Pennsylvania Museum BulletinNumber 60, January 1918 . striking resemblance to that of our fragments and, as hasbeen noted by French archaeologists, shows this curious departure from thesequence of the Gothic tradition towards the debased classic forms which areso characteristic of what is known as Coptic art. When we consider the enormous numbers, for those days, who poured outof Europe into the East (300,000 went in the first crusade alone), it is easy tocomprehend the influence on life and the arts which they brought back withthem from lands where the civilization was so much higher than tha
Pennsylvania Museum BulletinNumber 60, January 1918 . striking resemblance to that of our fragments and, as hasbeen noted by French archaeologists, shows this curious departure from thesequence of the Gothic tradition towards the debased classic forms which areso characteristic of what is known as Coptic art. When we consider the enormous numbers, for those days, who poured outof Europe into the East (300,000 went in the first crusade alone), it is easy tocomprehend the influence on life and the arts which they brought back withthem from lands where the civilization was so much higher than that they hadleft at home. There are, besides these, three corbels of later and slightly different periods;of these the finest is carved, from a warm coloured stone, into the figure of a BULLETIN OF THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM 9 monster; a sort of wingless griffin, bridled, with an eagles beak on an earedanimal head, the body and tail of a lion, and the hind feet of a bird of preyIn his right forefoot, which seems to be more animal, indeed rather handlike. French Figment XIV Century he holds a ball, perhaps a precious jewel. This griffin motive too, came from the East to Western Europe and is found there, in all forms of art, for some centuries before that in which this beast was carved; probably the fourteenth. The second corbel bears the figure of a man, a peasant or possibly a pilgrim, 10 BULLETIN OF THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM wearing a capuchon or hood and carrying a knobbed staff in his hand; he glancesbehind him in some alarm, which may be accounted for, if the waved line to theright of the corbel represents an advancing flood. It is possible that this frag-ment, instead of being a corbel, may be one of the voussoirs of an arched entrance
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