English Ground Floor

English Ground floor Romanesque art [Artistic style] The Romanesque is a style of art that was produced in West- ern Europe’s feudal kingdoms in the Middle Ages from about the end of the 10th century to the opening decades of the 13th century. It is an artistic style with a common aesthetic language that was to be found throughout Christian Europe and beyond, from Cape Finisterre to the Holy Land and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. Indeed, the Romanesque was one of the first international art styles. 1st floor Art, architecture and painting Our little country, Andorra, has preserved a number of iso- lated Romanesque churches which are scattered throughout our territory. These structures are dominated by a little semicircular apse that is oriented to the east (with a few exceptions), symbolically pointing to the rising sun. The apse is where the altar is located, making it the focal point of worship in the church. A triumphal arch separates the apse –as the place reserved for God– from the nave, which is the place for the faithful. These churches have an austere appearance and a great simplicity, standing out for the uniformity of their masonry walls built with usually unhewn local stone set in lime mortar. The walls are decorated with Lombard bands, formed by simple blind arcades on the exterior of the building beneath the roof, as at Sant Miquel d’Engolasters, combining with saw-toothed friezes as at Sant Esteve d’Andorra la Vella, or lesenes (also known as pilaster strips) on the apse, as at Sant Romà de les Bons, and on the bell tower, as at Santa Colo- ma, Sant Joan de Caselles, Santa Eulàlia d’Encamp. Without doubt these churches were built by the people of Andorra, who made a donation of them to the Bishopric in the concords of 1162 and 1176. This was the time when the parish network –a decisive instrument in the establishment of the feudal system in the Valleys of Andorra- was consolidat- ed, coinciding with the introduction here of the Gregorian reform, which influenced pictorial art and may have been the factor responsible for the concentration of pictorial production in the last half of the 12th century, promoted and financed by the Bishopric of Urgell. Wall paintings, however, are unquestionably the most striking feature of these buildings. They are usually located on the semi-dome of the apse, embracing the altar, since this is the most appropriate place for theophanic images. Roughly speaking, the pictorial discourse is organized with Christ or with the Blessed Virgin on the apsidal semi-dome, and all sorts of complementary figures (symbols of the Evangelists or apocalyptic visions in the first case, the Magi in the second, and the Apostles in both cases). The apse opened at the triumphal arch and it could be ornamented with narrative episodes from the Bible or from the lives of saints. Not only the apse contained paintings, however – even though so much apsidal painting has been preserved (En- golasters, Les Bons, Santa Coloma) that one could be mis- takenly led to believe this. In many cases this has been due to the fact that reredoses or altarpieces which were installed in later periods (above all in the Baroque) covered –and thus helped to conserve– numerous painted apses. Paintings conserved and documented on all the other walls of our Ro- manesque churches (Sant Martí de la Cortinada, Sant Joan de Caselles, Sant Esteve d’Andorra la Vella), however, make it clear that they were intended to appear everywhere. This even included the exterior façades, which must have been quite a sight, just as may be seen from the pictorial vestiges based on ochres and reds at Santa Coloma. Romanesque wall painting was long considered to be a didactic instrument. It was thought that it was an art conceived for the education of the illiterate people who gazed upon it, so its contents were simple and intelligible. Even in the times of the Romanesque itself, Honorius of Autun (c. 1095-1135) wrote that wall painting was to be instructive as well as beautiful and evocative. Nevertheless, the fact is that the Romanesque is a deeply intellectualized, conceptual and abstract art, laden with subtle connotations, intuitions and second readings. From the standpoint of its messages and contents, it is a refined art and it was consequently addressed to a likewise sophisticat- ed and learned audience –noble elites and ecclesiastical hierarchies–, who had an excellent education and were capable of understanding the pictures and of easily making their symbolic interpretation and grasping their true meaning. Even so, the painted space should be considered to form a whole with the architecture as a “ritual locus” – a stage on which the liturgy is celebrated and which is conditioned by this circumstance functionally and, in consequence, visual- ly and in terms of space. One then comprehends one of its main functions: the expression of religious ideology through its images. The artists were unquestionably creators of works of art, aware of the beauty of their works and of their material, religious and decorative importance. They worked in workshops, which were teams of art workers who were more or less specialized in specific technical processes. Generally speaking, these workshops must have been rather small, formed by the main artist who was in charge of the man- agement of the group and of commissions, together with a set of assistants of lesser category (or of less authority). In this connection, the term Master should not be understood to refer to a single person but rather to a “way of doing things” which was shared by various artists and craftsmen. The workshops spread the Roman –or Lombard– tradition and the various waves of Byzantinism on both sides of the Pyrenees through a wide-ranging network of relations with affiliates and other monasteries. Accordingly, the works which we are presenting are the only paintings on display in Andorra of the circle called up to now the Master of Santa Coloma, to designate the works that are included in the production network of itinerant workshops which have iconographic and stylistic connec- tions with the whole Pyrenean area. This circle is also attrib- uted the painting ensembles of Engolasters and Les Bons, which may be seen at the National Art Museum in Barce- lona, and those of Anyós, the whereabouts of which are at present unknown. Cornerstone from the romanesque apse of Sant Es- teve (Andorra la Vella) [1] Circa 1200-1210 Pumice with stucco and frescoes PCA 0615 33 x 23 x 26,5 cm Cornerstone of an arch with decorative mural painting. The rest of this pictorial cycle is partly located at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), the Prado Museum (one scene) and a private collection in Barcelona. Strappo and loss of meaning Strappo is one of the Italian techniques for detaching wall paintings, together with stacco and stacco a massello. The literal translation of strappo is “tearing, pulling off or ripping”. It consists in detaching only the surface layer of paint of a wall painting, thereby exposing it to considerable risks and to almost inevitable alterations (some of the layers of paint may remain on the wall). The traditional strappo procedure consists in cleaning the surface to remove dust and grime and gluing, on the painting, several layers of cotton or hemp cloth of various thicknesses with animal glue or colletta. Once the cloths have dried, usually after a couple of days, the painting is detached. The whole perimeter is first lifted and then the cloth continues to be pulled from the bottom up, rolling it around a cylinder (if the respective wall painting is of large dimensions). Once the painting has been detached, its back should be cleaned and then a thin coat of plaster should be applied to even up the surface. The painting is then trans- ferred to a new support, which may be a frame of wood and cloth or some other type of material. The pictorial layer is then freed from the protective gauze, cleaned and chro- matically reintegrated. The advantage of this technique with respect to the others is the little weight acquired by the detached painting, and the fact that it allows large extensions of wall painting to be detached. What’s more, it can even be applied in curved areas such as apses. Today wall paintings are only detached as an extreme measure, for example when serious conservation issues cannot be solved in situ. Detachment causes a radical and irreversible alteration since it involves a mutilation of the asso- ciated architecture and a major change in the conditions under which the painting is viewed. A wall painting is intrinsi- cally linked to the structure for which it was conceived and once it has been detached it becomes mobile, ceasing to form part of an architectural ensemble. It may be situated in other places (a museum or collection) and then, being distanced from its original setting and thus decontextualized, it loses part of its meaning. Strappo audiovisual - Strappo is a technique for the detachment of wall paintings. - After cleaning the painting, various layers of cotton or hemp cloth of different thicknesses are glued on it with animal glue or coletta. - Detachment of the paintings of Sant Joan de Boí, 1978. - Once the glue has dried, the cloths are carefully pulled off, rolling up the painting as the detachment proceeds. - After the painting has been detached, its rear side is cleaned and then evened with a thin layer of plaster. - The back of the painting is then reinforced with cloth.

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