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
There are some fine monuments in the south transept, all of them adorned
with elaborate bas-reliefs of scriptural subjects. One, of the
thirteenth century, has a tomb supported on lions, and a death-bed
represented on its side; a little apsidal recess above is groined with a
semi-dome, with ribs. Another has sculptures of the Crucifixion, the
Entombment, the Maries going to the Sepulchre, and the “Noli me
tangere;” and a third has another representation of a death-bed. The
effigies are all slightly tilted outwards, and those in the east wall
have their feet to the north. The most remarkable features in the
decoration of the church are, however, the Retablo and the painting on
the semi-dome above it. On the vault the Last Judgment is painted, our
Lord being drawn much in the famous attitude of St. Michael in Orcagna’s
fresco at Pisa, and without drapery. The Retablo is a work of the
fourteenth century, of wood, and planned so as exactly to fit the curve
of the apse wall. It is divided into five panels in height and eleven in
width, so that there are fifty-five subjects, each surrounded by an
architectural framework of delicate character. The subjects are all
richly painted on a gold ground, and seemed to me to be well drawn. The
coloured decoration of the whole is very effective, and owes much to the
white ground of its traceries. Generally speaking, a Retablo is placed
across the apse and cuts off its eastern portion, which thenceforward
becomes a receptacle for all the untidiness of the church; and when so
arranged, if it reaches the height common in Spain, it almost, and in
some cases altogether, destroys the internal effect of the apse. Here,
however, the exact fitting of the Retablo to the curve of the wall is
free from this objection, and its effect is unusually good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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