Neil STRATFORD
Le problème des cahiers de modèles à l’époque romane
ABSTRACT
The rare surviving model-books are reviewed, in the period up to c.1230/40. Robert Scheller has made a masterly survey of the field.Various as they are, the survivals prove that Romanesque artists often recorded works of art on parchment for future use, sometimes for technical reasons, sometimes to take note of a particular composition or figure-type, or a foliage or geometric motif. Employing what Scheller calls “the deductive approach”, works of art in various media are presented as examples, both for and against the use of model-books. Often it is difficult to know whether similar compositions or figures are part of the inherited past, learned by the artist as an apprentice and adopted as part of his stock of visual images, or whether they were recorded on parchment and constantly used in the creative process. Claims for the rôle of model-books must be balanced by the importance of spontaneity to the best artists.
Eberhard KÖNIG
Une nouvelle lecture du livre de modèles de Wolffenbüttel
Jacqueline LECLERCQ-MARX
Le Centaure dans l’art préroman et roman. Sources d’inspiration et modes de transmission
ABSTRACT
After first remarking on some representations from the Romanesque period directly inspired by antique works, we will treat the principal media-literary and artistic- which have allowed the figure of the centaur to integrate itself into the Christian imagination and to give rise to some representations at once novel and yet firmly anchored in the past. We will note in this regard the importance of the illustration of Carolingian astronomical treatises and herbals as fecundating images for medieval centaur iconography. We will also see that divorced from their cultural contexts these antique images have often taken on lives of their own. This often results in a certain confusion of attributes, aberrant in terms of “classical” mythology, but often quite decorative. The study comprises four specific examples of the centaur type: the centaur bearing a hare, the zodiacal Sagittarius as a centaur and hippopode, Chiron the physician and the centaurs with antlers, and finally the centaur bearing a serpent.
Martine JULLIAN
La lyre dans l’art roman. Transmission et diffusion par l’image d’un modèle antique à l’époque romane
ABSTRACT
Common in the Ancient East, in Egypt and Greece, where it becomes the instrument of Apollo, the lyre did not disappear for all that with the end of Antiquity. In the Paleochristian period, it can be seen now played by Orpheus, as a prefiguration of Christ. Archaeological excavations have also shown that the instrument was present among the Barbarians. In the context of the Carolingian renaissance, the Christianisation of the instrument is accomplished, since it is David or one of his musicians who serves, in the majority of cases, as the thematic support for its representation. At the Romanesque epoch, it is in the Germanic world that the pictures of lyres are the most numerous, especially in manuscripts. The instrument has thus migrated from the Latin and Mediterranean world towards the northern and Germanic world. At the same time, the use of the motif of the lyre in iconography becomes richer it even becomes paradoxical. The lyre actually appears in several illustrations of the Psychomachia of Prudence, accompanied by the dance of lust. The lyre is finally a constellation and it is undoubtedly this medium, the representation of the heavens, that has contributed to maintain the presence of this instrument in iconography of the Romanesque period. For, after the XIIth, lyre representations diminish considerably if not completely until their reappearance in Renaissance painting, associated again with Apollo.
Roberto CORONEO
Les sculptures du portail de l’Albergo Caruso à Ravello (XIIe siècle) : remploi des marbres ou survivance des modèles ?
Xavier BARRAL i ALTET
Du Panthéon de Rome à Sainte-Marie la Rotonde de Vic : transmission d’un modèle d’architecture mariale au début du XIe siècle et la politique “romaine” de l’abbé-évêque Oliba
Christian SAPIN
Modes de construction et appareils de pierre carolingiens : quel héritage pour l’époque romane ? Problèmes historiques et archéologiques
ABSTRACT
During the last few decades, archaeological observations of Carolingian period buildings (8th to 9th centuries) have brought to light several characteristics concerning stonework and its application. Whilst bearing in mind the problems posed by historical and archaeological dating of these monuments, one notes the continuity of many fashions and techniques already present during the Roman period (decorative or mixed work, vaulting) and which continue during the Romanesque period. At the same time, differences appear in the tools used by the stonecutters and in the use of ashlars facings. These differences are probably tied into other ways of organising the building site itself as well as the progressive articulation between the parts of the building, notably that of the newly introduced composite pillar with the walls and the vaults. The archaeology of both larger monuments and simpler buildings shows a great diversity in the transmission of traditions or the renewal of savoir-faire.
Immaculada LORÉS i OTZET
Transmission de modèles toulousains dans la sculpture monumentale en Catalogne dans la première moitié du XIIe siècle : anciennes et nouvelles problématiques
SUMMARY
The well-known relation, and very often dependence, of the Catalan Romanesque sculpture on that of the three Toulosain centres shows in very different intensities, nuances and transmission channels. These influences and also some questions deriving from them (especially their chronology) are reviewed through the analysis of the four big groups of sculpture from the 1st half of the 12 th Century (the church in the monastery of Sant Pere de Galligans, the Rousillonaise sculpture –-especially the one in Cuixa-– the façade of the Ripoll monastery and the pieces of the Solsona cloister). In some cases, for instance the façade of Ripoll monastery and the cloister of Solsona, earlier dating than the usual one in the historiography is being considered, which seems to be more logical in the light of the comparison with Gilabertus’ workshop.
Quitterie CAZES
L’abbatiale de Conques, genèse d’un modèle architectural roman
Daniel CODINA i GIOL
Un manuscrit de chant grégorien de l’abbaye de Cuixà
Marie-Hélène SOLÈRE-SANGLA
Le mobilier liturgique de l’abbaye de Saint-Michel de Cuxa pendant la révolution française au regard des sources documentaires
ABSTRACT
One of the consequences of the French Revolution in the Roussillon, was the dispersion of furniture’s heritage of the secularized convents by the law of the 2th November 1789. The church’s furniture of St Michel de Cuxa has been distributed to the Conflent’s churches.
Since the XIX century, the tradition associates the important and present “Church of St Pierre de Prades’s treasure” with these convents’ deprives. But the archives and the historiography shows that one part of the conserved furniture doesn’t have Cuxa’s church for origin. The outcome is quite slim, but we can remember in particular the Pessebre’s Virgin in Corneilla de Conflent, the prestigious St Benoit’s main altar, and the copper’s “reliquaire” at the Prades’s church.
Manuel CASTIÑEIRAS
D’Alexandre à Artus : l’imaginaire normand dans la mosaïque d’Otrante
Marcello ANGHEBEN
Les représentations de Marie et de trois saintes en vierges sages dans les espaces liturgiques de Santa Coloma d’Andorre et Sainte-Eulalie d’Estaon
ABSTRACT
The liturgical spaces of Santa Coloma of Andorra and Santa Eulàlia of Estaon include painted representations of the Virgin and three saints (Columba, Lucy and a third, most likely representing Agnes), each carrying a chalice or a vase emitting fire. The motif of the chalice seems to have been borrowed from personifications of Ecclesia and in turn transposed to the Virgin and the female saints. The motif of a flaming vase, on the other hand, comes from the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Numerous contemporary authors, and particularly liturgical texts, compare explicitly several female saints, including Agnes and Lucy, to the Wise Virgins. Conflation of these figures occurs moreover in several visual sources, such as Santa Pudentiana, Civate and Berzé-la-Ville. Given that the Virgin, too, was compared to the Wise Virgin, one can understand her flaming vase along similar lines. In this conflation of the Virgin and female saints with the Wise Virgins, the authors of the wall paintings wanted to emphasize particularities of female sanctity, notably wisdom and virginity, for which the Virgin is the ideal model. The chalice motif not only draws upon the iconography of Ecclesia, but also emphasizes Eucharistic sacrifice and underscores the Theophanic message of the apse imagery.
Milagros GUARDIA
Enluminure et peinture murale du nord au sud des Pyrénées : la syntaxe ornementale et ses thèmes
Carles MANCHO
Campdevànol, Ripoll et la culture carolingienne
Laurent MACÉ
Matrice. L’intaille et le sceau : la question du modèle dans la pratique sigillaire médiéval
ABSTRACT
The employment of the seal, usual practice in the medieval society of the XIIIth century, don’t sum up the validation of the charters which is the mainly function since the end of the Carolingians’s days. Gems of Antiquity are used during the whole period as illustrate some examples allowing to follow a rich polysemic tradition.
By the way, seals influence others figuratives modes. Decoration paints, sarcophagus or weapons show that the seals are patterns in an outside field of the sigillography.
Emmanuel GARLAND
L’autel portatif de l’abbé Bégon à Conques et ses relations avec l’art somptuaire occidental
SUMMARY
The portable altar with a porphyry stone in the Treasure of Conques (Aveyron, France) is a masterpiece of metalwork. The date of its making and to whom it has been dedicated are known for sure (1100, Abbot Begon III)). But a close look at the altar and comparison with other pieces of metalwork ordered by Begon raise a few questions-: where has it been made-? In which context-? The investigation we made, in particular about the transfer of goldsmiths’ know how and models led us from Roma to Conques, with a stop in Germany and in Northern Italy, in particular to have a look at the binding of the Evangeliary of Novara (Paris, Musée National du Moyen Âge), and at the portable altar from Hidesheim (London, Victoria & Albert Museum). In addition, the study showed the role played by Pons, bishop of Barbastro (Spain). The importance and the density of the exchanges inside the network of the Roman Catholic Church around 1100 are enlightened, but at the same time the study reveals how difficult it is to localise where artistic skills emerged. At least we have been able to propose a comparative chronology for the pieces of metalwork which were gathered in Conques when Begon III was its abbot.
Sophie MAKARIOU
Le cristal de roche islamique et ses avatars liturgiques dans l’occident roman
ABSTRACT
Rock crystal paradoxically melts the extreme hardness of the material to an almost immaterial transparency. Those characters are a natural marvel mentioned as so in the Natural History of Pliny, and in the books of ‘ajaib ( mirabilia) and the Arabic treatises devoted to gemstones, and finally in the Bible. As an exceptional material it is granted with a symbolism which fits the various contexts of its use. The Islamic rock crystals were employed in a Christian setting. From a dynastic material, highly praised and meaningful for the Fatimid Caliphs(969-1171) rock crystal in the churches of the Latin West turned into a metaphor of the Eucharistic transubstantiation. It went as far as being perceived in itself as a reliquary of Holy Land.
Victor LASSALLE
Formes romanes dans le décor architectural de la renaissance et des temps classiques
ABSTRACT
A dozen fortuitously discovered examples reveal very occasional relationship of the Renaissance and classical Times architectural decoration (16th and 17th centuries) with romanesque art : imitations of some typical, possibly unusual, arrangements (portal with columns carried by lions at Tende, head-bands with dentels and capitels at Paray-le-Monial, juxtaposition of wheels on an archivolt at Thouars, face to face storks at Toulouse, thick abacus over capitels at Grignan, lilyflowers between flowerbuttons at Nîmes), copies of usual but reelaborate ornaments (fluting of triglyphs at Romans and on an archivolt at Suze-la-Rousse, egg and dart moulding at Grignan), adoption of methods of composition (fretwork on capitels at Nîmes, divergents dolphins on capitels at Blois and Thouars), return to a liking for metamorphoses (pearls and discheads in chaplets at Suze-la-Rousse, anthropomorphic gargoyles at Nîmes).
Jean NAYROLLES
Sculpture néo-romane : entre modèles et invention
ABSTRACT
In the religious architecture of the XIXth century, the ornamental system originated from archaeological models on only rare occasions. In sculpture as in architecture, one was used to surrendering to a rationalist requirement even before referring to any chapter of the art History. The archaeological concern was really evident only in the field of the restorations. Nevertheless, even in the restauration of ancient monuments, it was no so obvious to handle the human face in the style of the XIIth-century-: destroying the classic human body canons by subjecting them to the deformations of Romanesque style was being perceived as intolerable. Thereby, the limit between restoration and creation is difficult to distinguish in sculpture: the creation of Neoromanesque monuments relates sometimes with archaeology, but other times the modern rationalism can be found up to the construction sites of restorations. Considered from both viewpoints, the Neoromanesque sculpture can help us to understand better the matter of fact of the XIXth century eclecticism.
Immaculada LORÉS i OTZET
Conclusions