GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES.--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR UGLY
AND GROTESQUE FACES.--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS DERIVED
FROM ANTIQUITY; THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND THE DISTORTED
MOUTH.--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN AND THE SERPENTS.--ALLEGORICAL
FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND LUXURY.--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF
CLERICAL GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF
INDIVIDUALS, AND GROTESQUE GROUPS.--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF
BOOKS.--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM.
The grimaces and strange postures of the jougleurs seem to have had
great attractions for those who witnessed them. To unrefined and
uneducated minds no object conveys so perfect a notion of mirth as an
ugly and distorted face. Hence it is that among the common peasantry
at a country fair few exhibitions are more satisfactory than that of
grinning through a horse-collar. This sentiment is largely exemplified
in the sculpture especially of the middle ages, a long period,
during which the general character of society presented that want
of refinement which we now observe chiefly in its least cultivated
classes. Among the most common decorations of our ancient churches and
other mediæval buildings, are grotesque and monstrous heads and faces.
Antiquity, which lent us the types of many of these monstrosities,
saw in her Typhons and Gorgons a signification beyond the surface of
the picture, and her grotesque masks had a general meaning, and were
in a manner typical of the whole field of comic literature. The mask
was less an individual grotesque to be laughed at for itself, than
a personification of comedy. In the middle ages, on the contrary,
although in some cases certain forms were often regarded as typical
of certain ideas, in general the design extended no farther than the
forms which the artist had given to it; the grotesque features, like
the grinning through the horse-collar, gave satisfaction by their mere
ugliness. Even the applications, when such figures were intended to
have one, were coarsely satirical, without any intellectuality, and,
where they had a meaning beyond the plain text of the sculpture or
drawing, it was not far-fetched, but plain and easily understood. When
the Anglo-Saxon drew the face of a bloated and disfigured monk, he no
doubt intended thereby to proclaim the popular notion of the general
character of monastic life, but this was a design which nobody could
misunderstand, an interpretation which everybody was prepared to give
to it. We have already seen various examples of this description of
satire, scattered here and there among the immense mass of grotesque
sculpture which has no such meaning. A great proportion, indeed, of
these grotesque sculptures appears to present mere variations of a
certain number of distinct types which had been handed down from a
remote period, some of them borrowed, perhaps involuntarily, from
antiquity. Hence we naturally look for the earlier and more curious
examples of this class of art to Italy and the south of France, where
the transition from classical to mediæval was more gradual, and the
continued influence of classical forms is more easily traced. The
early Christian masons appear to have caricatured under the form of
such grotesques the personages of the heathen mythology, and to this
practice we perhaps owe some of the types of the mediæval monsters.
We have seen in a former chapter a grotesque from the church of Monte
Majour, near Nismes, the original type of which had evidently been some
burlesque figure of Saturn eating one of his children. The classical
mask doubtless furnished the type for those figures, so common in
mediæval sculpture, of faces with disproportionately large mouths; just
as another favourite class of grotesque faces, those with distended
mouths and tongues lolling out, were taken originally from the Typhons
and Gorgons of the ancients. Many other popular types of faces rendered
artificially ugly are mere exaggerations of the distortions produced on
the features by different operations, such, for instance, as that of
blowing a horn.
The practice of blowing the horn, is, indeed, peculiarly calculated
to exhibit the features of the face to disadvantage, and was not
overlooked by the designers of the mediæval decorative sculpture. One
of the large collection of casts of sculptures from French cathedrals
exhibited in the museum at South Kensington, has furnished the two
subjects given in our cut No. 95. The first is represented as blowing
a horn, but he is producing the greatest possible distortion in his
features, and especially in his mouth, by drawing the horn forcibly
on one side with his left hand, while he pulls his beard in the other
direction with the right hand. The force with which he is supposed to
be blowing is perhaps represented by the form given to his eyes. The
face of the lower figure is in at least comparative repose. The design
of representing general distortion in the first is further shown by the
ridiculously unnatural position of the arms. Such distortion of the
members was not unfrequently introduced to heighten the effect of the
grimace in the face; and, as in these examples, it was not uncommon to
introduce as a further element of grotesque, the bodies, or parts of
the bodies, of animals, or even of demons.
[Illustration: _No. 95. Grotesque Monsters._]
[Illustration: _No. 96. Diabolical Mirth._]
[Illustration: _No. 97. Making Faces._]
Another cast in the Kensington Museum is the subject of our cut No.
96, which presents the same idea of stretching the mouth. The subject
is here exhibited by another rather mirthful looking individual, but
whether the exhibitor is intended to be a goblin or demon, or whether
he is merely furnished with the wings and claws of a bat, seems rather
uncertain. The bat was looked upon as an unpropitious if not an unholy
animal; like the owl, it was the companion of the witches, and of the
spirits of darkness. The group in our cut No. 97 is taken from one of
the carved stalls in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and represents
a trio of grimacers. The first of these three grotesque faces is
lolling out the tongue to an extravagant length; the second is simply
grinning; while the third has taken a sausage between his teeth to
render his grimace still more ridiculous. The number and variety of
such grotesque faces, which we find scattered over the architectural
decoration of our old ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I
will not attempt to give any more particular classification of them.
All this church decoration was calculated especially to produce its
effect upon the middle and lower classes, and mediæval art was, perhaps
more than anything else, suited to mediæval society, for it belonged to
the mass and not to the individual. The man who could enjoy a match at
grinning through horse-collars, must have been charmed by the grotesque
works of the mediæval stone sculptor and wood carver; and we may add
that these display, though often rather rude, a very high degree of
skill in art, a great power of producing striking imagery.
These mediæval artists loved also to produce horrible objects as well
as laughable ones, though even in their horrors they were continually
running into the grotesque. Among the adjuncts to these sculptured
figures, we sometimes meet with instruments of pain, and very talented
attempts to exhibit this on the features of the victims. The creed of
the middle ages gave great scope for the indulgence of this taste in
the infinitely varied terrors of purgatory and hell; and, not to speak
of the more crude descriptions that are so common in mediæval popular
literature, the account to which these descriptions might be turned by
the poet as well as the artist are well known to the reader of Dante.
Coils of serpents and dragons, which were the most usual instruments
in the tortures of the infernal regions, were always favourite objects
in mediæval ornamentation, whether sculptured or drawn, in the details
of architectural decoration, or in the initial letters and margins
of books. They are often combined in forming grotesque tracery with
the bodies of animals or of human beings, and their movements are
generally hostile to the latter. We have already seen, in previous
chapters, examples of this use of serpents and dragons, dating from the
earliest periods of mediæval art; and it is perhaps the most common
style of ornamentation in the buildings and illuminated manuscripts
in our island from the earlier Saxon times to the thirteenth century.
This ornamentation is sometimes strikingly bold and effective. In the
cathedral of Wells there is a series of ornamental bosses, formed by
faces writhing under the attacks of numerous dragons, who are seizing
upon the lips, eyes, and cheeks of their victims. One of these bosses,
which are of the thirteenth century, is represented in our cut No. 98.
A large, coarsely featured face is the victim of two dragons, one of
which attacks his mouth, while the other has seized him by the eye. The
expression of the face is strikingly horrible.
[Illustration: _No. 98. Horror._]
The higher mind of the middle ages loved to see inner meanings through
outward forms; or, at least, it was a fashion which manifested itself
most strongly in the latter half of the twelfth century, to adapt these
outward forms to inward meanings by comparisons and moralisations;
and under the effect of this feeling certain figures were at times
adopted, with a view to some other purpose than mere ornament, though
this was probably an innovation upon mediæval art. The tongue lolling
out, taken originally, as we have seen, from the imagery of classic
times, was accepted rather early in the middle ages as the emblem or
symbol of luxury; and, when we find it among the sculptured ornaments
of the architecture especially of some of the larger and more important
churches, it implied probably an allusion to that vice--at least the
face presented to us was intended to be that of a voluptuary. Among
the remarkable series of sculptures which crown the battlements of
the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, executed a very few years
after the middle of the fifteenth century, amid many figures of a very
miscellaneous character, there are several which were thus, no doubt,
intended to be representatives of vices, if not of virtues. I give two
examples of these curious sculptures.
[Illustration: _No. 99. Gluttony._]
[Illustration: _No. 100. Luxury._]
The first, No. 99, is generally considered to represent gluttony, and
it is a remarkable circumstance that, in a building the character of
which was partly ecclesiastical, and which was erected at the expense
and under the directions of a great prelate, Bishop Wainflete, the
vice of gluttony, with which the ecclesiastical order was especially
reproached, should be represented in ecclesiastical costume. It is an
additional proof that the detail of the work of the building was left
entirely to the builders. The coarse, bloated features of the face,
and the "villainous" low forehead, are characteristically executed;
and the lolling tongue may perhaps be intended to intimate that, in
the lives of the clergy, luxury went hand in hand with its kindred
vice. The second of our examples, No. 100, appears by its different
characteristics (some of which we have been unable to introduce in our
woodcut) to be intended to represent luxury itself. Sometimes qualities
of the individual man, or even the class of society, are represented in
a manner far less disguised by allegorical clothing, and therefore much
more plainly to the understanding of the vulgar. Thus in an illuminated
manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS.
Arundel, No. 91), gluttony is represented by a monk devouring a pie
alone and in secret, except that a little cloven-footed imp holds up
the dish, and seems to enjoy the prospect of monastic indulgence. This
picture is copied in our cut No. 101. Another manuscript of the same
date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435) contains a scene, copied in our cut No.
102, representing drunkenness under the form of another monk, who has
obtained the keys and found his way into the cellar of his monastery,
and is there indulging his love for good ale in similar secrecy. It
is to be remarked that here, again, the vices are laid to the charge
of the clergy. Our cut No. 103, from a bas-relief in Ely Cathedral,
given in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture," represents a man
drinking from a horn, and evidently enjoying his employment, but his
costume is not sufficiently characteristic to betray his quality.
[Illustration: _No. 101. Monkish Gluttony._]
[Illustration: _No. 102. The Monastic Cellarer._]
[Illustration: _No. 103. Drunkenness._]
[Illustration: _No. 104. A Strange Monster._]
The subject of grotesque faces and heads naturally leads us to
that of monstrous and grotesque bodies and groups of bodies, which
has already been partly treated in a former chapter, where we have
noticed the great love shown in the middle ages for monstrous animated
figures, not only monsters of one nature, but, and that especially,
of figures formed by joining together the parts of different, and
entirely dissimilar, animals, of similar mixtures between animals and
men. This, as stated above, was often effected by joining the body
of some nondescript animal to a human head and face; so that, by the
disproportionate size of the latter, the body, as a secondary part
of the picture, became only an adjunct to set off still further the
grotesque character of the human face. More importance was sometimes
given to the body combined with fantastic forms, which baffle any
attempt at giving an intelligible description. The accompanying cut,
No. 104, represents a winged monster of this kind; it is taken from
one of the casts from French churches exhibited in the Kensington
Museum.
[Illustration: _No. 105. Rolling Topsy Turvy._]
Sometimes the mediæval artist, without giving any unusual form to
his human figures, placed them in strange postures, or joined them
in singular combinations. These latter are commonly of a playful
character, or sometimes they represent droll feats of skill, or
puzzles, or other subjects, all of which have been published
pictorially and for the amusement of children down to very recent
times. There were a few of these groups which are of rather frequent
occurrence, and they were evidently favourite types. One of these is
given in the annexed cut, No. 105. It is taken from one of the carved
misereres of the stalls in Ely cathedral, as given in Carter, and
represents two men who appear to be rolling over each other. The upper
figure exhibits animal's ears on his cap, which seem to proclaim him
a member of the fraternity of fools: the ears of the lower figure
are concealed from view. This group is not a rare one, especially on
similar monuments in France, where the architectural antiquaries have a
technical name for it; and this shows us how even the particular forms
of art in the middle ages were not confined to any particular country,
but more or less, and with exceptions, they pervaded all those which
acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of the church of Rome;
whatever peculiarity of style it took in particular countries, the same
forms were spread through all western Europe. Our next cut, No. 106,
gives another of these curious groups, consisting, in fact, of two
individuals, one of which is evidently an ecclesiastic. It will be seen
that, as we follow this round, we obtain, by means of the two heads,
four different figures in so many totally different positions. This
group is taken from one of the very curious seats in the cathedral of
Rouen in Normandy, which were engraved and published in an interesting
volume by the late Monsieur E. H. Langlois.
[Illustration: _No. 106. A Continuous Group._]
[Illustration: _No. 107. Border Ornament._]
[Illustration: _No. 108. A Triumphal Procession._]
Among the most interesting of the mediæval burlesque drawings are
those which are found in such abundance in the borders of the pages of
illuminated manuscripts. During the earlier periods of the mediæval
miniatures, the favourite objects for these borders were monstrous
animals, especially dragons, which could easily be twined into
grotesque combinations. In course of time, the subjects thus introduced
became more numerous, and in the fifteenth century they were very
varied. Strange animals still continued to be favourites, but they
were more light and elegant in their forms, and were more gracefully
designed. Our cut No. 107, taken from the beautifully-illuminated
manuscript of the romance of the "Comte d'Artois," of the fifteenth
century, which has furnished us previously with several cuts, will
illustrate my meaning. The graceful lightness of the tracery of the
foliage shown in this design is found in none of the earlier works
of art of this class. This, of course, is chiefly to be ascribed to
the great advance which had been made in the art of design since the
thirteenth century. But, though so greatly improved in the style of
art, the same class of subjects continued to be introduced in this
border ornamentation long after the art of printing, and that of
engraving, which accompanied it, had been introduced. The revolution
in the ornamentation of the borders of the pages of books was effected
by the artists of the sixteenth century, at which time people had
become better acquainted with, and had learnt to appreciate, ancient
art and Roman antiquities, and they drew their inspiration from a
correct knowledge of what the middle ages had copied blindly, but had
not understood. Among the subjects of burlesque which the monuments
of Roman art presented to them, the stumpy figures of the pigmies
appear to have gained special favour, and they are employed in a manner
which reminds us of the pictures found in Pompeii. Jost Amman, the
well-known artist, who exercised his profession at Nüremberg in the
latter half of the sixteenth century, engraved a set of illustrations
to Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were printed at Lyons in 1574, and each
cut and page of which is enclosed in a border of very fanciful and
neatly-executed burlesque. The pigmies are introduced in these borders
very freely, and are grouped with great spirit. I select as an example,
cut No. 108, a scene which represents a triumphal procession--some
pigmy Alexander returning from his conquests. The hero is seated on
a throne carried by an elephant, and before him a bird, perhaps a
vanquished crane, proclaims loudly his praise. Before them a pigmy
attendant marches proudly, carrying in one hand the olive branch of
peace, and leading in the other a ponderous but captive ostrich, as a
trophy of his master's victories. Before him again a pigmy warrior,
heavily armed with battle-axe and falchion, is mounting the steps
of a stage, on which a nondescript animal, partaking somewhat of
the character of a sow, but perhaps intended as a burlesque on the
strange animals which, in mediæval romance, Alexander was said to have
encountered in Egypt, blows a horn, to celebrate or announce the return
of the conqueror. A snail, also advancing slowly up the stage, implies,
perhaps, a sneer at the whole scene.
[Illustration: _No. 109. The Mote and the Beam._]
Nevertheless, these old German, Flemish, and Dutch artists were still
much influenced by the mediæval spirit, which they displayed in their
coarse and clumsy imagination, in their neglect of everything like
congruity in their treatment of the subject with regard to time and
place, and their _naïve_ exaggerations and blunders. Extreme examples
of these characteristics are spoken of, in which the Israelites
crossing the Red Sea are armed with muskets, and all the other
accoutrements of modern soldiers, and in which Abraham is preparing
to sacrifice his son Isaac by shooting him with a matchlock. In
delineating scriptural subjects, an attempt is generally made to
clothe the figures in an imaginary ancient oriental costume, but the
landscapes are filled with the modern castles and mansion houses,
churches, and monasteries of western Europe. These half-mediæval
artists, too, like their more ancient predecessors, often fall into
unintentional caricature by the exaggeration or simplicity with which
they treat their subjects. There was one subject which the artists of
this period of regeneration of art seemed to have agreed to treat in
a very unimaginative manner. In the beautiful Sermon on the Mount,
our Saviour, in condemning hasty judgments of other people's actions,
says (Matt. vii. 3-5), "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy
brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of
thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite,
first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Whatever be
the exact nature of the beam which the man was expected to overlook
in his "own eye," it certainly was not a large beam of timber. Yet
such was the conception of it by artists of the sixteenth century.
One of them, named Solomon Bernard, designed a series of woodcuts
illustrating the New Testament, which were published at Lyons in 1553;
and the manner in which he treated the subject will be seen in our
cut No. 109, taken from one of the illustrations to that book. The
individual seated is the man who has a mote in his eye, which the
other, approaching him, points out; and he retorts by pointing to the
"beam," which is certainly such a massive object as could not easily
have been overlooked. About thirteen years before this, an artist of
Augsburg, named Daniel Hopfer, had published a large copper-plate
engraving of this same subject, a reduced copy of which is given in the
cut No. 110. The individual who sees the mote in his brother's eye, is
evidently treating it in the character of a physician or surgeon. It
is only necessary to add that the beam in his own eye is of still more
extraordinary dimensions than the former, and that, though it seems
to escape the notice both of himself and his patient, it is evident
that the group in the distance contemplate it with astonishment. The
building accompanying this scene appears to be a church, with paintings
of saints in the windows.
[Illustration: _No. 110. The Mote and the Beam--Another Treatment._]