Understanding Romanesque Art: Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting

Understanding Romanesque Art

The style most representative of the art of the feudal era was the Romanesque, between the 11th and 12th centuries. It is named for its likeness to Roman art.

The First European Style

The Romanesque was the first international style, with common features across Europe. The Benedictine Order of Cluny in France played a significant role in disseminating the style, and from there it spread throughout Europe. The crusades also contributed to the spreading of the style: the peregrinations of masons and sculptors whose crews moved through the various European regions. Romanesque art was essentially religious.

Romanesque Architecture

Features:

• The use of stone as the main material
• Thick walls
• Cruciform columns and pillars
• Semicircular arches
• Barrel vault or groin vault covers

Romanesque buildings are solid and have few, narrow windows, making the interior dark.

Roman Catholic Church Design

The church used to have a Latin cross plan consisting of three or five naves, a transept or transversal nave, and a head formed by semicircular apses. The churches of pilgrimage also had an ambulatory and rostrum. The nave has semicircular ambulatories that prolong the aisles behind the altar. The second-floor gallery allowed more faithful to be welcomed. All of these items had a religious significance: the Latin cross plan, the blocks of stone, and the roof supports. The orientation of the church itself, with the head oriented to the east, was also significant.

Sculpture and Painting

Function:

The function of sculpture and painting was praising God and teaching Christian doctrine to illiterate people through pictures. Its characteristics derive from this feature: it does not search for beauty or realism, but expressiveness, and the figures are stiff and impassive. The subjects represented are scenes from the Old Testament and the life of Christ.

Sculpture

Sculpture is located in the doorways and capitals of the church and was done in polychrome wood or ivory. It is used to represent Christ nailed to the cross, without expression of suffering, and the Virgin holding the child on her knee.

Painting

Painting was conducted on the inner walls of churches or on tables. It is characterized by the use of a very sharp black design, the use of uniform scents, with a predominance of blue and red, which is intended to achieve expressiveness and not realism. Miniatures also reached a great development, which illustrated books.

The Rural Village

The rural villages were located on land reclaimed from the forest and plowed. They were usually surrounded by trees, which provided fruit, hunting, firewood, timber, and grazing, or, sometimes, marshes, which contributed reeds, rushes, and fish.