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Romanesque Art & Architecture

The term "Romanesque" was first used by nineteenth-century art historians to describe the church architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The word means "'in the manner of the Romans'" and referred to elements in the churches such as arched entrances, "pilasters, freestanding columns, and sculptural friezes" that reminded historians of classical Roman architecture.1 The term was retained, though it is considered somewhat inaccurate since many other styles contributed to the architecture of the period. The term has also been expanded to include the other arts. Architecture, as the dominant art of the period, "determined the form of sculpture, painting, and the cloister crafts" such as manuscript painting and work in precious metals.2 Much of the art of the period was either produced or sponsored by the orders of monks who directed the spiritual life of their time. The art sponsored by the monastic orders was intended as an aid to devotion and a medium for lessons regarding morals and doctrine. Beginning in the late tenth century, the monastic orders also assumed much of the responsibility for organizing and aiding religious pilgrims. Major pilgrimage routes crossed France on the way to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. The various orders built numerous churches along the way. In these churches, both style and subject were heavily influenced by the fact that their audience consisted of pious travelers.

The pilgrimage custom developed from the cult of relics of the saints. The importance of relics to medieval Christians provides a clue about the nature of Romanesque art which stressed the transposition of "earthly forms into spiritual and abstract conceptions."3 In Romanesque art the physical object provided a starting point for the contemplation of the spiritual. Relics were the bodies or parts of the bodies of saints, or, less often, small pieces of some venerable object (as the cross on...

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Romanesque Art & Architecture. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:04, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1693123.html