Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/438

 34£ ON THE BRONZE DOORS OF THE CATHEDRAL OF GNESEN. best be done under the following heads : — 1st. The compo- sition and treatment of the subjects. 2ndly. The modeUing of the individual figures and their costume. 3rdly. The details of architecture, &c. And, 4thly. The ornamental border. The grouping is very simple., and composed of a small number of individuals ; with very few exceptions the figures all occupy the same plane. No ground is under their feet, but they are represented with the usual naivete of early mediaeval art, as if suspended in the air. Neither are there any backgrounds.^ The action of the figures is often animated and natural, and even the countenances are sometimes not without characteristic expression ;. this is well seen in the most pro- minent figure of the group of Prussians (page 353), whose tangled locks and heavy brow mark the wildness of the barbarian, and his scorn and hatred of the preacher of a new religion. Where the features are passionless and still, they are usually fairly modelled and approach tolerably near to nature.^ They are superior in these respects to most of the English or French works of sculpture of the twelfth century with which I am acquainted. The hands and feet are often badly and apparently carelessly modelled. The proportion of the heads to the bodies is not far from the natural one, and there is no trace of the exaggerated length and attenuation so characteristic of the mediaeval Greek or Byzantine school of art, or of its marked tendency to stiffness and extreme formahty of attitude. The drapery is much broken up into minute folds, and where masses occur they are rather clumsy than large or bold. Such treatment of drapery characterises mediaeval sculpture until near the thirteenth century, when a more tasteful and more natural style was adopted. The costume will be seen to differ little, if at all, from the usual forms which prevailed in England, France, Germany, and Italy between the eighth and thirteenth centuries ; and the various nations, individuals of which appear in these sculptures, show but trifling differences in their attire. The ^ 111 the Italian reliefs of the fifteenth " The head of Otho the Second is re- century, as in Ghiberti's doors, of the presented as that of a young man, as he Baptistery in Florence, backgrounds are was at the time when the event repre- Hsed throughout, and intricate grouping sented in the relief occurred, abounds.