I Vladimir P. Goss FOUR CENTURIES OF EUROPEAN ART: 800-1200 A VIEW FROM SOUTHEAST Published by Golden marketing-Tehnicka knjiga Jurisiceva 10, Zagreb, Croatia For the Publisher Ana Resetar Editor Mirjana Paic-Jurinic Reviewers Vlasta Begovic, PhD Ivan Gerat, PhD Marina Vicelja, PhD Copyright© 2010, Golden marketing-Tehnicka knjiga, Zagreb All rights reserved ISBN 978-953-212-395-1 Vladimir P. Goss FOUR CENTURIES OF EUROPEAN ART: 800-1200 A VIEW FROM SOUTHEAST Golden marketing-Tehnicka knjiga Zagreb, 2010 CONTENTS Art Forms. 7 The Southeastern Border of Carolingian Architecture . 19 Romanesque Sculpture as Public Medium. 101 Pannonia Romanica . 157 The Big Circle, the Missing Link, and the Moral of the Story . 223 Conclusion: Borders of Art History in Europe without Borders . 249 Bibliography . 253 List of illustrations. 273 Index . 279 About the Author . 291 5 ART FORMS istory of Art is the history of artistic forms. They manifest themselves in archi­ tecture, sculpture and painting, or in combinations or extensions thereof. The H borderlines are sometimes fu:a:y, but this is not too important. The repertoire of forms contained by a work of fine art is the same, regardless of which branch of fine arts is involved. Fine art forms communicate, i. e. they bear a message. They are not just any visual forms, but forms with content. If there is a message, there must be a system of recog­ nizable signs that we read in order to receive the message. In verbal arts things may ap­ pear simple and straightforward. We just have to learn how to read, meaning, we must know the alphabet, a system of visual signs which make up a language and its written communications. Or, if we listen (switching from eyes to ears) to the sounds the letters stand for. But letters and sounds do not by themselves make the communication an artistic one. They are merely visual or audio signs which make it legible. But, things are different in fine arts. There is nothing comparable to those little, most often black marks, or to those short units of sound, which we recognize as basic bearers of verbal communication. Yet, we are ''moved", "disturbed", "enraptured" by a work of art, we "read it", "understand it", we "seek" its meaning, we "react" to it. We go through a process of perceiving, taking in, and responding to a fine art stimulus. Thus, we have read something. This "something", to go back, is the form. As opposed to verbal arts, the form is not a small unit, but, on the contrary, a major framework. Morphology of fine arts contains just six such big words, or expressive categories, within which we have to look for spe­ cific manifestations in order to read the message. These six are: volume, space, line, light, color and texture. Space, for example, is endless, but the various ways of modify­ ing this "endlessness" is what provides signals for our reading. So we say that a work, an artist, or a period prefers "visions of endless space", contains "limited but real space'', "sees things in a flat manner", etc. Similar "readings'' can be extracted for any of the six areas. f n reading how the six relate to each other we enter what in the verbal zone would be called the "syntax", and what in the fine arts sphere we call ''composition". So we talk of rhythm, repetition, symmetry, continuity, discontinuity, etc. As opposed to the means of verbal communication, the world of images is less involved with the problem of the variety of languages. The six broad categories are the same everywhere and any time. What is "inside" them, however, differs, and so we speak of the "formal language of the Baroque", of the "late Rembrandt", of "the Great Migration 7 f ~ 1lr-,=1 ·1 ·~,;1=·'\t~ if~~~$ ' '! . ~ ""'~ tJ. ..] FOUR CENTURIES Of EUROPEAN ART: Sc.>0-1200 Period", meaning that the "Big Six" arc treated in a specific way, which is typical only, or mostly, of the artistic manifestation we have in mind. It is obvious that there are no fine arts, and no fine art content, without a visual form. Hence our first sentence: History of Art is the history of artistic form. But, again we re­ peat, not any form. A newspaper picture of a judge pronouncing a sentence is in most cases a document, an illustration. It complements a verbal document saying that such and such action was completed by so and so at such and such lime. When Georges Rouault paints his Three Judges what we have, without any verbal communication (or, shall we even say, verbal interference), is "a critique of the society", "a deeply disturbing sense of injustice", or some other expectoration of a learned critic, translated maybe by a "Wow!" of an ''ordinary" viewer. This "Wow" is the exact measure of additional ex­ pressive value of the communication. It has touched our senses, our heart, our mind, and made us react in a specific way. Of course, it is difficult to speak of pure visuality or pure verbality. In case of fine arts there is in very many cases this brief verbal statement - the Church of the Holy Ghost, David, the Sunset... , the subject-matter, explaining "what", but having nothing to do with "how". Subject-matter is not content, just a pretext to express it, to communicate it. In case of verbal art, what we read or hear leads Lo creation of certain images in our minds. In fine arts, the images arc there, and their taking in produces, if the content has been successfully expressed, a verbal reaction, which, unless we are art critics or historians, we need not express or explain. The above "Wow" is a legitimate verbaliza­ tion of our fascination with a work of art, which has moved us by an expressive inter­ play of its form and content. Form has found an adequate content, content an adequate form, we arc moved, we react. It is obvious to anybody who has ever looked at a pic­ ture or read a line of poetry that those reactions differ from person to person. A con­ tent called "Love" could be expressed by painting or sculpting an image of the loved one, but also by a combination of non-figured forms or by a skyscraper. It could be ex­ pressed with equal intensity, with equal power of communication, by using the "lan­ guage" of ancient or modern, of Roman or Japanese, art. The same is, of course, true of verbal communkations.1 So, there is the everyday documentary language, and Lhe other, poetic language. I will use a poem by a Croatian poet, Miroslav Feldman, as an example, written while the poet was watching one of those suicidal, useless infantry charges of the First World War/ Charge of the Battalion BH3 Viewed from a "Sechsfacher" Like a green rug strewn with poppy heads, the red fezzes fly the Monte Meleta's high By a heavy wind blown, by heavy scythes mown; by black bumblebees swarmed, by three-ribbed stingers stormed. I might make an endless list of relevant literature, but l will resist the temptation. However, I would recall how some 45 years ago as an English undergraduate I listened within two weeks to a lecture by David Dait:hess and by Helen Gardner on the art of the art criticism. I quote from memory their first sentences: "Criticism is a process of rational judgment conducted ill the spir­ it of cool contemplation", sai<l Daichess. "Art is a question of incoherent wonder", said Gardner. Needless to say, both lectures were impressive, and extremely convincing. Sapienti sat! Vlatko Pavletic, Zlatna knjiga hrvatskog pje.rni.frva, Zagreb, 1971, p 476 (Translated by V. Goss) 8 Art Forms The rug in the Bosnian lands was woven by domestic hands. Man, this is not a rug, not a picture! I have not aspired to reproduce the poetic quality of the poem, which is not with­ in my power, but to retain as many images found in the original as possible, and, which will soon appear to be very important, the visual outlay of the text. But let us first try to figure out what is going on, and translate the poem into a "document". Miroslav Feldman tells us that he is watching the charge of a military unit called the 8attalion No. 3 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, up a steep flank of the Monte MeleLa on the Italian front during the WWI. fcldman, a fine, restrained poet and a first-class Croatian intellectual, was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian artillery, and what he describes is his viewing the charge - from a ''sechsfachcr" (I have no idea what this is, probably some obsolete artillery item). And here is what he reports in plain language: Soldiers from the Battalion BH3, good Muslims wearing red fezzes, charge up the sleep green meadow of the Monte Meleta, and this may look to someone as a green-and-red Bosnian rug (cilim). They move up heavily, mowed down by steady enemy fire. Such cilims are made by native weavers in Bosnia. But we should not look at this as a rug or a pidure, as it is indeed a slaughter. If we now go back to my translation, inadequate as it may be, what do we find? Jn the first two lines, the poet has turned the image of men wearing red fenes rush­ ing into carnage, into an image of a green and red Bosnian cilim the Bosnian Muslims have been making for centuries. It is a lovely image of a green field covered with pop­ py flowers.