Annunciation, Mont-Saint-Michel
Sacrementary, late 11th century. M
641, fol. 24. Courtesy of the Pierpont
Morgan Library, New York.
septs received no set subject. Figures in arches and spandrels usually turned toward the
central scene in the apse. The west wall often held the acceptance and refusal of sacrifices
or the Last Judgment. In the nave, a main narrative, such as the miracles and death of
Christ or the Old and New Testament, occupied the upper part of vaults. Generally,
smaller spaces, galleries, porches, and crypts held more articulate and systematic
decoration.
Two examples of the diverse types of wall painting are found at the vast abbey church
of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe and the grange at Berzé-la-Ville. The murals at Saint-Savin
display the effects of wall painting on a large scale, while the paintings of Berzé-la-Ville
are experienced in intimate space.
The abbey church of Saint-Savin contains the most comprehensive scheme of wall
painting. Although much restored, the columnar piers in the nave are painted in trompe
l’oeil to resemble colorful variegated marble. Four areas of the building—the west
gallery, the barrel-vaulted nave, the crypt, and the porch—contain scenes from the life of
Christ, thirty-six scenes from the Old Testament (including the Creation and the stories of
Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses), saints’ legends, and the Apocalypse, respectively.
Earth tones predominate, with red ocher, yellow ocher, green, and occasionally black.
Demus, Deschamps, and Thibaut agree that several artists, or teams of artists with similar
styles, accomplished the painting in a short period, sometime from the late 11th century
to the early 12th.
Seven miles from the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, the dependent grange of Berzé-la-
Ville also possesses extensive wall painting in rich reds, greens, purples, and whites
against a deep-blue background. In the semidome of the apse of the chapel, Christ in
Majesty resides in a mandorla, with his right hand raised in blessing St. Paul and his left
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1544