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ART 499
none of the delicate perceptiveness of the Westminster work.
Elsewhere in Lincoln minster, Westminster sculptural in/
fluence is evident. The south door begun in 1256 may well be
modelled on the north door ofthe abbey; the central tympanum
has been sadly battered and somewhat sentimentally restored,
but the little figures in the foliage scrolls ofthe arches have the
poise and skill and gestures ofthe best Westminster work. In^
side the new extension of the choir the angels already men^
tioned were, on the Westminster model, carved in the spandrels ;
as the scheme advanced, its meaning deepened,
and instead of
musical instruments one angel holds a naked soul, one a
balance (PL 100 &), a third sternly expels the naked figures of
Adam and Eve. Solidly and broadly made, they are intended to
be seen from below, and it is from there, unlike Westminster,
that their effect is most telling. This is a local school, to whom
the graces of the porch carvings must have seemed strangely
foreign. But the Lincolnshire stone on which the masons
worked has a warmth oftint, and there is no lack ofsubtlety in
the colouristic effects of contrasting Purbeck colonnettes and of
the play of light and shade over these broad carved surfaces.
The Angel Choir has rare beauties of its own, owing little to
other examples whether English or French.
One feature of the rise of Gothic art is a new emphasis on
simple, recognizable human emotions. In the Crucifixion, St.
John leans his head on his hand, his face furrowed with grief
(PL ici'd). In the Nativity ofthe Missal of Henry ofChichester
die Virgin gives the Child her breast, while a woman draws
back the bed'covering to aid her (an original inventive touch
typical ofthis humanizing movement). The seated Virgins no
it is
longer present the Child frontally to the congregation;
their own relationship within the carved or painted scene that
is stressed, as in the famous roundel at Chichester, work ofthe
mid/thirteenth century.
It is in a group of manuscripts associated with Salisbury that
this tendency can best be seen. While in France the ornateness
ofGothic was being stylized and refined to a medium capable
of wide ranges of indirect expressiveness, clear, rhythmical,