112- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Northern lights: Romanesque art
Having germinated in Asturias, the Romanesque
style of art and architecture flowered in France before
wafting back to northern Spain. In particular, Catalonia
lapped it up. Inside their no-nonsense 11thand 12th
century churches the Catalans produced more
Romanesque wall paintings than anyone else in Europe.
The Pyrenean village ofTaüll was particularly blessed, the
churches of Santa Maria and Sant Climent swathed in
murals that replicated the striking colour of illuminated
manuscripts.The image of Christ Pantocrator in the
church of Sant Climent, a masterpiece of Romanesque
art of unknown authorship, has, like others, been moved
to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.
The painted altar panels and manuscripts kept coming
too. Most spectacular among the painted books from
northern Spain was a version of the 9thcentury
Comentarios al Apocalipsis, which the monks of Silos,
near Burgos, took two decades to produce.The same
monks adorned their monastery of Santa Domingo with
some of Spain’s best Romanesque carved stone panels.Gothic art unearths the first stars of Spanish painting
Gothic art slowly overtook its Romanesque forebear
in the 14thcentury. Wood took over from wall as the
primary painting surface and images, particularly
figures, became more naturalistic, moving on from
the stiff, formalised modes of the past. Commissions,
and therefore subject matter, remained almost wholly
religious. A few significant names and schools, piloted
by Catalonia and Valencia, came to the fore.Plaster saints:
Romanesque murals
The Romanesque murals
of Spain were often
painted as frescos, using
the ancient technique of
painting on wet plaster.
The pigments were mixed
with the plaster itself to
create a more durable
image. Bold colours, often
inlaid with gold, provided
a flat backdrop to the
often equally flat figures
of the foreground.
As the period wore on,
so shading and expression
became more common
in the pious cast of
characters portrayed.
Closed to interpretation
Romanesque and Gothic
painters in Spain had
few opportunities to slip
anything imaginative into
their work. Commissions,
doled out by the convents
and churches, gave tight
specifications on subject
matter, size and payment.
Some patrons asked for
preliminary sketches
before letting an artist
loose on their sacred
panels.