The other day in class we discussed architecture as art. Professor Redick provide numerous examples of architecture from Spain. One of the pictures had some gargoyles on it. I remember learning that gargoyles were designed to frighten away evil spirits, but then they became just faces and water drains to put on architecture. I found an article about the history of these sculptures. The word gargoyle comes from the Latin word for throat. So the original use for the word gargoyle is as a face shaped spout on a building. But the meaning has evolved with our culture. The term is now more loosely used to describe any ugly creature. People adopted the idea of a gargoyle, creating it into a mischievous character. The author of the article comes up with a number of possibilities for the gargoyle. I'm glad to see warding off evil made the list not once, but twice. At least I'm not crazy. The author puts it on twice because there are two possible ways it wards off evil. 1. The author says the "kiss my ass" idea. This way deters evil from approaching using the hideous structure of the gargoyles. 2. The "don't bother" idea. This way is for the people who believe in the mischievous side of gargoyles. It is the gargoyles telling other evil to stay away because they already own this plan mentality. The use of gargoyles as plumbing dates back to Ancient Greece, and possibly earlier. I thought this was really interesting because gargoyles are mostly associated with Gothic and Medieval architecture.
Article
No comments:
Post a Comment