Carolingian Art During the Medieval Period, Essay Example

Introduction

Carolingian art lived in the period from 750 to 900 A.D. popularly referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance of the Frankish dynasty in medieval Europe. This era is a beginning of the medieval art movement known as Pre-Romanesque. The kings then patronized the Classical Roman art forms and blended them with German ones giving rise to new innovations in figure line drawing which saw the evolvement of Romanesque art and Gothic art in Western Europe.

The Carolingians architecture has many church buildings in France, an example seen as a major achievement completed in 788 is the monastic architecture of Centula Abbey of Saint –Riquier (Somme). Other surviving artwork includes sculptures, mosaics, frescos; metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. These were characterized by highly skilled techniques unlike the primitive styles of French art produced by local monasteries in the 11^th and 12^th C to promote literacy and piety.The Carolingian manuscripts have been copied models for multiple regional styles by artists. The monastery of Saint Bertin was created based on Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon forms. Later in the century’s reform movement has revised art production to other forms (Norman 1993).

Art history in the United States was established first in women colleges like Smith and Vassar due to the assumption that they mother the cultural norms of the people. Later it was incorporated in the graduate programs of the male-dominated colleges like Princeton University in New Jersey and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Across the river from Boston lies Cambridge which is the core of medieval rebirth in the United States. However, the classical revival dominance in the US popularized the Romantic Movement characterized by Italianate and Gothic forms of art and architecture.

Influence of the Carolingian Renaissance to the Modern World

Unique in the Carolingian era is the development of Medieval Latin as a common language and Carolingian minuscule as a writing style which are allowed across most Europe and permeated to the rest of the world for communication. Other studies have also been developed such as jurisprudence, liturgical, architecture, and scriptural studies. There were scholarly efforts to enhance literacy for even the clergy possessed very little ability to read the Vulgate Bible. The king ordered creation of schools to harmonize the divergent dialects of the Vulgate Latin which were precursors to today’s Romance languages. The king’s scholars made some original bible commentaries and create standard school curriculum, created textbooks and word lists.

The Carolingian minuscule introduced the lower case letters, coined new words and the classic grammatical rules of Latin. Medieval Latin became the official scholarly language used by both travelers and administrators across Europe. Music practice and theory in the Carolingian era saw music copying and writing and sought to unify church music. The first western music notation was created in Metz in 800 by Frank church musicians to retain performance nuances (Mortimer et al 1983).

Economic and legal reforms in the Carolingian era saw the standardization of currency based on a silver pound.  Legally, the value of 240 deniers was minted to a pound of silver. An accounting device called a solidus had the value of twelve deniers and was used to record values such as grain. This is a reminder of weights and scales, the origins of money currencies used to date and the impacts of renaissance period to the modern world.

Works Cited

Norman F. Cantor (1993). Middle ages Civilization. End edition  New York, HarperCollins. ISBN  0-06-017033-6.

Mortimer Chambers et al . The Western Experience: to 1715 (3^rd Edition ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-33085-4.