English heraldry / [Charles Boutell].

  • Charles Boutell
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English heraldry / [Charles Boutell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    53/376 page 27
    these fine shields again, and to other admirable examples with them, hereafter (Chapter IX.). The conventionalism in all these examples, however felicitous the manner in which it is treated in them, is very decidedly exaggerated. With- out being so attenuated and so lengthy in their bodies, these lions might have been at least as thoroughly heraldic. These examples, and others such as these, are not the less valuable to us because their teaching includes an illustra- tion of the excesses that we must always be careful to avoid. I may here observe, that on the subject of armorial Art I leave my examples (all of them selected from the most characteristic authorities, and engraved with scrupulous fidelity) for the most part to convey their own lessons and suggestions : my own suggestion to students being that, in such living creatures as they may represent in their compositions, while they are careful to preserve heraldic consistency and to express heraldic feeling, they exhibit beauty of form coupled with freedom of action and an appropriate expression. “Freedom of action” I intend to imply more than such skilful drawing, as will impart to any particular creature the idea of free movement of frame and limb : it refers also to repeated representations of the same creature, under the same heraldic conditions of motive and attitude. And, here “ freedom of action ” implies those slight, yet significant, modifications of minor details which, without in the least degree affecting armorial truth, prevent even the semblance of monotonous reitera- tion. Thus, at Beverley, in the Percy Shrine in the Minster, upon a shield of England the three lions are all heraldically the same; but, there is nothing of sameness in them never- theless, because in each one there is some little variety in the turn of the head, or in the placing of the paws, or in the sweep of the tail. And again, in Westminster Hall, the favourite badge of Richard II., a white hart, chained, and in
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3