DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7186#0074
38 Facade Windows and other Details of the [Plates 16 to 11.
of still-powerful Byzantine tradition ; whilst the foliage, small pointed arches,
and other details give to the building a character such as became fully developed
at a later date. Whence I deduce that this church was constructed either
towards the end of the thirteenth or possibly at the very beginning of the
fourteenth century. I have failed to identify the architect, but his name matters
little : this unknown architect has left an enduring monument of his technical
science and artistic taste. Of all the edifices I know, this displays the best and
most careful workmanship. Close inspection is necessary to discover how much
precision, skill, and finish have been bestowed on those figures and that foliage,
which to this day remain as if newly wrought. The patterns, composed of
hundreds of pieces, present a surface as polished and unbroken as if cast in
bronze ; the desired effect being achieved by the usual means of obtaining relief,
exaggeration of hollows and of salient points; as exemplified also in the church
of the Carmine. The outline of the windows, which looks very squat, has that
effect because of the introduction of numerous patterns in the jambs ; yet this
imperfection is modified by adding to each window two small arches supported
by very slight columns and producing a slim whole: thus these slim and
elongated forms balance the squatness, and one portion supplies the just com-
plement of the other. Observe how the upper windows (Plates 18, 19) have
been cunningly, or rather cleverly, made less squat; and why ? because the court
fronting the facade is but 32 feet 6 in. in extent, and affords at best a distorting
view-point, whence squatness would have appeared yet more squat; a danger
which the architect has met by greater lightness of the upper portion.
The variations introduced into the different windows (Plates 17, 18, 19, 20)
afford an additional proof that the architects of those times were endowed with
subtle artistic sense, and were in fact painters and poets in another medium : for
their edifices and decorations are the obvious channels of their fancy; repetition
fatigued them ; and they endeavoured, on all occasions, to vary shapes and or-
naments ; their ideas were mainly their own, for they lacked the multitudinous
specimens and examples which have accumulated for us. Thus the meanness
of our achievements illustrates how potent beyond all else are true talent and
genuine vocation.
It would be interesting to examine both by what means the bricks have
of still-powerful Byzantine tradition ; whilst the foliage, small pointed arches,
and other details give to the building a character such as became fully developed
at a later date. Whence I deduce that this church was constructed either
towards the end of the thirteenth or possibly at the very beginning of the
fourteenth century. I have failed to identify the architect, but his name matters
little : this unknown architect has left an enduring monument of his technical
science and artistic taste. Of all the edifices I know, this displays the best and
most careful workmanship. Close inspection is necessary to discover how much
precision, skill, and finish have been bestowed on those figures and that foliage,
which to this day remain as if newly wrought. The patterns, composed of
hundreds of pieces, present a surface as polished and unbroken as if cast in
bronze ; the desired effect being achieved by the usual means of obtaining relief,
exaggeration of hollows and of salient points; as exemplified also in the church
of the Carmine. The outline of the windows, which looks very squat, has that
effect because of the introduction of numerous patterns in the jambs ; yet this
imperfection is modified by adding to each window two small arches supported
by very slight columns and producing a slim whole: thus these slim and
elongated forms balance the squatness, and one portion supplies the just com-
plement of the other. Observe how the upper windows (Plates 18, 19) have
been cunningly, or rather cleverly, made less squat; and why ? because the court
fronting the facade is but 32 feet 6 in. in extent, and affords at best a distorting
view-point, whence squatness would have appeared yet more squat; a danger
which the architect has met by greater lightness of the upper portion.
The variations introduced into the different windows (Plates 17, 18, 19, 20)
afford an additional proof that the architects of those times were endowed with
subtle artistic sense, and were in fact painters and poets in another medium : for
their edifices and decorations are the obvious channels of their fancy; repetition
fatigued them ; and they endeavoured, on all occasions, to vary shapes and or-
naments ; their ideas were mainly their own, for they lacked the multitudinous
specimens and examples which have accumulated for us. Thus the meanness
of our achievements illustrates how potent beyond all else are true talent and
genuine vocation.
It would be interesting to examine both by what means the bricks have