© KOSTAS E. TSIROPOULOS

ROMANESQUE PAINTING - BYZANTINE PAINTING

    A study of Spanish Romanesque painting, mainly wall-painting in our case, would be inconceivable without the scholar first turning his eyes to Byzantine art or without him pondering its iconographic and stylistic data, which, centuries before, went into the creation of an unprecedented and unique style in the History of European Art.

    We view Byzantine painting as being three-fold in its modality, yet uniform in its spirit: a modality of expression in Constantinople, wide ranging, imperial; a modality of expression in the Byzantine East, monastic; a modality of expression in Byzantine Italy, Hellenistic. These three modalities of expression emanate from single, profound, theological and aesthetic religious contemplation; they are in a continuous dynamic dialogue between them, thus contributing decisevely to a mutual purification and unity of style, to gaining consciousness of the spirit of Byzantine art, as well as to a deeper harmonizing of its many faces. If we only consider the imperial modality of expression as being Byzantine, we narrow down our view of Byzantine painting, and instead of experiencing it as multifaced we conceive it as single-faced; it is dynamic, while we perceive it a static.

    There are three events that, after a decades' long Byzantine dominion of southern Spain by Justinian, played a most significant part in the influence Byzantium had on the Iberic peninsula: the Arabic Conquest, which brought again the members of the Spanish Church into direct yet consistent contact with eastern-monastic Byzantine modality of expression.; Iconoclasm, which opened the roads to the West for many hagiographers and icon-woshipping monks, and above all, the Crusades.

    We must point out about Iconoclasm that it would not have had a chance to erupt, if the relations between the representational and the non-representational tendencies of the Byzantine world had not reached a climax of tension. An important role was played in this crisis by the icons, which since the 6th and 7th centuries had tendened to substitute for the worship of rare by then, relics, and which since the 9th century had been in wide distribution. Icons, together with illuminated and illustrated manuscripts, works of ivory, silver and gold, metals, enamel, ceramics and glass, as well as textiles in the area of decoration, mainy textiles constituted the main similia in the hands not only of the inexperienced or uneducated, but also of the established hagiographers. We note the presence of such similia in very many of the Romanesque works of Spanish wall-paintings.

    On the other hand the Crusades, towards the end of the 11th century which is the century when Romanesque painting was born opened up for the West the world of the imperial and eastern Byzantine modality of expression; thus the models of a fantastic variety began to circulate between the hands of pilgrims, clerics, tradesmen, crusaders, noblemen, seeking to satisfy and enrich the intensely representational disposition of the flocks of the Church. For we cannot conceive of Romanesque painting as separate from the Church, or from the theological contemplation of that period, nor from its ritual ethos and its concerns. Otherwise, painting cannot be ritualistic, or didactic, hence it cannot be hagiographic. The Spanish Church, one of the most ancient Churches, martyred, well-known for its independence and endurance, had to fight against a conqueror of a different faith, non-representational in his art; as well as against a series of heresies considering Jesus Christ an adopted Son of God and preaching accordingly. Quite rightly, then, does the hagiography it accepted and cultivated stand away from both absolute non-representational and complete humaneness. The Spanish Church contrived thus to maintain a wonderful balance in depicting God, with a stubborness of style imported from the monastic Byzantine East, from Palestine, sometimes passing through eastern Africa. And here we have to emphasize a factor that is often overlooked by scholars, namely the intensity of Mediterranean light, which, in combination with the architectural form of the church, has played an important role in the kind of stylization we observe in Romanesque hagiography.

    The churches of those years were rather dark. Hence, in order for wall-paintings to be visible in the light of candles and of oil-lamps, the figures had to be moulded on the walls by the use of intense, thick outlines and flat colors elements that were harmonized with both the models and the style of the church, and with natural light; they were harmonized also with the conviction of the Church that God, anthropomorphic as He is, had to be depicted in a way that divested Him of the human elements, at a creative, divine moment.

    Architectural style is harmonized with Romanesque painting which has its origin in the Mediterranean East. The manner in which pillars and arches are drawn presents a level decorative character; the internal lines of the church are not altered; on the contrary, through the adoption of vertical lines and circular arches, the style of the church is brought into prominence as it is propelled towards is center; an inward looking structure.

    But the Romanesque hagiographer, whether indigenous of often an immigrant wanderer, was not able to remain faithful to the models much as he had wanted to. He transformed them according to his own idiosyncracy of style, bringing  them within the measure of his capabilities; and as far as choice of an icon theme or composition is concerned, he submitted to the imperatives of a local Church authority, and at times also to those of a reverent donor. Thus we do not always have to do with imitation and copying, but also with an often violent awakening of an unformed artistic personality, which was very much, a little or very little endowed for the art of painting; an idiosyncracy that, now by instinct now consciously, like the hagiographer of Tahull, proceeded to restructure the elements of the model, which ended up depersonalized and full of faults.

    Every Romanesque hagiographer absorbed such elements as he was familiar with and as he was able to render, or such as he was impressed by. The capability of eastern Byzantine art for abstraction palyed an important role in this instinctive selectivity, without ignoring models deriving from Spain and Italy. Only that here we observe the following significant event: that western Byzantine models with pronounced traces  of Hellenistic grace had turned oriental, they had become orientalizing in style when applied in Spain, for such was the ethos of the Church there at that time.

    From the 7th century onwards then, there was constant and varied influence of Byzantine art on the West. Such influence was exercised from many sides, on many points of Western space and during different periods of time; so that the West would continually draw strength from the deep fountains of Byzantine art; its consciousness of painting would awaken by the dynamic, stimulating polymorphy of the latter; it would experience that creativity on a lower tone, simplified, yet with honesty and often with passion. The Byzantine element was "endemic" within the organism of the West, continuously active throughout the era of Byzantine art; and in Spain, it had an influence mainly during the Romanesque period.

    We have considered this element to have been  of eastern Byzantine origin of monastic composition, mainly because its characteristic qualities of temperance, narrative, clarity and the sometimes excessive sterness were easier to absorb by peoples who were uneducated from the point of view of painting. The Romanesque wall-paintings of Spain, with few exceptions like the largest part of the wall-paintings in the Panteon de los Reyes of León and perhaps of Sigena are of an eastern Byzantine character, of monastic style. This admittedly orientalizing character is perhaps due to the fact that it was clerics and monks who usually determined how the churches were going to be illustrated; so it was natural that they should have been inspired by the iconographic models of ancient eastern monasticism.

    At any rate, the problem of a hagiographer, characterized as a worker of the Church in the Romanesque period, was not that he projected his personality and his likes, but that he adopted the great tradition coming in waves from the East. For, besides the continuous flow of Byzantine models, we also have entire waves, as they were noted in Spain at the end of the 11th century (Predet) and the second half of the 12th century. These models were first interpreted, then they were copied in a clumsy and inexperienced way, because at that time the authority of Byzantine art was huge and its influence important and unique. And when at the end of the 11th century this world became wide open to the West through the Crusades, we are able to follow how Romanesque painting flourished during a period of time that was so uniformly regulated as to leave us utterly astonished. Miniatures, manuscripts with their illustrations, icons, constitute the models of the Christian West, so much so, that Latin manuscripts of the 12th century should have been illustrated in Byzantine style (cf. the Hymnbook of Melissande, daughter of Bauldouin II, 1131-1143).

    Two roads were open to Spain, by which her iconographic models were imported: in the East (Italy-Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor) and Africa (Egypt-Palestine). Such models were in the hands either of hagiographers or of the prelates of th church that was going to be illustrated. However, these models were not transferred on to the walls with any accuracy, either iconographic or stylistic. The pride of hagiographer's person is manifested in all works, even in the least artistic ones, of Romanesque Spain, sometimes consciously (Tahull) and sometimes unconsciously.

    A corner of medieval Europe, half of it immersed for centuries in the dominion of the faithless: inexperienced in painting and almost barbarian, (Pedret's older illustration can serve as an example here), will manifest an almost normal tendency towards the fantastic, towards teratogony, so eloquently expressed in Romanesque sculpture. Byzantine art was not capable of having a decisive influence here, as its own works were sketchy, mostly bas-reliefs or decorations; and there was this antipathy for, reaching the degree of prejudice against sculpture. In hagiography, however, its consistently imposing representational influence acted as an antidote to the Romanesque tendency towards the imaginary, the extraterrestrial: and it is possible that this was one reason why apocalyptic themes had prevailed so extensively, though we do not wish to ignore or misinterpret the theological directness of the then Church.

    The Romanesque wall-painting of Spain are basically of Byzantine derivation: they come mainly from the eastern monastic tradition which often passes through the Hellenistic areas of Italy or North Africa; and which, whenever it does not end up with tne hagiographer submitting and imitating te models, remains the most important cause of hagiographic achievement. The themes on the central apse eloquently show this relationship; it is easily traced in the basic iconographic compositions, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Crucifixion. On the other hand, since that time, the West has shown a marked preference for the Nativity, of the basic compositions the one which had been the most variedly and independently expressed; and whose iconographic features came out having a purely western, local, Romanesque character. The Romanesque hagiographer is severely disciplined when he illustrates the central apse, which in his consciousness represents the acme of Church Theology, with an apocalyptic Christ; and the same is true when he illustrates the principal scenes of Christ's life, whose numerous models have contributed to their crystallization, as it were. The hagiographer's discipline relaxes, however, at secondary compositions, where there is probably no model (the poor Lazarus, the fight between David and Golliath, Maria-Mgdalene wiping Christ's feet with her hair, ect.). It is strange to note that, although a large part of the Spanish Church's flock lived under the yoke of those of another religion, who sometimes waged  persecutions against the Christians, Romanesque hagiography does not show many scenes of torture. This is perhaps so because the paintings on neighbouring walls have been destroyed in most churches, or perhaps because the Church in its sterness was in favour of having the general themes derive from its sacred texts (see the church of Bagües).

    In general, the illustration of the Spanish Romanesque churches is based on early Byzantine iconographic models, as de Jerphanion has determined them: classification and development of the biblical cycle from left to right. Christ enthroned, in severe form, apocalyptic, the Bible shut; the Tetramorph, Isaiah, Ezekiel or Daniel serve as companions. Archangels Michael and Gabriel dressed in imperial robes. The hand of God. Single saints (apostles etc.). Narrative starts from the Apochrypha. Then comes the childhood of Christ from Jacob's early Gospel; the Miracles appear in limited numbers; eventually, there are the scenes of the Passion. (We can compare the illustration in three zones of the old church of Toqale Kilisse in Cappadocia with its equivalent in Bagües).

    Angels and Archangels are always depicted after fixed Byzantine models, in Byzantine uniforms, rarely escaping their Byzantine origin.

    That Spanish Romanesque wall-painting should show a preference for the scenes of Creation and the Original Sin, is due I think to the fact that they correlate with the Apocalypse: if God had not created man and if Disobedience had not happened, the Fall, the Last Judgment and all events that are predicted in the Apocalypse would lose their weight and their spiritual significance. Between Creation and the Apocalypse there emerges the link: the scenes of Christ's salvation work. A didactic character prevails: that the Faithfull may not be allowed to forget Who has created them and why they are suffering in this world nor where they are going.

    As far as the eastern Byzantine origin of Romanesque iconography is concerned, I believe there is agreement, without meaning to say that the hagiographers who have worked in Spain did not supplement their iconographic gaps by creating their own compositions, or by composing compositions, namely by using individual elements in them that they have culled from various models. It is, however, impossible to conceive of Romanesque iconography, which at times appears to have its conscious program, as in Bagües or in Leon, without simultaneously presupposing the existence of Byzantine iconography in its creativity, its dynamism and its versatility. It would not have been possible for Romanesque iconography, for those repeated types, to have come into existence, quite suddenly, ex nihilo, within a painting vacuum, at a state of an iconographic inertia (see the first narratives of Pedret). The models are processed through the kilns, as it were especially within the space of the Church, where developments proceed at the rate of centuries and not of years very slowly indeed, and with much care. However clumsy the church servant or the hagiographer might be, he is still conscious of a discipline, of obedience to a program dictated by religious didactic or ritualistic reasons.

    There was literally no Spanish style at that time; and we have explained the reasons why Mozarabic miniatures are beyond Romanesque wall-painting. The character of Spanish Romanesque wall-paintings was wrought with great freedom, if not with stylistic indiscipline, which makes its study the more interesting. The contributing factors of this multifaced style are: a) primarily, the suggestions of the Church; b) the great and famous mosaics of Bethlehem, of the Church of the Resurrection, of Thessaloniki; of Italy; mosaics that could be copied with ease; c) the need for an appearance of sanctity; d) a tendency towards symbolism; e) an absence of sentimentality whose intrusion into the Western hagiography puts an end to the Romanesque era and starts the Gothic period; f) that quality of light demanding a concreteness of form; and mainly, g) the desire to have representation balance between complete humaneness and severe non-representation, that side of the Adoptionists and this side of the Moslems.

    Finally, a spontaneous inclination towards the antique, an impulsive orientalizing drive that tightened and stylized sternly the models entering the Spanish space.

    The first six factors play a more or less equal part within the organization of Byzantine painting, the seventh is still active, yet in a freer way. But in the Romanesque works we are studying here, there are very obvious differences in style. These are: a) extreme stylization, so that the human form is usually deprived of all breath of earthly life, ending up in a rather conceptual form. b) The thick, almost always black, outlines of the human forms and the broadly designed pleatings that remind us of enamel and mosaics. c) Passionate spiritual feeling expressed on the faces, but also a clear distance from the spectator. We consider this passionate feeling as a manifestation of the Spanish character, for it is not observed in either the French or the German Romanesque wall-paintings; d) a scene of spiritual authority, e) a mixture of realism and stylized idealism which brings about a strange and very exalted charm. f) Pronounced orientalism, almost spontaneous, as we have said before. This orientalizing tendency reveals both that the models came from eastern parts and Byzantium at least it is these that seem to move the flock spiritually and that the Spanish character itself betrays orientalizing features, that are heightened by their century old contrast with the Arab world and raise the Spanish Romanesque cosmos to the realm of the visionary.

    Spanish Romanesque style owes little to preceding national or barbarian arts; it submitted to Byzantine iconography, but preserved the soul of the Spanish people. This style, however, cannot be studied or interpreted in the absence of the contribution of Byzantine art. If we accept the view formulated by Post that Romanesque style is of a uniform derivation, it is reasonable to look for a single source. And that can be no other than eastern and Byzantine. But that mode, which is monastic, hard, highly stylized, with its tight iconoclastic tendency, however obstinately harnessed a tendency to move away, as far as possible, from the natural human form has an inward relationship with the psychological make up of people who were unformed from the point of view of painting; and who by means of design and colour endeavoured to give form to their inner world of chaos, and to conceptualize aesthetically a faith that has been tried very hard. The manner of painting they accepted and understood spiritually was of eastern monastic Byzantine origin and it expressed the unity of the universe a claim of religion and a sense of the presence of God.

    They were of the opinion that the further they moved away from nature, the more monumental, the more spiritual would their works become. The human figures they presented had a place that way of the human and this way of the divine, at a dynamic halfway point at which the faithful would feel elation, a sense of the sacred, spiritual emotion. They showed man not as he was within the physical world, but as he was capable of being, and ought to be within the heavenly hierarchy of the Church. Just as a Theology of Transfiguration functions within the trunk of Byzantine art, it does, as a similar contemplation, functions, within the trunk of Romanesque painting, and that fact constitutes their deeper relationship. Their symbolism and functionalism of Romanesque hagiography with direct reference to Byzantine style, imposed restrictions to the types of illustrated figures that could be used; and they required a severe discipline, a cutting down of, and a moderation in gestures, thus bringing about conciseness, density in expression and tension.

    The Byzantine technique of wet plaster was also applied here with a lower degree of plasticity and with higher stylization under the watchful sense of the straight vertical line and of the curve which, while lending a symbolic, monumental character to the forms, take from them the physical away. And it has to be stressed here that the vertical and the curved lines we observe on the dresses of the human figures of Romanesque hagiography, are in harmony with the architectural style of the Romanesque church, as this is defined by vertical lines harmonizing with curved arches.

    Romanesque wall-painting was an heir to Byzantine wall-painting, which sometimes directly ad sometimes indirectly was prevalent in the Christian world of that period. Byzantinism is the soul of Romanesque actvity, not only as an imitation of form in fine art, but also as a medieval ethos, since the Church was a pivotal centre in the life of the people both in Byzantine and in Western societies of the 11th-13th centuries.

    This authority of Byzantium was unlimited in Spain too just as it was in the whole of Western Europe and it can be felt in the works of religious art that were preserved from the time of Byzantine rule until the end of the 13th century, when the Byzantine tone disappeared into the sentimental physicality of Gothic art. This in turn revealed the alterations of opinion that had taken place in man and in various societies; and it announced a new world which, by losing its theocentric character, would create the anthropocentric Renaissance.

Kostas E. Tsiropoulos

From Romanesque Painting - Byzantine Painting
Astir Publishing Company, Athens 1980, pp.152-157
English translation  by Ariadni Koumari-Sanford