A remarkable quality of the grotesque creations of Gothic art is the close and accurate observation of nature which they, no less than the images of real things, display. However fabulous the imagined creature may be, the materials out of which he is made are derived from nature, and manifest a keen appreciation of animal structure. Vertebra or claw, wing or beak, eye or nostril, throat or paw,—every anatomical member displays an intimate familiarity with real organic form and function, and an imaginative sense of its possible combinations in creative design. Take, for instance, those strange beasts, or terrible demons of the parapet of the Cathedral of Paris. Each of them seems animated with a living spirit, and has an almost startling appearance of reality. And besides this lifelikeness and functional truth, a highly ornamental play of lines, and a subtle elaboration of finely modelled surfaces, are shown in these grotesque forms. In the early and early mature periods they exhibit a noticeable restraint of posture and movement; extravagantly contorted forms and violent movements occur, for the most part, only in the decline of Gothic, when jaded sensibilities had ceased to appreciate the value of moderation in design.—Charles H. Moore: "Gothic Architecture."
In addition to Notre Dame at Paris, the churches of Rheims, Amiens, Rouen, Laon, Vézelay, Auxerre and the religious edifices throughout Poitou, Saintonge, Guyenne and Burgundy, and the borders of the Loire, in France are rich in examples of grotesque animal sculpture.
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| PLATE L | THE CAMPANILE |