Decoration
Lo que se ha conservado de la decoración está datado de ca. 1070 hasta inicios del siglo . La decoración se halla principalmente en piñones "Piñón (arquitectura)"), en postes y en portales&action=edit&redlink=1 "Portal (arquitectura) (aún no redactado)"). Al haber sido construidas y reconstruidas durante varios siglos, las iglesias muestran cambios en los estilos y en las necesidades.
Background
The best preserved decorations are found in Norway, but ornate remains also exist in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland.
The influence of rune stones on the development of the Urnes decorative style is generally accepted. 960 and 870, and have Christian iconography; on one side the figures of a lion "Lion (animal)") and a snake are shown and on the other a scene of the crucifixion.
Another possible influence was Celtic decorations, such as that of the Lindisfarne Gospels, a work written and illuminated by monks in the 19th century.[20].
Portals
The portals or part of them of about 140 stavkirke are preserved. Due to their decoration, they are divided, roughly, into three types: the simple profile portal, the pillar portal and the Vang type portal.
This type of portal is characterized by the presence of simple profiles or pilasters. It is mainly used at the entrance to the choir. About 20 examples of the type remain.
The pillared portal is a descendant of stone architecture. They have columns "Column (architecture)") or half columns that support archivolts in a semicircular arch. The columns have carved bases and capitals. They are richly decorated and were used both for the entrances to the church and to separate the choir from the nave (triumphal arch). About 40 pillar portals are known.
The Vang-type portals stand out for their sumptuous decoration; They consist of two planks flanking the entrance and a lintel, with continuous decoration on all of them. The lintel, supported by the two planks, in turn has two to five planks joined together by tenons and notches. About 75 complete portals of this type are preserved. In some portals there are also decorative motifs on columns inserted between decorations of interlaced lines, with or without archivolts.
History of style
Much of the preserved portal material comes from Sogn-Hardanger and buildings in Østlandet. Most of the portals are of Romanesque inspiration.
The portals may have been painted, but it is difficult to say. Most of the painted portals that have survived appear to be more recent.
According to the history of its style, it is common to classify the portals as Urnes style, Romanesque, and late.
The name Urnes style was first used by Haakon Shetelig in 1909, who based it on the characteristics of the portals of the Urnes church: compositions of lines that form curls, spread in an asymmetrical way. Other distinctive features are the play between thick and thin lines, thick curls often forming circles, and lines that form a continuum.
The portal of the Urnes church is the only almost complete one that has been preserved. Traces are also known in the Torpo church and in some fragments of the Bjølstad church in Heidal), now destroyed.[21]
Approximately, they date from the second half of the century. The motifs they contain are vegetal ornamentations, dragons, lions and grotesque masks, common motifs in Europe in the Romanesque period. This group differs from the Urnes style in that they are symmetrical constructions.
They are subdivided into three groups: The Sogn-Valdres"-Telemark group, with branches on each side of the portal and two symmetrical dragons opposite each other; the Trondheim group, with inspirations in the cathedral of Nidaros, and the group of medallion portals "Medallion (architecture)"), with figures framed in medallions.[22].
They are known as late due to the presence of Gothic details. During the century the decoration became more individualistic and the different portals became more differentiated from each other.[23].
Iconography
The common features of most of the stavkirke portals are their monumental character and the presence of dragons or lions, often in a fighting attitude. An exception is the Christian motifs on the portal of the disappeared church of Hemsedal").[24].
There has been speculation about whether the presence of dragons symbolizes a kind of magical power against evil. Gunnar Bugge suggests that it may be pagan iconography with a Christian interpretation.[25] Regarding the portal of the church of Urnes, it has been argued about its possible origin in pagan art,[26] while other theories maintain that its iconography responds to a Christian context, and that the "great beast" carved there (sometimes associated with the dragon Níðhöggr) is actually a lion; The lion can represent Jesus Christ fighting and conquering evil. In the portals of the Sogn-Valdres-Telemark type there are no lions, but vine branches, motifs that are supposed to be symbols of Christianity (John: 15,5: I am the vine, you are the branches: he who is in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; because without me you can do nothing).
Erla Bergendahl Hohler opposes such an interpretation.[27] She sees in the ornamentation of the portals a symbol of the wealth of the patron of the stavkirke, and not religious symbolism, in the same way as happens with many purely ornamental European Romanesque portals. Hohler even refers to Bernard of Clairvaux, who declared himself against the representation of animals in a religious context. Gregor Paulson also considers that the animal motifs of Romanesque art have no religious context, but are a mere sign of status.[28].
Later research suggests that the stavkirke portals are inspired by English art and that their inspiration may have been manuscripts and stone sculptures.[29] Some of these manuscripts consist of fabulous stories with Christian allegories and illustrations, often called bestiaries. The origin of the bestiaries is the Physiologus, a collection written in Alexandria during the century abundant in animal allegories with Christian interpretations. Originally written in Greek, it was translated into several languages during the Middle Ages. In turn, the literary source of Physiologus are Indian, Hebrew and Egyptian animal narratives, as well as various classical texts written, among others, by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder.
Evert Lindkvist believes that the fables of the Physiologus served as inspiration for the animal representations on the portals of the stone churches of Gotland.[30] These churches were built on the site of former stavkirke, when these had become too small for liturgical needs. Unfortunately, almost all of Gotland's wooden churches disappeared, so it is not valid to think that they had the same decoration as the Norwegian stavkirke and that their motifs were copied to the stone portals.
Paint
The stavkirke occupy an important role in European medieval painting, since this type of art on panel is one of the best preserved remnants with regard to two archaic liturgical elements: the canopy and the frontal.[31] It is surprising that the stavkirke contain the best preserved examples of medieval Norwegian painting,[32] especially when considering the darkness prevailing inside these temples.
The medieval painting of the stavkirke corresponds to Gothic art.[31] Unlike the construction technique and decorative wood sculpture, which preserve certain features of Nordic traditions, the painting of the stavkirke does not come from popular art, but from an imported style, without great contrasts with European Gothic art.[32] In any case, it belongs to a peripheral movement of this art, which had one of its main creative centers in France and England. It has been considered that Bergen, the capital and most populous city of Norway in the Middle Ages, was the most important center of Gothic art in the country, and received important influences from England, with which there was great commercial and cultural exchange.[33].
The pictorial art of the stavkirke contradicts Nordic art because, unlike the latter—mainly decorative and slowly evolving—it is a descriptive art that is constantly renewed according to the influence of Western Europe.[34] Apparently, medieval Norwegian painters did not have an old popular pictorial tradition to rely on.[32].
The canopies of the stavkirke, which were located in the nave, are remnants of a liturgical and monumental program abandoned in the West since the Middle Ages itself (in the Romanesque period). However, Norwegian canopies are one of a kind. These structures, which claim to be a copy of the Gothic vault,[32] however show an exaggerated style in colors, as a result of the darkness of the interior of these churches; The bright colors and decorative geometric shapes are somewhat reminiscent of Gothic stained glass windows.[35].
Few samples remain of the stavkirke canopies. The only ones that remain in their original site are that of the Hopperstad church, quite damaged in the 19th century, and that of Torpo, which is the best preserved. In Hopperstad, the canopy stands out for its sculptures rather than its deteriorated paintings, which recreate scenes from the life of Jesus.
In Torpo, in Hallingdal"), a Christ Pantocrator dominates the perspective at the top of the vault, with its physiognomy quite similar to ancient Byzantine icons.[35][36] The panels surrounding it represent the twelve apostles and the martyrdom of Saint Margaret of Antioch.
Of larger size and richer design[37] is the canopy of the disappeared church of Ål, also from Hallingdal. Only the vault survives, today part of the antiquities collection of the University of Oslo. The artistic motifs are more than 20 biblical scenes, both from the Old and New Testaments, with a style similar to the Canterbury Bible by Roberto de Bello.[37].