File:Essays and Belles Lettres (1906) (14597865657).jpg

Identifier: essbelleslet00rhys (find matches)
Title: Essays and Belles Lettres
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Rhys, Ernest 1859-1946 (editor)
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Publisher: New York: E P Dutton & Co
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho

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Gothic ornament intended to be seen far off. Here (fig. 16.) is a sketch of a niche at Amiens Cathedral, some fifty or sixty feet high on the facade, and seven or eight feet wide. Now observe, in the ornament close to the eye, you had six figures and a whole wreath of roses in the space of a foot and a half square; but in the ornament sixty feet from the eye, you have now only ten or twelve large leaves in a space of eight feet square, and note also that now there is no attempt what soever at the refinement of line and finish of edge which there was in the other example. The sculptor knew, that at the height of this niche, people would not attend to the 1 This subject is farther pursued in the Addenda at the end of this Lecture. 96 Architecture and Painting delicate lines, and that the broad shadows would catch theeye instead. He has therefore left, as you see, rude squareedges to his niche, and carved his leaves as massively andbroadly as possible: and yet, observe how dexterously he
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Fig. 16. has given you a sense of delicacy and minuteness in thework, by mingling these small leaves among the large ones.I made this sketch from a photograph, and the spot inwhich these leaves occurred was obscure; I have, therefore,used those of the Oxalis acetosella, of which the quaintform is always interesting. Architecture and Painting 97 And you see by this example also what I meant just nowby saying, that our own ornament was not only wronglyplaced, but wrongly finished. The very qualities whichfit this leaf-decoration for due effect upon the eye, arethose which would conduce to economy in its execution. Amore expensive ornament would be less effective ; and it isthe very price we pay for finishing our decorations whichspoils our architecture. And the curious thing is, thatwhile you all appreciate, and that far too highly, what iscalled the bold style in painting, you cannot appreciateit in sculpture. You like a hurried, broad, dashing mannerof execution in a watercolour drawi

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