The word "Gargoyle"
shares a common root with the word "Gargle"; which
comes from "gargouille",
an French word for "Throat". A true gargoyle is a
waterspout. The word “gargoyle” is also a derivative from the Latin
word, “gurgulio”, which had a double meaning, “throat”, and the
“gurgling” sound water makes as it passes through a gargoyle. A carved creature that does not serve
the purpose of a drain pipe is frequently referred to as a "Grotesque".
legend has it, that
a fierce dragon named La Gargouille described as having a long,
reptilian neck, a slender snout and membranous wings lived in a cave
near the river Seine.
The dragon caused much fear and destruction with its fiery breath,
spouting water and the devouring of ships and men. Each year, the
residents of Rouen would placate Gargouille with an offering of a
victim, usually a criminal, though it was said the dragon preferred
maidens. Around 600, the village was saved by St. Romanis, who promised
to deal with the dragon if the townspeople agreed to be baptized and to
build a church. Romanus subdued the dragon by making the sign of the
cross and then led the now docile beast back to town on a leash made
from his priest's robe. La Gargouille was then burned at the stake, it
is said that his head and neck were so well tempered by the heat of his
fiery breath, that they would not burn. These remnants were then mounted
on the town wall and became the model for gargoyles for centuries to
come. 3
Gargoyles
Notre Dame
Mary
Ann Sullivan, The Digital Imaging Project
used
with permission
Russell Sturgis, writing
in Sturgis' Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture and Building,
defines a gargoyle as a: A water spout, ... projecting from a gutter
and intended to throw the water away from the walls and foundations. In
medieval architecture, the gargoyles, which had to be very numerous
because of the many gutters which were carried on the tops of flying
buttresses, and higher and lower walls, were often very decorative,
consisting, as they did, of stone images of grotesque animals, and the
like, or, in smaller buildings of iron or lead. Many cultures throughout history have
created sculptures of fantastic creatures. These figures stir our imaginations, as they stirred the imaginations of
the carvers who lovingly created them. We struggle to
understand and explain them, delving deep into the realms of psychology, culture,
symbols, history and religion. One of the more common belief is that
gargoyles
served as protectors, keeping evil away from the buildings and their
occupants. However, there seems to be much at work here and we can suspect
that their reason to be, operates on a multitude of levels.
Gargoyles can be traced back 4000
years to Egypt, Rome and Greece. Terra cotta water spouts depicting: lions,
eagles, and other creatures, including those based on Greek and
Roman mythology, were very common. Gargoyle water spouts were even found at
the ruins of Pompeii. The first grotesque figures came from Egypt. The Egyptians believed in deities with the heads of
animals and frequently replicated these deities in their architecture and wall paintings.
When the Greeks saw the Sphinx, they began to incorporate grotesques into their
own beliefs. The Greeks believed in many grotesques such as harpies,
centaurs, griffins, and chimeras. Greek architects would often place
statues of animals called acroterium, in the forms of griffins, at each
corner of the roof of their treasuries and temples. In Greek mythology, griffins guarded the gold of
Scythia from the Arimaspians, a race of one eyed giants or
Cyclops, who would try to steal the gold.
Adrienne Mayor, in her book The First Fossil Hunters:
Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times,
presents evidence that ancient legends of
monsters may be based on the discovery, by pre-Christian nomads', of dinosaur
bones in central Asia, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.
Mayor suggests; that the myth of the
griffin, a winged lion with a birdlike beak, was inspired by the nomads'
discoveries of fossilized bones of protoceratops, an animal that existed
more than 65 million years ago.
The book has thrilled paleontologists
by showing that their science dates from ancient times, much longer ago
than previously thought. Mayor shows that ancient Greek and Roman
researchers collected numerous fossils of large extinct mammals and
displayed them in temples and museums. "There they identified
fossils as the relics of giants, heroes and monsters of myth," she
says. Some ancient writers argued that the enormity of the supposed
"human" remains proved the human race had since
"degenerated" or "run down," becoming smaller and
weaker.
Mayor "has uncovered a barely
noticed source for many of the myths of the Old World, and for the first
time has assembled in an orderly way the evidence for early man's
discovery of and explanations for fossil remains," says classical
art historian Sir John Boardman of Oxford University. Thanks to her
analysis, he says, many ancient "texts, sites, and pictures will
never seem quite the same again."
The ancient bones' biggest impact was
on popular culture. For example, many ancient Greek vases of the seventh
through fifth centuries B.C. depict griffins.
A protoceratops (top) and a griffin
(bottom) -
©
Copyright The First Fossil Hunters
Mayor
says she'll never forget the moment when she began to suspect that the
ancient images of griffins were based on reports of the discovery of
protoceratops bones. "I was on the Greek island of Samos, not too
far from the coast of Turkey. I was visiting the archaeological museum
there, where I saw hundreds of bronze griffins that had been excavated
from the temple on Samos,....The earliest depictions of griffins looked
really gnarly and brutish. It looked as if the artist were trying to
portray something real rather than mythological," she said.
"And then in a flash, I realized that they looked like modern
reconstructions of dinosaurs in a museum." Protoceratops, which
lived in the twilight of the dinosaur age more than 65 million years
ago, had a beak like a bird. At maturity, it was typically 8 feet long,
about the size of a lion. It also had a bony "frill" at the
back of the neck that the ancients could have mistaken for the roots of
wings, she says. 2
Gargoyles and grotesques have always
given carvers and sculptors a chance to delight in their creativity and
to explore the possibilities in the dance between stone and imagination. Gargoyles freed
carvers from the limits imposed by other types of carving, and this was
especially true in the Middle Ages. It is certain that stone carvers
love creating these pieces, and viewers certainly love seeing them. This
may be one of the more compelling reasons they exist.
France has over 100 cathedrals, most
built in the middle ages, with Notre Dame being the most famous. In the Middle ages, the populace, for the most part,
could not
read and write. Churches used visual images to spread the scriptures and
reinforce biblical stories. These included; paintings, frescos, stained glass,
figures,
sculpture and gargoyles. Some
believe that gargoyles were inspired directly via a passage in the
bible. Others believe that gargoyles and grotesques do not come from the
bible, but were inspired by the skeletal remains of prehistoric beasts. Others will argue that they are
the expression of man's subconscious fears or, that they may be vestiges
of paganism from an age when god would be perceived in trees and river
plains. The churches of Europe carried them further
into time; maybe to remind the masses that "even if god is at hand,
evil is never far away and to act as guardians of
their church to keep the evil spirits at bay. 3
Notre
Dame - The Last Judgment and the weighing of souls
Mary
Ann Sullivan, The Digital Imaging Project
used
with permission
click
on image for larger view
Francois Villon, a French writer in the
late 1400's offered the following poem. The translation is from
Ballade: As a Prayer to Our Lady in a collection of his known as
The
Testament as found in The Complete Works of Francois Villon. Ed. Anthony
Bonner. 1964. p.68-69.
I am a
woman old, poor, and ignorant,
who has never learned to read.
In my parish church I see
a painted Paradise with harps and lutes
and a Hell where the damned are boiled:
one frightens me-the other gives me joy and happiness.
Let me have that joy, high Goddess,
to whom all sinners in the end must come,
filled with faith, without idleness or pretense.
In this faith I wish to live and die.
Chartres
Cathedral - Christ in Majesty with four apocalyptic beasts
Mary
Ann Sullivan, The Digital Imaging Project
used
with permission
click
on image for larger view
The Chartres Cathedral has
approximately 4 000 sculpted figures, but above all it's the portals
present stone work of incomparable quality. "The sculptors of the
cathedral of Chartres are as anonymous as are its' architects. These
artists were artisans working on order and not as individual craftsmen.
The sculptors formed a trade association among the others. They worked
as a group, around a master or overseer who very likely shared out the
tasks in function of the aptitudes and competence of one or another
while carrying out the major pieces himself." 11
During the 1200's when gargoyles first
appeared in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was actively converting
people of other faiths to Christianity. Since most
people were not literate, images were very important
in communicating ideas and telling the stories of the faith. Many of the religious images that non-Christians
were accustomed to were of pagan origin and were of animals or mixtures of animals and
humans. Integrating familiar images on churches and cathedrals was
thought to encourage
the populace to accept the new religion and ease the transition
from the old ways and old beliefs. 4
St. Bernard of Clairvaux-the 12th
Century A.D. observed: "What
are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters under the very eyes
of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean
monkeys, strange savage lions and monsters? To what purpose are here
placed these creatures, half beast, half man? I see several bodies with
one head and several heads with one body. Here is a quadruped with a
serpent's head, there a fish with a quadruped's head, then again an
animal half horse, half goat... Surely if we do not blush for such
absurdities we should at least regret what we have spent on them."
5
Pope Gregory's instructions to St.
Augustine regarding the conversion of the pagan people to Christianity
offered additional incite into the role of gargoyles: "Destroy
the idol. Purify the temples with holy water. Set relics there, and let
them become temples of the true God. So the people will have no need to
change their place of concourse, and, where of old they were wont to
sacrifice cattle to demons, thither let them continue to resort on the
day of the saint to where the Church is dedicated, and slay their
beasts, no longer as a sacrifice but for social meal in honor of Him
whom they now worship." Pope Gregory legitimized the integration of
pre-Christian and pagan practices
and symbols into the Christian church as a strategy to facilitate the
peoples conversion to Christianity.
5
"During the Middle Ages, the
church was a very central part of the lives of the people. The influence
of the church was so great during the Middle Ages that even powerful
nobles often yielded to its dictates. Deeds of mercy and justice
performed by lords and barons were the result of respect for religion
and fear of God. Many people during the early Middle Ages believed that
the end of the world was coming soon, and many people regarded life on
earth as a rather unimportant preliminary to the afterlife. To assure a
place in heaven, everyone in the kingdom would do anything to please
God, even help in the construction of their church in any way they
could. The rich often gave gold, and the lower class would help by
carting stones to the construction site. "Medieval man was
convinced of a relationship between the Creation and his own creativity.
To do work in or on the church "was an honor and a goal" 10.
God had made man; therefore, what man made was only once removed from
God and, accordingly, had to be worthy of Him" 9
p117. For this reason only skilled
architects and craftsmen were allowed to work on the sculpturing and of
the cathedral.. These skilled craftsmen possessed the skills necessary
to create the detailed creatures known as gargoyles and grotesques. One
way for the town's people to help the church was to aid in the building
or the decoration of it. "The skills" of the people "were
diverse, but all art had the same aim: to express in the created the
glory of the Creator 9 p117
" 8
The cathedral also served as a
"sermon in stone" which could be "read" by an
illiterate population. Some gargoyles clearly fill this instructional
purpose by illustrating Bible stories such as Eve's reach for the apple
and frightening images of eternal damnation. Since gargoyles were on the
outside of the cathedral and scenes of the Bible and statues of Jesus,
Mary and the Saints where common inside the building, this represented
God's power to protect the believers. They also represented the struggle
between good and evil and symbolized how God was the only protection
from evil in a fallen world.
Gargoyles stand guard, warding off
unwanted spirits and other creatures and If they're hideous and
frightening enough, it was thought they would be especially effective in scaring
off all sorts of other threatening creatures. Perhaps it was even
believed that some came alive
at night protecting people when they were most
vulnerable. Better still, the ones with wings could fly and protect the village as well as the church.
Gargoyles crafted during Medieval
times became increasingly grotesque in design. Soon they were referred to
as “chimeras” because of their representations of creatures that
were not of this world - half man, and half bird or beast. These new
incarnations were either depicted sitting on their haunches or poised to
take flight. They also possessed over exaggerated muzzles or beaks and
other odd appendages. They were positioned on a cornice molding so they
projected forward and away from the building for a number of feet. In
this way the gargoyle was able to spew water far from the
building. "Although the demons and monsters so prevalent in
cathedral sculpture may seem almost quaint to modern eyes, the men of
the Middle Ages did not find them so. In a time when illiteracy was
almost a universal condition and belief in a literal, waiting Inferno
prevailed, the purpose of most cathedral sculpture was not decorative
but instructional. It was intended, to scare the hell out of its
beholders, and there is every reason to believe it did a creditable job,
presenting the horrors of damnation in living color (of which only faint
traces remain today)." 2
The
Gargoyle often makes his perch
On
a cathedral or a church,
Where,
mid ecclesiastic style,
He
smiles an early-Gothic smile.
-Oliver Herford
One of the most notable examples of
Gothic architecture that incorporated many gargoyles and grotesques is
Notre Dame cathedral, in Paris. It is interesting to note, that; once lead drainpipes
were introduced
in the 16th century there was no longer any practical need for
gargoyles. However, architects and builders continued to incorporate them into their building
designs, but now gargoyles served only a symbolic, spiritual, religious,
decorative or
whimsical purposes.
|
©
Copyright 1999 Northstar Gallery
|
Hindu
Temples in India make extensive use of gargoyles in the form of
the many Hindu Gods depicted on the temple structure. This image
is from a Temple in Hydrabad and has hundreds of figures
represented on its exterior.
|
North America also has its fair
share of gargoyles. They protect many of the older buildings in cities
like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. University campuses are also prime
“habitats” for gargoyles with Princeton and Duke Universities, being a good
examples. There
are 6 gargoyles at the old Headquarters of the Philadelphia Fire Department at 1328 Race Street
Philadelphia, PA. These whimsical characterizations are outstanding examples of
the use of gargoyles in modern times and capture the essence of what it
means to be a fireman.
©
Copyright 1999 Northstar Gallery
A very common image represented in the
genre of gargoyles and grotesques is the Green Man. He is one of the
most common figures and he stares down at us from the roofs, pillars and doorways of our
great cathedrals and churches all over the world. The Green Man appears on second century Roman
columns and in Hindu temples in India. He is found all over
England, Wales and Scotland. He is present in the
great banks and financial houses of Wall Street. His roots may go back to the
hunters who painted the caves of
Lascaux and Altimira. In one of his many manifestations as Robin Hood and the Morris Dances of Old England,
he is chiseled in wood and cut into stone even to this day by men and women who
no longer know his story but sense that something old and strong and
tremendously important lies behind his leafy mask. One of the earliest
English epic poems Gawain and The Green Knight may refer to another
manifestation of the Green Man as the God that dies and is reborn This
powerful theme of death and rebirth runs
through all the diverse images and myths of the Green Man. In all, death and
renewal are celebrated as the "Green" that represents all life.
Medusa is another image that shows up
frequently as a grotesque. The Gorgons were three sisters. Two of
the sisters were monstrous with huge teeth, brazen claws and
snakey hair. Sthenno and Eurayale
were immortal, but Medusa, the third was mortal. Medusa,
was a beautiful maiden who's hair was her crowning glory. She was loved
by the god Poseidon in the temple of Athena. Athena was deeply angered
and turned Medusa into a monster and changed her glorious hair into
snakes. Athena made Medusa so ugly that that anyone who looked at her
was instantly turned to stone. All around Medusa's cavern were stone
figures of men and animals which had risked a glimpse her and had been
petrified with the sight.
Athena sent Perseus to slay Medusa,
she lent him her shiny shield and Hermes lent him her winged shoes.
Perseus approached Medusa while she slept and taking care not to look
directly at her, guided by her image reflected in the bright shield, he
cut off her head and gave it to Athena. In her ugliness, Medusa was the
grand sculptor, a creator of gargoyles and grotesques,
immortalizing their flesh by turning it into stone?
Carl Jung observes "A symbol always stands for something more
than its obvious and immediate meaning. Symbols, moreover, are natural and spontaneous
products. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or brush in hand and invented a symbol.
No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by
deliberate intent, and than give it "symbolic form". There are many symbols,
however, that are not individual but collective in their nature and origin. These are
chiefly religious images. The believer assumes that they are of divine origin - that they
have been revealed to man. The skeptic says flatly that they have been invented. Both are
wrong. It is true, as the skeptic notes, that religious symbols and concepts have for
centuries been the object of careful and quite conscious elaboration. It is equally true,
as the believer implies, that their origin is so far buried in the mystery of the past
that they seem to have no human source. But they are in fact "collective
representations," emanating from primeval dreams and creative fantasies. As such,
these images are involuntary spontaneous manifestations and by no means intentional
inventions." 7
The most likely truth is that all of
these elements come together in explaining both the existence and our attraction to
gargoyles and grotesques; the conscious, the unconscious, primitive
religion, myth, Christian conversion, practicality and certainly the
stone cutter's joy of creation. The images under
consideration embody profound symbolic content from our "collective unconscious"
and are significant and enduring symbolic manifestations
of the human experience.
Stephen King in his introduction to Nightmares
in the Sky states: "...This is rather ironic, because the lady
with the snaky hair-do is probably more famous for turning folks to
stone than she is for becoming a piece of sculpture herself...which she
did. Medusa, a creature too horrible for mortals to look upon, offers at
least this cold comfort: in the end, she was too horrible to look at herself.
She, that queen of nightmares with her writhing crown of snakes, become
the world's first real gargoyle.
But go back a second. The living,
Medusa turned men from flesh to stone-prototype gargoyles, one must
surely suppose, with faces stretched into goblin grimaces of horror.
Faced with her own reflection, she became a stone monstrosity (her mouth
open in a shriek from which dirty water might pour during rainy spells,
one may also suppose), one which living men might look upon with no fear
of their lives...but without fear for their sleep at least...and, at
most, their sanity. I am suggesting that the gargoyles....may continue
to perform their original function: to drain away that which might cause
rot and erosion. Their horrible, stony faces offer a unique catharsis;
when we look upon them and shudder, we create the exact reversal of the
Medusa myth; we are not flesh turned to stone, but flesh proving it is
flesh still, if only by the bumps that cool flush of fear always
produces. It is not too much to say that great art, no matter how
primitive, constantly recreates the imagination, and keeps it from
turning to stone....Look closely, because we see these ominous lares of
the human psyche so seldom. They are there, these nightmares, but thy
are in the sky. Look closely, because even when you don't see
them...they are watching you."1
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