St. Agnis

Garrett Lambur
Hopefully I will answer the questions proposed to us by Kip today at the St. Agnis Convent. I felt a very subtle progression within the Art as I walked through the exhibit. The first parts of art from the early 1300’s used excessive amounts of gold leaf and there was very little background to any of the pictures. The characters themselves were not life like and were more symbolic of humans than realistic. In some the heads would be exaggerated, the baby Jesus would have the facial structure of an adult, and the faces would not seem to show human emotion. As time progressed in the art, around the turn of the century (into the 1400s) according to the time on the descriptions, the art began to use less gold leaf, though this may have been due to lack of gold not artistic flavor, the faces became more realistic, there were human emotions in the expressions, and backgrounds began to be used. But what seemed strange was that the colors seemed to become duller, but this have been attributed to the less use of gold leaf. As I later read, this next period became known as Gothic. These images did not have the extreme realism that those in later periods would have, but there was significant difference from the International period. Similar to the paintings, the difference in the sculptures was the craftsmanship. The more time wore on the quality of the art seemed to increase, there was more attention paid to minute details, even the difference in the gold working on the ornate crosses was better. It almost seemed as if humanity was growing in its ability to depict the art, but not only this but the emotions received from the art began to change.

As the art progressed so did the emotion that I felt when looking upon it. In the beginning with all the gold leaf working I felt as if the people were only attempting to put as much awe into the artwork. The depictions only seemed to depress me, they were all very somber and I was unable to feel any connection with the artwork in front of me, especially in any religious manner. Inaccurate facial expressions and no realism to the art yet still attempting to depict human figures just made for a bad combination to me. As I progressed into the art, my emotions began to change, I would not classify the art as happy but it was not depressing. On an emotional level I could connect more with the art in front of me, there was some realism to the art, there were actual backgrounds. Similarly the artwork itself began to display human emotions that could be read to deep levels. The expressions on the faces held images that were not simply upset or angry or happy or sad but held the undertones that surround all human expression. The artwork still held the sort of depressing undertones that showed the more painful experiences linked to Christianity and the underlying connections between feeling like a measly human being compared to God. I never been very good at describing my own emotions so to attempt to describe the change in the artwork is something that will not include in depth analysis of undertones, or use very good descriptive adjectives.

When Kip asked us to compare the artwork to that of the Grecco-Roman time period that we had seen before one thought kept coming back into my head. Humanity took a huge step backward when Rome and Greece fell. The artwork that I was seeing did not seem to come close to Grecco-Roman. Now the majority of this comparison was based entirely on gut feeling and with second thoughts as I write this I recognize that some of the artwork from the later period in the exhibit would have compared in terms of quality. But the emotions from both were much different, much of the Grecco-Roman artwork brought happier emotions to the viewer than did the work from the International or Gothic periods. What I remember from the images coming to mind, much of the Grecco-Roman was similarly more realistic though it may not have depicted realistic images. The quality seemed to be higher; you could read more into the human emotions. But what struck me the most was the difference between the colors of the Grecco-Roman to the somewhat drabness of the Gothic style. In personal preference, I much prefer the artwork, or whats left of it, of the Grecco-Roman style to that of the Gothic and International styles.