to constitute a different class from what had preceded. A popular belief had long existed in the symbolic character of animals and imaginary creatures;[1] and as symbols of human qualities, both good and evil, they were now wrought, for encouragement or for warning, upon the stones of the sacred edifice. A further purpose of this fauna, joined with that of the flora, and with the vast range of human life, both natural and supernatural, was that the Gothic edifice might form a compendious illustration of the known world of creation, imagination, and faith.
A remarkable quality of the grotesque creations of Gothic art is the close and accurate observation of nature which they, no less than the images of real things, display. However fabulous the imaged creature may be, the materials out of which he is made are derived from nature. Whether it be vertebra or claw, wing or beak, eye or nostril, throat or paw—every anatomical member displays an intimate familiarity with the true functional form, and an imaginative sense of its possible combinations with other members. Take, for instance (Fig. 174), one of the grotesque creatures which play among the leafage under the hood-mould of the archivolt of the portal of the Virgin in the Cathedral of Paris, or one of the gargoyles of the lateral façades, or of the terrible beasts and demons of the parapet of the west front, and see with what vitality it is imbued.
And besides functional truth there is always a subtle and highly ornamental play of lines and surfaces in these fanciful creatures. There is, too, in early Gothic a comparative restraint of posture and movement in this animal life, as in everything else. Contorted forms and extravagant writhings belong mostly to the times of the declining Gothic, when such extravagance appears in obedience to the demands of jaded sensibilities.
With the figure sculpture of French architecture is associated a rich profusion of carved leafage which, inwrought with the leading structural members of the building, softens and enriches its rigid lines, hard angles, and blank surfaces, with a beauty akin to that which clothes the hardness of the framework of the earth.
- ↑ See the Mélanges d'Archéologie of Cahier and Martin, tome i. p. 106, et seq.
