The Middle ages was something I did not think I knew anything about until I started reading it. Then, everything I learned in my world civilization class started coming back to me. This was a chapter in that book I loves learning about and I found interesting.
Middle Ages comes from the time after the Roman Empire decline. The Middle Ages is from the seventh century to the end of the tenth century. As the Roman empire fell the Germanic tribes took over Western Europe. This effects the artist development and changing social and political power. During this time Islam entered Europe.
There was two types of art during this time period. The fist type was Islamic Art. During this time Muhammad taught not to worship idols and the Koran did not approve of statues of his prophets. There religious paintings were mainly of geometric or floral paintings. Sculptures were not made because they were believed to be work of Satan and there is not many found from Islam. A lot of their architecture came from mosques. This is where they would pray and when they prayed they faced Mecca. This is where I knew I had learned about this before. I have thought it was interesting they prayed facing their city, it shows the importance it had the people. In the mosque there are double arches. They were made by the original architect. I think these arched are beautiful and well constructed, you do not see anything like it anymore.
The second type of art of the time was Northern European Art. This art was influenced from Charles Martel, the ruler of the Frankish. He stopped the invasions of the Muslims into Central France. The North became more politically and artistically active. Germanic Angles and Saxon invaded British Isles and Frank invaded Gaul. Due to the invasions there was no production of architecture, paintings, or sculptures. But, there was a new craft-based art that developed by designs and techniques of metalwork. Anglo-Saxon made metal work in the seventeenth century. The piece originally has gold coins that came from Sutton Hoo in East Anglia. This purse is believed to have belonged to a person of royalty. The purse is covered in gold and dark red garnets. The designs on the purse are similar to Scythian animal style and other ancient Near eastern design. The Carolingian period was also apart of the Northern European Art. In 800 the pope crowned Charlemagne Roman emperor. He ruled most of Western Europe. Before the nineteenth century the territory was controlled by political and religious controversy, named Holy Roman Empire in the thirteenth century and stayed this way for 600 years. Charlemagne established a political organization like Ancient Rome and have unified laws and codes. To improve the peoples education he hired English professor and bought books to fits curriculum. I think Charlemagne was very important to the city, he really wanted to make his city a better place.
Journey I think it is cool that you started to remember stuff from your other class. That is pretty cool. I thought it was really cool how you started off tell us about everything that happened in that time period. Then you went into everything about the different types of art. I also am a fan of how right to the point you got. Overall very good work I enjoyed reading you post. Finish the semester strong you got it!
