The Grotesque in Church Art Part 1

The Grotesque in Church Art.

by T. Tindall Wildridge.

Preface.

The designs of which this book treats have vast fields outside the English church works to which it has been thought good to limit it. Books and buildings undoubtedly mutually interchanged some forms of their ornaments, yet the temple was the earlier repository of man's ideas expressed in art, and the proper home of the religious symbolism which forms so large a proportion of my subject. In view also of the ground I have ventured to hint may be taken up as to the derivation, of a larger number than is generally supposed, of church designs from heathen prototypes by the hands of apprenticed masons, it is fitting that the evidences should be from their chisels. The only exceptions are a few wall-paintings, which serve to point a difference in style and origin.

In every case the examples are from churches in our own land. The conclusions do not nearly approach a complete study of the questions, the research to the present, great as it is, chiefly shewing how much has yet to be learned in order to accurately compare the extant with the long-forgotten. The endeavour has been to present sufficient to enable general inferences to be drawn in the right direction.

Of the numerous works consulted in the course of this essay, the most useful has been "Choir Stalls and their Carvings," sketched by Miss Emma Phipson. While tendering my acknowledgments for much a.s.sistance obtained from that lady's book, I would add that the 'second series' suggested cannot but equal the first as a service to the cause of comparative mythology and folk-lore.

This place may be taken to dispose of two kinds of grotesques in church art which belong to my t.i.tle, though not to my intention.

The memorial erections put into so many churches after the middle of the sixteenth century are to be placed in the same category as the less often ludicrous effigies of earlier times, and may be dismissed as "ugly monumental vanities, miscalled sculpture." The grotesqueness of some of these sepulchral excrescences may in future centuries be still more apparent, though to many even time cannot supply interest. Not all are like the imposing monument to a doctor in Southwark Cathedral, on which, by the way, the epitaph is mainly devoted to laudation of his _pills_.

Yet, though the grotesque is not entirely wanting in even these monuments, it is chiefly through errors of taste. The worst of them are more pathetic than anything else. The grotesque proper implies a proportion of levity, whereas the earnestness evinced by these effigies are more in keeping with the solemnity of the church's purpose than the infinitely more artistic and un.o.btrusive ornament of the fabric. The other cla.s.s of grotesque is the modern imitation of mediaeval carving, with original design. Luckily, it is somewhat rare to find the spirit of the old sculptors animating a modern chisel. One of the best series of modern antiques of this kind is a set of gargoyles at St. Nicholas's, Abingdon, executed about 1881, of which I think it worth while to append a warning sample.

These two cla.s.ses are left out of account in the following pages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN GARGOYLE, ABINGDON, 1881.]

Introduction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GORGONIC MASK, EWELME.]

The more lofty the earlier manifestations of man's intellect, the more complete and immediate seems to have been their advancement. That is to say, where the products of genius depend mainly upon the recognition of great principles and deliberate adherence to them, they are more satisfying than when success depends upon dexterous manipulation of material. What I have in view in this respect in connection with architecture has its co-relative in language. The subtlety and poetic force of Ayran roots shew a refined application of principle--that of imagery--in far advance of the languages rising from them. The successive growths of the detail of language, for use or ornament,--and the useful of one age would seem to become the ornamental of another--necessarily often forsake the high purity of the primeval standard, and give rise, not only to the commonplace, but, by misconception or wantonness, to perversion of taste. So in architecture. Temples were n.o.ble before their ornaments. The grotesque is the slang of architecture. Nowhere so much as in Gothic architecture has the grotesque been fostered and developed, for, except for a blind adherence to ancient designs, due to something like gild continuity, the whole detail was introduced apropos of nothing. The a.s.sisting circ.u.mstance would appear to have been the indifference of the architects to the precise significance of the detail ornaments of their buildings. Gothic, or in fact any architecture admitting ornament, calls for crisp sub-regular projections, which shall, by their prominence and broken surface, attract the eye, but by the vagueness of their general form attract it so slightly as to lose individuality in a general view.

These encrusting ornaments, by their opposition to the light of what the carvers call a "busy" surface, increase and accentuate rather than detract from the effect of the sweep of arches or dying vistas of recurring pillars. They afford a sort of punctuation, or measurers of the rhythm of the composition. Led from point to point, the eye gathers an impression of rich elaboration that does not interfere with its appreciation of the orderliness of the main design.

These objects gained, the architects did not, apparently, enquire what the lesser minds, who carved the boss or dripstone, considered appropriate ornament. Hence we have a thousand fancies, often beautifully worked out, but often utterly incongruous with the intent of the edifice they are intended to adorn, and unworthy of the architecture of which they are a part.

As in language the grotesque is sometimes produced by inadvertency and misconception, so in ornament not all the grotesque is of set purpose, and here the consideration of the less development of the less idea has its chief example. As original meaning became lost, the real merit of earnestness decreased, and the grotesque became an art.

Moreover, the execution of Gothic ornament is excellent in proportion to its artistic easiness. Thus the foliate and florate designs are better carved than the animal forms, and both better than the human. With the exception of little else besides the Angel Choir at Lincoln, and portions of the Percy Shrine at Beverley, there is nothing in Gothic representation of sentient form really worthy of the perfect conceptions of architecture afforded by scores of English churches. It may, of course, be considered that anything but conventional form is out of place as architectural ornament; on the other hand, it must not be ignored that conventionality is a growth. It is only to be expected, therefore, that where the artist found character beyond his reach he fell readily into caricature, though it is a matter for surprise to find such a high standard of ability in that, and in the carved work generally. We find no instances of carving so low in absolute merit as are the best of the wall-paintings of the same periods.

The sources from which the artists obtained their material are as wide as the air. A chief aim of this volume is to indicate those sources, and this is done in some cases rather minutely, though not in any exhaustively. The point of view from which the subject is surveyed is that the original detail of the temples entirely consisted of symbols of worship and attributes, founded chiefly upon astronomical phenomena: that owing to the gild organization of the masons, the same forms were mechanically perpetuated long after the worship of the heavenly bodies had given way to Christianity, often with the thinnest veil of Christian symbolism thrown over them. To this material, descended from remote antiquity, came gradually to be added a mult.i.tude of designs from nature and from fancy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARPY, EXETER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAGE AND TERROR, RIPON.]

Definitions of the Grotesque.

The term "Grotesque," which conveys to us an idea of humourous distortion or exaggeration, is simply _grotto-esque_, being literally the style of art found in the grottos or baths of the ancients. The term rose towards the end of the fifteenth century, when exhumation brought to light the fantastic decorations of the more private apartments of the licentious Romans. The use at that period of a similar style for not unsimilar purposes gave the word common currency, and it has spread to everything which, combined with wit or not, provokes a smile by a real or pretended violation of the laws of Nature and Beauty. In its later, and not in its original, meaning is the word applied to the extraordinary productions of church art. We may usefully inquire as to the causes of those remarkable characteristics of Gothic art which have caused the word Grotesque to fittingly describe so much of its detail.

The joke has a different meaning for every age. The capacity for simultaneously recognizing likeness and contrast between things the most incongruous and wide-sundered, which is at the root of our appreciation of wit, humour, or the grotesque, is a quality of slow growth among nations.

No doubt early man enjoyed his laugh, but it was a different thing from the laughter of our day. Many races have left no suspicion of their ever having smiled; even where there are ample pictorial remains, humour is generally unrepresented. The a.s.syrians have left us the smallest possible grounds for crediting them with its possession. Instances have been adduced of Egyptian humour, but some are doubtful, and in any case the proportion of fun per acre of picture is infinitesimally small. The Greeks, perhaps, came the nearest to what we consider the comic, but with both Greek and Roman the humour has something of bitterness and sterility; even in what was professedly comic we cannot always see any real fun.

Where it strikes out unexpectedly in brief flashes it is with a cold light that leaves no impression of warmth behind. The mechanical character of their languages, with a mult.i.tude of fixed formulae, is perhaps an index to their mental development. The subtleties of wit ran in the direction of gratifying established tastes and prejudices by satirical references, but rarely condescending to amuse for mere humour's sake. Where is found the nearest approach to merriness is in what now-a-days we regard as the least interesting and meritorious grade of humour, the formal parody. The Greeks had, outside their fun, let it be noted, something better than jococity, and that was joyousness. The later Romans became humourous in a low way which has had a permanent influence upon literature and art.

Sense of humour grew with the centuries, and by the time that the Gothic style of architecture arose, appreciation of the ludicrous-in-general (_i.e._ that which is without special reference to an established phase of thought) is traceable as a characteristic of, at least, the Teuton nations. It must be admitted that the popular verbal fun of the middle ages is not always easy to grasp, but it cannot be denied that where understood, or where its outlet is found in the graphic or glyphic arts, there is allied to the innocent coa.r.s.eness and unscrupulousness, a richness of conceit, a wealth of humour, and a delicate and accurate sense of the laughable far beyond Greek wit or Roman jocularity.

It is to the embodiments of the spirit of humour as found in our mediaeval churches that our present study is directed.

It may be as well to first say a little upon those comicalities which may be styled 'grotesques by misadventure.' This is a branch of the subject to be approached with some diffidence, for it is in many cases difficult to discriminate between that which was intended to be grotesque, and that which was executed with serious or often devout feelings, but for one of several causes often presenting to us an irresistibly comic effect.

The causes may be five. First, the varying mechanical and constructive incompetency of the artists to embody their ideas. Second, the copying of an earlier work with executive ability, with strong perception of its unintentional and latent humour, but without respect to, or without knowledge of, its serious meaning. Third, the use of symbolic representation, in which the greater the skill, often the greater the ludicrous effect. Fourth, the change of fashion, manners, and customs.

Fifth, a bias of mind which impelled to whimsical treatment.

Consideration of the causes thus roughly a.n.a.lysed will explain away a large proportion of the irreverence of the irreverent paintings and carvings which excite such surprise, and sometimes disgust, in the minds of many modern observers of ecclesiological detail.

It will be seen that the placing of carvings in any one of these five cla.s.ses, or in the category of intentional grotesques, must, in many cases, be a mere matter of opinion. For the present purpose it will not be necessary to separate them, except so far as the plan of the work does it automatically. Many ecclesiastical and other seals afford familiar instances of the 'comic without intention,' parallel to what is said above as to carvings.

The Carvers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LINCOLN, _14th cent._]

Seemingly probability and evidence go hand in hand to shew that a great bulk of the church mason work of this country was the work of foreigners.

Saxon churches were probably first built by Roman workmen, whose erections would teach sufficient to enable Saxons to afterward build for themselves.

Imported talent, however, is likely to have been constantly employed.

Edward the Confessor brought back with him from France new French designs for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, and doubtless he brought French masons also. Anglo-Norman is strongly Byzantine in character, and though the channels through which it pa.s.sed may be various, there is little doubt that its origin was the great Empire of the East. Again, the great workshop of Europe, where Eastern ideas were gathered together and digested, and which supplied cathedrals and cathedral builders at command, was Flanders; and there is little doubt that during some five centuries after the Norman Conquest, Flemings were employed, in a greater or less degree, on English work. Italians were largely employed. The Angel Choir of Lincoln is one distinct witness to that. The workmen who executed the finely-carved woodwork of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, King's College, Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey, in the sixteenth century, were chiefly Italians, under the superintendence of Torregiano, a Florentine artist. He was a fellow-pupil of Michael Angelo, and is best known by the dastardly blow he dealt him with a mallet, disfiguring him for life. The resentment of Lorenzo de Medici at this caused Torregiano to leave Florence. He came to England in 1503.

The architect, however, of King Henry VII.'s Chapel was Bishop Alc.o.c.k, an Englishman, born at Hull, the already existing Grammar School of which place he endowed, and, perhaps, rebuilt. Many other architects of English buildings were Englishmen, probably the majority, and doubtless a large proportion of the workmen also,[1] but it would be idle to deny that imported art speaks loudly from work of all the styles.

The carved detail may be relied upon to tell us something, and it speaks of an original reliance upon the East, which was never outgrown. The carvings found in England are not marked by anything at all approaching a national spirit, even in the limited degree that was possible. Except for a few carvings of armorial designs, and still fewer with slight local reference, there are none in wood or stone which would not be equally in place in any Romance country in Europe. The carvings, also, in the Continental churches present familiar aspects to the student of English ornament.

But if we have yet to wait some fortunate discovery of rolls of workmen's names, with their rate of wages, we are not without such interesting information concerning the old carvers as is contained in portraits they have left of themselves. Just as authors sometimes recognize how satisfactory it is to have their "effigies" done at the fronts of their books, so have the carvers of old sometimes attached to their works portraits of themselves or their fellows, in their habits as they lived, in their att.i.tudes as they laboured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INDUSTRIOUS CARVER, LYNN.]

Our first carver hails from Lincolnshire. In 1852, when the Church of St.

Nicholas, Lynn, was restored, the misericordes were taken out and not replaced, but pa.s.sed as articles of commerce eventually to the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London. Among these is a view of a carver's studio, shewing the industrious master seated, tapping carefully away at a design upon the bench before him. There are three apprentices in the background working at benches; there are at the back some incised panels, and a piece of open screen-work. Perhaps we may suppose the weather to be cold, for the carver has on an exceedingly comfortable cloak or surcoat. At his feet reposes his dog.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARVER'S INITIALS, ST. NICHOLAS'S, LYNN.]