Photos of the Beautiful Gothic Painting & Fresco Art

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Photos of the Beautiful Gothic Painting & Fresco Art from the great museums of Europe . Photos by Photographer Paul E Williams.    (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Beautiful Gothic Painting & Fresco Art

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Photos of Medieval Gothic Painting and Fresco Art.

Gothic Art

Gothic Art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France. The Gothic art style started about 50 years after Gothic architecture first appeared.

The transition from Romanesque to Gothic

The transition from Romanesque to Gothic is very imprecise and not at all a clear break. Slowly Gothic painting evolved with subjects becoming more animated in pose and facial expression. Subjects get smaller in the compositions and background scenes become important. Figures are arranged more freely in the pictorial space.

This transition occurs first in France an England around 1200, in Germany around 1220 and Italy around 1300.

Gothic Painting

Painting during the Gothic period was practiced in four primary media: frescos, panel paintings, manuscript illumination and stained glass.

The earliest Gothic paintings depicted stories from the New Testament and the Bible. Saints lives were a common subject in churches. The ever popular images of the Virgin Mary became more human, depicting an affectionate Virgin Mary as a mother cuddling her infant whilst he swaying him from her hip. The Virgin Mary changed from a unsophisticated women to a refined well-born aristocratic courtly lady.

The Gothic period saw the beginning of secular art as Nobles commissioned paintings and sculptures. The church slowly lost it monopoly on art.