The first thing that catches my eye is the symmetry in the
Gothic era compared to the chaos in the Romanesque era. The Gothic is not
perfectly symmetrical but its all pointing to the center. This center implies the monotheistic
belief in the Gothic era, compared to the polytheistic belief in the Romanesque
era. There is obviously one divine being everyone is looking up too. The
Romanesque artwork seems to be much more detailed and is telling many stories
with the art form of language and scenes. The gothic era looks to be portraying
one grand picture that puts Jesus Christ as the center of the faith. The figures in the Romanesque piece
seem to have more of a monstrous overtone; making specific human features
dramatized almost looking inhuman. In the Gothic era everyone looks very
similar to each other and shows a more realistic approach to religion. Within
the Romanesque piece, there are a lot of extremely ambiguous positions that
could be interpreted in many ways. In the Gothic piece, they are all uniform
and giving a clear example of praise to the figure in the middle of the piece.
This piece uses the tool of making the most important figure the biggest to
show order of importance. We can also see in the Gothic era a very clear form
of hierarchy of who is most important and who is the “masses”. In the Romanesque
piece, though there is one who is biggest, it does define a clear picture of
importance, and seems as if the figures hold equal weight. Overall, the Gothic
era shows a much more organized, symmetric, and realistic approach to the
religion they are trying to portray. Whereas the Romanesque artwork shows a
little more chaos, giving a more open minded approach to the religion of the
Roman people.
