As recumbent effigies are in vogue, there are some points connected
herewith worthy of discussion at the present time in your pages. The
ultra-admirers of the mediæval monuments will not allow the slightest
deviation from what they regard as the prescriptive model--a figure with
the head straight, and the hands raised in prayer. One of their arguments
is, that the ancient effigy is alive, while the modern modifications are in
a state of death, and consequently repulsive to the feelings of the
spectator. In my opinion, however, the vitality of the old ones is very
questionable. Let us reflect upon their probable origin. In former times
the bodies of ecclesiastics and other personages were laid in state,
exposed to public view, and even carried into the churches in that
condition: a custom still prevalent abroad. It is reasonable to conjecture
that the monuments intended to perpetuate this scene in stone, imitating
the form of the deceased, with the canopy and bier, and adorned with
armorial bearings and other appropriate devices. Images of wax were
frequently substituted for the corpse, some of which (among them Queen
Elizabeth's) are still preserved in Westminster Abbey; but the practice was
kept up even down to the time of the great Duke of Marlborough. It is
recorded in history, that during the progress of the body of our Henry V.
from France, a figure of the king, composed of boiled leather, was placed
upon the coffin. York Cathedral contains a beautiful example of a complete
monument of this description in the Early English style, which degenerated
by degrees into the four-post bed, with its affectionate couple, of the
Elizabethan period. It is obviously a fair deduction, from these
circumstances, that the sepulchral effigies are "hearsed in death."
From Mr. Ruskin's _Stones of Venice_, it appears that the figures on the
Venetian tombs of the Middle Ages are manifestly dead; and such, it may be
inferred, is the impression conveyed to his highly cultivated mind by the
contemplation of those in our own country.
"In the most elaborate examples," says this observant writer, "the
canopy is surmounted by a statue, generally small, representing the
dead person in the full strength and pride of life, while the recumbent
figure shows him as he lay in death. And at this point the perfect type
of the Gothic tomb is reached."
Describing one at Verona, of the fourteenth century, he observes:
"The principal aim of the monument is to direct the thoughts to his
image as he lies in death, and to the expression of his hope of
resurrection."
And towards the conclusion of his review of their development he writes:
"This statue in the meantime has been gradually coming back to life
through a curious series of transitions. The Vendramin monument is one
of the last which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent figure laid
in death. A few years later this idea became disagreeable to polite
minds; and lo! the figures which before had been laid at rest upon the
tomb pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began to look
around them. The soul of the sixteenth century dared not contemplate
its body in death."
Flaxman, in his remarks on the monuments of Aylmer de Valence and Edmund
Crouchback in Westminster Abbey, admires
"The solemn repose of the principal figure, representing the deceased
in his last prayer for mercy to the throne of grace, the delicacy of
thought in the group of angels bearing the soul, and the tender
sentiment of concern variously expressed in the relations ranged in
order round the basement."
As, however, a canopy on the former exhibits a living figure of the
departed on horseback, such as Mr. Ruskin notices in Italy, and as the
angels are said to bear the soul, the knight must certainly have breathed
his last. The raised hands are no refutation of the argument, since there
are grounds for the assertion that those of the dead bodies laid in state
were sometimes tied together to retain them in the suitable position. A few
exceptional instances, no doubt, occur of variations in the attitude
irreconcileable with death, and equally inconsistent with a reclining
posture. It must also be admitted that in brasses and incised slabs (which
may be regarded in many respects as parallel memorials), the eyes are
almost invariably unclosed; yet the fact, neither in this case nor in that
of the carved marble, does not by any means certify that the individuals
are alive.
Since then there is so much reason for the supposition that the generality
of our ancestors are sculptured in the sleep of death, the recumbent figure
of a Christian clasping the Bible, and slightly turning his head, just
passed away into another state of existence (not into purgatory, {515} but
into a happier world), cannot surely be now deemed unsuitable to a Gothic
church.