those of the earlier masters might not be employed with advantage, had the artist skill to produce them. More perfect forms were attained and employed by Praxiteles and by Raphael. But the integrity of feeling which was exhibited in the works of the early masters was lost before such command of form was reached. In the later art of Raphael, as compared with the earlier arts of Italy, more is lost in expression than is gained in form.
The plastic art of France in the twelfth century does not exhibit any of those superficial attractions which appear at a later date; but it is little inferior to that of any other time or school in expression and essential grace. And of such art there is hardly a more admirable work than this lintel of Senlis. In execution it is no less excellent than in design and sentiment. Wrought in a firm, close-grained stone—which takes a finish almost equal to that attainable in marble—every mass is finely modelled, and every detail is crisply cut.
The number of works of this epoch remaining is limited. The most extended, if not in all respects the most noble impulse in the art of figure sculpture, was yet to come. The foregoing examples will serve to show the state of development that had been reached in the Ile-de-France, before the great façades of Paris, Amiens, and Reims had come into existence.
Of the cathedrals that were begun in the twelfth century, few were completed so far as to include their façades before the thirteenth. The vast wealth of statuary which adorns these buildings is, for the most part, subsequent to the year 1200.
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. Taught by the example of the earlier schools, imbued with the traditions of Byzantine design, but knowing how to reject its unessential peculiarities, and with increasing proficiency in execution, the artists of the Royal Domain began to give freer play to their own observation and imagination, and to produce works of art which, in all but sentiment—in which the works of the twelfth century cannot be surpassed,—remain unrivalled among the productions of the Middle Ages.
