638 FRANCKE—MEDLEVAL GERMAN SCULPTURE lApriizj, 



ism. And a similar contrast is found in the Crucifixion group. The 

 figures of Mary and John standing under the Cross, as well as that 

 of Joseph of Arimathea holding out the cup to receive the blood 

 of the Saviour, are remarkable for nobility of outline, depth of feel- 

 ing, and measured beauty of expression. There is a fine sweep of 

 movement in the two angels on the cross-beam, gentle sadness in the 

 figure of Christ, and a mild tenderness in the attitude of God the 

 Father appearing above. The symbolical figures, however — prob- 

 ably Jewdom and Pagandom — on which John and Mary are stand- 

 ing, are tortuous and forced. Apparently, here is an artist who 

 looks at life about him with a keen, penetrating, and receptive eye, 

 but who at the same time is impelled to subject reality to certain 

 canons of measure and proportion which he has not yet made fully 

 his own. 



A decided step in advance is made in the sculptures of the Golden 

 Gate of the Cathedral of Freiberg, likewise in Saxony. In the 

 arrangement of plastic figures, both on the sides of the portal and 

 on the archivolts, French influence is clearly seen. But these plastic 

 figures seem here much more independent of the architectural frame- 

 work than is common in the French sculptures, e. g., those of Char- 

 tres Cathedral, which served as models to the German artist ; and the 

 human type and bodily proportions are unmistakably original. 



A thoroughly satisfactory interpretation of all the figures, human, 

 animal and fantastic, which cover the sides of the portal, the tympa- 

 num and the archivolts, and of the fundamental conception under- 

 lying them, has not yet been given, although Anton Springer has 

 done a great deal for the identification of individual personages. 

 Springer thinks that the fundamental conception of the whole is 

 the mystic marriage between Christ and the Church, and that all the 

 scenes and figures of the portal may be interpreted as symbolic of 

 this mystic idea. Simpler and more plausible it seems to me to 

 find in this portal a plastic counterpart to dramatic scenes from the 

 cycle of the Christmas plays, the popularity of which in the thir- 

 teenth century is proved, for Germany, by a particularly complete 

 example, the Benediktbeuren Christmas Play. Clearly a scene from 

 the Christmas cycle is the one represented in the tympanum of the 

 portal : the Adoration of the Magi, the three kings approaching from 



