The tympanums of the right and the left bays have both suffered much from years: they are blurred and defaced with age, and it is perhaps partly for this reason that, in spite of many fine points, they seem inferior, crude even, by the side of the tympanum of the central bay.
This is one of the most beautiful masterpieces of mediæval statuary. In the centre is the risen Christ, enthroned, triumphant, yet full of mercy and tenderness. An aureole is about His head, His feet are set upon the footstool of the earth. With an infinite pity, it would seem, He beholds and blesses the thousands who for seven hundred years pass, and have passed, beneath Him into the Cathedral. With one hand He blesses, with the other He holds the book sealed with the seven seals. He is there, clad in an antique mantle, which falls in a cascade of folds about His naked feet, a bearded Christ, with long, straight hair, and an expression of sweet gravity, and the artist has succeeded somehow in convincing us that this is the Christ expected and foretold, fulfilling the past as He will fulfil the future, and reigning for ever in time upon earth, and hereafter for ever beyond time in heaven. Above Him two angels hold a large crown, destined for the eternal King of the Ages.
He is surrounded by the four-winged symbols of the
[Illustration: TYMPANUM OF THE ROYAL PORCH.]
evangelists. On the lintel, as if on the first step of the throne, are grouped beneath an arcade, and in pairs, as they were sent forth to preach the Gospel, the twelve Apostles. And, to complete the scene from the Apocalypse, in the rows of the vaulting above, are the twelve angels and the heavenly choir of four-and twenty elders, having every one of them a different and curious mediæval instrument of music. They are clothed in white raiment, and on their heads are crowns of gold.[64]
They form, as it were, a living halo round the King of Ages, in a picture of incomparable grandeur and simplicity, the conception of which reveals not only the genius of art, but also, and, above all, the genius of faith.
But we have not yet completed the tale of the western porch. It yet remains to mention those strange colossal figures, which are by far the most beautiful and remarkable among all these