MEDIEVAL SCULPTOR, French
(active 1220s in Chartres)

St Theodore

c. 1230
Stone
Cathedral, Chartres

St Theodore, in the embrasure of the right door of the south transept of the Chartres Cathedral, is stylistically among the later figures at Chartres, probably dating from the last period of the work there - that is about 1230. By then, Gothic art had completed its evolution towards the mastery of three-dimensional form and truth to nature. Bare-headed and wearing the costume of a 13th-century warrior, the saint is the embodiment of the ideal knight. Gothic statuary had reached perfection. The thin, oval face is still of the great Chartres family, but has a more marked virility, confidence and sobriety than have the faces of the prophets.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.