Last updated Doorway, French, c. 1250. 470 × 140 cm at its widest points. The apse of the Langon Chapel is in the background
The Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean is a portal dating from c 1250, originally for the monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean, near Dijon, Burgundy, France, and installed at The Cloisters, New York City, since 1932.[1] It was designed in the Gothic style and carved from white oolitic limestone. The abbey was founded in the 5th century, and became a major center of influence. The abbey was patronised by a line of kings and nobles over the centuries; at one time it was financed by the dukes of Burgundy.[2]
Moutiers-Saint-Jean was sacked, burned and rebuilt a number of times; in 1567 the Huguenot army struck off the heads of the two kings.[3] In 1797, after the French Revolution, the entire building was sold as rubble for rebuilding. It lay in ruin for decades, with the sculpture severely defaced, before the door's transfer to New York, where it is now situated between the Romanesque Hall and the Langon Chapel. The doorway, the main portal of the abbey, was probably built as the south transept door, facing the cloister.[1] It can be linked stylistically to a number of other similar contemporary works in France. The sculptured forms of the donors, flanking either side of the doorway, probably represent the early Frankish kings Clovis I (d. 511), who converted to Christianity c 496, and his son Chlothar I (d. 561).[4][5] The piers are lined with elaborate and highly detailed rows of statuettes which are mostly set in niches,[6] and are badly damaged; most have been decapitated.
The doorway has been described as "without doubt the finest Gothic portal in America",[7] while the Cloisters considers it amongst their most prized objects,[8] due mainly to the richness and delicacy of its style and the care shown to its overall composition.[9]
Style
Art historians detect at least two different hands working simultaneously on the structure's architectural elements, in particular the two outer pier capitals (which seem to be earlier in style than the other capitals)[10] on either side are of a different style and type. However, it is thought that both sculptors worked on either embrasure, so that neither right nor left can be fully attributed to either hand.[11] Given the size and form of the outer piers, it is likely that the portal was originally beneath vaulting covering an ambulatory passage. A 1689 engraving also suggests this.[9]
Art historian Bonnie Young observes that although individual styles are mixed, the frame overall forms a "harmonious and magnificent whole", and contains naturalistic carvings wholly different from the more common Romanesque type.[12]
The overall style of the carvings has been described as "pseudo-realism", in that for example the heads of the kings at first seem to be portraits, but on closer examination they are idealised types, while the foliage may seem to be botanically correct and based on direct observation, but in reality they are generalised, rather than based on specific and identifiable species.[13]
Architecture
The two kings are positioned beneath canopies, and are flanked by colonnettes. They were for a time believed to be David and Solomon, but were identified as Clovis and Chlothar in part from the large scrolls held in their hands, which are more associated with early medieval nobles than biblical figures. The scroll held by Clovis is thought to be the founding document for the abbey, that held by Chlothar the legal confirmation.[3] The capitals are elaborately decorated with carvings of foliage. Carvings of angels hover in the archivolts above the kings.[9]
Tympanum with the Coronation of the Virgin
There are three arches linking the doorway to the overhead vault.[14] A trilobed arch over the tympanum, a middle arch with kneeling angels, and an outermost arch resting on the piers.[15] The tympanum contains carvings showing the Coronation of the Virgin, a popular theme for the tympana of 13th century French doorways.[16] The passage has suffered some damage, and some figures have lost their heads or hands. The passage shows the Virgin sitting to Christ's right (the place of honor), bending toward him as he crowns her with his right hand. Her arms are raised in a gesture of veneration. He is holding a jeweled disk, representing his dominion, and is positioned on two lions, indicating that he is occupying the throne of Solomon.[17] Mary's feet rest on a serpent-like creature, probably an adder.[16]
Most of the statuettes have been decapitated, but the figures are thought to include representations of John the Baptist, Simeon and the Christ child, Moses with the serpent, Abraham and Isaac, either David or Jeremiah, and Elijah alongside a raven. They can mostly be grouped into pairs, though are not arranged chronologically.[18]
Other elements from the Moutiers-Saint-Jean abbey, including Romanesque capitals, are kept at the Louvre, at the Fogg Museum, Harvard University,[3] and in a private collection in Bard-les-Epoisses. A foliate capital from the abbey, with a head very similar to those of the two kings, is in Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.[19]
Acquisition and installation
In place and in ruin at Moutiers-Saint-Jean before removal to New York
The abbey was sacked in 1567, in 1595, and in 1629. The doorway suffered damage during the Wars of Religion and during the French Revolution the abbey was almost completely destroyed.[5][20] Most of the archival documents related to the abbey were lost, but we know from some accounts and engravings how it might have looked. For a period in the 19th century it was walled up.[5]
Its acquisition and installation was led by curator James Rorimer.[7] It was sold by a Mr. Cambillard, a farmer on whose land the abbey was situated, to Jean Peslier, a dealer working out of Vezelay, who passed it to Joseph Brummer, from whom the Metropolitan made their purchase.[21]
Around 1790 or 1791[9] the kings' heads were removed, but located by Rorimer,[22] and acquired from the Duveen Gallery at the British Museum, and reattached in 1940,[1] while a number of additions added during earlier restorations were removed.[23]
Rorimer, James; Rorimer, Katherine. "Medieval monuments at the Cloisters as they were and as they are". New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. ISBN978-0-8709-9027-4
Barnet, Peter. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN978-1-5883-9176-6
Forsyth, William. "A Gothic Doorway from Moutiers-Saint-Jean". New York: Metropolitan Museum Journal 13, 1978
Little, Charles. "Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture". New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006. ISBN978-1-5883-9192-6
Parker, Elizabeth. The Cloisters: Studies in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992. ISBN978-0-8709-9635-1
Porter, Arthur. "Romanesque Capitals". Fogg Art Museum 1, no. 2, June 1922
Young, Bonnie. A Walk Through The Cloisters. New York: Viking Press, 1979. ISBN978-0-8709-9203-2
Related Research Articles
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe that was predominant in the 11th and 12th centuries. The style eventually developed into the Gothic style with the shape of the arches providing a simple distinction: the Romanesque is characterized by semicircular arches, while the Gothic is marked by the pointed arches. The Romanesque emerged nearly simultaneously in multiple countries ; its examples can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. Similarly to Gothic, the name of the style was transferred onto the contemporary Romanesque art.
The Basilica of Saint-Denis is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building is of singular importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, is widely considered the first structure to employ all of the elements of Gothic architecture.
The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Governed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it contains a large collection of medieval artworks shown in the architectural settings of French monasteries and abbeys. Its buildings are centered around four cloisters—the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie—that were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Grey Barnard in France before 1913, and moved to New York. Barnard's collection was bought for the museum by financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. Other major sources of objects were the collections of J. P. Morgan and Joseph Brummer.
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole community often met there daily for readings and to hear the abbot or senior monks talk. When attached to a collegiate church, the dean, prebendaries and canons of the college meet there. The rooms may also be used for other meetings of various sorts; in medieval times monarchs on tour in their territory would often take them over for their meetings and audiences. Synods, ecclesiastical courts and similar meetings often took place in chapter houses.
Montmajour Abbey, formally the Abbey of St. Peter in Montmajour, was a fortified Benedictine monastery built between the 10th and 18th centuries on what was originally an island five kilometers north of Arles, in what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône Department, in the region of Provence in the south of France.
Santo Domingo de Silos Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the village of Santo Domingo de Silos in the southern part of Burgos Province in northern Spain. The monastery is named after the eleventh-century saint Dominic of Silos.
Mosan art is a regional style of art from the valley of the Meuse in present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Although in a broader sense the term applies to art from this region from all periods, it generally refers to Romanesque art, with Mosan Romanesque architecture, stone carving, metalwork, enamelling and manuscript illumination reaching a high level of development during the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.
Romanesque art is the art of Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 12th century, or later depending on region. The preceding period is known as the Pre-Romanesque period. The term was invented by 19th-century art historians, especially for Romanesque architecture, which retained many basic features of Roman architectural style – most notably round-headed arches, but also barrel vaults, apses, and acanthus-leaf decoration – but had also developed many very different characteristics. In Southern France, Spain, and Italy there was an architectural continuity with the Late Antique, but the Romanesque style was the first style to spread across the whole of Catholic Europe, from Sicily to Scandinavia. Romanesque art was also greatly influenced by Byzantine art, especially in painting, and by the anti-classical energy of the decoration of the Insular art of the British Isles. From these elements was forged a highly innovative and coherent style.
Medieval architecture in North America is an anachronism. Some structures in North America can however be classified as medieval, either by age or origin. In rare cases these structures are seen as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Although much of this is pseudoscience, these buildings are of interest to American scholars of medieval architecture.
The Abbey of Fontenay is a former Cistercian abbey located in the commune of Marmagne, near Montbard, in the département of Côte-d'Or in France. It was founded by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118, and built in the Romanesque style. It is one of the oldest and most complete Cistercian abbeys in Europe, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. Of the original complex comprising church, dormitory, cloister, chapter house, caldarium, refectory, dovecote and forge, all remain intact except the refectory and are well maintained. The Abbey of Fontenay, along with other Cistercian abbeys, forms a connecting link between Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
The Master of Cabestany is the name given to an anonymous sculptor active in the second half of the 12th century. He was identified in the 1930s after the discovery of several pieces remarkable for their workmanship and their style; chief among these was the tympanum of the church in Cabestany in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, from which he received his name. Subsequent research confirmed the presence of his works in the departments of Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales, as well as in northern Catalonia; examples of his art have also been seen in Tuscany and in Navarre.
Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines Abbey is a Benedictine abbey in Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, France. It was dedicated to Saint Genesius and Saint Michael, to whom the surviving church is still dedicated.
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. The term "Romanesque" is usually used for the period from the 10th to the 12th century with "Pre-Romanesque" and "First Romanesque" being applied to earlier buildings with Romanesque characteristics. Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, diversified by regional materials and characteristics, but with an overall consistency that makes it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman Architecture. The Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture.
Moissac Abbey was a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Moissac, Tarn-et-Garonne in south-western France. A number of its medieval buildings survive, including the abbey church, which has a famous and important Romanesque sculpture around the entrance.
Moutiers-Saint-Jean Abbey was a monastery located in what is now the village of Moutiers-Saint-Jean in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France. It is in Burgundy, northwest of Dijon.
The Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques, France, was a popular stop for pilgrims traveling the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, in what is now Spain. The main draw for medieval pilgrims at Conques were the remains of Sainte-Foy, a young woman martyred during the fourth century. The relics of Sainte-Foy arrived in Conques through theft in 866. After unsuccessful attempts to acquire the relics of Saint Vincent of Saragossa and then the relics of St. Vincent Pompejac in Agen, the abbey authorities set their sights on the relics of Sainte-Foy at the ancient St. Faith's Church, Sélestat. The Conques abbey opened a priory next to the shrine in Sélestat. A monk from Conques posed as a loyal monk in Agen for nearly a decade in order to get close enough to the relics to steal them. The abbey church has been a listed monument since 1840.
The Romanesque style of architecture was introduced in Portugal between the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. In general, Portuguese cathedrals have a heavy, fortress-like appearance, with crenellations and few decorative elements apart from portals and windows. Portuguese Romanesque cathedrals were later extensively modified, among others the Old Cathedral of Coimbra, although it only had some minor changes.
The Fuentidueña Apse is a Romanesque apse dated 1175–1200 that was built as part of the San Martín Church at Fuentidueña, province of Segovia, Castile and León, Spain. Little is known about the church's commission, design or early history. It is believed to have been built when the town was of strategic importance to the Christian kings of Castile in their defence against Moorish invaders; the church is situated on an imposing hill below a fortified castle.
The Reliquary Shrine is an especially complex 14th century container for relics, now in The Cloisters, New York. It is made from translucent enamel, gilt-silver and paint, and dated to c 1325–50. Although first mentioned in a convent in Budapest, its style and influences indicates French craftsmanship. It has been tentatively attributed by the Met to Jean de Toul, a French goldsmith about whom little is known, but who is associated with a small number of works with similar stylistic characteristics.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
