92 
House & Garden 
— ■ ^11 ■' ■■ ■■■ ^ I 
Speaking 
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PORTLAND CEMENT ASSOCIATION 
ATLANTA DETROIT LOS ANGELES NEW YORK SALK LAKE CITY 
CHICAGO HELENA MILWAUKEE PARKERSBURG SAN FRANCISCO 
DALLAS INDIANAPOUS MINNEAPOLIS PITTSBURGH SEATTLE 
DENVER KANSAS CITY PORTLAND. OREG. ST. LOUIS 
DES MOINES WASHINGTON 
Gothic Statuary as Decorations 
{Continued from page 90) 
never smiled, they always suffered. But 
with the coming of Gothic art, the face 
of the Virgin lit up with a gentle and be¬ 
nign look of happiness. Just as in the 
year 5S0 B. C. the first smile appeared 
on the face of a Grecian statue, and this 
smile led to the glorious realism of 
Phidias and Scopas, just so the smile of 
the first Gothic saint was the forerunner 
of the freedom of Raphael and of Mi¬ 
chael Angelo, of Rembrandt and Velas¬ 
quez. In spite of the idea held by some 
that Gothic art is unreal, it is the foun¬ 
dation of realism in modern art, the 
first realism since classic art had been 
swallowed in the barbaric cataclysm. 
And just as there is a purity and a 
poignancy of feeling in any art before 
it has reached the stage of academic 
sophistication, so there is a pristine ap¬ 
peal in Gothic art which endears it to 
those who have an appreciation for 
such fundamental elements in art. 
The American Vogue 
So it is that, both for sentimental and 
esthetic reasons, aside from its kinship 
with the American character. Gothic art 
has come in for a generous share of 
popularity in the art awakening of the 
country. 
Its first great protagonist in this 
country was George Grey Barnard, the 
sculptor, who brought over from France 
many fine specimens which he installed 
in the museum he built on Fort Wash¬ 
ington avenue, in the upper part of 
Manhattan, which he called “The Cloist¬ 
ers.” Previous to the propaganda which 
Mr. Barnard started. Gothic art was al¬ 
most unknown in this country, except 
in books. But now fine specimens adorn 
many homes, there are commercial art 
galleries that specialize in it, and many 
picture galleries where the visitor will 
see Gothic effigies occupying corners for 
decorative purposes, to give atmosphere 
and a note of relief to exhibition rooms. 
And just as admirable specimens of 
Greek and Roman art, preserved 
through the ages, can be had at lower 
prices than the works of such, moderns 
as Rodin and Barye, desirable pieces of 
Gothic art are within the reach of col¬ 
lectors and furnishers of homes. 
As Decoration 
From the very nature of Gothic art, 
simplicity must be the keynote of its 
use as home decoration. To place 
Gothic statuary m surroundings as com¬ 
plex and luxurious as those of a Louis 
XVI room would be as bad as putting 
a statue of Silenus in a church. The 
statue would be bad for the furniture 
and the furniture would be worse for 
the statue. Gothic art will not mix with 
any sort of highly amplified decoration. 
It does not conform with fine detail, 
nor with any other art whose motiva¬ 
tion is mixed. 
An instance of this is the conflict be¬ 
tween the Chippendale idea, with its 
complexity of motive taken from the 
ancient Chinese, and anything having 
the Gothic feeling. Not only is the con¬ 
tradiction structural and basic, but it is 
historical as well, because Chippendale 
decoration belongs to that era of Eng¬ 
lish development when Britons discarded 
the simplicity of their old art in favor 
of the new which came when they ad¬ 
mitted the luxurious influence of the 
outside world, particularly of the orient. 
Gothic art was developed in a world 
of wood and stone, put to solid and 
practical purposes. Strong walls make 
its best background. Unadorned stone 
gives it a natural setting, and the next 
best is wood in its natural colors, or 
darkened by the patina of age. 
Old English paneled interiors, or the 
modern reproductions of them, make 
Gothic art feel perfectly at home. These 
interiors belong to the Gothic period of 
England, before the coming of Chippen¬ 
dale, Inigo Jones and Grinling Gibbons. 
They antedate the Stuarts and belong to 
the era of solid oak in wall and door and 
table and chair. They are contem¬ 
porary with the Old English alphabet 
and its Gothic characters. A medieval 
effigy placed in such surroundings, even 
though it came originally from North¬ 
ern France, from Spain or from South¬ 
ern Germany, not only looks as if it be¬ 
longed there, but enhances the feeling 
of the times. 
Another logical setting for Gothic art 
is the Louis XIV room, one of whose 
features is austerity, and which still re¬ 
tains some of the splendid massiveness 
of older times, before the vanities and 
frivolities of the succeeding two reigns 
banished the ideal. 
Some of the newer American houses, 
that have been constructed since the re¬ 
vival of interest in the Gothic, have pro¬ 
vided surroundings especially planned 
for its display. These sometimes take 
the form of “Gothic chapels,” with the 
plainest of stone walls, with windows 
high up, from which the light enters 
through original Gothic stained glass 
windows, brought from Europe. The 
illusion is one of quaintness and charm. 
These rooms are sometimes perfect 
replicas of the private chapels that 
existed in the castles of the Middle 
Ages. On the walls are placed primi¬ 
tive paintings, dating back to the 15th 
and 16th Centuries, in the corners are 
stone or wooden effigies of saints, and on 
the floor a carved prayer stall, or per¬ 
haps a pulpit. Such a room provides a 
retreat for its owner that is full of spir¬ 
itual appeal. 
Another specially constructed setting 
that has been used is the Gothic pas¬ 
sageway, vaulted overhead, in the man¬ 
ner of a cloister. The illusion here is 
likewise perfect. It carries one all the 
way back to the Middle Ages. 
A Gothic Legend 
There is one little peculiarity pos¬ 
sessed by most Gothic statues whose ori¬ 
gin it is very interesting to trace. Fig¬ 
ures of saints, carved in ivory, were 
very popular in the early days of the 
Gothic style, in the 12th and 13th Cen¬ 
turies. Being carved from the tusks of 
elephants, the sculptor, in turning them 
into effigies bearing human forms, were 
faced with the problem of the curve of 
the tusk. They hit, perforce, upon the 
expedient of making the figures curve 
forward in the middle, giving a bowed 
outward appearance to the trunk. This 
peculiarity, which could not be avoided 
if full length figures were to be pro¬ 
duced, became established as a manner¬ 
ism, or stylistic form, and when sculp¬ 
tors carved larger figures out of wood 
*or stone, the public, used to this curve, 
simply had to have it. This provides 
a pertinent commentary on the natural 
conservatism of the human mind. It 
wants nothing unusual, but demands to 
see today exactly what it saw yester¬ 
day. This natural conservatism asserts 
itself every time creative artists pro¬ 
duce a change. The innovators are al¬ 
ways abused until the people become 
sufficiently used to the new expression 
to see its beauty. 
Gothic art has its appeal to us both 
as Americans and as lovers of the beau¬ 
tiful. Its popularity seems likely to be¬ 
come so great that history will repeat 
itself, and before many years Europe 
will find it has lost much priceless treas¬ 
ure, gone the way of its “old masters.” 
