This dissertation focuses on one of the most extensive and well-preserved ensembles of Romanesque mural painting in central France. About thirty large narrative scenes and non-narrative figural compositions together with great architectural perspectives and ornamental friezes compose a nearly complete pictorial program that spans the eastern portion of the church of Saint-Martin at Nohant-Vicq. Although included in surveys of medieval painting and treated summarily in a few articles, the Vicq paintings have not yet been the subject of a comprehensive investigation.

The study at hand throws new light on various dimensions of the frescoes and on ways in which the monument as a whole relates to the contemporary ecclesiastical and intellectual landscape of the lower Berry. Examination of the physical processes according to which the frescoes were executed permits insight not only into the artist's working habits, but also into the interdependence between painting technique, style and the organization of the pictorial program. Despite the lack of a body of monumental or miniature painting directly related in style to the Vicq frescoes, research on the available comparative material suggests that the painter was trained in an artistic tradition indigenous to the Loire valley. Analysis of several unstudied documents from the twelfth century in conjunction with already published acts of donation establishes the historical context of the Vicq paintings. The evidence indicates that the parochial church of St.-Martin was a relatively important possession of the Benedictine abbey of Deols and that the monastic patron repeatedly undertook to protect its interests in the parish from the claims of rival ecclesiastical institutions. Moreover, the affiliation between Vicq and Deols is reflected in the manner in which some of the imagery was conceived. The unusual iconography of one scene in particular appears to draw specifically from treatises composed at the abbey by the monk Herveus. The chronology of these texts provides a guide in dating the frescoes within the second quarter of the twelfth century.