impressive is the fresco (FIG. 17-17), now in Boston, that once filled
the apse of Santa María de Mur, a monastery church not far from
Lérida. The formality, symmetry, and placement of the figures are
Byzantine (compare FIGS. 12-13and 12-25). But the Spanish artist
rejected Byzantine mosaic in favor of direct painting on plaster-
coated walls.
The iconographic scheme in the semidome of the apse echoes
the designs of contemporary French and Spanish Romanesque
church tympana (FIG. 17-1). The signs of the four evangelists flank
Christ in a star-strewn mandorla—the Apocalypse theme that so
fascinated the Romanesque imagination. Seven lamps between
Christ and the evangelists’ signs symbolize the seven Christian com-munities where Saint John addressed his revelation (the Apocalypse)
at the beginning of his book (Rev. 1:4, 12, 20). Below stand apostles,
paired off in formal frontality, as in the Monreale Cathedral apse
(FIG. 12-25). The Spanish painter rendered the principal figures with
partitioning of the drapery into volumes, here and there made tubu-
lar by local shading, and stiffened the irregular shapes of actual cloth
into geometric patterns. The effect overall is one of simple, strong,
and even blunt directness of statement, reinforced by harsh, bright
color, appropriate for a powerful icon.
MORGAN MADONNADespite the widespread use of stone
relief sculptures to adorn Romanesque church portals, resistance to
the creation of statues in the round—in any material—continued.
The avoidance of creating anything that might be construed as an
idol was still the rule, in keeping with the Second Commandment.
Two centuries after Archbishop Gero commissioned a monumental
wooden image of the crucified Christ (FIG. 16-26) for Cologne
Cathedral, freestanding statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the
saints were still quite rare. The veneration of relics, however, brought
with it a demand for small-scale images of the holy family and saints
to be placed on the chapel altars of churches along the pilgrimage
roads. Artisans began producing reliquaries in the form of saints (or
parts of saints), tabletop crucifixes, and small wooden devotional
images in great numbers.
One popular type, a specialty of the workshops of Auvergne,
France, was a wooden statuette depicting the Virgin Mary with the
Christ Child in her lap. The Morgan Madonna (FIG. 17-18), so
named because it once belonged to the American financier and art
collector J. Pierpont Morgan, is one example. The type, known as the
Throne of Wisdom—sedes sapientiaein Latin—is a western Euro-
pean freestanding version of the Byzantine Theotokos theme popu-
lar in icons and mosaics (FIGS. 12-18and 12-19). Christ holds a Bible
in his left hand and raises his right arm in blessing (both hands are
broken off ). He is the embodiment of the divine wisdom contained
in the Holy Scriptures. His mother, seated on a wooden chair, is in
turn the Throne of Wisdom because her lap is the Christ Child’s
throne. As in Byzantine art, both Mother and Child sit rigidly up-
right and are strictly frontal, emotionless figures. But the intimate
scale, the gesture of benediction, the once-bright coloring of the gar-
ments, and the soft modeling of the Virgin’s face make the group
seem much less remote than its Byzantine counterparts.Holy Roman Empire
The Romanesque successors of the Ottonians were the Salians
(r. 1027–1125), a dynasty of Franks of the Salian tribe. They ruled an
empire that corresponds roughly to present-day Germany and the
Lombard region of northern Italy (MAP17-1). Like their predeces-
sors, the Salian emperors were important patrons of art and archi-
tecture, although, as elsewhere in Romanesque Europe, the monas-
teries remained great centers of artistic production.Architecture
The continuous barrel-vaulted naves of Saint James at Santiago de
Compostela, Cluny III (FIG. 17-8), Saint-Sernin (FIG. 17-6) at Toulouse,
and Notre-Dame (FIG. 17-14) at Fontenay admirably met the goals that
northern Spanish and French Romanesque architects had of making
the house of the Lord beautiful and providing excellent acoustics for
church services. In addition, the churches were relatively fireproof
compared with timber-roofed structures such as Saint-Étienne (FIG.
17-2) at Vignory. But the barrel vaults often failed in one criticalHoly Roman Empire 44517-18Virgin and Child (Morgan Madonna), from Auvergne, France,
second half of 12th century. Painted wood, 2 7 high. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York (gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1916).
The veneration of relics brought with it a demand for small-scale
images of the holy family and saints to be placed on chapel altars.
This wooden statuette depicts the Virgin as the Throne of Wisdom.1 ft.
17-18A
Reliquary of
Sainte-Foy,
late 10th
to early 11th
century.