The life of a medieval was soaked with religious conceptions – everything in life was viewed in the relation toward Christ and belief. The main topics of artworks based on the Christian dogma covered the Holy Trinity, (Christ, God the Father, the Holy Spirit), Virgin Mary, apostles and a variety of saints, in whom the medieval devoutness was placed.

The perception of medieval artefacts in a contemporary museum happens beyond the authentic connections. Works of art were created mainly for devotion and liturgy. Originally, they were integral parts of private chapels, public churches, altar cases; they were placed in recesses, niches, on pillars, in sacrarium partitions or they formed decorations of other units (e.g. choir pews etc.). Therefore it is necessary to understand their contemporary isolated character in relation to their original function and location.

The choice of exhibits, with respect to the character of collections at the Moravian Gallery concentrates mainly in works created in the period from 13th to the beginning of 16th century in the territory of Bohemia and Moravia, but it does not dismiss the more ample international links. Therefore a significant share belongs also to the works of Austrian, German and Dutch provenience, i.e. production of geographically adjacent artistic regions and territories, with which agile contacts were kept in the Middle Ages and which affected in a very inspiring way the development of the local artistic expression.

The majority of medieval works are anonymous, although they might have been originally accredited to concrete authors. However, the individual “brushwork“ was blurred by the collective diction and work of medieval workshops underlined to guild organisation, by frequent exploitation of models and a tying strength of formal conventions. A considerable stylistic unity of artistic production is evident especially in the early Middle Ages and it is evident also in the courtly art around the year 1400. One of the important categories of this epoch is represented by beautiful Madonnas, in which the medieval ideality is distinctively manifested. In the epoch of the late Middle Ages the regional aspect prevails, because mainly strong artistic personalities determined the spirit of the visual artistic expression. While in the early phase (especially in 13th and 14th centuries) a tendency toward an abstract formal expression and solemnity is evident (e.g. in the relation of Virgin Mary and baby Christ), a shift from symbol toward reality is gradually more evident (intimate relation of the mother and baby), toward the portrait aspect of the physical world, no matter what the object should be – a human or landscape and nature.