Gothic is the term used to describe things pertaining to the Gothic people, traditionally thought to have originated in northern Europe and moved south towards the borders of the Roman Empire in the second century. Eventually they occupied territories in modern Germany, Spain and Italy. They became a byword for northern barbarism and from the sixteenth century their name was given to the dominant architectural and artistic style of the late medieval period, which had originated in France in the twelfth century. The style became idealised in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries within Romanticism, leading to the architectural Gothic revival, beginning in Britain but spreading to continental Europe and North America, by which medieval buildings were restored and large numbers of civil, ecclesiastical and educational buildings built in a medieval style. The creation of literary works that employed such late medieval backdrops to explore dark aspects of human nature and the supernatural led to the creation of Gothic fiction, which was the origin of the modern horror genre in books, film, T.V. and more recently video games. From the 1980s these works provided the visual and atmospheric inspiration for the Gothic subculture, producing Gothic music, as well as fashions, fiction and events.
Originating in 12th-century France and lasting into the 16th century, the Gothic style, known during the period as "French work" (Opus Francigenum) became the dominant architectural and artistic form across western Europe.It first began to be referred to as Gothic during the latter part of the Renaissance as a stylistic insult to indicate northern barbarity, in opposition to the Latin Romanesque style.In architecture its characteristic features included the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress, allowing much taller, more elegant and light filled buildings.Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe.It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities, and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings.
Primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscript.The earliest Gothic art was monumental sculpture, on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys. Christian art was often typological in nature (see Medieval allegory), showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side.Saints' lives were often depicted. Images of the Virgin Mary changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic courtly lady.Secular art came in to its own during this period with the rise of cities, foundation of universities, increase in trade, the establishment of a money-based economy and the creation of a bourgeois class who could afford to patronize the arts and commission works resulting in a proliferation of paintings and illuminated manuscripts.Increased literacy and a growing body of secular vernacular literature encouraged the representation of secular themes in art. With the growth of cities, trade guilds were formed and artists were often required to be members of a painters' guild—as a result, because of better record keeping, more artists are known to us by name in this period than any previous, some artists were even so bold as to sign their names.