DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0108
88
FRENCH ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.
province have disappeared, either during the struggle with the
Huguenots, or in the later and more disastrous troubles o£ the Revolu-
tion, so that there is scarcely a cloister or other similar edifice to be
found in the province. One or two fragruents, however, still exist, such
as the Tour d’Evrault. 1 This is a conventual kitchen, not unlike that
at Glastonbury, but of an earlier age, and so far different from any-
thing else of the kind that it was long mistaken for a building of a
very different class.
Another fragment, though probably not ecclesiastical, is the screen
of arches recently discovered in the hôtel of the Prefecture at Angers.
As a specimen of elaborate exuberance in barbarous ornament it is
unrivalled even in France, but it is much more like the work of the
Normans than anything else found in the neighbourhood. Owing to
its having been so long built up, it still retains traces of the colouring
with which all the internal sculptures of this age were adorned.
The deficiency in ecclesiastical buildings in this province is made
up in a great measure by the extent and preservation of its Eeudal
remains, few of the provinces of France having so many and such
extensive fortified castles remaining. Those of Angers and Loches are
two of the finest in France, and there are many others scarcely less
magnificent. Few of them, however, have features strictly architec-
tural ; and though the artist and the poet may luxuriate on their
crumbling time-stained towers and picturesque decay, they hardly
belong to such a work as this, nor afford materials which would
advance our knowledge of architecture as a fine art.
1 This building is well illustrated in Turner’s ‘ Domestic Architecture.’
FRENCH ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.
province have disappeared, either during the struggle with the
Huguenots, or in the later and more disastrous troubles o£ the Revolu-
tion, so that there is scarcely a cloister or other similar edifice to be
found in the province. One or two fragruents, however, still exist, such
as the Tour d’Evrault. 1 This is a conventual kitchen, not unlike that
at Glastonbury, but of an earlier age, and so far different from any-
thing else of the kind that it was long mistaken for a building of a
very different class.
Another fragment, though probably not ecclesiastical, is the screen
of arches recently discovered in the hôtel of the Prefecture at Angers.
As a specimen of elaborate exuberance in barbarous ornament it is
unrivalled even in France, but it is much more like the work of the
Normans than anything else found in the neighbourhood. Owing to
its having been so long built up, it still retains traces of the colouring
with which all the internal sculptures of this age were adorned.
The deficiency in ecclesiastical buildings in this province is made
up in a great measure by the extent and preservation of its Eeudal
remains, few of the provinces of France having so many and such
extensive fortified castles remaining. Those of Angers and Loches are
two of the finest in France, and there are many others scarcely less
magnificent. Few of them, however, have features strictly architec-
tural ; and though the artist and the poet may luxuriate on their
crumbling time-stained towers and picturesque decay, they hardly
belong to such a work as this, nor afford materials which would
advance our knowledge of architecture as a fine art.
1 This building is well illustrated in Turner’s ‘ Domestic Architecture.’