Know your sacred art terms Part 3 - Romanesque stone carving
Those incredible swirling Nazareth capitals
The 'Crusader' Capitals of Nazareth
I told you we’d get back to these…
This, frankly, will be mostly an eye-candy post, because these images of Romanesque stone sculpture, one of the greatest achievements of western sacred art, need hardly any commentary to appreciate. Before making an in-depth study of the complex philosophical and theological meanings - it’s all about medieval cosmology - it’s best to start just by looking, as deeply as we can given the limits of the internet. We can learn all about these works in terms of facts, but to know them truly takes more than merely memorising intellectual things. First, we know art by just looking steadily1.
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And now, back to our show…
Romanesque so far
We’ve covered the basics of Romanesque style (c. 1000 -1200), a westernisation of Byzantine artistic canons, and a little of its importance as a historic genre of Christian sacred art in its architecture, here":
“You might have heard the term Romanesque in passing. Academic art historians tend to give it pretty short shrift: it’s mostly relegated to one of their dismissive categories, a ‘transitional period,’ between Byzantine and Gothic. Romanesque - a term coined by 19th century French art historians - is so called because, especially in architecture, it was a conscious revival of some old Roman Imperial ideas, particularly round arches, barrel vaults and monumental stone construction.”
and painting, here":
“Walk into one of the few surviving churches decorated in this way and you understand it immediately; this is not Christianity safely away over there, up above the altar. It’s not God up there and far away and not very relevant. This is the entire heavenly court, all of Salvation History crowded into the room with you and looking straight at you. These aren’t images in a movie to be gazed at ‘reverently’ from a safe distance; this is ‘full immersion’ Christianity at its height.”
But I think the power, authority of Romanesque art finds its highest expression in its stone carving, by adding the last needed element: exuberance, felicity, and fierce, wild joy…
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Stone carving played a pivotal role in Romanesque art, serving as a powerful medium for conveying religious messages and adorning the architectural marvels of the era. We see here none of the “stiffness” and formalism of Byzantine canons, so often decried in the West.
With the linear, stylised forms Romanesque artists focused on conveying the emotions of their subjects, whether it was the wonder and joy of the blessed souls and angels or the suffering of Christ and the terror of the damned.
Very often Romanesque stone carving came in architectural “set pieces” in churches:
tympanum -the semi-circular space (“tympanum” means drum) above a church's entrance
carved column capitals
decorative friezes and bas relief carvings.
Tympanum
One of the most prominent examples of Romanesque stone carving is the tympanum, the semi-circular space above a church's entrance. These tympana often featured elaborately carved scenes from the Bible, often the Last Judgment or the Nativity, serving as a grand backdrop to the threshold between the sacred and the secular world.
Capitals
Another significant venue for stone carving was the capitals, the sculpted blocks that support the arches of columns. These capitals were carved with a rich array of biblical figures, mythical creatures, and symbolic motifs, adding visual interest and spiritual resonance to the interior spaces of churches.
Coming up: a deep dive into the lost majesty of the mighty Clunaic movement
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I do recommend drawing these figures if you really want to know them as well as you can. Romanesque stone carving has the advantage of being highly stylised and of course monochromatic, both making them easier to draw.