Pre-Romanesque Art: What it is and What Its Characteristics Are

It is possible that there is no name for a more general artistic period than the concept of pre-romanesque. The word refers to a supposedly homogeneous style that occurred in Europe in the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the appearance of the first Romanesque style, in the 11th century.

But What is pre-Romanesque really? Can we really talk about a specific style when we talk about the early years of the Middle Ages? In this article we are going to briefly review five centuries of art history that have been considered a kind of mixed bag when, in reality, they offer multiple and varied characteristics.

What is pre-Romanesque art?

The so-called pre-romanesque art It spans from the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century) to the mid-11th century. However, this is a relatively recent nomenclature, since the first historiography of art followed the archaeologist Charles de Gerville (1769-1853), the first to use the word Romanesque to refer to the architecture carried out in the centuries after the Roman Empire and until the arrival of the Gothic.

In fact, the term Romanesque It had been used since the 18th century to name the languages ​​that appeared from Latin. Later, the linguist François-Juste-Marie Raynouard (1761-1836) specified that these modern languages ​​were also enriched by other linguistic families, such as Arabic or Basque (which influenced Spanish), or the Germanic languages ​​in case of other Romance languages.

In a clear parallel with the evolution of language, some historians identified the works of art executed after the fall of the Roman Empire with the appearance of the Romance languages. That is to say; The artistic expression of the first centuries of the Middle Ages was related to an evolution of Roman art. Hence the expression Romanesquewhose etymology is much clearer if we take the Anglo-Saxon name romanesque; that is, something like pseudo-Roman art. Saving the distance, there is some reason in this, since we could say that Romanesque art is to Roman art what the Romance languages ​​are to Latin, since, depending on the territory, very clear stylistic differences are observed.

What, then, is pre-Romanesque? We have said that, for traditional historiography, there was only the Romanesque, the art that succeeded Rome and dominated Europe until the appearance of Gothic art. However, can we call Carolingian architecture, for example, Romanesque? And the art that dominated the north of the Hispanic peninsula, also known as Asturian art?

Obviously, These artistic manifestations have little to do with the Romanesque that appeared during the 11th century. The problem was evident, which is why, at the beginning of the 20th century, the validity of the term for a period of so many centuries began to be questioned.

Thus, the art historian Jean Hubert (1902-1994) proposed, in 1938, the term Art Préroman to specify the style prior to the Romanesque, a name that became widespread quickly and that, currently, still has great weight in art books.

The artificiality of a term

The craftsmen working in the Middle Ages were not aware, of course, that they belonged to a style that will later be called Romanesque. The lack of consensus in current historiography regarding what the term Romanesque includes and the classification of the periods that constitute it, makes it extremely difficult to also delimit the limits of the term. pre-romanesque.

If we follow Gerville’s theory and consider that the Romanesque begins with the fall of the Roman Empire, then we should call pre-Romanesque the art that was made during the Roman era and even before, which is really absurd. In a more logical way, we would have to go to Jean Hubert’s commentary and consider pre-romanesque to art made before the 11th century, in which there are numerous styles and currents, although this statement, today, is also being questioned by art historiography.

From all this, one of the things that is deduced is the artificiality of some terms. As Gombrich maintains in his immortal work The history of art The years between the end of Rome and the arrival of the Romanesque did not produce a homogeneous style, quite the opposite. We are in a fragmented Europe, in which the unity of the empire is nothing more than a vague memory.

In the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo, a very personal art was forged, as well as in the north of Hispania, after the Muslim conquest, with the birth of Asturian art. Later, with the empire of Charlemagne, one of the first medieval renaissances occurred, the Carolingian Renaissance, and so on.

The multiple influences of various artistic currents

In the first centuries of the (mis)called pre-romanesque We find, therefore, a multitude of currents that influence each other, and in no way can we speak of a single art. In Ireland and England in the 7th century, Christian monks adapted the aesthetics of the German invaders, especially in manuscripts, the greatest exponent of which is the so-called Lindisfarne Gospel Book. On the pages of this manuscript we find a cross made with motifs of intertwined dragons and snakes, directly inspired by the art of these Nordic peoples.

In parallel to this influence Barbara survives in Europe pre-romanesque classical culture. This is something that we cannot forget, since the Middle Ages did not represent, at all, a break with antiquity, but rather a reinterpreted continuation. One of the most outstanding cases in this sense is the Carolingian Renaissance, a time of splendor and cultural resurgence that occurred in the empire of Charlemagne (c. 747-814).

The king of the Franks, finally crowned emperor by the pope on Christmas in the year 800, considered himself the legitimate successor of the Roman emperors, so his cultural project was based on recovering and strengthening classical wisdom.

One of the greatest monuments of Carolingian art is, without a doubt, the church of Aachen, the capital of the empire. The typology of the building is inspired by the Byzantine basilica of Ravenna, from which Charlemagne requested papal permission to send him mosaic pieces and other objects.

However, although it is true that the influence of San Vitale of Ravenna is evident, Isidoro G. Bango has suggested a series of differences, among which the verticality of the Italian basilica stands out and the horizontal predominance in the case of the chapel of Aachen.

Another of the medieval revivals that art historians such as Gombrich and Panovsfy have already pointed out is the Ottonian Renaissance, which occurred during the reign of Otto I, crowned emperor in 962. As such, it stands as the successor of Charlemagne and his project of cultural renewal, which is materialized especially in the unique Ottonian architecture, of which the Magdebourg cathedral is a magnificent example, although it contains numerous later modifications.

An interesting case of art included in the epithet of pre-romanesque It is Asturian art. Once the kingdom of Toledo was extinguished with the Muslim conquest, in the Iberian Peninsula there were some Christian centers in the north, which would be the origin of the Asturian kingdom. In the Asturian case, the mirror in which he looks at himself to create his art is the disappeared Visigoth art, which in turn was inspired, once again, by Roman forms.

Thus, Oviedo, the Asturian capital since Alfonso II, will take over from the old Visigothic Toledo, in those years under Islamic power. From this period we preserve the extraordinary church of San Julián de los Prados, with three naves, and in which you can clearly see the iconostasis, an element that, in the liturgy prior to the Gregorian reform, separated the area of ​​​​the faithful from that reserved for the clergy. But what probably attracts the most attention about the building are its wall paintings, which present architectural motifs, probably related to the celestial Jerusalem.

This building and the subsequent buildings from the time of Ramiro I (Santa María del Naranco, San Miguel de Lillo…) present, indeed, and as Concepción Abad maintains (see bibliography), solutions that, later, will be given in the Romanesque, which has supported the name of Asturian pre-Romanesque either proto-romanesque. However, Abad makes it clear that, in reality, these solutions represent the evolution of Roman solutions, which testifies, once again, that The art of the early Middle Ages constantly turns to Roman art to find its own creative version.

Conclusions in reference to pre-Romanesque art

By way of conclusion, we can affirm that pre-Romanesque art does not exist. The term is, like so many others, a completely artificial name, created to unify an era and styles that, in reality, have little or nothing to do with each other. Because, although it is true that, as we have already seen, these currents influence each other, There is nothing that can lead us to consider the art created in the first medieval centuries as a homogeneous whole.

On the other hand, the term pre-romanesque assumes the existence of a Romanesquewhich we have already seen also causes confusion and debate among scholars. In each European territory there was a Romanesque concrete and different that, despite sharing common elements, had its own unique characteristics.

Western historiography has tended since the Enlightenment to group concepts and see similarities and relationships where, often, there are none. This is why terms like pre-romanesque They must be questioned and deserve to be analyzed from a new perspective. Only in this way (and not by generalizing in a banal way) can we understand all the complexity of an era.