File:Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies (1912) (14597341350).jpg

Identifier: medievalarchitec01port (find matches)
Title: Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Porter, Arthur Kingsley, 1883-1933
Subjects: Architecture, Medieval Architecture, Medieval Architecture
Publisher: New Haven, Yale University Press
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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leaves, foliage, polygons, rosettes,and ended at last by disappearing entirely in these ornamentalforms. From this time on, purely ornamental compositionsbecame the favorite theme of the artist. The decorator, giventhe task of adorning the flat surfaces of the sanctuary and choirscreens, and of placing everywhere upon them the sign of hisfaith, had recourse to groups of simple geometric figures, squares,circles, lozenges, in the center of which he inscribed the cross andother symbols of primitive Christianity. To these decorationswere then added the conventionalized figures; the surfaces werecovered with foliage and polygons, among which the cross isever conspicuous. This polygonal decoration, which soon reached great geo-metrical complexity, seems to have exercised a strange fascina-tion over the Eastern mind. With the Copts, however, it neverwent further than those forms capable of giving directly thesum of four right angles — that is, the number of sides of the 90 ABU SARGAH nra
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HARROW STREET III. 64. — Plan of Abu Sargah, Cairo. (From Butler) 91 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN STYLE polygon was always an even number. The decoration reachedits zenith in the wood screens of the Dair-as-Suriani, and formsthe basis for all the wonderful polygonal ornament of the Arabs.

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