art: Europe 101 often carved images to decorate public buildings and private homes It was a natural step to go from carving statues for government buildings to carving statues for religious buildings Further, the attitude that artists were craftspeople helps explain why some painters and sculptors devoted several years to a single piece that would be displayed in a public place For them such work was not a matter of crushing their artistic spirits or losing their freedom to create art Instead, they had families to house, feed, and clothe, and a project that would take several years to complete for a prosperous church meant financial security for the artist and his family A longterm project was not a burden but an opportunity North of the Alps, European artists of the Age of Faith were working in the artistic traditions of the Celts and Germans The tastes of both artists and their patrons tended toward intricate interweaving of lines, influenced by goldsmiths and silversmiths and their jewelry, which tended to feature animal or plant images enveloped in mazes of lines The lines usually could be traced back to the contours of the animal or plant images, making the lines elaborate extensions of the legs, tails, stems, or other parts of the images From Scandinavia to central Europe, from Ireland to Ukraine, the intricate interweaving of lines based on natural forms dominated art until about 1050 This form of art may have reached its greatest height in illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a text that has been individually illustrated by a painter Elaborately illustrating texts may have begun in the monasteries of Ireland; Irish monastic orders established new monasteries from Ireland to eastern Europe, bringing their skills at illuminating books with them Medieval book illustrations often seem marvelously abstract to the modern viewer For instance, the Cross Page from the Lindisfarne Gospels (ca 700) displays a cross filled with and surrounded by very detailed patterns of loops; close inspection of the page reveals that the swooping lines outside the cross can be traced back to the bodies of stylized eagles with their eyes seeming to peer from the page The intention of the artist seems to be to show how the cross places limits on savage creatures and by inference on human passions—particularly the desire to make war, because eagles were common symbols of war The Age of Charlemagne Karl der Grosse (r 768–814) was the name of the greatest of the Carolingian kings, today best known as Charlemagne, which is French for “Karl the Great.” He managed to reunite much of what had been Roman Europe into a new empire, the art of which was influenced by his restless spirit and persistently inquisitive mind He visited Italy at least three times, and his impressions of the grandeur of Roman art inspired him to try to establish a great artistic tradition in northern Europe In his capital city of Aachen, he had monumental structures built, mostly of wood, which have been lost to decay, fire, and war, but the Palace Chapel was made of stone, and it survives For its construction, columns and bronze works were imported from Italy, and Italian artisans were very likely imported as well Thus, Charlemagne stirred the pot of European art, mixing southern and northern European traditions Much of the Carolingian achievement survives in stone monasteries and churches, but for the fine arts, book illustration perhaps provides the best window to Carolingian style, because little of the mosaics, sculpture, and murals of the era survive The Gospel Book of Charlemagne features human figures that are reminiscent of Roman art in modeling Romanesque Era Southern Europeans were much less interested in the intricacies of art of northern and central Europe, preferring to focus on the human figure For instance, the Beatus Apocalypse manuscript (early 1000s) features human and animal figures set against background blocks of color Symbolism rules what the artist has depicted One illustration presents a multiheaded beast, perhaps a dragon It represents Satan being cast out of heaven In the upper-left corner is a woman with an image of the sun in front of her She represents the Christian Church, illuminating the world About the time this illustration was made, the art of southern Europe was beginning a new phase This was the Romanesque era, which lasted from 1050 to 1200 and spread through Europe Although Romanesque art has been given its own era, during which it was the dominant style in much of Europe, it did not entirely die out until the end of the medieval era Romanesque artists copied only the form of classical art, not the ideas behind it Instead, artists adopted Roman styles because the Roman emphasis on realism was useful: Realistic figures appealed to laypeople and were easier to use to bring biblical passages to life The ideas of the ancient Roman artists were replaced by medieval spiritual concerns Sculpture seems to have been affected by the Romanesque movement more than other art forms, because the Romanesque era brought with it a revival of monumental sculpture After the 400s European sculpture focused on small, shallow reliefs and statuettes, but the Romanesque era focused on large structures for churches, monasteries, and convents and with those came demand for decorative carvings, murals, and sculptures, helping to expand the number of experienced artists who would help fuel the Gothic era to come Not only did architecture influence the fine arts, but the reverse was sometimes also true For example, the typical reinforcing arches for the vault of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe in