Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
Austria -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
The cathedral, which is called in German the Dom, is quite remarkable in
its interior. In the middle of the nave, filling one whole arch, is a
colossal Christ of Gothic style, nailed to a cross carved in open-work,
and ornamented with arabesques. The foot of this cross rests upon a
transverse beam, going from one pillar to another, on which are standing
the holy women and other pious personages, in attitudes of grief and
adoration; Adam and Eve, one on either side, are arranging their
paradisaic costume as decently as may be; above the cross the keystone
of the arch projects, adorned with flowers and leafage, and serves as a
standing-place for an angel with long wings. This construction, hanging
in mid-air, and evidently light in weight, notwithstanding its
magnitude, is of wood, carved with much taste and skill. I can define
it in no better way than to call it a carved portcullis, lowered halfway
in front of the chancel. It is the first example of such an arrangement
that I have ever seen....
The Holstenthor, a city gate close by the railway station, is a most
curious and picturesque specimen of German medieval architecture.
Imagine two enormous brick towers united by the main portion of the
structure, through which opens an archway, like a basket-handle, and you
have a rude sketch of the construction; but you would not easily
conceive of the effect produced by the high summit of the edifice, the
conical roofs of the towers, the whimsical windows in the walls and in
the roofs, the dull red or violet tints of the defaced bricks. It is
altogether a new gamut for painters of architecture or of ruins; and I
shall send them to Lübeck by the next train. I recommend to their notice
also, very near the Holstenthor, on the left bank of the Trave, five or
six crimson houses, shouldering each other for mutual support, bulging
out in front, pierced with six or seven stories of windows, with
denticulated gables, the deep red reflection of them trailing in the
water, like some high-colored apron which a servant-maid is washing.
What a picture Van den Heyden would have made of this!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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