Art of the Romanesque period was characterized by an important revival of monumental forms, notably sculptures and fresco paintings, which develop in close association with architectural decoration and exhibited a forceful and often severely structural quality. At the same time, an element of realism, which parallels the first flowering of vernacular literature, came to the fore. It was expressed in terms of a direct and naive observation of certain details drawn from daily life and heightened emphasis on emotion and fantasy. The first important monuments of Romanesque sculpture were created in the last of the 11th century and the first decades of the 12th century.
The art subjects we will discuss are from different areas from the Romanesque period. The Six Capitals or decorating rowing elements of columns are believed to have come from the interior of the Abbey Church of Saint-Laurent, near Cosne-Coura-Sur-Loire, Central France around 1125-50. The other subjects are evangelist plaques with symbols of four evangelists and a central decorative relief from Genoa, North Italy around 1250. There is no information about who or why they were created, as its known most of the art around this period was created for decoration interior and exterior of the churches.
The original size of the massive stone columns is around 10f tall about twice as high as they are displayed in the Philadelphia Museum of Arts. Compared to them the evangelist plaques are smaller around 2sq f rectangle. Both are flat on the back because they were made to assemble in the interior walls in the church. The arrangement elements abounded in seemingly endless combination of zoomorphic, vegetal, and abstract motives. One of the capitals is bold combinations of abstract intertwisting carves, branches and leaves. Some of the details on the columns are distracted from the time and weather, because they were made from stone. Instated of them the white soft looking marble...