Capital from Moutiers-Saint-Jean

These two capitals, from the Benedictine monastery of Moutiers-Saint-Jean in Burgundy, France, are part of a larger set of thirteen held by the Harvard Art Museums; together they form one of the most significant ensembles of Romanesque capitals in the United States, showing the depth of variety such sculptural programs could achieve. The foliate capitals in this group demonstrate a sophisticated play and variation on Classical models; elements traditionally forming Corinthian capitals, like acanthus leaves and volutes, are here abstracted, varied, and reconfigured into new formations. On the column at left, the acanthus leaves are divided into two rows, their growth crowding the asymmetrical volutes above. On the right, the forms of the leaves are stripped bare, so that only the vertical shafts and the parabolic thrust remains. The curled leaves visible on the left are on the right abstracted into tight ovoids, and the volutes at the top of the capital are more organic, the knot of their curls bulging outward.