Looking back over the ground we have covered in this book so far, a
thoughtful reader will be struck by the fact that almost all of our
chapter headings and subheadings might serve equally well for a general
history of civilization. Some are based on technology (for example, the
Old Stone Age), others on geography, ethnology, religion.Whatever the
source, they have been borrowed from other fields, even though in our
context they also designate artistic styles. There are only two
important exceptions to this rule: Archaic and Classical are primarily
terms of style. They refer to qualities of form rather than to the
setting in which these forms were created. Why don't we have more terms
of this sort? We do, as we shall see—but only for the art of the past
900 years.
Those who first conceived the idea of viewing the history of art as an
evolution of styles started out with the conviction that art in the
ancient world developed toward a single climax: Greek art from the age
of Pericles to that of Alexander the Great. This style they called
Classical (that is, perfect). Everything that came before was labeled
Archaic, to indicate that it was still old-fashioned and
tradition-bound, not-yet-Classical but striving in the right direction,
while the style of post-Classical times did not deserve a special term
since it had no positive qualities of its own, being merely an echo or a
decadence of Classical art.
The early historians of medieval art followed a similar pattern. To
them, the great climax was the Gothic style, from the thirteenth century
to the fifteenth. For whatever was not-yet-Gothic they adopted the label
Romanesque. In doing so, they were thinking mainly of architecture.
Pre-Gothic churches, they noted, were round-arched, solid, and heavy, as
against the pointed arches and the soaring lightness of Gothic
structures. It was rather like the ancient Roman style of building, and
the term "Romanesque" was meant to convey just that. In this sense, all
of medieval art before 1200 could be called Romanesque insofar as it
shows any link with the Mediterranean tradition. Some scholars speak of
medieval art before Charlemagne as pre-Romanesque, and of Carolingian
and Ottoman as proto- or early Romanesque. They are right to the extent
that Romanesque art proper—that is, medieval art from about 1050 to
1200—would be unthinkable without the contributions of these earlier
styles. On the other hand, if we follow this practice we are likely to
do less than justice to those qualities that make the art of the Dark
Ages and of Carolingian and Ottonian times different from the
Romanesque.
Carolingian art, we will recall, was brought into being by Charlemagne
and his circle, as part of a conscious revival policy, and even after
his death, it remained strongly linked with his imperial court. Ottonian
art, too, had this sponsorship, and a correspondingly narrow base. The
Romanesque, in contrast, sprang up all over western Europe at about the
same time. It consists of a large variety of regional styles, distinct
yet closely related in many ways, and without a central source. In this
respect, it resembles the art of the Dark Ages rather than the court
styles that had preceded it, although it includes the
Carolingian-Ottonian tradition along with a good many other, less
clearly traceable ones, such as Late Classical, Early Christian, and
Byzantine elements, some Islamic influence, and the Celtic-Germanic
heritage.
What welded all these different components into a coherent style during
the second half of the eleventh century was not any single force but a
variety of factors that made for a new burgeoning of vitality throughout
the West. The millennium came and went without the Apocalypse (described
in the book of Revelation of St. John the Divine) that many had
predicted. Christianity had at last triumphed everywhere in Europe. The
Vikings, still largely pagan in the ninth and tenth centuries when their
raids terrorized the British Isles and the Continent, had entered the
Catholic fold, not only in Normandy but in Scandinavia as well. The
Caliphate of Cordova had disintegrated in 1031 into many small Moslem
states, opening the way for the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. And
the Magyars had settled down in Hungary.
There was a growing spirit of religious enthusiasm, reflected in the
greatly increased pilgrimage traffic to sacred sites and culminating,
from 1095 on, in the crusades to liberate the Holy Land from Moslem
rule. Equally important was the reopening of Mediterranean trade routes
by the navies of Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, Pisa, and Rimini; the revival of
trade and travel, which linked Europe commercially and culturally; and
the consequent growth of urban life. During the turmoil of the early
Middle Ages, the towns of the West Roman Empire had shrunk greatly in
size. (The population of Rome, about one million in 300 A.D., fell to
less than fifty thousand at one point.) Some cities were deserted
altogether. From the eleventh century on, they began to regain their
former importance. New towns sprang up everywhere, and a middle class of
artisans and merchants established itself between the peasantry and the
landed nobility as an important factor in medieval society.
In many respects, then, western Europe between 1050 and 1200 became a
great deal more "Roman-esque' than it had been since the sixth century,
recapturing some of the international trade patterns, the urban quality,
and the military strength of ancient imperial times. The central
political authority was lacking, to be sure. Even the empire of Otto I
did not extend much farther west than modern Germany does. But the
central spiritual authority of the pope took its place to some extent as
a unifying force. The international army that responded to Urban II's
call in 1095 for the First Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from Moslem
rule was more powerful than anything a secular ruler could have raised
for the purpose.
ARCHITECTURE
The most conspicuous difference between Romanesque architecture and that
of the preceding centuries is the amazing increase in building activity.
An eleventh-century monk, Raoul Glaber, summed it up well when he
triumphantly exclaimed that the world was putting on a "white mantle of
churches." These churches were not only more numerous than those of the
early Middle Ages, they were also generally larger, more richly
articulated, and more "Roman-looking." Their naves now had vaults
instead of wooden roofs, and their exteriors, unlike those of Early
Christian, Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian churches, were decorated
with both architectural ornament and sculpture. Geographically,
Romanesque monuments of the first importance are distributed over an
area that might well have represented the world—the Catholic world, that
is—to Raoul Glaber: from northern Spain to the Rhine-land, from the
Scottish-English border to central Italy. The richest crop, the greatest
variety of regional types, and the most adventurous ideas are to be
found in France. If we add to this group those destroyed or disfigured
buildings whose original designs are known to us through archaeological
research, we have a wealth of architectural invention unparalleled by
any previous era.
|
The Romanesque
Portal
One of the most significant and distinctive leatures of
Romanesque art is the revival of monumental sculpture in
stone. Because of the Second Commandment's prohibition of
graven images, large-scale carved Old and New Testament
figures (and later saints) were almost unknown in Christian
art before the Romanesque period. But in the late
11th
and early 12th centuries, rich ensembles of figural reliefs
began to appear again. Freestanding statuary, however, still
associated with pagan idol worship, remained very rare.
Although sculpture in a variety of materials adorned
different areas of Romanesque churches, it was most often
found in the grand stone portals through which the faithful
had to pass. Sculpture had been employed in church doorways
before. For example, carved wooden doors greeted Early
Christian worshipers as they entered Santa Sabina in Rome.
And Ottonian bronze doors decorated with Old and New
Testament scenes marked the entrance to Saint Michael's at
Hildesheim .
But these were exceptions. And in the Romanesque era (and
during the Gothic period that followed), sculpture usually
appeared in the area around, rather than on,
the doors.
Our drawing shows the parts of church portals that
Romanesque sculptors regularly decorated with figural
reliefs:
Tympanum ,
the prominent semicircular lunette
above the doorway proper, comparable in importance to the
triangular pediment of a Greco-Roman temple
Vonssoirs,
the wedge-shaped blocks that together
form
the archivolts of the arch framing the tympanum
Lintel ,
the horizontal beam above the doorway
Trumeau,
the center post supporting the lintel
in the middle of the doorway
Jambs,
the side posts of the doorway
|
|
|
|
|
Southwestern France
ST.-SERNIN, TOULOUSE.
400. St.-Sernin,
Toulouse, ń.
1080-1120
We begin our survey of Romanesque churches with St.-Sernin, in
the southern French town of Toulouse (figs. 400-403), one of a
group of great churches of the "pilgrimage type," so called because they
were built along the roads leading to the pilgrimage center of Santiago
de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The plan immediately strikes us as
much more complex and more fully integrated than those of earlier
structures such as St.-Riquier, or St. Michael's at Hildesheim (see
figs. 381 and 393). It is an emphatic Latin cross, with the
center of gravity at the eastern end. Clearly this church was not
designed to serve only a monastic community but, like Old St. Peter's in
Rome (fig. 300), to accommodate large crowds of lay worshipers in
its long nave and transept.
The nave is flanked by two aisles on either side. The inner aisle
continues around the arms of the transept and the apse, thus forming a
complete ambulatory circuit anchored to the two towers of the west
facade. The ambulatory, we will recall, had developed as a feature of
the crypts of earlier churches such as St. Michael's. Now it has emerged
above ground, where it is linked with the aisles of nave and transept
and enriched with apsidal chapels that seem to radiate from the apse and
continue along the eastern face of the transept. (Apse, ambulatory, and
radiating chapels form a unit known as the pilgrimage choir.) The plan
also shows that the aisles of St.-Sernin are groin-vaulted throughout.
In conjunction with the features already noted, this imposes a high
degree of regularity upon the entire design. The aisles are made up of
square bays, which serve as a basic module for the other dimensions, so
that the nave and transept bays equal two such units, the crossing and
the facade towers four units. The spiritual harmony conveyed by the
repetition of these units is perhaps the most striking achievement of
the pilgrimage church.
St.-Sernin, Toulouse, ń.
1080-1120
On the exterior, this rich articulation is further enhanced by the
different roof levels that set off the nave and transept against the
inner and outer aisles, the apse, the ambulatory, and the radiating
chapels. This is enhanced by the buttresses, which reinforce the walls
between the windows, to contain the outward thrust of the vaults. The
windows and portals are further emphasized by decorative framing. The
great crossing tower was completed in Gothic times and is taller than
originally intended. The two facade towers, unfortunately, have never
been finished and remain stumps.
As we enter the nave, we are impressed with its tall proportions, the
elaboration of the nave walls, and the dim, indirect lighting, all of
which create a sensation very different from the ample and serene
interior of St. Michael's, with its simple and clearly separated blocks
of space (see figs. 394 and 395). If the nave walls of St.
Michael's look Early Christian (see fig. 302), those of St.-Sernin
seem more akin to structures such as the Colosseum (see fig. 248).
The syntax of ancient Roman architecture—vaults, arches, engaged
columns, and pilasters firmly knit together into a coherent order—has
indeed been recaptured here to a remarkable degree. Yet the forces whose
interaction is expressed in the nave of St.-Sernin are no longer the
physical, muscular forces of Graeco-Roman architecture but spiritual
forces of the kind we have seen governing the human body in Carolingian
and Ottonian miniatures.
401. Plan of St.-Sernin
(after Conant)
402. Axonometric projection of nave,
St.-Sernin (after Choisy)
403. Interior,
St.-Sernin
The half-columns running the entire height of the nave wall would appear
just as unnaturally drawn-out to an ancient Roman beholder as the arm of
Christ in figure 398. They seem to be driven upward by some
tremendous, unseen pressure, hastening to meet the transverse arches
that subdivide the barrel vault of the nave. Their insistently repeated
rhythm propels us toward the eastern end of the church, with its
light-filled apse and ambulatory (now obscured by a huge altar of later
date). In thus describing our experience we do not, of course, mean to
suggest that the architect consciously set out to achieve this effect.
Beauty and engineering were inseparable. Vaulting the nave to eliminate
the fire hazard of a wooden roof was not only a practical aim; it
provided a challenge to make the House of the Lord grander and more
impressive. Since a vault becomes more difficult to sustain the farther
it is from the ground, every resource had to be strained to make the
nave as tall as possible. However, the clerestory was sacrificed for
safety's sake. Instead, galleries are built over the inner aisles to
abut the lateral pressure of the nave vault in the hope that enough
light would filter through them into the central space. St.-Sernin
serves to remind us that architecture, like politics, is "the art of the
possible," and that its success, here as elsewhere, is measured by the
degree to which the architect has explored the limits of what seemed
possible under those particular circumstances, structurally and
aesthetically.
ST.-PIERRE, MOISSAC.
The Abbaye St-Pierre de Moissac
The Abbaye St-Pierre de Moissac was founded in the mid 600s.
In 1048 Moissac became affiliated with Cluny.
Today the two glories of the Abbey are its cloisters, which are said to
be the oldest surviving cloisters with narrative capitals (though Santo
Domingo de Silos might dispute this), and the sculptures of the portal
(and particularly the trumeau - central door pillar) of the abbey
church.
46 of the 76 cloister capitals illustrate themes from the scriptures or
the lives of saints.
The cloister gallery roofing was rebuilt in the late 1200s and again in
the 1900s, but the original capitals and columns remained in place. The
cloister also contains reliefs of Abbot Durand de Bredons, evangelists
and disciples. The cloister is run as a separate state museum .The
church is still used as a Roman Catholic parish.
The cloisters, having survived Simon de Montfort in 1212 and the
English, Hugenots, Revolutionaries and other nasties since then, nearly
got destroyed by the great railway craze of the mid 1800s.
Burgundy and Western France
AUTUN CATHEDRAL.
Autun Cathedral (Cathedrale Saint-Lazare d'Autun)
The builders of St.-Sernin would have been the first to admit that their
answer to the problem of the nave vault was not a final one, impressive
though it is in its own terms. The architects of Burgundy arrived at a
more elegant solution, as evidenced by the Cathedral of Autun (fig.
404), where the galleries are replaced by a blind arcade (called a
triforium, since it often has three openings per bay) and a clerestory.
What made this three-story elevation possible was the use of the pointed
arch for the nave vault. The pointed arch probably reached France from
Islamic architecture, where it had been employed for some time (compare
figs. 354 and 357). (For reasons of harmony, it also
appears in the nave arcade, where it is not needed for additional
support.) By eliminating the part of the round arch that responds the
most to the pull of gravity, the two halves of a pointed arch brace each
other. The pointed arch thus exerts less outward pressure than the
semicircular arch, so that not only can it be made as steep as possible,
the walls can be perforated. The potentialities of the engineering
advances that grew out of this discovery were to make possible the
soaring churches of the Gothic period (see, for example, figs. 454,
457, and 458). Like St.-Sernin, Autun comes close to
straining the limits of the possible. The upper part of the nave wall
shows a slight but perceptible outward lean under the pressure of the
vault, a warning against any further attempts to increase the height of
the clerestory or to enlarge the windows.
404. Nave wall. Autun
Cathedral. ń.
1120-32
HALL CHURCHES.
St.-Savin-sur-Gartempe
405. Choir
(ń. 1060-75) and nave
(1095-1115), St.-Savin-sur-Gartempe
A third alternative, with virtues of its own, appears in the west of
France, in such churches as that of St.-Savin-sur-Gartempe (fig.
405). The nave vault here lacks the reinforcing arches, since it was
meant to offer a continuous surface for murals (see fig. 436 for
this cycle, the finest of its kind). Its great weight rests directly on
the nave arcade, which is supported by a majestic set of columns. Yet
the nave is fairly well lit, for the two aisles are carried almost to
the same height, making it a "hall church," and their outer walls have
generously sized windows. At the eastern end of the nave, there is a
pilgrimage choir (happily unobstructed in this case) beyond the crossing
tower.
The nave and aisles of hall churches are covered by a single roof, as at
St.-Savin. The west facade, too, tends to be low and wide, and may
become a richly sculptured screen. Notre -Dame-la-Grande at Poitiers
(fig. 406), due west from St.-Savin, is particularly noteworthy
in this respect. The sculptural program spread out over this entire area
is a visual exposition of Christian doctrine that is a feast for the
eyes as well as the mind. Below the elaborately bordered arcades housing
large seated or standing figures, a wide band of relief stretches across
the facade. Essential to the rich sculptural effect is the doorway,
which is deeply recessed and framed by a series of arches resting on
stumpy columns. Taller bundles of columns enhance the turrets; their
conical helmets nearly match the height of the gable in the center,
which rises above the actual height of the roof behind it.
Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers. Early 12th century
406. West facade, Notre-Dame-la-Grande,
Poitiers
West facade, Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers
West facade, Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers
|
STE.-MADELEINE, VEZELAY.
Church of Ste-Marie-Madeleine
The Benedictine abbey church of Ste-Marie-Madeleine (or
Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene), with its complicated program of imagery
in sculpted capitals and portals, is one of the outstanding masterpieces
of Burgundian Romanesque art and architecture, though much of its
exterior sculpture was defaced during the French Revolution. The church
and hill at Vézelay were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage
Sites in 1979.
The Benedictine abbey of Vézelay was
founded, as many abbeys were, on land that had been a late Roman villa,
of Vercellus (Vercelle becoming Vézelay). The villa had passed into the
hands of the Carolingians and devolved to a Carolingian count, Girart,
of Roussillon. The two convents he founded there were looted and
dispersed by Moorish raiding parties in the 8th century, and a hilltop
convent was burnt by Norman raiders. In the 9th century, the abbey was
refounded under the guidance of Badilo, who became an affiliate of the
reformed Benedictine order of Cluny. Vézelay also stood at the beginning
of one of the four major routes through France for pilgrims going to
Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in the north-western corner of Spain.
About 1050 the monks of Vézelay began
to claim to hold the relics of Mary Magdalene, brought, they related,
from the Holy Land either by their 9th-century founder-saint, Badilo, or
by envoys despatched by him. A little later a monk of Vézelay declared
that he had detected in a crypt at St-Maximin in Provence, carved on an
empty sarcophagus, a representation of the Unction at Bethany, when
Jesus' head was anointed by Mary of Bethany, assumed in the Middle Ages
to be Mary Magdalene. The monks of Vézelay pronounced it to be Mary
Magdalene's tomb, from which her relics had been translated to their
abbey. Freed captives then brought their chains as votive objects to the
abbey, and it was the newly-elected Abbot Geoffroy in 1037 who had the
ironwork melted down and reforged as wrought iron railings surrounding
the Magdelen's altar. Thus the erection of one of the finest examples of
Romanesque architecture which followed was made possible by pilgrims to
the declared relics and these tactile examples demonstrating the
efficacy of prayers. Mary Magdalene is the prototype of the penitent,
and Vézelay has remained an important place of pilgrimage for the
Catholic faithful, though the actual relics were torched by Huguenots in
the 16th century.
To accommodate the influx of pilgrims a new abbey church was begun,
dedicated on April 21, 1104, but the expense of building so increased
the tax burden in the abbey's lands that the peasants rose up and killed
the abbot. The crush of pilgrims was such that an extended narthex (an
enclosed porch) was built, inaugurated by Pope Innocent II in 1132 to
help accommodate the pilgrim throng.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached
there in favor of a second crusade at Easter 1146, in front of King
Louis VII. Richard I of England and Philip II of France met there and
spent three months at the Abbey in 1190 before leaving for the Third
Crusade. Thomas Becket in exile, chose Vézelay for his Whitsunday sermon
in 1166, announcing the excommunication of the main supporters of his
English King, Henry II, and threatening the King with excommunication
too. The nave, which had burnt once, with great loss of life, burned
again in 1165, after which it was rebuilt in its present form.
Church of Ste-Marie-Madeleine, interior
Vézelay was a plum. Its litigious
monastic community was prepared to defend its liberties and privileges
against all comers: the bishops of Autun, who challenged its claims to
exemption; the counts of Nevers, who claimed jurisdiction in their court
and rights of hospitality at Vézelay; the abbey of Cluny, which had
reformed its rule and sought to maintain control of the abbot within its
hierarchy; the townsmen of Vézelay, who demanded a modicum of communal
self-government.
The start of the decline of Vézelay
coincided with the well-publicized discovery in 1279 of the body of Mary
Magdalene at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence, given regal
patronage by Charles II, the Angevine king of Sicily. When Charles
erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was
marvelously found intact, even with an explanatory inscription stating
why the relics had been hidden. The local Dominican monks soon compiled
an account of miracles that these relics had wrought. This discovery
seriously undermined Vézelay's position as the main shrine of Magdalen
in Europe.
After the Revolution, Vézelay stood in
danger of collapse. In 1834 the newly-appointed French inspector of
historical monuments, Prosper Mérimée (more familiar as the author of
Carmen), warned that it was about to collapse, and on his recommendation
the young architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was appointed to supervise a
massive and successful restoration, undertaken in several stages between
1840 and 1861, during which his team replaced a great deal of the
weathered and vandalized sculpture. The flying buttresses that support
the nave are his.
Since 1920 it has carried the title
basilica.
|
