Fragment of a Small Pillar

In the intermediate period between the fading of the classical figurative tradition and the rebirth of the figure brought about by the Romanesque, especially between the 8th and 9th centuries, ornaments like this one are frequently found, from which the human and animal form is banished and even plant motifs are schematised to the point of losing all naturalistic meaning. These too are themes of the ancient world, adopted here in a summary and irregular sense; yet in the heavy, emphatic line one can read the presage of the new plastic sensibility then taking shape.