Reading the Romanesque

In answer to a request, here are some suggestions for reading on Romanesque Art, conventionally dated to c.1000 to c.1200 with all sorts of blurring and overlapping at either end of course. Here are some one-stop-shop books which cover all the arts of the period. Specific books on architecture etc. can be left for other posts.

Anne Shaver-Crandell, Cambridge Introduction to Art: The Middle Ages is an excellent starting-point. Clear and helpful chapter on Romanesque.

Andreas Petzold, Romanesque Art is attractive, authoritative, readable. The emphasis here is on how the art worked within the society, so there are chapters on patronage, women, the Church, other cultures (Classical, Jewish, Islamic). Not much extended object-specific analysis, but an excellent primer on looking for the significance of works you do encounter.



George Zarnecki, Romanesque, has chapters on the different media: Architecture, Sculpture, Metalwork, Ivories, Stained Glass, Wall Painting, Book Illumination. The author takes us through the key features of each of these, and wears his enormous learning lightly. As with many older art books, this one challenges the reader by having illustrations on a different page from the text, so there is a good deal of flicking around which interrupts the reading. Well, we just have to get over it. The points Zarnecki makes in capsules about individual images (capital sculptures, for example) are outstanding.

Henri Focillon, The Art of the West 1: The Romanesque is a classic of art history. First published in 1938, it shows the author's appetite for dealing with whole cultures, whole centuries, looking for deep principles which help us to understand the individual object. Focillon writes wonderfully, in a style quite different to most approved art history. Of Romanesque imagery - bestiaries, strange distorted sculptures - he says: 'It seems, not the created world, but the dream of God on the eve of the Creation, a terrible first-draft of his plan'. Thoughts like that put a smile on your face and transform the act of seeing. Plenty to be learned here - as far as I can tell, it's not overly dated - and inspirational too.

Zarnecki and other scholars produced English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, the catalogue which accompanied a major exhibition of Romanesque art from England, at the Hayward way back in 1984. All the arts are covered, and detailed descriptions of the exhibits make it a good source for getting to know particular works. Lots of information, perhaps best for occasional detailed reading.

A quick mention for two books which cover a wider period than those above:  John Beckwith, Early Medieval Art and C R Dodwell, The Pictorial Art of the West, 800-1200. Best read in that order. That's a long enough list for now.