Art of the Crusades - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The art of the Crusades, meaning primarily the art produced in Middle Eastern areas under Crusader control, spanned two artistic periods in Europe, the Romanesque

Romanesque art

Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...

and the Gothic

Gothic art

Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

, but in the Crusader kingdoms of the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

the Gothic style barely appeared. The military crusaders themselves were mostly not noticeably interested in artistic matters, or sophisticated in their taste, and much of their art was destroyed in the loss of their kingdoms so that only a few pieces survive today. Probably their most notable and influential artistic achievement was the Crusader castles, many of which achieve a stark, massive beauty. They developed the Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

methods of city-fortification for stand-alone castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s far larger than any constructed before, either locally or in Europe.

The crusaders encountered a long and rich artistic tradition in the lands they conquered at the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th. Byzantine

Byzantine art

Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

and Islamic art

Islamic art

Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...

(that of both the Arabs and the Turks) were the dominant styles in the Crusader states

Crusader states

The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century feudal states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land , and during the Northern Crusades in the eastern Baltic area...

, although there were also the styles of the indigenous Syrians

Demographics of Syria

Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...

and Armenians

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

. These indigenous styles were incorporated into styles brought by the crusaders from Europe, which were themselves highly varied, stemming from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and elsewhere. On the whole the Eastern Christian styles were more significant influences than Islamic art; the artists working in the Crusader lands are assumed to have had the same variety of backgrounds. Many art historians attempt to guess the backgrounds, in terms of ethnicity, place of birth and training, of the artists involved with particular works, an effort treated with caution by Kurt Weitzmann

Kurt Weitzmann

Kurt Weitzmann was born in Klein Almerode Germany on May 7, 1904 and died in Princeton, New Jersey on June 7, 1993. He was a highly influential art historian who studied Byzantine and medieval art. He attended the universities of Münster, Würzburg and Vienna before moving to Princeton in 1935, due...

, Doula Mouriki, and Jaroslav Folda

Jaroslav Folda

Jaroslav Folda is a medievalist, in which field he is a Haskins Medal winner; he is a scholar in the history of the Art of the Crusades and the N. Ferebee Taylor Professor of the History of Art at the University of North Carolina. His area of interest for teaching and research is the art of the...

, author of the most recent detailed survey.

Crusader art, like the history of the Crusader kingdoms in general, falls clearly into two, or three, periods. The first begins with the First Crusade

First Crusade

The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...

which culminated in 1099 with the bloody taking of Jerusalem

Siege of Jerusalem (1099)

The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade. The Crusaders stormed and captured the city from Fatimid Egypt.-Background:...

and the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....

and other states to the north. The following decades were turbulent but artistically productive, until the catastrophe of 1187 saw the Crusader defeat at the Battle of Hattin

Battle of Hattin

The Battle of Hattin took place on Saturday, July 4, 1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid dynasty....

and the fall of Jerusalem

Siege of Jerusalem (1187)

On July 4, 1187 the Kingdom's army was defeated at the Battle of Hattin by Saladin and only Balian of Ibelin commanding a small number of soldiers remained in Jerusalem. The Siege of Jerusalem lasted from September 20 to October 2, 1187. On October 2, 1187 Balian of Ibelin surrendered Jerusalem to...

to Saladin

Saladin

Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...

. In the second period the Kingdom of Jerusalem was now hugely reduced in size to control only a few coastal towns and the areas around them, which were gradually whittled away by the Muslims until the final Siege of Acre (1291)

Siege of Acre (1291)

The Siege of Acre took place in 1291 and resulted in the loss of the Crusader-controlled city of Acre to the Muslims. It is considered one of the most important battles of the time period. Although the crusading movement continued for several more centuries, the capture of the city marked the end...

ended Crusader presence in the Levant

Levant

. However the kingdom still controlled Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, taken from the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, and the House of Lusignan continued to rule there, and later the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , also known as the Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilician Armenia or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia...

, until respectively 1489 and the late 14th century, representing the third period of Crusader art, not counted as such by all sources; in Cyprus the Gothic style is often found.

Painting

An example of the mixture of different styles is the Melisende Psalter

Melisende Psalter

The Melisende Psalter is an illuminated manuscript commissioned around 1135 in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, probably by King Fulk for his wife Queen Melisende...

, an illuminated manuscript

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

produced in the mid-12th century, perhaps for Queen Melisende of Jerusalem

Melisende of Jerusalem

Melisende was Queen of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1153, and regent for her son between 1153 and 1161 while he was on campaign. She was the eldest daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and the Armenian princess Morphia of Melitene. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Melisende of...

. It reflects her European and Armenian heritage, and is also influenced by Byzantine and Islamic techniques. The Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in the city of Saint Catherine in Egypt's South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is Orthodox and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site...

was an important centre where a school of manuscript and icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

painting that blended European and local influences emerged. Fortunately it has also been a very secure home for its collection of icons (but not manuscripts in Latin, all of which were later destroyed, apparently under Russian influence), so a good number have survived there. Artists who can be identified on stylistic grounds as originating in France

France

and Italy

Italy

(Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

and Apulia

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

) worked there, producing work mixing Byzantine and Western conventions, but usually with lettering in Greek. This was possible because by a quirk of Orthodox history the church there was in communion with both the Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

and the other Orthodox churches, and so the normal sectarian divides that separated the crusaders from even the local Christians did not operate.

Another example of the mixture of styles is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....

in Jerusalem, the renovation and rebuilding of which was completed in 1149; however only fragments of the large programme of mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...

s now survive. This was until the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 the institution with the main Crusader scriptorium

Scriptorium

Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...

, from which six manuscripts survive, made in a mixture of royal and church commissions. Most of the significant surviving illuminated manuscripts were produced in the 13th century, about half in the last forty years of the Latin kingdom; to what extent this is an accident of survival is unclear. Some icons in wall painting and mosaic survive from the Church of the Nativity

Church of the Nativity

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world. The structure is built over the cave that tradition marks as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, and thus it is considered sacred by Christians...

in Bethlehem

Bethlehem

Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...

. The Hospitaller church at Abu Ghosh

Abu Ghosh

Abu Ghosh is an Israeli Arab town in Israel, located west of Jerusalem on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. It is situated 610–720 meters above sea level. In 2010, it set the Guinness World Record for largest dish of hummus...

, apparently then regarded as the biblical Emmaus

Emmaus

Emmaus was an ancient town located approximately northwest of present day Jerusalem...

, was abandoned in 1187 but has good remains of fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

Sculpture

Figurative monumental sculpture

Monumental sculpture

The term monumental sculpture is often used in art history and criticism, but not always consistently. It combines two concepts, one of function, and one of size, and may include an element of a third more subjective concept. It is often used for all sculptures that are large...

in relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

was, some earlier Armenian work apart, not part of local Christian traditions, so the Romanesque

Romanesque art

sculpture of Europe, especially France, was much the largest influence. Discussion of the varied styles by art historians typically involves only various areas in Europe, mostly in France. Many elements were re-used in later buildings, and have now re-appeared, often badly damaged. Original work has survived at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, whose carved lintels are now in the Rockefeller Museum

Rockefeller Museum

The Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum, is an archaeological museum located in East Jerusalem that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in Ottoman Palestine beginning in the late 19th century.The museum is under the management...

in the city, and was removed from the destroyed Church of Santa Maria Latina nearby.

Another major pilgrimage basilica, the Church of the Annunciation

Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation , sometimes also referred to as the Basilica of the Annunciation is a church in Nazareth, in modern-day northern Israel.-History:...

in Nazareth

Nazareth

Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...

, was just nearing the completion of a major rebuilding in 1187. Saladin in fact left the Christians in place and does not seem to have damaged the building. However the church was seriously damaged in the next major upheaval in the area, the invasion in 1267 by the Mamluk

Mamluk

A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

ruler Baybars, and the sculptures remaining from the church all suffered. In 1908 five extra capitals were excavated, having, it is presumed, been buried in 1187 soon after they were made but before they were put in place, when news of Saladin's approach reached the town. These are in excellent condition, and some of the most famous sculptures of the Crusader period.

The situation is rather different with decorative sculpture, where local influence is much stronger. The beautifully carved and complex decoration on the arches and cornices over the doors into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is unlike anything in France from this period and reflects local development of Syrian late Roman styles; some parts are probably re-used Roman material. The neighbouring capitals, "based on Justinianic models, are probably the work of local Christian sculptors working for the Latins".

The end

After the rapid collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

in 1187, which must have destroyed a great part of the artwork the crusaders produced, they were mostly confined to a few cities on the Mediterranean coast until Acre

Acre, Israel

Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

was conquered in 1291. Their artistic output did not cease during the 13th century, and shows further influences from the art of the Mamluk

Mamluk

A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

s and Mongols

Mongols

Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

.

In Cyprus, the Lusignan kingdom continued to produce work, including the Gothic cathedrals of Famagusta

Famagusta

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of Cyprus and is capital of the Famagusta District. It is located east of Nicosia, and possesses the deepest harbour of the island.-Name:...

(Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque originally known as the Saint Nicolas Cathedral and later as the Ayasofya Mosque of Magusa, is the largest medieval building in Famagusta, North Cyprus. Built between 1298 and c.1400 it was consecrated as a Christian cathedral in 1328...

) and Nicosia

Nicosia

Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...

(Haydarpasha Mosque

Haydarpasha Mosque

Haydarpasha Mosque/St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Nicosia was originally built by the Lusignans in the 14th century. It has been described by Harry Charles Luke as representing one of the finest examples of Gothic buildings on the island...

/Saint Catherine and Selimiye Mosque

Selimiye Mosque (Nicosia)

Selimiye Mosque or Agia Sofia Cathedral, formerly Cathédrale Sainte Sophie, is located in the Turkish controlled northern part of the walled city of Nicosia. It is the main mosque in the city. It is housed in the largest and oldest surviving gothic church in Cyprus possibly constructed on the site...

/Saint Sophia Cathedral), all later used as mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

s and relatively well-preserved (minus their figurative sculpture).

Influences on Europe

There was also crusade-related art produced back in Europe, from the many illuminated crusade chronicles such as the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

translation of William of Tyre

William of Tyre

William of Tyre was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from a predecessor, William of Malines...

, to architecture such as the round churches built by the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

in the style of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Sainte-Chapelle

Sainte-Chapelle

La Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...

in Paris built to accommodate relics brought back from the East. Luxurious printed textiles began to be produced in Europe at around the end of the Crusades, and may well have been another influence. In general, it is often not possible to say with certainty whether influences or new types of objects arriving in Europe at this period did so via Islamic Spain, the Byzantine world, or the Crusader states. Historians tend to discount the importance of the Crusader States in this regard, despite the very well developed Italian trading networks there. European castle

Castle

-building was certainly decisively influenced by the crusaders.

External links

University of Michigan article

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Painting

Sculpture

The end

Influences on Europe

Further reading

External links