Romanesque

Ruskin uses the term in his published works and in M and M2 in a variety of ways and with some inconsistency, sometimes including Byzantine as a category of Romanesque, sometimes distinguishing between Byzantine and Romanesque, and sometimes using it to include the architecture of Classical Rome, as is perhaps the case at Notebook M p.18. It cannot be assumed that Ruskin always uses the word in what is now the commonly accepted way to refer to stylistic features of work made typically between the tenth and the twelfth centuries.

The word has its origin in linguistics, and the association with classical Rome seems to be point of the earliest uses of the word in English. Early citations include Davies (1716) p.304:

The old Norman Dialect was compos'd of these: Theodisque [i.e. Germanic], and the provincial and vulgar Romanesque Dialects [i.e. those associated with Rome, and therefore Latin].

It came to be used in English in an architectural context, presumably because the old distinctions between Saxon, Norman, and Gothic which were appropriate to England could not comfortably be used countries of the European mainland. Early citations include Gunn’s reference in 1819 to Romanesque arches, Whewell in 1830 refers to Romanesque cathedrals of Speyer, Mainz and Worms in Germany, and Murray (1847b) p.133 refers to the peculiar character of Lombard Romanesque.

The term is then easily extended to refer to the style of the sculptures and paintings associated with such buildings.

Examples of the use of the term ‘Romanesque’ from Ruskin’s published works are:

Works, 4.305 [n/a] where it is applied to San Michele in Lucca;

San Michele, Lucca Photograph details are available here

Works, 5.263 [n/a] where his interest is in art rather than architecture, and the Romanesque is included with ‘barbaric’ art and defined as a historical period up to 1200.

Works, 9.34 sees all European architecture as ‘derived from Greece through Rome and coloured and perfected from the East’. The Doric order is seen there as the root of ‘all Romanesque, massy-capitalled buildings - Norman, Lombard, Byzantine and what else you can name of the kind.’ Gothic, it is suggested in this passage has its roots in the Corinthian order.

Works, 9.325 together with Plate 9 use the example of the Venetian dentil to show the transition in Venice from the forms of Greek and Byzantine architecture, to the Venetian Romanesque, and eventually Gothic forms.

At Works, 10.252 and following, Romanesque is defined as the architecture of the round arch, and divided into two groups, the Lombardic, of which the Duomo at Pisa is the most perfect type, and the Byzantine, of which St. Mark’s in Venice is the most perfect type.

At Works, 12.82 Gothic and Romanesque are ‘nobler and more ingenious’ than Greek architecture. Gothic, however, is the stronger and the pointed arch is ‘susceptible of an infinite variety of forms’. On this see Notebook M p.13 on the fact that it was necessary to support the original round arches with pointed supports.

At Works, 9.179 and Figure 36 Ruskin discusses ways of dealing with the arch load on a Byzantine or Romanesque arch (and he does make the distinction in that way in that passage), and illustrates the distinction he draws between Romanesque and Gothic shafts on the one hand and Classical and Palladian on the other. At Works, 9.180 he cites the example of Valence Cathedral, a building considered in some detail in M2.

At Works, 12.190 Ruskin prefers the ‘generic’ term Romanesque where Lindsay uses the term ‘Lombard’.

Examples in M are:

Notebook M p.14 - Monza West Front is founded on Romanesque thinking rather than Gothic, and so is distinguished from Giotto’s Campanile in Florence.

At Notebook M p.47L Ruskin distinguishes between Byzantine and Romanesque, and sees Pisa as making the transition from Romanesque to Gothic.

Notebook M p.77 - the imitative character of Romanesque workman, presumably to be distinguished from the creativity which Ruskin sees as being possible for Gothic workman.

Notebook M p.116 - a Romanesque house past Foscari

Notebook M p.125 - a Romanesque cross

Examples in M2 are:

Notebook M2 p.24back - grand unsymmetrical capitals in early Romanesque work.

Notebook M2 p.15 refers to the dying Romanesque of Venice brought by the refugees from Aquileia combined with Byzantine work which was ‘itself a corruption of Romanesque forms’. Romanesque here seems to refer to the classical architecture of Rome, as it does when Ruskin uses the word of the porch of Avignon cathedral

Notebook M2 p.19 - with the side heading ‘Romanesque of Venice’ he says that his first step will be to establish a date for ‘the groups of Roman and Byzantine arches’.

Notebook M2 p.20 - the term is used of the sheep and lamb on the side of St. Mark’s.

Notebook M2 pp.115-6 - with a side heading Verona Romanesque Ruskin distinguishes between the graceful but languid style of Byzantine images with the energetic action of the Romanesque.

Notebook M2 p.121 - Cinquecento work in Verona is more classical and finer in composition because ‘applied to 'good old Romanesque sectors’, but leading to worse things than the cinquecento in Venice.

Notebook M2 p.126 - San Michele in Pavia is Romanesque in structure in a way comparable to Iffley Church or Winchester, but the ornaments are different, more Byzantine. The clustered piers are one of the principal roots of Gothic.

Notebook M2 p.132 - the term is used to characterise the arcading of the West Front of the Duomo at Cremona

Notebook M2 pp.134-136 - Genoa Duomo, the ‘mingling’ of Norman, early French and Romanesque, and the closer relation of the Southern side porch to the ‘Lombard pure Roamanesque’.

Notebook M2 pp.152-153 - Cathedral (Notre-Dame-des-Doms), Avignon - the carving of the former high altar and the Roman style of the porch and octagonal tower.

Notebook M2 p.153 and Notebook M2 p.161 - Valence Cathedral, like Avignon Roman in the character of its Romanesque, and an intermediate step between Romanesque and Gothic.

Notebook M2 p.164; Notebook M2 p.166; Notebook M2 p.167; Notebook M2 p.168 - Vienne Cathedral an example of Romanesque Gothic; has the richest of all Romanesque capitals, one or two delicate Corinthian, ‘the Corinthian order therefore the origin of all Gothic’ (on this compare Works, 9.34); some superb and grotesque Romanesque capitals, some almost too pure in cutting to be Romanesque.

Notebook M2 p.170L - reference to the Romanesque apse of Verona.

Notebook M2 p.174 - the Romanesque Manécanterie close to the Cathedral

Notebook M2 pp.177-179 - a discussion of the relationship between Byzantine Style, Lombard, and Roman work, and a comparison between Bourges Cathedral and Lyon with reference to the southern Romanesque porch at Bourges and a Romanesque arch at the Prefecture there, as well as references to S. Ambrogio, Milan and San Michele, Pavia.

In the Index at Notebook M2 p.190L there is a reference to Verona Book p.74 on the Romanesque Church at Blet. Blet is a village 35 km. South-East of Bourges. The 12th Century Church of St. Germain there was damaged during the Wars of Religion, and extensively restored again at the beginning of the 20th Century. It retains Romanesque elements including carved capitals.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]