But he did not find the monstrosities of his fancy. At Chartres the
Vices and Virtues were not symbolized by more or less chimerical
creatures, but by human faces. After careful search he discovered on
some of the pillars of the middle doorway the Vices embodied in small
carved groups: Lust, as a woman fondling a young man; Drunkenness as a
boor about to hit a bishop; Discord by a husband quarrelling with his
wife, while an empty bottle and a broken distaff lie near them.
By way of infernal monsters, the utmost he could discern,--and that by
dislocating his neck--were two dragons in the right-hand bay, one
exorcised by a monk and the other bridled by a Saint with his stole.
Of divine beasts he could distinguish in the row of Virtues certain
female figures with symbolical creatures by their side: Docility
accompanied by an ox; Chastity by a phoenix; Charity by a sheep;
Meekness by a lamb; Fortitude by a lion; Temperance by a camel. Why
should the phoenix here typify Chastity, for it is not used generally in
that sense in the Bird-books of the Middle Ages?
Somewhat disconcerted by the poverty of the fauna of Chartres, he
comforted himself by a study of this southern porch; it was a match for
that on the north, and repeated, with a variant, the subject of the west
front--the glorification of Christ, but in His function as the Supreme
Judge, and in the person of His Saints.
This front, begun in the time of Philip Augustus, and built at the cost
of the Comte de Dreux and his wife Alice of Brittany, was not completed
till the time of Philippe le Bel. It was divided, like the other two,
into three portions: a central door with a tympanum in a pointed arch
bearing the presentment of the Last Judgment; one on the left devoted to
the Martyrs, and one on the right dedicated to the Confessors.
The central bay suggested the form of a boat set on end, its prow in the
air; its deeply spreading sides contained in their niches six Apostles
on each, and in the middle, between the doors, stood a single statue of
Christ.
This statue, like that at Amiens, was famous; every guidebook sings the
praises of the regular features, the calm expression of the face; in
reality the countenance is particularly fatuous and cold, beautiful but
lifeless. How inferior to that of the twelfth century, the expressive
and living God seated between the symbols of the Tetramorph in the
tympanum of the royal front.
The Apostles were perhaps rather more refined, rather less squat than
the patriarchs and prophets supporting Saint Anne under the north porch,
but their quality as works of art was less striking. They resembled the
Christ, Whom they escorted with decent duty: it was honest work,
phlegmatic sculpture, so to speak.
They held the instruments of their death with placid propriety, like
soldiers presenting arms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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