The grotesque in church art . impossible to be rigidlyenforced. Coming down towards the end of Gothic times, we find,at any rate, there was one place where images might be 3 iS THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART. ordered. In the Stanford churchwardensaccounts for 1556there occur the following entries :— It. In expenccs to Abyndon to speke for ymages ... vijd. It. for iij ymages, the Rode, Marc, and John ... xxijs. iiijd. It will have been noticed that the portraits of the carversare Late. It is a great merit, on antiquarian grounds, thatGothic work, prior to the revival in art, was too much uncon-sci
The grotesque in church art . impossible to be rigidlyenforced. Coming down towards the end of Gothic times, we find,at any rate, there was one place where images might be 3 iS THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART. ordered. In the Stanford churchwardensaccounts for 1556there occur the following entries :— It. In expenccs to Abyndon to speke for ymages ... vijd. It. for iij ymages, the Rode, Marc, and John ... xxijs. iiijd. It will have been noticed that the portraits of the carversare Late. It is a great merit, on antiquarian grounds, thatGothic work, prior to the revival in art, was too much uncon-scious to admit anything so self-personal as a thought ofthe workers themselves, though frequently their marksare unobtrusively set upon their works. By the sixteenthcentury, the sculptors art developed with the rest ofmental effort, and the artists drank fresh draughts fromthe springs coming by way of Rome, springs whose watershad been concerned in the existence of nearly all the artthat had been in Europe for ten IJOG AND HONK, BRECHIN. £be artistic iSUmlit^ of Cburcb Grotesques. THE grotesque has been pronounced a false taste, and notdesirable to be perpetuated. Reflection upon the causesand meanings of Gothic grotesque will shew that perpetuationis to be regretted for other than artistic reasons. If the tastebe false yet the work is valuable on historic grounds, forwhat it teaches of its own time and much more for what ithints of earlier periods of which there is meagre recordanywhere. Therefore it would be well not to confuse thestudent of the future with our clever variations of imperfectlyunderstood ideas. Practically the grotesque and emblematicperiod ended at the Reformation ; and it was well. But while leaving the falseness of the taste for grotesquesan open question, there is something to be said for themwithout straining fact. For it is certain that there is under-lying Gothic grotesque ornament a unique and, if notunderstood, an uncopiable beauty, be th
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