Romanesque Sculpture Revision

Introduction It is limited by the frame in which it is contained. The main places for sculptural location are Capitals Portals

Introduction Romanesque sculpture had an educational objective: it should teach the Bible to illiterate people The message is simple and clear to be easily understood It is not important to be loyal to nature but to express the ideas they aimed at transmitting.

Introduction The location of the iconographic programme is always the same: Tympanum is reserved for the depiction of the Last Judgement Jambs are the place for saints sculptures Capitals are left for Biblical stories Vegetal motives Satirical depictions Other minor decorations (in the outside) are left for depicting sins and vices.

Parts of a portal

Tympanum The tympanum depicts the Last Judgement In the middle appear Christ as a Judge He is sitting in the mandorle or almond shape It is surrounded by the four Evangelist as people of animals Around them people judged or the twenty-four wise men of the Apocalypses

Tympanum Christ appears blessing, with the hand elevated His feet are standing on a symbol of the earth The mandorle represents a mystical element The evangelist are around Mark, the lion Mathew, the man Luke, the ox John, the eagle

Composition Images must adapt to the frame They are distributed following criteria of hierarchy and symmetry The unity of the scene is given by the eyes of the images that converge in Christ There are several details

Composition Other important elements appear in the portals: Images of the Apostles tend to appear in the jambs, being elongated images Christ, the Virgin or other important Saints may appear in the trumeau The lintel is reserved for less important images of for the wise men of the Apocalypse

Composition In some cases decoration may escape from the classical locations to invade the whole façade The images out of the normal places tend to be depictions of vices and sins

Archivolts The images are distributed in each archivolt The subjects can vary from one archivolt to the other They are limited by the space Subjects can vary from geometrical to human depictions

Archivolts Images in the archivolts are looking at the centre Sometimes each voussoir contains a whole story We can find non religious elements such as zodiacal symbols

Other decorations Images that appear below the roof: they represent monsters and vices

Cloisters Cloisters were other of the main areas where sculpture could appear The sculpture tends to be limited to the capitals over the small column.

Cloisters Capitals can be decorated following several patters: Some of them explain biblical stories in a simple and understandable way Others copy natural elements such as plants and flowers Others are symbolical, with monsters or allegories

Cloisters Biblical Animals Vegetables Satirical

Relieves They are not as common as the tympanum or cloister sculptures They appear somewhere in the wall of the churches Subjects are religious

Relieves Technically they have the same characteristics as the rest of the sculptures Lack of naturalism Simplicity of the message Different plans to give impression of deepness.

Exempt Sculpture It is made of wood The images are not of big size They are always religious They have Byzantine influences Types: Virgin with her Son Christ on the Cross Deposition

Exempt Sculpture Virgin: It is based on the Byzantine Teotokos The Virgin is a throne for her Son Both of them appear looking at the front They are blessing There is not different of ages, just of size They are disproportionate With the time they evolved and the position of the Son varied to be a bit more naturalistic They were polychrome

Exempt Sculpture Christ They are on the cross They still alive and lack of any symbol of sufferance They were a long dress They have four nails Everything in them is symmetrical They are polychrome

Exempt Sculpture Depositions Some times more than one image appear creating a biblical scene The most common is the one representing the moment in which Christ was deposited from the cross

Exempt Sculpture Deposition Piety