Medieval wall paintings : tendencies and perspectives for research. After a long period of hesitation between the inventory genre and the synthesis, the study of medieval wall paintings was specified after the 1980s and campaigns started for a general inventor)’ of the monuments and artistic heritage, covering then almost the whole national territory. In the meantime, the paintings became the object of global enquiries with technical, stylistic and iconographie contributions, in which the architectural realities, the practises of liturgy and the regional context were especially taken into account. The attention was put more and more on the building’s skin which was to be found for better preservation, as well as on the ensemble of supports, mortars and plasters, whose analysis permitted to restore the mural surfaces. Besides all classification efforts, the study of the surviving examples of painted decors demonstrated the social logic in the art work between the 12th and 15th centuries.