Dark (Medieval) Age Paintings

Medieval age paintings are interesting because they focus much more on symbolism than realism. This means that in the painting certain symbols represent certain things and that took precedance over realism, which dictates that the painting look as real as it possibly can. However not only were paintings unrealistic, they were religous. These probably reflected the times as the Catholic Church was quite powerful at the time and ruled with an iron grip. Therefore, all painters could draw were probably religous symbols and images. Some of these unrealistic ideas and techniques resurface later in the 20th century with the rise of the metaphysical but that's for a later topic.

Here is a picture of a medieval painting: What do you notice about it that is different from paintings you've seen?

Looking at this painting you see some obvious things, one of which is that the woman in the center is huge! She takes up the view of the painting herself. that is becasue the artist Giotto, and others who have painted in this time period, wanted the primary subject to be the center of attention. In this case the subject is Madonna, or Mary, and baby Jesus. Now this is probably the most important part of this painting: Jesus is not interacting with his mother. As a human child Jesus should probably be cudling up to his mother but no, he is addressing the people. This small detail shows that medieval art is all about the religon of christianity. Also it says that Jesus is not a normal baby but a greater being since the way he kind of treats his mother with the stance he takes in her lap shows that he's the boss. This was the essence of medieval painting in a nutshell.