Medieval Irish Architecture And The Concept Of Romanesque

This book presents a fresh perspective on eleventh- and twelfth-century Irish architecture, and a critical assessment of the value of describing it, and indeed contemporary European architecture in general, as “Romanesque”. Medieval Irish Architecture and the Concept of Romanesque is a new and original study of medieval architectural culture in Ireland. The book’s central premise is that the concept of a “Romanesque” style in eleventh- and twelfth-century architecture across Western Europe, including Ireland, is problematic, and that the analysis of building traditions of that period is not well served by the assumption that there was a common style. Detailed discussion of important buildings in Ireland, a place marginalised within the “Romanesque” model, reveals the Irish evidence to be intrinsically interesting to students of medieval European architecture, for it is evidence which illuminates how architectural traditions of the Middle Ages were shaped by balancing native and imported needs and aesthetics, often without reference to Romanitas. This book is for specialists and students in the fields of Romanesque, medieval archaeology, medieval architectural history, and medieval Irish studies.

"This book presents a fresh perspective on eleventh- and twelfth-century Irish architecture. Eschewing its conventional description as "Romanesque", it offers a critical assessment of that term, "Romanesque", and of its accompanying theory of a common, pan-European, style of architecture in the early second millennium CE. Medieval Irish Architecture and the Concept of Romanesque is a new and original study of medieval architectural culture in Ireland. The book's central premise is that the concept of a "Romanesque" style in eleventh- and twelfth-century architecture across western Europe, including Ireland, is problematic, and that the analysis of building traditions of that period is not well served by the assumption that there was a common style. Detailed discussion of important buildings in Ireland, a place marginalised within the "Romanesque" model, reveals the Irish evidence to be intrinsically interesting to students of medieval European architecture, for it is evidence which illuminates how architectural traditions of the middle ages were shaped by balancing native and imported needs and aesthetics, often without reference to Romanitas. This book is for specialists and students in the fields of Romanesque, medieval archaeology, medieval architectural history, and medieval Irish studies"--

This is the first book devoted to churches in Ireland dating from the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century to the early stages of the Romanesque around 1100, including those built to house treasures of the golden age of Irish art, such as the Book of Kells and the Ardagh chalice. � Carrag�in's comprehensive survey of the surviving examples forms the basis for a far-reaching analysis of why these buildings looked as they did, and what they meant in the context of early Irish society. � Carrag�in also identifies a clear political and ideological context for the first Romanesque churches in Ireland and shows that, to a considerable extent, the Irish Romanesque represents the perpetuation of a long-established architectural tradition.

The Romanesque style was a pan-European tradition of art and architecture that emerged on the Continent during the 11th century. It reached Ireland as the movement to reform the Irish Church gathered pace at the start of the 12th century. Executed under secular patronage but for the benefit of ecclesiastics and their churches, it became a metaphor for that reform. The fashion for Romanesque faltered in eastern Ireland with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in 1169, but it survived into the 13th century west of the Shannon. This book is the first substantial analysis of Romanesque Ireland to appear in thirty years. Concentrating on architecture and sculpture, it examines how Irish artists and builders of the 12th century reconfigured the language of the international Romanesque according to their own aesthetic tastes, and it considers the meanings of their art to contemporary spectators. In a departure from earlier literature, this book also explores the concept of 'style' itself, and its value in reconstructing social identity in the past.

Romanesque is the style name given to the art and architecture of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. First used in the early nineteenth century to express the perceived indebtedness of the visual-artistic and architectural cultures of this period to their Classical antecedents, the term has survived two centuries of increasingly sophisticated readings of the relevant medieval buildings and objet d'art. The study of Romanesque as a stylistic phenomenon is now almost exclusively the preserve of art historians, particularly in the English-speaking world. Here 'the Romanesque' is subjected to a long overdue, theoretically-informed, archaeological inquiry. The ideological foundations and epistemological boundaries of Romanesque scholarship are critiqued, and the constructs of 'Romanesque' and 'Europe' are deconstructed, and alternative strategies for interpreting Romanesque's constituent material are mapped out. This book should, at the very least, illuminate the need for debate.

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