1000 artworks to see before you die: Medieval art

Art, as we know it, was invented in medieval Europe. The idea that styles change constantly does not come from the classical world - the "classical" is precisely something too perfect to need changing - nor is it a creation of sophisticated moderns. No, it was in the violent, religious, hierarchical and impoverished world of medieval Europe that the great agitation of styles so fundamental to the way we still see art today - the very concept of the New - was born.

In fact, the styles of medieval art were subject to such deep change they can seem an obstacle to enjoying it. Is this arch or that carved capital Romanesque, or is it Gothic? Would that be Early Gothic, now, or Rayonnant Gothic, or English Perpendicular? The point of all these stylistic novelties is the fact they happened at all, with such intensity. Here was a culture deeply interested in the visual arts. Most people were illiterate; images in churches were used as "books for the poor". The spectacular beauty of the churches themselves provided solace, meaning and distraction in a world of plague and famine. Yet at the same time, medieval art was a way for sensitive, educated, rich and powerful people to express their desire for luxury in a public and religious way acceptable to a deeply Christian society - people like Abbot Suger of St Denis.

The Gothic style was all but invented by Abbot Suger, who wanted to beautify his abbey in the environs of Paris with treasure and light. The great difference between the earlier Romanesque style and the Gothic is to do with how they exploit light. Romanesque buildings, with massive round pillars, arches and capitals crawling with tangled foliage and beasts, do not carry the same kind of soaring, open space as Gothic ones: the medieval invention of pointed arches and vaults, further strengthened by exterior "flying" buttresses, allowed Gothic builders to take almost all the weight of a building away from its walls so these could be cut away and filled with vast cascades of coloured glass. The entire interior of a gothic cathedral illuminated by stained glass becomes an image of heaven itself, a city of light - the fulfilment of Abbot Suger's ideal.

Art and architecture were one in the middle ages. The Gothic cathedral is a total work of art, a cosmic installation. Yet it is definitely a style with intellectual movers and shakers. The Romantic obsession with the medieval world has reshaped it - many of the gargoyles and much of the stained glass of Notre Dame we owe to Violet-le-Duc, its 19th-century restorer. In reality, the Romantic desire to imagine a contrast between the holy middle ages and the secular Renaissance ignores the fact that medieval people invented the Renaissance. In northern Europe the spires got bigger, and colossal churches like Cologne cathedral took until modern times to finish. In Italy, a city decided to leave a space on top of its gothic cathedral for something new - a dome. No one knew how to build one, but a medieval painting imagines it. It doesn't look that different from the real one Brunelleschi would finally raise over Florence cathedral.

Key works

• Early medieval: Hildesheim cathedral doors (1011-1015)• Early medieval: portraits of the Evangelists from the Gospel Book of Bishop Eddo (816-835)• Romanesque: Bayeux tapestry (c1070-1080)• Romanesque: Tympanum, Sainte Madeleine (1120-1132)• Gothic: Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière (c1170)• Gothic: figures on Royal Portal, Chartres cathedral (1194)• Gothic: windows of Sainte-Chapelle (1241-1248)• Gothic: Rose Window of north transept, Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis (c1250)• Gothic: Christ Nailed to the Cross from the Book of Hours of Mary of Burgundy (c1480)• Violet-le-Duc and others: gargoyles of Notre Dame (13th-19th century)