Annotated Bibliography: Measure and Proportion in Romanesque Architecture

Annotated Bibliography: Measure and Proportion in Romanesque Architecture

Brush, Kathryn. “Blazing “The Way” Arthur Kingsley Porter’s First Trip to Northern Spain (1920).” Ad limina: Revista de investigación del Camino de Santiago y las peregrinaciones 9 (2018): 225-245.

This essay explores Arthur Kingsley Porter’s initial encounters concerning the artistic and cultural aspects of Northern Spain. It identifies some of the most significant regions that Arthur Kingsley Porter visited along Way of St. James. As a result, it outlines the presentations of Arthur Kingsley Porter concerning Romanesque art and architecture through his personal experience study, drawings, writings, and original photography. Before Porter’s book publication, he only took a single trip to Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Brush 225). Now during the journey, Arthur Kingsley Porter took photographs of churches and other buildings that were constructed based on the Romanesque Architecture. What is more, Arthur Kingsley Porter utilized first his trip to Northern Spain by taking vital notes and drawings from Romanesque art. Then he used all the information he had gathered to develop his works. And this explains the fundamental role the journey plays, especially in the conceptualization of his arguments.

ERIC, FERNIE, Romanesque Architecture: The first Style European age. (Pelican history of arts). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

Today, the general survey of the Romanesque Architecture is vital. As a result, the author of his book: Eric Fernie, remedies this in a well-structured content that provides an up-dated survey and the contemporary development in the artistic Romanesque Architecture. According to Fernie, the concept of style and its historical validity faces significant disapproval from the present architecture perspectives. As a result, Eric Fernie insists that historical validity is still valuable, especially on a conceptual basis. And it should be employed in the catalog and classification of varying architectural designs (Eric 246).

Now Fernie insists on historical validity because most architectural variations come as a result of individual reflection on allegiances, values, and preferences, to name a few. As a result, Fernie identifies characteristic that precisely defines the Romanesque Architecture. More specifically, it could relate to the time, the pace, the means and reasons for the development of the Romanesque Architecture. For instance, the Romanesque architectural design has its romantic origins in the mid-twentieth century and is based on the parent designs from Carolingian and Ottonian architecture.

Fernie, Eric. The Architecture of Norman England. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002. According to Fernie, during the fourth and sixth centuries AD, Europe suffered an extensive decline in disastrous proportions, as compared to the Roman Empire, over the four hundred previous years. The core architectural difference between the early Norman England and Romanesque designs are visible in the varying characteristics of Santa Sabina of the fifth century and the church of Saint Michael in Hildesheim (Fernie 8). To be more precise, the nave of the Norman England has two parallel rows and regular columns. On the other hand, Romanesque architecture had piers that are constantly alternating with columns within the naves; as a result, it is more articulate, creative, and presentable. There were significant differences between the Norman England architectural structures and the Romanesque Architecture. However, the Romanesque ideas and arrangements were more diverse and constituted more artistic patterns. As a result, the Romanesque Architecture had more influence on architecture than the England ideologies.

Seidel, Linda. “Rethinking” Romanesque;” Re-Engaging Roman [z].” Gesta 45.2 (2006): 109-123.

In this paper, the author focus on Romanesque as the primary factor since it is mostly used to define European art that originates from the 11^th and 12^th centuries. What is more, it was widely implemented for over two hundred years. Due to the decline from the Roman antiquity and the inherently negative image it delineates, some scholars insist that is should be abandoned. On the contrary, Seidel enthusiastically embraces it by implementing it in such a way that it can serve a more productive purpose. What is more, redefining the term is essential given the recent more vibrant etymological history that comes from the discovery of remains of the Roman construction in Gaul (Seidel 115). Seidel passionately embraced Romanesque Architecture because it was based on ideologies, and facts were artistic and more engaging. For instance, the nave of the Norman England has two parallel rows and regular columns. On the other hand, Romanesque architecture had piers that are constantly alternating with columns within the naves; as a result, it was more articulate, creative, and presentable. All in all, the characterization of Romanesque goes beyond structure and reorients towards thematic aspects.

Stalley, Roger Andrew. Early medieval architecture. Oxford University Press, USA, 1999.

Here the author analyses the architecture of Western Europe over a nine-hundred year period from the origins of Milan in 313 AD to the demise of Romanesque architecture in the early 1200s. During the initial stages of Romanesque Architecture formation under the edit of Milan, architectural development was extensively dominated by the Christians. And this was possible since they received the go-ahead from Emperor Constantine. As a result, some of the most famous churches were found; for instance, Saint Peters in Rome and Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Stalley 13). These buildings on the early Christian dominance period formed the foundations of the old medieval architecture. Later in the early 1200s, it outlines the shift from Romanesque to Gothic as a primary transformation in the architectural style. Initially, the Romanesque was dominant, and I was like the foundation of artistic architecture in churches. However, later the growth of Gothic architecture presented a broader perspective of art and more engaging structures.

Węcławowicz, Tomasz. “How Do They See Us from Afar: British Scholars and Romanesque and Gothic Architecture in Lesser Poland.” Czasopismo Techniczne, 2018.Volume 9 (2018): 49-56.

According to this article, Romanesque and Gothic architecture in Poland is not comparable to the medieval European architectural masterpieces, which acted like the primary factors that led to the formation of the middle-age stylistic evolution. What is more, universalisms of these precise changes are evident across Europe from the Iberian Peninsula through to the Latin civilization (Węcławowicz 50). On the other hand, it was through Poland that the eastern boundaries of the Romanesque style extended, running from Gdansk through Kałdus, Płock, Czerwińsk, Szczebrzeszyn to Przemyśl (Węcławowicz 50). What is more, the Gothic architectural design even went further to regions like Lithuania. However, they were not the foundations of the original Romanesque Architecture since the master-masons responsible came from foreign nations. For example, the building of the Romanesque monastery church in Czerwińsk was designed and structured by craftsmen from the Viligelmo de Modena workshop in Italy. However, Poland came into action in the mid-fifteenth century; that is when architects like Marcin Proszko constructed the churches near Krakow. Despite unoriginality crucial purpose since they accurately reproduced the Romanesque Architectural in detail like their European counterparts.