03 — ARTWORK
Exterior view
- MEDIUM
- Photo
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
- FILE
- 1000 × 1210 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
GothicGothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style. In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style. Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form. The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. cathedrals after models of the modern French episcopal churches were constructed in Spain after the 1220s. The CathedralThe principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed. of León, begun about 1255, represents a further step in the Iberian appropriation of French Gothic after the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo. In this case royal buildings of France were adopted as models (Cathedral of Reims, Saint-Denis, and even the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris). León Cathedral thus united elements that in France were divided among several buildings important to the monarch. This claim could be displayed only formally because the Cathedral of León was not a royal coronation church, the tomb of a particularly important national saint, or the home of a politically important relica part of the body of a saint, or some item connected with a saint, the object of particular veneration..
The layout of the west and transeptsection of a church at right-angles to the nave and in front of the choir. façades, with their towers standing freely at the side next to the central aisles, seen in the picture, follows the model of the transept façades of the royal tomb of Saint-Denis.
View the <a href="#" onClick="w=window.open ('/support/plans/zzzarchi/13c/5/leon.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=400,height=600');w.opener=this;w.focus();return false">ground plan</a> of León Cathedral.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r3726ad2dbe61b0,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Exterior view by ARCHITECT, Spanish},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-12},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/architect-spanish-reb57f7cda3b22d/exterior-view-r3726ad2dbe61b0},
urldate = {2026-09-12},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-12. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
