6. The first important monuments of Romanesque sculpture were created in the last decade of the 11th cent. and the first decades of the 12th cent. The primary source of artistic patronage was provided by the monastic institutions, for whom sculptors executed large relief carvings for the decoration of church portals and richly ornate capitals for cloisters. Romanesque sculpture produced an art of extraordinary ornamental complexity, ecstatic in expression, and abounding in seemingly endless combinations of zoomorphic, vegetal, and abstract motifs.
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10. The Romanesque period is marked by: - Immense relief the world hadn’t ended at the turn of the millennium - The resurgence of cities and trade - The emergence of Europe as we know it - Strengthened Papal authority - The emergence of a middle class and merchant class - Evolution of the Romance languages - The peak in feudalism as a political system