The Figure of Christ

The massive figure of Christ (no. I, Plate IIa), one of the more controversial and generally disparaged sculptures at Saint-Denis, dominates the portal. Cut from the two great twelfth-century stones that form the tympanum, and projecting in high relief, this central figure extends across all three zones. The horizontal joint between the two stones bisects Christ's torso—a line now emphasized by the heavy and distorting overlay of nineteenth-century mortar fill. The drapery covering Christ's body consists primarily of a tunic and a loosely arranged mantle. But the degree of overlapping and the heavy, stylized fold curving from under the right shoulder across the abdomen can only be described as arbitrary. Despite the extensive recutting shown in the diagram (Plate IIb), the figure of Christ retains the original pose and, in general, the twelfth-century form and drapery arrangement.

Nevertheless, the hand of the restorer seems omnipresent, mostly because of the appalling nineteenth-century head, for which the restorer used the Greek Zeus of Olympia as a model.^[1] In addition, a cutting-away from the underarm to the waist along the bared right side has reduced the silhouette of the figure. As a result, the proportions of the upper body gradually diminish above the waist, thus causing Christ to appear emaciated. In their visual impact, those two restorations modify the twelfth-century aesthetic more than the sum of all the other repairs to the figure.

An equally serious alteration obscured an important iconographical detail. In repairing Christ's severely damaged right side, the restorer apparently mistook the lozenge-shaped wound below his breast (caused by Longinus's spear) for an accidental gash or surface mutilation.^[2] Obviously unaware of the significance of this detail, the restorer sealed the wound with mortar and

thus eliminated the raison d'être for Christ's bared right shoulder and side. Hardly visible today, the scar measures 7.25 by 2 cm. at its longest and widest points.

The relatively few areas where recutting has not affected the original surface include the right shoulder and arm, the splayed locks of hair on both shoulders, the left sleeve over the forearm, its jeweled border, and the left wrist. In the lower half of the figure, the drapery over the right knee, the jeweled border of the mantle directly below and in the center, and most of the ornamental band along the hem between Christ's feet also retain their twelfth-century surfaces. Elsewhere the pervasive recutting proved minor and caused little distortion to the drapery, with the following exceptions.

The most modified twelfth-century carving lies along the fracture that cuts through Christ's left leg, where various insets and attendant recutting deformed the contours but not the arrangement of the folds. Immediately to the left, recutting caused some asymmetry in the lowest V -shaped fold of the lap drapery. Repairs to the fracture also eliminated the outermost fold and the lowest foldback of the mantle by Christ's right leg, reduced the upper contours of the agitated swirl beside his left ankle, erased the lowest foldback of the adjacent hemline of the mantle, and created a slight distortion in the curve of the mandorla-like throne in that area. Equally heavy recutting of the mantle below Christ's outstretched arms reduced the folds to rudimentary ripples. Most of the rest of the recutting proved surprisingly light—so light that even in recut areas some good twelfth-century surfaces survive.

The survival of patches of original surfaces in recut areas, together with the unrecut portions listed above, provides important information. Without question, the unrecut right knee gives the original foremost projection of the lower half of the figure. Although mastic points up the damaged but generally unrecut ridges of the folds over the right thigh and between the knees, enough twelfth-century work survives in those bold and strongly modeled V -shaped folds to authenticate the arrangement. Despite the shaving and flattening of the ridges of the vertical folds of the underskirt, the plasticity of the modeling still strikes the viewer. A sense of substance and the depth of modeling, pre-occupations of the original sculptor, survive in the pronounced undercutting along the hems and folded-back edges of the garments as well as in the lightly recut but still bulky engirdling drapery. Enough good surfaces remain to

authenticate the shape and decoration of the mandorla-like throne.^[3] The torus defining its outer edge shows considerable recutting and retains its fully rounded contours only on the lower left above the sarcophagus lid.

The prerestoration drawing of the west facade by the architects Cellérier and Legrand includes a small, schematic, but distorted representation of the figure of Christ (Fig. 3). The enlarged detail of the drawing (Fig. 4) clearly shows the bare right shoulder and arm, the drapery falling from the left shoulder, the draped and sleeved left arm, and the scrolls held in Christ's outstretched hands. The V -shaped folds between his knees are implied in the sketch, which also indicates the mandorla-like throne. The drawing, an approximate diagram of the figure we see today, confirms what careful examination has revealed: despite extensive recutting and except for the stylistically anomalous nineteenth-century head, the central figure of Christ retains the essence of the twelfth-century form.^[4]

By enlarging the arms of the cross grotesquely and at the same time diminishing its upper portion, or head, absurdly, the Cellérier-Legrand drawing grossly distorted the proportions. Yet examination revealed the validity of what we see today. Even though almost the entire surface of the cross underwent a superficial recutting in the nineteenth century, traces of unrecut surfaces survive along its under edge and in the incised lines that emphasize its contours. Those twelfth-century surfaces verify the profile of the cross, the articulated knobs and flared ends, and the central disk at the junction of the arms and stem.^[5] But as Guilhermy remarked, the gratuitous addition in 1840 of the letters INRI at the head of the cross placed an inappropriate monogram above the representation of the Christ of the Second Coming, or Last Judgment.^[6]

The two scrolls extending from Christ's outstretched hands consist of twelfth-century stone of a piece with the upper tympanum lunette. Recut on the surface, the bands now bear inscriptions carved in 1840: on Christ's right, “Venite benedicti Patris mei” (Matthew 25:34); on his left, “Discedite a me maledicti” (Matthew 25:41).^[7] Guilhermy wrote, “Les bras étendus tiennent deux légendes sur lesquelles on a gravé en 1840 à droite …[Matthew 25:34], à gauche…[Matthew 25:41].”^[8] In that context the word légendes must refer to the scrolls and their generic function, not to the inscriptions. Thus we do not know from Guilhermy's comment whether traces of the twelfth-century inscriptions had survived to guide the restorer. The overall recutting of the surfaces of

the banderoles was so light that in all probability the legends originally were painted rather than incised. Over the centuries, very little of a painted inscription could have survived unless it were renewed periodically. Yet, since the incised quotations from the Gospel of Matthew are traditional in the context of the Last Judgment, their validity seems probable.^[9]

A few additional technical details observable in the figure of Christ deserve attention. The pressures that caused the upper tympanum fracture visible behind Christ's right arm seem to have been referred along the free-standing right arm to his wrist and the weakest, narrowest point where the thumb inset joins the arm. There the joint of the inset and the fracture become coextensive, the latter then continuing along the palm of the hand. The good twelfth-century surface behind the right arm indicates that the arm was always freestanding. Apparently worried by the fractures of the tympanum as well as the wrist fracture and adjacent thumb inset, the restorer backed the arm with reinforcing mortar, most of which has since fallen away. The brettelé marks, or striations, made by the nineteenth-century chisel are visible on the surface of the cross above the two-part inset that replaced both the right thumb and a small portion of the scroll. That portion of the scroll was set into the surface plane, but the excision of the original carving required by this repair seems surprisingly clumsy. The inset restoring the other thumb also has its upper joint in the surface behind it, although the structural necessity for such a procedure seems less than compelling.

In preparing to insert the new head, the restorer cut away most of the remnants of the original one, even though he consistently left stumps as backing for the insets replacing the Apostles' heads. The stone behind Christ's head is roughly hewn, and the surface is crosshatched with the tooth marks of the restorer's chisel. Across the neck and behind the fully undercut beard, the nineteenth-century head joins the twelfth-century body. However discordant the modern locks of hair framing the face may seem, the coiffure has confirmation in the surviving twists of twelfth-century hair that divide and splay across both shoulders. Here, as elsewhere, the nineteenth-century striations seem coarse and mechanical next to the twelfth-century convention for hair that they emulate.

The restoration has been unjustly condemned for the modeling of the torso, which articulates the bone structure of the collarbones, chest, and diaphragm, as well as for the scrawny, sinuous character of the right arm. Yet

the patina of age on the unretouched surfaces of the arm identify it as twelfth-century carving; the exceptionally light recutting over the chest and frontal planes of the rib cage leaves no doubt that the twelfth-century sculptor gave form to the breast bone and ribs. The anatomical verisimilitude and the rounded form of the right arm reveal on a grand scale the same new interest in anatomy, sense of volume, and forward projection found in the sensitively modeled little bodies of the Resurrected Dead in the frieze along the lowest zone of the tympanum.