CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Romanesque Art
European art and architecture of about 1000–1150: massive round-arched churches, carved portals, painted apses and Mosan metalwork.
No works indexed yet · 2 related artists
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About
Around the year 1000, western Europe entered a building boom. Monasteries such as Cluny grew rich, pilgrims walked to Santiago de Compostela, and new stone churches rose across France, Spain, Italy, Germany and England. The name Romanesque, coined in the early 19th century, points to what these buildings share with ancient Rome: round arches, barrel and groin vaults, and heavy walls that carry the load, leaving windows small and interiors dim.
Sculpture returned to church entrances on a large scale. Over the doors at Moissac and Autun, Christ sits in majesty or judgement amid elongated, agitated figures, and capitals inside are carved with monsters, vices and Bible stories. Painters covered apses with stern, strongly outlined images, such as the Christ in Majesty at Sant Climent de Taüll (1123) in Catalonia. In the Meuse valley, Rainer of Huy cast a brass font resting on oxen for Liège, finished around 1118. The Bayeux Embroidery tells the Norman Conquest in wool on linen.