The History of Art Survey

Lecture 25

Romanesque Figurative Art

Gardner 465-485

Romanesque Period: 1000-1150

17-

19 Christ in Majesty with Apostles, lintel, 1019, 7 foot, St.-GÈnis-des-Fontaines

20 Christ in Majesty, Bernardus Gelduinus, c 1096, 4π, St.-Sernin, Toulouse

21 Creation and Temptation of Adam and Eve, Wiligelmo, c 1110, 3π

Moderna Cathedral

22 Christ in Majesty with angels and 24 Elders, tympanum of the south portal,

16π 6≤, c 1115-1135, St.-Pierre, Moissac

23 Lions and Old Testament Prophet (Jeremiah or Isaiah), St.-Pierre, Moissac

24 Cloister, 1100-1115, St.-Pierre, Moissac

* Cloister Capitals, St.-Pierre, Moissac

25 Last Judgment, West Tymp, St.-Lazare, Autun, Gislebertus, c 1120-1135, 21π

* det ≥

26 Ascension of Christ and Mission of the Apostles, central narthex portal,

1120-1132, La Madeleine, Vezelay

* det ≥

27 Portal, west facade, St.-Trophime, Arles, c 1170

Last Judgment, Portal, west facade, St.-Trophime, Arles, c 1170

28 Benedetto Antelami, King David, Fidenza Cathedral, c 1180-1190, (life size)

29 Rainer of Huy, Baptism of Christ, baptismal font, Notre Dame-des-Fonts,

1107-1118, 2π

30 Virgin and Child (Morgan Madonna), Auvergne, 2π 7≤, second half 12th c

31 Head reliquary of St. Alexander, Stavelot Abbey, 1145, 1π 6≤

32 Christ in Majesty, Santa Maria de Mur, Catalonia

33 Entombment of Christ, SantπAngelo in Formis, c 1085

34 Nave vault painting, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, c 1100

35 Revelation to St. John: Enthroned Christ with Signs of the Evangelists and the 24 Elders, Apocalypse of St.-Sever, Abbey of St.-Sever

c 1050-1070, 1π3≤

* Claricia, Clariciaπs Q, Augsburg Psalter, c 1200.

36 Vision of Hildegard of Bingen, facsimile of lost folio of Scivias, Hildegard of Bingen, c 1050-1079.

37 Initial R with knight fighting a Dragon, Moralia, Moralia in Job, Citeaux,

1115-1125, 1π2≤

38 Moses Expounding the Law, Bury Bible, Master Hugo, c 1135 1π8≤,

39 The scribe Eadwine (?), Eadwine Psalter, c 1160-170,

40 Battle of Hastings, Bayeux Tapestry, 1π 8≤, c 1070

40 Funeral Procession to Westminster Abbey, Bayeux Tapestry, 1π 8≤, c 1070

* ∆lfgyva and the cleric, Bayeux Tapestry, 1π 8≤, c 1070

Romanesque Sculpture 1000-1150

One of the major developments of the Romanesque period was the re-emergence of monumental figurative sculpture, after several centuries of abandonment. [The last piece in this survey was he 2 foot 6 inch Christ Enthroned (11-6) to the mid-4th century.] There was a good deal of Ancient art around to serve as models, but fears of idolatry or the charge of idolatry seem to have eliminated the subject during the early Medieval period. But now, monumental figure carving in stone emerged along with stone vaulting.

Or we might say, with the growth of the monumental stone church.

Stone walled churches had been built since the Carolingian, but it wasnπt till the Romanesque that figurative imagery seemed to be called for. The explanation, our book tells us is: ≥the changing role of many churches in Western Christendom. In the early Middle Ages, most churches served small monastic communities, and the worshipers were primarily or exclusively clergy. These buildings were not devoid of decoration, but it took the form of interior mosaics or frescoes. With the rise of cities and towns in the Romanesque period, churches, especially those on the major pilgrimage routes, increasingly served the lay public. To reach this new, largely illiterate audience and to draw a wider population into their places of worship, church officials decided to display Christian symbols and stories on the exteriors of their buildings.≤ (466)

Even if the Romanesque church form grew out of the existing Early Christian basilica, these had no place on their facades or transept arms for the figurative art that grew up now.

19 Christ in Majesty with Apostles, lintel, 1019, 7 foot, St.-GÈnis-des-Fontaines

The Christ in Majesty with Apostles, lintel at Saint-GÈnis-des-Fontaines is a dated example of this tradition in its first stages. The piece is dated in its inscription. We see Christ in an mandorla (glory, body halo) supported by angels, and flanked by six apostles. The image includes the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, in a reference to his statement as the arbiter of Judgment Day: ≥I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.≤ (Rev. 21:6). So this is not only an early figurative piece, but one of the favorite subjects of the era: the Christ of the Last Judgment, on a lintel.

The Apostles each stand within a horseshoe arch, a form usually attributed to the Spanish art begun at CÛrdoba, in the mosque there (13-12). The overall composition is that of a Roman homme arcade sarcophagus (e.g., 10-62). The general feeling among historians has been that such lintels were framed on those sources.

The implication here is less that a particular piece was being copied, than that forms existed to act as models for anyone inventing a decoration for a lintel.

20 Christ in Majesty, Bernardus Gelduinus, c 1096, 4π, St.-Sernin, Toulouse

This is one of a set of seven relief depictions of angels from an altar in Saint-Sernin. The figure here is nearly life sized and carved in fine grained marble. Again it is Christ in Majesty, his hand resting on an open book.. Here he is surrounded by the signs of the four evangelists: Matthew (angel), John (eagle), Luke (ox) and Mark (a lion). If there is a source for this style it is Carolingian or Ottonian metal work or ivory. There certainly was a good deal of figurative art on a small scale around. The polished finish and confidently robust style here is not something newly invented, but rather something that is well developed.

In the manner of the architectural style, the image is fit comfortably into a compartment, and its major forms resolve themselves into distinct pieces: the head the torso the legs. Feet dangle from the skirt enfolding the legs; the hand and the book nestle comfortably on the knee. All enclosed within the aureole.

21 Creation and Temptation of Adam and Eve, Wiligelmo,

c 1110, 3π, Moderna Cathedral

The narrative of Adam and Eve at Modena is only a few years later. It comes from a longer frieze, framed in decorative moldings derived from Roman and Early Christian sarcophagi.[1] It is the same theme as Bernwardπs bronze doors at Saint Michaelπs (16-25). It is the story of what the Catholic church calls the ≥Original Sin.≤ We see, reading in the usual direction of European writing, left to right: (1) Christ in a mandorla supported by two angels, holding his book, (2) Christ creating Adam, (3) Christ creating Eve from Adamπs side, and (4) Adam and Eve ashamed of their nakedness tempted by the serpent, coiled around its tree. The multiple appearance of figures within a single composition is common.

It is clear from the sculpture found in this chapter, the theme of sin and Christπs judgment is one of great importance.

The figures are carved in high relief and full, if fairly cartoonish figures. In an accompanying panel there is the boast, ≥Among sculptors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo.≤ It is clear that there is important prestige in the sculptorπs art. As the

22 Christ in Majesty with angels and 24 Elders, tympanum of the south portal, 16π 6≤, c 1115-1135, St.-Pierre, Moissac

The major judgment, of course is the Last Judgment, which was a very popular subject for church entrances. The point of the religious life being the prepare for that judgment. The abbey of Saint-Pierre at Moissac joined the Cluniac order in 1047. It was an important place on the pilgrimage route ending in the tomb of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela. Some of the wealth of the pilgrimage was used to create this new portal imagery.

Moissacπs Christ in Majesty, its Last Judgment tympanum, is the central element in a complex portal program. Romanesque tympanums are semicircular lunettes, the equivalents to the pediments of the Mediterranean temple. They are the main images that worshipers see when entering their ritual hall. The full program includes the tympanum, the voussoirs that surround them, the lintel and the trumeau (central door post) that supports it and the jambs and panels to either side. The Last Judgment portal added as a splendid new portal, on the south of the older church of Saint Pierre.

The tympanum at Saint-Pierre is centered on Christ surrounded by the winged symbols of the four evangelists ãthe eagle, ox, lion and angelã as cited in Ezekiel (1:1-14) as surrounding the throne of god, and connected with the four evangelists by St. Jerome and others.[2] They stand for the evangelists John, Luke, Mark and Matthew. These are flanked by scribes holding scrolls recording the human deeds for judgment, buttressed and supported by three ranks of seated elders, wearing crowns and sporting musical instruments. Heavenly clouds separate the ranks.

The elongated figures are flattened out, strongly marked by linear accents and highly stylized. The entire composition is accented by jaggedly wavering contours. There are few smooth transitions, curves or straight lines anywhere to be seen. Faces are angular, heads are crowned, legs are crossed. The entire surface is filled with agitated detail.

23 Lions and Old Testament Prophet (Jeremiah or Isaiah)

The trumeau figures are larger and similarly linear, complexly interwoven and agitated. From the front we see criss-crossed pairs of lions, one pair superimposed over another. On the sides we see the elongated, angular, twisting bodies of prophets bearing the scrolls that record their visions, nestled uncomfortably among the curving scallops of the trumeau. This pairing of Old and New Testament parallels continues earlier practice.

Scholars argue as to whether the figures on the trumeau are Jeremiah or Isaiah. Few volumes on the period fail to reproduce these figures. The great heads are fringed with the linear patterns of the hair and beards, the bodies twist in angular dances, the legs cross, one over the other, the feet dangling below are bent backwards. Each lime is detailed by linear contours of rustling drapery folds.

If there can be such a thing as anti-classical sculpture, this is it. No trace of illusionism is allowed to escape from the stylized patterns here.

The passageway is marked even more sharply by the unencumbered scallops of the outer jambs. To enter Saint Pierreπs south doorway is to pass through jagged jaws, beneath the judge of heaven. The lintel that supports the tympanum is covered by decorative rondels, spit out by fantastic dragons to either side.

* Jambs and side panels, Saint-Pierre, Moissac

The entire portal is a coordinated set of iconographies, what is usually called an iconographic program. Outer jambs carry flattened caricatures of Saint Peter and Paul. Panels to each side have horizontal narratives above and scenes fit into pilastered frames below. On the viewerπs right, above are scenes from the infancy of Christ with the Magi, while below the arches we find two sacred conversations: the Annunciation to Mary, and the Visitation, of Mary with her mother Elizabeth. They are worth looking at for their interest in creating figures in communication with each other. On the left wall we find Dives the rich man claimed by demons for his avarice, while Lazurus is saved, above, while below we see the we see Avarice and Luxury with their Satanic companions. As James Snyder says in his survey: a message from the church to encourage giving...to the church.

24 Cloister, 1100-1115, Saint-Pierre, Moissac

Before the construction of its southern portal, for pilgrims and people of the town, the monks of Saint Pierre received their cloister. ≥Cloister (from the Latin: claustrum, an enclosed place) connotes being shut away from the world. Architecturally, the medieval church cloister expresses the seclusion of the spiritual life, the vita contemplativa. It provided the monks (and nuns) with a foretaste of Paradise. They walked in the cloister in contemplation, reading their devotions, praying and meditating in an atmosphere of calm serenity, each withdrawn into the private world where the soul communes only with God. The physical silence of the cloister is one with the silence that the more austere monastic communities require of their members. The monastery cloisters of the twelfth century are monuments to the vitality, popularity, and influence of monasticism at its peak.≤ (469)

Here it is a timber-roofed walkway supported by piers and columns around a garth (garden). The piers carry portraits of the 12 apostles and the first Cluniac Abbott of Moissac, Durandus (1047-1072), who is buried within the cloister. The 76 capitals of the column carry abstract patterns, fantastic monsters, biblical scenes and lives of saints. Saint Bernard of Claivaux complained that such things would distract monks from their devotions.

Unremarked for some reason is the pointed nature of the arches in the Moissac cloister. There is an incipient, subtly pointed arch in the portal, but the arches of the cloister are the most strongly pointed structurally significant arches we have seen to this moment. These are what architects call two centered arches: each leg is semicircular, but they are scribed from two separate centers.

* Cloister Capitals, St.-Pierre, Moissac

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux was ≥The most influential theologian of the Romanesque era.≤ (470) A Cistercian monk and the abbot of a monastery he founded in Burgundy. A monastic reformer. The Cisterciansãnamed for the Latin title of Citeaux, in France where they originatedãsplit from the Benedictine order of Cluny, whom they accused of becoming too worldly. They returned to strict observance of Benedictπs rule. They changed from Clunyπs black robes to white ones. They emphasized productive manual labor and systematic farming techniques. They had 350 abbeys by his death and 530 by the end of the 12th century. Bernard was involved in the highest politics of the day, ≥defended and sheltered embattled popes, counseled kings, denounced heretics, and preached Crusades against the Muslimsãall in defense of papal Christianity and spiritual values.≤ (470)

I am not sure what to think of the textπs endorsement of Crusades as a ≥defense of...spiritual values.≤ I wonder if bloody carnage, that included the murder of most of the population of Jerusalem should be considered spiritual. Does it matter, to the reader, that this included not only the Muslim population of Jerusalem and the Jewish population, but the Christian population as well?

≥Saint Bernardπs opposition to the profusion of sculpture in the Romanesque churches of his day was legendary.≤ (470) We are treated to a long excerpt from one of his condemnations. In this letter to William, abbot of Saint-Thierry, he complains of all the luxury that we are enjoying in our course(!): the ≥vast height... immoderate length..superfluous breadth...costly polishing...[and] the curious carvings and paintings which attract the worshipperπs gaze and hinder his attention.≤ (470) ≥[D]one for Godπs honour≤ possibly, but what of the monsters in the cloisters? He goes on to list quite a number of strange things. ≥In short, so many and so marvelous are [the sculpted figures] that we are more tempted in wondering at these things rather than in meditating the law of God. For Godπs shaks, if men are not ashamed of these follies, why at least do they not shrink from the expense?≤

This is a really good question. Does our book seek to answer it? What do you think? Iπll include a few in our lecture and Platoπs Cave.

25 Last Judgment, West Tympanum, St.-Lazare, Autun, Gislebertus, c 1120-1135, 21π

Last Judgments were the most standard tympanum decorations of the Romanesque period. [The two Christ in Majesty images have been just this subject.] At Autun we see the most striking realization of this elaboration of fantastic monsters included in a Last Judgment. Saint Lazare at Autun was a Cluniac cathedral (bishopπs church). It was consecrated in 1132. The tympanum at Moissac shows Christ as the Divine Judge before he summons humanity to the judgment. Autunπs tympanum shows the judgment in progress.

Christ is in an oval mandorla, supported by angels, is at the center. presiding over the division between the blessed and the damned. Angels on the border herald the event with trumpets. On the viewerπs left the blessed are boosted into the heavenly city. On the right those found wanting are being tormented and let down into hell. Below on those awaiting judgment are lined up. At the far left two are lined up with bags marked by a cross and a shell. These are the symbols of pilgrims to Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. They expect to be judged favorably. The next three beg an angel to intercede. to the far right are those already condemned. One is being plucked by giant hands.

Intro 6 The Weighing of the souls,

In the weighing of the souls we see the caricatural nature of the imagery stretched toward humor. Angels and devils contest over who will get the souls. ≥A devil, leaning from a dragon mouth of Hell, drags souls in, while, above him, a howling demon crams souls headfirst into a furnace.≤ ≥One can appreciate the terror the Autun tympanum must have inspired in the believers who passed beneath it as they entered the cathedral.≤

This is an interesting point. I am seeing humorous caricatures with my 21st century eyes. Our author sees horror. Unless I learn a good deal more about the period I need to take the specialistπs interpretation. But it will take some more research before my intuition is as dependable as the specialists education in the period.

This tympanum has writing as well as pictorial imagery. And there are two messages worth following up on. In terms of the issue at hand, there is the statement: ≥May this terror terrify those whom earthly error binds, for the horror of these images here in this manner truly depicts what will be.≤ And so the literalist and the idealist may suppose to accept the words as being absolutely believed. But as it is certainly not so today, I am not sure that it was then.

The other message is also interesting. it is the inscription beneath Christπs feet, where the artist responsible for the work is named: Gislebertus. We now have proud individuality and the creative attitude of the artist, in contrast to the artisinal attitude of the craftworker.

The Cluniac order was the connection between the wonderfully expressionistic figurative styles found at Moissac and Autun (and nearby Vezelay, which weπll see next). Though both Moissac and Vezelay lie upon important Pilgrimage routes, they are not upon the same one. Artists did not wander about freely offering their services. Even if few were as well known as Gislebertus apparently was, those who had particular skills were recognized by those interested in the craft. If Bernard and the Cistercians were against the newly developing world of sculptural fantasy, the Cluniac order Bernard rivaled, was seriously devoted to it. What we have here is the spread of a distinct style of caricatural expressionism where figures are stretched in numerous, angular ways within the compartmental frames of the Romanesque vision.

We may conclude our estimate of the style by pointing out how the figures are developed linearly within their silhouettes, with elaborate, angular and agitated internal details: drapery folds, being the favorite. But hands, feet and beards come in for interest too.

26 Ascension of Christ and Mission of the Apostles, central narthex portal, 1120-1132, La Madeleine, VÈzelay

The third major example of the Pilgrimage road expressionist figurative style is found in the narthex of La Madeleine at VÈzelay, at more or less the same moment. Here, as in the others we have a composition based upon divisions of the half-round of the tympanum that are filled with categories of figures. At Moissac Christ and the evangelists are sit within three ranges of elders. At Autun, Gislebertus has lined up souls in a lower register with the saved to one side of Christ and the damned to the other side. Here at VÈzelay there is a compartment at the bottom and a set of archivolt compartments running up the arch, with the entire center given over to a composition with even larger figures.

The tympanum of the middle door linking the narthex to the nave at VÈzelay takes as its subject the Ascension of Christ and the Mission of the Apostles, as related in Acts 1:4-9. ≥Christ foretold that the Twelve Apostles would receive the power of the Holy Spirit and become the witnesses of the truth of the Gospels throughout the world. The light rays emanating form Christπs hands represent the instilling of the Holy Spirit in the apostles (Acts 2:1-42) at Pentecost (the seventh Sunday after Easter). The apostles holding the Gospel books, receive their spiritual assignment, to preach the Gospel to all nations.≤ (473)

We see Christ spread out in an orant pose, depicted in the agitated caricatural style we have been becoming used to here. Rod-like rays stretch from his hands to the halo backed heads of the individual apostles lined up beside him, on a much smaller scale. The heathen who will be evangelized are lined up within the lintel below and in the compartments to the side. The people of the world are represented by fantastic ethnic types portrayed in the folklore of the day. There are the ≥legendary giant-eared Panotii of India, Pygmies (who require ladders to mount horses), and a host of other races, some characterized by a dogπs head, others by a pigπs snout, and still others by flaming hair.≤ (473).

Christ appears within a spread-eagled orantπs pose, his giant hands stretching to each side, his knees drawn up to intensify his energy with a zigging and zagging outline articulated by whirling draperies.

It is clear from the power of the portrayal that the artists here have great command of their medium, while at the same time they do not have any interest in the idealizations or illusionism of the humanist and materialist past. They want something more powerfully expressive and more abstract. ≥Abrupt and jerky movement (strongly exaggerated at VÈzelay ), rapid play of line, windblown drapery hems, elongation, angularity, and agitated poses, gestures, and silhouettes≤ (473-4) is how our book characterize this style, which the call French Romanesque.

The Mission of the Apostles is an ideal theme for VÈzelay, our book supposes, as ≥VÈzelay is more closely associated with the Crusades than any other church in Europe.≤ (474)

The Crusades (473)

There were three Crusades between 1095 and 1190, begun in France. Their goal were ≥mass armed pilgrimages whose stated purpose was to wrest the Christian shrines of the Holy Land from Muslim control. Crusaders and Pilgrims were bound by similar vows. They hoped not only to atone for sins and win salvation but also to glorify God and extend the Christian Churchπs power. The joint action of the papacy and the barons ãmostly Frenchã in this type of holy war strengthened papal authority over the long run and created an image of Christian solidarity.≤

As one reads this section of the book, in the box on page 473, one should think of what one has heard about contemporary Muslims and the Arabic equivalently used term of today: jihad. (Jihad means literally means struggle.)

≥The joining of religious and secular forces in the Crusades was symbolically embodied in the Christian warrior, the fighting priest, or the priestly fighter. From the early medieval warrior evolved the Christian knight, who fought for the honor of God rather than a defense of his chieftain.≤ An example was the Knights of the Templar, whose ≥mission was to protect pilgrims visiting the recovered Christian shrines...blessed by Saint Bernard, who gave them a rule of organization based on that of his own Cistercians. Saint Bernard justified their militancy by declaring that åthe knight of Christπ is åglorified in slaying the infidel ...because thereby the Christian knight then wins salvation. Saint Bernard saw the Crusades as part of the general reform of the Church and as the defense of the supremacy of Christendom. He himself preached the Second Crusade in 1147.≤ ≥The Crusades achieved little in the East. They established a few unstable kingdoms and princely states in Syria and the Holy Land, which the Muslims later overthrew and assimilated.

This is so totally from the point of the Christian Crusader that it ignores entirely the effect upon the people of the region. The first Crusade was particularly violent and murderous. But all wrecked havoc of murder, rape, and pillaging. For the people born there the Crusades were a period of continual murderous Christian invasions. Since the region was not closed to Christian pilgrimage in the first place, their purpose was not to make pilgrimage possible or safer, but to make Roman Catholic control of the region exclusive. An example of their violence and actual intentions can be seen in the fourth Crusadeπs capture and rape of Christian, though not Catholic, Constantinople in 1204, a conquest that is still recalled with abiding horror by the Eastern Orthodox church.

What a 21st century American hears in the word jihad, is what the people of Western Asia have heard of Crusade for the last thousand years. Though the fact is, each word and indeed the actual concepts are quite different for their originators than what their opponents supposed.

By contrast the impact of the Crusades on Europe was important. ≥They increased the power and prestige of the towns. A middle class of merchants and artisans arose to rival the power of the feudal lords and the great monasteries. Italian maritime towns such as Pisa thrived on the commercial opportunities presented by the transportation of Crusaders overseas...the direct exposure to the art and architecture of Byzantium and Islam had a profound impact on the character of Romanesque building, sculptures , reliquaries, mural painting, and illuminated manuscripts.≤

27 Portal, west facade, Saint-TrophÓme, Arles, c 1170

Arles is the descendant of the Roman colony of Arelate. The projecting entrance of Saint-TrophÓme is an addition to its existing facade. It reminds our authors of a Roman triumphal arch. The frieze of free-standing columns reminds them of antique sarcophagi, which are common in this area. ≥The figures in high relief between the columns emulate classical statuary.≤ (474)

No, I canπt see where the Roman sources are, and our text doesnπt say. What I do see is the Romanesque propensity for dramatizing the thickness of the stone walls and the division of any design into distinct compartments. The recession of the radiating arches takes us step by step back into the depth of the wall. The last ring being made up of courses of angels that rib the underside of the short vault like reversed coffers. The facade portal rises in discrete horizontal registers. There are two layers of base above which are a colonnade of cannibalized marble columns standing out from a series of relief figures in classical dress that are over life sized. The columns carry a continuous lintel register of figures marching from one side to the other.

Last Judgment, Portal, west facade, St.-Trophime, Arles

The figures in this register arenπt all the same. They are part of the Last Judgment scene above in the tympanum. Those to our left are the saved, while those to our right are the damned marching through hell fire. In the middle are the 12 Apostles. Where the entrance is set back within the radiating arches the continuous figure course carries the tympanum. The tympanum offers a simplified, and very handsome image of an enthroned Christ in a mandorla, flanked by the signs of the four evangelists: clockwise, the eagle, the bull, the lion and the angel, of Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark.

28 Benedetto Antelami, King David, Fidenza Cathedral, c 1180-1190, (life size)

The large scale classically dressed figures at Saint-Trophime represent are sculpt in high relief. If we now move south to Italy we can see the leap back to the free standing figures. At the end of the 12th century the Romanesque church architecture, that has revived the massive presence of Roman architecture, now reaches revives the Roman art of the free standing figurative sculpture as well. We can see this esthetic genre at its best in Italy, where there are even more classical models to see than in the Roman colonies of Gaul.

Here, from a niche in the facade of Fidenza Cathedral, we see a life-sized image of King David, by a sculptor important enough to have his personality recorded, Benedetto Antelami. Antelami has left a number of identifiable works in relief as well as free standing. Here we see a figure confined to a niche, but also massive enough to fill its space. In contrast to the jaggedly linear and agitated reliefs we have been looking at in France, here is a relatively naturalistic figure, whose drapery serves the purpose of amplifying mass rather than agitating a surface.

The head is massive and turning to the side, as if the figure were in action, rather than staring out iconically at the viewer. From the waist down the work is marked by deep cutting to catch shadows and emphasize its three dimensional mass. The folds dig deeply between Davidπs legs rather than swirling erratically across an abstract surface. There is no hint toward the contrapposto stance of the classical, but we are definitely changing gears, here, from the flat diagrams of the Early Middle Ages, to a more-organic-less diagrammatic image.

29 Rainer of Huy, Baptism of Christ, baptismal font, Notre Dame-des-Fonts, [Belgium], 1107-1118, 2π

Rainer of Huy brings us another named artist. this time it is a sculptor and metal-caster. Here we have a master work of metal casting that assembles many separate parts onto a single piece. Typical of the Romanesque, the parts retain their elemental distinctiveness. The great basin is supported by (the foreparts of) 12 Oxenãbased on the description of a basin from Solomonπs temple the Old Testament (Kings 7:23-25). The 12 ox there are taken to equate with the 12 Apostles in the New Testament.

≥The style is classicizing. The figures are softly rounded, with idealized bodies and faces and heavy clinging drapery. One figure (at the left in our photo) even turns his back to observers. The three-quarter view from the rear was a poplar motif in classical art. Some of Rainerπs figures, including even Christ, are naked. In Romanesque art, the classical spirit lived on both north and south of the Alps.≤ (478)

There is an important problem here involving the hegemonic reduction of our choices ãby way of reducing the potential accounts of the artistπs choicesã to classical or medieval. Or is it classical or Christian, or just classical or not? That is, whenever a figure strikes our author as moving in the direction of the naturalistic or alternatively, to take off from some earlier visual form that may have been available as a model, the work is called classicizing. It is as if all artists were faced at all times with the choice of being classicizing or not. This is too narrow. If artists could move away from the naturalistic in the Roman Empireπs transition from materialistic and naturalistic, optical art, toward the Christian conceptual anti illusionistic, they could move back toward more optical forms without necessarily drawing on the classical.

These are figures that in themselvesãif we werenπt in the realm of survey myopiaã would never be tied with the classical. It is much more accurate to call them somewhat more naturalistic and less diagrammatic than previous medieval work.

We now have five named artisans, and will soon get a sixth. It may occur to us that something is going on here, worth considering.

30 Virgin and Child (Morgan Madonna), Auvergne, 2π 7≤, second half 12th c

The human figure reemerges in the Romanesque, though carefully avoiding the free standing figure piece that someone might consider an idol. Most work is in relief. Bishop Geroπs Christ for Cologne Cathedral (16-27) is an exception. And yet there were some smaller scale pieces. Christ seated in his motherπs lap was a popular theme in small wooden pieces. It is a sedes sapientiae ( Throne of Wisdom) type, more or less equal to the Orthodox, Theotokos theme, weπve seen in mosaics (12-15). The infant Christ holds the bible in his left hand while blessing the viewer with his right, as he sits in his motherπs lap. The two maintain a rigid- vertical-symmetrical posture. In his combination, she is the throne of wisdom, as Christ is the embodiment of wisdom.

We see again the image articulated into elements and each delineated separately: Christ, his mother, the chair, the base. She is depicted as a face within a cowl, a figure patterned with swirling drapery lines plus two feet and two hands, and so on. Christ sits before her, the bible sat on his knee as he sits on hers.

31 Head reliquary of St. Alexander, Stavelot Abbey, 1145, 1π 6≤

This time the small piece is reliquary, the holder of some bit of matter with a direct connection with some great saint. The reliquary of Saint Alexander, from Stavelot Abbey, is a container for this popeπs relics (actual fragments of his physical remains). The materials are luxurious: repoussÈ silver, gilt in part, gilt bronze, pearls, other gems and enamel. It rests upon four dragons. Bernard of Clairvauxπs complaints included reference to such reliquaries: Some he feared would think the depictions gained more interest in the beauty of the figure than the sanctity of the being. He complained ≥the church...clothes her stones in gold and leaves her sons naked; the rich manπs eye is fed at the expense of the indigent. The curious find delight here, her the needy find no relief.≤

Some make the same complaint today. Our text on the beautiful and often fascinating visual imagery of history, that allows us to look back and understand the human past with some insight, takes Bernard as a passing example of someone with an eccentric or even idiosyncratic view. Where would we get magnificent cathedrals or moving sculptural panels if everyone thought this way? We shouldnπt pass his example of questioning the uses of art too quickly or brush off his complaint too easily. Then as now humanity governed itself through institutions that were far more powerful and irrational than any one could altogether fathom or control. Then as now the arts, for all their marginality to the existence of most people were largely the repository of vast human potential for intuition, skill and expression that the most powerful absorbed in the form of entertainment and legitimation of their power.

While Romanesque cathedrals were constructed with a desire to praise a higher power, they were constructed like modern military establishments out of the economic wealth that could have clothed, housed and fed great numbers who were living in great misery of material want. While there was undoubted piety in the copying out of a bible, there was also the hoarding of valuable skill and labor in keeping literacy as a peculiarly sacred property of the church. If this discussion sounds a bit strange here, we should remember these were major arguments that spurred the Protestant revolution that split the church and embroiled all of Europe in several centuries of murderous warfare.

Reliquaries in the Catholic world received the same sort of reverence as icons did in the Orthodox region. Reliquaries were used by many for sorts of reverence that others would call idolatry.

The various plaques around the base depict three saints and various virtues. Technique and designs from all around the world began to travel more freely in the Romanesque than they had in the previous centuries.

32 Christ in Majesty, Santa Maria de Mur, 24π, Catalonia, mid-12th c.

≥Unlike stone vaulting and monumental figurative sculpture, the art of painting did not suffer a break during the Early Middle Ages. Manuscript illumination was produced in many places and mural painting continued in Italy. What the Romanesque meant in these two media was a great increase in production, or at least a great increase in production that has survived. Like the other media we have discussed, regional diversity was a hall mark.

Unlike the Roman Empire whose unity carried some sorts of production, such as coinage and imperial portraiture to every corner of the empire, Romanesque Europe was divided into many separate principalities and trade and traffic among them was only beginning to develop. More developed communication would only come later.

Christian art in the northern part of the Iberian peninsula flourished throughout the middle ages, uninterrupted by the Sultanate conquest of the south. The greatest concentration of Romanesque painting to survive to the present is located in Catalonia (the northeast of modern Spain). The Christ in Majesty from Santa Maria de Mur, near Lerida, is a fine example. The entire apse is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

One way to think of the design is to compare it with the Late Byzantine apse design at Monreale (12-24), from the same period. Unlike the Byzantine mosaic, the work at there is no gold ground, but otherwise there is a good deal the two images have in common. In both the apse is first divided into distinct registers, and the individual figures float separately against a blank background, without any semblance of setting or connection among them. At Santa Maria de Mur Christ in the apse occupies a star-strewn mandorla surrounded by seven lamps and the winged symbols of the four evangelists: the eagle, bull, lion and angel, as we have seen him at Saint Trophime (17-22) and Moissac (17-27). The seven lamps stand for the seven Christian communities to whom John addressed his revelation of the Last Judgment. Below apostles stand isolated in pairs between windows.

Our text points out how Byzantine the images are. The work is in fresco, water based paints applied to fresh, unset plaster. As at Moissac, our text points out, the individual figures are rendered ≥with partitioning of the drapery into volumes, here and there made tubular by local shading. The painter stiffened the irregular shapes of actual cloth into geometric patterns. The effect overall is one of simple, strong and even blunt directness of statement, reinforced by harsh, bright color, appropriate for a powerful icon.≤ (478)

33 Entombment of Christ, SantπAngelo in Formis, c 1085

As with the architectural traditions, figurative traditions too vary from one cultural region to the next, and in an era without modern media, and roads the distance between northern Spain and Italy is a good deal further than it is today. Still the artists who built and decorated these churches certainly had significant familiarity with each otherπs work. Weπve had a lesson in this already considering Lombard and German architecture.

The Entombment of Christ at SantπAngelo in Formis, near Capua in southern Italy, is fresco, located above the nave arcade. The church was founded by Benedictine monk Desiderious, who had earlier imported Byzantine artists from Constantinople for the monastery of Montecasino. The artist here were those who had learned from those artists.

This image of the Entombment shows the wrapped body of Christ carried set upon a sarcophagus by his mother, cradling his head, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and Saint John the Evangelist. Christ, Mary and Saint John all have halos. Here the style is a more naturalistic one than in Catalonia. The figures are modeled with shading and the setting is an architectural one that emphasized the spans from behind to in-front of the figures, a pillar overlapping Christπs body to emphasize the space.

34 Nave vault painting, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, c 1100

We can see, at Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, what such murals look like on a church ceiling. Given the distance from the viewer they seem more a pious gesture than one of great esthetic power. Given the bright colors and subject matter, they were undoubtedly enjoyed. Given the distance and lighting, they were not too likely to have moved their audiences greatly.

Here again we see the early Romanesque barrel vault. If it allowed for only limited light, it did provide a flat surface for painting. These paintings were not frescos, but painted on dry plaster, and so they are a bit brighter than frescos would be. The subjects were drawn from the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. They are in an style without Byzantine influence. The figures are elongated, cross legged and agitated, like the sculpture of the region, without any affinities for the far away Byzantine.

35 Stephanus Garsia, Revelation to St. John: Enthroned Christ with Signs of the Evangelists and the 24 Elders, Apocalypse of St.-Sever, Abbey of St.-Sever, c 1050-1070, 1π3≤

The Apocalypse, the Second Coming of Christ is the same topic found on the tympanum at Moissac (17-22). Here we see it spread across a pair of pages. It comes from the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever, which gathers a number of commentaries on the Book of Revelations by Beatus LiÈbana. Indeed the Second Coming is a major topic in the Romanesque. They had just passed the millenium (Y1K) and many expected that it might still be at hand. The monastery of Saint-Sever-sur-lπAdour is not far from Moissac. Since it was not known to have had a scriptorium, Stephanus Garsia was apparently brought to the place just for producing this one.

The characters here are the same as at Moissac, though the composition is different. The manuscript is earlier. And as there were far more manuscripts that tympana, it is likely such compositions in paint were influential on the designs we see in stone. The scene in Revelations (4:6-8 and 5:8-9) is carefully followed. We see Christ in a sapphire aura surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists, their bodies filled with eyes, born aloft on wings. Below are the 24 Elders, with gold cups of incense and viols. All are arranged within a globe born by a flight of angels, in a vision fit for the Book of Revelations.

Women, the Church and Medieval Manuscript illumination [This discussion is based in large part on Slatkin Chapter 7.]

The monastic traditions of the Medieval Christian world led to the creation of institutions within which a very few, very select set of women were to gain a surprising, and otherwise unheard of, amount of social power and skill. As a complement to the great monasteries there grew up nunneries, church institutions for the women of wealth to spend their lives in devotion within the institutions of the church and partially beyond the world of male dominance. Though ultimately subject to male administration, within the walls of the convents women governed themselves and exercised power over convent resources in land and peasantry. Though every abbess had ultimately to answer to a church hierarchy completely male, they were within their locals women with serious economic power and local authority.

This limited but real realm of feminine authority and power was expressed in an important and significant way in the world of Medieval scriptoria. One of the arts that women practiced within their cloisters was to copy and illuminate church texts. Charlemagneπs sister Gisela had charge of the first Carolingian scriptoria at Chelles and nuns worked there as well as monks. There are textual references to nuns as illuminators in the 8th and 9th centuries in England and Flanders. The largest number of female illuminators were to be found in Germany where the largest numbers of convents flourished. Though the dowry required to enter a convent meant only woman from the wealthiest families could enter them, the fact that literacy was taught there and the production of manuscript illumination was practiced there gave women their first major opportunity to produce the sort of elite art recorded in our text, that has come down to us through history.

To answer the famous second wave feminist question of the 1970πs ãWhy were there no great women artists in our history?ã we must be reminded that with the exception of moments and situations such as found for a time in the great convents, women were not allowed to practice the most prestigeous forms of art.

* Claricia, Clariciaπs Q, Augsburg Psalter, c 1200.

One of the rare examples that actually can be attributed to a woman is the example we see here. Few Medieval textual copyists or illuminators, men or women, ever signed their work. Thus is it rare enough to know the gender of an illuminator. But in this example from ???????? we have the illuminator Claricia leaving us both her name and even this tiny playful self portrait, hanging from an initial Q.

This also points to one of the most interesting aspects of Medieval art, the rather widespread and highly enjoyable practice of inserting modest details of everyday life, often humorous or happily unelevated ones, into the margins and in between the great church and state themes of the monumental art. We may actually learn more from such realist marginalia than we do from the repetition of official and monumental scenes they accompany. Clariciaπs dress here, ≥uncovered head, braided hair, and close-fitting tunic under a long waisted dress with tapering points hanging from the sleeves≤ indicates that she was probably a lay student at the convent and not herself a nun.[3]

Hildegard of Bingen thus exemplifies both sides of this new and important coin in the esthetic economy of the Medieval world. She was a woman who gained great prestige through her religious experience and her expressions about it in not only writing but in painting visual images. And, as a women in the hierarchy of a rarely woman-controlled corner of the great churchπs institutional structure she has economic and social power as well, rising to be an abbess: governor of a large convent. She was noted as one of the important supporters of the Gregorian Reform of the church in her era, as an ally of Bernard of Clairvaux.

Why should this aspect of social history matter to us in a history of the arts? Because this, undoubtedly eccentric moment was a major step in the direction women gaining recognition as human beings capable of a serious contribution to social life. Women were then highly suppressed in human society during the Middle Ages, as they were before, but they were gaining. The restriction of the clergy to males and the requirement of priestly celibacy that was implemented in ????[4] are examples of the low position of women. The rise of some craft workers from artisan to artists signing their production is singled out by art history as a significant development. The lack of women in this category is reasonable as important. But then, so to is their emergence.

36 Vision of Hildegard of Bingen, facsimile of lost folio of Scivias, Hildegard of Bingen, c 1050-1079.

The Scivias (Know the Ways [Scite vias] of God) of Hildegard of Bingen is a book in which Hildegard has drawn images of her own visions. The original, which was lost to the bombing of the Second World War, but has survived in the form of a very close copy. Hildegard was a German nun, eventually an abbess of the convent at Disibodenberg. There is some question over whether she is the author alone, of the author and illustrator. In 1141 She had a vision of the divine order of the cosmos and humankindπs place in it. In it she describes the scene illustrated here, when a fiery light from the vault of heaven entered her brain.

We see her here within a German church like setting, a pent facade between two towers beneath a tunnel vault. Her feet are up on a stool. She is painting or writing. Five tongues of light lick at her head, and she records her experience. The other side of a wall ãseparated from her, like the angel in an annunciation sceneã we see the monk Volmar, her confessor who is copying her writing. The scene thus records the basic act of the medieval scribe, copying from one book to another. Hildegard wears a cowl clasped at the waist and a veil, the dress of courtly women of the day.

What is most rare, here, is the importance of a woman. Not only is a woman the subject of this vision, a woman most likely its author as well. Though it can hardly be overlooked that for Hildegardπs vision to be authenticated and appreciated it required the attendance and supervision of her male confessor, whom we see in the representation of the experience.

* Hildegard of Bingen, a vision, Scivias, facsimile of lost folio

Hildegardπs fame came from her visions, which began in childhood, in which she saw among other things ≥shimmering lights and circling stars.≤[5] This is, a depiction of one of these visions. ≥And behold! In my forty-third year I had a heavenly vision...I saw a great light from which a heavenly voice said to me: åO puny creature, ashes of ashes and dust of dust, tell and write what you see and hear.≤[6] Here is the first view of the supernatural outside the Book of Revelations.

The Scivias includes 35 of Hildegardπs visions. The oldest copy was created under her supervision. It has been missing since the Second World War. In this image, which appears to depict one of her visions we see a fiery ellipse bursting the confines of its border, inside of which a firmament of flaming stars circle a maelstrom vortex from which a moon or chalice seems to emerge. At four points, one below, one to each side and one coming from the top of the maelstrom, we may glimpse triple faced congeries of faces emitting the rays of light or sound (?) that are the vision. Indeed the inner-most emits the starry firmament and chalice from the vortex. The one below seems to emit the inner ranges of red stars while the outer ones, on the sides emit the outer ring of flames and even the border of the image being burst.

37 Initial R with knight fighting a Dragon, Moralia, Moralia in Job, Citeaux, 1115-1125, 1π2≤

Citeaux, France was the home of the Cistercian order, and the location of a major scriptoria. This manuscript of Saint Gregoryπs Moralia in Job was produced there, just before Saint Bernard, who joined the monastery in 1112 was able to ban such work in 1134, after which lavish illustrations and even initials with more than one color were banned.

In this lavish initial you see Saint Gregory, dressed as a knight, along with his squire and a pair of dragons. The letter is an R beginning Reverentissimo, opening a letter ≥to the very reverent≤ Leandro, Bishop of Seville. Elaborate initials go back to the Hiberno-Saxon period (e.g., 8th or 9th cent Book of Kells, 16-7). We can see here ≥[t]he typically Romanesque banding of the torso and partitioning of the folds (especially the servantπs skirts) are evident, but the master painter deftly avoided stiffness and angularity. The partitioning actually accentuates the knightπs verticality and elegance and the thrusting action of his servant. The flowing sleeves add a spirited flourish to the swordsmanπs gesture. The knight, handsomely garbed, cavalierly wears no armor and aims a single stroke with proud disdain.≤ (482)

38 Master Hugo, Moses Expounding the Law, Bury Bible, c 1135 1π8≤, ink and tempera on vellum.

This is the frontispiece of the Book of Deuteronomy from the Bury Bible. Bury Saint Edmonds abbey was another famous scriptoria. Master Hugo also worked in metal and as a sculptor. Like Stephanus Garsia he was a secular artist, not a monk. The monasteries were wealthy and could afford to hire artists, though most medieval manuscripts were the work of monks and nuns. [yes, nuns!] .

There are two scenes here. Upper ≥depicts Moses and Aaron proclaiming the law to the Israelites.≤ Moses has the commonly misrepresented or mistranslated ≥horns≤ of Saint Jeromeπs translation of the Hebrew word for ≥rays.≤ The lower panel shows ≥Moses pointing out the clean and unclean beasts.≤ Gestures are carefully refined. The painting here is a good deal more refined and controlled (?) than that seen earlier in the period. ≥quite different from the abrupt emphasis and spastic movement seen in earlier Romanesque paintings.≤ patterning softens, the movements of figures appear more integrated and smooth. Yet the pattering remains in the multiple divisions of the draped limbs, the lightly shaded volumes connected with sinuous lines and ladderlike folds.≤ Drapery folds equal the body instead of revealing it.

39 Eadwine the Scribe, The scribe Eadwine (?), Eadwine Psalter, c 1160-170,

This is the last page of the Eadwine Psalter. It shows ≥a rare picture of a Romanesque artist at work.≤ (483) The work included 166 illustrations, many variations on the Utrecht Psalter. This is something a bit new, the portrait of a living man, a priestly scribe. Earlier manuscripts included only emperors as living beings. By showing himself writi