210 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKINGin the fires of hell, and the couplings of clerics and nuns, should not be
cause for surprise. During the Middle Ages, it was the clerics and eccle-
siastics who oversaw the building of the churches and who paid the
masons. How likely is it that they would allow themselves to be insulted
to their faces in this way and immortalized in this fashion on buildings
intended for posterity?* These representations correspond instead to
the mores of a time when what constituted the borders of license or
convention were not at all the same as our own.
It is most important to avoid viewing the audacious sculpture of the
gargoyles and tympanums as merely a liberal manifestation of some-
what satiric artists who have seen behind the scenes and grasped more
than others what was actually going on there. These fantasy depictions
show that the freedom of the stone had been in practice for many cen-
turies before that of the press. What was attacked were the mores of the
clergy and not the religion itself. Such art reconciled with religion in
perfect piety. The clerics themselves were not scandalized by it. They
may have viewed it as hell's due, but they also saw it as serving a moral
purpose: The depiction of these improprieties served as a means of pun-
ishing and correcting the more vicious clerics. It was a test of humility,
the reflection of the sum indignus of the divine office, to have such art
included in monuments to the faith.+ Recall that the beloved Fra
Angelico of Fiesole included popes, cardinals, and monks among the
damned in his famous painting of the Last Judgement. It would be
thoughtless to believe that he was displaying his total disdain for the
highest authorities of the Church. What he wished to express was a
basic Christian truth: that in Christ's judgment, everyone will receive
what he or she deserves, whether good or bad. The same could be said
of the workers who carved stone.
- Recall that the Second Council of Nicea (787) decided that the composition of reli-
gious images should not be left to the artists' initiative but should originate in the prin-
ciples established by the Church and religious tradition. "The Art alone belongs to the
painter, its placing and arrangement belong to the + Fathers."
It should be noted that these depictions are generally placed outside the church, and
on the portal facing west, which is to say, outside and in opposition to the light.