Romanesque Art. Victoria Charles
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usually appeared monotonous with its steeply rising gable forms, with tower-like structures and to thus denote these parts as extraordinarily pleasant and important. One location emerged as particularly suitable; the intersection of the nave and transept roofs above the crossing. In the older days, only a small tower lodged on the roof ridge, the so-called ridge turret, was installed, which was also still used later when lacking funds prevented the erection of a massive tower of imposing size.
In the Romanesque style’s further development, the slender, delicate ridge turret turned into a short rectangular or octagonal tower, which was frequently topped off with a pyramid-shaped spire or simply closed off with a gable roof. As the master builders became more aware of how much the churches’ artistic effect could be increased by the addition of towers, the more daring they became, whenever the means permitted it. The towers’ original practical purpose was completely forgotten. The aesthetic function was chiefly considered; the heightening of the overall picturesque impression and the joy that was granted to the town’s residents in particular by the wide views into the land. At the same time, however, the tall tower gave guards the opportunity to give early warning to the town about approaching enemies or predatory hordes. In addition to the set of towers framing the western façade and the crossing tower, further towers were added on both sides of the transept or the choir. In the prime of the Romanesque style in Germany, which is represented by the Cathedral in Limburg an der Lahn for example, even that number was found to be insatisfactory, and the transept gables were framed with two towers each, bringing the total number of towers to seven.
Western portal with narthex, Abbey of Paulinzella, Rottenbach (Germany), 1105–1115.
South-East view, Abbey of Paulinzella, Rottenbach (Germany), 1105–1115.
Neither did the ornamentation of the walls fall behind this increase in the richness of the exterior structure. The structuring of the walls by projection and pilasters was expanded with round arch friezes; a sequence of small, semicircular arches, which initially only ran underneath the roof cornice, but later underneath all the cornices, in particular also those which separated the towers’ individual tiers. During the later periods of the Romanesque style, decorative ornamentation was added on the exterior. It was, however, limited to initially simple portals, which then developed increasingly into magnificent examples of Romanesque sculpture. With the meaningful subject matter in their reliefs, they were intended to augment the churchgoers’ reverent mood prior to entering the place of worship. The lateral walls of the portals, which were closed off with a rounded arch, were staggered or stepped off toward the interior and fitted with small columns and figures. The meaning behind these was connected with the relief image, which mostly decorated the arch area above the horizontal lintel; the tympanum. Gradually, this visual décor expanded into continuous stories from the Old and New Testaments. Certain doctrines and moral teachings, which could not be conveyed to the largely analphabet masses by the preachers’ verbal attempts, became more commonly known and understood by viewing the readily accessible picture sequences on the portals. This pictorial language quickly became popular and was of great importance for the dissemination and reinforcement of religious ideas before the invention of the printing press. It was later continued during the Gothic period and used in richer forms of expression. Romanesque art, thus, had a definite didactic purpose.
Transept and apse, church ruins of Hersfeld Abbey, Bad Hersfeld (Germany), 1038- end of the 12th century (burned down in 1761).
The twin-choir churches, which have been used to describe the main elements of the Early Romanesque style, are really only characteristic of Saxony. In other German regions, churches show a simpler floor plan and usually only have one choir. This type of church is also often found in Saxony, but is so considerably different in detail that no uniform type with common characteristics can be established. There is no standard church that unifies all the characteristic peculiarities of the Romanesque style. All the churches of the Late Romanesque style have only the vaulted ceiling in common, which from the eleventh century replaced the flat wood-beam ceiling in Germany, and was formed into a generally observed system. Originally only used for narrow aisles, they also encompassed the wide central nave once the builders had learned to master the construction challenges. The heavy stone vault was immense in weight, which is why the walls had to be so massive in order to withstand the enormous pressure. For the same reason, there are few windows and doors in Romanesque buildings. The arched windows are explained by the necessity to spread the enormous pressure of the weight onto posts and columns, in order to ensure the building’s stability.
Owl Tower, Hirsau Abbey, Hirsau (Germany), 1080–1087.
Wherever Christianity spread, the monks were the first builders. It was only through years of experience that they learned how to master the building materials of their regions. Then, they became teachers to their lay brethren, from whom grew the bourgeois builders’ guild. The building-savvy monks had already come to know the art of vaulting in the countries of Roman culture, to which they had come from the North. But only after intense practice were they able to also apply this knowledge to the new task of ecclesiastical architecture. They started by building vaults on smaller aisles, where they initially used the simplest form, the barrel vault, and only later the groin vault. In the wide central nave they had to make do with a wooden ceiling for a considerably longer period of time, until the master builders succeeded in constructing arches that could span such great distances. As indicated above, as the first vault forms existing in Roman buildings, the groin vault presumably resulted from the intersection of two barrel vaults. Thus, four dome caps were created, whose separating lines formed distinct “groins”. Those caps, which held each other, needed only be supported on the four end points.
The weight was so enormous that slender columns could not longer be used, but sturdy pillars had to be employed to support it. Every nave was covered with several of these vault bays based on a square floor plan, which were separated by wide transverse arches between the pillars. The central nave usually comprised three to six of these squares, the normally half-width aisles had double the number of squares, whose size, however, was only one quarter of a central nave square. Only when the builders mastered the art of spanning a groin vault over a rectangle could the bays in the aisles correspond in length to those of the central nave. Only thus did the floor plan of the Romanesque church achieve complete harmony. This varying division of the bays is illustrated by a comparison of the floor plan of the Cathedral of Speyer, which in its strict structure represents the so-called “unified Romanesque system”, with that of the Abteikirche (abbey church) of Maria Laach. At the Cathedral of Speyer, the normally square bays of the central nave are also rectangular.
In both of the churches a vestibule known as “paradise” in the Middle Ages is preserved, which was supposedly used by penitents as a reminder of the atrium in a Christian basilica. This is most clearly illustrated by the church in Maria Laach, a twin-choir structure, to which the vestibule was only added at the beginning of the thirteenth century – this is how long the early Christian building customs remained alive. Even though the choir layout of these churches, which were finished at the same time around the turn of the twelfth century, is relatively simple, other churches of the same period display richly formed choirs. By leading the aisles around the choir an ambulatory was gained, usually half the height of the choir, which served to grant the streams of pilgrims access to the holy relics kept in the choir. It was later enlarged by the addition of small apses for the installation of secondary altars. Only the Gothic style brought this expansion of the choir to its conclusion by forming the apses into small chapels and eventually surrounding the choir with a ring of chapels. It was also the Gothic style which enabled the rood screen (in Latin, lectorium), a wooden or stone barrier, to achieve its artistic magnificence. It developed from the barriers (cancelli) which already separated the choir from the central nave in early Christian basilicas and was equipped with two or more passageways. In the centre, a chancel-like structure with a lectern, accessible by a set of stairs, rose and served for the reading of spiritual texts from the gospel.
Eastern apse with “Roman