OTTONIAN ART. - Ottonian art is defined as the Germanic art of the 10th century and the first half of the 11th century, and, with many limitations, that influenced by it in the territories in direct contact with the Germanic world.
It coincides with the first formation of a German national state and with the period in which the three Ottos and then Henry II of Saxony wore the crown as kings of Germany and emperors. Ottonian art is thus chronologically linked on one side to the spread of the most advanced forms of Carolingian culture and art, and on the other to the decisive emergence, in individual territories, of the characteristics proper to Romanesque art. As was the case with Carolingian art, the major centers of development of Ottonian art were above all the great monasteries in direct relation with the court. However, Ottonian art, unlike Carolingian art—which, together with contributions from Byzantine art, forms its richest cultural substratum—does not have an exclusively courtly character. In it, in fact, there appears as an essential and catalytic element of those previous and refined cultures, above all the invigorating impulse of the youthful energies of new peoples who enter the world of Western Christian civilization with fresh enthusiasm that spontaneously leads to the intensity of expression. This is evident not only in the plastic and pictorial forms but also in the architectural ones, when in German territories the number and size of buildings grew rapidly, especially in Saxony, in the territories along the Rhine, and, though to a lesser extent, in southern Germany. Almost all the sacred buildings erected in this period have subsequently been enlarged or transformed; however, their primitive characteristics are often still legible, at least in their plans. Among them, in southern Germany, are remembered St. Erasmus in Regensburg, the three churches on the island of Reichenau, and the church of St. Michael in Hildesheim; in the Rhineland, the collegiate church of Essen, the cathedral of Trier, and the cathedral of Cologne, while the cathedrals of Würzburg, Bamberg, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and Strasbourg belong, at least in their oldest nuclei, to the Ottonian period.
The works of painting and sculpture from this period are rather scarce. Evidence of Ottonian pictorial activity is found in the frescoes of the church of St. George on the island of Reichenau, to be assigned to the early 11th century, in the paintings of the choir of the church of Goldbach near Überlingen, and in others already decidedly Romanesque, such as the *Last Judgment* of Burgfelden in Württemberg. At Reichenau there flourished at that time a school of illumination of great importance that produced masterpieces such as the Codex of Egbert now in Trier, the Gospel Book of Otto III, that of Henry II, and that of Echternach (Gotha). Other important centers of illumination activity were then the monasteries of Trier and Regensburg. The scarce evidence of a sculptural activity of the period is marked by the same characteristics evident also in contemporary painting, such as the sculptures of the portal of Hildesheim and various works in bronze, especially in northern Germany.