Art And Architecture Of The Crusades History Essay

Art And Architecture Of The Crusades History Essay A man of eighty, wrote Lord Byron, has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress. Byrons sentiment would certainly ring true for most periods of those facets of human history, but the medieval time of the crusades was an exception to that rule to a large extent. Western Europe was nearly a century into the High Middle Age period when Pope Urban II called the first crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095. This was the time of the medieval renaissance with an explosion of invention and advancement in invention, technology, culture and commercial pursuits. Painting, dress, and literature developed and were influenced on a local and regional basis. The primary influence the crusaders took with them to the Levant was architectural. Two architectural styles emerged in Western Europe during the time of the crusades – Romanesque from approximately the 11th to late 12th century, and Gothic from the 12th century to well pa st the end of the last crusade. These two styles were used in church design and construction. William the Conqueror, ultimately seizing England in 1066, helped to usher in another form (not style) of architecture that would change the landscape of medieval Europe – castles. With Romanesque architecture being in place by 1095 and Gothic soon to follow, the influence of Western European structural design and castles was set to follow them to the Holy Land, and they would bring back certain architectural influences as well as manuscript elements that would contribute to an already-growing renaissance. Church building in the Holy Land must be addressed both before and after the arrival of the Crusaders. Though Muslims had been tolerant of non-Muslims for some time, namely Christians and Jews as â€Å"People of the Book,† that tolerance and the amicable relations between them were beginning to show signs of stress. Persecution of non-Muslims began to increase after the year 1000. Muslims began destroying Christian and Jewish architecture, culminating in the ordered destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on October 18, 1009, by Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. Denys Pringle, a specialist on church art and architecture in the Holy Land during the crusades, writes, â€Å"à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦by 1014, only a handful of church buildings, including the Nativity in Bethlehem and the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, were left standing within the caliph’s lands.†Ã‚   [ 1 ]   The architectural history of the Holy Land is one that is fraught with the destruction of churches and monuments and their reconstruction when conditions improved. An example of this is the Anastasis, which was a rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. PRESENTATION IMAGE Photo – Christian religious icons, Istanbul, Turkey: Anastasis – Resurrection Fresco in Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem This is a fresco, or wall painting, depic ting the resurrection. The church was constructed by Constantine about 325 CE. It was later damaged during the Persian invasion of Jerusalem in 630 under Khosrau II, and finally ordered destroyed by Hakim. Pringle references this cycle of damage and destruction as creating a â€Å"tabula rasa,† or blank slate, upon which architecture Crusaders could later build. This was significant to the Crusade architecture that developed. The original buildings under Constantine were of course heavily influenced by Byzantine canons coupled with indigenous styles as was common to the familiarity of local people to provide easier acceptance for the sake of conversion. Had those structures remained intact, there would have been little if any room and certainly limited ability under even the most talented builder’s hand for Western influence to be added.