Jump to content

Category proporsal - Preromanic


Recommended Posts

I'll agree that architectural historians tend to discriminate between Romanesque and Pre-Romanesque architecture, though the dichotomy seems to me to be more academic and epochal that physical. While the category, Romanesque Architecture, as it stands, seems to favour Romanesque, as opposed to Pre-Romanesque structures, it has, at present, no restrictions on the era or epoch in which a submitted structure must have been constructed (unless I missed something).

 

To be sure, the category's emphasis is on Romanesque style, not period:

"Because the officers in this category are not experts in identifying Romanesque architecture, this category requires that a reference on the internet clearly identifies the structure as belonging partly or entirely to the Romanesque style."

 

As it is, it appears that Ariberna's suggestion is a moot point, as any structures she may choose to submit to the category, from at least the V to XI centuries, should be acceptable in the category, just as long as they exhibit traits of the Romanesque Architectural Style.

 

If, however, she is interested in the other styles she mentioned in her second post, "visigot[h]ic, prechristian, islam, bizancio"...

... then I guess we have more fish to fry.

Keith

Edited by ScroogieII
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

Sorry, just waking up on this topic.  I have been doing some thinking about this and would like to propose to update the Romanesque category to include pre-Romanesque.   Here is the definition from Wikipedia. Discussion on this is welcome.

 

"Pre-Romanesque art and architecture is the period in European art from either the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 AD or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late 8th century, to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesque period. The term is generally used in English only for architecture and monumental sculpture, but here all the arts of the period are briefly described.

The primary theme during this period is the introduction and absorption of classical Mediterranean and Early Christian forms with Germanic ones, which fostered innovative new forms. This in turn led to the rise of Romanesque art in the 11th century. In the outline of Medieval art it was preceded by what is commonly called the Migration Period art of the "barbarian" peoples: Hiberno-Saxon in the British Isles and predominantly Merovingian on the Continent.

In most of western Europe, the Roman architectural tradition survived the collapse of the empire. The Merovingians (Franks) continued to build large stone buildings like monastery churches and palaces.

The unification of the Frankish kingdom under Clovis I (465–511) and his successors, corresponded with the need for the building of churches, and especially monastery churches, as these were now the power-houses of the Merovingian church. Two hundred monasteries existed south of the Loire when St Columbanus, an Irish missionary, arrived in Europe in 585. Only 100 years later, by the end of the 7th century, over 400 flourished in the Merovingian kingdom alone.[1] The building plans often continued the Roman basilica tradition.

Many Merovingian plans have been reconstructed from archaeology. The description in Bishop Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks of the basilica of Saint-Martin, built at Tours by Saint Perpetuus (bishop 460–490) at the beginning of the period and at the time on the edge of Frankish territory, gives cause to regret the disappearance of this building, one of the most beautiful Merovingian churches, which he says had 120 marble columns, towers at the East end, and several mosaics: "Saint-Martin displayed the vertical emphasis, and the combination of block-units forming a complex internal space and the correspondingly rich external silhouette, which were to be the hallmarks of the Romanesque".[2]

The Merovingian dynasty were replaced by the Carolingian dynasty in 752 AD, which led to Carolingian architecture from 780 to 900, and Ottonian architecture in the Holy Roman Empire from the mid-10th century until the mid-11th century. These successive Frankish dynasties were large contributors to Romanesque architecture."

 

Regional styles[edit]

Croatia[edit]

220px-Zadar2.jpg
 
Pre-Romanesque Church of St Donatus in Zadar, from the 9th century.

In the 7th century the Croats, with other Slavs and Avars, came from Northern Europe to the region where they live today.[3] The first Croatian churches were built as royal sanctuaries, and the influence of Roman art was strongest in Dalmatia where urbanization was thickest. Gradually that influence was neglected and certain simplifications and alterations of inherited forms, and even creation of original buildings, appeared.

All of them (a dozen large ones and hundreds of small ones) were built with roughly cut stone bounded with a thick layer of malter on the outside. Large churches are longitudinal with one or three naves like Church of Holy Salvation (Croatian: Crkva Sv. Spasa) at the spring of the river Cetina, built in the 9th century, along with the Church of Saint Cross in Nin. The largest and most complicated central based church from the 9th century is dedicated to Saint Donatus in Zadar.

Altar rails and windows of those churches were highly decorated with transparent shallow string-like ornament that is called pleter (meaning to weed) because the strings were threaded and rethreaded through itself. Motifs of those reliefs were taken from Roman art; sometimes figures from the Bible appeared alongside this decoration, like relief in Holy Nedjeljica in Zadar, and then they were subdued by their pattern. This also happened to engravings in early Croatian script – Glagolitic. Soon, the Glagolitic writings were replaced with Latin on altar rails and architraves of old-Croatian churches.

From the Crown Church of King Zvonimir (so called Hollow Church in Solin) comes the altar board with figure of Croatian King on the throne with Carolingian crown, servant by his side and subject bowed to the king.

By joining the Hungarian crown in the twelfth century, Croatia lost its full independence, but it did not lose its ties with the south and the west, and instead this ensured the beginning of a new era of Central European cultural influence.

England[edit]

Anglo-Saxon art covers the period from the time of King Alfred (885), with the revival of English culture after the end of the Viking raids, to the early 12th century, when Romanesque art became the new movement. Prior to King Alfred there had been the Hiberno-Saxon culture, producing in Insular art the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs, which had largely ceased in Ireland and Northern England with the Viking invasions. Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts and metalwork.

France[edit]

After the demise of the Carolingian Empire, France split into a number of feuding provinces, so that lacking any organized Imperial patronage, French art of the 10th and 11th centuries became localised around the large monasteries, and lacked the sophistication of a court-directed style.

Multiple regional styles developed based on the chance availability of Carolingian manuscripts (as models to draw from), and the availability of itinerant artists. The monastery of Saint Bertin became an important centre under its abbot Odbert (986–1007) who created a new style based on Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian forms. The nearby abbey of Saint Vaast created a number of works. In southwestern France at the monastery of Saint Martial in Limoges a number of manuscripts were produced around year 1000, as were produced in Albi, Figeac and Saint-Sever-de-Rustan in Gascony. In Paris there developed a style at the abbey of Saint Germain-des-Prés. In Normandy a new style developed from 975 onward.

Spain and Portugal[edit]

220px-Capela_de_S._Frutuoso.JPG
 
Saint Frutuoso Chapel in Braga, Portugal.

The first form of Pre-Romanesque in Spain and Portugal was the Visigothic art, that brought the horse-shoe arches to the latter Moorish architecture and developed jewellery.

After the Moorish occupation, Pre-Romanesque art was first reduced to the Kingdom of Asturias, the only Christian realm in the area at the time which reached high levels of artistic depuration. (See Asturian art). The Christians who lived in Moorish territory, the Mozarabs, created their own architectural and illumination style, Mozarabic art.

The best preserved Visigothic monument in Portugal is the Saint Frutuoso Chapel in Braga.

Italy[edit]

See also: Lombard Romanesque

Southern Italy benefited from the presence and cross-fertilization of the Byzantines, the Arabs, and the Normans, while the north was mostly controlled first by the Carolingians. The Normans in Sicily chose to commission Byzantine workshops to decorate their churches such as Monreale and Cefalù Cathedrals where full iconographic programmes of mosaics have survived. Important frescos and illuminated manuscripts were produced.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

It looks like Pre-Romanesque is sufficiently similar to Romanesque to allow inclusion, and by far too rare to justify a category on its own.

 

But the devil hides in the details as they say. There are plenty of borderline cases that needs to be covered. Either yes or no, it does not really matter, just covered. I don't want a mess after the fact, because things are submitted, that no one though about beforehand.

 

I try to define the facts in my own amateur words, tell me when I got something terribly wrong:

 

The Romans had their own style they brought with them, when ever they conquered a new area. (Most of that style was stolen from the Greek, but that was before Intellectual Property discussions, and they were the winners anyway.) When the Roman Empire declined (the Western Roman Empire specifically), the new rulers had a lot of Roman influence from the ruins all around and they mixed that with some of their own traditions. Because there were a lot of those new rulers and no significant long distance communication anymore, a lot of new regional styles developed and it took several centuries until all those new traditions finally merged into a new pan-European style they could all agree on. They had no name for that style, they just built contemporary buildings and churches, just what the then dominating classes liked. This style was much later called Romanesque. And all that was before is consequentially called Pre-Romanesque, but there is no independent definition of Pre-Romanesque. There is no Pre-Romaneque, or there are a lot of different Pre-Romanesques. It is not a style, it is just a Pre (and Post Roman, of course).

 

That is fine. But what about areas that were not Roman before? Are there anything Pre-Romanesque in Scandinavia, northern Germany, Poland? In eastern Italy and the west Balkans, there is a Byzantine influence. Is Byzantine Pre-Romanesque? Or is it only Pre-Romanesque in Ravenna, but not in Tirana and even less in Istanbul? Are ancient Armenian monasteries Pre-Romanesque? Stylistically the fit, historically and geographically probably not.

Link to comment
On 10/25/2020 at 9:31 AM, fi67 said:

But what about areas that were not Roman before? Are there anything Pre-Romanesque in Scandinavia, northern Germany, Poland?

 

To answer the latter question as succinctly as possible - Yes.

The word Romanesque refers to an architectural style, not to any period, era or epoch, though it did arise in a specific period. So, for example, any Scandinavian buildings from a period prior to the advent of the Romanesque style should be considered Pre-Romanesque.

 

In its broadest, most literal, sense, Pre-Romanesque should include any structure, anywhere, which was constructed prior to (about) the 11th century.

Keith

  • Love 1
Link to comment
18 hours ago, ScroogieII said:

 

To answer the latter question as succinctly as possible - Yes.

The word Romanesque refers to an architectural style, not to any period, era or epoch, though it did arise in a specific period. So, for example, any Scandinavian buildings from a period prior to the advent of the Romanesque style should be considered Pre-Romanesque.

 

In its broadest, most literal, sense, Pre-Romanesque should include any structure, anywhere, which was constructed prior to (about) the 11th century.

Keith

thanks Keith

Link to comment
On 10/26/2020 at 9:41 PM, ScroogieII said:

 

In its broadest, most literal, sense, Pre-Romanesque should include any structure, anywhere, which was constructed prior to (about) the 11th century.

 

But I think that would be too broad. That would include the Pyramids.  I would prefer starting in the 6th century with Merovingian architecture as proposed by Wikipedia.

Edited by RakeInTheCache
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...