which is, unfortunately, rapidly decaying--as much of the other work
executed in Caen stone is doing everywhere. The small chapels of the
apse are roofed with most extraordinary stone roofs, of very steep
pitch, which at a little distance look like two great pinnacles, and
when seen close at hand look like nothing else that ever was built or
designed. There are very curious marks, in the exterior, of a change of
plan in some respects as the work went on, some of the choir windows
having been commenced with most elaborate mouldings outside as well as
inside, but altered either in one jamb or at their heads into a plain
double chamfer, in a most singular manner. There is some good arcading
commenced outside, and a beautiful arcade runs all round the inside
wall below the windows. The tower is just like Bretteville, but the
spire must have differed considerably from it; unhappily it was struck
by lightning some twelve years since, and there is now a poor slated
roof in place of the spire. The angle pinnacles still remain and I
think they prove that the transition from the tower to the spire must
always have been very abrupt. I think from the character of all the
detail and especially from the great love shown for the round trefoil,
that this church must have been designed by the same man who built the
eastern part of the cathedral at Bayeux. The mouldings are excessively
similar and the abaci are constantly used octangular in plan in
conjunction with square and circular.
An interesting road took us from Norrey to Bayeux, where we arrived at
3 P.M.
The general view of this cathedral is most magnificent,--owing to its
two completed and similar western spires and to the great height of
a central tower of flamboyant work capped with a pagan cupola which,
though of bad details and inconsistent with all the rest of the work,
certainly aids much in making the magnificence of the whole so great.
This central steeple is on the point of being taken down, I believe,
as the piers below are giving way; and the church is now filled
with timber shores, etc. I do not like the steeple but cannot help
regretting its loss....
There is a curious old chimney near the west front of the cathedral,
rising out of a modern house. Attached to a seminary near the
Hôtel Dieu is a good simple chapel of first-pointed date. It is a
parallelogram groined simply and lighted with windows of two lights in
each bay. The whole is wretchedly whitewashed everywhere and contrasts
strongly with the magnificent colour of the stonework throughout the
interior of the cathedral.
_June 27._
We left Bayeux at 11 A.M. in the diligence for S. Lô--I in the _coupé_,
my unfortunate wife in the dusty _rotunde_. The country was very pretty
indeed, quite like _good_ parts of England, and very grateful to my
eyes. The church of S. Loup, passed just after leaving Bayeux, has a
good Romanesque steeple capped with a low square spire and remarkable
for the great richness of its belfry stage and the eccentric narrowness
of the windows with buttresses between them. Two miles before entering
the town the cathedral of S. Lô comes in sight; and by the graceful
proportions of its two western spires gives promise of pleasure to the
ecclesiologist....
_June 29._
We left Coutances this morning at 7.30 for Hambye en route for
Avranche. The road was all the way excessively pretty, and gave an
admirable view of Coutances, with the cluster of towers and spires
which crowns the hill on which it stands.... I walked off alone to the
abbey. The situation is pretty; under a steep woody and rocky hill,
with a clear stream near, and woods and _riant_ hills and dales all
around. The entrance is by a very simple gateway, double in front
and single-arched behind.... A few paces from this gateway stands the
church, of whose west front no traces now remain, and some old and
rustic buildings to the south of it, which have only one old doorway
remaining.
The church is remarkable in its plan, having a nave without aisles, a
central tower, transepts with eastern chapels, aisles and chapels round
the choir. The end of the north transept is divided off by two arches
from the church, and was I think intended for a sacristy, corresponding
somewhat in position to the beautiful sacristy at Coutances--of which
cathedral this abbey church bears most marked evidence of being in
great degree a reduced and simplified copy. Two small chapels are
placed at the re-entering angles of the nave and transept, and,
supposing the choir to have extended to the western side of the
tower, these would have been most useful in allowing access to the
choir-aisles and transepts without passing through the choir itself.
The same point of arrangement occurs at Rayham abbey--also an aisleless
church--and would be necessary in all conventual churches of this
type. The effect of the interior is striking, owing to the excessive
lightness of the nave and to the great extension given by its aisles
to the width of the choir. The design of the choir is much like that
of Coutances--the same lofty proportions of columns, the same caps,
the same kind of clerestory window, and the same double lean-to roof
all round the choir, one side over the aisle and the other over the
chapels of the apse. The whole work looks early, though there are here
and there suspicious-looking mouldings and Murray says that the whole
church is of late date. If he is correct, it can only be, I think, on
the assumption that the builders of the present church used very nearly
stone for stone a large portion of the original first-pointed edifice.
The cloisters occupied the angle between the nave and south transept,
but no trace remains of them save the corbels which supported their
roof. A long range of old buildings still remains, south of the south
transept. On the ground floor they consist of: first, a small groined
room with a central column, and its groining and walls painted rudely
with patterns in distemper; second, of a long building divided by a row
of columns down the centre and entered by three open arches at the west
end, which we may assume to have been the chapter room; third, another
square room with a rude central column, also painted, and then another
room of that same kind; all these rooms are groined, and above them,
along the whole length of the building, extends a great hall with an
old timber roof, of such great size that it is difficult to surmise
its probable use unless it was that of a great dormitory arranged with
cubicles down its sides.[12]
[Illustration: THE AMBULATORY, CATHEDRAL OF TOURS]
ARCHITECTURAL NOTES IN FRANCE
(From the _Ecclesiologist_, 1858–59)
I
A short holiday among French churches has left so many pleasant
recollections of new ideas received, new thoughts suggested, ancient
memories revived afresh, that it is as impossible as it would be
churlish to refuse to communicate some notes of what I have seen;
and as they are asked for I proceed to give them, though they must
be more slight and generalizing than I could wish; for I have a very
profound conviction of the great grandeur of ancient French art, and
a corresponding sense of the danger of so treating it as to convey
too small a sense of its value to those who have not studied it for
themselves, or of offending those who are so happy as to have realized
that value to the fullest extent and from actual inspection of its
remains. It is needless to say that as the France of the present day
is an agglomeration of ancient and distinct provinces, so also in its
ancient buildings we can trace, without any difficulty, a variety of
different national or provincial styles: it would be strange indeed
were it not so. Even in England we have most striking varieties
in style confined, generally, within the boundaries of particular
dioceses; so that to understand ancient art aright, it is necessary to
have an exact acquaintance with the third-pointed work of Devonshire
and Cornwall as well as that of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to be able
to perceive all the difference between the first-pointed work of the
Yorkshire abbeys and that of Wells and Salisbury.
And if we have such marked differences in a country like this, we may
well expect a much greater variety in a country which, like France
in the Middle Ages, was not as now one great nation but divided into
sections antagonistic to each other and exercising little if any
reciprocal influence. It is easy, therefore, to map our France into
certain divisions, each containing within its boundaries a special
individual style of Gothic architecture, distinguished by notable
peculiarities, and each affording a separate field for very careful
study. Thus we have in the north of France distinct French styles,
in, first, Normandy, and secondly, the old Île de France and the
surrounding country, and thirdly, in the country bordering on Germany,
a style which is rather German than French in all its leading features.
Then going southward, we have, fourthly, a distinct Burgundian style,
and another, marked by extreme peculiarities, in Poitou and Anjou, and
(judging only by drawings, for I have never myself visited the extreme
south of France), again other styles, whose centres are respectively
at Clermont and at Arles. Of these various styles that of Normandy
presents a very great affinity to our own. It is there, and almost
only there, that we see the circular abacus, there only that we see
much attempted in the way of deep and complicated architectural
mouldings, whilst the general effect of many--especially among the
larger churches--is extremely English. The likeness is one of which we
may well be proud, for the architecture of this province is full of
beauty and interest to a degree second only to that of the district of
the old Île de France. Its very deficiencies, too, are English in their
character, for in going from Paris into the heart of Normandy, the one
thing which we notice more perhaps than anything else, is the general
absence of the figure sculpture to which we have become accustomed;
and this is the case also in England, where we have really hardly any
at all extensive remains of sculpture, and certainly none which can be
named with those whose pride it is to be the guardians of such churches
as the cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, Amiens, Laon, or Rheims.[13]
The study of the architecture of Normandy is therefore the proper and
natural sequel of a complete and careful study of English architecture,
and may be entered on with the less hesitation as I believe I may
safely venture to say, that what is learned there will be in no sense
foreign either to the precedents or the sympathies of England.
The churches of Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine, appear to me to be of
much less value for architectural study: though from the connection
which was maintained between our own country and those parts of France
during a long period of the Middle Ages, it is impossible but they
should present much that is of the greatest interest to the English
student. I have looked, however, in vain for evidence, either in
the general design or in the details of their architecture, of any
influence exercised by the English upon their art. In fact, when we
held the country, we held it as conquerors not as colonists, and we
left no mark of ourselves, but let the people go on building for us and
for themselves in their own way. And their way was full of peculiarity,
perhaps more so than that of any other part of France. They had their
own system of planning, their own system of groining: and this, it
should be remarked, is sure, if it has any peculiarity, to exercise a
most powerful and obvious effect upon the whole architecture. There is,
however, a heaviness, a repetition of the same idea, and an absence
of delicate skill, as well as of bold architectural inspiration,
which to my mind marks all the buildings in these parts inferior,
not only to the best French work, but also to that of Normandy and
of England. And now I go on naturally to say that I believe the best
work in France is that which I described shortly as that of the old
Île de France and the surrounding country; it is that which I have
studied the most carefully, and love the most of any architecture
that I know; it is one which presents no features unsuitable for our
country, or inconsistent with the demands of our climate; it is one
from the study of which I believe we should all derive an immense
benefit, for it were wellnigh impossible to spend much time among the
works of art which it so bountifully affords without being strongly
impressed with the stern grandeur and masculine character of the men
who conceived it, and without being elevated in our whole tone of mind
so far as we have been impressed. A district which affords examples
such as Rouen cathedral, S. Quentin, Amiens, Noyon, Laon, Soissons,
Meaux, Rheims, Troyes, Chartres, Notre Dame of Paris, Mantes, S. Leu,
S. Germer, Senlis, Beauvais, and others, must be conceded to be, if not
the best, certainly the richest field for the study of our art in all
Europe; and it is mainly to this district that I will take you, with
this expression of my extreme veneration for the art enshrined in its
architectural remains.[14] ...
At Beuzeville, where the Fécamp branch joins the main line of railway
to Rouen, it is worth while to walk a mile and a half to the church,
not because it is a fine building, but rather because it illustrates
well enough the differences between French and English ideas about
village churches. The unbroken nave, thirty-three feet wide and
sixty-nine feet in length, with its arched boarded roof,--the central
groined tower with a spire springing some four or five feet below the
ridge of the nave roof,--and the hipped vestry roof, are all unlike
English work, yet the whole effect is particularly good notwithstanding
the poverty of style, which is late flamboyant. There are four rows of
fixed seats all down the nave--modern, of course.
From Beuzeville to Rouen the railway took me over ground well known
to the majority of English travellers, and I would not say a word
about Rouen, were it not that the strong popular delusion which has
elevated the church of S. Ouen into its great attraction deserves to
be protested against always. And, this, not because the church is not
very fine and very pretty--it is both--but because S. Ouen-worship
leads people to miss altogether, or only to half see and understand
the extreme value and beauty of the cathedral. I have seen this often,
and I find that, unlike some other churches, each time I see it I
discern new beauties and new value in its art; and it lies so near to
us, and teaches us so much not to be learnt in England, and yet of the
utmost value to all of us, that I do not know how to express myself
sufficiently strongly as to the advantage of a careful study of it
to all workers in the revival. Indeed I think that the Architectural
Museum could perhaps do more for art by helping young carvers to go
for a time to Rouen for study, than by adding to their collection a
multitude of casts which are often of necessity of doubtful excellence.
The thing may be difficult to accomplish, but it ought to be done,
for this one cathedral contains such an abundance and variety of
sculpture as would almost put to the blush all our churches combined.
The western doors of the north and south aisles are, to my taste,
the most exquisite portions of the church. Their style is so early,
and so immediate a deduction from Byzantine or Romanesque work that
I can fancy a man, who had been taught to believe in the absolute
perfection of our English fourteenth-century style, would be long
before he appreciated to the full their perfection. They are moreover
of a kind of work which is as rare as it is excellent. In England we
have nothing, to the best of my belief, of similar style. I remember
that Mr. Scott once suggested to me the probability that they were
executed by the same man who executed the doorways in the west front
of Genoa cathedral, and the suggestion evidenced fully his sense of
the extreme rarity of the work. I believe, however, that they are
examples of a style which was not that of an individual only. That it
owed much to Italy I have little doubt: for even if there had been no
trace of an Italian influence in the extreme delicacy of the whole
of the sculpture, in the twining foliage of the door jambs, and the
very singular and graceful foliage of the archivolts, yet it might, I
think, have been detected indirectly. For in this same church, in the
aisle round the apse, there still remains a monument of an Archbishop
Maurice, the Italianizing character of which is most marked, and at
the same time its details show that it is a work of precisely the same
school as the western aisle-doorways. None who have been in Italy can
forget the almost invariable type of the finer early monuments--a
simple arch, surmounted immediately by a gable of very flat pitch, and
supported on detached shafts. They will remember them at Verona often,
in Venice, in Genoa, in Perugia, and indeed in all directions and of
all dates; well, in this monument, we have the same thing, a round arch
exquisitely adorned with angels (whereof two in the centre bear up the
soul of the archbishop) and immediately above the arch a very flat
pediment or gable. Perhaps, too, it is an Italian influence, which is
evidenced in another respect in the decorations of the western doors.
The alternate orders of the arch are simply chamfered, presenting in
section three sides of an octagon, and these are covered with regular
sunk patterns of the simplest kind, but marvellously effective. Go
from Rouen to Genoa and you find the western doorways executed in
marble, every plain surface in which is inlaid with geometrical
patterns,--light patterns on dark ground, and dark on light. The effect
is very similar in the two places: at Genoa the very best materials
were to be had: and at Rouen where nothing but common stone was used,
the artist struck out a system which produced an effect all but equal
to that obtained at Genoa. And yet with all this similarity I am not
disposed to class these two buildings together as the work of one
man. The architect of Genoa loved mouldings much more than did the
architect of these doorways; and I think I have met with a sufficient
number of traces of similar work to convince me that it was the style
of a class, not of a man, and one of those many and glorious phases
through which our art in her rapid progress passed. The western doors
at Mantes are very similar in their detail; those of Chartres--what a
study they are!--partake largely of the same spirit; in the western
façade of Notre Dame, Paris, there are traces of it; in Notre Dame,
Châlons-sur-Marne, the south doorway was identical in character, and
fragments of work of the same style have been discovered in the course
of lowering the floor of that church to its ancient level; and in S.
Germer, in the chapter-house of S. Georges de Boscherville, in the
western doorway of Angers cathedral, and in parts of S. Remi at Rheims,
I think we see the same style more or less developed. Undoubtedly the
work at Rouen is the most excellent of all, just as it occupies the
central position in point of date.
I am not afraid to confess that the whole of these examples are largely
Byzantine in their character; in my eyes this is a virtue, not a fault;
for I believe that it is here perhaps more than anywhere else that we
may succeed in developing from our forefathers’ work. There seems to be
here a mine of untold wealth, the workings into which were no sooner
commenced than they were abandoned: and the style seems to be one
which affords special opportunity for meeting our great difficulty at
the present day, as it indicates a mode of obtaining rich decorations
without being dependent for effect entirely on a horde of slovenly
carvers, who, without an idea in their heads, ruin all the rest of our
work by their failure in its sculpture.
This is a digression, but the subject was tempting: I will only
say further, as to these remains at Rouen, that they have the rare
advantage of not having been restored, and that they are entirely
covered in all parts with work of almost uniform excellence, though, to
my taste, the north-west door (the tympanum of which contains the life
of S. John the Baptist) is the finest. The effigy of Archbishop Maurice
is singularly elaborated: the patterns on the vestments, the details of
the censers, and indeed all parts, being finished with the elaboration
of a genuine Pre-Raphaelite. Before modern sculptors sneer at these
twelfth century works, I wish that they would themselves attempt to
produce even one block of stone, a foot square, as well wrought, and I
doubt not they would profit by the lesson, novel though it might be.
The western doors of the aisles are placed between large buttresses,
and arches are thrown over them from buttress to buttress. Between the
arches of the doors and these upper arches, a small space of plain wall
remained, which has been treated in the most ingenious manner. Figures
are marked in outline on the stone, which were, I think, painted, and
the ground throughout is diapered with a very simple pattern sunk in
the stone. Over the south-west doorway was the Last Judgement: and over
the north-west, our Lord seated with angels and saints on either side.
In the former our Lord is seated on a throne, between two candles:
angels present souls to Him, other angels bear a soul in a sheet, and
others again on the right drive the wicked into hell.
I must say little more about Rouen; but I ought not to forget to notice
the fine and very varied treatment of the capitals throughout the nave,
and the thoroughly Norman (and English) effect of the immense numbers
of clustered shafts, of which all the piers are composed. The double
division in height of the main arcade is not easily accounted for; but
if it was owing to an alteration in the height of the building, while
it was in progress, it is a happy instance to be added to many others,
of the skill with which mediaeval architects seized upon difficulties
as the best opportunities for achieving successes.
The ground-plan of this cathedral is, I think, altogether one of the
best in France. In particular the _chevet_ is of great beauty. The
aisle round the apse, instead of being completely surrounded by
chapels, has its alternate bays only so occupied, with great advantage
in point of effect, both internally and externally. The arrangement is
almost identical with that of the fine _chevet_ of S. Omer cathedral,
and appears to me to be a happy mean between the one chapel at the east
end of Sens, and the cluster of chapels which crowd the apsidal ends
of almost all the great churches in the north of France. Whilst in its
plan it is more skilfully disposed than the somewhat similar _chevet_
of Chartres, it is preferable to those of Mantes and Notre Dame, Paris,
where there were no projecting apsidal chapels,[15] or Bourges, where
they are so small as to produce no effect.
The north-west tower (that of S. Romain), should be ascended, if only
to examine the framework of the roof and for the bells, and to note,
among other things, the open wooden staircase in its upper stage. The
view, too, of the city is finely seen; and I know few cities that
reward more bountifully any trouble taken in the attempt to see them
in this way. A city it is, indeed, of desecrated churches, but still a
city whose situation on the noble river winding here under great chalk
hills, and there along the edge of meadows green, flat and extensive,
fringed with long perspective lines of poplars, is as beautiful and as
happy as it can well be.