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
At Gayton, Northants, is a further curious instance of this group. The two
Sinners are in this case unquestionably males, and, but for the
coincidence with the preceding examples, the men might have been supposed
to have been engaged in some game of chance. It will be observed that the
one to the right has a rosary as in the first-named carving. Satan here
is well clothed in feathers, and in his left wing is the head of what is
probably one of the instruments of torture awaiting the very much
overshadowed victims. It is a kind of rake or flesh-hook, with three
sharp, hooked teeth; perhaps a figure of the tongue of a slanderer,
materialized for his own subsequent scarification; it may be added as a
kind of satanic badge. Satan bears on his right arm a leaf-shaped shield.
[Illustration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, GAYTON, NORTHANTS.]
The vice next to be regarded is Avarice. In a misericorde at Beverley
Minster we have three scenes from the history of the Devil. One gives us
the avaricious man bending before his coffers. He has taken out a coin; if
we read aright his contemplative and affectionate look, it is gold.
Hidden behind the chest behold Satan, one of whose bullock horns is
visible as he lurks out of the miser's sight, grinning to think how surely
the victim is his.
At the opposite end of the carving is the other extreme, Gluttony. A man
is drinking out of a huge flask, which he holds in his right hand, while
in the other he grasps a ham (or is it not impossible that this is a
second bottle). In this the devil is likewise present; he is apparently
desperately anxious the victim should have enough.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL AND THE MISER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
[Illustration: SATAN AND A SOUL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
Between these two reliefs appears Satan seizing a naked soul. In the
original all that remains of the Devil's head is the outline and one
horn; of the soul's head there remains only the outline; the two faces I
have ventured to supply, also the fore-arm of the Devil. The fiend is here
again presented with the attributes of a bullock, rather than a goat.
Satan has had placed on his abdomen a mask or face, a somewhat common
method of adding to the startling effect of his boisterous personality.
The fine rush which the fiend is making upon the soul, and the shrinking
horror of the latter, are exceedingly well rendered. The moral is, we may
suppose, that the sinners on either side will come to the same bad end.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL AND THE GLUTTON, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
Among the seat-carvings of Henry VII's. Chapel, Westminster Abbey, we have
the vice of Avarice more fully treated, there being two carvings devoted
to the subject. In the first we see a monk suddenly seized by a quaint and
curious devil (to whom I have supplied his right fore-arm). The monk,
horror-stricken, yet angry, has dropped his bag of sovereigns, or nobles,
and the coins fall out. He would escape if he could, but the claws of the
fiend have him fast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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