Gothic Art and Paintings

In art, Gothic is the style of the later Middle Ages in Europe, from the mid-1100s to the 1500s: pointed arches in architecture and, in painting and sculpture, elongated figures with flowing drapery. The National Gallery in London explains that the word comes from the Goths, a Germanic people, and was first used by Italians to describe the art of northern Europe; it now covers architecture and art made in northern Europe between about the 12th and 16th centuries. The Getty's art vocabulary dates the style's beginning to northern France in the mid-12th century.

Sources: National Gallery: Gothic (glossary) · Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval)

Gothic art is marked by elongated figures, flowing lines of drapery, bright color, gold and intricate detail, almost always in the service of religious stories. The Getty's art vocabulary lists bright color, elongated proportions, intricate detail and emotional narrative content as typical of Gothic stained glass, altarpieces, wall paintings and manuscripts, and the National Gallery in London names the elongated figure and flowing linear drapery. In Italy most of these paintings were made in egg tempera on wooden panels, the National Gallery adds.

Sources: Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval) · National Gallery: Gothic (glossary) · National Gallery: Tempera (glossary)

The Gothic period in art ran from the mid-1100s to the 1500s. The Getty's art vocabulary says the style began in northern France in the mid-12th century, spread to the rest of western Europe over the next 100 years and evolved into the Renaissance at different times in different parts of Europe. The National Gallery in London places International Gothic, its late courtly phase, between the late 14th and the mid-15th centuries, and dates the Early Renaissance of Masaccio and Donatello in Florence to the 15th century.

Sources: Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval) · National Gallery: International Gothic (glossary) · National Gallery: Early Renaissance (glossary)

Gothic art started in northern France in the mid-1100s, in the building of cathedrals. The Getty's art vocabulary says the style evolved in cathedral architecture, with immense interiors, towers, spires and soaring height made possible by pointed arches and flying buttresses, and then flourished in stained glass, sculpture, elaborate altarpieces, wall painting and manuscript illumination. Italian painters took it up in their own way: Duccio's art, the National Gallery in London says, was deeply influenced by French Gothic metalwork.

Sources: Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval) · National Gallery: Duccio

The most famous Gothic painters are Giotto, Duccio and Simone Martini in 14th-century Italy, Cimabue before them, and the Limbourg brothers in France. The National Gallery in London calls Giotto the chief liberator of Italian painting from the Byzantine style, Duccio one of the most important painters of 14th-century Italy and Simone Martini one of the greatest painters of the 14th century; the Uffizi calls Cimabue the most important painter of central Italy in the later 1200s, and the Getty calls the Limbourg brothers the leading northern European artists of their time.

Sources: National Gallery: Giotto · National Gallery: Duccio · National Gallery: Simone Martini · Uffizi Gallery: Cimabue and the Santa Trinita Maestà · J. Paul Getty Museum: The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry · National Gallery: International Gothic (glossary) · Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (German)

International Gothic is the courtly painting style that spread across Europe from the late 1300s to the mid-1400s, with decorative patterns, rich colors and gold. The National Gallery in London says it was practiced mainly at courts in France, Italy and Bohemia, and that its pictures are often spatially illogical but include beautifully observed natural details. On this page, the Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures, Pisanello's Vision of Saint Eustace, whose detail the Gallery compares to Jan van Eyck's, and Gentile da Fabriano's Berlin Madonna show the style.

Sources: National Gallery: International Gothic (glossary) · National Gallery: The Vision of Saint Eustace · Condé Museum, Château de Chantilly: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry · Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (German)

Romanesque came first: a style of round arches and massive, stocky churches that began in the 10th century and, the National Gallery in London says, endured until the 13th century, when Gothic replaced it. Gothic architecture is marked by the pointed arch and, in later forms, by slender supports and flowing tracery, and in painting and sculpture its figures grew elongated, with flowing drapery. Romanesque church interiors were decorated with frescoes meant to teach.

Sources: National Gallery: Romanesque (glossary) · National Gallery: Gothic (glossary)

Gothic painters set stylized, elongated figures against gold; Renaissance painters, from the 1400s in Florence, revived the art of ancient Greece and Rome and gave their figures weight in convincing space. The National Gallery in London says that in the Early Renaissance style of Masaccio and Donatello figures became weightier and more three-dimensional and the space they occupied more convincingly constructed. The change was gradual: the Getty's art vocabulary says Gothic evolved into the Renaissance at different times in different parts of Europe.

Sources: National Gallery: Early Renaissance (glossary) · National Gallery: Renaissance (glossary) · Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval)

Giotto (about 1265–1337) worked in the Gothic period, but his weighty, lifelike figures pointed the way to the Renaissance, so both claim him. The National Gallery in London calls him the chief liberator of Italian painting from the Byzantine style and notes the three-dimensional weightiness of his figures in convincing architectural spaces. The National Gallery of Art in Washington says his explorations developed, a full century later, into the Italian Renaissance, while he still painted conservative Byzantine-style gold backgrounds.

Sources: National Gallery: Giotto · National Gallery of Art, Washington (Google Arts & Culture)

Medieval art covers the whole Middle Ages, from the 5th century to the Renaissance; Gothic art is its later phase, from the mid-1100s. The Getty's art vocabulary dates the medieval period from the Christianized Roman Empire of the fifth century to the Renaissance, which began between the 13th and the 15th century depending on the country, and dates Gothic from the mid-12th century. Before Gothic came Romanesque, which the National Gallery in London says Gothic replaced in the 13th century.

Sources: Getty AAT: Medieval (European) · Getty AAT: Gothic (Medieval) · National Gallery: Romanesque (glossary)

Most Gothic paintings in Italy were made in egg tempera on wooden panels, often on a ground of gold leaf, and many were parts of large altarpieces. The National Gallery in London says most early Italian paintings are in egg tempera, paint bound with egg yolk, and that a polyptych joined many panels above a predella of small narrative scenes; most have since been taken apart and scattered among museums. Duccio's Maestà, for example, was sawn apart in the 1770s, and its panels are now in London, Washington and other museums.

Sources: National Gallery: Tempera (glossary) · National Gallery: Polyptychs (glossary) · National Gallery of Art, Washington (Google Arts & Culture) · National Gallery: Duccio

The Uffizi in Florence holds Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna and Cimabue's Santa Trinita Maestà, both there since 1919, and the Condé Museum at Chantilly the Très Riches Heures. The National Gallery in London has the Wilton Diptych and Pisanello's Vision of Saint Eustace, and the Louvre in Paris his Princess of the House of Este and Cimabue's Mocking of Christ, bought in 2023. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art keeps the Belles Heures in its Cloisters Collection and the Morgan Library & Museum the Morgan Bible.

Sources: Uffizi Gallery (Google Arts & Culture) · Uffizi Gallery (Google Arts & Culture) · Condé Museum, Château de Chantilly: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry · National Gallery: The Wilton Diptych · National Gallery: The Vision of Saint Eustace · Louvre Museum · Louvre Museum · Metropolitan Museum of Art · Morgan Library & Museum (Google Arts & Culture)

The most famous Gothic illuminated manuscripts are the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, the Codex Manesse and the Morgan (Maciejowski) Bible. The Condé Museum at Chantilly, which owns the Très Riches Heures, says the Limbourg brothers began the prayer book for the Duke of Berry and left it unfinished when they died in 1416, and that its calendar scenes shaped our image of the Middle Ages. The Codex Manesse, a songbook of German courtly love poetry with 137 portraits of poets, is in Heidelberg University Library and on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.

Sources: Condé Museum, Château de Chantilly: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry · Château de Chantilly: exhibition Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (French) · UNESCO Memory of the World: Codex Manesse (French) · J. Paul Getty Museum: The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry · Metropolitan Museum of Art

Yes. The famous works on this page were made between about 1245 and 1450, centuries before modern copyright, so they are in the public domain in the United States and everywhere copyright ends 70 years after the artist's death. The full collection below also holds later prints and drawings of Gothic buildings; each artwork page gives its own date. You can download these images free and use them for anything, including commercial projects. A few countries have their own rules on photographs of artworks, so check them if you publish outside the U.S.

Sources: Cornell University Library: Copyright Term and the Public Domain