in 1976, on a Romanesque church in the west of France.
I thought it was a representation of drunkenness
amongst other depictions of sins particularly condemned
by the moralists of the 11th and 12th centuries.
I was (of course) wrong. It shows a sinful man,
but he is not a drunkard. He is a musician, a category
loathed by the Christian Moralists because, to them,
music meant dancing, and dancing meant sex.
Corbels on the outside of churches often showed
Unchristian Behaviour and Spectacle,
and featured acrobats, contortionists, dancing bears,
exhibitionists, mummers and actors, lascivious animals
(pigs and dogs being the most common).
This corbel*, on the parish church at Givrezac
in western France, shows a Dolio-player,
not a man drinking straight from a barrel.
Because non-religious music led to sexual immorality
he is shown with diabolical (pointy) genitals.
He is also wearing a horned cap, such as an actor
or jongleur might wear,
to emphasise his devilish unacceptabliity.
Hundreds of such corbels can be seen on French and Spanish churches.
The consumption of alcohol was not discouraged
because weak beers and wines were the only liquids
(apart from milk)
that could be drunk safely, especially on the busy Pilgrim (Religious-tourist)
Roads to Rome and Compostela, along which monasteries
(mostly Benedictine) ran canteens and dormitories
and hospices and mortuary (and probably insurance) services.
In the twelfth century over a million Pilgrims (Religious Tourists)
crossed the Pyrenees on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
and so it goes
*a corbel is a bracket support for an architectural weight,
in this case the weight of a barrel-vaulted roof
resting on a beam of stone or wood laid along the wall of the nave of a church.
The word derives from the French for Raven (corbeau, corbie in vernacular English)
– don't ask me why! Perversely, the French for this type of figurative corbel is modillon.
2 comments:
Is this an erratum for the book you published a few decades ago? How many more flawed interpretations are still in there?
I'm an ardent collector of errata!
M.
Not exactly a correction of an erratumn since art-historical research is always ongoing.
It's more of an update. Images of Lust, 'a pioneering study', is long out of date, mainly due to the plethora of excellent photos which became available on the web since the 1990s. I frequently check on churches for recent photos, and am able now to see more of the context of Romanesque corbel-tables.
When I photographed megaliths and Romanesque sculptures in the 1970s, colour slides were the means of rtecording what one saw. Film was expensive. Now one can take a hundred shots at a site at absolutely no expense whatsoever, and can choose the best.
Of course most people who now take (digital) photographs are incapable of selection, let alone cropping, editing and enhancing their photographs.
When'the many take over' standards inevitably fall. To find good photos one has to go to specialised FlickR groups or similar. On the Canecillos y Modillones FlickR group there are terrific photos, many by another Martin who has a great eye, a great camera, and a Wanderlust that he can indulge.
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