CHAPTER 1 : ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

For a church we have first a plan.

1. The plan.

The 12th century is a pilgrimages century. The most prestigious, but also the most dangerous and the most expensive, are: first, the Jerusalem pilgrimage, secondly the pilgrimage to Rome. The most popular and the most frequented is the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.

A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place, an "tour package" toward holy relics. In Greece, people  were going to Delphi to consult the Oracle delivered by the Pythia in order to know what decision to make for an important business or a marriage or an alliance ... Why to Delphi  ? Because in Delphi was the Omphalos, the navel of the World (a big carved stone egg-shaped). Delphi is the center of the universe. The christian world, for its own part, introduced a multitude of "centers" : places where are the holy relics with a spiritual power (to insure salvation) or a temporal power (to cure a disease).

The church plan shall fulfill two functions : 1) to insure the relics show, 2) to insure the pilgrims circulation.

So, two kinds of plans are adopted : the benedictin plan which promotes the exhibition of the relics, they are placed in the chapels aligned along the transept ;

the radiating chapels plan which promotes the pilgrims circulation, this plan puts together the chapels in the apse. The latest plan shall prevail.

2. The structure.

By "structure" we understand the components of the building and their composition.

2.a. The elements : the arches.

We are accustomed to imagine that the Romanesque arch is a semi-circular arch. It's not true. Evidently the semi-circular is characteristic, but all the Romanesque architecture is not reduced at that arch. The pointed arch, but many another kinds of arches, are used by the Romanesque builders.

2.b. The elements : The vaults.

The most common vault is, naturally, the  semi-circular barrel vault, but the pointed barrel vault is also a perfectly Romanesque structure.

In the place where is the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults, we have the cross-vaults, which are not the same as the ogival vault.

3. The wall.

The church with wooden frame uses generally pillars.

The church with vaults uses columns. But things are not simple. At the pillar, pilasters can be annexed (which creates the quadrangular pillar, e.g.) or semi-columns (which produces the quatrefoil pillar). The column can be joined by semi-columns. Sometimes the number of the elements is very sizable.

3. b. The engagement in the wall.

But these pillars, these columns are generally engaged in the wall ; so, it appears that their support function is secondary. All happens as if we wanted to show (by this gathering of pilasters and semi-columns around the pillar or the column, themselves joined to the wall) the subordination from the small to the tall and the solidarity which is the result of that subordination ; which is the characteristic of the feudal order in the Middle Ages (lords, vassals, peasants).

Below, the terminology related to the column surmounted  by a capital and the drawing of a semi-column engaged in a pillar, engaged itself in the wall.

(in order : abaque, basket, astragale, shaft, torus, base)

3. c. The portal.

The portal is an essential element of the church. Not because it is the passage from the outside to the inside (the church has around it a perimeter which is a part of the sacredness of the edifice (often, there is a cemetery next to it), but the portal is the place of the opening, the place where the wall disappears.

(in order : arch moulding, tympanum, lintel, corbel, trumeau, abutments)

3. d. The Romanesque wall.

The Greek wall (below, left)is abstract. Whatever the stone extracted the quarry and then cut, we can put it where we want, we can put another stone in the same place without difficulty. The Greek wall is homogeneous.

The Romanesque wall (below, right) is concrete. Each stone is unique and wants that another stone joins it perfectly. As in a living organism where each organ is (more or less), adapted to the variations of all the other organs, the Romanesque stone responds at all the others.

4. The refusal of the perspective in paint.

The wall is the essential element of the Romanesque art and the Romanesque spirit. It takes priority over all other characteristics. It determines that should be the painting and the sculpture of the 12th century.

In the paint, e.g., there is no question of "make a hole" in the wall by an illusion of depth. Therefore it is not question to use the linear perspective which will be invented by the Renaissance. We will not agree more than one plan and all will be showed on one flat surface only.

5. The places for the decoration.

The places for the sculptured decoration, therefore, are conditioned by the architecture. They are the junction points. The capital, junction point of the column and the vault. The base, the junction point of the column and the soil. The archivolt at the junction of the inside and the outside (portal). Modillions, finally, at the junction of the wall and the roof.

6. The chevet.

The chevet, finally, is the Est end of the church ; it is composed of the apse around that, as the semi-columns around the columns, are joined the absidioles. Here, we remember the subordination from the small to the tall.

Seen from the outside, the church appears as a gigantic sculpture, carved in the space itself, by drawing in that profane space an architectured block of holy space, so that the look rises gradually towards the sky, by passing along the spire.

7. The problem of the sculpture.

a. In the Egyptian pattern, "technical" and "objectives" dimensions coexist. The Pharaoh statue respects the human body proportions. But, when the statue is brought at a huge size, the result is an important visual deformation which is not corrected. The top of the statue is perceived more small because far from its base, the base more large because perceived closely.

b. In the Greek pattern, the "objectives" dimensions prevails over the "technical" dimensions. The visual correction is adopted and makes that, whatever the dimensions of the statue, the human body proportions seems respected. They are idealized

c. In the medieval pattern, the "objectives" dimensions are dropped and the human or animal figures are submissive to deformations. We should explain (next chapter) these deformations.