Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages - A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance by Julia de Wolf Gibbs Addison
page 237 of 344 (68%)
page 237 of 344 (68%)
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There is a curious miserere in Holderness representing a nun between two hares: she is looking out with a smile, and winking! At Ripon the stalls show Jonah being thrown to the whale, and the same Jonah being subsequently relinquished by the sea monster. The whale is represented by a large bland smiling head, with gaping jaws, occurring in the midst of the water, and Jonah takes the usual "header" familiar in mediƦval art, wherever this episode is rendered. A popular treatment of the stall was the foliate mask; stems issuing from the mouth of the mask and developing into leaves and vines. This is an entirely foolish and unlovely design: in most cases it is quite lacking in real humour, and makes one think more of the senseless Roman grotesques and those of the Renaissance. The mediƦval quaintness is missing. At Beverly a woman is represented beating a man, while a dog is helping himself out of the soup cauldron. The misereres at Beverly date from about 1520. Animals as musicians, too, were often introduced,--pigs playing on viols, or pipes, an ass performing on the harp, and similar eccentricities may be found in numerous places, while Reynard the Fox in all his forms abounds. The choir stalls at Lincoln exhibit beautiful carving and design: they date from the fourteenth century, and were given by the treasurer, John de Welburne. There are many delightful miserere |
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