Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-10T06:51:53.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

IV.—The Sculpture of Visigothic France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

Get access

Extract

The sculpture of Dark Age France is still almost unknown to archaeologists This is due not to any shortage of material, some of it of a high quality, but rather to an absence of adequate publication. A certain number of objects have been reproduced ad nauseam in the major works of reference. But with the exception of the illustrations in Coutil, L'Art mérovingien et carolingien (an extremely valuable, if inaccurate, body of material) and in De Lasteyrie, L'Architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane, and of sporadic records in the journals of local societies, there is little else that is available for study. It ishardly surprising that even the main lines of development of French sculpture in this period are quite uncertain; and that uncertainty is at present likely to remain. In the absence of published material the most that can be attempted is the identification and description of single groups of sculpture, which may ultimately provide the bricks for some more imposing structure.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1938

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 80 note 1 The group of sculpture here considered constitutes only a part of the fifth-century output of Marseilles. The remainder consists in part of exotic works (e.g. the slabs from Belcodène in the Musée Borely, perhaps of African origin), in part of other groups of late Roman sarcophagi. The latter are chiefly known from the often summary sketches of pre-Revolutionary antiquaries; and although iconographically interesting, they do not seem to have played any important part in the subsequent history of French sculpture and they fall, therefore, outside the scope of this paper. It is, however, important to remember that the validity of the inferences here drawn is limited to the group under discussion.

page 81 note 1 This altar played a long and important part in local life. Not only did it become an object of great veneration, as attested by the hundreds of secondary inscriptions which it now bears; but in late Carolingian times it also inspired a whole series of altars of similar form in Hérault, Roussillon, and Catalonia (studied at length by M. Deschamps in Mélanges d'hist, du moyen âge offertes à M. Ferdinand Lot, 1925), which played an important part in the contemporary renaissance of stone-carving.

page 82 note 1 The sarcophagus of Gorgonius at Ancona (Haseloff, Pre-Komanesque Sculpture in Italy, pl. 14). It by no means follows that the dates of purchase and of final employment were the same. In the present instance a date some ten years earlier would perhaps accord better with the evidence. But the point is not here of major importance.

page 82 note 2 City-Gate sarcophagi’ in Art Bulletin, X, 1927, 145Google Scholar, with which compare the same author's Columnar sarcophagi in the Latin West’, Art Bulletin, XIV, 1932, 103–85;Google Scholar here cited subsequently as Lawrence, 1927, and Lawrence, 1932.

page 82 note 3 Lawrence, 1927, figs. 2–5; Lawrence, 1932, no. 96; Garrucci, cccxxviii, 1–3, cccxxix, 1. Dated by Miss Lawrence c. 380–390, from its undoubted priority to the dated sarcophagus of Gorgonius at Ancona (Lawrence, 1932, no. 98).

page 82 note 4 This theme, arches and all, reappears on the City-Gate sarcophagus in St. Peter's, Rome (Lawrence, 1927, figs. 15–18; Lawrence, 1932, no. 100), which is roughly contemporary with that at Ancona (n. 1, p. 82).

page 84 note 1 See refs. s.v. no. 15.

page 85 note 1 Le Blant, nos. 49 and 69, with reproductions in the text. Of the latter considerable fragments have recently been unearthed in the crypt of St. Victor.

page 85 note 2 Die Provence in merowingischer Zeit, Stuttgart, 1933.

page 90 note 1 This is apparent from the works of Sidonius Apollinaris, several of whose friends lived within the Visigothic territory. He himself knew Bordeaux and Toulouse, and describes the court of Theodoric II (A.D. 453–66) at the latter (Ep., i, 2).

page 90 note 2 A good deal of valuable information is contained in Courrent et Héléna, Répertoire archéologique du département de l'Aude (Montpellier, 1935).Google Scholar

page 90 note 3 Of the columns, two are in the Metropolitan Museum at New York, two are in the Louvre, four are in the courtyard of no. 4 rue Joutx-Aigues, Toulouse, and the remainder in the Musée des Augustins at Toulouse or in private hands; see Rey, La Sculpture Rotnane Languedocienne (Toulouse, 1936), p. 35,Google Scholar for drawings of those formerly at Montegut-Ségla, now in a villa at Nice. The most recent survey of the evidence relating to La Daurade is that of Woodruff, Helen, ‘The iconography and date of the mosaics of La Daurade’ (Art Bulletin, XIII (1931), pp. 80104),CrossRefGoogle Scholar who concludes that the evidence of iconography is in accordance with a fifth-century date and close contact with Ravenna. The conclusion is in keeping with the historical probabilities. It would, however, in this connexion be interesting to know more of the mosaic decoration of St. Victor at Marseilles, of which a tantalizing fragment alone now remains (see F. Benoit, L'Abbaye de Saint-Victor, etc., 1936, rep. p. 16).

page 91 note 1 See Courrent et Héléna, Répertoire archéologique du département de l''Aude: also, less fully, the volumes in the same series for Roussillon and Hérault.

page 92 note 1 The recognition of certain examples as coming from the quarries of St.-Béat (Haute-Garonne) and St. Pons-de-Thomières is probably justified. Other identifications are perhaps less securely founded, and the writer has not ventured to add to their number.

page 92 note 2 e.g. nos. 72 and 123, Narbonne 13 and La Valbonne, both of which are late.

page 92 note 3 The fluted columns are strongly reminiscent of those which appear commonly on the Gallo- Roman stelae of the upper Garonne (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, Catal. 239, 256, 276, 327 b, 372, 374).

page 93 note 1 Espérandieu, Recueil des bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine, i, 637.

page 95 note 1 Espérandieu, vol. ii, passim; it is especially common on the stelae of the Upper Garonne.

page 95 note 2 (a) Toulouse, in the Musée des Augustins, catal. (1912) no. 506; Le Blant, no. 154, pl. XL, 2.

(b) Auch, Gers, from the church of St. Orens, now in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, catal. (1912) no. 825; Le Blant, no. 115, pl. XXV.

(c) Lucq-de-Bearn, 5 Km. north of Oloron, Basses-Pyrénées, in the church; Le Blant, no. 121, pl. XXVII.

One or more of the fragments preserved in the museum at Auch may belong to the same group. The absence of any trace of Visigothic influence leaves little doubt that these sarcophagi precede the establishment of Visigothic sculpture in the same region, and that they belong to the early years of the fifth century. Though primitive in execution they show a considerable artistic sense.

page 97 note 1 Auch 2, Cahors, Loudun, Le Mas-St.-Antonin, Montpezat, Narbonne 12, Poitiers, Toulouse 1, 5, 26, 27.

page 97 note 2 Espérandieu, Recueil, ii, 1240. The resemblance of the Visigothic fragment no. 19, Auch 2, to this sarcophagus is sufficiently close to suggest direct derivation.

page 97 note 3 Cahors, Loudun, and Poitiers.

page 97 note 4 Espérandieu, Recueil, i, 637.

page 97 note 5 It occurs five times—Toulouse 1, 5, and 27, and Clermont-Ferrand (twice).

page 98 note 1 Peirce and Tyler, L'Art byzantin, i, 160, late fifth century.

page 98 note 2 B.M. Anglo-Saxon Guide, p. 152, fig. 206. It was perhaps derived locally, e.g. from a fine mosaic at Uthina in Africa Proconsularis on which a huntsman, nude but with flying cloak, spears a boar (Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pl. XLVII, I).

page 98 note 3 The history of this group of hunting sarcophagi has never been worked out. It is, however, clear that in its latest form it came within the Arlesian and north Italian complex. To this group belong the specimens at Ajaccio, Corsica (Espérandieu, Recueil, i, 22), Arles (op. cit., i, 178), another at Arles (unpublished), Béziers (Puig y Cadafalch and others, L'Arquitectura románica a Catalunya, fig. 78), Cahors (pl. XXXIII, 3), Clermont-Ferrand (Le Blant, p. 68), Déols (Espérandieu, Recueil, ii, 1560), Gerona (Puig y Cadafalch, op. cit., fig. 77), Le Luc near Fréjus (Espérandieu, Recueil, i, 29), Orange (Espérandieu, Recueil, i, 267), Rome (Lawrence, Art Bull., June 1932, fig. 63), and Naples (Museum, inv. no. G. 766). The cloaked huntsman is found on those at Aries, Cahors, Déols, Le Luc, and Rome. The immediate predecessors of the group are also Western, e.g. Barcelona (Puig y Cadafalch, op. cit., fig. 74), Reims (Congrès Arch. Fr., 1911, 14, and plate), and Rome (an example from the Borghese collection, now in the Louvre); but ultimately they seem to derive from the East and there are obvious links with such objects as the Sidamara sarcophagus.

page 99 note 1 An exception must be made of a sarcophagus at Tarragona (Kingsley Porter, Spanish Romanesque Sculpture, i, pl. 3 A) which has obvious affinities with the French Visigothic figured series. It stands alone, however, in the Spanish series, and must presumably be regarded as derivative from the French. With the single exception of no. 129, Ampurias, the sculpture here termed ‘Visigothic’ does not seem to be found in the Spanish portion of the Visigothic empire. This is hardly surprising when its fundamentally non-barbarian, late Roman character is appreciated. The fifth-century sculptors in Spain, as well as in France, were drawing largely upon provincial Roman art for their inspiration, and their work inevitably reflected rather the long-standing differences already visible in the sculpture of the classical period in the two countries than the more recent, artificial, political unity.

page 101 note 1 Espérandieu, ii, 1048; his illustration unfortunately shows none of the low-relief decoration with which it is covered.

page 101 note 2 This point was suggested to me by Mr. C. E. Stevens.

page 102 note 1 This evidence cannot here be discussed, but the writer hopes to do so on some future occasion.

page 102 note 2 So exact is the resemblance that critical scholars, e.g. Schapiro, Mayer, ‘The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac’, Art Bulletin, XIII, 1931, 493ff.Google Scholar, have believed the lower face to be part of an early Christian monument re-used. The presence, however, of both motifs, similarly related, on another lintel now in the museum at Cahors (pl. XXXII, 8) can only indicate that the two motifs are contemporary; and of the Romanesque date of the front of the Moissac lintel there can be no question.

The frequent use of the chrism in the Romanesque art of Aquitaine further illustrates this tendency, which can be seen also in the capitals at Conques or on objects such as the eleventhcentury sarcophagus (perhaps a re-used lintel) in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, illustrated on pl. XXXV, 7.

page 103 note 1 Nos. 49, 65, and 115 (Mende, Narbonne 13, and La Valbonne) alone are certainly members of this late group. Other sarcophagi at Narbonne illustrate peculiarities (see Appendix) which perhaps suggest a similarly late date.

page 103 note 2 The San Clemente panels are of purely Byzantine type.

page 104 note 1 The ‘catherine-wheel’ scroll (e.g. De Lasteyrie, L' Architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane, fig. 200 from Bordeaux) is probably an example of a motif imported into France from Italy. A late sixth-century date is certain for the sarcophagus at Ravenna (Peirce and Tyler, L'Art byzantin, ii, 152 c). Other French examples occur at Aix-en-Provence, at Vienne, at Lyons, and at Bordeaux.

page 104 note 2 Closely related examples occur in the museums at Aries and at Narbonne, upon each of which the interstices of the design are filled with foliate motifs similar to those on the Alyscamps sarcophagus. Cf. pl. XXXVI, 3, a slab at Narbonne.

page 104 note 3 E.g. the stone and plaster sarcophagi of Burgundy and of northern France. For the use of this motif in late sixth-century Provence, cf. the tomb of Boethius at Carpentras, dated c. A.D. 600 (Le Blant, pl. LVI, 2). Previous to this date it does not seem to occur.