Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/312

Rh original merits. Among the statues placed against the buttresses of the same cathedral, those of Edward I. and Elenor [sic] his Queen are noticeable for graceful composition and monumental character. I am not aware that there is any other architectural sculpture of importance in England dating from the thirteenth century. Of the statues which once adorned the west front of Lichfield not one remains, while those which occupy the niches high up in the spandrels and gables of Peterborough are too far out of sight to be judged of.

The rare employment of figure sculpture in connection with architecture, together with its inferior character when employed, mark no less distinctly than the structural characteristics already examined the wide difference which exists between Anglo-Norman and Gothic art.

FIG. 187.

The comparative lack of artistic gift exhibited by the figure sculpture is again strikingly manifest in the Anglo-Norman foliate carving. Though examples of much beauty sometimes occur, there was little, in the early pointed architecture of England, of that growth of beautiful types under the influence of that regard for nature which so strongly marked the early Gothic carving of France. In many instances the observation of nature is, indeed, apparent; but a general movement characterised by a consistent, varied, and skilful adaptation of natural forms, and leading to