More

  • The Impact of Renaissance on the Present

    1196 Words  | 3 Pages

    aided in shaping the modern world that we live in today. Some of the more influential elements of everyday modern life are the result of cultural and societal changing events, which transpired throughout the years 1350-1600. During the period known today as the “Renaissance” (1350-1600), the world of art, the boundaries of marriage, and secular viewpoints were forever revolutionized, through the development and spread of “Renaissance Humanism”, which today, still affects modern day life. (Knox 1999)

    Read More

  • Ognissanti Madonna Giotto Analysis

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    The period known as the middle ages, dark ages or the medieval period started around the fall of the Roman Empire, which happened around the fifth century and ended between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During this time peasant farmers located in the rural countryside worked for the warrior nobility which were the landholders and owed their allegiance to the king. In approximately the tenth century the steady growth of cities, trade, merchants and people started moving from the country

    Read More

  • Michelangelo Buonarroti

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    Michelangelo Buonarroti There was a time period from 1400 C.E. to 1600 C.E., referred to as the Renaissance. The Renaissance was an age of discovery shown through , architecture, poetry, art, sculpture, and theater based on a Greco-Roman culture. Among the many Renaissance thinkers there was a man named Michelangelo Buonarroti. Michelangelo was an architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and an engineer. He preferred sculpting because he felt he was shaping mankind, which reflected the Renaissance

    Read More

  • - Raphaelite Brotherhood Manifesto And Victorian English Culture In John Everett Millais's Ophelia

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Manifesto and Victorian English Culture in John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia” The British Royal Academy of Art dictated how young artists learned their craft and the works that were considered successful art. Three students at the Royal Academy; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Hunt, and John Everett Millais, set out to create work that differed from the Academy’s established criteria. Those three men formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in secret in order to create

    Read More

  • Michelangelo Buonarroti Research Paper

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michelangelo Buonarroti was a man who desired to create. His art is impactful, reflects the time of the renaissance, and his growth as an artist. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born March 6,1475 in Caprese, Italy. His father was a government agent in Caprese and his mother died when he was six years old ("Michelangelo Buonarroti"). When Michelangelo was 13 he was an apprentice to a painter named Domenico Ghirlandaio. In addition to being an apprentice, he also studied sculpture with Bertoldodi Giovanni

    Read More

  • Medieval Art

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Medieval Art In the art world, the medieval periods were traditionally though to be the unproductive phase of Europe between the decline of Rome and the Renaissance. Our modern feelings toward medieval art are far more appreciative. The main intent of Medieval art was to express Christianity which was also a common bond between a wide spread and diverse Europe. For this reason most of the art found from medieval times originated in monasteries and churches. European art during the Middle Ages

    Read More

  • Bayeux Tapestry Analysis

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    works that inspired art from early Christian art to Romanesque to Gothic art. Some of the most notable styles of medieval art include works from Anglo-Saxon art and Byzantine Art among many others. These periods are known for vivid colors and breath taking mosaics and tapestries that are still frequently admired today. One of most iconic pieces of Angelo-Saxon would be the Bayeux Tapestry. Mosaic was also a widely-practiced form and the most defining genre of art during the medieval Byzantine Empire

    Read More

  • The Italian Renaissance

    1395 Words  | 3 Pages

    "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2 Modern art critics regard renaissance art as graphic narratives of political and social events that occurred in the 14th through 16th century Europe. Scholars believe that the renaissance expressed a cultural revival of classical antiquity. And

    Read More

More about Medieval Art in a Modern World

Open Document