Gothic sculpture

“ The evils that beset the lives and tempt the souls of men had to be in some way set forth, no less than the good things which he is permitted to enjoy. The unhappy lot of the wicked had to be figured as well as the felicities of the good. Hence conspicuous elements in Gothic sculpture, especially after the beginning of the thirteenth century, are the monstrous and the grotesque. Elements which, in true Gothic—though sometimes, perhaps, introduced in a playful spirit,—have, in the main, a serious purpose. ”

“ The contemplation of the works of antique art excites a feeling of elevated beauty, and exalted notions of the human self; but the Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a sense of self-annihilation; he becomes, as it were, a part of the work contemplated. An endless complexity and variety are united into one whole, the plan of which is not distinct from the execution. A Gothic cathedral is the petrefaction of our religion. The only work of truly modern sculpture is the Moses of Michel Angelo. ”

“ The structural and ornamental feeling also asserts itself strongly in Gothic sculpture, owing to its close association with architecture, as, when it was not an integral part of the structure, it was always an essential part of the expression of the building, and it was this which controlled its treatment decoratively, in its scale and its system and degree of relief. ”

“ This Gothic sculpture is further remarkable as being the first art which the world had seen in which expression as a motive predominates over form. It can, perhaps, hardly be said that the sculpture of Greek antiquity was always wanting in expression; but it is generally true that such expression as it had was subordinated to the quality of corporeal beauty. By expression I mean more or less indication in face, movement, or attitude, of some thought or emotion. We may not be always able to read the intended thoughts or feelings with precision ”

“ Even a likeness to individual species of vegetation soon makes its appearance in the growing style; and an extensive range of flora—answering, in some cases, to that of the locality in which the work was wrought—is used to adorn the Gothic building. But the life derived from nature which appears in Gothic sculpture is no more an independent development than is the constructive system. The elements of Gothic ornament may almost all be traced back to the arts of antiquity. ”

“ The artist is keenly appreciative of nature, but he equally perceives the purposes of his art. In judgment of what to take and what to leave he is unerring. The springy line and gracefully undulating surface are caught from nature and wrought into the stubborn stone; but the designer experiences no embarrassment in keeping within the limits of what stone can be made rightly to express.
This living and refined beauty, coexisting with architectural subordination, is as marked in Gothic figure sculpture as it is in that of the lower forms of ornament. ”

“ No one now remembers the name of a single Gothic sculptor. Certainly, no one can recall a single statue of the period as a “joy for ever,”—the test of a work of art of the first order. May we not infer that the art by which the religious instinct most naturally finds expression is architecture, or, as experience has since shown, music? [Pg 150]
The absence of sculpture of real beauty was not due to any lack of opportunity. There were thousands of stone workers. As had been the case with the Greek temples, the great Gothic cathedrals provided abundant opportunities for sculptural decoration. ”

“ In the countries north of Italy sculpture had no such aid or advantages. The Gothic style of architecture was a hindrance to the sculptor, whose works were combined with it. The Gothic construction afforded no broad, generous spaces for sculpture; all plastic work must be confined in limited spaces between columns and baldachins, or in arched niches, or between narrow flutings; and though something had been done to vary the upright stiffness of the statues of its earliest days, there was no freedom for the realistic and natural tendencies of the Renaissance art to develop in. ”

“ There are no spires, but pinnacles and statues, and all the rich detail of Gothic architecture, the whole of a venerable gray line. It is in perfect repair, and has not suffered externally, except by the loss of multitudes of statues, gargoyles, and miscellaneous eccentricities of sculpture, which used to smile, frown, laugh, and weep over the faces of these old fabrics. ”

“ The vicissitudes of Renaissance sculpture are strange: its life, its power, depend upon death; it is an art developed in the burying vault and cloister cemetery. During the Middle Ages sculpture had had its reason, its vital possibility, its something to influence, nay, to keep it alive, in architecture; but with the disappearance of Gothic building disappears also the possibility of the sculpture which covers the portals of Chartres and the belfry of Florence. ”

“ The masterpieces of Gothic sculpture may be studied from photographs and from reproductions published by the Musée de Sculpture Comparée, Paris. Sketch in the masses with brush and ink in two values. Draw freely, at arm's length, on gray or low-toned paper, observing the character of shapes of dark; No. 49, opposite. New avenues of tone-thought will now open, through appreciation of the power and beauty of the stone cutter's art of the middle-ages. ”

“ All the crafts of which Gothic architecture formed the frame-work were developed, not only less than they should have been, but less than they would have been. There is no sort of reason why their sculpture should not have become as perfect as their architecture; there is no sort of reason why their sense of form should not have been as finished as their sense of colour. ”

“ It enforces the omission of all that is trivial, and gives emphasis to what is significant and important. As instances of Gothic sculpture in which these qualities are especially marked may be mentioned, the statues of the west portals of Chartres, the bas-relief of the Assumption of the Virgin on the lintel of the main portal of the Cathedral of Senlis—to be more fully noticed when we come to treat of French sculpture,—and the statue of the Virgin in the portal of the north transept of the Cathedral of Paris. ”

“ But it is even more necessary to realize the essential difference—that the Gothic cathedral owed even more to the inspiration of a great church and an all-powerful priesthood. At the very outset we come upon the fact that whereas the growth of Greek sculpture largely depended upon such a purely human feeling as the passion for physical beauty, sculpture in the Middle Ages was required to incarnate an entirely extra-mundane emotion—the craving for an all-ruling and ever-living deity. ”

“ Gothic sculpture of the early thirteenth century develops into forms that are less cramped by imperfect technique, and that bear fewer traces of former conventions, than the works of the preceding century. ”

“ We are spared nothing. Everything is set down in all its naked horror. The Gothic sculptor had his virtues. One was that he always told his story clearly. He sought to suggest the ideals revealed by the Man Christ as he understood them. His only aim was to give form to the new emotions and thoughts which he believed arose from the teachings of the Church. Can we help admiring the grand sincerity with which he kept his aim ever in the foreground, and the wonderful fertility of his invention in presenting the ideas he had to portray? ”

“ Surface decoration, whether of fresco or mosaic, bronze-work or bas-relief, wood-carving or panelling in marble, baked clay or enamelled earthenware was never carried to such perfection in Gothic buildings of the purer type; nor had sculpture in the North an equal chance of detaching itself from the niche and tabernacle, which forced it to remain the slave of architecture. Thus the comparative defects of Italian Gothic were directly helpful in promoting those very arts for which the people had a genius unrivalled among modern nations. ”

“ Though the Gothic sculptor cannot be denied his meed of praise, an equal candour compels us to admit that these are not the virtues of a great artist. They are too utilitarian. Art lends its aid to make religious ideas more persuasive, but it is, properly, neither religious nor ethical. We realize this at once when we compare the Gothic ideal with that which actuated the Greek in the days of Phidias. ”

“ There is thus a marked difference between the adapted naturalism which gave life to early Gothic ornament, and the imitative naturalism which marks the decline of Gothic art.
How, it may be asked, are we justified in ascribing to this early Gothic ornament such supreme merit? Why is it, if the influence of nature adds anything of value to art, that direct and complete imitation, so far as possible, is not good? How can there be any such thing as over-naturalism in sculpture? ”

“ This ought to be emphasised, for there is no quality to which more of the impressiveness of such sculpture is owing. Multitudinous as are the details which enter into the design of any great cathedral front, there is rarely any scattered effect in the total impression. An harmonious relationship of mass to mass, from largest things to smallest, is maintained. Such breadth is, indeed, a fundamental quality of all good art; but its manifestation is perhaps more remarkable in Gothic architecture than in any other, because of the multitude of subdivisions through which it has to find expression. ”

“ It is only natural that in France, which was the birthplace of Gothic architecture, the sister art of sculpture should have attained its earliest and most striking development. During the 13th century, the imagiers, or stone sculptors, worked hand in hand with the great cathedral builders. This century may indeed Gothic sculp-ture in France.be called the golden age of Gothic sculpture. ”

“ As it was with literature, so likewise was it with art. The most purely mediæval sculpture, the sculpture which has, as it were, just detached itself from the capitals and porches of the cathedral, is the direct pupil of the antique; and the three great Gothic sculptors, Niccoló, Giovanni, and Andrea of Pisa, learn from fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture how to model the figure of the Redeemer and how to chisel the robe of the Virgin. ”

“ The art of sculpture, which depends upon the perfectly developed human body and the balanced human mind and heart for all the more impressive notes in its song, could not flourish in such an atmosphere.
The differences between Northern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a.d. and Greece in the fifth century b.c. at once show why we must look elsewhere for a social state in which the art of the sculptor could find sustenance. As we should expect we find this in a country where Gothic architecture never achieved the brilliant success that attended it in France and England. ”

“ Attached to the pillars of the doorways were numerous large carvings representing the ancestors of Christ. The transept porches were decorated with a similar profusion of statuary.
But whereas the sculpture of the Parthenon not only served perfectly as an architectural decoration, but was also “a thing of beauty” in itself, it was otherwise with the plastic decoration of a Gothic cathedral. The Gothic architect had not the slightest scruple in sacrificing the beauty of any statue for the architectural effect as a whole. At times the Gothic sculptor’s deviations from nature were almost uncanny. ”

“ It should be noticed also that there is in Gothic sculpture a structural fitness wherever occasion calls for it—as, for instance, in the corbelled projections which support the wide abaci of capitals. It is remarkable that a high degree of beauty often appears to result from such structural adaptation. Indeed, the beauty of the finest Gothic capitals is largely due to the forms which adapt them to their functions, and render them to the eye, as well as in reality, strong and efficient working members. ”

“ On the contrary, in Gothic sculpture, the shadow becomes itself a subject of thought. It is considered as a dark color, to be arranged in certain agreeable masses; the figures are very frequently made even subordinate to the placing of its divisions: and their costume is enriched at the expense of the forms underneath, in order to increase the complexity and variety of the points of shade. ”

“ The culture of Gothic architecture never bore transplanting from French to Italian soil satisfactorily. Many so-called Gothic cathedrals were erected. But the Italian architects always leant towards the Roman simplicity, and never multiplied the niches and columns in the way the French architect did. As a consequence the opportunities for marble and bronze decorations were greater than in the north, and the art of sculpture at once took a firmer position. ”

“ In architecture the introduction of the pointed or Gothic arch at the beginning of the 13th century led to almost as great a revolution as that brought about by the use of the round or vaulted arch among the Romans. The same vital impulse that informed the new Gothic architecture breathed into the still quite subordinate arts of sculpture and painting (the latter now including the craft of glass-painting for church windows) a new spirit whether of devotional intensity or sweetness, or of human pathos or rugged humour, with a new technical skill for its embodiment. ”