Mendicant Orders and Christian Art of the 13th–14th Centuries

Introduction: The Mendicant Orders and the Medieval World

The advent of the mendicant Dominican and Franciscan orders in the medieval world came at a time when European Christendom was expanding its custodial religious presence across the continent. The architecture of the cathedrals, the stained-glass windows, the ornate altarpieces, and the stylized woodwork all indicated in elaborate and grand ways the glory of God. Yet as art, religion, society, politics, and travel began to increase and flourish, the mendicant orders appeared like a salve — a reminder of the need for Christian society to be humble, charitable, Christ-like, and simple. The new styles and formats for art that emerged during the 1200s and 1300s were infused with the teachings and ideas of these orders, which swept the continent as a result of their bold simplicity and greatness of spirit. This paper examines three works of art from this period and shows how the function of art for the viewer incorporated the idea of teaching people religious stories in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The medieval Crusades spanned roughly two centuries, from the end of the 11th century to the end of the 13th century. In the midst of that tumultuous period — when religion and Christian society were so entwined with fighting, wars, death, hostility, honor, and sacredness — St. Francis and St. Dominic emerged to preach a kind of gospel that had nearly vanished: the kind the early apostles had preached, one full of fervor for God, for saintliness, and for the absolute negation of self so that Christ could fill the human vessel. Francis and Dominic embodied the idea of emptying out the self — of turning out the "old man" and putting on the "new man" in Christ, as preached by St. Paul in Colossians 3:9–11 and Ephesians 4:22–24. These two founders approached the Christian religion with a simplicity that both the Christians and the artists of the era would respond to with awe.

The Narrative Function of Art in 13th-Century Christendom

The function of art for the viewer in 13th-century Christendom was primarily narrative: it told a story, either through a sequence of events depicted across an arrangement of panels, windows, or walls, or through suggestive symbolism that conveyed a tale of the subject's life, mission, teaching, or ideas (Johnson). "Form ever follows function" (Sullivan 405), then as now. Art was used to teach people religious stories about the Virgin Mary, the life of Christ, the lives of the saints, the dictates of their religion, the virtues they should cultivate, and the vices they should avoid. The form of the artworks was meant to uplift and inspire, and — thanks in no small part to the Crusades — the artistic world in Europe was receiving ever-growing patronage from dukes, kings, courts, prominent families, pontiffs, churches, and princes. Cathedrals began to rise and touch the sky, their enormity showcasing the awesome stature of the Faith, which had come into its own thanks in no small part to the acts of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th centuries (Laux).

Byzantine Style and the Transformation Brought by the Mendicant Orders

Byzantine art had been more formal, more staid, and more two-dimensional. Its iconography is unmistakable, evincing a fierceness that went hand-in-hand with the concept of sanctity. With the rise of the mendicant orders, the idea of saintliness transformed from the militant resolve of the early Desert Fathers to something more human — more Franciscan, to be precise. Francis was renowned for talking to birds, for preaching to animals when no one else was around, and for loving all of life and creation with such a pure heart that it shone through in all his actions. Dominic embraced the same kind of life, though his learning and erudition were on another level entirely. Together they set the Church on a new course — away from blind ambition, power, wealth, and intrigue, and onto the path best described as the straight and narrow: the life of penance and commitment to the service of God. As Europe began to be consumed by wealth and riches toward the end of the Middle Ages, it needed reformers — men like Francis and Dominic to remind it of its Christian duty.

Berlinghieri's Saint Francis of Assisi (1235)

The painting by Bonaventura Berlinghieri entitled Saint Francis of Assisi (1235) serves as a celebration of the saint's life and works. It is a wooden altarpiece painted in the Byzantine style, yet it focuses not on the ancient Church Fathers but rather on a contemporary of the painter — one who had in fact died less than a decade earlier. This was an artist paying homage to a man whom the Christian world already recognized as a saint while he was still living. The icon tells the story of the saint by illustrating various points from his life and aspects of his character, while the man himself stands tall and erect in his humble habit, the Word of God cradled in the crook of his arm like a shield, and his hand held palm outward to reveal the stigmata — the wounds of Jesus Christ from the Crucifixion, in this case the wound of the nail in his palm.

Francis's face is almost skull-like in its Byzantine fierceness, pronouncing an otherworldly devotion made up of stark spiritual commitment. This, the artist tells the viewer, is not a soft man — but a man hard as nails. Yet at the same time there is something friendly in the eyes, something humorous in the slightly upturned lips, suggesting some of the mirth that Francis no doubt felt and exhibited in his lifelong devotion to God. Six scenes from the life of St. Francis are painted on either side of the central figure — three on the left and three on the right — each depicting a significant moment in the saint's life that carries a profound lesson on the universal aspects of the faith. In this way, one can see the merger of the old and the new: the Byzantine style blending with the later medieval tendency to focus on the present, the here-and-now, the human dimensions of religion that later artists like Michelangelo and Raphael would highlight with such care. Berlinghieri's Saint Francis is a bridge between the old world art style and the new.

Conclusion: A Bridge Between Byzantine Tradition and Later Medieval Art

The artworks of the 13th and 14th centuries represented a transformative moment: they acted as a bridge between the Byzantine style and the coming glories of the later Middle Ages, when artists soared to new heights thanks to new money pouring into Europe and new devotions inspired by new saints. The teachings of the mendicant orders — of St. Francis and St. Dominic — inspired new religious feelings, and these feelings were expressed through painting, sculpture, architecture, stained-glass windows, and music. All of these forms told a story, however: a story of the faith, of the lives of the saints, and of the glorious eternity that could be shared with God in Heaven so long as one followed the straight and narrow path to Christ.

The Byzantine works of art had depicted this path in distinctly strict and stern tones, with unmistakable iconography — saints with stern brows and upward-pointed fingers, reminding the viewer of the need to focus on heavenly things rather than earthly ones. Following the rise of the mendicant orders, a new focus emerged: one that looked around at creation, marveled at the works of God, and kept the need for sanctity firmly embedded in the works of art themselves, while also recognizing something beautiful and touching about created things — the eyes, the gesture, the colors, the joy that permeated all things made by God. A new trend in medieval art had appeared: a trend that would move toward joy and grandeur, approaching as near to ecstasy as it could before the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation would rend Christendom apart.

Works Cited

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. NY: Gallery Books, 2003. Print.

Laux, John. Church History. IL: TAN, 1976. Print.

Sullivan, John. "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered." Lippincott's Magazine (1896): 403–409. Print.