Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

popular in the Romanesque age. The monstrous forms were re-
minders of the chaos and deformity of a world without God’s order.
Medieval artists delighted in inventing composite beasts, often with
multiple heads, and other fantastic creations. Historiated capitals
were also a feature of Moissac’s mother church, Cluny III, and were
common in Cluniac monasteries.
Not everyone shared the enthusiasm of the Cluniac monks for
stone sculpture. One group of Benedictine monks founded a new
order at Cîteaux in eastern France in 1098. The Cistercians (so called
from the Latin name for Cîteaux) split from the Cluniac order to re-
turn to the strict observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict, changing
the color of their habits from Cluniac black to unbleached white.
These so-called White Monks emphasized productive manual labor,
and their systematic farming techniques stimulated the agricultural
transformation of Europe. The Cistercian movement expanded with
astonishing rapidity. Within a half century, more than 500 Cistercian
monasteries had been established. The Cistercians rejected figural
sculpture as a distraction from their devotions. The most outspoken
Cistercian critic of church sculpture was Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux
(see “Bernard of Clairvaux on Cloister Sculpture,” page 438).

SOUTH PORTAL, MOISSACBernard directed his tirade
against figural sculpture primarily at monks who allowed the carv-
ings to distract them from their meditations. But at Moissac and
other Cluniac churches, sculpture also appears outside the cloister.
Saint-Pierre’s south portal (FIG. 17-1), facing the town square, fea-

tured even more lavish decoration than did its cloister. The portal’s

vast tympanum (see “The Romanesque Church Portal,” above) de-

picts the Second Coming of Christ as King and Judge of the world in

its last days. As befits his majesty, the enthroned Christ is at the cen-

ter, reflecting a compositional rule followed since Early Christian

times. The signs of the four evangelists flank him. To one side of

each pair of signs is an attendant angel holding scrolls to record hu-

man deeds for judgment. The figures of crowned musicians, which

complete the design, are the 24 elders who accompany Christ as the

kings of this world and make music in his praise. Each turns to face

him, much as would the courtiers of a Romanesque monarch in at-

tendance on their lord. Two courses of wavy lines symbolizing the

clouds of Heaven divide the elders into three tiers.

Christ was the most common central motif in sculptured Ro-

manesque portals. The pictorial programs of Romanesque church

facades reflect the idea—one that dates to Early Christian times—

that Christ is the door to salvation (“I am the door; who enters

through me will be saved”—John 10:9). An inscription on the tym-

panum of the late 11th-century monastic church of Santa Cruz de la

Serós in Spain made this message explicit: “I am the eternal door.

Pass through me faithful. I am the source of life.”^2

Many variations exist within the general style of Romanesque

sculpture, as within Romanesque architecture. The figures of the

Moissac tympanum (FIG. 17-1) contrast sharply with those of the

Saint-Sernin ambulatory reliefs (FIG. 17-7). The extremely elongated

bodies of the recording angels, the cross-legged dancing pose of

France and Northern Spain 439

O

ne of the most significant and distinctive features of Roman-
esque art is the revival of monumental sculpture in stone.
Large-scale carved Old and New Testament figures were extremely
rare in Christian art before the Romanesque period. But in the late
11th and early 12th centuries, rich ensembles of figural reliefs began
to appear again, most often in the grand stone portals (FIG. 17-1)
through which the faithful had to pass. The clergy had placed sculp-
ture in church doorways before. For example, carved wooden doors
greeted Early Christian worshipers as they entered Santa Sabina in
Rome, and Ottonian bronze doors (FIG. 16-24) decorated with Old
and New Testament scenes marked the entrance to Saint Michael’s at
Hildesheim. But these were exceptions, and in the Romanesque era
(and during the Gothic period that followed), sculpture usually ap-
peared in the area surrounding the doors, not on them.
Shown in FIG. 17-10are the parts of church portals that Ro-
manesque sculptors regularly decorated with figural reliefs:

❚Tympanum (FIGS. 17-1, 17-12,and 17-13), the prominent semi-
circular lunette above the doorway proper, comparable in impor-
tance to the triangular pediment of a Greco-Roman temple.

❚Voussoirs (FIG. 17-13), the wedge-shaped blocks that together
form the archivolts of the arch framing the tympanum.

❚Lintel (FIGS. 17-12and 17-13), the horizontal beam above the
doorway.

❚Trumeau (FIGS. 17-1and 17-11), the center post supporting the
lintel in the middle of the doorway.

❚Jambs (FIG. 17-1), the side posts of the doorway.

❚ARCHITECTURAL BASICS: The Romanesque Church Portal

ARCHITECTURAL BASICS

17-10The Romanesque church portal.

The clergy considered the church doorway the beginning of the

path to salvation through Christ. Many Romanesque churches feature

didactic sculptural reliefs above and beside the entrance portals.

Archivolts

Tympanum

Lintel

Trumeau

Jambs Jambs

Voussoirs Voussoirs