From time to time, we encounter unusual gargoyles which, although relatively rare, never cease to surprise us. We refer to those whose faces display a mask-like appearance, or which carry a mask as a significant element of the figure.
Before presenting the images, it is worth considering some aspects of the meaning of the mask in history and in art.
The grotesque faces represented in art often recall masks. These, as a superficial appearance, concealed reality and appeared as mocking or sarcastic masks in medieval festivities such as the Feast of Fools or Carnival. In the Middle Ages, ancient masks were known through the works of Terence (2nd century BC) and through sarcophagi. They were also present in the Gorgon masks found on certain classical shields, with an apotropaic or protective function. In his research, Michael Camille suggests that, in the Middle Ages, they may have acquired a different meaning: that of a sign of dangerous representations, such as the faces depicted on the bellies or genitals of demons.
Because of this mask-like appearance, it is worth highlighting an image closely linked to gargoyles due to its similarity with certain representations found among them: the green man, or foliate head, which consists of a human head surrounded by leaves, whose branches sometimes even emerge from the mouth or nose. It is a symbol of fertility, renewal, and nature, inherited from pagan imagery and later appropriated by Christian tradition as a symbol of lust and other capital sins. Masks or foliate heads surrounded by vegetation appeared in the classical period in connection with the Dionysian cult, which perceived the god as a deity of fertility and vegetation. They later acquired a funerary connotation, becoming symbols of immortality or resurrection.
Likewise, it is worth noting one of the gargoyles of Salamanca Cathedral, belonging to a typology we have termed the “vegetal monster”: elaborate vegetal decorations in which monstrous or demonic elements appear, combining leaves and flowers with spirals, horns, wings, or faces with a mask-like appearance, as will be seen below.
Finally, we present two fine mascarons from the lavabo of the Monastery of Batalha (Portugal), in which faces with the appearance of the green man can be observed. Mascarons with grotesque faces were widely used in Gothic art and across different artistic media under the influence of Villard de Honnecourt, who renewed the Greco-Roman tradition of vegetal mascarons. Many of them are heads composed of leaves, whose origin may be traced to the head of Silvanus, in which, starting from a human face, the hair, beard, and even the face itself are transformed into vegetal elements, adapting to architectural spaces and in keeping with Renaissance grotesques. Hair and beard are almost always rendered in the form of leaves, extending among the surrounding elements.
This set of images demonstrates how the mask, in its various forms, becomes integrated into the visual world of gargoyles, reinforcing their expressive power and their deep connection with the artistic traditions of the past.
Gargoyles and Mascarons in Architecture
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- San Martín Pinario Monastery (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
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- La Lonja de Valencia (Spain)
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- Palencia Cathedral (Spain)
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- New Cathedral of Salamanca (Spain)
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- Mask. Batalha Monastery (Portugal)
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- Mask. Batalha Monastery (Portugal)
Bibliography
CAMILLE, M., Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art, London, Reaktion Books Ltd., 2008.
GARCÍA VEGA, B., El Grabado del Libro Español. Siglos XV-XVI-XVII. (Aportación a su estudio con los fondos de las bibliotecas de Valladolid), Tomos I y II, Valladolid, Institución Cultural Simancas. Diputación Provincial de Valladolid, 1984.
KENAAN-KEDAR, N. y OVADIAH, A., The Metamorphosis of Marginal Images: From Antiquity to Present Time, Tel Aviv University. The Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts. Department of Art History, 2001.
REBOLD BENTON, J., Holy Terrors. Gargoyles on medieval buildings, New York, Abbeville Press, 1997.
This entry was originally published in May 2021 and updated in April 2026.
Doctor of Art History and researcher specializing in the study of gargoyles.
I am Dolores Herrero Ferrio, and my thesis, “An Approach to the Study of Gargoyles of Gothic Cathedrals in Castilla and León”, is dedicated to the study of these fascinating figures.
If you like gargoyles and art history, you will also enjoy my book, “The Gargoyle and Its Iconography,” a book I have written with great care for those interested in the world of gargoyles.
I have created my own Encyclopedia of Gargoyles, a Gargopedia to share with you, where you will discover all the secrets and wonders of these enigmatic sculptures.
I hope you enjoy this Gargopedia as much as I have enjoyed creating it, and remember that each gargoyle has a story to tell, and here you will discover them all.
