Carolingian art

[2] He wished to establish himself as the heir to the great rulers of the past, to emulate and symbolically link the artistic achievements of early Christian and Byzantine culture with his own.

He supported the Western church's consistent refusal to follow iconoclasm; the Libri Carolini sets out the position of his court circle, no doubt under his direction.

With no inhibitions from a cultural memory of Mediterranean pagan idolatry, he introduced the first Christian monumental religious sculpture, a momentous precedent for Western art.

Reasonable numbers of Carolingian illuminated manuscripts and small-scale sculptures, mostly in ivory, have survived, but far fewer examples of metalwork, mosaics and frescoes and other types of work.

The Bern Physiologus is a relatively rare example of a secular manuscript heavily illustrated with fully painted miniatures, lying in between these two classes, and perhaps produced for the private library of an important individual, as was the Vatican Terence.

Other liturgical works were sometimes produced in luxury manuscripts, such as sacramentaries, but no Carolingian Bible is decorated as heavily as the Late Antique examples that survive in fragments.

Teaching books such as theological, historical, literary and scientific works from ancient authors were copied and generally only illustrated in ink, if at all.

They were the earliest Carolingian manuscripts and initiated a revival of Roman classicism, yet still maintained Migration Period art (Merovingian and Insular) traditions in their basically linear presentation, with no concern for volume and spatial relationships.

The Gospel book of Ebbo (816–835) was painted with swift, fresh and vibrant brush strokes, evoking an inspiration and energy unknown in classical Mediterranean forms.

Other books associated with the Rheims school include the Utrecht Psalter, which was perhaps the most important of all Carolingian manuscripts, and the Bern Physiologus, the earliest Latin edition of the Christian allegorical text on animals.

The Tours School was cut short by the invasion of the Normans in 853, but its style had already left a permanent mark on other centers in the Carolingian Empire.

The illuminated "historiated" decorated initials (see image this page) were to have influence into the Romanesque period and were a harmonious union of classical lettering with figural scenes.

A number of richly decorated Bibles were made for Charles the Bald, fusing Late Antiquity forms with the styles developed at Rheims and Tours.

The chapel also had a now lost life-size crucifix, with the figure of Christ in gold, the first known work of this type, which was to become so important a feature of medieval church art.

[7] Mosaics installed in Charlemagne's palatine chapel showed an enthroned Christ worshipped by the Evangelist's symbols and the twenty-four elders from the Apocalypse.

This mosaic no longer survives, but an over-restored one remains in the apse of the oratory at Germigny-des-Prés (806) which shows the Ark of the Covenant adored by angels, discovered in 1820 under a coat of plaster.

Fragmentary paintings have survived at Auxerre, Coblenz, Lorsch, Cologne, Fulda, Corvey, Trier, Müstair, Mals, Naturns, Cividale, Brescia and Milan.