Identifier: cu31924081258430 (find matches)
Title: Mediaeval Sicily, aspects of life and art in the middle ages
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Waern, Cecilia, 1853-
Subjects: Art Art, Medieval
Publisher: London, Duckworth & co
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
comenearer and notice the rough Romanesqueimperfections of the little figures, the squarebiggish heads, the clumsy hands, the shallowfolds of the scant ugly drapery. On the otherhand, the acanthus is Greek, and almost classicallyGreek—the sculptor has evidently seen and studieda Graeco-Roman candlestick ; the birds Byzantesquein their distinction and perfection. The famousscroll again, consisting of beasts and huntsmenintertwined in elegant fantastic coils, belongs tothe interesting motives (mainly transmitted bymeans of imported rugs, ivories and other smallerobjects) derived from Persian (Sassanian) art viaSyria and the Byzantine Empire, and used up byWestern and notably Apulian sculptors in newcombinations. The wild beasts forming thebase are quite Apulian in style. All points to theimperfect but active and assimilative school ofSouth-Eastern Italy as the home of the master ofthe candlestick ; he was certainly not Norman,and it is extremely unlikely that he was by birth ai68 XIX
Text Appearing After Image:
CAPPELLA PALATINA, PALERMO 1). l6g THE CAPPELLA PALATINA Sicilian. Figure sculpture had not thriven underthe rule of either Saracen princes or Greek clerics.When the Latin clergy came (principally, be itnoted, from the domains of the Norman rulers onthe mainland, and only exceptionally from the homeof their race in Normandy) with their Latindemand for lexpression in stone, they wouldnaturally, according to the custom in those days,call in the masters whose work they had knownand admired already. There is plenty of relatedwork on the mainland in King Rogers andWilliams own cities of Trani and Bari, andelsewhere. If there is nothing quite so importantin church furniture as this candlestick, or inarchitectural ensemble as the somewhat later cloisterof Monreale, this is easily explainable when werecall the fact that Palermo was, for a short timeof almost unnatural brilliancy, the capital. The top of the candlestick, which is later, but ahappy continuation of the movement, not a clumsyafte

Note About Images