Talk:Romanesque architecture

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Peterborough Cathedral?

elevation

I don't understand Peterborough Cathedral is here as a romanesque building. It is of course an old cathedral but I can't there see any single romanesque part. I think we should move it to famus gothic structures.

The west facade is evidently newer (Gothic), but the elavation is definitely Romanesque. -- Petri Krohn 23:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This is only a drawing. Ia saw this cathedral in real ant haven't seen there any romanesque part. Have you photo of the elavation?

Peterborough Cathedral

Peterborough is one of the most magnificent Romanesque structures in England. It is beyond any doubt a Romanesque building.

However, all the Medieval cathedrals of England, but one, was built over a very long period of time. (Salisbury was built in only two stages and was not begun until the Gothic period.) Most English Cathedrals have Norman (Romanesque) remnants and some have Saxon.

In the case of Peterborough, the church was constructed, beginning at the East between 1117 and 1193 entirely in the Romanesque style. But in 1193, when work had reached the western end, there was a radical change in style and the facade was built with pointed Gothic arches to a design that had no architectural precedent and no Medieval successor.

A hundred years later the height of the tower over the crossing was greatly increased. In doing this, the builders inserted pointed arches under the tower. This means that if you look along the nave, you can see two pointed arches- the two that support the tower.

The person who says that they saw the building and didn't see any Romanesque, quite plainly doesn't know what the are looking at when they see it, and should not remove anything from this article! --Amandajm 11:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm convicted You are fairest expert of romanesque architecture. But is not enough to say: "I saw it. It is romanesque", when on all pictures evrybody can see it is a gothic structure. Show us the proof and wee will agree with you.--193.109.212.37 11:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Please expand

The article is so poor that I can't believe my eyes. It seems like the poorest (architecturally speaking) countries of Europe conspired to flood this stub with dubious, red-linked samples of their provincial Romanesque, while the truly great and style defining buildings are not even mentioned. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Ghirla!... I think that there is no conspiration of the "poorest (architecturally speaking) countries of Europe" sic. I agree with you that this article is so poor (even more if we compare it with its correspondance in Baroque, that owes so much to you) but as I am one of the "conspirators" (my editions are in part responsible of the "red link" churches) I must aclare some things:

1- The name of the list is "Surviving Romanesque Buildings". I suppose it is referred to surviving buildings not to notable structures, as in other articles, like the ones of Gothic or Rennaisance. I have written the surviving Romanesque churches I know in Spain, but I know there are much more. As the sentence "this list is incomplete, please, complete it" is at the top of the list the point is to complete it, no matter how "important" are the churches. Among them are very important cathedrals and monasteries and rural churches, but all of them are "surviving". If you find it confusing you can move the list to another fork and put in this article the Notable Romanesque Buildings list.

2- Spain is definitely NOT architecturaly one of the poorest countries in Europe. Furthermore, as for the number and importance of monumental heritage it is the second country in Europe, under Italy (Great Italy). I don´t remember now who made the list, but I will find and write it here. It is normal that the geographical and cultural distance can make not know it. I am not an expert in Russian baroque, but I don´t deny it importance. Spain is a meeting point of several cultures that gave us Roman, Goth, Arab, and European artistic keys, and the main European styles are well represented, as well as particular ones, like Mudéjar or Asturian Art. I am not a fanatic: I know that Spain is not in the center of the World, but plenty good things happened here, and the voids in this Wikipedia about them are, as you say referring to this article, "a joke".

3- The term First Romanesque can be debatable. Anyway, I have read it in several "serious" books together with Lombard Romanesque. As for the problem of Romanesque or Pre-Romanesque, the Lombard (or First) Romanesque is considered to be proper Romanesque. You are right in that it may not be properly the "first", but the term is commonly used. But Ottonian architecture IS considered pre-romanesque, at least Conant, one of the experts in Carolingian art says so.

4- The article First Romanesque is not about architecture in Vall de Boí. The Style spreaded through the nort of Italy and the Pirinees. If you find it better, you can put it as a section in Romanesque Architecture, with the name Lombard Romanesque. By the way, there is a section in Wikicommons about "Romanico Lombardo", where you can see in images the main characteristics of the style. Anyway, I will find specifical references and bring them to you. Yours sincerely, --Garcilaso 17:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The list I referred before was made by UNESCO: Spain is the second country in the World in number of World Heritage Sites. Among them, you can find these related to Romanesque: Catalan Romanesque Churches of the Vall de Boí, Historic Walled Town of Cuenca, Old City of Salamanca, Old Town of Ávila, with its Extra-Muros churches, Old Town of Segovia, Route of Santiago de Compostela, San Millán de la Cogolla: Yuso and Suso Monasteries, Santiago de Compostela (Old Town). To these, you can add Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon (not properly Romanesque, but often referred to as Románico-mudéjar), Pre-romanesque Monuments of Oviedo and the Kingdom of Asturias, (and this is properly pre-romanesque), and Poblet Monastery (cister). Note that most of them are not a single monument but a whole city, with all its Romanesque and non Romanesque historical buildings. For complete list of Spanish World Heritage Sites see UNESCO´s page[1]

--Garcilaso 19:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My phrase about the poorest countries did not refer to Spain. Otherwise I would have hardly written such entries as Spanish Baroque, Santa María de Guadalupe, Lonja de la Seda, Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon, etc. I would like to point out that adding more pictures and red links is neither informative nor helpful, it makes the article look slovenly and contradicts WP:CONTEXT. Therefore, I suggest to split the list into List of Romanesque architecture and to cut this article in two. As for the rest of your questions, you may want to address them to User:Wetman and User:Giano. They are very helpful wikipedians who know about architecture a lot more than myself. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your tweaks. I didn´t know that WP:CONTEXTS, its sounds quite logical. I agree also in splitting the article, leaving the list apart, but conserving the existing texts refered to France and Spain and adding other countries. And of course, expanding the text!

I have being looking at the list and I find in it the great style-defining buildings. I think that they should be here, as List of Notable Romanesque Structures, or integrated in the text. If the list is choosed, trying to define that "Notable" doesn´t mean "Big", but important for its artistic quality. Some imporant churches would be out of the list otherwise. До скорого!--Garcilaso 17:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have split the article into a main part on the characteristics of the style and the List of Romanesque architecture, as has been suggested. It looks clearer to me now. I hope you guys like how it looks, otherwise the change can be reversed. Clearly the article needs more text on the characterisation of the style and on the romanesque of other regions of Europe, particularly Germany, Italy and England, which were very important in the development of romanesque. Mentions of the most notable romanesque buildings (for example the cathedrals of Durham, Pisa, Tournai, Speyer, Compostela etc) could be incorporated on these texts on regional romanesque. The list with many European examples, including the examples of peripheric countries, is good, since it shows how the style could spread all over the continent. Greetings, fsouza.

First Photograph

The first photograph people see on this page (the Interior of the Saint-Saturnin church) is pretty awful. Isn't there some other picture available which would better convey the achievement of medieval architecture?--136.160.174.107 01:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Fsouza. They look great.--136.160.174.36 04:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Moved image of transitional architecture from gallery to Transitional section

I believe that this image clearly presents the transitional period between Romanesque and Gothic as defined in the section and as such is better in the body of the article rather than in the gallery. --Lmcelhiney 15:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved it over to the left and shrunk it a bit - the reason I put it in the gallery in the first place is because the text was very picture heavy and all the spacing was weird. I still think it's a bit wonky, but can't figure out what else to do. I've got no real problem with the picture being there beyond the spacing.

One concern however, the 'transitional' nature of the picture is not immediately obvious to me, though it is more obvious when referring to the text. Perhaps the caption could be altered to state that the lower section is Romanesque while the upper is Gothic? Unsure if this is accurate. WLU 20:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Neither I see the transition. It seems to be a Romanesque door and a fully-developed Gothic upper section.--Garcilaso 08:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

If you read the text accompanying the picture, it is more obvious. I think I'll change the caption. WLU 13:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Major rewrite underway

In rewriting the intro, I have not linked all the various features. They will aquire the necessary links in the section Characteristics.

In rewriting that the characteristics section, this is notification that some of the things that it says now will change completely, because they are either badly expressed (it wasn't in sentences until I did a bit of a quick fix some months ago) or inaccurate. There is one sentence there which I can't interpret!

The description of a-b-b-a as two piers between columns is wrong. It should read two columns between piers.

This sentence "There is also one new element in the capitals developed during the Romanesque period—the impost, a trapezoid form that stands between capital and arch" is incorrect- the impost was not a new element, it had been around since Roman times and in Byzantine architecture imposts are often as large and as decorative as the capitals.

The "cubic" capital of St Michael's Hildesheim and other such is simply a roughed-in Corinthian-type capital that has never been carved, and perhaps was never intended to be, but retains the basic form, marked by the way in which the sqare angles are often cut off on a slope or a curve so that the capital becomes roughly octagonal where it rests on the column. --Amandajm 06:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree on so big rewrite.

This article has been set up on 20 May 2002. During 5 years Wikipedians work on it to make it (according to Wikipedia idea) possible objective. And now one person says that your work is nothing and make "major rewrite". I think that is completely incompatible with Wikipedia idea and I can't agree with taht.--Tlumaczek 16:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)