Good books about gargoyles aren’t easy to find but this one, edited by Lester Burbank Bridaham, is better than many I’ve seen. Gargoyles, Chimeres, and the Grotesque in French Gothic Sculpture was published in 1930, and is mostly a collection of photographs, with the text kept to a minimum at the front of the book. The nature of the subject—eroded soot-stained sculptures seen against eroded soot-stained walls—doesn’t always help the photographer but the book makes up in quantity what it lacks in quality. There are many photographs here, often four to a page over 200 pages. Dover reprinted the book in a large-format edition in 2006.
These gargoyles and grotesques show very plainly the complete freedom under which the old craftsmen worked and the immense originality and variety that were the result. Here are hundreds of spontaneous creations, each as individual as possible, and not only this but many of them show a brilliancy of space composition and a fineness of line that would not shame a great sculptor. Craftsmen these, but also creative artists.
Ralph Adams Cram in the introduction
The authors divide their study according to subject: Last Judgments, Gargoyles of different ages, Chimeras (or hybrid creatures), and Heads. Gargoyles are often hybrid creatures, of course, but the broad difference between a gargoyle and a chimera in the architectural sense would be that gargoyles often serve a purpose as a waterspout whereas chimeras are solely decorative. Gargoyles are a good example of an architectural solution that evolved into an element of architectural style. Spouts were required to direct rainwater away from the lower areas of the building; decoration helped incorporate the spouts into the building’s structure then the decoration became a traditional part of the Gothic style. For a time, anyway. You don’t see many gargoyles among the buildings designed by the rather pious English revivalists in the 19th century, but the great French revivalist and restorer, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, enjoyed the grotesquery of the old cathedrals, and it’s he who was responsible for the famous chimeras that look down on Paris from the balconies of Notre Dame.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gothic details
• Monsters in art