Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Cistercian, and as old as the tenth century, with a gatehouse of Richard the Second's day; bits of exquisite encaustic tiling from the demolished church, preserved religiously under glass; and a refectory roof to enchant artists and archæologists beautiful hammer-beams and carved angels of Spanish walnut wood, fifteenth century, I think; and some shadowy ghosts of frescoes.
To begin with, it roofed over a great depression some thirty feet or more in diameter, for the top of the mount was hollowed out like one of those wooden cups in which jugglers catch balls. But notwithstanding all the encaustic tiles in the world, damp will gather in a hollow like this, and the damp alone was an objection.
The colors were applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the color and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. But this process required so much care, and was attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces."
Much to his surprise, the workmen found plenty of old encaustic tiles; they had been interred as rubbish at some period, when antiquity and beauty were less respected than they are now, I suppose." Mr. Raby broke in, "The Puritans. Barbarians! beasts! It was just like them. Well, sir ?"
The paradise let to Count Steinbock had been hung with chintz; the cold, hard floor, of common tiles reddened with encaustic, was not felt through a soft thick carpet.
"When the rector found that, he excavated more than was absolutely necessary for his purpose, and the deeper he went the more encaustic tiles. The master mason was there luckily, and would not move it till the rector had seen it.
From this inner hall a double staircase of white marble led to the grand suite of apartments. These saloons, lofty, spacious, and numerous, had been decorated principally in encaustic by the most celebrated artists of Munich. The three principal rooms were only separated from each other by columns, covered with rich hangings, on this night drawn aside.
Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practiced in water colors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums, but wax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of all methods.
He then showed us the chapel, a large part of which has been renewed and ornamented with pictured windows and other ecclesiastical splendor, and paved with encaustic tiles, according to the Puseyite taste of the day; for Merton has adopted the Puseyite doctrines, and is one of their chief strongholds in Oxford.
The talk flitted from topic to topic, mainly concerning itself with matters artistic, and never for one moment approaching the critical subject of John Bellingham's will. From the stepped pyramid of Sakkara with its encaustic tiles to mediaeval church floors; from Elizabethan woodwork to Mycaenaean pottery, and thence to the industrial arts of the Stone Age and the civilisation of the Aztecs.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking