Romanesque Sculpture: Characteristics and Themes

Posted on Feb 3, 2025 in Arts and Humanities

General Characteristics of Romanesque Sculpture

During the Romanesque period, sculptors were primarily interested in the intellectual aspect and the message, rather than a natural, faithful representation of reality.
Figures are simple, with very flat relief. They wear tight clothes, and their bodies have simple, parallel folds. They are often disproportionate, artificially lengthened, and lack volume.
Compositions are simple, often juxtaposed, with no perspective, atmosphere, or background. Figures are expressionless, motionless, and do not relate to each other within the scenes.
Romanesque sculpture emerged in the 11th century, with the first copies being works in ivory, metal, textiles, and miniatures.
In its last period, the second half of the 12th century, Romanesque sculpture is characterized by a wealth of movements and costumes, with many folds, to achieve higher volumes and more natural expressions. It gradually becomes independent of its architectural function.
In short, art evolved towards a more narrative and clear style, heading toward naturalism and giving rise to the Gothic period.

Its intent is to communicate a message. The iconographic programs are illustrations of sermons and religious texts. Each scene has its default location.
It is necessary to distinguish between sculpture intended for the general public (uneducated and illiterate) and the art of the cloisters of monasteries, intended for enlightened monks initiated in theology, who were able to interpret allegory, symbolism, and intellectualization.
Therefore, the two main areas in which Romanesque sculpture appears are:
- The covers on the outside: Where issues often allude to sin, acquiring further development in the tympanum. You may also find sculptural decoration in the archivolts, attached to the columns in the jambs, on the capitals of these, and in the mullion.
- The capitals of the columns in the interior: With issues relating to men defeated by sin or tempted by the devil, or illustrative themes in evangelical churches.
- In the cloisters of the monasteries: The subjects are of a more intellectual nature.

Although other themes can be found, the two most repeated and characteristic of the style are:
The Pantocrator: The Almighty, Christ in Majesty, as recounted in the Book of Revelation, with the Tetramorph, symbols of the Four Evangelists (Matthew as a man or angel, Saint John as an eagle, St. Mark as a lion, and St. Luke as a bull), surrounded by the elders of the Apocalypse.
The Doomsday: Chaired by the Pantocrator and Tetramorph, usually surrounded by the elders of the Apocalypse or the Twelve Apostles and the Virgin, with angels blowing trumpets heralding the Day of Reckoning. On the right of Christ are the righteous, and on the left, the condemned. Representations of hell appear, and this is when the anthropomorphic representation of the devil begins, although he sometimes appears as an animal or a monster. The Archangel Michael also sometimes appears, with a scale to weigh souls.

The capitals mostly feature plant motifs, animals (both real and fantastic or monstrous), and figures.
Among the latter, we can distinguish several types:
- Allegorical decoration: Referring to sin in an intellectual form, the most characteristic of the Romanesque style.
- Historiated capitals: Which narrate scenes of a religious nature, lives of saints or martyrs, and Bible stories, both from the Old and New Testaments.
- Occasionally, other scenes of everyday life, feudal lords, and so on.