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
[Illustration: GRIMACE MAKER, DORCHESTER, OXON.]
Often a grotesque face will be found added to a beautiful design of
foliage, either as the conventional mask, as in the design in Lincoln
Chapter House, or a realistic head, as the following grim, dour visage
between graceful curves on a misericord at King's College, Cambridge.
[Illustration: GRACE AND THE GRACELESS, KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.]
The Domestic and Popular.
[Illustration: THE WEAKER VESSEL, SHERBORNE.]
Domestic and popular incidents are plentiful among the carvings, of which
they form, indeed, a distinct class; and they afford a considerable amount
of material with which might be built up, in a truly Hogarthian and
exaggerated spirit, an elaborate account of mediæval manners in general.
In the majority of cases the incidents have a familiar, if not an
endearing suggestiveness.
[Illustration: DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
The records of mankind are not wanting in stormy incidents in which the
gentle female spirit has chafed under some presumed foolishness or
wickedness of the head of the house, and at length breaking bounds,
inflicted on him personal reminders that patience endureth but for a
season. An example of this is given above, which shews the possibility of
such a thing as far back as 1520, the date of the Beverley Minster
misericordes. While the lady is devoting her attention to the flagellation
of her unfortunate and perhaps entirely blameless spouse, a dog avails
himself of the opportunity to rifle the caldron.
[Illustration: AN UNKIND FARE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
The picture in the initial, taken from a carving in the choir of Sherborne
Minster, shews another domestic incident in which the lady administers
castigation. Though in itself no more than a vulgar satire, it is probable
that this carving was copied from some representation of St. Lucy, who is
sometimes shewn with a staff in her hand, and behind her the devil
prostrate.
It is not easy to say what is the meaning of another carving in Beverley
Minster, or whether it has any connection with that just noted. The
probability is that it has not. This may be a shrewish wife being wheeled
in the tumbril to the waterside, there to undergo for the better ruling of
her tongue, a punishment the authority for which was custom older than
law. But I am inclined to think that another reading will be nearer the
truth. The vehicle is not the tumbril but a wheelbarrow, and the man
propelling it is younger than the lady, who is pulling his hair. I imagine
the man is apprentice or husband, and is not very cheerfully trundling his
companion home. A similar, but more definite misericorde is in Ripon
Cathedral.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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