hello in this video we're going to talk about romanesc art in France Northern Spain and the Holy Roman Empire this is the region that had at in the previous generation been the provinces of the carolingian Empire uh built by Charlamagne that we talked about when we looked at carolan culture now we're going to look at the time period from uh in the the two centuries from about the tail end of the 10th Century about the 900s through the beginning of the gothic which comes into being between 1150 and 1200 this uh time period in culture is referred to as Romanesque because of the heavy influence of Roman culture um specifically the L Roman Empire and late Antiquity periods of Roman culture now this um this culture is an extension of what Charlamagne had begun in previous generations but this um these cultural developments are significantly um different in that there really is an attempt to um to F fulfill the desire of Charlemagne to have this cultural Renaissance um now the only thing that stops the Romanesque from being a full-fledged Renaissance of Roman culture is the fact that um the time period is um significantly impacted socially and politically by the rise of the Islamic empire in Persia and their influence on the holy land and their in and by extension their influence on European culture um this is the time period of pilgrimages and Crusades now we're not going to look at the the historical side of either we're going to look at the cultural side and how the designs of churches and how the art and culture from the period is so heavily influential on um on what um or influenced by I should say the uh the pilgrims and the Crusaders now in order to uh kind of see the development of art and culture we have to kind of understand what's going on in in Europe as we talked about in the previous lecture discussed how um the economics of Europe were changing from a a culture or an econ economy almost completely dominated by Agriculture and livestock and the trading of those goods locally now we're going to move towards um a a business model where the um where trade and shipping and trade are uh the most important ways to generate wealth what that BR gives rise to is the um the movement of people around culture and bringing cultures together that perhaps would have had as had less interaction in previous generations so the other element that um comes out of that is the fact fact that the church encourages the uh the people of Europe to travel to visit holy sites and at least once in their life to make a pilgrimage to um Rome to the Vatican to the center of the Roman Catholic church and at least once to the Holy Land to Jerusalem to see the important sites of Catholic ISM there now the other important Travelers are the Crusaders they're traveling for a completely different reason Crusaders are charged by the church to um engage in campaigns to reclaim lands lost to Christianity not necessarily lost to the church but lost to Christ Chris control to both Islamic and um outside other non-Christian forces but most specifically most of the Crusades were taken on um by Christian Kings and Christian groups of knights who were attempting to recapture or the city of Jerusalem that had fallen to a few different times had fallen to uh the Muslims now what we see is that the development of culture around this movement around people traveling both for um religious reasons and for social or political reasons now the thing about these uh these pilgrimages is that you know we want the the church is encouraging them them uh to do that because they see that as being inspirational to them in to develop their faith but it also becomes an industry so serving pilgrims all along the different routes that pilgrims would take to see these holy sites all over Europe there were there were important churches and Cathedrals and holy sites all over Europe um and so this becomes an industry within Europe and still today tourism and serving Travelers is one of the most important industries all throughout Europe especially in cities that have a legacy back to this time period and Beyond now we're going to look at a couple of different examples of the architecture sculpture painting and then a new medium known as reliquaries um and we're going to talk about how the design of the architecture and and all of the the different forms of art and culture really do speak to these pilgrims as the new viewers as the new patrons of art and culture in the time period now the the Roman influence that we're talking about here is not true classicism it's not the Greco Roman influence we'll see that come around later in um in the high Rena renissance of the 14th and 15th century this Renaissance this first kind of attempt at a Renaissance is really a a hearkening back to the What was seen by many in the this region as the last important period of art and culture which is late Antiquity it's it's common when people face some cha otic times or upheaval that they look back nostalgically at their past whether it's recent past or distant past at what they consider to be the last time of their greatness and they want to kind of hit the reset button they want to move back to those times and they do that culturally by attempting not necessarily to recreate what those people created but to to take their style and make it their own and what we're going to see in each attempt at a Renaissance is this cyclical nature of art and culture to hearken back to the last great period of our culture um and and there it's it is definitely an evolution we see over and over and over classicism and Romanticism and the kind of cycling back and forth and back and forth with each other um and then usually a time period in there of abstraction or uh some other kind of um alternative to the classicism uh and Romanticism now this is Sansan in tulo tus is a a town in France that was on one of those Pilgrim trails and every year thousands of Travelers would visit sansern to see the to visit the cathedral to see the icons the sculpture the relics the church itself which was quite is quite impressive um and these pilgrims these Travelers they they actually influenced the design of the church itself now one of the practices of the period that was um that kind of hampered to a certain extent these Travelers was that it was um church doctrine that if you were not a baptized Christian you were not supposed to enter the church sanctuary and if you were it was you know it's not like they carried around with them a Christian license um that said hey this is my baptism um and so as such they had to come up with a solution for these visitors who they they wouldn't know for certain if they had been baptized and so the solution was to design and create a structure that allowed people to enter the building to see the icons and to see and to visit and to see the relics and to see the structure without actually technically entering and so when you first enter this building you enter into what's called an ambulatory the ambulatory is a walkway uh that goes 3 you know 60 Dees all the way around the uh the interior Sanctuary the Nave and that it has a low wall that divides it from the Nave and in most cases including this one there are screens that separated an arched entry w and so a traveler a visitor wouldn't actually have to enter the sanctuary in order to enter and see the the the objects of art and culture that they wanted to visit now this was uh kind of a way around this requirement of baptism we'll see in other churches their solution to this problem of baptism was to just simply baptize uh visitors and they create they built a building next door to the church called a baptistry but here in tulus and in much of the franish territory that had been charlamagne's the solution was to create this ambulatory around the sides now another difference in Romanesque architecture or church architecture from the previous generations is the emphasis on a centralized entry point along the facade so the the end of the church opposite the apps at the end of the long Nave the long uh Cong congregational Nave it now becomes the focal entry point and we'll see this carry forward into the gothic the traditional Gothic Cathedral will have a very elaborate facade and that will be usually marked with Towers or uh pillars of some sort um and then that circular window that you see above the doors here now in the true Gothic Cathedral that window will be a rose window because of the shape of the window frame and the window and the stained glass within it which will resemble the Petals of a flower but here it's just a circular window uh inset into an arch a typical um pointed Arch which will be quite common in the gothic now we'll also notice that the structure has changed somewhat the uh Europe while there's a lot of movement around Europe is no longer kind of fearful of uh of attack and so the churches become less and less uh castle like or Fortress like and more and more uh it's about the uh the size and scale and how that's supposed to impress the visitor that's the goal the goal for each of these churches along the Pilgrim Trail was to create a structure that would attract visitors and in order to do that you needed to have something that was impressive and overwhelming and the church itself needed to be designed in a way where those visitors would go back and tell stories about the Cathedral at to loose and how import you know how impressive it was and how you needed to go and see it so that others would then through Word of Mouth want to go and see the church for themselves there were many roots to get from depending upon where you are in Europe to get to the Vatican or to the Holy Land and so these Travelers and and that wasn't the only destination churches like the Cathedral sansern at tulo became a destination in their own right um they were attracted people these Travelers were attracted to the Villages and towns not just for the the architecture and the religious Works they could see there but then ultimately also for the town itself for the beauty of it for just like we today when we vacation we want to go to a place that inspires us that interests us um that you know that has lots to see and do and that's what happened to these places the towns that had the more attractive and impressive Cathedrals the towns that had that welcomed Travelers in a way that um that encouraged that tourism encouraged visits those became the much more successful and hence those Pilgrim Trails became more famous and more successful now the construction itself uh has some Roman elements but remember Ro just because it's Roman likee that doesn't mean that it's just recreating the Roman we see the use of brick which comes from the Roman we see the use of the arches and the pillars which comes from the Roman um we see the the thick heavy solid structure which comes from the Romans but there's also some updates some some changes that some things that we really wouldn't have seen in late Antiquity or or Basilica style structures on the interior this is one of the major differences um instead of having that flat coffed ceiling like you would see in a late Antiquity Basilica style Church or even a carolan style church now we're going to see vaults vaed ceilings this you Archway projected through space becomes the most common type of ceiling structure and design and it allows it allows for these very tall narrow long uh spaces within the church itself now looking down the Nave here in Sansan one of the things that we know notice is how narrow it seems the the struct the church itself from the exterior seems much larger than this Photograph would suggest and part of that has to do with how much of the actual space is taken up by the side chapels and ambulatory so the walkways on the on either side of this Nave uh are really as half as much or or nearly half of the interior space and those side chapels which are used by those visitors um that's actually how the church would uh help to support the the church's Mission through donations so Travelers as they came to visit the church would make an offering a donation in order to be allowed to see the relics or to see the icons or to see this the art or sculptures now the rest of the interior decoration is relatively austere kind of like what we would expect in a Romanesque style structure of very little surface decoration except in the apps um and in the apps they tended to favor fresco painting in that um that Roman traditional style of fresco painting but uh influenced by the previous generations of carolan and aonian art that used flat backgrounds gilding um and there is a greater sense of the modeling and we'll see that when we look at their painting now in contrast to Sansan which is tall and cylindri and vaed um in uh in Italy we see a a church much Sim more similar to what what you would see in Justinian's time at Rena and so this church which is built in Milan is um has a lot more in common with the older Justinian style Church uh that that we saw with um with San vatal in Rena it's still built in Brick using arches the the square uh Tower um or towers that that um look watch over it um the building on the front is actually the baptistry and so instead of having there they had ambulatories but instead of dividing the church that way they baptized visitors and on the interior we notice that it's a wider lower structure the the uh the ceiling is not nearly as high and instead of being a pure Vault this ceiling is a groin Vault so it's two vaults intersecting actually it's multiple vaults intersecting and so what we end up with is a incred incredibly elaborate roof structure and the the structural um design of the roof becomes something of beauty something uh important to its aesthetic so really instead of focusing on adding elaborate surface decorations the architect is showing off his skill at using the structure itself as a decorative element now you see on either side of that that Central those are the ambulatories so through those arches those are the walkways and then extending out out from there are the side chaples where a visitor would see and experience all th those other uh niches with uh art culture and Relics but just like the previous generation of churches in these Romanesque churches the interior is tended to be darker there's not a a lot of Windows there's not a lot of natural light coming in um it it wasn't as uh powerful and uplifting uplifting a a feeling inside the church as we'll get with later in the gothic now um we're gonna also in the Romanesque start to have more uh historical documentation of the names of artists um important artists and then their how they were what they were important for and how they continued to be influential over time this is a work by the sculptor giz liberus it is uh his last judgment and it's actually a very important and influential work in its subject matter and theme not necessarily in its style or technique the this is the known what's known as the semicircular Tim panon now that's a a an area within a the design of the facade of a church it's an area above the entryway and below the roof now it's shaped like a triangle below the pediment uh of a greek temple uh on the Parthenon for example the sculpture the relief carvings of Athena would have been in that triangular uh temp panum um and here the tanim takes an art shape which is much more common in the Roman it's also Alo a little bit smaller and you know th that temp panum was much larger spans the whole building this just is a decorative element and design element above the entrance to the doors but this theme and subject matter is something that will continue to be influential uh for for the rest of art history it is much more common when you approach any kind of Catholic church or cathedral built between the years 900 and 1900 for you to have an image like this one above the doors th this is an image of Christ returning in his last judgment and it's in relief and what we see at the center is Jesus emerging out of this Halo and he's judging and dividing the people between those who are headed towards heaven and those headed towards hell and those headed towards hell are being cast below by the demons and being tormented now the purpose of a like this is to remind the visitor why they come to church you know this is supposed to be a visual reminder that Christ will return one day and you need to come to church because it's through the church where you're going to find that path to Salvation now this is important because there were some factions some some groups within the church who were arguing that it wasn't through the church that you received salvation it was through your faith and belief in Jesus Christ and you didn't need to attend church and that was you know for the corporate body of the church that was tantamount to sacrilege and actually there were two several Christian groups that at this point splintered off away from the main body of the church and we start to see denominational differences we start to see the first um you know divisions within the body of the church itself but this was a a key tenant that the Church of the romanist period wanted the the uh the local churches to support to that that you needed not just Faith but you needed the church in order to be prepared for Christ's second coming now surrounding in the in what's known as the portal the that Arch that surrounds and all the columns and things that surround the doors that's all known as the portal entry and in this case what giz liberatus has chosen to use is a sequence of small roundels those circular dis like shapes and in each one of those there's a symbol some older Pagan symbols some astrological symbols some Christian early Christian symbols known as crismons and those are all to basically say they represent not only Christianity but but but every type of human Faith uh at that time every type of older Pagan tradition and newer tradition including Islam and basically the message here is that that Jesus is over them all he's going to come back and judge them all not just judge the Christians so it's really about his overarching power and authority now this is called the Morgan Madonna and remember that the Fran were centered in in Carol charlamagne's time in what had been Germany and Austria and then on into France and Northern Spain now in that region specifically in Germany there's a long tradition of carving in wood and so wood carving for the first time in a while becomes more important than Stone carving or um or casting in bronze the wood is more readily available um the practice of it because it's very traditional for them um is is more ingrained in their society also it seems a little bit more accessible uh to average people rather than just being for the wealthy though they saw casting in bronze as being something that was um was very expensive and it was it was seen as more for the elite now what's interesting about this is that this is all also the beginnings of a subject matter that's new so we're starting to see subject matter evolve and become important even though it's all still religious it's what kind of religious imagery is it so this is what's known as a Madonna and child Mary the mother of Jesus and what's supposed to be the Infant Jesus now that doesn't really look much like an infant it looks like a little mini adult now there's a reason for that the reason goes back to a recent tradition is specifically in manuscripts and manuscript illustration and illumination of the generations before about how to depict the young Jesus or the Infant Jesus in this case and those manuscripts chose to depict Jesus not as a true infant or baby but as just a miniature version of his full self and part of the reason for that there's two two main reasons why that is first is that the people making those manuscripts were very often monks who had lived their whole life from the age of seven on in monasteries and they had very little interaction with young children many of the monasteries many of the monks in those monasteries had very little interaction with the outside world at all and so in order to create the image you know they brought this this s idea oh we want to make an image image of Mary and the baby Jesus well what I'm not really sure what a baby looks like oh well it just looks like a little mini person so you end up getting these little miniaturized adults the other main reason why they chose to depict Jesus as a mini adult rather than as an infant has to do with the nature of infancy infants are vulnerable infants aren't strong and powerful and remember the message can't be that Jesus is vulnerable they don't want that message um that that message doesn't uh show the strength and authority of Jesus so by the time of the Morgan Madonna what we have is a couple hundred years of this tradition of well this is how you do it and we're so slow to change and and partly because we enjoy our Traditions our Traditions remember are what help us to get through the rough times and the Romanesque period was a rough time facing off with the challenges of the pilgrimages the challenges of the Crusades the challenges of the plagues the challenges to Authority all throughout the region lots of battle lots of warfare lots of problems and so as such the the people hearkened back towards their traditions and if the tradition says this is what we do then that's what we do now other than that Jesus in particular but also Mary they're both kind of depicted at As Romans Mary wears a typical Roman mother's tunic including the hood she wears uh and Jesus is dressed as a typical Roman in the long tunic and robe of the Roman she's Seated on a Roman bench everything about it is very romanik now other than that the sculpture is not particularly realistic um there's a suggestion of the realism but you notice specifically in the details where the realism fails the hands the the B the form of the body itself uh the proportions the heads seem exaggerated and out of proportion um it's not it's almost expressionless both figures and so you know that you you kind of question okay well why the lack of emotion or expression and that speaks to uh what in the time period they saw as what does it mean to be Roman likee and they look back at Roman sculpture what Roman sculpture was available to examine and they see this what seems to be very kind of Stark and auster imagery they see expressionless faces they see um and some you know that that lack of emotion and that's the Romans hearkening back to the Greeks who first have that lack of emotion and in between there there's helenismo that more expressive style now this is a baptismal font um and it's cast in bronze it was made for uh an a church and this goes back to those pilgrims so this shows the the baptism of Jesus in relief on the side everybody's dressed as a Roman everybody appears Romanesque in um thankfully you know the for the the the uh the sculptor the Carver um they have chosen to depict Jesus as in the midst of his baptism and he's half immersed in the water of the River Jordan um to you know solve the problem of covering the the dangerous Parts the difficult parts to discuss or consider um and then but notice there's some details that as we pay attention we see some of the influences of the pagans and other Traditions the Bulls that are symbols of authority that support the font um again hearkening back to those Traditions those older older art forms um also you'll notice the the first evidence visually anyway of the Trinity so Jesus and then right above Jesus's head is a dove representing the Holy Spirit and then looking down from above on Jesus is God the father and he's actually shown in perspective he's sort of Leaning forward and looking down um in that attempt at interesting attempt at perspective now this would have been used by all those visitors and travelers and the local congregation for baptisms the visitor would lean lean back over and the priest would pour water from the Basin over their head and um and perform the ritual of baptism now in terms of painting there's two um important kind of forms and styles that come through Fresco comes through and then we see manuscripts as well but interestingly the frescos from this time period look a lot like the manuscripts of late Antiquity is very slat uh very flat geometric outlined style lack of modeling you'll notice too that some of the forms the the are and shapes are design minds are coming back an abstraction of animals and hybrid figures that's hearkening back to the late Antiquity tradition of the Roman Empire now the subject matter is the same it's it's religious it's often Jesus as the Creator or Jesus as the um as the architect as the designer of the world that was an important theme in the period they believed much like the Romans did that God had created the world but it was ours to do with and and God's instrument here on Earth his his institution here on Earth was the church but the world itself was ours to master where if the Greeks believed in classicism said that man is the measure of all things the Romans really uh embodied that spirit in that the Roman Empire was the m of all and so now we're seeing that expressed in Christianity that Christianity is the overarching master of all of Western culture now the in manuscripts and in paintings there are import some important um uh figures we start to see these these manuscripts these illuminations move away from only IM from the biblical characters or biblical stories and narratives and towards recording some local history the history of religious figures histories of saints histories of important people and this is one such history this is uh a nun who was uh supposedly in gifted with the power of visions