![]() ![]() In Gascony, as a result of the concentration of ateliers issuing from many different artistic traditions, especially in buildings along the Garonne and Adour rivers, there are many instances of artistic exchange between different sculptural traditions. At each of the Gascon buildings decorated by teams of Porte des Comtes sculptors, the sculptors work independently of the local masons architecture and architectural sculpture at these buildings are the work of different individuals and belong to different traditions. These artists' travels are part of a general movement of sculptors (but not masons or architects) from neighboring regions into Gascony. This study examines the creation of a repertory of artistic forms and an atelier tradition at Saint-Sernin, and follows the diffusion of many of these artistic forms to buildings in Gascony, by ateliers composed of sculptors from Saint-Sernin. The transmission of this style can be best identified and studied in the context of the atelier. This dissertation focuses on the role of ateliers and atelier traditions in the creation and dissemination of a major style of Romanesque sculpture. Similar, but not identical, repertories of artistic forms can be found at four sites in Gascony-Saint-Sever de Rustan, Saint-Sever, Mazeres and Lescar. This repertory of artistic forms is first encountered in the works of the first sculptural atelier active at Saint-Sernin-named the Porte des Comtes atelier after the decoration of one of the earliest Romanesque decorated portals in southwestern France. This dissertation is the first study of the formation and dissemination of one of the most influential and internally consistent repertories of artistic forms in the Romanesque sculpture of southwestern France. ![]() The Abbey is now in private ownership and open to the public.The Porte des Comtes Atelier of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse and the Romanesque Sculpture of Southwest FranceĮarly Christian, Byzantine, and Medieval Art By the time of the French Revolution, it had been abandoned. Whilst it recovered for a while, by the sixteenth century the commendatory abbots were taking more and more of the Abbey’s income until the number of monks significantly decreased and the Abbey became incredibly poor. However, the Black Death, which reached Narbonne in 1348, decimated almost the entire community. Grants of land from the Counts of Barcelona and Vicountess Ermengard secured the wealth and status of the abbey and for a while it became one of the most powerful Cistercian abbeys in Europe, playing a crucial role during the crusade against the Cathars. However, after poor beginnings it needed to be refounded by Ermengarde, Vicountess of Narbonne and it joined the Cistercian order in 1145. It was founded in 1093 by Aimery I, Viscount of Narbonne. L’A bbaye de Fontfroide, near Narbonne, Aude, has had a turbulent history. Mise au tombeau, Eglise Saint-Pierre de Carennac A ninth-century golden reliquary in the church contains a piece of her skull. It is said that her relics were taken to Conques in 866 after being stolen from Agen by a monk. L’Abbaye Sainte-Foy de Conques, Aveyron, was an attraction for pilgrims because it held the relics of Sainte-Foy, a young woman from Agen who was martyred by being burned with a red-hot brazier during the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire. Two of the most important are in the Occitania region, in Conques and Toulouse. This was the age of pilgrimages and churches were built on the main routes from France to Santiago da Compostela. Occitania is particularly rich in Romanesque ecclesiastical buildings and over the past few months I have travelled through the Aveyron, Lot, Tarn et Garonne, Haute Garonne and Aude departments to visit some of the most important examples, especially those with outstanding tympana. The Romanesque style dominated religious architecture until the appearance of the Gothic in the Ile de France in the middle of the twelfth century. It was characterised by thick walls with vertical buttresses, small windows with semicircular arches, side aisles, barrel or groin vaults to support the roof, and often one or more large towers. Romanesque architecture appeared in France at the end of the tenth century and was particularly associated with the spread of the monastic orders who built many abbeys and monasteries in the style. A tour of the Occitania region of southern France in search of Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture.
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