#pevsner

The inexhaustible delight in live form that can be touched with worshipping fingers and felt with all senses is ennobled - consciously in the philosophy of Thomas, the science of Albert, and the romance of Wolfram, unconsciously in the carving of the buttercups and thorn leaves and maple leaves of Southwell - by the conviction that so much beauty can exist only because God is in every man and beast, in every herb and stone. The Renaissance in the South 200 years later was perhaps once again capable of such worship of beauty, but no firm faith was left to strengthen it. Seen in this light, the leaves of Southwell assume a new significance as one of the purest symbols surviving in Britain of Western thought, our thought, in its loftiest mood. Nicolas Pevsner, The Leaves of Southwell