Gislebertus, Last Judgement, Saint-Lazare, Autun, France, ca. 1120 Romanesque

  • Marble
  • Its the tympanum, and it was a commissioned dramatic vision of the Last Judgement
  • Four angels blowing trumpets in the book of revelation
  • Christ is shown as the largest figure with a mandola
  • Dispassionately is residing over the separation of the blessed from the damned
  • On the left there is an angle boosting one of the blessed into the heavenly city
  • Beneath, the souls of the dead line up to meet their fates
  • Two men stand as the pilgrims of Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela
  • On the right three figures beg an angel to intercede and help them into heaven; the angel responds by just pointing to the judge above
  • there are demons all around guffawing; they have gaunt lean bodies ending in sharp claws
  • There is a devil leaning from the dragon mouth of hell that drags souls in and above him another demon crams souls into a furnace
  • This is an appalling scene conjured up by an intense romantic imagination and a fearful faith
  • gives a real sense of terror; must have inspired those who passed beneath the tympanum as they entered the cathedral
  • perfect for those who cannot read could "read the marble"
  • For those who could read, there were Latin words engraved on the tympanum to reinforce the pictorial message; "may this terror terrify those whom earthly error binds, for the horror of these images here in this manner truly depicts what will be"
  • It names Gislebertus as the sculptor right in the stone, not to advise his own fame but as a kind of request to spectators to pray for his salvation on judgment day
  • Pride in individual accomplishment was nonetheless an important factor in the increasing number of artists signatures in Romanesque times

Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, France, ca. 1070-1120 Romanesque

  • Toulouse was an important stop on the pilgrimage road through south-western France to Santiago de Compostela in north-western Spain
  • Grand scale
  • Floor plan is similar to Saint James in Spain and Saint Martin at Tours
  • Is known as the "pilgrimage church" type because there was extra space provided for curious pilgrims
  • They increased the length of the nave and doubled the side aisles and added other features; at Toulouse, the chapels are greater in number to accommodate the hordes of pilgrims who had journeyed form afar to view the church's relics
  • Extremely regular design and geometrically precise
  • The crossing square is flanked by massive piers and marked off by heavy arches
  • This style was crisply rational and a highly refined realization of an idea first seen in Carolingian architecture and became increasingly popular in Romanesque designs
  • the tribunes over the inner aisle which housed the crowds on special occasions; the tribunes also played an important role in buttressing the continuous semicircular barrel vaults over the nave
  • The groin vaults served as buttresses for the barrel vaults and transferred the main thrust to the thick outer walls
  • Has compound piers = piers with columns attached to their rectangular cores
  • The nave seems to be composed of vertical volumes of space placed one behind the other
  • The segmentation of the nave is also reflected in the buildings exterior design where each exterior wall is framed with a buttress
  • The rationally integrated scheme with repeated units decorated and separated by mouldings had a long future in later church architecture in the West

Durham Cathedral, England, begun ca. 1093 Romanesque

  • signifies the start of Romanesque building and design methods
  • Sits majestically on a cliff over looking WearRiver in northern England
  • begun following the conquest of Normandy and the the centerpiece of monastery, cathedral and fortified castle complex on the Scottish frontier
  • Conceived from the beginning to be a vaulted structure
  • the pattern of the ribs of the naves' groin vaults is reflected in the design of the arcade below
  • Large, simple pillars ornamented with abstract designs alternate with compound piers that carry the transverse arches of the vaults
  • The pier-vault relationship couldn't be more visible
  • The raising of imposing stone edifices required more than just the talents of master designers - expert masons had to transform rough stone blocks into precise shapes necessary for their specific place in the church's fabric
  • The building of these churches was an immense undertaking and understandably took decades
  • The plan is typically English with its long slender proportions and is in some ways more innovative than a French church: earliest example of a ribbed groin vault placed over a three story nave
  • Also of great significance is the way that the nave vaults were buttressed: quadrant arches; the structural descendants of these arches are the flying buttresses that epitomized the mature Gothic solution to church construction

Saint-Etienne, Caen, France, begun 1067, Romanesque

  • the Normans quickly developed a distinctive Romanesque architectural style than became the major source of French Gothic
  • The abbey is considered the masterpiece of Norman Romanesque architecture
  • Begun by William of Normandy
  • Striking design rooted in the tradition of Carolingian and Ottoman west works
  • Displays the increased rationalism of Romanesque architecture
  • Four large buttresses divide the façade into three bays that correspond to the nave and aisles
  • the original design called for a wooden roof but the nave has compound piers with a simple engaged half-columns alternation with piers with half-columns attached to pilasters
  • Sexpartite vault = square vault compartments separated into six sections
  • Three story high elevation in the clerestory, more light is allowed into the interior
  • It also makes the nave appear even taller than it actually is
  • Despite the heavy masonry, the large windows and reduced interior wall surface give the nabe a light and airy quality that is unusual in the Romanesque period

Bayeux Tapestry from Bayeux Cathedral, Bayeux France, ca. 1070-1080, Romanesque

  • embroidered wool on linen; thus is not a painting but a woven tapestry
  • The text shows the "funeral procession to Westminster Abbey" and the "battle of Hastings"
  • closely related to Romanesque manuscript illumination
  • The borders are populated by the kinds of real and imaginary animals found in contemporaneous books and explanatory Latin text sewn in thread accompanies many of the pictures
  • 20 inches high and about 230 feet long
  • continuous frieze like pictorial narrative of a crucial moment in England’s history of the events that led up to it
  • the Norman defeat of the Anglo-Saxons at Hastings in 1066 bought England under the control of the Normans uniting all of England and much of France under one rule
  • The dukes of Normandy became the kings of England
  • commissioned by Bishop Odo, the half brother of conqueror Duke William
  • the embroidery may have been sewn by women at the Norman court, but art historians think it might have been done by stichers in Kent
  • two of the episodes of the epic tale represented here
  • The first depicts King Edward’s funeral procession; a hand of god points the way to the church where he was buried
  • The second detail is of the battle of Hastings; the Norman Calvary buts down the English defenders; the lower border is filled with the dead and wounded, although the upper register continues the animal motifs of the rest of the embroidery; there are the incorporation of characteristic motifs of Greco-roman battle scenes (the horses with twisted necks and contorted bodies) but the figures are rendered in the Romanesque manner
  • linear patterning and flat colour replaced classical three dimensional volume and modeling in light and dark hues
  • The tapestry is unique in Romanesque art in that it depicts an event in full detail at a time shortly after it occurred, recalling the historical narratives of ancient roman art
  • Has been likened to the scroll frieze of the Trajan column; it is, similar to it's roman counterpart, a history of the victors and a proclamation of national pride
  • The narrative is not confined to battle successes: included are the preparations for war with scenes depicting the felling and splitting of trees for ship construction, cooking and serving of meals, etc.
  • Is the most ROMAN-esque of all Romanesque artworks

Abbey Church, Saint-Denis, France, ca. 1140-1144 CE, Gothic

  • Saint Dionysus = Saint Denis in French
  • was the apostle who brought Christianity to Gaul and who died a martyr's death there in the third century
  • The church hosed the saint's tomb as well as the crimson military banner that belonged to Charlemagne
  • Was a rebuilding of an older version of the church
  • The Carolingian basilica was France's royal church and the very symbol of the monarchy
  • The old building was in disrepair and had become too small to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims
  • It's abbot, Suger, believed it was of insufficient grandeur to serve as the official church of Saint Denis thus he began to rebuild it; he began by building a new west façade
  • Suger died before he could remodel the nave
  • Introduction of the Gothic ribbed vault, descendant of the Romanesque vault