Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early RenaissanceAddison, Julia de Wolf
History
Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early Renaissance
Addison, Julia de Wolf
Arts and crafts movement; Decoration and ornament, Medieval; Decorative arts -- History; Illumination of books and manuscripts
At Chartres there are eighteen hundred statues, and almost as many
at Amiens and at Rheims and Paris. One reason for the superiority
of French figure sculpture in the thirteenth century, over that
existing in other countries, is that the French used models. There
has been preserved the sketch book of a mediaeval French architect,
Vilard de Honcourt, which is filled with studies from life: and why
should we suppose him to be the only one who worked in this way?
Rheims Cathedral is the Mecca of the student of mediaeval sculpture.
The array of statues on the exterior is amazing, and a walk around
the great structure reveals unexpected riches in corbels, gargoyles,
and other grotesques, hidden at all heights, each a veritable work
of art, repaying the closest study, and inviting the enthusiast
to undue extravagance at a shop in the vicinity, which advertises
naively, that it is an "Artistical Photograph Laboratory."
On the door of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris, there is a portrait
statue of St. Genevieve, holding a lighted candle, while "the devil
in little" sits on her shoulder, exerting himself to blow it out!
It is quite a droll conceit of the thirteenth century.
Of the leaf forms in Gothic sculpture, three styles are enough to
generalize about. The early work usually represented springlike
leaves, clinging, half-developed, and buds. Later, a more luxuriant
foliage was attempted: the leaves and stalks were twisted, and
the style was more like that actually seen in nature. Then came
an overblown period, when the leaves were positively detached,
and the style was lost. The foliage was no longer integral, but
was applied.
There is little of the personal element to be exploited in dealing
with the sculptors in the Middle Ages. Until the days of the Renaissance
individual artists were scarcely recognized; master masons employed
"Imagers" as casually as we would employ brick-layers or plasterers;
and no matter how brilliant the work, it was all included in the general
term "building."
The first piece of signed sculpture in France is a tympanum in the
south transept at Paris, representing the Stoning of Stephen. It
is by Jean de Chelles, in 1257. St. Louis of France was a patron of
arts, and took much interest in his sculptors. There were two Jean
de Montereau, who carved sacred subjects in quite an extraordinary
way. Jean de Soignoles, in 1359, was designated as "Macon et Ymageur."
One of the chief "imageurs," as they were called, was Jacques Haag,
who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in
Amiens. This artist was imprisoned for sweating coin, but in 1481
the king pardoned him. He executed large statues for the city gates,
of St. Michael and St. Firmin, in 1464 and 1489. There was a sculptor
in Paris in the fourteenth century, one Hennequin de Liege, who
made several tombs in black and white marble, among them that of
Blanche de France, and the effigy of Queen Philippa at Westminster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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