Styles, Ages, Life 2
From the Romanesque period to Secession
Radovan Ivančević
A foreword
The Romanesque period refers to art in Europe in 11th and 12th century AD. It has appeared as a
reaction to a unfulfiiled prophecy of the end of the world described in Apocalypse of John for
which the people of the Middle ages have thought it would come true in the year 1000 AD. Since
the year 1000 AD had passed uneventful, a time of true religious gratitude and optimisim had
arrived and extensive construction of all kinds of structures began. Churches were built with
remarkable passion, as depicted by one chronicler:'' all of Europe was dressed up in white clothes
of newly built churches''. The centers of cultural and artistic life in that age were monasteries.
They were the preservers of literacy of the time since only they wrote, copied and kept books and
manuscripts. Europe is fragmented in countless states, kingdoms constantly at war with each
other.
Gothic period of 13th and 14th century, is an age in which towns flourished. Due to expanding
trades and commerce, river routes and roads were secured and protected by a centralized and
more powerful king's authority. Towns gained independence from their feudal masters and
aspired to be under the king's rule, for whom they were willing to go to war and who, in return,
guaranteed their freedom. This was first introduced in Kingdoms of France, England and
Hungary. From these kingdoms, free cities were established throughout Europe, one of which is
Gradec on the hill of Zagreb (freed by the Golden Bull issued by Bela IV of Hungary in 1242).
In the terrible plague (the Black Death) epidemic in 1340 hundreds of thousands of Europeans
died. However, recovery from this pandemic triggered optimisim, similar to one after the year
1000 AD, which was the incentive for the birth of a new art style.
Two major discoveries had severe and longlasting consequences were found during 15th century.
The invention of a printing press (Guttenberg) and the use of gunpowder in warfare. The
printing press marked the end of hand copied books. Before the printing press, the books were
expensive and reserved for royalty. The printing press made books able to be mass produced and
spread in the poorest classes of society.
Romanesque sculpture
Romanesque sculpture is an age when relief art flourished, replacing threedimensional sculptures.
The rule of frame dominates over the Romanesque relief composition, with low depth as its most
notable feature.
The low depth of the relief and surface treatment with no extensive curves, where the details (for
example drapes of the clothes) are created with shallow incised lines, is called linear or graphic
design. The stiffness of figures, placed in frontal or sideview position and the flat design with
linear details makes the Romanesque sculpture very similar to archaic period of Greek art. The
sculpure is predominantly shown as an integral part of a structure, mostly church architecture. Its
role is to decorate or enrich the hollow spaces of a building, but more importantly to convey
religious content trough relief scenes. Very strict regulations were written on what kind of scenes
will be carved or where will they be positioned in the church.
The rule of the frame in Romanesque art simply means that the composition of the relief is
subjected to architectural form on which it is displayed. The easiest way to understand this
notion is to observe the same themes placed in different parts of the building or a structure. We
will show how the reoccuring composition of the Last Supper; with Jesus Christ and his 12
deciphels together sitting at the table, adapts to three different architectural pieces: the lintel or
the beam over the portal, the tympanum, and on the capital.
On the stone lintel over the doorway, shaped as a prolonged rectangular, the composition will be
shown with extended table and a narrow panel. The heads of the figures will be equal in size and
horizontally placed in a straight line, just as their feet are horizontally aligned.
Romanesque painting
The features of romanesque painting include linear painting, little depth, the vertical perspective
aplication in the space and volume depiction, the reduction method in depicting religious themes
or iconography and the use of plain colors. There is no richness or glamour in colors, the colors
are mild and scarce. The colors mostly used are earth tones like clay red, reddish brown and
yellow ochre. Linear painting refers to a way of painting in which the painter paints the scene
and then fills the empty spaces with colors so that the details, face and object contours inside the
spaces remain visible. A linear painting can be recognized by the details, for example the
wrinkles of a cape. The details will be marked with one simple line without any small lines,
shadows or darker color tones. Linear and little depth features regularly occur at the same time.
A surface in the painting, marked with one simple line is filled with a surface of consistent color.
Romanesque paintings, whether they are miniatures, wall paintings or panel paintings, remind us
of a colouring books for children that contain only outline of a picture that needs to be coloured.
But in some cases, the line that surrounds a certain colored area is not drawn but rather it is a
''cut'' surface, making it look like a drawn line.
Gothic art
Romanesque architecture is horizontally oriented, while Gothic art tends to move vertically.
The basic feature of the Romanesque church is the wall, while the wall is almost completely
replaced with stained glass windows in the Gothic church. The openings tend to be very small in
Romanesque architecture, while Gothic architecture creates very large openings, almost
''consuming'' the entire wall. The shallow relief of the Romanesque period is replaced with
curved Gothic sculptures. The position of a sculpture changes as well. While Romanesque reliefs
were subtly lifted from the wall , Gothic sculptures were placed in front of the wall, supported
with consoles and covered over with a baldachin. Gothic architecture rises vertically, every
structure is pointed towards the sky. The light on a Romanesque sculpture spreads evenly, while
Gothic sculpture has deeply incised clothing wrinkles to achieve strong light and shadow
contrasts. The Gothic painting uses volume, light and shadow contrasts, unlike surface and lining
use in the Romanesque painting. The colors on the Romanesque paintings were modest, unlike
strong colourful paintings in Gothic art, often using pairs of opposite, complementary colors, red
and green especially. The basic impression of the Romanesque art pieces, whether it is a
sculpture or a painting, was simplicity, while the Gothic art was complex, in the latter periods
even covered with ornaments, making compositions unclear.
Gothic sculpture
In the late Gothic art there are two, parallel, yet opposite in form and purpose, currents; gothic
naturalism and gothic idealism. Gothic naturalism was formed out of careful observation of
people, nature and objects, when a painter, who had painted only simplified objects before,
began drawing every detail on the object ( buttons on a dress,) or the face (pimples on cheeks or
wrinkles on a forehead). With equal attention he observes and paints every blade of grass or petal
of flower on the meadow. Because of the literal copying of every detail from nature, this style in
painting or in sculpture was called naturalism. Using naturalism, painters would often depict
different torture scenes of Jesus Christ and many other martyrs, closely depicting every detail
that could invoke compassion towards the martyrs and righteous anger toward persecutors.
Bloody marks and open wounds were depicted on the backs of the people punished by whipping.
Gothic painting
The use of light and shadow contrasts made figures threedimensional, and Giotto emphasizes
their roundedness with cloaking the characters in large capes of simple large wrinkles, so they
seem monumental as sculptures. If the scene is set in a landscape, the character is depicted on a
trail in front of a remote hill. If the painting has an interior setting, the inside space forms a cube
without the front piece, like surrounding a room on a theatre stage. In some of the scenes we can
watch the inside and the outside of the house at the same time. Giotto has displayed some
unusual spaces, like scenery behind the altar rails, by turning the big painted wooden cross,
usually facing the people with the painted side, so we can see him on the other side. However,
reverse perspective was most commonly used in creating volume and space. In reverse
perspective, sides of the object or buildings are getting wider as they go in depth, instead of
getting narrower.
Two features can be observed in the development of Gothic painting; the appearance of detailed
depiction of every event at first, and fragmenting the scene in the late periods. What was usually
displayed in one piece in Romanesque period, now becomes two or three pieces large (similar to
a comic book) with the number of characters increasing with every piece. There were also more
details with every piece. Details on the painting ranged from hats and buttons on clothes of
characters to their surroundings: plants and buildings in landscapes and walls, ceilings and
furniture in the interior. This way of composing a painting was called the narrative method.
The Renaissance
At the start of Brunelleschi's career as an architect (he was actually a master goldsmith and
worked as a sculptor) he made the mausoleum of the Medici family in one of the chapels of San
Lorenzo church in Florence, finished in 1423. San Lorenzo is a three nave basilica with a three
nave transept and a dome over the crossing of the nave and transept. Two domed chapels were
built alongside each of the transept sides. The north chapel was finished by Brunelleschi, with
some help from Donatello, while the south chapel will be finished a century later by
Michelangelo.
Two crucial Masaccio's works were the turning points in art history: the fresco of the Holy
Trinity in the church of Santa Maria Novella and frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in the church
of Santa Maria del Carmine, both in Florence. The Holy Trinity fresco, finished in 1426, was the
first masterpiece that applied Reinassance geometrical perspective in wall paintings, as well as
the implementation of the architectural ilusion i.e the ilusionistic perspective. The ilusionistic
perspective refers to the ilusion that transcends the painting, creating the observer's point and the
painting's border in line with the average heigt of the person, making the ilusion of an arch
portal on side wall of the church behind the altar. The portal seems to be prolonged into a side
chapel with a barrel vaulted ceiling divided into squares.
Every important innovative monument of sacral architecture had a dome incorporated in it. We
mentioned Brunelleschi's dome on the Florentine's cathedral. Furthermore, two of his threenave
basilicas had domes over the crossing as well, and many other domed churches were built by
other early Renaissance architects of the 15 century.
Renaissance painting
The application of a mathematically based geometric perspective in the depiction of interior or
exterior space is the most important feature of Renaissance painting, with the notion that the
simulation method dominates the iconography of religious Renaissance painting. The third
important feature is representing human figure as the most important theme in the paintings,
which effected the development of new studies of human face, portraits, and nude portraits.
Body studies dealt with proportions, anatomy studies (many of Leonardo's sketches were
preserved) and human body differentiation. The increasing interest in nature and landscape
painting, which occupies increasingly larger space on the painting, is also worth mentioning.
Landscape often becomes the main theme, and on paintings in which the figures are so small
they can almost be neglected, it becomes the painting's only theme.
Baroque
While the clear and linear depiction of lines was dominant in Renaissance art, the Baroque artists
preferred soft, overlapping contours. The Renaissance forms flat art, while Baroque works in
depth with several contrasts: clear versus ambigious forms, open versus closed, multiple versus
unique composition.
Baroque architecture
The Baroque city architecture forms broad avenues both for pedestrian and horse carriage use,
bordered with grandious palace facades pointed towards a mark in the distance, for example a
church, monument, obelisk, or a fountain. The facades on street ends or at crossings are carefully
decorated so they seem as the head of the street range or an ornament at the ship's prow. Two
twin churches (built by Rainaldi) at one end of three streets spreading radially from Piazza del
Popolo in Rome provide a fine example for this architecture. The Karlsruhe's urban planning
centered around a Baroque castle with the streets radiated outward like a sketch of an explosion
or a radiation from a red hot rounded center. There are 32 streets radiating from the great castle
in equal distances, with two of them continuing along the sides of the castle making a quarter of
a circle. Another characteristic of Baroque cities are great oval shaped town plazas, containing
sculptures, groups of sculptures and fountains. Some of the Baroque palaces are so grand that
they surround one side of the whole square, unlike medieval or renaissance town where sides of
the square were formed by series of smaller houses. Great fountains sometimes determine the
character of the square, for example, Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers on Piazza Navona in
Rome. Even more famous example is Fontana di Trevi, also in Rome, with sculptures
surrounding the fountain and the adjoinig palace, from which the water seems to flow out of.
Baroque sculpture
There was a dynamic movement and energy in composition of Baroque sculpture. The
figures are represented with bulkness and fluttering clothes. Also, sculptures are modelled
indepth, in that way contrasts of light ( on the prominent parts) and shadow (in the deep fabric
wrinkles) were created. Furthermore, gilded and polycrome wooden altars together with marble
and stone altars are often found in churches. Also, pulpits, choir with organs, wall niches, even
ceilings and roofs are filled with sculptures and reliefs. As oppose to the relationship between the
sculptures and architecture in the earlier periods; harmony in Antiquity or sculpture subordinance
to architecture in Romanesque Period, the sculpture in Baroque imposes on the architecture
breaking from the confinment the architect had set for it. That can be seen on sculptures standing
out from the wall niches, or rising above palace ornaments all the way up to the roof.
Rococco
In Rococco period, we see the same spirit in movement and richness as in the Baroque.
However, it opposes the strictness,sincerity and the ferocity of 17th century Baroque (''Louis the
XIV'' style in France) with lots of gold and black color. The Rococco became bright,
simple,plain and translucent. The spirit of the movement interpreted through art is carelless,
unbound, almost childlishly naiive.
The ideology of the Bourgeoisie, the newly formed class of citizens, in that time in the
beginning of its rise in society, is, interesingly, foretold in the art of Classicism. It evolved
parallel to Rococco and replaced it eventually. The feudal lords and citizens were in social, class
and political opposition, and so were the two of ''their'' art forms. The Classicism's harsh
discipline and rational seriousness was confronted to childlish and superficial emotion of
Rococco. Loose moral of nobility was opposed by citizen's puritanism and Roman virtues in the
time of the Republic (not the Empire!), for example the Oath of the Horatii (1785.). Distinctons
were made even in the slightest painting details, warm colors versus classisistic cold, the
merging of forms versus strict modulation (as if the templates were Antique relief structures and
sculptures), random character positioning versus rigid,clear composition, the use of
contemporary clothes and architecture versus Roman etc.
19th century architecture
Throughout 19century housing architecture kept its traditional, craftsmen building
techniques and historical forms in facade making. The facades of urban multistorey brick
buildings were made out of stucco and plaster in the form of some of the preceding periods:
Romanesque,Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque etc. When we take forms from previous styles
instead of a contemporary expression, it is called historicism. Since these are not original styles,
but renewed in he form of the old ones, they are called neostyles (Neogothic, Neorenaissance,
Neoclassicism etc.).