Chapter IV
., shows the carving on this portal, which is the same that has Biscornette's famous hinges. The central figure of St. Marcel himself presents the saint in the act of reproving a naughty dragon which had had the indiscretion to devour the body of a rich but wicked lady. The dragon is seen issuing from the dismantled tomb of this unfortunate person. The dragon repented his act, when the saint had finished admonishing him, and showed his attachment and gratitude for thus being led in paths of rectitude, by following the saint for four miles, apparently walking much as a seal would walk, beseeching the saint to forgive him. But Marcel was firm, and punished the serpent, saying to him: "Go forth and inhabit the deserts or plunge thyself into the sea;" and, as St. Patrick rid the Celtic land of snakes, so St. Marcel seems to have banished dragons from fair France.
[Illustration: CARVINGS AROUND CHOIR AMBULATORY, CHARTRES]
At Chartres there are eighteen hundred statues, and almost as many at Amiens and at Rheims and Paris. One reason for the superiority of French figure sculpture in the thirteenth century, over that existing in other countries, is that the French used models. There has been preserved the sketch book of a mediæval French architect, Vilard de Honcourt, which is filled with studies from life: and why should we suppose him to be the only one who worked in this way?
Rheims Cathedral is the Mecca of the student of mediæval sculpture. The array of statues on the exterior is amazing, and a walk around the great structure reveals unexpected riches in corbels, gargoyles, and other grotesques, hidden at all heights, each a veritable work of art, repaying the closest study, and inviting the enthusiast to undue extravagance at a shop in the vicinity, which advertises naïvely, that it is an "Artistical Photograph Laboratory."
On the door of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris, there is a portrait statue of St. Geneviève, holding a lighted candle, while "the devil in little" sits on her shoulder, exerting himself to blow it out! It is quite a droll conceit of the thirteenth century.
Of the leaf forms in Gothic sculpture, three styles are enough to generalize about. The early work usually represented springlike leaves, clinging, half-developed, and buds. Later, a more luxuriant foliage was attempted: the leaves and stalks were twisted, and the style was more like that actually seen in nature. Then came an overblown period, when the leaves were positively detached, and the style was lost. The foliage was no longer integral, but was applied.
There is little of the personal element to be exploited in dealing with the sculptors in the Middle Ages. Until the days of the Renaissance individual artists were scarcely recognized; master masons employed "Imagers" as casually as we would employ brick-layers or plasterers; and no matter how brilliant the work, it was all included in the general term "building."
The first piece of signed sculpture in France is a tympanum in the south transept at Paris, representing the Stoning of Stephen. It is by Jean de Chelles, in 1257. St. Louis of France was a patron of arts, and took much interest in his sculptors. There were two Jean de Montereau, who carved sacred subjects in quite an extraordinary way. Jean de Soignoles, in 1359, was designated as "Macon et Ymageur." One of the chief "imageurs," as they were called, was Jacques Haag, who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in Amiens. This artist was imprisoned for sweating coin, but in 1481 the king pardoned him. He executed large statues for the city gates, of St. Michael and St. Firmin, in 1464 and 1489. There was a sculptor in Paris in the fourteenth century, one Hennequin de Liege, who made several tombs in black and white marble, among them that of Blanche de France, and the effigy of Queen Philippa at Westminster.
It was customary both in France and England to use colour on Gothic architecture. It is curious to realize that the façade of Notre Dame in Paris was originally a great colour scheme. A literary relic, the "Voyage of an Armenian Bishop," named Martyr, in the year 1490, alludes to the beauty of this cathedral of Paris, as being ablaze with gold and colour.
An old record of the screen of the chapel of St. Andrew at Westminster mentions that it was "adorned with curious carvings and engravings, and other imagery work of birds, flowers, cherubims, devices, mottoes, and coats of arms of many of the chief nobility painted thereon. All done at the cost of Edmond Kirton, Abbot, who lies buried on the south side of the chapel under a plain gray marble slab." H. Keepe, who wrote of Westminster Abbey in 1683, mentioned the virgin over the Chapter House door as being "all richly enamelled and set forth with blue, some vestigia of all which are still remaining, whereby to judge of the former splendour and beauty thereof." Accounts make frequent mention of painters employed, one being "Peter of Spain," and another William of Westminster, who was called the "king's beloved painter."
King René of Anjou was an amateur of much versatility; he painted and made many illuminations: among other volumes, copies of his own works in prose and verse. Aside from his personal claim to renown in the arts, he founded a school in which artists and sculptors were included. One of the chief sculptors was Jean Poncet, who was followed in the king's favour by his son Pons Poncet. Poor Pons was something of a back-slider, being rather dissipated; but King René was fond of him, and gave him work to do when he was reduced to poverty. The monument to his nurse, Tiphanie, at Saumur, was entrusted to Pons Poncet. After the death of Pons, the chief sculptor of the court was Jacques Moreau.
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