Style
One of the main characteristics of Gothic sculpture was elegance. However, other changes occurred to sculpture, such as less enjambment into the background architecture, the contrasting of light and dark, and the Praxitlian ‘S’ curve. Gothic style moved away from the Romanesque style by simplification. The greatest change though was in sculptures separation from the architectural. Instead of having figures be created against walls or columns, sculptures were carved away from their supports. Also apparent in the piece is the contrast of shadow and light, made evident by the deep recesses in the clothes fabric. The sculptor of Mary exaggerated the S-curve of her body, a signature element of Gothic style. However, the S-curve did not originate during the Gothic Period of Europe, but well before in Greece. In the 4th century BCE, Greek sculptors were enthralled by the body’s movements and muscles, and tried to capture complete naturalism through the S- curve. For Gothic sculptors, the desired effect was not of body movement, but of elegance and elongation. However, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, or the start of the Late Gothic style, sculptures began to lack in volume. This extension and lightness is evident in Mary’s body.
Read more about this topic: Virgin Of Paris
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The authoritarian child-rearing style so often found in working-class families stems in part from the fact that parents see around them so many young people whose lives are touched by the pain and delinquency that so often accompanies a life of poverty. Therefore, these parents live in fear for their children’s future—fear that they’ll lose control, that the children will wind up on the streets or, worse yet, in jail.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“I am so tired of taking to others
translating my life for the deaf, the blind,
the “I really want to know what your life is like without giving up any of my privileges
to live it” white women
the “I want to live my white life with Third World women’s style and keep my skin
class privileges” dykes”
—Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbian feminist poet. “What Chou Mean We, White Girl?” Lines 49-54 (1979)