International studio (82.1925)

mceRDACionAL

whole conception is the African fellow—crown set
jauntily on one side with a bow knot drapery and
long pendant earrings. How characteristically he
carries out his part with joyful assurance and
entire concentration on his offering, as dramatic
as it is amusing! Far from the impersonal classic
of pious churchly conceptions of earlier days, this
intimate home-like scene of the Gothic artist is as
entertaining as it is natural. The negro is the
magnet for the eye, notwithstanding Holy Mother
and Babe. He is as typical of his race as we know
it today as he evidently appeared more than
four hundred years ago. Always at his best in
dramatic exaggeration the negro rejoices in play-
ing a good part and a star part. So this Gothic
artist has pictured him—caricatured a bit, in a
cake-walk step, but lovingly and with a whole
hearted appreciation which he shares quite openly
with us.

Notwithstanding all its ecclesiastical appro-
priateness there is apt to be a smile in Gothic art—
a very natural smile, such as might have bright-
ened the face of the Master in Galilee as his eyes
fell on the "lilies of the field," or on those "little
ones" that his self-appointed guardians would not
suffer to come unto him. Was not the word "re-
joice" often on his hps!

What if heavy German hands turned to gro-
tesque and even coarse humor this new-born
Gothic thing of human mirth that had come as a
little child to art's great portal! The French
touched it lightly and it became whim and charm.
The English bade it welcome and it was at home
and comfortable like a fireside guest twice wel-
come for entertainment both brought and shared.

It is a delightful winning thing, this glimpse of
good fellowship and fun, this sort of twinkle-eye
stuff in Gothic art; but it needs an eye to see it,
like deer in a darkening wood. It is hidden away
in small ornamental details, especially in carved
ornament which appears merely decorative until
minutely examined. Then tiny faces peer out at
you in grotesque and amusing attitudes; gnomes
leer, animals surprise you, and creatures that
never were on land or sea squirm in and out of its
intricate ornamental details, reach a climax as
fmial, or hide under the miserere seats of choir
stalls.

Gothic art is Christian as all admit, but to be
Christian is to be truly human, as the world is
only just learning. The "man of sorrows, and ac-
quainted with grief" is not so uppermost in
Christian thought today as He who said: "These
things have I spoken unto you that my joy might
remain in you and that your joy might be full."
Angels, sometimes very funny looking angels, pro-

claim "glad tidings" in Gothic art, and every-
where wc look, whether on manuscripts, enamels,
paintings, tapestries, or even among the orna-
ments of great cathedrals, we find some joyful
whimsical creature peering out to surprise us.

Lost in admiration of the nobility of this
Christian Gothic art in some fine example, we find
the fact slowly creeping into our consciousness
that we are actually gazing at some detail of orna-
ment quite as apt to be humorous as sober. It is a
curious experience and one which we have doubt-
less all had with Gothic things. They are so per-
fectly conceived with a completeness of plan that
overawes us by its very bigness, its profundity,
the sincerity of its conviction, the loftiness of its
aspiration; but when coming absorbedly under the
spell of this beauty, solidity, and grace, we sud-
denly see as it were a playful gnome, thumb to
nose, and hear him say: "It's human too, and
don't forget it," are we dropped from our ecstatic
heights of rapture ? Not at all. The thing is done
too skillfully for that, even by the least of those
old fellows over seas. They wouldn't have done
it if it could have produced that unhappy effect.
They were masters. They understood. Instead
of a sudden drop from the heights, their little
human touches always bring a smile like the
crumpled toes on a baby's bared feet.

You may have sometime found yourself,
painter-like, absorbed in a beautiful riot of grow-
ing things—trees, and bushes, flowers and grass,
"drinking in" the beauty of the scene as poets say,
when quietly without really knowing just when
you actually became aware that you were looking
at him, you saw a cardinal—that superb bit of
nature's royal red magnificence—not five feet
away from you among the leaves of the bushes,
saying as plainly as he could with his little beady
eyes: "The joke's on you." And so it is in Gothic
art. Its surprises are as inevitable as nature's and
as welcome. Does it shock you that the architect
is carved, real as life, on one of the highest pin-
nacles of a Vandcrbilt house on Fifth Avenue?
He seems perfectly at home there when your eye
finally picks him out, so high aloft.

Designers give many studious hours to learn-
ing all there is to know of Gothic ornament—
those typical leaf forms they call crockets, to
trefoils, quatrefoils, stem work, flowers, and
fruit, but more than mere serious study is needed
to get the Gothic trick with birds and beasts and
human faces. Not until the true humanness of
Things Gothic has sunk deep into the heart and
occupied it, will anyone either interpret or enjoy
this delightful element without which Gothic art
would cease to be Gothic.

one fijty-eighl

DECEMBER I 9 2 5