Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/257

 Sculpture op the Romanesque Period. 227 Library, Oxford, in which Christ appears as Ruler of the earth and sea, with the antique figures of Gaea (the earth) and Oceanus (the sea) serving Him as a footstool. In these and other productions of the kind we discover indi- cations of the future excellence to be attained by Teutonic artists : the attitudes of the figures are life-like, and the faces well express passion, energy, and other emotions. In the two centuries under notice some advance was also made in the art of metal casting. The efforts of the enlightened Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim were greatly instrumental in this advance, and to him we are indebted for the large bronze doors of Hildesheim Cathe- dral, completed in a.d. 1015,* representing sixteen scenes of sacred history, from the Creation to the Passion of our Lord — in which the figures, though still rude, are full of life and character, and for the bronze column in the cathedral square of the same town, executed in a.d. 1022, adorned with a series of spiral bas-reliefs. 2. From a.d. 1100 to the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. In the twelfth century, at which' period the Romanesque style reached its fullest development, sculpture began once more to take a high position as an accessory to architecture. The Christian sculptors of this period rapidly freed them- selves from Greek and Latin traditions, and working under the direction of the clergy, they illustrated the precepts of religion by the noble productions of their chisel, enriching both the outside and inside of the cathedrals and churches with symbolic or historical sculptures. It is not, of course, Q 2
 * Casts are in the South Kensington Museum.