Pathways to the International Style
Even as an important basis was here being established for the
extraordinarily homogeneous style that would stamp itself upon the
art of western and central Europe around 1400, so in Tuscany
Giotto
and
Simone Martini had set standards which were almost impossible to
surpass. For their contemporaries and followers, consequently, it
was a matter of consolidating what had been achieved rather than of
embarking upon something new. In Siena, such important painters as
Lippo Memmi
(active 1317-c. 1350) and
Pietro Lorenzetti (c.
1280/90-1348) further developed the art of Simone,
while in Florence
Taddeo Gaddi (active c. 1325—1366) and others
embraced the legacy of
Giotto. A certain artistic paralysis now set
in. A contributory factor here was the outbreak in 1348/49 of the
Black Death, which spread throughout Europe in just a few months and
in some places carried off over half the population, including many
artists —
Pietro Lorenzetti perhaps among them. Stagnation and
increasingly empty routine would make the Italian artists only too
eager to embrace the new trends of the International Gothic towards
the end of the century.
New impetus would eventually come from the northern centres of Paris
and Prague. While the trauma of 1348 continued to be processed in
many places in extremely expressive Crucifixions and Lamentations,
the forerunners of the International Gothic were already formulating
the new style which, around 1400, would dominate the whole of
non-Byzantine Europe. At almost the same time as
Theoderic was
painting his monumental, melancholy saints for Karlstein castle - the crystallization-point of Charles IV's cultural,
political and religious ambitions - the Prague sculptors were
unveiling their quite different art, its figures more stereotypical
than individual, more elegant than earthly. Their influence
immediately began radiating out to neighbouring Silesia, which
belonged to Bohemia, and on to Salzburg.
There were enough branches of the Parler dynasty of artists alone to
ensure close exchanges with the Rhineland. Characteristic features
of this Prague school include Lamentations and, above all, the
aptly-named Schone Madonnen ("Beautiful Madonnas"). Alongside their
technical perfection, these latter are distinguished by the dynamic
sweep of their bodies, an affected pose, faces of an almost
saccharine sweetness and in particular a volume of draperies
arranged with consummate skill, which tumble down the sides in rich
cascades and conclude in a virtuoso sea of undulating hems.
Judging by the quality, number and geographical spread of the works
which followed, this aesthetic revolution must have captivated other
artists of the day as far away as Italy and even distant Spain. At
home, it was translated into painting by the Master of Wittingau
(active c. 1380-1390), the last great artist which the Bohemian
school, which flow ered for just a few decades, would produce. He
underlines once again the importance of the new style not just for
Bohemia, but for Europe as a whole: almost all the elements which
would be central to European painting around 1400 are present in his
Wittingau Altar.
