Romanesque wall painting in central France: the politics of narrative (review)

198 Reviews after thetenthcentury. There arerealhistorical foundations, then, for a view that canonical distinctions between poetry and prophecy were fused in the later Middle Ages. Langland's work sprang from that fusion, and the public voice it offered. A full and adequately historical account of it, as foreseen by Bloomfield, remains to be written. David Lawton Department of English University of Tasmania Kupfer, Marcia, Romanesque wall painting in central France: the politics of narrative (Yale publications in the history of art) N e w Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1993; cloth; pp. x, 261; 16 colour plates, 230 monochromefigures;R.R.P. US$50.00. The genesis of this study was Kupfer's 1982 Yale doctoral dissertation on the frescoes in the church of Saint-Martin at Nohant-Vicq. After reviewing in the introduction the research by French, and occasionally non-French, nationals into the subject matter in the 'era of antiquarian authority in medieval art' (p. 4) and by m o d e m scholars investigating theresourcesof the patrimoine, Kupfer makes a case for her own perspective. Icons, in this instance 'programmatically unique' wall-paintings (p. 2), allude to regional tensions within the clergy. This line of thinking is similar to that of H61ene Toubert, whose essays in the 1980s interpreted 'politically' romanesque art in the abbey church of the Trinity at Vendome and at SantAngelo in Formis. Kupfer devots three chapters to the sites, styles, and pictorial forms in the Berry corpus before enveloping them in a narratological exegesis in three further chapters. The appendix is reserved for an exhaustive documentary history of the locations and then art work. The general index includes toponyms, themes and icons, but omits entries for 'Byzantine' and 'Carolingian'. The bibliography is a valuable adjunct to research. Finally, the viewer wUl be pleased with the abundant archive of very clear plates and figures along with schematic drawings or diagrams, principally by Iliad Terra, Maria d'AttUio, Yahja jan and Whitney Stoddard. The usefulness of this inventory would have been strengthened by the provision of an index of captions and the approximate measurements of the paintings. Kupfer's grasp of the terminology used for architectural and painted elements inspires Reviews 199 confidence, although it is preferable to employ the nomenclature Virgin and Child for French art rather than Madonna and Child. Ecclesiastical motivation for tbe art work and activity by artists is somewhat contentious. The thrust of Kupfer's argument implies that painted decoration in parish churches of the Berry region helped elucidate parish structure and concurrendy 'enforced social distinction between the lay and clerical members of [the] Christian community' (p. 149). The decoration, she claims, was 'concentrated in chevets' and the priority of the decorative regimes was for clerical spectators. The laity, by comparison, was permitted a limited visual access. Kupfer states: 'Granted, the inconclusive nature of the archaeological evidence cautions against overstating the opposition between nave and sanctuary decoration. Yet it seems fan to say that most ensembles and fragments of decoration in Berry privilege an ecclesiastical viewer, or perhaps in some cases a ranking member of the laity, like the occupant of the fortified manor . . . Where painting is visible to viewers occupying the nave, it serves to amplify the spiritual and social differentiation of space within the church' (pp. 40-41). Nevertheless, the tenor of her book is to suggest otherwise. The bagiographic narrative of the paintings was intended to address the clergy. The laity remained marginal. But artistic schema recognized lay parishioners within then own social position. Moreover, if one was a contemporary believer, then one had no quarrel with the priests, who were the accepted intercessors between Mankind and God. Surely for the twelfth-century Christian Berrichon, it was an accepted part of 'being'. Seen in this context, it is a moot point whether the laity were of the nobility or were viUeins, and if one was Uliterate, then the priests were there for that pedagogical purpose. The deficiency in Kupfer's approach is that she has attempted to redefine sociological mores of the twelfth century in a twentieth-century framework. It is difficult to sustain the validity of the concept of 'enforced' (p. 149). One has trouble...