The art of the seaboard cities in Europe was, then, for many years a borrowed art from the East, as their people were to great extent Eastern colonists. It was carried on with a full knowledge of constructive methods, and a facility in obtaining materials that the inland towns did not possess; and in consequence it is along the seaboard that is to be found the persistence of the Byzantine influence. On the other hand, the interior was peopled by descendants of Ostrogothic tribes mingling with numberless local peoples. Whatever they touch is necessarily crude at first, but constantly gaining as they gain facility in working. A precedent of some kind they must have, and they find it close at hand in the Roman basilicas. Uncertain, from the result of woful experiments, of arches of great span, they pack their columns close together and surmount them with sturdy little arches that have scarcely any thrust. This arcade of heavy columns carrying absurdly disproportionate arches is their only motive, and applied inside between aisles and nave, and outside in successive stories rising one above another. As the masons begin better to understand their art, the span of the arch increases, though a large arch for some time does duty merely as a discharging arch, and has smaller arches beneath and within it. The capitals, at first crude imitations of classic prototypes, soon become the field for the grotesque imagination of the workmen, and each differs from the other and is a mass of light and shade shot with all sorts of uncouth fancies. Wherever, for some constructive reason, a column is omitted against a wall, the capital becomes a corbel, carrying the arches. In many cases the corbels alone are used, and an arcaded corbel course becomes the favorite termination of a wall in the place of a classic entablature. Finally the arches are omitted, and the corbels alone support the eaves.
It will be noticed that while the Byzantine decorated the interior of the churches, the Romanesque builder merely constructed the interior and wrought out the most of his design upon the facade. As a large arch was to him for a long time a tour de force, he naturally beautified the necessarily large entrance, and the beginning of the development of the beautiful Gothic portals is seen in the early Romanesque churches.
The Romanesque is an architecture of inertia, with arches heavily weighted by great masses of wall, and with broadly contrasting masses of light and shade. It does not depend for its effect upon intellectual quality beyond a rigorous sense of simplicity, or upon refinement of conception or detail, but rather upon size, picturesque mass, and staccato light and shade. The proportion of capital to column in quantity of surface was very slight. The proportion of voussoirs to arches naturally depended upon the size of the arch,—large voussoirs to large arches, small voussoirs to small arches. Columns were only grouped around piers and on either side of openings; and lastly, the natural development of the column in Romanesque work was toward attenuation,—the later and the better the work, the more slender became the columns, until at last they were merged into the Gothic multiple-columned piers. The carving upon the arch-mouldings is, to a great extent, geometric, consisting of numerous facets cut in the stone, lozenges, etc.; the so-called dogtooth moulding is a very favorite form of decoration. All these carved mouldings were picked out in color, usually in red and green. The acanthus in the Romanesque has lost much of its vigor, is flat, heavy-tipped, round-edged, and scratched with V-cuts, and the vine is the leaf preferred by designers. Frequently masses of wall are cut in geometric diaper patterns, also touched with color. Borders are not broad; and circular forms, except in the arches, are seldom used. Romanesque was a barbaric art at the best, and has the usual virtue of the barbarian,—a directness of attack at the problem in hand and a simplicity in treating it which is invigorating to see.
XXV. Window in the Church of S. Teresia, Trani, Italy.
XXVI. Window in the Church of S. Teresia, Trani, Italy.
XXV. and XXVI.
WINDOWS IN THE CHURCH OF S. TERESIA, TRANI, ITALY.
These two windows have very little to suggest Byzantine influence in their design. The form and detail are essentially Romanesque, although there is a certain crispness and piquancy of treatment in the first (Plate XXV.) which belongs to the Byzantine work.