Hi!  My name is Lola Palomo i'm an art
historian and a singer and today i'll be
speaking to you about the art of the
middle ages
it's a long time more than one thousand
years of art
and we'll be focusing on the art of the
secular production of
the middle ages which means all the
artwork beyond the walls
of the monasteries and the churches so
the middle ages begins
after the fall of rome and ends in the
beginning of the renaissance and it's a
thousand years worth
of art and today i want to speak about
what was going on
in the secular part of art and
especially we'll be focusing on
a social or sociological perspective or
focus
on artwork and finally we will be
speaking about
the art of courtly love so
it's a subject that has been with us
since the middle ages
probably the way we understand love is
more
from the middle ages than from the roman
times and it's interesting to see
how does the middle ages understand love
and
what art has to say about it so stick
around and see
the middle ages from a sociological
perspective and
courtly love see you there
all right so as always huge subjects
very little time so let's get right to
it when you think of the middle ages
what comes to mind feudalism chivalry
the black death perhaps very pointy hats
and beautiful gowns
you have the times of the crusades
current tv series you can probably think
of many that take on
medieval style imagery ideas dragons
ideas of courtly love of being loyal to
your king
lawyer to your feudal lord loyal to
yourself so today we'll be looking at
artwork of the middle ages but i want
you to get a glimpse
of what the middle ages really was about
so let me show you a little bit of
ideas of obviously there's many old
churches
many pieces of artwork pertaining
christianity and
christendom in all parts of europe but
let's look at art
of the middle ages beyond that idea that
we usually have in our minds
so for that let me show you a pieces of
artwork
of the north of the british isles this
is sutton who
and this was a burial found
in the 20th century of very huge amount
of worth but we really don't know
much about it except that you can see
there is metal work that is exquisite
there is this intricate ornamentation a
lot of ruby
was used and we found the mask that
you're seeing now for example
that was uh well it's reconstructed
obviously but then you have
the brooches and different elements that
were very very intricately made
so it shows us there was a lot of work
done
so this is the art of the middle ages
from an anglo-saxon perspective then you
have byzantine
middle medieval art for example these
icons there's a coptic art
that was basically what was left of the
roman
empire after the fall of rome became the
byzantine empire and their way of
understanding christianity
was very different from the western
understanding and development
and the artwork of the byzantine empire
as you can see here
was very much about the icons and
christianity
seen from that perspective then you have
for example illuminated manuscripts
that's more known
basically a lot of the artwork of the
middle ages that we have today
the visual arts are all on manuscripts
and let me remind you that there is no
paper
in european middle ages so
all the artwork that is done on
manuscripts was very expensive
and across the board all the artwork
that is still with us today of the
middle ages
was very expensive to make so that is
why we have a lot of artwork from the
churches
from very expensive churches
their buildings and the architecture
also the sculptures and the
ornamentation
inside and we also have very very
exquisite pieces of artwork
coming from the courts and the kings and
queens and what they left to us today
so a lot of the artwork has been lost
now one thing that we don't think about
very often
is the spanish peninsula was
muslim spain until 1492 i believe the
end of the 15th century so
a lot of the middle ages for spain was
very much muslim-based and the first
image that comes to mind is the alhambra
so if you look at this amazing place you
can see that it's very intricate as well
very developed and it was yeah muslim
spain
arabic spain and a lot of ideas and
science and even the courtly love that
we'll be speaking about in a few minutes
comes from the arabic
place of spain during the middle ages so
artwork can be divided into
secular and religious realms
so the secular is all about the life of
the people
beyond the church and then you have the
religious part of art which is all about
the church now
in the middle ages it's a bit
complicated because basically the whole
structure of society in europe and
i guess yeah later on the colonies but
in europe
it's very much the church is the basis
of
all society of all life you are born
into the church you get sick
for the church you are an orphan you go
to the church
you die you go to the church and the
church was a place where
a lot of this information was written
down you wanted to learn to read
if you had that capacity you went to the
church you wanted to save your soul
you went to the church so everything was
related
somehow to faith to religion and
how can we find the artwork that's
beyond religion that's where we go to
the courts
and that's where we're going now so
before we do that i want to focus on one
concept which is
the social history of art you know i'm
all about concepts and today i want to
focus on
this concept which means how to study
art
from a social perspective so we look at
society
and based on society the artwork is
created
and there are a there was a uh
a stream or a line of studies that was
called
it was in german con sociology so the
sociology of
art which took on this idea that
basically art is
determined by society and if you're
interested in this
uh there's a few art authors that i
suggest
so basically the father of this
sociology is
hauser i'll write it down then you have
an art
an author that i recommend that you read
gombric
which i remember i read in in university
and finally panovsky
so these three authors are very good
ways to begin
a social or sociology
perspective on art and what that means
is we focus on the artwork
as a product of society yes there's
certain um
structuralist hue to that you can read
on on your own but anyway
it's not about the art for art's sake
which is more of the aesthetics
it's more about this piece of artwork is
showing me how society
was being developed on this time and
this is a perfect way for us to go
to our main subject today which is
courtly love that
what is courtly love as the word says
it's
art sorry it's love of the court
and what does that mean so in this
period a lot of as you probably know a
lot of the marriages between
higher societies nobility was all about
politics
to unite territories to unite kingdoms
to unite
forces not about love so people married
into a family or married into a
territory
and the idea of loving your future
spouse was really not a subject
at all but in these courts where a lot
of
no lords and ladies would mingle around
the
idea of love developed as a
a way to woo or a way to be honored by
a lady in this case so it is said to
have been created in the court of
eleanor of aquitaine
and she is supposedly have brought it to
the french court
there is also the idea that in the the
muslim or the arabic spanish courts
there was already this in poetry
especially
there's this idea of noble love or
love that will set you higher as a
person or love
for love's sake so more of love
as achieving a personal
better placement in your own life more
than
getting married and having children
right
so let's look at a little bit of this
so the idea of love was seen
through the eyes of the middle ages so
remember this is the time of the
crusades the times where there's feudal
lords
so a hierarchy of the servant
showing respect and being faithful to
the lord
or the knights being faithful to the
lord so this scheme
of being faithful too was brought into
love so
the nobility of your heart was or the
nobility of your love
was declared by deeds of faith
to your lady so let's look at a little
bit of this courtly love idea
and let's look at a few pieces that are
talking about
love in the middle ages first of all let
me show you a
brooch which was a token of love
given by a lover to his myth to his
loved we don't know much about those two
people but
if you look you see rubies you see
sapphires and those two
uh gems are important in
the literature of love i'll get to that
when we go to the song
so this has an inscription which says i
am here
in the place of the friend i love and
when we say
um courtly love it doesn't necessarily
mean consume love or love that really
happens
though it does sometimes what happens a
lot of the times
as we see in the literature is that
there is faith and love
from the servant to the noble lady
or from the knight to a noble
lady higher in position and that love
is always demonstrated but always kept
themselves
and this brooch kind of tells us that
probably given
in secrecy probably a secret between
these two lovers that never
never have a chance to really declare
their love publicly but this piece here
that you're seeing was a an ivory casket
and it's amazing because it has it's
very big in terms of caskets
and it has different images of love and
if you can see it's
chivalric there's one scene where you
can see there's a
some kind of battle going on there's
somebody in a castle in another part
and it has different elements that show
us what was
uh what was happening in between two
people
while they were you know declaring their
love to each other
and here there's an idea of something
called
so the siege of the castle of love this
is another subject that we see a few
pieces
of artwork and some manuscripts showing
us this idea so
it actually did happen i was reading
into it
it is a an idea that women or ladies
were locked up
in a castle and they had to be conquered
or vanquished by nobles or knights
outside the castle to be able to come in
now let's look at another little casket
and here you have other examples
of this courtly love and as you can see
here there's somebody playing a muse
musical instrument a vial maybe and this
is where i would like to take you now
to a piece of music that i'll be showing
you during the
the week which is a it's a love song
basically and i want to show you a bit
of the words of the song
for you to get an idea of what was going
on in terms of poetry and music
there is still with us today some of the
music
of non-religious elements or
non-religious
examples of medieval music and this
piece is by macho
which is um this would be france today
and
the song that you probably heard at the
beginning of this video
is called fue puerte so it's in aquatin
occitan i'm sorry and it's what it's
saying is i want to bear faith
guard honor and seek peace obey serve
and honor you all the way to death so as
the lord is being served by the night
and the knight would give his life for
the lord so
the lord feud the lord in this case the
idea of the lover he would give his life
for his lady and at the end towards the
end of the song
we have the mention of the sapphire and
the ruby that we heard that we saw on
the brooch before
so he's he says here you are the true
sapphire
which is able to heal and bring and then
to all my ills and emerald to rejoice in
a ruby
to brighten comfort the heart so all
these ideas
of the siege of of the castle of love
the idea of certain flowers and certain
precious stones related to love
certain music that is also pertaining
love is
all around the middle ages more than we
are aware of today
today we think of the middle ages as a
time to pray and church music and
gregorian chant
but it was a very lively very
very it was full of kindness and full of
passion in its own right but we have not
so many examples
of that part of life present in us today
so i invite you to look at art beyond
what you usually think
a subject is so the middle ages is a lot
more than churches
and i guess priests
and crusades and today we try to look at
a little bit more of
everyday life through the lens of social
history or sociology of
art and next week we'll talk about
really this time the
focus will be on churches romanesque and
gothic styles
and also i'll be talking about a little
bit of the artwork
inside the churches the stained glass
and what light
means to the especially the end of the
middle ages or the gothic
times so i hope you enjoy this this has
been a pleasure
this is one of my best uh subjects to
talk about
music and art at the same time i hope
this is
helping you with your courtly love
endeavors in your current life
and i wish you all the best and remember
make sure creativity is part of your day
see you soon see you next time bye
you
