Saint-Augustine (Marchiennes), mid-
12th century, Douai. MS 250, vol. 1,
fol. 2. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque
Municipale, Douai.
tributed to the poor state of preservation and destructive postmedieval “restorations.”
Classical fresco technique remained in use throughout the 8th and 9th centuries, and
by the 11th century fresco in western Europe largely resembled the Byzantine technique.
Generally, three stages had to take place before painting began. First, painters established
construction lines to indicate registers and axes of symmetry on the architectural fabric.
Then, geometric diagrams of figures were drawn on the ground, and finally the
preparatory drawings were laid down. Unlike Byzantine incised drawings, Romanesque
drawings were visible up to the final stage of execution. Many Romanesque preparatory
drawings remain on the surface underneath flaking fresco.
Rather than follow an iconographic canon, Romanesque artists must have started from
similia—iconographic models from illuminations or in albums—and personal collections
of notes and drawings. Model books served only as points of departure, for elaboration
took place in situ on the wall.
The basic process involved fresco finished with lime or occasionally tempera.
Writings of Theophilus (first half
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1542