Art of the Crusades

The art of the Crusades, meaning primarily the art produced in Middle Eastern areas under Crusader control, spanned two artistic periods in Europe, the Romanesque and the Gothic, but in the Crusader kingdoms of the Levant the Gothic style barely appeared. The military crusaders themselves were mostly not noticeably interested in artistic matters, or sophisticated in their taste, and much of their art was destroyed in the loss of their kingdoms so that only a few pieces survive today. Probably their most notable and influential artistic achievement was the Crusader castles, many of which achieve a stark, massive beauty. They developed the Byzantine methods of city-fortification for stand-alone castles far larger than any constructed before, either locally or in Europe.

The crusaders encountered a long and rich artistic tradition in the lands they conquered at the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th. Byzantine and Islamic art (that of both the Arabs and the Turks) were the dominant styles in the Crusader states, although there were also the styles of the indigenous Syrians and Armenians. These indigenous styles were incorporated into styles brought by the crusaders from Europe, which were themselves highly varied, stemming from France, Italy, Germany, England, and elsewhere. On the whole the Eastern Christian styles were more significant influences than Islamic art; the artists working in the Crusader lands are assumed to have had the same variety of backgrounds. Many art historians attempt to guess the backgrounds, in terms of ethnicity, place of birth and training, of the artists involved with particular works, an effort treated with caution by Kurt Weitzmann, Doula Mouriki, and Jaroslav Folda, author of the most recent detailed survey.

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