Historic Ornament, Vol. 1 (of 2): Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornamentWard, James
History
Historic Ornament, Vol. 1 (of 2): Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament
Ward, James
Architecture -- History; Decoration and ornament -- History; Decorative arts -- History
The above examples, and the chimney-piece panel by Germain Pilon (1560)
(Fig. 437), another sculptor employed by Catherine de’ Medici, are a few
of the best specimens of the Cinquecento period in France.
Elizabethan ornament, or that of the Renaissance in England, is
characterized by a preponderance of strap-work, and has animals, masks,
rosettes, half-lion or half-human terminals, debased class of mouldings,
and very little foliage. The example given—the panelling from the Old
Guard Chamber, Westminster (1600), exhibits a strong influence of
Saracenic tracery that was prevalent in much of the later furniture and
textiles of the Renaissance (Fig. 438).
[Illustration: Fig. 437.—Panel from Chimneypiece; Louvre. By Germain
Pilon.]
[Illustration: Fig. 438.—Elizabethan Panelling, from the Old Guard
Chamber, Westminster.]
Shield-work was not so prominent in the pure Elizabethan as in the
Jacobean (James I.) style; the carved stone escutcheon-like work from
Crewe Hall, Cheshire, attributed to Inigo Jones (Fig. 439), shows the
beginning of the Jacobean shield-work. This style is best seen in the
carved-wood furniture of the period, and both it and the Elizabethan are
generally speaking offshoots of the Flemish and German phases of the
Renaissance. Elizabethan ornament is of great variety, the panelling and
other arrangements are sometimes composed purely of strap-work of a
rectangular flat perforated appearance, sometimes seen in the doorways
and chimney fronts, as at Hardwick Hall, Haddon Hall, Speke and Crewe
Halls. Another kind is of a more curved variety, with figures and
animals, as seen in the illustration from an old house at Exeter now in
Kensington Museum (Fig. 440); another kind is carved in rectangular or
curved and notched frames of cartouche work with the smaller spaces and
little panels carved in imitation of jewels with oval or lozenge-shaped
facets. Columns of Ionic or Corinthian orders, and classic mouldings,
dentils, and the egg and tongue were frequently used. The ceilings were
often panelled and moulded, inclining in this respect more to the Gothic
than classic. A bizarre kind of Renaissance architectural feature was
prevalent in Holland and in some parts of Germany, which seems to have
been the model for much of the “bolt and lock” style of some Elizabethan
gateways. The architect Dietterlin, of Strassburg (1550-1599), was an
extraordinary exponent of this twisted and bolted form of fantastic
architecture, which had become only too fashionable at this period. The
illustration (Fig. 441) shows an example of what might be called a mild
specimen of the style of Dietterlin. The popularity of the Dietterlin
craze was owing to the circulation of several volumes he had published
of his impossible designs, some of which designs were evidently adapted
by the Elizabethan architects, but in a much more reticent spirit.
[Illustration: Fig. 439.—Doorway, Crewe Hall. Inigo Jones.]
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