Gothic art finds its roots in the powerful architecture of the cathedrals of northern France. It is a medieval art movement that developed all across Europe for more than 200 years. Leaving Roman roundish forms behind, the architects started using flying buttress and pointed arches to open cathedrals to the daylight. Period of great economic and social changes, the gothic period also saw the development of a new iconography celebrating the Holy Mary, at the opposite to the fearful iconography of dark Roman times. Full of rich changes in all the different arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, etc.), gothic gave way to the Italian renaissance and international gothic.