download

^ MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
angels carved in wood, while more angels hold heraldic shields
on the side of the tomb chest. Beneath lies the lady's corpse,
almost a skeleton, somewhat gruesomely shown; above it on the
chest's foot, invisible except by bending down to floor level, is
painted the Annunciation, the colours still well preserved in
their obscurity. The thin ascetic face of the duchess, the eyes
half^closed, is clearly a likeness, the portrait of a woman of
character who has known and suffered much; now death has
come; already the cheeks are halsunken; the smooth sheen of
the alabaster, smoothly carved with little modelling, increases
the impression ofthe final moment (PL 108 a); there is none of
the deep lines, the round indentations, the humorous hal&smile
which Torrigiano gives to Lady Margaret.
The last great series of our Gothic standing figures is in
Henry VH's chapel. This assemblage of saints is by many
hands, some probably not English: there is a German look
about these reading prophets, with their fantastic headgear and
their voluminous, sharply indented cloaks; the group of St.
Sebastian between the archers is set on Gothic pedestals under
crocketed canopies, but a renaissance example, from Italy ifat
some removes, lies behind this straining, youthful nude (PL
1 08 H). It was, however, mainly in decoration, in friezes and
roundels fixed on Gothic frames, in new classical motifs, rams*
skulls and cornucopias, that the renaissance influence became
apparent, and the Gothic style was still powerful when in 153 8
the first iconoclastic blow was struck by Thomas Crom/
well's injunctions ordering the destruction of 'such feigned
images' as were 'abused with pilgrimages'. Ofthe cult images
of England many ofthe most revered were ofwood: a holocaust
began, the first of many in which our medieval wooden figures
perished, so that we only know this great branch of carving in
the superb work of screens and choir stalls, such as those
worked under the direction of William Brownfleet ofRipon of the roof of Westminster hall
(Jl. 1489-1520) or the angels
carved by Robert Grassington in Richard II's
reign. Gold and
silver work had cupidity as an added foe. The great silver
shrines such as that ofBecket were melted down, and there are