and sobriety; and it, as a rule, admitted the clothed form only.
The representation of physical beauty being, with the Gothic carver, subordinated to the purpose of enforcing the idea that the soul is more than the body, and of illustrating the doctrine of the salvation of the soul by goodness of life, and the loss of the soul by evil life, it was necessary that beings and things not beautiful should enter into his compositions. The evils that beset the lives and tempt the souls of men had to be in some way set forth, no less than the good things which he is permitted to enjoy. The unhappy lot of the wicked had to be figured as well as the felicities of the good. Hence conspicuous elements in Gothic sculpture, especially after the beginning of the thirteenth century, are the monstrous and the grotesque. Elements which, in true Gothic—though sometimes, perhaps, introduced in a playful spirit,—have, in the main, a serious purpose. And these elements have a value apart from their moral significance, as affording contrasts to the forms of beauty.
The Romanesque imagery—consisting of those fantastic creations of animal life which reflected something of the Roman mythology, combined with forms originating in the grotesque imagination of the Northern races—was soon rejected by the Gothic artists, and in its place motives for ornament were employed which were mainly derived from plant forms.
In the early Gothic the representation of imaginary creatures was, for the most part, confined to the symbolic animals described in the Bible, such as those seen by St. John in the Apocalypse. Instances of these occur on the tympanums of the central doorways of Chartres, Le Mans, and elsewhere. These symbolic creatures were employed as signs of the four Evangelists,[1] but gradually other imaginary creations were introduced, until finally the animal life of the Gothic edifice became more extended in range than that of the richest Romanesque building had been. But during the twelfth century this range was not great.
In the thirteenth century, however, a new fauna was created, which derived much, perhaps, from the old conceptions, but which had also so much that was new as
- ↑ See Viollet-le-Duc, s.v. Animaux, p. 20.
