Cipolin and Pentelican marble, with captials, cornices, and friezes, carved painted, and decorated with bronze. In Lorraine they worked at the cathedrals of Toul and Verdun, and the abbey of St. Viton. In the diocese of Metz Gontran and Adélard, celebrated abbots of St. Trudon, covered Hasbaye with new buildings. “Adélard,” says a chronicler, “superintended the construction of fourteen churches, and his outlay was so great that the imperial treasury would scarcely have sufficed for it.” In Alsace, the cathedral at Strasbourg and the two churches of Colmar and Schelestadt simultaneously arose, and in Switzerland the Cathedral of Basle. These magnificent edifices are still standing to show the vigour and majestic simplicity with which the art of sculpture was then able to embody its ideas; and, by lending its aid to architecture, to manifest, so to speak, the faith which actuated it. It was in this century that Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, who was doubtless a sculptor also, superintended the restoration of his church, the splendour of which is still open to the admiration of all. Art, too, did not less distinguish herself in the decoration of certain additions made at that time to edifices already existing. The doorways of the churches of Laon, Châteaudun, and St. Ayoult of Provins, grand works of the earliest years of the twelfth century, yield the palm only to the splendid external ornamentation of the Abbey of St. Denis, executed between the years 1137 and 1180. The Abbot Suger, who was himself an eminent artist, does not name any of the sculptors to whose care this important task was committed. We are equally ignorant as to the sculptors of the statues of Dagobert and of Queen Nanthilde, his wife; and also as to the artists of a large golden crucifix, the foot of which was enriched with bas-reliefs, and the figure of Christ, that presented, says Suger, “an expression really divine.” The names of the sculptors of the cathedral church of Paris are likewise concealed from our admiration. One might suppose that a body of artists fired with the same inspiration, and with a common sentiment both in thought and action, had there assembled to design their works; some sculpturing in marble the sarcophagus of Philip of France; some peopling the rood-loft and the apse with tall figures and a long gallery of Biblical subjects; others decorating the façade and exterior with statues, all of every diversified character, but yet all appearing to unite in the expression of the same feelings and the same faith ([Fig. 279]).
In the twelfth century, the Burgundian artists continued their marvellous
Fig. 279.—External Bas-relief of Norte-Dame, in Paris, representing Citizens relieving Poor Scholars. (The work of Jean de Chelles. Date 1257.)
work. The tomb of Hugues, Abbot of Cluny; the doorway of the monastery of St. Jean, that of the Church of St. Lazare at Autun; the nave and the west front of Semur-en-Auxois, are all of this school, and of this epoch.
The school of Champagne raised to the memory of Count Henry I., in the Church of St. Etienne, at Troyes, a tomb surrounded with forty-four columns of gilded bronze, surmounted by a slab of silver on which were placed, in a recumbent position, the statues of the Count and of one of his sons; bas-reliefs, in bronze and silver, representing the Holy Family, the celestial court, angels, and prophets, surrounded this monument. The tomb of Count Henry was a triumph of sculpture in metal; and, at that time, surpassed all other tombs in France, just as the Cathedral of Rheims was destined, ere long, to excel all others.
In Normandy we find the same enthusiasm, the same zeal, the same skill in Art; and there, at least, we learn the names of some of the artists: Otho, the builder of the Cathedral of Séez; Garnier, of Fécamp; Anquetil, of Petit-Ville, &c. The masons and sculptors, too, formed at this epoch a numerous and powerful corporation.
In the South, Asquilinus, Abbot of Moissac, near Cahors, ornamented with fine statues the cloister and front of his church, and affixed to the sides of the apse a Crucifixion so skilfully carved, that it was believed to have emanated from some divine hand (“ut non humano, sed divino artificio facta”). In Auvergne, Provence, and Languedoc, many other important works of sculpture were executed. But the chief masterpiece of all, which combines the different styles of the southern schools, is the famous Church of St. Trophimus of Arles, the front of which, where the breadth and grace of the Greek style is allied with the purest Christian simplicity, carries back the imagination to the brightest epochs of the art.
Towards the end of the eleventh and the commencement of the twelfth century, the sculptors’ studios of the districts of Messin and Lorraine were in full activity. Several magnificent churches having been destroyed by fire, particularly that of Verdun, the whole population assisted, either with money or labour, in the restoration of these edifices. It was a perfect artistic crusade, in which several bishops and abbots, who were clever artists as well as spiritual chiefs, took the lead in the movement.
In Alsace, art asserted its position in the magnificent Cathedral of Strasbourg,[48] a kind of challenge thrown out to the artists on the other side of the Rhine, who were unable, even at Cologne, to carry an edifice to such an