IS IT HORRID?
SIR,—I don't know what Katharine Whitchorn meant by 'functional' in the sentence: '. . . the original Gothic cathedrals, with all those angels and corbels [me] and gargoyles, were no more functional than the Victorian copies of them.' I would have thought that the original Gothic angels and gargoyles per- formed the function of inducing certain emotions in relatively literal-minded congregations. See, for ex- ample, the famous 'Ballade' in Villon's Testament in which he shows how his illiterate mother is respec- tively frightened and reassured by paintings of hell and paradise in her parish church. It is the Victorian pastiches alone which should be attacked on the grounds of 'functionalism,' not to mention anything else.
Abingdon, 131 Park Road, W4
PETER ROLAND
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