Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/277

Rh beautiful. The heads display a variety and life-likeness that plainly indicate the close observation of nature. Each one has an air of veracity, as if it were an individual portrait. The treatment of hair and beards is perhaps even less formal than in the preceding example, and in drapery the modelling of folds is true, though it retains a good deal of archaic character. In fact, these statues are far from the stiff and immobile things which they are often thought, by inattentive observers, to be. Their severe restraint and exaggerated elongation are largely of definite architectural purpose, and not wholly the result of incapacity on the part of the carver to give them a more natural freedom and movement. This is evident from the qualities which they exhibit, notwithstanding their sternly conventional treatment. Within the limits fixed by his conditions the artist has managed abundantly to show his skill as a life-like and graceful designer. Take, for instance, the example, Fig. 170. Although standing erect, and facing forward, the upper portions of this figure are not wholly wanting in ease and apparent power of movement. Observe the positions of the arms, and compare them with the arms in Fig. 168. How natural and capable of movement they appear when thus compared! For beauty of changeful curves the head and hair are especially noticeable. The easy fall of that portion of the mantle which crosses the throat, the true modelling of the drapery over the breast and arms, and the careful rounding of the lifted hand and fingers, though hardly comparable to the