GLOW AND AFTERGLOW OF GOTHIC (1400-1530)
INTRODUCTION
]When did the Middle Ages end? What criterion should we adopt to mark the termination of this period of history, to draw a boundary which will be indecisive in any case? If it is a question of art, the reference is obviously to the forms we call Gothic. But did Gothic ever exist in Sicily? Clearly it is a question of geography, rather than chronology. From this point of view, Italy had undoubtedly left the Middle Ages behind by the end of the fourteenth century. Having entered the Renaissance, its influence radiated. As early as 1400 the humanists of the court of France were fascinated by the ideas emanating from Italy and yet, much later, the men who designed the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris remained faithful to the Gothic spirit. In the last analysis, it must be admitted that sculpture remained medieval all over Europe, with the exception of Italy, throughout the fifteenth century.
In our eyes, it had by then ceased to hold first place among the arts, giving way
to painting. It is by no means certain that the men of those times had the same eeling. To them, fine work required the collaboration of various bodies of crafrsmen. Sculptor and painter were expected to work together; indeed the sculptor was often a painter as well. Such cooperation seemed particularly necessary when the making of an altar-
piece was undertaken, a field now mucL enlarge y pu ic commissions, ace a ove the altar, the altarpiece offered a permanent display inside the church complementing the other sacred representations that diligent brotherhoods erected outdoors on the parvis, on all sides, with immense success during the great feast—days of Christianity with the aim of teaching the people and maintaining their piety. So that the altarpiece, too, should fulfil the same function apprc4riately, the cxecutants of the commission were invited to bring all the artifices of the theatre into play, adding to the persuasive force of the relief that of colour and perspective, and if necessary that of trompe-I’ceil. Here sculpture was called on to enhance the effect.
If henceforth it was a source of enjoyment for many, sculpture remained a sacred art in its dominant expressions. Its new features were impressed on it by the new religious attitudes. In the fifteenth century Christianity completed the process of popularizing itself: it had finally become a popular religion. But to achieve their ends, the Mendicant Friars who persisted in conducting the enterprise by preaching had to make their speeches fit in with the ways of thought and feeling of the majority, in particular agreeing to allot the secular an increasingly unrestricted place among the images which backed up their discourses. The faithful were absolutely determined to see with their own eyes in detail, and in terms of the crudest reahsm, not only the unfolding of a tale, the successive episodes of the infancy of Christ, his passion and resurrection, but also hell, paradise, the actual mystery of the Trinity and the other mysteries,just as they had achieved their object of being shown the host during the mass at the moment of the elevation. The points that had had to be conceded to the masses to attract and keep them in the fold spread irresistibly in the upper strata of secular society. Thus religious art as a whole sacrificed more and more to the pleasing, the surprising and the emotionally moving.
In our eyes, it had by then ceased to hold first place among the arts, giving way
to painting. It is by no means certain that the men of those times had the same eeling. To them, fine work required the collaboration of various bodies of crafrsmen. Sculptor and painter were expected to work together; indeed the sculptor was often a painter as well. Such cooperation seemed particularly necessary when the making of an altar-
piece was undertaken, a field now mucL enlarge y pu ic commissions, ace a ove the altar, the altarpiece offered a permanent display inside the church complementing the other sacred representations that diligent brotherhoods erected outdoors on the parvis, on all sides, with immense success during the great feast—days of Christianity with the aim of teaching the people and maintaining their piety. So that the altarpiece, too, should fulfil the same function apprc4riately, the cxecutants of the commission were invited to bring all the artifices of the theatre into play, adding to the persuasive force of the relief that of colour and perspective, and if necessary that of trompe-I’ceil. Here sculpture was called on to enhance the effect.
If henceforth it was a source of enjoyment for many, sculpture remained a sacred art in its dominant expressions. Its new features were impressed on it by the new religious attitudes. In the fifteenth century Christianity completed the process of popularizing itself: it had finally become a popular religion. But to achieve their ends, the Mendicant Friars who persisted in conducting the enterprise by preaching had to make their speeches fit in with the ways of thought and feeling of the majority, in particular agreeing to allot the secular an increasingly unrestricted place among the images which backed up their discourses. The faithful were absolutely determined to see with their own eyes in detail, and in terms of the crudest reahsm, not only the unfolding of a tale, the successive episodes of the infancy of Christ, his passion and resurrection, but also hell, paradise, the actual mystery of the Trinity and the other mysteries,just as they had achieved their object of being shown the host during the mass at the moment of the elevation. The points that had had to be conceded to the masses to attract and keep them in the fold spread irresistibly in the upper strata of secular society. Thus religious art as a whole sacrificed more and more to the pleasing, the surprising and the emotionally moving.
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