Some Account of Gothic Architecture in SpainStreet, George Edmund
History
Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic -- Spain; Church architecture -- Spain
of the square base, finished with crocketed pinnacles. This tower
occupies the angle between the choir and transept, and I suppose that
traces would be found of a corresponding tower on the opposite side,
somewhat in the way so commonly met with in all the German Romanesque
churches. Unfortunately the north choir aisle was altered if not rebuilt
in the fourteenth century, and I was unable to examine the walls above
it, where the evidence of the existence of a second tower would have to
be sought. The roof of the apse on the east side of the south transept
presents an admirable example of a semi-dome, with the masonry arranged
in the usual fashion in regular horizontal courses, and the moulding of
the abacus of the arch in front of it carried round it as a
string-course at its springing.
The rest of the church is of rather later date than the east end. It is
all just of that transitional period in which, whilst the pointed arch
was used where great strength was required, the round arch was
nevertheless retained for the smaller openings in the walls. But the
capitals throughout the church are sculptured so magnificently, and in
so well-developed a style, that it is impossible to regard the work
anywhere, except at the extreme eastern end, as one in which a
Romanesque influence was paramount. We have, indeed, here one of those
cases in which almost all the character of the work has been stamped on
it by the hands of the sculptor rather than of the architect; for I
believe that, had it presented us with a series of plain Romanesque
capitals, we should have felt no difficulty about classing the whole
work as essentially Romanesque in style, whereas now the effect is
rather that of a glorious Pointed church, the exuberance of whose
sculpture is kept in subordination by the stern simplicity of the bold
unmoulded arches, the massive section of the piers, and the regularity
of the outline and firmness of shadow which the deep square abacus
everywhere enforces. Here, then, I thought I saw one of those openings
which are now and then almost accidentally given us for the infusion of
new vigour and greater spirit into our own works. It is no copying of a
Spanish work that I should wish to see attempted, but only a deliberate
determination on the part of the builder of some one building in England
to emulate the grand solidity of this old Spanish church; and if he
feels that this is by itself too rude and unpolished for an
overcivilized age like ours, then let him take a lesson from the same
old Spanish work, and show the extent of his refinement in the subtle
delicacy of the sculpture with which he adorns it. We have few if any
such churches in England. Our transitional examples are neither very
numerous nor very fine; and it is in Germany and in Spain--so far as my
experience goes--that we find the finest examples of this noble period.
In neither of these countries was the progress of architectural
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