Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/374

 866 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. These transformations and changes may be roughly- grouped. In the personifications there takes place a mediaeval Christianizing of the human figures. Hosts of angels and demons are carved or painted in a style that is completely Christian and mediaeval, and neither antique nor Byzantine. The pagan antique monsters and personages become relatively unimportant, except the Sibyl. Instead of one Sibyl, the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance have many ; and the repre- sentation of them becomes frequent. Yet it is to be remembered that, although Christian literature took the Sibyl from paganism, the Sibyl in mediaeval art was an original Christian creation. The legends of the saints and martyrs are represented in untold num- bers, and the legend of Charlemagne and his paladins vies with the legend of Alexander. Gothic ornamen- tation drawn from living plants and foliage supplants antique and Byzantine conventions.^ In the composition of single figures, and in their grouping, the antique and the Byzantine give way to the mediaeval. In Italy, with Giotto and Ducio, the formal hieratic symmetry of arrangement yields to compositions in which the grouping seen in nature and in actual events is harmonized and idealized. An analogous revolution takes place in the north. The antique compositions of Romanesque sculpture are changed in Gothic compositions. The grouping of the latter is often natural and easy. Above all, it 1 This revolution from its beginning in the Romanesque period can best be seen in France. See, for a fine statement of it, Louis Gonse, La Sculpture Fran^aise, introductory chapter, especially p. 7. Also ib.f L'art Oothique, p. 410, etc.