MEDIEVAL SCULPTOR, French
(active c. 1150 at Charlieu)

Tympanum

c. 1150
Stone
Saint-Fortunat, Charlieu

The tympanum represents the Wedding at Cana (or Last Supper?). The theme of the feast is easily adapted to an architectural framework; the table can be rectilinear on a lintel and circular on a capital. Here, the table is semicircular, adapting itself to the tympanum form and becoming the basic coordinating element of the whole composition. The compositional firmness of the scene somewhat restrains the fervour and restlessness that Burgundian sculpture displays in other mid-12th century sculptures, and which is here seen in the voussoirs, where the figures gesticulate freely.




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