38
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vn. JAN. n,
0n
An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in
England. By Edward S. Prior and Arthur
Gardner. (Cambridge University Press.)
OUR authors reckon that scarcely 1 per cent of the English figure-sculpture of the Middle Ages has come down to us. What remains of it, having through remote position or some other happy chance survived the iconoclastic frenzy of the sixteenth century, affords but a fragmentary illustration of its development, or of the character- istics of its separate schools. Yet the fragments are those of a splendid and individual tradition, and, seeing how imperfectly in general they are known or understood, this magnificent volume, with its 855 photographs and its careful and vigorous text, should receive such a welcome and such attention as only a handful of books in a lustrum can justly lay claim to.
The arrangement of the subject-matter is excellent. Book I. deals broadly with the mate- rials and subjects of mediaeval sculpture, and with the personality of the nameless ccementarii who were the sculptors. The word " mediaeval " here covers the period from 1130 to 1530, within which time the fifty years from 1250 to 1300 constitute the golden age, when spiritual beauty of intention was seconded by the utmost perfection of tech- nique, free as yet from luxury, pedantry, or self- seeking. The * unswerving reference of this sculpture when at its best, not to some separate end, but to the integrity and adornment of the building to which it belonged, and the reference again of that to a system of ideas which possessed and unified the whole of the Occidental life of the time, make of Gothic figure-sculpture, as the authors truly observe, " a creation of style that was an event in the life of humanity." We are grateful for the section at the beginning of the work on ' The Preservation of Medieval Sculpture.' This unique inheritance, already much impaired by destruction and ignorant " restoration," stands in danger of further diminution. Details of ruthless carelessness are given which have come under the writers' notice within the last few years.
The function of painting and sculpture, as means of instruction and edification when books were expensive and reading rare, is sufficiently well known ; yet there is something to pause- ai-d reflect- on in the fact that the ecclesiastic who determined on such or such a subject could rely in the un- educated public on a knowledge of attributes and symbols such as is, in some cases, beyond the power even of the archaeologist to recover. We venture to think that the authors of the book are themselves somewhat too slightly equipped for interpretation on the side of liturgiology and kindred matters. To give one instance, which yet implies a good deal, they speak of the chasuble as " an apron-like vestment " ! On the other hand, their treatment of the "nature" themes and the "anecdotal" sculptures strikes us as both happy and well-informed ; and they bring out effectively the mediaeval theory, perhaps insufficiently appre- ciated, that the arts and sciences, so far from
being alien to the love of God, were the beginning:
of the work of redemption, consummated by the
advent of the Redeemer. Without recognition
of this, it is impossible to set in its right place
the quasi -secular side of mediaeval work.
Book II., in its twelve sections, deals in detail with the long array of works of sculpture, from the Anglian Crosses onwards, leaving only aside for treatment in Book III. the monumental effigy. The authors consider that the Saxon sculpture, of which the Bewcastle Cross is the most signal example, is to be derived, principally through Wilfrid, from the work of Byzantium ; and argue that the Gosforth Cross, with the other work which must be attributed to the ninth and tenth centuries, is of a separate origin, coming from the imagination and craftsmanship of the Vikings. Yet again, belonging to a date a century or so later, we have evidence of another line of develop- ment, a Saxon sculpture of Southern England which drew its inspiration from the illuminations and goldsmiths' work of the monasteries. The chapter which deals with these three schools is one of the most interesting in the whole volume ; and it should play a good part in dissipating the popular misconception according to which the Norman conqueror introduced art to a people which had known nothing hitherto but the roughest and most barbarous exhibitions of artistic faculty. It is here contended that while the Conquest opened up an era of great enthusiasm for building, and brought English sculpture into its happy close connexion with architecture, it had no effect on English style, which developed onwards to its " Norman " characteristics from the Irish- Viking tradition, the second of those noted above. The argument is set out and illus- trated in some good pages on early Tympanum sculpture. Excellent again are the sections setting forth the influence of the craft of the painters and metal-workers upon the Anglo- Norman workers in stone.
The volume reaches its culminating point of interest in -the chapters on the architectural carving of what it is proposed to call the First Gothic Period, i.e., from 1200 to 1280. This study,, naturally, is centred in the Angel Choir at Lin- coln, in the Westminster transepts, and the Wells front. These are here most closely and carefully analyzed and described ; and the rash " historic expert " quoted on p. 108, who declares that " in .... sculpture .... even architecture, Britain will hardly go down to the ages alongside of some other nations nor were the plastic or pictorial arts ever really popular," might well convert himself to a better opinion by spending half a day in the contemplation of the photographs belonging to these chapters. Both their characteristic " English " qualjty and, in the finest examples, the astonishing spiritual affinity with the highest work of Greek sculpture are very properly dwelt upon, thoxigh any direct influence from the Greek, which some students are inclined to surmise, is, in our opinion, quite rightly rejected. It was surely in part a likeness of conditions, in part a likeness in the common conception of the rela- tions between the visible and the invisible world, which produced this likeness in expression. Greek or Gothic, ' these statues seem to stand as enduring witness against the arch-heresy of " art for art's sake," whose beginning isv materialism and its end pedantry.
