Medieval Stone Sculptures

For thousands of years, the sculptures have filled several roles in human lifespan. Sticking with the dawn of civilization, statues were used to symbolize the deities. Early kings, possibly in the anticipation of making themselves eternal, had their likenesses carved, and portrait sculpture was born. From its starting times until the present, sculpture has been chiefly monumental.

Etruscan and Roman Sculpture

Greek sculpture as well as Greek art had been exported to Italy earlier than Romans ruled the land. By the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. the Etruscans were firmly settled in Italy. A lot of objects have been and are always being found in vast Etruscan cemeteries. A number of the sculptures and many vases are Greek, though others are lively Etruscan translations of Greek forms. Numerous small bronze figures of farmers, warriors, or gods show the great talents of the Etruscans as metalworkers and sculptors. Rome profited from the double artistic inheritance of Greek and Etruscan sculpture. The imagination of Roman sculptors added to this heritage. The mainly significant contributions of the Roman sculptors were portraits; the development of Roman sculpture was the reverse of that of Greek sculpture. Instead of moving ahead from fairly simple, abstract forms to more natural and realistic statues, Roman sculpture, once realistic, became far more simple and abstract.

Sculpture of the Romanesque

A new and brilliant episode in Christian art began past the year 1000. For the next three centuries architects, carpenters, sculptors, masons, and hundreds of other craftsmen created some of the most imposing Christian churches ever built.

These artists worked on a bolder and larger scale than had been possible for hundreds of years. For their ideas they looked to the best examples of great structures they knew—Roman buildings. The term "Romanesque" suggests the Roman qualities of the art of the 11th and 12th centuries. Important changes were made by these later artists. German Romanesque churches differ from Italian ones and Spanish from French ones. Ideas of carving, building, and painting circulated freely, for people often went on pilgrimages to worship at sacred sites in different countries.

An early 11th century example of Romanesque sculpture shows the way Roman ideas were translated. The bronze doors of the Cathedral of Hildesheim have ten panels with scenes from the Bible. The placing, purpose, and arrangement of these large doors clearly recall the 5th-century doors of Santa Sabina in Rome. But the details are different. Small figures twist and turn freely. Their heads and hands are enlarged and stand out from the surface of the relief.

Sculpture of the Gothic

Sculpture after the 12th century gradually changed from the clear, concentrated abstractions of Romanesque art to a more natural and lifelike appearance. Human figures shown in natural proportions were carved in high relief on church columns and portals.

As Gothic sculptors became more skilled, they also gained greater freedom and independence. Later Gothic figures are depicted much more realistically than those made during the Romanesque and earlier Gothic periods. The faces of the statues have expression, and their garments are draped in a natural way. Hundreds of carvings in the great Gothic cathedrals all over Western Europe presented aspects of the Christian faith in terms that every Christian could understand.

The great period of building drew to a close by the early 14th century. A string of wars and crises prohibited the building of anything more than small chapels and a few additions to earlier structures. One finds only small statuettes and objects, used for private devotions, instead of the great programs of monumental sculpture that in the 13th century had enriched such cathedrals as those at Amiens, Paris, Rheims, Wells, Burgos, and Strasbourg.

Early Christian Sculptures

Early Christian sculpture resembled the art of Rome. Sarcophagi (burial chests) found in Italy are all Roman in type, although they are given a special meaning by subjects, signs, or symbols important for Christians. Sculpture, however, was not a natural form of expression for the early Christians. This was because one of the Ten Commandments forbids the making of graven (carved) images. Many early Christians interpreted this commandment, just as the Hebrews had, to mean that it was wrong to make any images of the human figure. Eventually church authorities decided that art could serve Christianity, only the making of idols (false gods) that was regarded as a violation of the commandment. In the 5th century A.D. the western half of the Roman Empire fell to invading Germanic tribes from northern and central Europe. These peoples soon became Christians and spread the religion all over Europe. Unlike the Romans, the Germanic peoples had no tradition of human representation in art. Their art consisted mainly of complex patterns and shapes used for decoration. It influenced Christian art as much as Greco-Roman art did. There are relatively few examples of sculpture made in the first 1,000 years of Christianity. Among these rare examples are portable altars, reliquaries (containers for the remains of Christian saints and martyrs), chalices, and other objects used in the services of Christian worship. These were shaped with great care and were often made of precious materials. Sculptors used the fragile and lovely medium of ivory in many ways. They carved it in relief for small altars or as covers for the Gospels, the Bible, or prayer books. Small, freestanding figures represented the Madonna and the Christ Child, angels, or Christian saints.