FOLIATE MASK,
THE CHOIR,
BEVERLEY MINSTER.he merriest, oddest, most ill-assorted company in the world meet together in the masks and faces of Gothic ornament. Space could always be found for a head, and skill to execute it. Yet though the variety is immense, the faces of Gothic art will be found to classify themselves very definitely.
Perhaps the most prevalent type is the classic mask with leaves issuing from the mouth. This may be an idea of the mask which every player in the ancient drama wore, displayed as an ornament with laurel, bay, oak, ivy, or what not, inserted in the mouth, because it was pierced for speaking through, and the only aperture in which the decorative branches could be inserted. Or seeds might germinate in sculptured masks and so have suggested the idea. Masks were hung in vineyards, etc.
FOLIATE MASK, DORCHESTER, OXON.
FOLIATE MASK, ST. MARY’S MINSTER, ISLE OF THANET.
A mask above the internal tower-doorway in the Lady Chapel of Dorchester Abbey has a close resemblance to the classic mask in the protruding lips, which, for the conveying of the voice for the great distance necessary in the arrangement of the ancient theatres, were often shaped like a shallow speaking-trumpet. The leaves appear to be the vine, and so the head, perhaps, that of Bacchus. Between the eyebrows will be noticed an angular projection. This is probably explained by a mask in a misericorde in St. Mary’s Minster, in which some object, perhaps the nasal of a helmet, comes down the middle of the forehead. The leaves in this case appear to be oak, which is, indeed, the prevailing tree used for the purpose.
FOLIATE MASK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.
