George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund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George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers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
I come, last, to the Wiesen-Kirche, a most remarkable building, of
whose history, I am sorry to say, I know absolutely nothing. It
appears, however, to have been all erected at one period--in the first
half of the fourteenth century,--and its scale is so fine, and its
character throughout so good, that it is certainly one of the most
noticeable churches in the north of Germany. Moreover, in internal
effect, I think I know no church of the same size which can vie with it
for exquisite grace and elegance and, at the same time, boldness and
grandeur of conception.
The plan may be described as a nave and aisles, of only three bays in
length, about 76 feet in width, and 100 feet in length; the nave and
aisles each terminating in an apse at the east, whilst at the west
end there is an unfinished front, which seems to have been intended
to have two towers. It is difficult to conceive how such a west front
could ever have been suitable for a building which was in no other
respect more than a mere chapel. It was never, however, at all nearly
completed; and now a tall slated spire finishes one of the stunted
towers in a fashion which is picturesque in the distant view, but
very unsatisfactory when seen close at hand. The nave and aisles are
covered with one great roof, and groined at the same level. The four
nave columns are very lofty, and without any capitals; the mouldings
being continuous to the groining; there being no more than four points
of support in a square of about 76 by 120 feet, it may be imagined that
from every point the whole interior is visible. The windows are of
immense height, but judiciously treated, as in the clerestory windows
at Cologne, by the arrangement of colour in the glass; besides which,
a kind of transom of quatrefoils runs through all the windows at about
one-fourth of the whole height. Below this transom, the glass is very
rich and dark in colour; above the transom, for about half its height,
there are figures under canopies, also dark with colour, and then a
long sweep of beautiful grisaille runs up to the head of the windows,
the patterns being all geometrical, and defined by delicate lines
of colour: the whole is very jewelly and brilliant, and fortunately
a good deal remains. This is, indeed, just one of those buildings
which depends very much for its proper effect upon all its windows
being filled with coloured glass. All the old altars remain, though
the church is Protestant. There is one in each apse, and one against
the west side of the two easternmost of the nave columns. All the
altars have closets in their ends, and the one against the south-east
column of the nave has a portion of a very good middle-pointed stone
reredos and is itself richly panelled below the mensa. Behind another
altar in the north-eastern apse, there is the remnant of a very fine
middle-pointed rood of wood, which is now nailed up behind a late
triptych. There is a very good early _Sakraments-Häuslein_ in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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