Romanesque architecture - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

This article treats architecture. See also Romanesque art.

Difficulty of a precise definition

Any definition of the Romanesque architecture such as that which precedes is necessarily reducing insofar as this architecture recovers achievements of a large variety and built over one long period. One simply allots sometimes the qualifier of “novel” to buildings whose dating is very dubious, because one finds there techniques or an environment which seem Romance with the modern observer: barrel vault, Roman arch or capitals historiés for example… In fact, there exist constructed and not arched Romance buildings (in the Scandinavian countries especially), while the cradle in semicircular arch is rather the exception compared to the slightly broken arc. Lastly, many Romance capitals are not historiés.

One can thus define the Romanesque architecture on more subjective criteria, supported more or less well by what we believe it of religious interpretations of these times. One could thus say, even if this presentation applies badly to the upward character of the large churches auvergnates, that the Romanesque architecture, in particular in the buildings of small size, gets to the visitor the feeling of a certain massivity which evokes more the shade, the half-light or this “major light” whose Yves Bonnefoy speaks that the luminous flights about the Gothic canopies. It would not concern an ascent for a glorious purpose, but rather a “Transcendance to the bottom”, of a cryptic and initiatory form by an environment of original Mystère.

Historical context

The Romanesque architecture is resulting from the Carolingian Architecture and develops in parallel of the Architecture ottonienne.

Carolingian architecture is resulting from a intellectual revival related to Charlemagne and its crowning by the pope. Charlemagne becomes thus the heir to the Roman Empire. And it is while joining together at its court of large scholars resulting from all the Empire that it creates a intellectual revival in the fields of art, the writing and the spiritual life, which is characterized by a return to the ancient models: the Carolingian Rebirth. With the death of Charles the Bald person in 877, the Empire as well as Carolingian art end. The Barbarians invade the territory supporting the first known Romance constructions, the strong castles, and thus the Féodalité.

The Bataille of Hastings makes it possible the Normands to occupy the England. They create a specific Romanesque art as from the 11th century.

Otton I {{er}}, for its part, control the Germanic feudal system . It supports the creation of an art ottonien to the service of the magnificence of the imperial image.

The intellectual center of feudality is primarily in the abbeys and the monasteries where develops Romance architectural art. The first Romanesque art is born then, gathering the whole of the experiments and new creations in the remainder of the old Empire (i.e. without the Normandy nor the Saxony).

The sources of inspirations are drawn from books like the Manuscrit of Saint Gall or the Physiologue whose origins go back to the Egypt at the 2nd century of our era for this last.

Examples of Romanesque architecture

France

Provence

Provence has, like Auvergne, Burgundy, much of Romance buildings, some among most famous of France. Most representative being abbeys of Sénanque, Silvacane and the Thoronet, called " The Three Provençales" Sisters;.

It is advisable however to retain among the most marvellous representations of the Romanesque art, the Monastère of Ganagobie which in addition to its remarkable architecture, has impressive a mosaic of almost 80 m2 and dating from the beginning of the 12th century.

Provence presents the originality to have a complete abbey built during the years 1980 according to the old methods of the Romanesque architecture; the Abbey of Barroux. This one is inhabited by a community of Moines Bénédictins.

The Limousin

The Limousin is not a great center of the Romanesque art but its position of borders was worth to him to be subject to the influences of the universities like Languedoc and Poitou. The majority of the Romance buildings arrived to us is made up small rural churches with the often close characteristics. Thus, they very often have a Clocher known as with comb, the western wall forms an imposing bored solid mass of two or three small bays in semicircular arch where the bells are located. The other specificity limousine but which is appreciably less current is the bell-tower known as " limousin". The best example is that of Saint-Léonard-with-Noblat in High-Vienna. The first stages are in square plan, the stages higher are of octagonal plan; the passage enters the two plans is done via Gâble. The stages are always bored bays in semicircular arch, generally geminated; the bell-tower is capped with a stone arrow which was generally replaced by constructed roofs. Lastly, a specificity is the Limousin roll, kind of stone cylinder which surrounds bays. The buildings quoted in the following sections are most important and most beautiful of the Limousin, the secondary churches not being able to appear in this article general practitioner.

Corrèze

the Abbatiale Saint-Pierre of the Beaulieu-on-Dordogne, largest of Corrèze has one of most beautiful the tympanum S carved of the French Romanesque art. Representing a parousy (which precedes the Last Judgment), the graphic style is largely inspired by the Languedocien school.
the Abbey of Vigeois, of the Romance time remains only the chorus and the vaults of the transept. The central apse preserved splendid historiés capitals of which some preserved traces of polychromy.
the Abbey of Uzerche, is an good example of church of pilgrimage. Its crypt going back to the 10th century is of circular, extremely rare plan in the Limousin. The transept crossing is capped with a beautiful Limousin bell-tower.
the Abbey of Meymac, one of rare the large Romance buildings of the Mountain limousine, preserved its chorus and its porch of the 12th century which has beautiful capitals historiés out of granite. The abbey one shelters also single Black Vierge of the Limousin. This statue is an good example of the influence of the Romanesque art auvergnat in the Limousin.
the church of Collonges-the-Red has a superb Limousin bell-tower and a white limestone tympanum representing the Ascension or the Parousie. Nevertheless, the interior of the building was strongly altered during the centuries
the church of Saint-Robert, the nave with its nine spans disappeared during the Wars of religion. We however preserve the chorus and the transept which testify to superb and of the size of this church priorale very largely inspired by abbey by the Beaulieu-on-Dordogne.
the church of Lubersac.

Here a very interesting site and very well provides in photographic documents which describes the principal Romance sites of Corrèze.

High-Vienna

the abbey one of Solignac is the only church of the Limousin to being covered with cupolas. The périgourdine influence is without question, the harmony of the proportions and the capitals of the blind arcades to the strange and still indecipherable sculptures do of it one of the most beautiful Romance churches of the Limousin.
the collegial one of Dorat (see also Dorat) was built on nearly one century, its bell-tower having been finished only at the 13th century. It is the largest Romance church of the Limousin with its 77 meters length; its interior is of a great purity and a great luminosity. The western frontage presents a very beautiful flanked gate known as multifoil of two powerful skylights of style poitevin.
the collegial one of Saint-Léonard-with-Noblat is re-elected for its splendid bell-tower porch. The interior is on the other hand much less harmonious: the chorus is disproportionate compared to the nave and was awkwardly spillplate at the 16th century. It preserves nevertheless the tomb of Léonard saint into serpentine dating from XIIe century.
the collegial one of Saint-Junien was built in several successive stages what is at the origin of its strange form and its flat chorus. It preserves nevertheless two masterpieces of the Romanesque art the Limousin: paintings of the nave represent the twelve old men of the Apocalypse and the kings of Israel around the Lamb of God; the tomb of Junien Saint is the single masterpiece still preserved of the Romance sculpture limousine; on two on its sides the old men of the Apocalypse are reproduced surrounding the Lamb of God and a Virgin in Majesty, a third east coast decorated with a Christ of glory surrounded of the symbols of the apostles.
the church of the Rooms-Lavauguyon, former priory shelters one of the most beautiful whole of Romance paintings of France. Indeed, the reverse of the western frontage, the walls north and south of the nave is covered with splendid representations of Creation, of the life of Eutrope saint, Martial saint as well as first priors of the Rooms.
the collegial one of Saint-Yrieix-the-Pole with its Romance bell-tower and its Gothic chorus which gives him the pace of a cathedral.

Auvergne

The Auvergne is one of the high places of the French Romanesque architecture. Five churches of the Puy-de-Dôme received the name of “major churches” and can be used as a basis for a comprehension of the Romanesque architecture auvergnate. Built by the monks Benedictines of Chair-God or in a style defined by them, they seem to have taken for model the old Romance cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, now replaced by a Gothic building. These churches are characterized by the following elements:

a not very neat Western frontage because subjected to the bad weather;
a bedside consisted the superposition of several layers forming the “pyramid auvergnate”: radiating chapels, bedside, massive barlong (surmounting the transept and ensuring the stability of the building) and octagonal bell-tower, in a splendid composition;
an elegant but discrete external decoration, often of Byzantine inspiration;
an interior sober and inviting to the spiritual meditation: the faithful one is led darkness of the nave towards the clearness and the splendor of the chorus, of the misery of the world towards the eternal life;
of the historiés capitals subjected to particular conventions of representation.

The five major churches are the church of Saint-Saturnin, the church of Saint-Nectaire, the Notre-Dame basilica of Orcival, the basilica Our-Lady-of-Port of Clermont-Ferrand and the abbey church Saint-Austremoine of Issoire.
The church Saint-Pierre de Mozac belonged to the churches known as major because it adopted until the 15th century the plan of the basilical type and the elements which characterize the five churches evoked above. But of the earthquakes in 1477 and 1490 led to a major rehandling of its architecture. Of novel, it remains with Mozac only the central Nef and the northern side. All the remainder was rebuilt in Gothic.

Bibliography

Guy Collière, Romanesque art in Low-Auvergne: major churches : detailed booklet available in some of the five major churches of Auvergne.
Bernard Craplet, Romance Auvergne , Editions Zodiac, rééd. 1992.
Bruno Phalip, Romanesque art in Auvergne: Another glance , Little nun, Editions To create, 2003.

Random links:

Dynasty II - Colby | Wallers-in-Fagne | Garancières | T-Systems | Congress Hall