medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
> Xanten's present cathedral of St. Victor was begun in 1190. Prior to
February 1945 most of it was of the later thirteenth to early sixteenth
centuries...
> Clerestory sculptures ("romanesque"):
> http://tinyurl.com/3fojatj
always a rather sticky issue, this question of how and when to apply this
thoroughly modren construct "romanesque" (and its corresponding
anti-construct, "Gothic"), but i'd say that there is nothing whatever which
can be said to be "romanesque" in those figures --esp. the lady on the left.
save, perhaps, that she is "fitting" into her "frame" (cadre) --but she can't
really help doing that, can she, and her anatomy is not particularly distorted
to accomplish that feat.
aside from the always reliable principle of
I-Don't-Know-What-It-Is-But-I-Know-It When-I-See-It (which works equally well
for pornography and "romanesque/gothic"), my Rule of Thumbs (as my Korean
students are fond of using the term) is to date/classify figures by the
*latest* elements which are visible.
in this case, the fluidity, plasticity and complexity of the folds and their
patterns certainly suggest a later 13th c. date, at the earliest.
that, and the decided lack of schematization in those patterns and of
anatomical distortion to fit the frame (adherence to Henri Focillon's "Loi du
cadre") preclude, to my sensibility, any classification of that figure as
"romanesque", at least by any coherent definition of that most-often un- or
ill-defined term (viday soupra, the "I Know it when I see it Rule).
the date itself is not necessarily dispositive for a sure "romanesque"
designation, as art hysterians have dreamed up the wonderfully elastic concept
of "Third Romanesque" to cover certain exemplars from the 13th-14th cc. --but
it is best not to Go There on a Family List.
c
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