Two Ancient Traditions to Represent the Human Body in Mediaeval Art

Abstract

In the basic system of visual arts the human body is subject to the first interpretations, artistic and semantic evaluations. In the studies on art it was the principal criterion of style and artist’s workshop. In the most ancient research on early medieval art and the mature Middle Ages the stylistic definitions of the human body were assumed to be the basis of the classification of art, its relationship with ancient tradition or its various divergences, which were given pejorative names. The classical character of divergences from that model in the context modelling the body allows us to establish the chronology of works from the times of the fall of pagan art up to the new forms of Christian art.

An interesting study on the human body (not on nakedness) help us to take a closer look on how Roman art, especially French sculpture, was established in the circle of Benedictine orders. Starting from the classical model of Mediterranean art it created a new understanding of the body in accord with the strict text of the Bible, which — instead of corporeal unity — stressed the importance of its members. An analysis of particular excerpts from the Bible, providing the sense of the hip, the knee, the eye, the head, and the hand allow us to explain the analysis of the body into its members often called deformation. Some examples of monumental sculpture in Moissac, Cluny, and Wezelay unveil the sense of this deformation in the Judaic, not Roman, context of understanding the body. Italy and its influence have retained the Mediterranean, Roman traditions in the shaping of the human body. Thereby they continued the classical model for Gothic art and sculpture in the cathedral milieus. The body and the wealth of its corporeality is shown by sculpture returning to the Roman model again, thereby unveiling the scale of psychological values, such as smile, depicted in the sculptures in Reims, Naumburg, and Lincoln. We may notice in medieval art two patterns by which to show the body: classical and Judaic that comes from the Bible.