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II

THE STATUARY.

Among the many glad and elevating feelings which must fill the mind of every thoughtful observer as he wanders beneath "the high-embowèd roof" of the Abbey, there must always mingle some regrets... We may feel inclined to resent the intrusion into so sacred a building of mountain loads of tombs, sometimes pretentious and vulgar, sometimes positively hideous, often Pagan, worldly, and entirely out of place. We may mourn above all for the ruthless barbarism which destroyed the fine architecture and heraldic insignia, the embossed shields and graceful arcading and delicate wall-sculpture of the thirteenth century, to make way for the meaningless and ugly memorials of many who were never very famous and are now entirely forgotten... It was not only in the eighteenth century that the Present thought itself at liberty to deal roughly with the architecture and memorials of the Past. There is a striking proof of this in the magnificent tomb and chantry erected by the nation to their popular hero, Henry V. Superb as it is, it yet encroached so ruinously on the tombs of the good Queens Elanor and Philippa as practically to destroy their dignity and symmetry. If it be urged that, in this instance, something which was beautiful was at least replaced by something which was equally beautiful, we must remember that this was always supposed to be the case. The most tasteless Vandals regarded their intrusions as an improvement on what they swept away. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they clearly admired their lumpy monuments, and heavy effigies, and blubbering cherubs, and artificial pomposities as far more precious and interesting than the chaste and noble design of the original architects. It may be humiliating to see that the taste of a whole nation can be so much perverted. We are filled with astonished indignation to learn that, but for Horace Walpole, the vulgar modern monument of General Wolfe, with its congeries of vanities and absurdities, would have been thrust into the sacrarium to the demolition of the noble gothic tomb of Aylmer de Valence. But, after all, such facts are full of instructiveness. They throw fresh light on page after page of English history. Bishop Butler thought that entire nations could go mad; we may read in the tombs of Westminster Abbey that national taste in art, and national sincerity of religious feeling, may sink many degrees below zero. Nations, as Mr. Ruskin truly points out, leave behind them in their art an autobiography which is entirely unconscious and therefore absolutely sincere. We may be deceived by their literature and by their military annals: we cannot be deceived by the proofs which they leave of what they most admired, the tendencies which their architecture expressed, and the ideal at which their artists aimed.

From The Cathedrals of England,
by Frederick W. Farrar, D.D.
Dean of Canterbury
And Others



I'm not democratic, and it gets me into trouble. I'm not heartless, though. Choosing to waste time with filth in the midst of abundant beauty may be upsetting, but it is not a crime, and I'm hardly immune myself. It is when the claim is made that such things are good, when sentiment is confused with value, that I must stand up for the honour of Art under the billowing standard of Taste. I only find it strange that the uncivilized hordes with which I do battle never seem to notice that for all my shouting about the existence of certain rules, I certainly don't seem to have any interest in following them. There is good art and there is bad art, but I'm not the sort to kill myself rather than suffer the indignities of a triumphal march. I enjoy camp.

[Poll #973162]