It is improbable that more nonsense has been written about aesthetics than about anything else: the literature of the subject is not large enough for that (Clive Bell)

Index

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The Index is found here
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Meyer Schapiro : Frontal and Profile as Symbolic Forms

(this is Chapter Four of Meyer Schapiro's "Words, Script,and Text".
Quoted text is in YELLOW.
Text quoted from other authors is in GREEN)









I shall discuss further in this last part the role of the style of representation in the form of the symbol, and more specifically the frontal and profile positions. Meaning and artistic form are not easily separated in representations; some forms that appear to be conventions of a local or period style are not only aesthetic choices but are perceived as attributes he represented objects. What is called frontality may be one of severa1 natural appearances favored in a given style, all rendered with the same kind of line and modeling; or it may be a dominant even exclusive posture, applied to figures with different meaning, and by its distinctive qualities and accord with other features of the work it may stand out as a pronounced characteristic of the style. The same alternatives hold for the profile position.


'Style', 'form', and 'symbol' are three important words for art historians, and I won't claim that I know a more correct way to use and understand them. But I will note that 'form' may refer to a visual experience of an object that is much broader and more intense than an analysis of specific features, like whether the dramatis personae are presented in frontal or profile positions -- and that an exclusive focus on specifics may be too reductive to be very useful.


How the viewer feels about depicted characters is certainly affected by where they are facing -- but feelings are affected by so much more.



The frontality, symmetry, and central place of Moses in some of our examples belong to life as well as art. We know them as features of a ritual, a domain of the real in which every detail is a sign


Is the exact height, girth, and vocal timbre of the priest celebrating Mass a sign ?

And what about the exact tones, lines, and compositional rhythms of illuminations in ancient manuscripts?

This is the problem that semiotics has with visual art --- the potential number of signs in any one piece is infinite -- and who gets to choose which are more important than others?

So Schapiro immediately modifies 'every detail is a sign' by adding:

Once they have been established, the dramatic and voiced forms of the liturgy created for invocation and reminder of the sacred undergo little change, while furniture, vessels, and vestments are continually redesigned to satisfy a new taste in art"



So whatever changes is presumably following a 'new taste in art', and whatever remains the same is presumably a sign relating to the sacred.



In the next sentence, Schapiro discusses that sacred art by writing:

But pictures of the same ritual vary from age to age and show the influence of a style of art.

Since language is always changing, doesn't everything about a ritual eventually change -- and don't new tastes in sacred art, in both vestments and paintings, reflect different understandings of sacred things ?

I'm guessing that Schapiro wanted to separate out the "influence of a style of art" because its the job of the art historian, as he knew it, to trace the influences of artistic styles.










Which brings us to these two examples taken from the Sacramentary of Marmoutier at Autun.

In the scene of the abbot Reginaldus blessing the monks and laity, all the figures, including the abbot, are in profile; but in the picture representing the hierarchy from bishop to acolyte the differences of rank are made visible through differences of position with respect to the center and through elevation, size, posture, and glance - ranging from the seated bishop, strictly frontal in the center, to the profiles of the lowest and outermost figures"
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The first of these two examples, both presumably by the same artist, is supposed to demonstrate the then-current style committed to "a clear view of the figures in a scene with little or no spatial depth" -- while the second example shows what can be do to present differences in rank.

Though I see shallow spatial depth and differences in rank presented in both scenes.

Schapiro concludes as follows:


In Medieval art, basically different modes of composition coexist within the same personal or collective style


But he hasn't done any more to define these different 'modes' than to note the above details -- and if that defines a 'mode', what would keep us from assigning a separate mode for every kind of feature we can observe?










To exemplify the difference between frontal and profile, Schapiro offers the above examples:


In the two Bodleian miniatures (Schapiro's figure 20, shown above) the contrast of frontal and profile, though less strongly marked than before, is a means of distinguishing a past symbolic event and a present symbolized one, the first a unique historic action and the second a recurrent liturgical performance.


Above, Schapiro tells us that these two scenes are distinguished by frontalilty to accommodate the scene at the top as a 'past symbolic event' (Moses with the Amelikites), and scene below it as a recurrent liturgical performance (the priest at an altar).

But almost all of the faces in both scenes are in the same degree of 3/4 view -- with only two exceptions, which are in profile. Now it is true that those 2 exceptions are both in the upper scene and none are in the lower --- but does that really establish a significant difference ? Would Schapiro suggest that those two soldiers shown in profile are symbolic of something which the 3/4 view soldiers are not?








In medieval art certain figures were presented either in profile or frontally, and we can gauge through them the different effects of the two views as expressive means. In relief sculptures of the Adoration of the magi above church doors of the 12th century the Virgin is often enthroned in the center of the field like a cult statue, while the Magi and other figures are set in profile on both sides. A tympanum at Saint-Gilles is an example of this type -- but in some works, as on the delightful portal of Neuilly-en-Donjon , the Virgin is off-center and turned to the approaching magi. She is part of a historic action and not an immobile transcendent figure with a distinct axis of her own.

Unfortunately, the Virgin's face has been knocked off in both of these examples, but as Schapiro notes, it still seems like she is engaging the viewer at St. Gilles, while she engages the Magi at Neuilly-en-Donjon.



Gerona Beatus On the Apocalypse, 10th C.

Another and more striking example of the change is the rendering of the story of Danile in the Lion's Den. In Early Christian art and in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, Daniel is a standing figure, frontal and orant, flanked by two lions.

Beatus Manuscript of St. Sever, Paris Biblioteque Nationale, mid 11th C.

When the same subject was illustrated by a painter of naturalistic tendency in southern France during the mid-11th century.... he showed Daniel with arms raised in profile as if to receive food from Habbakuk above him. The gesture of prayer has become ambiguous. The seated position, new in pictures of the scene, was based on a passage in the Bible that had been ignored by artists until then, like the reference to the seven lions.

And here's a bunch of other versions taken from this wonderful webpage

Pavement mosaic of Bordj El Loudi (Tunisia), 5th century.

This one is my favorite -- Daniel feels so --- so --- vulnerable.

This guy is in really big trouble -- and only a very big miracle is going to get him out of it.

Church of the Holy Cross of Aghtamar (Armenia), c. 915-921



4th Century, Toulouse, Musée Saint-Raymond

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 359. Rome, Museo della civiltà romana

Saint Jerome, Explanatio in Prophetas et Ecclesiastes, Cîteaux, first third of the 12th century.

West portal capital of the cathedral of Jaca (Huesca, Spain), end of the 11th century

Abbey church of Sant’ Antimo (Tuscany, Italy), second half of the 12th Century



I've found a Rembrandt drawing, Bernini sculpture, and Rubens painting, but mostly this theme seems to have disappeared after the middle ages, and completely vanished by the 20th Century except in Sunday School books.



My father, Richard J. Miller, did do the version as shown above - with a rather nonchalant Daniel.



These examples and others confirm our belief that the changed illustration of the Moses story is the outcome of more than a change in exegesis. It depends on new norms of representations well as on a fresh understanding of the text.Though we speak of it as an aesthetic change in a style of art, we recognize in it also a change in general outlook an din the attitude to the particular class of objects represented.



I can see how Schapiro's two examples might confirm his belief (though they are only a hundred years apart)

But I also notice that a 3/4 view of Daniel appears in the two of the examples from the 4th Century.

I do feel that when a face is turned towards the viewer, the piece is saying "this is me" --- while, when that face is turned to the side, the piece is saying "this is him" --- and "this is me" seems to have been more common in early Christian art, or in the Spanish Mozarabic example which Schapiro provided and characterized as "folkloric provincial"







Schapiro goes on to discuss frontal/profile combinations in images from other times and places - offering the above example from the Museo Nazionale in Naples, where the important figure, Dionysus, is frontal, while the minor figures, the maenads, are in profile.







In contrast, he then shows a Lekythos vase that depicts a frontal servant with a profile mother - his point being that frontal/profile expresses some kind of duality, but not necessarily ranking one character over another.

But how do we know that some kind of duality was intended?

The mixed combination might also serve to invite a viewer into to a scene. If all the figures are in profile or frontal, the viewer is kept outside looking in.







Profile and full-face may be regarded as frameworks within which an artist can reinforce a particular quality of the figure through associated features, while exploiting an effect latent in that view. One could also achieve a powerful expression of polar meanings in opposing to each other two profiles with contrasted features and subtly distinguished glances.







So Giotto in representing the Betrayal of Christ as a dramatic actuality, physical and psychic, replaced the old contrast of profile and frontal, traditional in this subject, by a poignant confrontation of two intensely interacting dissimilar profiles.




It's so exciting to finally get around to discussing facial expression in the Arena Chapel instead of the images of architecture that so fascinated Smith, White, and Kemp.

And the above painting is filled with it, as Schapiro points out, even in the narrow space between the heads of Christ and Judas.



For comparison, here's an earlier version by Cimabue that Giotto must have seen while he was working in the St. Francis basilica.

Yes, Christ is face-frontal while Judas is in profile -- but crazy Judas seems to be staring out at the viewer, while Christ has turned his eyes away and is looking to one side. Which might suggest that the direction of the glance is at least as important as the orientation of the face.



As he makes the comparison, Schapiro notes that:

Christ's Solemn frontal posture detaches him from the profiled Judas and affirms his divine serenity in this turbulent menacing crowd. But the pair lack entirely the inwardness of Giotto's image of the fateful encounter of two men who look into each other's eyes and in that instant reveal their souls. The uncanny power of the glance in a strictly frontal head is transferred to the profile as an objective natural expression, fully motivated in the situation.It is the perhaps the first example of a painting in which the reciprocal subjective relations of an I and You have been made visible through the confrontation of two profiles

Was it really the first time? It never happened on the surfaces of Greek pottery? From now on, I'll have to keep this mind when looking at earlier images.

The detail from Assisi is quite remarkable - and effectively compels the attention, and maybe even the inward looking of the viewer. Christ is relating to the viewer more than to Judas, who is just an annoyance.

But I'd have to agree with Schapiro about the "uncanny power" of that glance between the savior and his wayward disciple.

I share his fascination with faces and how they relate to each other - and but these relationships are far more complex than a binary of frontal/profile -- perhaps even too complex to categorize. The relationship between the Christ and Judas up on that wall is not just about where they are facing, or even all the details of their faces. It's also about what the rest of the painting is doing.



And here's a 6th C. version from Apollinare in Ravenna.

Looking for some earlier examples, I found this one. The cast of characters are facing in a variety of directions. Christ is certainly more frontal than Judas, but he still is turned a bit one side --- though actually, I've got another kind of problem with this piece. It just doesn't seem to be up to the same high level that can be found in the Giotto or Cimabue pieces shown above, or elsewhere in Justinian Ravenna. Perhaps it's a bad restoration.





Schapiro then launches into a general discussion about complexity:

The plurality of meaning in each of these two appearances of the head would seem to exclude a consistent explanation based on inherent qualities of the profile and the frontal of full-face view. It is like the difficult of finding in colors a universal culturally unconditioned ground for their symbolic use, though we experience colors as strongly charged with feeling. -- the familiar argument from these discrepancies - that color symbolism is entirely conventional - ignores that a color is not a simple elementary feature but a complex of qualities of which certain ones become more or less pronounced in a particular setting and according to a perceivers experience and attitude.


This is sounding so complex -- I'm wondering why we are trying to discuss generalities of profile/frontal at all. Wouldn't it make more sense just to discuss this issue, and others, only within the context a specific art work?


But held back by what he perceives as "the real qualities of the symbols", Schapiro will not go that far. If an art historian is not going to discuss symbols across paintings, periods, and cultures -- what is left for him to do ?

Friday, July 6, 2012

Meyer Schapiro ; Theme of State, Theme of Action - Part II

(this is Chapter Three of Meyer Schapiro's "Words, Script,and Text".
Quoted text is in YELLOW.
Text quoted from other authors is in GREEN)






Now, this is real find!

A Hebrew manuscript from the 13th Century, now called the North French Hebrew Miscellany, showing the raised arms of Moses crossed over his chest, to specifically distinguish him from Christ on the cross.





This is a real treasure of Judaica, which has had as turbulent a history as the Jews who worked on and commissioned it.


As a Jewish scholar himself, Schapiro probably began to think about writing this essay when he saw this page in the British Museum.





BTW - here's it's version of Abraham and Isaac.


Schapiro notes that this version is "indistinguishable" from Christian examples - but I'd like to see a Christian example that had the same feeling of enormous dad along with a much smaller lad and angel-buddy in a courtyard.


Almost as fascinating is a Jewish-Persian version, done in a Persian style, with Moses back to a Christ-like posture --- since resemblance to Christ was not a disturbing issue in that Muslim country.





But in contrast, we have this psalter (1270-1274) of Louis IX, which shows Moses without the Christ-like pose. (the complete book is online here


Schapiro explains this as the consequence of a greater interest in action - i.e. the characters on the page are interacting with each other, rather than with the viewer.





Though the artist of the psalter favors the profile - whether a strict or a near profile - as more suited to action, he has not given up entirely the frontal pose with raised hands. But in a remarkable picture where he does use it - the scene of Joseph disclosing himself to his brother - this posture too belongs to action. Ina subtle way it both acting in the theatrical sense and an act of self-revelation. Joseph throws off his robes of office and stands up raising his hands high. Doing so he recalls to the others his posture when they had last known him as their brother earlier in the same book.





And here's that earlier scene








Then, we go back to the 'Moralized Bible' of the 13th Century to discover a very different interpretation of Moses prevailing over the Amalekites.

In this big picture book, that story is paired with a scene of Christ raising the hands of the priest as he prays before his congregation (the two scenes in the upper left column)










The accompanying text reads:

Moses who lifts up his hands which Aaron and Hur support while he prays so that God may give victory signifies the prelate who lifts up his hands high at the sacrament of the altar; the Father and Son support him and the Holy Spirit sends him the body of the Son by whose presence victory is given to God's people and the vices are defeated"


And Schapiro notes that that Moses faces (to be engaged with) the viewer, while the priest is seen in profile, as in other scenes of church rituals presented at that time.


Note: While looking up more images for this discussion, I found

this

fascinating webpage that introduced some later versions of this image:



Benno Elkan



John Dubrow

T hope the actual painting looks good, because I really like his treatment of a theme that the artist related to the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11.

An exhausted, and maybe depressed, Moses can only keep his arms in the air with the help of both youthful and mature vigor -- in a dry landscape that's as bleak and barren as it can be.

It's also interesting that the artist does not specialize in religious themes - he mostly does cityscapes.





And here's a small detail from Poussin's 'Victory of Joshua" - which mostly seems to be about heroic warriors.



I couldn't find any more of Schapiro's examples of this theme online - and I'm not sure it makes much difference. He only mentions each as one of many variations, of no special importance by itself or within a broader historical argument that is only faintly suggested. (i.e. the replacement of theological with secular concerns)






Latin Bible of 1560, after Holbein


Rembrandt



As other examples of Biblical themes that have been secularized, Schapiro offers us secular images of a different story, that of Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph. In both cases, the artist has completely ignored that the biblical story has Jacob crossing his arms in order to bless the younger son with his right hand, despite Joseph's protest.



Though, as we can see above, Guercino includes those details, and he was almost an exact contemporary of Rembrandt.

So I'm not sure what historical trend is being proven -- though it does seem that Rembrandt was turning a biblical story into a Dutch domestic genre scene.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Meyer Schapiro ; Theme of State, Theme of Action

(this is Chapter Two of Meyer Schapiro's "Words, Script,and Text".
Quoted text is in YELLOW.
Text quoted from other authors is in GREEN)




To bring out the interplay of text, commentary, symbolism, and style of representation in the word-bound image, I shall consider at greater length a single text and its varying illustrations. It is Exodus 17:9-13, the story of Moses at the battle with the Amalekites, raising his hands to ensure victory.



9 Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”

10 So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.

11 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.

12 When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.






Here's the earliest version, c. 435, a mosaic from the nave of Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome.

Schapiro suggests that the Christians of this era consistently saw the Hebrew bible as a pre-figuration for the Gospels - so in this scene, Moses raises both of his arms to assume the position of Christ on the cross - despite a Hebrew text that has the word 'arm' as singular rather than plural - not to mention the need to use at least one of his arms to hold that staff mentioned in verse #10

Schapiro surveys the efficacy of raised arms in earlier and later texts. I'm not sure that has to do with this example, but it is fascinating to know that two Irish saints, Columba and Finnian, used this technique while their followers were fighting over possession of a famous psalter, and that Charlemagne invoked it in a letter to Pope Leo III.

Indeed, this example has been already abandoned -- and there will be no further discussion of how the design relates to an interpretation of the story.

Unfortunately, the other examples could not be found on the internet. Schapiro offers black-and-white reproductions of them in his book, but they can do little more than show the position of the characters involved.

After 900, Aaron and Hur are each holding up one of Moses' arms, and Schapiro asks why. Is it because of the psychological pleasure of identifying with those who hold up the leader's arms? Schapiro shows how kings were also sometimes shown getting that kind of support - and speculates that the 5th Century version was more in line with the Classical figure of the Hero who stands alone.





Schapiro notes that even God got this assistance, as depicted by Raphael in 'Ezekiel's Vision', even though there is absolutely nothing in the biblical text that might suggest that angels were holding up His arms.

And even some bronze plaques from Benin show the arms of the ruler supported by his minions -- displaying not so much his need for help, but his power to command it.

All of which is fascinating, but without focusing attention on any specific painting or historical period, all we we're really learning from all this is that the author is a very learned and clever man -- having seen a lot of Medieval manuscripts, and studied the history of Europe and the Church.


In other words, this essay is all about him.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Meyer Schapio : Words, Script, and Pictures

(this is Chapter One of Meyer Schapiro's "Words, Script,and Text".
Quoted text is in YELLOW.
Text quoted from other authors is in GREEN)




Chapter 1

THE ARTIST’S READING OF A TEXT

A great part of visual art in Europe from late antiquity to the 18th century represents subjects taken from a written text. The painter and sculptor had the task of translating the word—religious, historical, or poetic—into a visual image. It is true that many artists did not consult the text but copied an existing illustration either closely or with some change. But for us today the intelligibility of that copy, as of the original, rests finally on its correspondence to a known text through the recognizable forms of the pictured objects and actions signified by the words. The picture, we assume further, corresponds to the concept or memory image associated with the words.

That's a lot to assume -- and don't worry -- Schapiro will immediately back away from all of it - as he queries the very notion of 'intelligibility'







As with all the art history that I'm reading, I focus on examples, and the first one is this fascinating version of 'Susanna and the Elders' found in the Priscilla Catacomb, Rome. Dated back to the 2nd-4th Centuries A.D., it has some of the earliest extant images of Christian narrative, including the very earliest Madonna and Child.


Above is the so-called 'Greek Chapel' which tells the story of 'Susanna and the Elders', one of my favorite themes in European painting.





Here is my favorite version.




The colors in this reproduction are probably more accurate, since it comes from the website of the museum that holds it. But the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is quite stingy about what it freely shares on the internet, so they offer nothing larger than this.




Here's a detail to whet the appetite, and make one buy a plane ticket to Austria.



And here's another detail, taken from the zoomable image on Google Art



Here's another detail -- and it's going to take a supreme act of willpower not to capture any more -- because unlike the paintings in the Roman catacombs that are only of historical interest, Tintoretto's version compels attention regardless.




The catacomb paintings are fascinating as a small window into the early Roman church - in which, apparently women played a greater role than they would in the centuries that followed under the leadership of a celibate male priesthood. Tintoretto was addressing the lust that older men feel for younger women. In a city like Venice with its celebrated sex industry, the satisfaction of it would have been a convenient commercial transaction. But the mural in that 2-4th C. Roman catacomb was more focused on the honor and challenges of being a woman.


Susanna as a lamb between two wolves, from the Arcosolium of Celerina in the Catacomb of Praetextatus, mid-4th century.





So yes, these paintings are fascinating, but only in that historical context that historians, like Schapiro, might provide for them.

Though in this essay, the author is using examples only to discuss the interpretive challenges that an historian faces.

Schapiro offers the Susanna story from the Book of Daniel as interpreted by Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) for whom the story was an allegory for the relationship between the Church, Christ, the Saints etc -- though, of course, no one knows if the painter had any of this in mind - and the same could be said, with even greater complexity, about the representation of any story in any work.





BTW - here's yet another version of the story. (I can't find the date, but suspect it is 9th Century) This Susanna is no less a victim of these scheming voyeurs - but she does seem to be less innocent.







In contrast to the metaphorical interpretation of Hippolytus, this Carolingian illumination of Psalm 43 (44) from the Utrecht Psalter is used to exemplify a very literal approach.

The last lines of the psalm read:


22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.

24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?

25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.

26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.





... which the artist has represented by showing God above, asleep in his heavenly bed, while the city below is under attack and the citizens are praying for deliverance.

Contrasting the above with a Byzantine illustration that presents the psalm as an allegory for the Ressurection, Schapiro concludes:

The freedom of interpretation in the Utrecht Psalter, with the frequent shift from the literal to the symbolic, while the style of drawing remains the same, is a characteristic feature of this remarkable book.

And actually -- this is exactly how I would envision the psalm, in a presentation of the modern (Woody Allen) theme of "God - the Underachiever" - which turns out to be as old as the psalms.

BTW, a recent blogger has suggested that:

The artist, however, would have benefited much from a view of modern comic book organization of text and images, as the three columns of Latin capital letters and subsequent depictions of the text lay in a hodgepodge of space, inseparable to the discerning eye.


But perhaps that quality of 'inseparable' is what makes this design more appropriate for thoughtful adults rather than bored children.





Folio 270b , Bodleian Library Hezekiah and the water clock, illustrating II (IV) Kings 20:1-11, with its 'moralizing' equivalent, Doubting Thomas, from a Bible moralisée. France, Paris; c. 1235-45





Schapiro notes that sometimes one image is coupled with another to represent its symbolic meaning.

He chose some images from the 13th C. Moralized Bible in the Bodliean Library - pairing the sacrifice of Isaac with the crucifixion of Christ.

But the library has only put the above pair online - probably because it's the only known image of a medieval water clock.






OOOPS -- I just found the Abraham/Isaac on the Bodleian's own website








BTW - the Biblical text about Hezekia totally puzzles me. In order to show Hezekiah that a miracle is going to happen (i.e. his healing), Isaiah reverses the order of steps and a shadow. As translated, it makes no sense to me -- and possibly not to the artist as well, as he decided to depict a current water clock, presumably turning backwards.

And it certainly is lively - the characters seem to leaping from the page, an effect which is lost in the black-and-white reproduction in Schapiro's book.





Next, we travel to the Benedictine abbey of Sainte-Marie in Souillac, where a 12th C. sculptor carved the story of Abraham and Isaac - showing an angel carrying the ram to the sacrifice - as might satisfy a rationalistic commentator who was wondering how the ram got there.









While the other side of the column shows several couples embracing - which Schapiro interprets as a man wrestling a boy, exploring the psychological aspect of the pious father and his victim/son - or perhaps exemplifying discord/disobedience in contrast to the peaceful submission depicted on the opposite side.





But I'm not sure why the lower couples could not be male/female - whose intertwines would certainly complement the natural appetites depicted on the front. (shown below)





Is this Abraham embracing Isaac, before or after the aborted sacrifice?








If any scholar has ever written about the possible interpretations of this remarkable piece, I can't find a link on the internet.


Formally, it seems to perform the vertical functions of a column while still telling its bizarre stories - though I'm sure it would really help to see it in person.











The front shows a twisting, writhing mass of monstrous animals biting each other, including the man at the top of the heap.


It appears that the sculptor (or his patron) was something of a natural philosopher - with life depicted as an endless struggle of all against all - including father against son. It's connection to the episode from Genesis is rather thin - and I can't think of anything else like it.





The rest of the sculpture at Souillac is beautiful and fascinating as well -- but I suppose I really should be getting back to Schapiro.