Epochs · Europe & Byzantium
Medieval Europe
c. 400 – 1400
Tour this roomYour taste…
For a thousand years after Rome, European art was above all an art of faith. Byzantine icons and mosaics set holy figures against fields of gold, Romanesque carvers filled church portals with visions of judgement, and Gothic workshops produced soaring stained glass, ivory devotional carvings and jewel-like illuminated manuscripts. Precious materials and symbolic colour mattered more than illusion, because these objects were meant to open a window onto the sacred.
Hallmarks
- Gold grounds and precious materials
- Hierarchy and symbolic colour
- Illuminated manuscripts
- Art in the service of the Church
Artists here
- Eadfrith of Lindisfarne · active c. 698 – 721
- Unknown artist, Anglo-Saxon England
- Unknown artist, Insular Britain and Ireland
- Unknown artist, Byzantine Empire
- Duccio · c. 1255 – c. 1319
- Simone Martini · c. 1284 – 1344
- Limbourg brothers · active c. 1400 – 1416
- Unknown artist, England
