ORLÉANS; PÉRIGUEUX; REIMS; ROMANESQUE ART; ROMANESQUE
SCULPTURE; SAINT-AIGNAN-SUR-CHER; SAINT-MICHEL-DE-CUXA;
THORONET, LE; TOULOUSE; TOURNUS; TOURS/TOURAINE; VÉZELAY]
Armi, C.Edson. Masons and Sculptors in Romanesque Burgundy: The New Aesthetic of Cluny III. 2
vols. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983.
Aubert, Marcel. Romanesque Cathedrals and Abbeys of France, trans. Cuthbert Girdlestone.
London: Vane, 1966.
Focillon, Henri. The Art of the West in the Middle Ages, trans. Donald King. 2 vols. 2nd ed.
London: Phaidon, 1969.
Grodecki, Louis. L’architecture ottonienne: au seuil de l’art roman. Paris: Colin, 1958.
Kahn, Deborah, ed. The Romanesque Frieze and Its Spectator. London: Harvey Miller, 1992.
“La nuit des temps” collection published by Zodiaque at La Pierre-qui-vire (Yonne) has a valuable
series of regional studies on Romanesque architecture: Auvergne roman, Bourgogne roman,
Haut-Languedoc roman, Poitou roman, Val-de-Loire roman, etc.
ROMANESQUE ART
. Romanesque painting and sculpture gave vibrant, expressive life to the pilgrimage
churches and cathedrals in mid-11th to late 12th-century France. Invented by 19th-
century archaeologists to describe medieval works of crude Roman derivation, the term
“Romanesque” remains in use due to the relationship between the medieval world and its
antique past from the middle of the 11th to the third quarter of the 12th century.
Ideas and images of the ancient Roman Empire, the development of trade routes and
urban areas, the growth of pilgrimage roads, the Crusades, and the continuity of the
Capetian line all contributed to the production of Romanesque art. In certain areas of
France, classical remains directly inspired the revival of monumental sculpture. Fixed
within architectural and liturgical contexts, monumental painting and sculpture appeared
to the roaming pilgrim as a series of moving images.
Painting and sculpture were often interdependent media, as in the case of portable
devotional objects like wooden statues of the enthroned Virgin and Child, painted with.
polychromy on gesso. Architectural sculpture was often painted, and both painting and
sculpture depicted similar themes. Yet fundamental differences in technique and other
circumstances of production distinguish the two media. While both Romanesque
sculpture and painting were intended to be didactic, the two media present their messages
in different ways. Sculpture graced entrances, such as exterior portals and inner narthex
portals, piers in cloisters, or capitals in parts of monasteries, and presented scenes and
figures to the pilgrim. Wall painting occupied
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