# Development and Character of Gothic Architecture/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII
SCULPTURE OF THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES IN ENGLAND AND OTHER COUNTRIES
In the architecture of the twelfth century in England figure sculpture is rarely met with, and where it does occur it is of an extremely rude and inexpressive sort, though it exhibits some architectural merits derived from the traditional principles that were common at this time to the whole of Europe. The French custom of enriching the portals of churches with figure sculpture was not generally followed in England. The difference, in this respect, which is shown by the contemporaneous western portals of the Church of St. Denis and Lincoln Cathedral holds all through the Gothic period.
Among very early examples of figure sculpture in England is the band of bas-reliefs which extends across that portion of the west front of the Cathedral of Lincoln which was erected under Remigius about 1090. This sculpture (a group from which is shown in the rude sketch, Fig. 185), though coarse in execution and wanting in expression, has, nevertheless, a good deal of that merit which secures architectural effectiveness. The same architectural character appears in the later and richer sculpture which occupies the tympanum of the so-called Prior's Gateway at Ely, but as compared with contemporaneous work in France the sculpture of Ely is singularly coarse and ungraceful.
Hardly anything of greater importance occurs until towards the middle of the thirteenth century, when suddenly, in the west front of the Cathedral of Wells, we get one of the richest assemblages of sculptures ever gathered into an ​architectural monument. These sculptures of course differ widely from the earlier ones just mentioned. They appear FIG. 185.
to have been wrought by an insular and even a local school, yet one that must have had acquaintance, and perhaps connection, with the schools of the Continent. A good deal that is admirable appears in these figures, though they fail to show either the artistic power, or the fineness of execution that characterises the Gothic sculpture of France. Unlike proper Gothic sculpture, this sculpture has little relation to the structural forms of the building. It is not an auxiliary the place and dimensions of which are determined by the architectural scheme. It does not naturally fit itself into the leading members of the structure. The jambs, archivolts, tympanums, string-courses, and set-offs of the buttresses are everywhere crowded with arcades and panellings which form canopies and frames for its especial display. The structure exists for the sake of the sculpture, and it is, as we have before seen, but a vast screen, having no logical connection with the main building which supports it. In order to enlarge the space for the sculpture the doorways are reduced in size even beyond the usual contracted dimensions of doorways in England. The springing of the archivolts of the central portal is below the level of the base mouldings of the wall, and the capitals of the jambs are within easy reach of the hand. Every relation of ornament to structure, such as is peculiar to Gothic, is disregarded.
Yet the sculpture itself is both grand and impressive, and it sometimes attains considerable beauty. It differs primarily from the sculpture of the Ile-de-France, in being more exclusively naturalistic. That is to say, the idea of nature, as a leading motive, seems to have had a larger place in the mind of the artist than was the case with the French ​ designer, while a disciplined artistic power is less apparent. But though more exclusively naturalistic in conception than French sculpture, the rendering of forms is not more true to nature. It is not so true. The modelling of draperies, for instance, in the so-called statue of Christiana (Fig. 186) is much less true to the folds of real drapery than is the modelling of the draperies in the contemporaneous statue of the Virgin in the doorway of the north transept of the Cathedral of Paris; and yet the whole air of the figure is naturalistic rather than ideal. In truth and skill of modelling even the sculptures of Chartres and St. Denis, which are a century earlier in date, surpass these of Wells. Observe, in Fig. 186, the flat surfaces, sharp edges, and unnatural lines of the draperies on the breast and arms, and the stiff and awkward forms of the arm and hand. Stiffness and awkwardness, arising from want of skill, are not, indeed, in early art incompatible with a great deal of beauty and with fine sentiment. In the early art of France such defects are sometimes apparent; but this sculpture of Wells is not early. It dates from the mid-thirteenth century—the time of the highest development of Gothic sculpture—and for that time it is strangely primitive and unskilful as compared with the art of France. Yet for simplicity of motive, veracity of conception, and monumental grandeur, this sculpture certainly deserves to hold an eminent place in the art of the Middle Ages. It bears somewhat the same relation to the sculpture of France, that the painting of Velasquez has to ​that of Titian. It is vigorous and noble, but rarely to the same degree refined and beautiful. The workmanship is comparatively coarse and sketchy, and far removed from the delicacy of French carving. The best parts of these statues are the heads, which, for the most part, more finely wrought than other parts, display much individual character. They are apparently real portraits of living men, and as such possess an interest independently of that which their other qualities give. Taken as a whole, this sculpture of Wells lends an unique impressiveness to the façade with which it is associated; and, faulty as both are, they constitute a monument which must always rank among the grand achievements of art.
Perhaps the sculpture next in importance in England is that of the Presbytery of Lincoln, which dates from the second half of the thirteenth century. Within this building the spandrels of the triforium are enriched by figures of angels in high relief, from which the structure is commonly known as the Angel Choir. The situation is a bad one for the display of the work. The sculpture is so high above the pavement as to be seen with difficulty, both on account of its distance, and because the width of the aisle is not sufficient to allow it to be viewed otherwise than very obliquely. The light, too, falling from the opposite clerestory, is, for each relief, directly in front—the worst light possible for the exhibition of form. This sculpture, though important as occupying a conspicuous position in one of the most elaborate of Anglo-Norman pointed buildings, has, I think, no considerable merit, notwithstanding that it has been extravagantly praised. Several of the figures appear to be symbolical, though their precise meaning is uncertain. Most of them are represented as playing on musical instruments. The south door of this presbytery—which has more of the character of a French Gothic doorway than is common in England—has in its tympanum more effective sculpture, though it is too much mutilated to admit of a satisfactory judgment of its ​original merits. Among the statues placed against the buttresses of the same cathedral, those of Edward I. and Elenor his Queen are noticeable for graceful composition and monumental character. I am not aware that there is any other architectural sculpture of importance in England dating from the thirteenth century. Of the statues which once adorned the west front of Lichfield not one remains, while those which occupy the niches high up in the spandrels and gables of Peterborough are too far out of sight to be judged of.
The rare employment of figure sculpture in connection with architecture, together with its inferior character when employed, mark no less distinctly than the structural characteristics already examined the wide difference which exists between Anglo-Norman and Gothic art.
FIG. 187.
The comparative lack of artistic gift exhibited by the figure sculpture is again strikingly manifest in the Anglo-Norman foliate carving. Though examples of much beauty sometimes occur, there was little, in the early pointed architecture of England, of that growth of beautiful types under the influence of that regard for nature which so strongly marked the early Gothic carving of France. In many instances the observation of nature is, indeed, apparent; but a general movement characterised by a consistent, varied, and skilful adaptation of natural forms, and leading to ​a new and living style of ornament, hardly had place in England. The early types in the island are conventionalised in a very different way from that in which French types are conventionalised. Anglo-Norman convention is artificial; it manifests a lack of sensitiveness to the finer characteristics of nature. Traditional elements—those which in the twelfth century were common in textile fabrics and painting, as well as in sculpture—were retained with less modification than they received in France. A carved lintel, now built into the wall of the north transept of Southwell, exhibits a traditional trefoil (Fig. 187), which will be recognised as agreeing in character with the commonest motive in so-called early English foliage. Of these traditional elements the Anglo-Norman designers made varied use, but such invention as they exercised never quite eliminated their artificial character. The so-called stiff-leaved foliage of the early times gives little evidence of a refined artistic sense modifying the conventional prototypes.
It is noticeable that the earliest foliate sculpture in England is the best, and among the finest examples are those of the capitals of Bishop Hugh's choir and transept at Lincoln. Of these none are better than that shown in Fig. 140, p. 225. Yet, notwithstanding its real beauty, the trefoil ornament of this capital exhibits some of the peculiarities that are constant in the early foliate sculpture of England, and which I have characterised as artificial. It will be noticed, for instance, that the mid-rib is a flat-sided, sharp-edged member, and that the edges of the leaflets are also sharp and hard; these peculiarities will be more clearly apparent in Fig. 188, where C is the form of the section through A B. This fillet-like treatment of leaf-ribs, stalks, and leaf-edges is unpleasing to the eye of a beholder who is familiar with the delicate rounding of such details in the sculpture of the Continent; yet, in contrast with the circular abacus and moulding profiles, it sometimes has good effect, though in itself it is an ugly mode of treatment whose hardness will be keenly felt on comparison with such work as that shown in Fig. 182, p. 277. To conventionalise naturally—to derive beauties of form from natural things, and while holding on to all that are compatible with the nature of stone and the exigencies of architectural ​effectiveness, to avoid all that is incompatible, was not generally in the Anglo-Norman genius. When he did FIG. 188. not conventionalise artificially the island sculptor copied nature too closely, as, at a later period, in the over-naturalistic carvings of the Chapter-house of Southwell. I must not, however, seem to affirm that the foliate sculpture of early pointed architecture in England was always devoid of the expression of natural beauty. At first it had a great deal of such expression. The ornament, for instance, of the capital, Fig. 140, p. 225, is, notwithstanding the artificial peculiarities which I have criticised, exquisite in expression of the spiral twist characteristic of living vegetation, of the springing leaf outlines, as they follow each other around the bell, and bend gracefully against the moulding of the abacus. There are many other beautiful varieties of ornament on the capitals of the early choir and transept of Lincoln in which an equal feeling for nature is manifest; but this feeling does not long survive in the schools of England, and its expression, even in the best examples, is always joined with those artificial peculiarities just noticed.
After the first quarter of the thirteenth century artificial characteristics become more conspicuous, and expression of beauty caught from nature is less apparent. A good illustration of the first steps of change is afforded by the leafage of the capitals of the triforium of the nave of the ​same building, of which Fig. 189 is an example. Here the
FIG. 189.
foliage takes the form of crockets, which are largely independent of the abacus. Its lines are still in a measure ​graceful and suggestive of the energy of vegetable growth, but the fillet-like ribs are unpleasantly multiplied, and the leaf-stalks, instead of dying away softly into the mass of the bell — as in the earlier capital of the east transept, — are equally salient and flat-sided down to the astragal. Of the fine surface modelling which the earlier foliage exhibits, there is scarcely any in this foliage of the nave.
In the local and exceptional school of Wells sculpture of peculiar beauty and natural expression is met with, in which a mingling of Anglo-Norman and French characteristics is apparent. The excessive projection of the crocket (Fig. 145) is Anglo-Norman, while the fine surface modelling and the delicate rounding of leaf-stalks and ribs, unlike anything usually met with in England, is French. The graceful, flowing, and thoroughly vital lines, the fine composition of curves and arrangement of masses, give these capitals remarkable beauty, though the extravagant salience of their crockets injures their expression as functional members.
The carving of imaginary and grotesque creatures, though by no means uncommon in England, was, like other sculpture, less general than in France. Nevertheless, examples enough occur to show that a lively fancy and a vigorous executive skill were often exercised in their production. Among the best carvings of this kind were, apparently, those of the buttresses of Bishop Hugh's choir of Lincoln. Very little, however, remains of them.
On the whole, sculptural enrichment in the pointed architecture of England presents no parallel whatever to that of France. To the builders of the island sculpture was not an indispensable element of design. Hence the many important churches—Beverley, Salisbury, and Westminster Abbey among them—in which sculpture is almost altogether absent. The employment of the naked moulded capital, whose monotony is so conspicuous in these and many other buildings, bears witness to this, and bespeaks an imperfect conception of the Gothic idea. The great Gothic Cathedral, with its marvellous organic structure and its vast wealth of associated sculpture, has really no counterpart in England.
In Germany, as in England, comparatively little use was made of figure sculpture as a conspicuous architectural ​adjunct. No ranges of statues adorn and animate the upper stories of the German façades; nor, in general, do they flank the great portals. The figure sculpture which in some instances occurs in these portals was mostly copied from French models, and it naturally partakes of the character that sculpture in France had assumed in the later Gothic epoch when the German copies were executed. The famous statues of the Cathedral of Strassburg, for instance, have a sentimental expression, caught from the later sculptures of France, joined with a realism that is more peculiarly German.
To the general absence of figure sculpture in connection with architecture even the Cathedral of Cologne affords no marked exception. The statues ranged in the jambs of its portals and against the faces of its buttresses give the ground-story, indeed, much the appearance of a French Cathedral; but above the ground-story level the structure is unadorned with sculpture save that of crockets and finials. Of the figure sculpture of the ground-story little need be said, as it is entirely of post-Gothic workmanship, and partakes rather of the character of the art of the Renaissance than of that of the Middle Ages.
For the distinctively German types of foliate sculpture we may take those capitals of the choir of Cologne which date from about the middle of the thirteenth century. Of these capitals, Fig. 159, p. 241, presents a fair example. It will be seen that the leafage has little architectural character, but that the over-naturalism, which belongs to the late foliate sculpture of France, reappears here with increased distinctness. All expression of sympathy with the functional office of the capital is wanting. This capital itself, as before remarked, is little more than a continuation of the shaft, and around it the elaborately wrought leafage is, with no inventive grace, entwined. If the late capitals of England are extravagant in artificial foliation, these of Germany are trivial in their naturalism, and remarkable for lack of monumental expression.
In Italy there was no figure sculpture of importance before that of Niccola Pisano—that is to say, not until considerably after the epoch of the most splendid development of Gothic sculpture in France. And when it became ​important it was, from the first, different in character from the sculpture of the North. It was different primarily in being the production of individual sculptors working independently, rather than of a school or guild. The name of the sculptor of almost every important statue or bas-relief in Italy is known; and even in cases of doubtful authorship the question, usually, is merely between one well-known master and another. To the great companies of workmen who, in France, wrought together for a common end—each one content to do his best work without thought of individual fame—there was hardly any parallel in Italy. And being an individual product, the work of the sculptor in Italy was naturally more independent of architectural connection than that of the Gothic sculptor had been. It never had such relationship with architecture as had existed in the French Gothic. The Italian regarded it rather as something to be particularly displayed than as a mere architectural auxiliary. Hence in Italy, statues, instead of being ranged in groups and connected with structural members, are put in isolated places; they are set in niches, or under corbelled canopies which have no constructive purpose—as in the façade of the Spina Chapel at Pisa,—or they are employed as finials to gables, etc., while reliefs are commonly carved upon broad wall surfaces, as at Orvieto and in the Campanile of Florence. Thus, though often effectively placed, sculpture in Italy never becomes so intimately and consistently associated with the building as to form an integral part of it.
In this sculpture two quite distinct elements curiously mingle—the one that of expression, approaching in character the expression of Northern Gothic, and the other formal, resulting from study of the Roman antique. Of these two elements, sometimes one and sometimes the other predominates, according to the individual genius of the artist. For instance, in the famous, though, as I think, much overrated sculptures of the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa, by Niccola Pisano, the inspiration of Roman models is clearly manifest in the treatment of forms, while of natural expression there is little. In the art of Niccola the spirit of the Renaissance is already manifest, and the Gothic spirit is, for the most part, wanting. The figure of the vigorous young athlete, ​called La Forza, which is placed against one of the angles of this pulpit, exhibits, in its pose and anatomical modelling, a purely classic motive which is far removed from Gothic feeling. And it is worthy of notice that the classic elements in this work differ widely from the classic elements that are present in French Gothic sculpture. In the one case they are imitative, in the other they are innate. In the one case they are superficial, in the other they are essential. The principles of ancient art were, indeed, no less familiar to Niccola than they had been to the Gothic carvers—they were probably more so,—but he did not, it would seem, in these sculptures of Pisa, work so much from his native instincts as from a spirit of conscious emulation of models that he had seen and admired. A passion for excellence of form, as displayed in these models, was apparently the ruling passion of the artist's mind. In the reliefs of the panels the characteristics of that Roman art, which was itself but a formal imitation of the Greek, is no less strongly marked. In the grouping and execution of these figures the sculptor has given us little of his own. He has followed his models closely. Not only are the types largely Roman, but even the peculiar conventions of treatment, in draperies and other details, are equally so. The redundance and artificiality of Roman design are reproduced with curious exactness. It is not, perhaps, strange that the Roman work, with which he was brought in contact, should so strongly have appealed to him. In comparison with the contemporary native art the carvings of the Greco-Roman Sarcophagi in the Campo Santo exhibit great superiority in the forms; but it seems a little remarkable that an Italian in the thirteenth century should have been so far carried away with admiration of this ancient art as to allow so little of what was peculiar to mediæval Italian genius to express itself in his work. One looks in vain, in these reliefs by Niccola, for those refinements of conception and treatment which mark the works of his immediate successors. It is only in the rendering of animal life—in the beasts which support the pillars of the pulpit—that a living and original faculty is clearly apparent.
Few other early Italian sculptors were so strongly influenced by Roman art. The reliefs of Giovanni Pisano at ​Orvieto are very different from those of Niccola at Pisa. In expression and in conception of form they approach more nearly to Gothic art. A strong influence of nature and a sense of beauty are apparent in them, and they exhibit little evidence of direct reference to ancient models. The same may be said of the panels of the Campanile in Florence, attributed to Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These reliefs differ in merit one from another. In mastery of the figure and refinement of execution few of them equal the best French sculpture of the early part of the thirteenth century; but some of the figures, as, for instance, the standing one in the relief which represents the art of weaving, are of unusual beauty.
After the Pisani the architectural character of sculpture, which is considerable in works like those last mentioned, gradually disappears until the later masters—Ghiberti, Donatello, Lucca della Robbia, and others—develop the art independently, and inaugurate the era of isolated statues on pedestals, movable busts, and medallions, which occupy so large a place among the works of art of the Renaissance.
Of foliate sculpture Italy produced little in the thirteenth century that is remarkable as compared with that of France. In the fourteenth century, however, there was much imitation of the work of the Gothic carvers of the North, and many rich designs were wrought which are remarkable for delicacy and beauty. The leaf sculpture of the door jambs of the Cathedral of Florence affords specimens of the best Italian work of this sort. The fig, the oak, and the ivy are there represented with almost Gothic feeling, and with true Italian refinement. But these carvings, though not wanting in architectural effectiveness, are rather over-naturalistic in treatment. The just mean between the architectural and the naturalistic was hardly ever reached by the Italians; they either cling too tenaciously to ancient conventions in ornament, or else they become too imitative in following nature. The close imitation displayed in the foliate ornament of Ghiberti's gates is but an extreme instance of the tendency that is generally apparent in Italian carving which deals with natural foliage.
In Venice, however, some admirable examples of foliate sculpture occur, of which the older capitals of the Ducal ​Palace—especially those of the lower arcade, on the side toward the Piazzetta—are among the finest in the world.
There was never any important development of sculpture in Spain. The statues that adorn some of the Gothic churches in that country were, like the architecture itself, copied without genius from the sculpture of France. The figures of the portals of the Cathedral of Santiago, which are said to date from the close of the twelfth century, are among the most important, and are, according to Mr. Street, really fine. But the employment of such sculpture was not general even in the great Gothic buildings. The façade of the Cathedral of Burgos, for instance, has no figure sculpture whatever.
Foliate sculpture in Spain is no more original or important than that of the figure. The capitals and string-courses of the Gothic buildings exhibit French motives with little modification. The design of the cornice of the choir of Burgos, for instance, might have been taken directly from Paris or Amiens, as might also those of the capitals and bases which adorn the angles of the buttresses.