The corbels usually consisted of masks or grotesque figures, animals, dragons, or twisted snakes. These forms of decoration were also used in the capitals and cornices, both in the Romanesque transitional and Gothic periods. Grotesque forms were used very much as sculptural decoration in the Lombardic Gothic architecture. In Scandinavia and in Ireland this kind of ornament assumed the forms of snakes, serpents, and interlacings developed from them. (See Fig. 65, 69, 70.) The capitals were at first rude copies of the Roman Corinthian order (Fig. 309), developed later—after the character of the Byzantine cubical forms—to a solid cubic shape, called in the Norman style of Romanesque in England, the “cushion-headed” capital.
Fig. 377.—Towers and Round-arched Frieze, Abbey of Komberg.
Window-openings were usually small, and the grouping of two or more lights under one arcaded head occurs in Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic buildings. The light came usually from the clerestory, but sometimes smaller circular windows were introduced into the end gables, which subsequently were developed into windows of greater importance and intricacy of design in the great Gothic chancels and in western lights.
Fig. 378.—Capital from Palace of Barbarossa, Gelnhausen.
Fig. 379.—Capital from St. Cross, Winchester.
Romanesque architecture, and especially its decorative ornamentation, was never quite free from Byzantine or Saracenic influences. It was of itself an incongruous mixture, out of which, when the pointed arch of the Saracens was adopted, and the ornamental features modified to conform with it, the new ogival or Gothic style arose.
In every part of Europe in which the Romanesque took root, there may be noticed so many distinct varieties. The style in Rome and Central Italy naturally followed, as we have seen, the antique Roman forms. In the cathedral of Pisa the capitals are Corinthian, and there is a greater display here of mosaics and coloured marbles, both on the exterior and in the interior, than in most Romanesque buildings.