No human being can remain with comfort in any one position for more than a given time; for the sake of ease our posture is continually changing. Mateo must have studied every position possible to the human frame. But his genius shows itself still more distinctly in the heads of his statues,--each is a portrait taken from life, the features are all in harmony. As you contemplate them you feel that you can almost read the character of the person represented. With what diligence must this artist have sought out his models; how peasants and tradesmen and nobles must have posed for him in turn. In the _Pórtico de Gloria_ we see the very people who walked about the streets of Santiago while the work was being done.
Though the sculpture of the Middle Ages is in many respects inferior to that of the best period of ancient Greece (in actual form it is generally less perfect), it has in it a new element, it portrays, as Greek statuary never attempted to do, the intellectual element in the human being.[159] The artists of the Middle Ages did not consider only of the exterior; they tried to represent the thinking mind. Every one of Mateo’s statues has “a mind of its own.” As Lopez Ferreiro has put it, the statuary of the Greeks was the sister of poetry, that of the Middle Ages was the sister of psychology and philosophy.
The whole masterpiece of Mateo may be described as an attempt at the interpretation of one great thought, or rather of a series of thoughts “toute une ordre d’idées,” which “is engaging the attention of all humanity.” Lopez Ferreiro notes how daringly Mateo made his attempt to push his art into the road along which two centuries later it was carried by Italy’s most celebrated artists.
The statues of the _Pórtico de Gloria_ are most of them engaged in animated conversation; each face wears an expression in accordance with the particular turn his conversation is taking, “yet each at the same time wears a look of repose, such as could only arise from a pure mind and a tranquil conscience.” The whole, the combined effect of this astonishing piece of work, is powerfully dramatic; a series of deeply interesting events is depicted; each statue is a human being whose entire mind is concentrated upon these events; on one face there is a look of wonder, on another a look of joy, on another a look of contentment. “The dramatic element,” says the above-mentioned writer, “is introduced in exactly the right proportion. In Christian artists of greater note than Mateo--even in Nicolas of Pisa, there is something earthly, frivolous, profane; but in Mateo all is serious, spiritual, without any loss of the human element. As we contemplate the _Pórtico_ the figures almost seem to move, to sit, to talk. You seem to hear the murmur of their lips. The same discreet realism manifested in the heads is shown also in the limbs. The arms, the hands, and even the fingers seem to move with flexibility and delicacy.” This writer goes on to point out that the heads of the apostles are rather large, and in accordance with the rule of the Greek monk Dionisius,[160] who laid it down as a law that the head must be as large as a tenth part of the whole statue. The heads of Mateo’s apostles are equal to one-seventh part of the entire height, but the position of these statues must be remembered; they are raised more than three yards from the ground, consequently the heads diminish in size and reach exactly the right proportions.