At all historical stages of development, art performed a number of ideological and educational functions. Society forms a “social order” in relation to art, which expresses the tastes and interests of various social segments. Art makes an undeniable contribution to the development and formation of the social system. Its influence on the development and formation of the social system is due to its social functions. Art is viewed in sociology as a complex dynamic formation that has a social nature and is expressed in social relations. It is aimed at the creation, assimilation, and preservation, and dissemination of objects, ideas, value orientations that ensure mutual understanding of people in various social situations.
The example of medieval art clearly shows that it is a reflection of social development. Medieval art arose and existed on the basis of feudalism, a more progressive social formation in comparison with the slave system. The artistic culture of feudal society, differing in its moral content from the ethical and aesthetic ideals of antiquity, made a unique contribution to world art. The establishment of feudalism was accompanied by the development of local productive forces, the spread of cultural conquests to cities and villages far from large centers. Culture penetrated into wide layers of society deeper than in the ancient world.
At the same time, there is much evidence of influencing societal development on the features of art. A lot has been said and written about the close connection between art and politics. This connection was strengthened even in ancient times and the Middle Ages when sculptors and artists formed heroic images of rulers, reflecting their exploits and victories. For example, experts say about the “power of images over people” evident during and after French Revolution (Little and Stein para. 2). This was manifested in iconoclasm, as “people sometimes saw… sculptures as the physical embodiment of religious or political power and sought to efface that power by defacing it” (Little and Stein para. 2). On the opposite, stone figures on church buildings are able to “teach,” conveying to people what they cannot read in Bible (Little and Stein, para. 3). This was especially important for those who could not read in Latin or were fully illiterate. Depictions of Thomas Becket in alabaster sculpture after his murder were not less impressing than words about him (de Beer para. 7).
Art as a form of social consciousness, on the one hand, depends on the state of society. On the other hand, it has relative independence, which is explained by its direct impact on the spiritual in a person and on spiritual life in general. Art, like other forms of social consciousness, not only reflects reality, but also has the opposite effect on it, and this action cannot radically change society. Art is able to reveal and show the flaws of society; in its essence, it is a mirror of social life. Popular culture, progress in the field of information transfer, the emergence of global means of communication, as well as the dominance of the clip model of consciousness – all this has significantly affected art. Contemporary art itself is part of the aesthetic and ethical paradigm; it materializes the spirit of the times in certain works – therefore, it does not remain aloof from topical issues.
Contemporary art seeks to shape fashion, and it, in turn, influences the way of life and the outlook of the consumer society. The author, at the same time, can engage in artistic labeling, demonize some and exalt others. In turn, part of the audience adopts these views, without even being interested in politics as such since contemporary art is often a protest. It is an author’s rebellion, a response to established norms, stereotypes, a test of public morality.
Contemporary conceptual art, if viewed as the art of a free spontaneous creative search for the ideal, not only proclaims the rejection of all scientific theories and doctrines but also rejects the already existing tradition of artistic heritage. This, perceived by contemporaries as a shocking rejection of tradition and axiology in the bosom of art, turns into an inexhaustible field of ideas in the current multidimensional semantic field of culture (Jilmenez-Justiniano 36). Modern conceptual art, without fear of excessiveness and grotesque, in some of its manifestations, quite frankly and openly demonstrates the crisis phenomena of the modern world.
Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire and iconographic traditions in the early Christian church. These sources were mixed with the “barbaric” artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce a remarkable artistic heritage. Indeed, the history of medieval art can be seen as the history of the interaction of elements of classical, early Christian and “barbaric” art (Duby 14-15). In addition to the formal aspects of classicism, there was a continuous tradition of realistic depiction of objects. It persisted in Byzantine art throughout the period, while in the West it appears periodically, combining and sometimes competing with the new possibilities of expressionism developed in Western Europe and the North.
It is interesting to note that the Romanesque style absorbed elements of early Christian, Merovingian art, and the culture of the Carolingian Renaissance. It also included the art of antiquity, the era of migration of peoples, Byzantium and the Muslim Middle East. The previous artistic trends of the Middle Ages were of a local nature. However, the Romanesque style was the first artistic system of the Middle Ages, which, despite the feudal fragmentation, covered most of the European countries (Chapius). The unifying force in this process was namely the Catholic Church.
The main patrons of art were the monastic orders, and the builders, painters, copyists and decorators of manuscripts were monks. This led to the formation of art that was new in its themes and artistic principles – a new aesthetic ideal, opposite to the ideal of antiquity. The harmony of the inner and the outer, the soul and the theme typical of the ideal images of antiquity was no longer acceptable (Knapp). The medieval artist had a different understanding of beauty and perfection: seeing main task in the embodiment of the divine principle, he affirmed the superiority of spirit over flesh.
The idea of humility and obedience to Death as a punishment for original sin permeated the entire ideology of the Middle Ages. As Brooks notes, “Mindfulness of death coupled with the personal obligation to pious behavior and good works were pervasive in Byzantine religious thought and practice” (para. 2). Tombstones with pious reflections carved on them words about the transience of all things, sculptures, and even whole sculptural compositions were a normal practice of medieval culture and art.
The highest achievements of the Middle Ages were embodied in monumental architecture. It expressed not only the religious and fantastic sides of consciousness but also personified the creative will of human and the power of the labor of a large collective (Holcomb para. 1). Byzantine temples, Romanesque and Gothic architecture of Europe, Arab mosques, palaces and temples of India and China belong to the classic treasures of world art.
Thanks to the trade ties and the political fact of the presence of Muslims in Spain and Sicily, a higher Arab-Muslim culture gradually penetrated into Western Europe. Although Western Europe was associated with the Byzantine Empire, it borrowed much more from the Arabs than from the Byzantines. However, most Europeans hardly realized the Muslim character of the innovations they adopted. For example, the Arabian inscriptions on the fabrics imported from the East were perceived by Europeans simply as a geometric ornament (Greenwood and De Guise). In Giotto’s painting The Resurrection of Lazarus, Kufic characters are clearly visible even on the bandage that adorns Jesus’ shoulder. Flemish and Italian painters of the 14-15th centuries, apparently, also did not attach much importance to the Muslim origin of the carpets. They depicted them in their paintings lying under the feet of Christian saints and the Virgin Mary.
In general, the perception and interpretation of Christian dogmas changed over the centuries of the Middle Ages. They received a different interpretation in the teachings of the Eastern and Western Churches, which was dictated by the differences in the political and social realities of these two large regions (Duby 74; East to West 2013). In the second half of the 13th century, Gothic became the dominant style in Western Europe. However, within Gothic art itself, important changes were taking place by the end of the century. The influence of the courtly style, which determined the customs and mores of the court-knightly circles, became increasingly more tangible.
The growth of individualism led to the gradual replacement of public art forms with private ones. Large cathedrals and building lodges were replaced in the next century by parish churches and a division of artists in workshops. Public orders were replaced by private patrons, private chapels in churches, and votive images brought by a private person or by an individual family as a gift to the church. With all the contradictions in the cultural process in the Middle Ages, it is more legitimate to say that namely at this time, the most important features of the Western European Christian type of culture developed on the basis of the worldwide spread of Christianity. The institution of the church and the Christian faith occupied dominant positions in the period under review in almost all spheres of the cultural life of medieval society. However, at the end of the era of the Classical Middle Ages, a tendency towards secularization, primarily in the spiritual sphere, based on the spread of humanistic ideas, was clearly manifested.
Works Cited
Brooks, Sarah. “Art and Death in Medieval Byzantium.” The Metropolitan Art Museum, 2010. Web.
Chapius, Julien. “Romanesque Art.” The Metropolitan Art Museum. 2002. Web.
de Beer, Lloyd. “Thomas Becket: The Murder That Shook the Middle Ages.” The British Museum. 2019. Web.
Duby, George. Art and Society in the Middle Ages. Polity Press, 2000.
East to West, Season 1, Episode 4, The Muslim Renaissance. Directed by Jack Macinnes, Special Broadcasting Service, 2013.
Greenwood, William and Lucien De Guise. Inspired by the East: How the Islamic world influenced Western art. British Museum P, 2019.
Holcomb, Malenie. “Medieval European Sculpture for Buildings.” The Metropolitan Art Museum, 2011, Web.
Jilmenez-Justiniano, Jose et al. Art and the Artist in Society. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
Knapp, MaryFrances. “The Art of Death in the Byzantine Empire.” Seven Ponds. 2013, Web.
Little, Charles and Wendy Stein. “The Face in Medieval Sculpture.” The Metropolitan Art Museum. Web.