The Grotesque in Church Art Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANCING FOOLS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]

This observance, so evidently an expedient parody of the old-time festivals, is traceable in England, and said to have been abolished about the end of the fourteenth century. The carvings in Beverley Minster, here presented, are supposed to refer to the Feast, and at any rate give us a good idea of the mediaeval fool. There were innumerable cla.s.sic dances.

The Greeks send down the names of two hundred kinds. A dance with arms was the Pyrrhic dance, which was similar in some of its varieties to the military dance known as the Morris. The Morris was introduced into Spain by the Moors, and brought into England by John of Gaunt in 1332. It was, however, little used until the reign of Henry VII. There were other vivacious dances, called Bayle, of Moorish origin, which, as well as various kinds of the stately Court dance, were used by the Spaniards. It is difficult, from general sources, to ascertain the dances in vogue in old England. A drawing in the Cotton MSS. shews a Saxon dancing a reel.

The general inference is, however, that the Morris (of the Moors or Moriscoes) was the chief dance of the English, and perhaps it is that in which the saltatory fools of the carving are engaged.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ABJECT OBJECT. WINCHESTER COLLEGE CHAPEL.]

Probably the extraordinary monstrosity shewn in the annexed block had an actual existence. There are fairly numerous accounts of such malformities in mediaeval times, and it was a function of mediaeval humour to make capital out of unfortunate deformity. This poor man has distorted hands instead of feet, and he moves about on pattens or wooden clogs strapped to his hands and legs. There is little meaning in the side carvings. The fool-ape, making an uncouth gesture, is perhaps to shew the character of those who mock misfortune. The man with the scimitar may represent the alarm of one who might suddenly come upon the sight of the abortion, and fearing some mystery or trap, draw his blade. In a sense this is a humourous carving--yet there is a quality for which it is much more remarkable, and that is its element of forcible and realistic pathos.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MYTHOLOGICAL EPISODE, YORK.]

Two reliefs from York Minster are presumably scenes from cla.s.sic mythology, from, in regard to the costumes, a Saxon point of view. One may be supposed to be the rape of Ganymede. Oak leaves are an attribute of Jupiter, as is also the eagle which bore Ganymede to Olympus.

The other may be Vulcan giving Venus "a piece of his mind."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARITAL VIOLENCE, YORK.]

If these readings are correct these two carvings are among the very few instances of representations of circ.u.mstantial detail of the Olympian mythology. Most of the church references to mythology have more connection with the earlier symbolic meanings than with the later narrative histories into which the cults degenerated. Other examples are in the references to Hercules in the sixteenth century stalls of Henry VII.'s Chapel, Westminster.

There is in mediaeval art several examples remaining of what may be called topsy-turveyism, in which two figures mutually lent their parts to each other in such a way that four figures may be found.

An excellent example of this is at New College, Oxford, in which, though the four figures are so apparent when once seen, the two (taken as upper and lower), are in a natural and ingenious acrobatic position. The grotesque head at the base is put in to balance the composition, and perhaps to prevent the trick being discerned at once.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CONTINUOUS GROUP OF FOUR FIGURES, OXFORD.]

The grace of the free if somewhat meagre Corinthian acanthus as used in Early English work is often rendered more marked by the introduction of an extraneous subject. Thus at Wells the foliate design is relieved by the ungainly figure of a melancholy individual, who, before retiring to rest, pursues an examination into his pedal callosities, or extracts the poignant thorn. Or can it be that we have here a reminder of the Egyptian monarch, Somaraja, mentioned in the Hindoo accounts of the Egyptian mythology, who was dissolute and outcast, and who, to shew his repentance and patience, stood twelve days upon one leg?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PILGRIM'S PAINS, WELLS.]

This discursive chapter would not be complete without a reference to the alleged impropriety of church grotesques. Though it is not to be denied that in the wide range of subjects a considerable number of indecent subjects have crept in, yet their proportion is small. Examination would lead to the belief that upon the whole the art of the churches is much purer than the literature or the popular taste of the respective periods.

Though there may be sometimes met examples of grossness of humour and a frank want of reserve, such as in the annexed drawing from the chapel of All Souls, Oxford, yet these are rarely of the most gross or least reserved character.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A POSTURIST, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.]

It may be well to note, in this connection that the literature from which we draw the bulk of our ideas as to mediaeval life, are foreign, and that, although English manners would not be remotely different in essentials, yet there would be as many absolute differences as there are yet remaining to our eyes in architecture and in art generally.

The Pig and other Animal Musicians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: APE AS PIPER, BEVERLEY.]

One might count in the churches animal musicians, perhaps, by thousands, and the reason of their presence is doubtless the same as that which explains the frequency of the serious carvings of musicians which adorn the arches of nave and choir throughout the country--namely the prevalent use of various kinds of instrumental music in the service of the church.

The animal musicians are the burlesques of the human, and the fact that the pig is the most frequent performer may perhaps suggest that the ability of the musician had overwhelmed the consideration of other qualities which might be expected, but were not found, in the harmony-producing choristers. Clever as musicians, they may have become merely functionaries as regards interest in the church, as we see to-day in the case of our bell-ringers, who for the most part issue from the churches as wors.h.i.+ppers enter them.

It may also be that the frequency of suilline musicians may have derisive reference to the ancient veneration in which the pig was held in the mythologies. It was a symbol of the sun, and, derivatively, of fecundity.

Perhaps the strongest trace of this is in Scandinavian mythology. The northern races sacrificed a boar to Freyr, the patron deity of Sweden and of Iceland, the G.o.d of fertility; he was fabled to ride upon a boar named Gullinbrusti, or Golden Bristle. Freyr's festival was at Yule-tide. Yule is _jul_ or _heol_, the sun, and Gehul is the Saxon "Sunfeast." The G.o.ds of Scandinavia were said to nightly feast upon the great boar Saehrimnir, which eaten up, was every morning found whole again. This seems somewhat akin to the Hindoo story of Crorasura, a demon with the face of a boar, who continually read the Vedas and was so devout that Vishnu (the sun G.o.d) gave him a boon. He asked that no creature existing in the three worlds might have power to slay him, which was granted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOW AND FIDDLE, WINCHESTER.]

The special sacrifice of the pig was not peculiar to Scandinavia, for the Druids and the Greeks also offered up a boar at the winter solstice. The sacrifice of a pig was a constant preliminary of the Athenian a.s.semblies.

As a corn destroyer the same animal was sacrificed to Ceres.

The above explains the recurrence of the pig rather than the pig musician.

A pregnant sow was, however, yearly sacrificed to Mercury, the inventor of the harp, and a sow playing the harp is among the rich set of choir carvings in Beverley Minster.

The chase of the boar was the sport of September, the ordinary killing season, the swine being then in condition after their autumn feed of _bucon_, or beechmast (hence _bacon_), "His Martinmas has come" pa.s.sed into a proverb. The prevalence of the pig as a food animal had undoubtedly its share in the frequency of art reference.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOW AS HARPIST, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]

In the Christian adoption of pagan attributes, the pig was apportioned to St. Anthony, it is said, variously, because he had been a swine-herd, or lived in woods. The smallest or weakling pig in a litter, called in the north "piggy-widdy" (small white pig), and in the south midlands the "dillin" (perhaps equivalent to _delayed_), and is elsewhere styled the Anthony pig, as specially needing the protection of his patron.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUSIC AT DINNER, WINCHESTER.]

A common representation of the pig musician is a sow who plays to her brood. At Winchester, the feast of the little ones is enlivened by the strains of the double flute. At Durham Castle, in a carving formerly in Aucland Castle Chapel, the sow plays the bagpipes while the young pigs dance. At Ripon, a vigorous carving has the same subject, and another at Beverley, in which a realistic trough forms the foreground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOW AND BAGPIPES, DURHAM CASTLE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIGS AND PIPES, RIPON.]

The "Pig and Whistle" forms an old tavern sign. Dr. Brewer explains this as the pot, bowl, or cup (the _pig_), and the wa.s.sail it contained. The earthenware vessel used to warm the feet in bed is in Scotland yet called "the pig," and to southern strangers the use of the word has caused a temporary embarra.s.sment. If this explanation is not coincident with some other not at present to hand, the carving of the pig and whistle in the sixteenth century carving in Henry VII.'s chapel shows that the corruption of the "pig and wa.s.sail" was accepted in ignorance as far back as that period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIG AND WHISTLE, WESTMINSTER.]

But too much stress is not to be laid upon the pig as a musician, for at Westminster the bear plays the bagpipes, just as at Winchester the ape performs on the harp. In the Beverley Minster choir an ape converts a cat into an almost automatic instrument by biting its tail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: APE AS HARPIST, WESTMINSTER.]

Compound Forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATHOR, CHICHESTER.]

In nearly every church compound forms are met which in a high degree merit the designation of grotesque. Few religions have been without these symbolic representations of complex characters. If the Egyptian had its cat-headed and hawk-headed men, the a.s.syrian its human-headed bull, the Mexican its serpent-armed tiger-men, so also the Scandinavian mythology had its horse-headed and vulture-headed giants, and its human-headed eagle. Horace, who doubtless knew the figurative meaning of what he satirizes, viewed the representations of such compounds in his days, and asks--

"If in a picture you should see A handsome woman with a fishes tail, Or a man's head upon a horse's neck, Or limbs of beasts of the most diff'rent kind, Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds Would you not laugh?"[6]

It is, perhaps, a little remote from our subject to inquire whether the poet or the priest came the first in bringing about these archaic combinations; yet a word or two may be devoted to suggesting the inquiry.

It is probable that the religious ideas and artistic forms met in ancient wors.h.i.+ps first solely existed in poetic expressions of the qualities of the sun--of the other members of the solar system--of the G.o.ds. Thus the swiftness of the sun in his course and in his light induced the mention of wings. Hence the wings of an eagle added to a circular form arose as the symbol in one place; in another arose the G.o.d Mercury; while Jove the great sun-G.o.d is shewn accompanied by an eagle. The fertility of the earth became as to corn Ceres, as to vines Bacchus, as to flowers Flora, and so forth. The human personification, in cases where a combination of qualities or functions was sought to be indicated, resulted in more or less abstruse literary fables; on the other hand the artist or symbol seeker found it easier to select a lower plane of thought for his embodiments. Thus, while swiftness suggested the eagle, strength was figured by the lion: so when a symbol of swiftness and strength was required arose the compound eagle-lion, the gryphon.

The gryphon, however, though constantly met in Gothic, is rarely grotesque in itself. Another form which also, to a certain extent, is incorruptible, is that of the sphinx. This is a figure symbolic of the sun from the Egyptian point of view, in which the Nile was all-important. Nilus, or Ammon, the Egyptian Jove, was the sun-G.o.d, an equivalent to Osiris, and the sphinx was similar in estimation, being, it is reasonably conjectured, a compound of Leo and Virgo, at whose conjunction the Nile has yearly risen. According to Dr. Birch, the sphinx is to be read as being the symbol of Harmachis or "the sun on the horizon." It may be that the Child rising from the Sh.e.l.l is sunrise over the sea, and the Sphinx sunrise over the land. It has been conjectured that the cherubim of the tabernacle were sphinx-form. The cherubim on the Mosaic Ark are among the subjects of the earliest mention of composite symbols. Ezekiel says they were composed of parts of the figures of a man (wisdom, intellect), a lion (dominion), a bull (strength), and an eagle (sharp-sightedness, swiftness.) The Persians and Hindoos had similar figures. A man with buffalo horns is painted in the Synhedria of the American Indians in conjunction with that of a panther or puma-like beast, and these are supposed to be a contraction of the cherubimical figures of the man, the bull, and the lion; these, renewed yearly, are near the carved figures of eagles common in the Indian sun-wors.h.i.+p.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPHINX AND BUCKLER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]