Editing Medieval art (section)

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{{Short description|Art during the Middle Ages in Europe and beyond}}
[[File:Monreale BW 2012-10-09 09-52-40.jpg|thumb|Byzantine Church mosaics, [[Monreale]], [[Sicily]], late 12th century]]
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The '''medieval art''' of the [[Western world]] covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in [[Western Asia]] and [[Northern Africa]]. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists' crafts, and the artists themselves.

Art historians attempt to classify medieval art into major periods and styles, often with some difficulty. A generally accepted scheme includes the later phases of [[Early Christian art]], [[Migration Period art]], [[Byzantine art]], [[Insular art]], [[Pre-Romanesque art and architecture|Pre-Romanesque]], [[Romanesque art]], and [[Gothic art]], as well as many other periods within these central styles. In addition, each region, mostly during the period in the process of becoming [[Nation|nations]] or cultures, had its own distinct artistic style, such as [[Anglo-Saxon art]] or [[Viking art]].

Medieval art was produced in many media, and works survive in large numbers in [[sculpture]], [[illuminated manuscript]]s, [[stained glass]], [[metalwork]] and [[mosaic]]s, all of which have had a higher survival rate than other media such as [[fresco]] wall-paintings, work in precious metals or [[History of clothing and textiles#Medieval clothing and textiles|textile]]s, including [[tapestry]]. Especially in the early part of the period, works in the so-called "minor arts" or [[decorative arts]], such as metalwork, ivory carving, [[vitreous enamel]] and [[embroidery]] using precious metals, were probably more highly valued than paintings or [[monumental sculpture]].<ref>Heslop traces the beginning of the change to "around the twelfth century", quoted, 54; Zarnecki, 234</ref>

Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic heritage of the [[Roman art|Roman Empire]] and the [[Christian iconography|iconographic traditions]] of the [[early Christian church]]. These sources were mixed with the vigorous "barbarian" artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce a remarkable artistic legacy. Indeed, the history of medieval art can be seen as the history of the interplay between the elements of [[classical art|classical]], early Christian and "barbarian" art.<ref>Kitzinger (throughout), Hinks (especially Part 1) and Henderson (Chapters 1, 2 & 4) in particular are concerned with this perennial theme. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kDNobJFWygcC&dq=Medieval+art+classical+barbarian+Gardner's&pg=PA407 Google books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221027094944/https://books.google.com/books?id=kDNobJFWygcC&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=Medieval+art+classical+barbarian+Gardner%27s&source=bl&ots=AUZrn-wyQw&sig=y2nS9GdW5mslQ8b5r7aRRr4119s&hl=en&ei=m5KBStT8HIy5jAfaocSKCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 |date=2022-10-27 }}</ref>  Apart from the formal aspects of classicism, there was a continuous tradition of realistic depiction of objects that survived in Byzantine art throughout the period, while in the West it appears intermittently, combining and sometimes competing with new expressionist possibilities developed in Western Europe and the Northern legacy of energetic decorative elements.  The period ended with the self-perceived [[Renaissance]] recovery of the skills and values of classical art, and the artistic legacy of the [[Middle Ages]] was then [[Dark Ages (historiography)|disparaged]] for some centuries.  Since a revival of interest and understanding in the 19th century it has been seen as a period of enormous achievement that underlies the development of later Western art.