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PLATE XXXIV

COURAJOD BEQUEST

choice of a few only will therefore be made, and the description of them must be brief. I may say at once that it is with the greatest regret that I find it necessary to condense what is, equally with Madonna figures, a most important part of our subject. In the eleventh century the Byzantine formula-archaic, as in the ivory crucifix of Leon, now in the archæological museum, Madrid-was the model throughout the world. The art was primitive, the figure draped in a long skirt, the feet nailed separately, the eyes staring and expressionless. In the Romanesque period, the idea was of a Christ triumphant rather than of suffering Humanity. In the two or three examples presently to be adduced, and in many others, the head of our Lord is of the noblest type. He is represented with the eyes, as a rule, closed, in the moment before death; not as a human being still suffering the most cruel tortures. The tragedy is finished, nothing remains but an impassive serenity. The hair is conventionally treated in a hardly ever varying fashion of regularly curled bands arranged in long channelling streaks, the undulating locks of the moustache and beard each ending in a little curl. Sometimes there is a fillet or diadem, but no crown of thorns, which seems not to have been common before the thirteenth century. A detail that must not be forgotten is that it was usual to add a metal crown set thick with jewels. The expression is full of simplicity; of the nobility of suffering. There is no exaggeration of enduring agony, but as M. Courajod has well said, 'it is a king asleep': or, at least, it is the placid calm which comes after death to those who have suffered violence or some dreadful accident. Yet, if we should take, for example, the twelfth century Christ of the Doucet collection (Plate xxxiv.), or even the fourteenth-century crucifix of Anderlecht, the artist has known how to express, without attempting absolute realism, the sufferings

which have been passed through. The head falls, the mouth is slightly open, the eyes closed as if in sleep, the expression calm and resigned. One cannot but think that the sculptor has gone to nature for his inspiration, even if he has respected and continued traditional models in certain features, such as the hair and beard.

To sum up the characteristics which distinguish a crucifix of early Romanesque type from one of Gothic times, the figure hangs straight, and is not contorted, the arms are at right angles, the head erect, the eyes closed or calmly impassive if open, the body somewhat emaciated, the feet nailed separately, and resting on a scabellum, the hair falling in serpentine ringlets over the shoulders, the lines of the ribs, and folds of flesh regularly marked in a conventional manner, a short plain skirt from waist to knees. It is a representation of Divinity triumphing over Death. As we approach to and are afterwards in full Gothic times, the body becomes contorted, there is more naturalism in the eyes, the knees are drawn up, the body falls with its own weight, the arms depart more and more from the horizontal, the feet are nailed with one nail, the crown of thorns appears, the drapery is scanty. The artist seeks to give, in every way, an impression of human suffering, and to express it-as when we reach the Italian quattrocento masterpiecesby the display of anatomical knowledge. The body is almost completely nude, or, as we shall find in di Nuto's crucifixes equally as in the paintings of Giotto and others, whom, no doubt, the sculptors followed, the beautiful form is partly covered with a transparent drapery of a thin silky material. The Christ is no longer the King, the Divine conqueror, with regal attributes and emblems. It is the human side, the sacrifice by suffering which is emphasized. To take for example the crucifix-French work of the twelfth