Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain — John Shaqi
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
The detail generally of all the architecture here is very good, and in
particular nothing can be more minute and delicate in execution than
some of the sculpture of foliage in the eastern chapels, where also, as
is frequently the case in early Spanish buildings, the dog-tooth
enrichment is freely introduced wherever possible. The design of the
interior of the choir is very good; below are lancet windows, with
semi-circular inside arches; and above, lancets with double internal
jamb-shafts, very picturesquely introduced high up in the walls, and
close to the groining. I could only get a glimpse of the exterior of the
apse, owing to the high walls which completely enclose the convent on
the east. It has simple but good buttresses, but otherwise there seems
nothing worthy of note. The rest of the exterior is, however, very
interesting. The general view which I give shows the extremely simple
and somewhat English-looking west front; the gateway and wall, with its
Moorish battlements, dividing an inner court from the great court north
of the church; and the curious rather than beautiful steeple. An arched
bell-cot rises out of the western wall of the lantern, and a tall
staircase-turret out of the western wall of the north transept. The
cloister, which is carried all along the north aisle of the nave of the
church, is very simple, having two divisions between each buttress, the
arches being carried on shafts, coupled in the usual early fashion, one
behind the other. A very rich first-pointed doorway opens into the
second bay from the west of this cloister, and a much simpler archway,
with a circular window over it, into the fifth, and at its east end a
most ingenious and picturesque group is produced by the contrivance of a
covered passage from the cloister to the projecting transept-porch. The
detail here is of the richest first-pointed, very delicate and
beautiful, but, apparently, very little cared for now. The cloister is
entirely blocked up and converted into a receptacle for lumber, but I
was able to see that it is groined. The rose window in the
transept-porch, with doubled traceries and shafts, set one behind the
other, with fine effect, the elaborate corbel-tables, and the doorway to
the smaller porch--rich with chevron and dog-tooth--ought to be
specially noticed: their detail being tolerably convincing as to their
French origin. There are some curious monuments inside the
transept-porch, which I was not able to examine properly, as when I went
to Las Huelgas a second time, in order to see them, I found the church
locked for the day. To see such a church properly it is necessary to
rise with the lark; for after ten or eleven in the morning it is always
closed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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