Background
The period saw Europe grow steadily more prosperous, and art of the highest quality was no longer confined, as it largely was in the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, to the royal court and a small circle of monasteries. Monasteries remained extremely important, especially those of the expansionist new orders of the period, the Cistercian, Cluniac, and Carthusian, which spread across Europe, but city churches, those on pilgrimage routes, and many churches in small towns and villages were elaborately decorated to a very high standard - indeed it is often these that have survived, when cathedrals and city churches have been rebuilt, and no Romanesque royal palace has really survived.
The lay artist was becoming a valued figure - Nicholas of Verdun seems to have been known across the continent. Most masons and goldsmiths were now lay, and lay painters like Master Hugo seem to have been in the majority, at least of those doing the best work, by the end of the period. The iconography of their church work was no doubt arrived at in consultation with clerical advisors.
Read more about this topic: Romanesque Art
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