In the sculptured tombs of the Middle Ages, with their recumbent figures and heraldic enrichments, again, we see this architectonic sense influencing the treatment of form and relief, as these monuments were strictly architectural decorations, often incorporating its forms and details, and often built into the structure of the church or cathedral itself, as in the case of the recessed and canopied tombs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
As sculptures became detached from the building and wall, and appeared in full relief in the round, though still, as it were, carrying a reminiscence of their origin with them in the shape of the moulded pedestal, architectural control became less and less felt, statues in consequence being less and less related to their surroundings. The individual feeling of the sculptor or the traditions of his school and training alone influenced his treatment, until we get the incidental and dramatic or sentimental isolated figure or group of modern days.
Medals and Coins
It is noteworthy, however, that even in the smaller works of the modeller, carver, or sculptor of the Middle Ages or the early Renaissance, a sense of decorative fitness and structural sense is always present. We see it in the carved ornaments of seats and furniture, in the design and treatment of coins and seals and gems and medals. These latter from the time of the ancient Greeks afford beautiful examples of the decorative treatment of relief in strict relation to the object and purpose. The skill and taste of the Greeks seemed to have been largely inherited by the artists of the earlier Italian Renaissance, such as Pisano, whose famous medal of the Malatesta of Rimini affords a splendid instance not only of the treatment of the portrait and subject on the reverse perfectly adapted to its method and purpose, but also of the artistic use of lettering as a decorative feature (see p. [203]).
