what happened to art in the middle ages?

[Cutter John]

It just means that like today, you don't actually need talent to use a paintbrush (Just check out any convention art show).

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Did they think in the Dark Ages that the study of art was somehow heresy or something?

No.

Just that drawing in the dark is really hard to do.

You are fired from the Internet. Clean out the tubes on your way out and climb into the waiting truck.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

... Ethelred the Unready...

Random Fact of the Day: Unready is a corruption of Unraed (Bad Advice), which is a pun on his name (Aethelred = Good Advice). They may not have been able to draw, but they could certainly do comedy.

I actually knew that, but decided to let someone else handle the history nerd moment instead.

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

Did they think in the Dark Ages that the study of art was somehow heresy or something?

No.

Just that drawing in the dark is really hard to do.

... Ethelred the Unready...

Random Fact of the Day: Unready is a corruption of Unraed (Bad Advice), which is a pun on his name (Aethelred = Good Advice). They may not have been able to draw, but they could certainly do comedy.

So there's hope for you, then?

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, there were some rudimentary attempts at perspective (not that it always looked that great), but a lot of times it had to do with why they were making it. If the point was to depict a story for illiterate masses (like the Bayeux Tapestry, for example), it was more important to make the King look bigger than everyone else (so you would know it was the king) than to have any kind of perspective.

This is true.

A lot of the time they weren't going for realism. They were trying to tell a story, and distorting proportions was a good way to tell what things were more important than other things, or to describe a larger setting (like the awkward castle walls in the 3rd image) while keeping the focus on the people in the center.

Also, a lot of it is simply style. Some artist somewhere will decide to paint in a particular style, and the public will eat it up. As a result, more artists will copy that style. You have to remember that art back then was usually a business. Wealthy patrons would hire artists to paint portraits of themselves or decorate their homes in whatever way was popular at the time.

 

[Pingfah]

Alidar, TSQ and Salt Truck, thank you all for your very interesting replies, I had not considered that it may be deliberate for the reasons you put forward.

 

[Holdfast]

Did they think in the Dark Ages that the study of art was somehow heresy or something?

No.

Just that drawing in the dark is really hard to do.

You are fired from the Internet. Clean out the tubes on your way out and climb into the waiting truck.

You're just jealous you didn't think of it first.

... Ethelred the Unready...

Random Fact of the Day: Unready is a corruption of Unraed (Bad Advice), which is a pun on his name (Aethelred = Good Advice). They may not have been able to draw, but they could certainly do comedy.

I actually knew that, but decided to let someone else handle the history nerd moment instead.

I prefer to think of myself as a knowledge facilitator.

Did they think in the Dark Ages that the study of art was somehow heresy or something?

No.

Just that drawing in the dark is really hard to do.

... Ethelred the Unready...

Random Fact of the Day: Unready is a corruption of Unraed (Bad Advice), which is a pun on his name (Aethelred = Good Advice). They may not have been able to draw, but they could certainly do comedy.

So there's hope for you, then?

Yeah, come on then, bring on the snark. This is going to end well...

 

[ria 75]

Round about 900 AD

Hmm... There was a trend in the 20th century to emulate that kind of style. It can be a choice.
And there were better illuminators than that at the time.
Just look at the Book of Kells, for instance. (c. 800)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_kells

Ethelred would still make a good avatar. How about it, Rÿcher?