Centre de la Culture
du Limousin Médiéval
The most characteristic fact, marque of a true particularity, is the attachment to this kind of decoration until the late 13th and 14th centuries. So is the limousine bay as much Romanesque as Gothic. Sure, a mutation is sensitive.
From the years 1180-1200, the moldings are getting thinner and the projections more numerous and so the graphic writing of opening on the walls have been accentuated. The small columns are often built by foundations linked to the angles. The capitals with hooks or the complex abacus show an attention given to the contemporary trends and form friezes which interrupt the development of the vertical lines. The oriental wall of the northern chapel in Saint-Yrieix’s collegial church or the median register of the occidental façade of Beaulieu’s abbatial church show well this evolution.
(Source - Limousin roman / Edition Zodiaque)
Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne Abbey
The most characteristic fact, marque of a true particularity, is the attachment to this kind of decoration until the late 13th and 14th centuries. So is the limousine bay as much Romanesque as Gothic. Sure, a mutation is sensitive.
From the years 1180-1200, the moldings are getting thinner and the projections more numerous and so the graphic writing of opening on the walls have been accentuated. The small columns are often built by foundations linked to the angles.
The capitals with hooks or the complex abacus show an attention given to the contemporary trends and form friezes which interrupt the development of the vertical lines. The oriental wall of the northern chapel in Saint-Yrieix’s collegial church or the median register of the occidental façade of Beaulieu’s abbatial church show well this evolution.
(Source - Limousin, pays et identités / PULIM)
The moldings of the bays is recorded in system of animation of spaces and volumes by the plays of variation of plans and the arches network, but only the windows pointing an axe can be qualified as “limousine bays”: the central bay of the main apse and the windows in the background of the transept.
The purpose is then to establish a hierarchy of openings by favor the ones with more refined moldings compared to the others. It is here the most common use therefor the presence of this decoration on the only bay in the axe in many rural and contemporary churches while the others remain with a simple opening. It is so, a plastic process among others the architects of the region well known how to use.
(Source - Limousin, pays et identités / PULIM)
Chambon-sur-Vouieze Abbey