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Jacques, I think, on the whole is the finer church of the two, and remarkable for the florid ornament of its spandrels, and for the elaborate, pendent cusping of the soffits of its arches features that lend it an almost barbaric magnificence that reminds one of Rosslyn Chapel. Liege, built as it is exactly on the edge of the Ardennes, is far the most finely situated of any great city in Belgium.
By this clearing the beauty of the chapel so long obscured became again manifest: its symmetrical proportions, the remains of its ancient painting, the disclosure of two most interesting monuments, two aumbries, a double piscina, the chapel of Bishop Audley, but more important than all, two of the most beautiful specimens of transition arches to be found anywhere, Early English in form, but ornamented in their soffits with the Norman moulding and the zigzag decoration, corresponding with the remarkable union of the Norman intersecting arches on the exterior of the building, with its pointed characteristics.
They tell of the glory of the cardinals, in litters, on horseback, in glittering carriages, blazing with jewels and shaded with gorgeous canopies; of marble palaces, grand walks, alabaster columns, gigantic obelisks, villas, gardens, grottoes, flowers, fountains, cascades; of churches adorned with polished pillars, gilded soffits, mosaic floors, altars sparkling with diamonds, and gorgeous pictures from master-hands looking down from every wall; of monuments, statues, images, and holy relics; and they blame Luther that he could gaze upon it all without a stir of admiration that he could look upon the sculpture and statuary and see nothing but pagan devices, the gods Demosthenes and Praxiteles, the feasts and pomps of Delos, and the idle scenes of the heathen Forum that no gleam from the crown of Perugino or Michael Angelo dazzled his eyes, and no strain of Virgil or of Dante, which the people sung in the streets, attracted his ear that he was only cold and dumb before all the treasures and glories of art and all the grandeur of the high dignitaries of the Church, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, exclaiming over nothing but the licentious impurities of the priests, the pagan pomps of the pontiff, the profane jests of the ministers of religion, the bare shoulders of the Roman ladies.
"Its symmetrical proportions, before completely spoilt; the remnants of its ancient painting, which were traceable beneath the whitewash; the fair disclosure of the monuments of Joanna de Kilpec, a benefactress to this very edifice, and Humphry de Bohun, her husband, both of exceeding interest; the discovery of two aumbries, both walled up, but one with the stones composing it reversed; the double piscina on the south side, the chapel of Bishop Audley; but especially two of the most beautiful specimens of transition arches which can be found in any edifice, bearing the Early English form, the shafts and capitals and the lancet-shaped arch above, but ornamented in their soffits with the Norman moulding, and the zig-zag decoration, corresponding with the remarkable union of the Norman intersecting arches on the exterior of the building, with its pointed characteristics.
On the entablature of the door, in the hollow of the cornice, the mystic globe outspread its vast, imbricated wings; pillars ranged in symmetrical lines supported heavy sandstone blocks forming soffits, the blue ground of which was studded with golden stars.
At the point where this cutting away occurs, fix the soffits of the passages. Thus their vaulting will be sufficiently high. The length of the "scaena" ought to be double the diameter of the orchestra. The height of the podium, starting from the level of the stage, is, including the corona and cymatium, one twelfth of the diameter of the orchestra.
Much beautiful sculpture is, in the best Byzantine buildings, half lost by being put under soffits; but the eye is led to discover it, and even to demand it, by the rich chasing of the outside of the voussoirs. It would have been an hypocrisy to carve them externally only.
The whole scheme of the exterior decoration is so finely carried out, both in arrangement and colour, that its extreme elaboration produces no effect of unquietness. At a distance it only gives a suggestion of a soft bloom or iridescence on the surface of the marble. The soffits of the doorways are carved with extraordinary delicacy.
Of more modest, but generally similar treatment, is the paneling of the reception room at Stenton, the fireplace opening here having been closed for installation of a Franklin stove. At Whitby Hall there are two interesting and characteristic examples of embrasured windows with paneled jambs and soffits, and molded architrave casings.
Gypsum should by no means be used in their composition, but powdered marble should be laid on uniformly, lest gypsum, by setting too quickly should keep the work from drying uniformly. We must also beware of the ancients' scheme for vaultings; for in their mouldings the soffits overhang very heavily, and are dangerous. Some mouldings are flat, others in relief.
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