By-products of a working trip to Hildesheim from 3 to 8 July 2017 were photographs that continue the peinture trouvée concept. Whereas on earlier occasions (see Report 07/2017 and 09/2017) the choice of motif remained entirely open, and merely reacted to the inspiration of the moment, here a cycle of motifs was established in advance. Photography is always related to the location in the sense of here and now. In this case, the relationship to place was reinforced by concentration on what makes Hildesheim special and enriches it: Romanesque architecture. From the Ottonian Church of St Michael and the Church of the Cross to the cathedral and the late Romanesque Church of St Godehard, Hildesheim presents a well-known ensemble of Romanesque architecture. The peinture trouvée, as the following examples show, was not about recording the Romanesque formal vocabulary but about exploring the aura of Romanesque religious architecture. It was not about reproduction, but about images.
of the Cross I
17-14-007
of the Cross II
17-14-008
of the Cross III
17-14-009
On the Romanesque capital
The division of a column into a base, shaft and capital derives from Antiquity. In Western architecture we observe the retention of this system across different styles. Thus the column became metaphorically a pillar of our architectural tradition. The Romanesque period contributed a unique impulse to this development. Alongside the round arch, its essential stylistic feature is the capital. No other style, from Carolingian architecture to Modernism, has found such clear and individual expression in the form of the capital.
The cushion capital forms the logical and organic transition from the roundness of the column to the angularity of the entablature. In no other era does this transition appear to be so consciously designed and so clearly manifested. And in no other era is the function of the transition to a similar extent an aesthetic force – comparable to the Corinthian capital of Antiquity. The cushion capital is more than a stylistic element. It is an expressive element, and like the round arch it determines the physiognomy of Romanesque imagery.
Within Romanesque architecture, the cushion capital underwent its own evolution. In the early Ottonian period it seemed simple and clear, a principle that could not be improved. Later centuries used this principle as the basis and fundamental form for opulent ornamentation. They did not develop the cushion capital further – they repurposed it. As a transition from the round to the angular, the cushion capital originally served the organic whole of the building. Like a joint, it promotes the “body language” of the architecture. It does entirely merge with the whole, yet keeps its own face, always as part of the whole. The ornamentation disrupts this relationship, making the capital into a microcosm. In its magnificent embellishment it is no longer part of the whole, but a part within the whole – an item for perception sui generis.
This change of purpose was accompanied by a second shift in function. Seen against the background that Romanesque architecture cultivated the principle of the series or row to a high degree, in that double round arches and round-arch arcades enhance the expressivity of the architecture, the cushion capital departed from this ethic of uniformity. The rhythm of rows of equal columns became a series of individual expressive forms. The building as a whole, which previously depended on the cushion capital serving as support, now switched to a new purpose. It was in danger of becoming a foil or a surface for autonomous items of perception, a kind of picture gallery. The arcades of columns in a church nave or the columned space of a crypt became a parcours of visual diversity, as no capital is like another. The unbounded imagination even departed from the principle of the capital cushion and was elevated to plant forms, as if memories of the Corinthian capital were taking hold in the context of a proto-Renaissance. The Romanesque artist confronted the received canon of forms with his own unrestricted creativity. In this, the capital had the role of an outlet.
Romanesque architecture appears unique to us in three ways. Firstly, no other era even remotely approaches the creative diversity that it devotes to designing its capitals. The Gothic formal language, richly developed as it was, fitted unconditionally into the macrocosm of the whole, so that the importance of the capital is greatly diminished. The Renaissance and Baroque periods limited themselves to quoting capitals from Antiquity, not to mention the neo-Classical and Historicist periods. Secondly, the cushion capital, as a transition, a connecting element, positively reinvented the function of a capital. In no other era does the capital take on a similar structural meaning. And thirdly, the exact opposite also applies: in no other era is complete integration followed by absolute disintegration in such opposition. Only Romanesque architecture saw the capital acquire independence as a visual unit, become a limb detached from the body of a building, and establish imagery with its own laws. A part of a work became a work itself.