In Kedar’s sculptural analysis of the early Romanesque corbels, he focused on the small wall reliefs depicting intense human emotions which he claimed that art historians often neglected due to their insignificant roles and monstrous appearance. As a result, their meanings remained secluded from society for many centuries. The corbels jutting from the walls of Romanesque French churches illustrate not only the social caste of marginalized members of the medieval society but also their grotesque and frank style was a silent protest from the neat religious iconography of the church. The visual justification of the author’s argument was the collections of photographs taken from the Romanesque churches with secular corbel imagery. Instead of religious deities, secular images of men, women, and occasionally, beasts engaged in various actions (e.g. screaming, grimacing, mutilated naked bodies, lasciviousness, gambling, and rugged appearance) composed the whole set of corbel reliefs. The author provided a clear comparison on why these corbel reliefs somehow tend to ‘mock’ the religious imagery. Secular imagery of the corbels utilized men and women represented by distorted bodies and sinful acts, whilst men and women in the Christian iconography were depicted as incorruptible, role model figures for the society; with faces lack of humanly emotion, cold eyes, and clean appearance. By the term ‘clean appearance’ this meant that religious figures were depicted neat and often veiled to emphasize their unworldliness. In the contrast with the corbel images, these religious figures were made in the grander scale similar to the human height, and presented in the public. Meanwhile, the secular corbels depicting the life beyond the margins of the Medieval Caste were sculpted with less scale and located at the edge of the church wall; in other words, those people whose profession lies in the entertainment such as jugglers and acrobats, as well as men and women engaged in lascivious acts were treated as ‘outsiders’ of the medieval world. This explains why their imagery is located outside the church buildings. For the medieval world, intense human emotions were not tolerated and were often held in check by priests. Therefore, the artists, as Kedar argued, made these corbels as representations of the reality of the human world wherein human emotions were at the height of their power; beyond the control of the religious world. Kedar summed up that the sculptors were not only skilled in their art but also they adjusted their art so that the corbels can have dual interpretations based on the viewer’s knowledge. These sculptors served as “mediators” of the ordinary medieval life by blending some of the elements of common life onto the commissioned works whose emotions ran evident onto the intense facial expressions, distorted bodies, and limbs depicted in acts of anguish or sexuality. Therefore, these corbels symbolized the theme often neglected in the Romanesque society and that was the ability to represent the real face of humanity. The trend of cold gazes devoid of emotion amongst the saints may represent the ideal of the Church but it does not represent the emotions that dominate the medieval society. The evidences presented by Kedar correlates with the journals thesis because the pictures support how the medieval sculptors managed to incorporate humanistic portrayals in a religious edifice without earning the grudge of the officials. The words that the author used in explaining the points are understandable, clear, and rational. The pictures added further justifications to the point explained through words; and the readers will be able to understand the difference between religious and secular sculptures based on the photographs presented; that imagery way back in the Romanesque period was based on one’s social standing in life; and therefore, those who lived beyond the ideal and beyond the social caste were treated as vagabonds, worthless that they were often depicted on the marginalized edge of the society as well as in architecture. (Kedar 15-24).
WORKS CITED
Kedar, Nurith Kenaan. “The Margins of Society in Marginal Romanesque Sculpture.” Gesta 31.1 (1992): 15-24. Web. JSTOR. 29 Mar. 2016.
