CHAPTER IV
ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC IVORIES
Romanesque Art grew up north of the Alps in the valley of the Lower Rhone and South France, and is especially the work of the French people. The Italians led the way in the first centuries A.D., and were followed by the Greeks of Byzantium, and then by the Carlovingian Germanic peoples in the great art development of Europe; but from the eleventh century France entirely fills the stage, and this pre-eminence was kept up till the early Renaissance, when Italy again takes a leading part.
The Romanesque style was transitional, and turned for re-inspiration to the Gallo-Roman monuments, but it is deeply influenced by that northern spirit which later on triumphed in the full perfection of the Gothic Art.
There was a great revival of monumental sculpture with the growth of the Romanesque spirit, and sculptured figures, from being introduced tentatively in the capitals and other parts connected with the structure, later, entirely filled the great tympana or arches surmounting the doors of the churches, and from thence spread to every nook and cranny till in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were numbered by thousands.
Carved ivories are not so numerous in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as in the years before, and when they became popular again, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the division between the sculptors in stone and the ivory workers had taken place, beautiful and clever imitations of the sculptures were turned out by the dozen, but it is exceedingly rare to find the work of a real artist.
The sculptures of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries have many details in common with the book cover at St. Gall ([Fig. 23]); but gradually the folds of the drapery grew vertical and the figures more drawn out, and with a peculiar tendency to arrange the hair in set curled locks. One of the most important transitional ivories is the diptych of St. Nicasius, Bishop of Rheims, which is preserved in the Cathedral of Tournai, and is still strongly Carlovingian, as will be seen in the typical representation of the Crucifixion. Each leaf has a central medallion, that on the first leaf containing the Agnus Dei supported by angels, whose movements can be closely paralleled in the St. Gall plaque. Above, Christ is throned in a mandorla and accompanied by the symbols of the four evangelists. On the second leaf, in addition to the medallion containing the figure of St. Nicasius are some pierced vine scrolls rather like those on [Fig. 23], and by far the best part of a very poor work. The drapery is, perhaps, better designed than in the Carlovingian sculptures, but the folds are only engraved, and though there is a certain change in the type of the faces, in the matter of beauty it is entirely for the worse. A plaque in the British Museum seems also to belong to this period, it is bordered by a flowered scroll and has representations of The Nativity, The Announcement to the Shepherds and The Baptism, the latter being very strange; the figure of Christ being immersed to the waist in a large vase.
[VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM,
LONDON
27. CROZIER
French, fourteenth century
The Romanesque age was, above all, the age of symbolism; the sculptures on the pastoral staves are full of hidden meaning. The tau, or crutch shape, is the earliest form and belonged, more especially, to the insignia of the abbots, though in later days they also had croziers. The most ancient tau[22] belonged to Morard, Abbot of St. Germain de Près (990-1014) and is ornamented with a network pattern. Another fine tau, with the ends curling upwards and finished with lions’ heads, belonged to Gérard, Bishop of Limoges.