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Show THOSE FESTIVE GARGOYLES. What They Are and Why They Are Grotesque. As illustrative of the gothie feeling iu architecture, there is no more expressive ex-pressive feature than the gargoyle or decorative waterspout, named from the gurgling sound in the throat of the ungainly un-gainly creature whose head or whole body served as a vent for rainwater. Waterspouts projected from the eaves of a building, for the purpose of directing direct-ing the rainwater away from the walls, were known in classic times, but apparently ap-parently lost during the romanesque period, pe-riod, when water was allowed to pour down from the roofs upon the heads of passersby without let or hindrance. During the middle ages, when great and complicated cathedrals were building, build-ing, the gargoyle was revived. In the hands of the sculptors of the gothie period it assumed strange, grotesque shapes, reflecting as It were some of the dark and terrible beliefs of the time in demons, half animal, half human, hu-man, forever hovering about, ready to assault the unwary soul. Pious monks bad Illuminated their missals and hour-books hour-books with borders containing such gruesome conceptions. Architects, seizing seiz-ing upon the strong lines and vital intensity in-tensity of these impossible animals, used them to accentuate the lines of their buildings while also performing the useful function of waterspouts. Silhouetted Sil-houetted against the sky. much of the vigor of gothie buildings is concentrated concentrat-ed in these beasts about to spring, birds ready to swoop down, or hideous heads grinning in ugly humorous grotesque-ness. grotesque-ness. While we enjoy the general effect ef-fect produced by the great number of gargoyles employed in such a cathedral cathe-dral as Notre Dame de Paris, we are, When viewing them in place, always at the disadvantage of distance and elevation. eleva-tion. Metropolitan Museum Bulletin. |