FINA 225: Notes on Romanesque and Gothic Cathedrals

The Age of Romanesque and Gothic Cathedrals

Defining the Romanesque

The term 'Romanesque' is defined in the context of newly successful states claiming descent from Romans.
Architecture served as political ancestry, enabling these states to build in the Roman style and using Roman methods.
Florence and its Baptistery (from 1154) exemplify this, showcasing the Romanesque style.
Pisa provides another example, retaining awareness of its Roman naval base origins with impressive Roman ruins like the Baths of Nero.
Pisa became an independent republic around 1000, allied with Byzantines and active in the Crusades.
The Cathedral of Pisa (1063-92) features marble facing, columns, and round arches characteristic of Romanesque architecture.
Rome held different significance for various city-states with varying ambitions.
Venice, as a Byzantine colony, looked east, evident in the Western front of the Basilica of San Marco (1063-94; reconstructed from the 1880s).
The Palla d’Oro (cloth of gold) altarpiece was commissioned from Byzantine artisans in 1105.
The Horses of St Mark were looted from the Constantinople Hippodrome in 1204, along with marbles and columns used on the church's front.
The heart of Romanesque architecture is initially found in France.
It is tied to the spread of ‘Cluniac’ monasticism from the Abbey of Cluny.
A key breakthrough was the replacement of timber roofs with arched stonework, exemplified by the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella (1120) using a simple tunnel vault.
Semi-circular groin vaulting is seen in the cathedral of St Foy, Conques, early c.12th
An aesthetic and structural advance is seen at Durham Cathedral (1093).
Rib vaults across the ceiling with ‘pointed’ arches provided structural advantages.
Durham Cathedral remains Romanesque in its arches, capitals, and piers.
Ambulatory of the abbey church of St Denis 1140-4 shows advance towards ‘Gothic’ architecture.

Timeline:

987: Hugh Capet becomes King of France.
1053: ‘Great Schism’ in the church.
1060-91: Norman conquest of Sicily.
1066: Norman invasion of England.
1095-99: First Crusade.
1098: Cistercian Order founded.
1204: Crusaders take Constantinople.
1226: Death of St Francis of Assisi.
1337: Beginnings of the 100 Years' War between England and France.
1348: Beginning of the Black Death (the Plague).
1353: Ottoman Turks invade Europe.

Romanesque Architecture

Increasing ambition of church building under the Holy Roman Emperors.
The west work of Saint Pantaleon at Cologne, c.980 was perhaps inspired by the triumphal arch at Trier.
St Michael, Hildesheim, Germany, c.1001-31: featured a new kind of plan with transepts across.

Transition to Gothic Architecture

The Ambulatory of the abbey church of St Denis (1140-4) shows advance towards ‘Gothic’ architecture.
Theology of Pseudo-Dionysisus sees light as medium of divinity.
Abbot Suger of Saint Denis, a minister of the King of France, theorized Gothic buildings, describing a spiritual experience of being transported from an inferior to a higher world.
Saint Denis's hold over French culture was not broken until the French Revolution, which also destroyed the Abbaye de Cluny.
Hubert Robert's "Violation of the tombs of the Kings of France" (1793) depicts this destruction.

Rise of the Gothic Cathedral

Rapid development of ‘high Gothic’ cathedrals in the kingdom of France: Chartres (1149-1220), Reims (1212), Amiens (begun 1220).
Amiens exemplifies the relationship of nave to vault and the narrowing of pillars in the arcade towards the apse to promote West to East movement.
Stained glass in the interior featured unified biblical schemes.
The western façade expressed the internal division into nave, triforium, and clerestory.
The addition of flying buttresses strengthens the visual impression.
Gothic cathedrals were not just works of art but craft productions funded by early trades unions (guilds), such as loom weavers at Amiens c. 1230.
Architects rose from stonemasons.
Cathedrals were open to secular uses, such as wine merchants meeting in the crypt.
Cathedrals hosted a revival of sculpture, such as the ‘tympanum’ panel above the western door at the Cathedral of Autun, France (1130-45).
There was increasing humanism in the depiction of biblical figures, shifting from depictions of ‘supernatural power’ to ‘flesh and blood’ as Mullins says.

Gothic to Early Renaissance in Pictorial Art

A new realism entered mosaic art, first in Byzantium.
Mosaics in St Saviour, Chora (1303-20) in Istanbul exemplify this.
This realism became evident in the development by Italian painters of Byzantine imagery, such as Cimabue's "Virgin and Child Enthroned, and Prophets" (Santa Trinita church, Uffizi, 1272-1302).
New handling of figures and space became evident in the works of Duccio, such as back panels from the Maesta altarpiece (1308-1311) in tempera and gold on wood for Siena Cathedral.
The term ‘artist’ may still be misleading here.
The Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (1304-13), was a lavish project paid for by Enrico Scrovegni, son of a money lender, to clear his reputation.
It is covered with an elaborate fresco cycle by Giotto.
The implications of ‘fresco’ as a technique are evident (later developed with ‘secco’ additions).
Social Impact: Huge social impact of the Black Death from 1384.
Painting and Elite Interests: The new refinement in painting served the interests of existing royal elites.
Example: ‘Luxury Gothic’ of Wilton Dipytch, 1394-99, National Gallery, commissioned for Richard II by an unknown French artist.