lencas, the writer says: "It is to no great purpose to
speak of the Gothick sculptures: for everybody knows that they
are the works of a rude art, formed in spite of nature and rules:
sad productions of barbrous and dull spirits, which disfigure our
old churches." Fie on a Frenchman who could so express himself! We
recall the story of how Viollet le Duc made the people of Paris
appreciate the wonderful carvings on Notre Dame. All the rage in
France was for Greek and Roman remains, and the people persisted
in their adoration of the antique, but would not deign to look
nearer home, at their great mediaeval works of art. So the architect
had plaster casts made of the principal figures on the cathedral,
and these were treated so as to look like ancient marble statues;
he then opened an exhibition, purporting to show new discoveries
and excavations among antiques. The exhibition was thronged, and
everyone was deeply interested, expressing the greatest admiration
for the marvellously expressive sculptures. Viollet le Duc then
admitted what he had done, and confessing that these treasures
were to be found in their native city, advised them to pay more
attention to the beauties of Gothic art in Paris.

We will not enter into a discussion of the relative merits of Northern
and Southern art; whether the great revival really originated in
France or Italy; but this is certain: Nicolo Pisano lived in the
latter half of the thirteenth century, while the great sculptures
of Notre Dame, Paris, and those of Chartres, were executed half
a century earlier.

But prior to either were the Byzantine and Romanesque sculptures
in Italy and Southern France. Our attention must first be turned
to them. Charles Eliot Norton's definition of this word Romanesque
is as satisfactory as any that could be instanced: "It very nearly
corresponds to the term of Romance as applied to language. It signifies
the derivation of the main elements, both in plan and construction,
from the works of the later Roman Empire. But Romanesque architecture"
(and this applies equally to sculpture) "was not, as it has been
called, a corrupted imitation of the Roman architecture, any more
than the Provencal or the Italian language was a corrupted imitation
of the Latin. It was a new thing, the slowly matured product of
a long period of many influences."

All mediaeval carving was subordinate to architecture, therefore
every piece of carving was designed with a view to bei