Romanesque

◍ Open on the globe

c. 1000 – 1200 · Europe · architecture, sculpture, painting · origin: Cluny, Burgundy

Thick walls, round arches and stone vaults: a fortress-church for pilgrims

How to recognise it

• Round arches on windows and portals
• Massive walls with small windows
• Barrel and groin stone vaults
• Portal tympanum with the Last Judgement
• Capitals carved with monsters and Bible scenes

Why it emerged

After 1000 Europe grew more settled: monastic orders such as Cluny and pilgrimages to Santiago and to relics demanded large stone churches, and fire-prone timber roofs gave way to stone vaults.

Examples

Speyer Cathedral1030–1061The largest surviving Romanesque church and burial place of German emperorsSantiago de Compostela Cathedral1075–1211Goal of the Way of St James; Master Mateo's Portico of Glory crowns Romanesque sculptureDurham Cathedral1093–1133Among Europe's earliest rib vaults — a step from Romanesque towards GothicVézelay Abbeyc. 1120–1150Its tympanum of Christ sending the apostles to all nations is a Romanesque carving masterpieceBayeux Tapestryc. 1070A nearly 70 m embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest — a medieval comic strip

More in this style

• 1063–1118 Pisa Cathedral — Buscheto

How it spread

• 1000 Cluny
• 1030 Speyer
• 1063 Caen, Normandy
• 1075 Santiago de Compostela
• 1093 Durham

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Byzantine art Europe
• Early Islamic art (Umayyad and Abbasid) Middle East
• Moorish style (al-Andalus) Europe
• Khmer art of Angkor Asia
• Yamato-e, Heian Japanese painting Asia
• Song landscape painting Asia
• Pre-Mongol architecture of Rus Eastern Europe & Russia
• Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
• Gothic Europe

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English)

← Pre-Mongol architecture of RusIfe and Benin bronzes →