Cleveland's Medieval Treasure

To the tourist traveling through France, medieval art seems just one dark cathedral after another. He is rarely aware that many of the gargoyles, crockets and spires that he sees are merely 19th century replicas designed to replace what time and the French Revolution destroyed. The artistic magnificence of a millennium in which man rose to the confidence of the Renaissance has been largely scattered --and there is more to it than what is found in churches.

A remarkable sampling of it has been brought together by the Cleveland Museum in its current exhibition of "Treasures from Medieval France." The 165 works on view are a splendid assemblage of illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, reliquaries, stained glass and jewelry. This panoply proves that the medieval era from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1500 was as rich as the Renaissance.

Christianity was the theme, and a thousand years of it display the changes that occurred in man's interpretation of his deity. At first, the Christian story appears as a happy parable. One early 9th century object produced by Charlemagne's workshop is an ivory plaque symbolic of its time (see opposite page). Christ is the central figure, triumphant despite his torment on the cross. The Second Coming, which some Christians had hoped would take place in the year 1000, appears as a future inevitability to the artist. High in the iconography is the hand of God reaching down to pull men to heaven.

Stark Mortality. Romanesque art gradually came to express a sense of impending doom. In some works, God became a magistrate of man's fate. The Last Judgment replaced the Crucifixion as a popular subject. In a fragment of a 12th century tympanum, or semicircular panel atop a doorway, the Apostles appear garbed in ordinary robes, looking toward the missing figure of God. The significance lies in the stark mortality of Matthew, Peter, Paul and John, portrayed like any common men before the terror of God. The 13th century Gothic period was more orderly than awestruck. A stained-glass lancet window shows Christ's passion in five panels set in an interlace of jewel-like embroidery. Christ ascends toward heaven by vignettes--from betrayal, to entombment. Later, as the terror of the apocalypse grew wearying, the Virgin Mary became more prominent. The Christ Child's figure became relatively smaller and the Virgin's larger and more feminine. With their rediscovery of Greek art by the 15th century, artists only made God more the image of man than vice versa.

The exhibition in Cleveland shows the workings of man's hands in reshaping those images--not just exalting beliefs but also expressing doubts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.