Romanesque art and architecture.

Romanesque art was characterized by its strong religious characteristics. People during the romanesque period were extremely religious and so their art and architecture strongly reflected that. Romanesque architecture was characterized its apses, round arches, and barrel vaults. Romanesque art was somewhat influenced by byzantine art as well, specially in the paintings. Their manuscripts were very intricate and decorative. The people during the romanesque period were extremely preoccupied with the fact that God was judging them, and so their art strongly reflected that. Stained glass was also very popular in gothic-era churches. The stained glass windows were mostly primary colors. The churches reflected the wealth and importance of the church at that time, seeing a s the church took a lot of money from the people only to commission such grand churches all over the place. The churches were massive and in most cases perfectly decorated with grandeur. Such ideas as the weighing of the souls and that of Gods judgement over the people were highly popular in the romanesque art. Manuscripts were mostly detailed pictures that did a very good job in telling stories because only five percent of the romanesque population was known to be literate;this cause the church to hold control over what people thought, because the people could only interpret from the people as much as the church told them. God was mostly pictured as big and grand, looking down upon the people. The whole idea of the gothic churches was in fact to try to create a heaven here on earth. The colorful stained glass windows in churches were there to bring in the light to give a feeling of being illuminated by God or a holy experience. Overall all the religious burst was reflected everywhere in Romanesque art and architecture.