Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

Romanesque terms. The page with the initial R may be a reliable pic-

ture of a medieval baron’s costume. The typically French Roman-

esque banding of the torso and partitioning of the folds are evident

(compare FIG. 17-11), but the master painter deftly avoided stiffness

and angularity. The partitioning actually accentuates the knight’s

verticality and elegance and the thrusting action of his servant. The

flowing sleeves add a spirited flourish to the swordsman’s gesture.

The knight, handsomely garbed, cavalierly wears no armor and

calmly aims a single stroke, unmoved by the ferocious dragons lung-

ing at him.

SAINT-SAVIN-SUR-GARTEMPEAlthough the art of fresco

painting never died in early medieval Europe, the murals (not true

frescoes, however) of the Benedictine abbey church of Saint-Savin-

sur-Gartempe have no Carolingian or Ottonian parallels, because

the murals decorate the church’s stone-vaulted nave (FIG. 17-16).

Saint-Savin is a hall church (from German Hallenkirche), a church

where the aisles are approximately the same height as the nave. The

tall windows in the aisles provided more illumination to the nave

than in churches that had low aisles and tribunes. The abundant light

coming into the church may explain why the monks chose to deco-

rate the nave’s continuous barrel vault with paintings. (They also

painted the nave piers to imitate rich veined marble.) The subjects of

Saint-Savin’s nave paintings all come from the Pentateuch, the open-

ing five books of the Old Testament, but New Testament themes ap-

pear in the transept, ambulatory, and chapels, where the painters also

depicted the lives of Saint Savin and another local saint. The elon-

gated, agitated cross-legged figures have stylistic affinities both to the

reliefs of southern French portals and to illuminated manuscripts

such as the Moralia in Job.

SANTA MARÍA DE MURIn the Romanesque period, north-

ern Spain, home to the great pilgrimage church of Saint James

at Santiago de Compostela, was an important regional artistic

center. In fact, Catalonia in northeastern Spain has more Roman-

esque mural paintings today than anywhere else. One of the most

444 Chapter 17 ROMANESQUE EUROPE

17-16Nave (left) and painted nave vault (right) of the abbey church, Saint-Savin-

sur-Gartempe, France, ca. 1100.

Saint-Savin is a hall church with aisles approximately the same height as the nave.

The tall aisle windows provide ample illumination for the biblical paintings on the

nave’s continuous barrel vault.

17-17Christ in Majesty, apse, Santa María de Mur, near Lérida, Spain,

mid-12th century. Fresco, 24 22 . Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Apocalypse fresco of the Santa María de Mur apse resembles the

reliefs of French and Spanish Romanesque tympana. Christ appears

in a mandorla between the signs of the four evangelists.

1 ft.

17-15BSaint
Mark, Corbie
Gospels,
ca. 1120.