A lot has been said the last week on interiors & exteriors of churches
including images and sundry implements. Permit me to make a couple of
remarks, with my apologies for rephrasing some topics which already received
attention or were at least hinted at.
Jim Bugslag wondered why walls were commonly whitewashed and then painted
over again with a pattern of ashlar stonework. The answer is simply and
`cheap': it permitted the workers and the architect to use stone of
different sizes and quality, without grinding them extensively, and
nevertheless presenting it as expensive, smooth and regular work, worthy for
the house of God. Lets call it cosmetics then.
With regards to the `painting' of `churches' we have to make, in my opinion
at least, some clear distinctions. Without them we'll get stuck in a muddle,
I'm afraid. We have to make a distinction between the plastering and
painting of complete walls, often also on the exterior of churches, and the
`normal' religious imagery which could be painted on the ex- and the
interior of churches. The last one falls in the same category as statues etc
and doesnot need to be dealt with in detail, I hope. The plastering of whole
walls could have the `cosmetic' background, earlier alluded to, but also
symbolic meaning, for instance an octagonal churchtower, painted white
(Jerusalem & angels, if my memory serves me well) or red.
The same distinction holds true for the interior of churches: whole surfaces
are a different subject than altars, statues, epitaphs, tombs. A church
could be whitewashed - as was often the case in the later middle ages - with
only decorative lines of red or gold alongside the ribs of vaults or the
piers, columns or posts, and nevertheless be a feast of colours, due to the
painted glass and all the other painted objects, varying in size from a huge
choir-screen to a small candlestick (go and visit the church of Albi, a fine
and impressive, maybe the most impressive example of a church of the later MA).
Then and again, it's not the same over Europe: there are regional
differences and developments. As far as I know - I am not an art-historian -
a lot of work has still to be done on this aspect. The colour-schemes of
13th century Chartres have, for instance recently got attention (bulletin
monumental 1995 if I'm correct; could look it up when someone is
interested). Modes and fashions do change and differed from object to
object. Grisaille has been mentioned with regards to altar-paintings, just
as the disappearence of polychromy on statues. There's more however than the
influence of southern/classical style baroque or the esthetics of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th century in this regard. Recently, it has been
found that in the Rhineland - the heartland of some of the best and most
impressive altarpieces - there was, from the end of the 15th, but especially
the beginning of the 16th century, a deliberate trend not to paint the
wooden statues of altars. Polychromy was banned, not so much out of
esthetics, but for religious reasons: a return to a sober, less seductive,
outlook of church-interiors (could look the reference up: no books in this
room). Possibly, but that's only my suggestion, there was also a special
kind of attraction: a `bare' altar would get more attention, by being so
different, than the rest of the polychromous lot. It has to be stressed,
however, that both polychromy and non-polyc. existed side by side. This
brings me to another distinction: between the churchwardens or the monks and
canons, who were resposible for the whole of the building, and the many
individual benefactors, who donated in many instances the `movable' objects,
the altars, paintings, statues etc. They were in the end the people who
choose for polychromy or not (beside debt etc preventing them from doing
so). It would be wrong therefore to claim that polychromy disappeared
totally during the baroque.
Finally, we'll have to keep in mind the different developments in later
times, between protestant and catholic regions for instance, not to mention
all the later restaurations: many churches are neo-gothic in appearance, not
so much the original `gothic' (if that ever existed, but that's another
question). In Holland for example, some of the altars and statues were
removed or destroyed during the iconoclastic attacks in 1566 or during the
1580's. The rest of them was removed with the banning of the catholic
religion. The whitewashing of paintings took longer however, especially on
roofs, roofbeams, higher on the walls etc, and sometimes did not happen
until the 18th or 19th century. The same holds true for the glass-windows:
in many cases - the heraldic arms and emblems were of course much in demand
until the families moved or died out - they were not removed or destroyed,
but only replaced during the 17th-19th centuries because there was no longer
any interest in repairing them. The `true' protestant sober and white
interior of churches was more an invention from the 19th than the 16th
century, to state it boldly.
With my regards for you all,
Bram van den Hoven van Genderen.
Bram van den Hoven van Genderen
Department of History
University of Utrecht
Kromme Nieuwegracht 66 3512 HL Utrecht Netherlands
Fax: 302536391 Phone: 302537860
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|