The Grotesque in Church ArtWildridge, T. Tindall (Thomas Tindall)
History
The Grotesque in Church Art
Wildridge, T. Tindall (Thomas Tindall)
Christian art and symbolism; Church decoration and ornament; Grotesque
The goat characteristics are well carved on a seat in All Souls. A goat
figure of the thirteenth century at Chichester has the head of a man with
a curious twisted or tied beard, clutched by one of the hands in which the
fore feet terminate. The clutching of the beard is not uncommon among
Gothic figures, and has doubtless some original on a coin, or other
ancient standard design. At St. Helen's, Abingdon, Berkshire, in different
parts of the church, three heads, one being a king, another a bishop, are
shewn grasping or stroking each his own beard. It is to be remembered that
the stroking of the beard is a well-known Eastern habit.
Of close kindred to the goat form is the bull form. Just as Ceres
symbolized the fecundity of the earth in the matter of cereals, so Pan was
the emblem by which was figured its productiveness of animal life. Thus
Priapus was rendered in goat form, as the ready type of animal sexual
vigor; but not less familiar in this connection was the bull, and that
animal also symbolizes Pan, who became, when superstition grew out of
imagery, the protector of cattle in general. An old English superstition
was that a piece of horn, hung to the stable or cowhouse key, would
protect the animals from night-fright and other ills. When the pagan Gods
were skilfully turned into Christian devils, we find the bull equally with
the goat as a Satanic form, and several examples will be seen in the
drawings.
The ox, as the symbol of St. Luke, is stated to refer, on account of its
cud-chewing, to the eclectic character of this evangelist's gospel.
Irenæus, speaking of the second cherubim of the Revelation, which is the
same animal, says the calf signifies the sacerdotal office of Christ; but
the fanciful symbolisms of the fathers and of the Bestiaries are often
indifferent guides to original meaning. It may be that in the ox forms we
have astronomical allusions to Taurus, Bacchus, to Diana, or to Pan. A
note on the emblems of the Evangelists follows in the remarks on the
combinatory forms met in grotesque art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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