George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund
History
George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic; Church architecture -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel; Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
The latest portion is of early pointed character, and not later in
date than _circa_ A.D. 1180 to 1200, and it was at the same time that
this was erected that the greater part of the enormous substructure
forming the porch was also completed. The aisles throughout the church
are vaulted with quadripartite vaults, the three western bays alone
having ribs. In the two western bays there are engaged shafts both in
the porch and above it in the nave, but the rest of the piers are of
the simplest plan, large and generally cruciform in their section,
save at the crossing, where the arches are carried on coupled detached
shafts. There is much elaborate sculpture introduced in the capitals of
the pilasters and columns of the nave, but it is nowhere of any very
high merit, and is so inferior in delicacy and beauty to the sculpture
of the same age to be seen on the banks of the Rhone, that I should
attribute it to a native school of sculptors acquainted, probably,
with none but inferior Roman sculpture, from which they endeavoured
to develope a style for themselves. A clerestory of wide and rude
round-headed windows, one in each compartment, lights the series of
domes in a very effective manner.
The arches across the nave are very bold, and, in the wall above them,
an opening is pierced under each of the cupolas. As is generally the
case, however, in churches covered in this way, very little is seen
of the real vault in any general view of the church, these transverse
arches only, with the quasi-pendentives above them being seen. The
pendentives are true semi-domes, constructed in alternate courses
of dark and light stone, and the difference between their plan and
the square angle in which they are placed is skilfully concealed by
detached shafts, with capitals placed under the pendentives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account