File:The ivory workers of the middle ages (1906) (14757062106).jpg

Identifier: ivoryworkersmidage00cust (find matches)
Title: The ivory workers of the middle ages
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Cust, Anna Maria Elizabeth
Subjects: Ivories
Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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spite of thesoft finish of the technique. The features inheritmuch from the antique, the well-cut brow anddeeply set eyes, but the noses have increasedin length and have that slight curve at the tipwhich is so characteristic, and becomes so pro-nounced, in later Byzantine Art. The fine heads,framed in their rugged mane of hair, are verypicturesque, but there is such a strong familylikeness among them, that it is quite refreshingto meet a bald forehead like that of St. Paulor St. John Theologus, here represented as anaged man and not as the beardless stripling ofWestern art. Above all, it is the hands and thewell-proportioned muscular feet, which show thepower of the real artist escaping from the con-ventionality of his subject. On the back of thepanel he has freed himself entirely from the spellof classical antiquity and drunk deeply of neworiental ideas, creating a most decorative design,illustrating the Triumph of the Cross, whichrises, ornamented with roses, above the flowering 86
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- IVORY WORKERS earth, stretching up to the skies, which are thicklycovered with stars, and bear the Greek inscrip-tion y^^^/i ChiHst Victorious, Two tall cypresses,tightly bound by the symbolical vine and by ivy,bow before it, whilst from the ground spring smalltrees and reeds, among which wild animals run inand out. The trees may be contrasted with the fruitfulolives on the Bargello plaque of the Ascension(Fig. 18). The composition of this scene is grandin character, in spite of its small size, and there isgreat freedom of movement in the lower group,each pose being cleverly characterized ; the group-ing is scarcely freer in the Italian conception ofthis subject, and the upraised hand of the apostleon the Virgins left is to be seen, centuries later,in the famous Assumption of the Virgin byTitian. There are many other plaques with scenicpictures. The elaborate carving of the Death ofthe Virgin is still fixed to the Bamberg Missal,which belonged to Cunigunda, wife of the Empe

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