FOOTNOTES:

Fig. 22.—Roof of Hall at Eltham Palace. (15th Century.)

It has been held by some very good authorities that the pointed arch was first introduced into Gothic architecture to solve difficulties which presented themselves in the vaulting. In all probability the desire to give to everything, arches included, a more lofty appearance and more slender proportions may have had as much to do with the adoption of the pointed arch as any structural considerations, but there can be no doubt that it was used for structural arches from the very first, even when window heads and wall arcades were semicircular, and that the introduction of it cleared the way for the use of stone vaults of large span to a wonderful extent. It is not easy to explain this without being more technical than is perhaps desirable in the present volume, but the subject is one of too much importance for it to be possible to avoid making the attempt.

Churches, it will be recollected, were commonly built with a wide nave and narrower aisles, and it was in the Norman period customary to vault the aisles and cover the nave with a ceiling. There was no difficulty in so spacing the distances apart of the piers of the main arcade that the compartments (usually termed bays) of the aisle should be square on plan; and it was quite possible, without doing more than the Romans had done, to vault each bay of the aisles with a semicircular intersecting vault (i.e.one which has the appearance of a semicircular or waggon-head vault, intersected by another vault of the same outline and height). This produced a simple series of what are called groined or cross vaults, which allowed height to be given to the window heads of the aisle and to the arcades between the aisles and nave.

After a time it was desired to vault the nave also, and to adopt for it an intersecting vault, so that the heads of the windows of the clerestory might be raised above the springing line of the vault, but so long as the arches remained semicircular, this was very difficult to accomplish.

The Romans would probably have contented themselves with employing a barrel vault and piercing it to the extent required by short lateral vaults, but the result would have been an irregular, weak, curved line at each intersection with the main vault; and the aisle vaults having made the pleasing effect of a perfectly regular intersection familiar, this expedient does not seem to have found favour, at any rate in England.

Other expedients were however tried, and with curious results. It was for example attempted to vault the nave with a cross vault, embracing two bays of the arcade to one of the vault, but the wall space so gained was particularly ill suited to the clerestory windows, as may be seen by examining the nave of St. Stephen’s at Caen. In short, if the vaulting compartment were as wide as the nave one way, but only as wide as the aisle the other way, and semicircular arches alone were employed, a satisfactory result seemed to be unattainable.

In the search for some means of so vaulting a bay of oblong plan that the arches should spring all at one level, and the groins or lines of intersection should cross one another in the centre of the ceiling, the idea either arose or was suggested that the curve of the smaller span should be a pointed instead of a semicircular arch.

The moment this was tried all difficulty vanished, and groined (i.e.intersecting) vaults, covering compartments of any proportions became easy to design and simple to construct, for if the vault which spanned the narrow way ofthe compartment were acutely pointed, and that which spanned it the wide way were either semicircular or flatly-pointed, it became easy to arrange that the startings of both vaults should be at the same level, and that they should rise to the same height, which is the condition essential to the production of a satisfactory intersection.

Scott enumerates not fewer than fourteen varieties of mediæval vaults[19]and points out that specimens of thirteen are to be found at Westminster. Without such minute detail we may select some well-known varieties:—(1) The plain waggon-head vault, as at the Chapel of the Tower; (2) in advanced Norman works, cross-vaults formed by two intersecting semicircular vaults, the diagonal line being called a groin. (3) The earliest transitional and E. E. vaults, pointed and with transverse and diagonal ribs, and bosses at the intersection of ribs,e.g., in the aisles and the early part of the cloisters at Westminster. (4) In the advanced part of the E. E. period, the addition of a rib at the ridge, as seen in the presbytery and transepts at Westminster. (5) At the time of the transition to Dec. (temp.Ed. 1.) additional ribs began to be introduced between the diagonal and the transverse ribs. (6) As the Dec. period advanced other ribs, calledliernes, were introduced, running in various directions over the surface of the vault, making star-like figures on the vault. (7) The vault of the early Perp., which is similar to the last, but more complicated and approaching No. 8,e.g., Abbot Islip’s chapel. (8) Lastly, the distinctive vault of the advanced or Tudor Perp., is the fan-tracery vault of which Henry VII.’s Chapel roof isthe climax. The vaulting surfaces in these are portions of hollow conoids, and are covered by a net-work of fine ribs, connected together by bands of cusping (Fig.23).

Fig. 23.—Henry VII.’s Chapel. (1503-1512.)

In Scott’s enumeration the vaults of octagons and irregular compartments, and such varieties as the one called sexpartite, find a place; here they have been intentionally excluded. Many of them are works of the greatest skill and beauty, especially the vaults of octagonal chapter houses springing from one centre pier (e.g., Chapter Houses at Worcester, Westminster, Wells, and Salisbury).

Externally, the roofs of buildings became very steep in the thirteenth century; they were not quite so steep in the fourteenth, and in the fifteenth they were frequently almost flat. They were always relied upon to add to the effectiveness of a building, and were enriched sometimes by variegated tiles or other covering, sometimes by the introduction of small windows, known as dormer windows, each with its own gablet and its little roof, and sometimes by the addition of a steep sided roof in the shape of a lantern or a “flèche” on the ridge, or a pyramidal covering to some projecting octagon or turret.

All these have their value in breaking up the sky-line of the building, and adding interest and beauty to it. Still more striking, however, in its effect on the sky-line was the spire, a feature to which great attention was paid in English architecture.

The early square towers of Romanesque churches were sometimes surmounted by pyramidal roofs of low pitch. We have probably none now remaining, but we have some examples of large pinnacles, crowned with pyramids, which show what the shape must have been. They were square in plan and somewhat steep in slope.

The spire was developed early in the E. E. period. It was octagonal in plan, and the four sides which coincided with the faces of the tower rose direct from the walls above a slightly masked eaves course. The four oblique sides are connected to the tower by a feature called a broach, which may be described as part of a blunt pyramid. The broach-spire (Fig.24) is to be met with in many parts of England, but especially in Northamptonshire. The chief ornaments of an E. E. spire consist in small windows (called spire-lights or lucarnes) each surmounted by its gablet.

Fig. 24.—Early English Spire. Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Warboys, Lincolnshire.

In the Dec. period it was common to finish the tower by a parapet, and to start the spire behind the parapet, sometimeswith a broach, often without. Pinnacles were frequently added at the corners of the tower, and an arch, like that of a flying buttress, was sometimes thrown across from the pinnacle to the spire. Spire-lights occur as before, and the surface of the spire is often enriched by bands of ornament at intervals. The general proportions of the spire were more slender than before, and the rib, which generally ran up each angle, was often enriched by crockets,i.e.tufts of leaves arranged in a formal shape (Fig.25).

Fig. 25.—Decorated Spire. All Saints’ Church, Oakham, Rutlandshire.

Towers were frequently intended to stand without spires in the Perp. period, and areoften finished by four effective angle-pinnacles and a cornice with battlements. Where spires occur in this period they resemble those of the Dec. period.

Spires end usually in a boss or finial, surmounted by a weathercock. Ordinary roofs were usually finished by ornamental cresting, and their summits were marked by finials,[20]frequently of exquisite workmanship.

We now come to ornaments, including mouldings, carving, and colour, and here we are landed upon a mass of details which it would be impossible to pursue far. Mouldings play a prominent part in Gothic architecture, and from the first to the last they varied so constantly that their profiles and grouping may be constantly made use of as a kind of architectural calendar, to point out the time, to within a few years, when the building in which they occur was erected.

A moulding is the architect’s means of drawing a line on his building. If he desires to mark on the exterior the position of an internal floor, or in any other way to suggest a division into storeys, a moulded string-course is introduced. If he wishes to add richness and play of light and shade to the sides of an important arch, he introduces a series of mouldings, the profile of which has been designed to form lights and shadows such as will answer his purpose. If again he desires to throw out a projection and to give the idea of its being properly supported, he places under his projection a corbel of mouldings which are of strong as well as pleasing form, so as to convey to the eye the notion of support. Mouldings, it can be understood, differ in both size and profile, according to the purpose which they are required to serve,the distance from the spectator at which they are fixed, and the material out of which they are formed. In the Gothic periods they also differed according to the date at which they were executed.

Fig. 26.—Early Arch in Receding Planes.

Fig. 27.—Arch in Receding Planes Moulded.

The first step towards the Gothic system of mouldings was taken by the Romanesque architects when the idea of building arches in thick walls, not only one within the others, but also in planes receding back from the face of the wall one behind as well as within another, was formed and carried out, and when a corresponding recessed arrangement of the jamb of the arch was made (Fig.26). The next step was the addition of some simple moulding to the advancing angle of each rim of such a series of arches either forming a bead (Fig.27) or a chamfer.

In the transitional part of the twelfth century and the E. E. period this process went on till at last, though the separate receding arches still continued to exist, the mouldings[21]into which they were cut became so numerous and elaborate as to render it often difficult to detect the subordination or division into distinct planes which really remained.

Fig. 28.—Doorway, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. (15th Century.)

This passion for elaborate mouldings, often extraordinarily undercut, reached its climax in the thirteenth century, the E. E. period. In the Dec. period, while almost everything else became more elaborate, mouldings grew more simple, yet hardly less beautiful. In the Perp. period they were not only further simplified, but often impoverished, being usually shallow, formal, and stiff.[22]

Ornaments abounded, and included not only enrichments in the shape of carved foliage and figures, statuary, mosaics, and so forth, but ornamental features, such as canopies, pinnacles, arcades, and recesses (Fig.28).

In each period these are distinct in design from all that went before or came after, and thus to catch the spirit of any one Gothic period aright, it is not enough to fix the general shapes of the arches and proportions of the piers but every feature, every moulding, and every ornament must be wrought in the true spirit of the work, or the result will be marred.

Ornamental materials and every sort of decorative art, such as mosaic, enamel, metal work and inlays, were freely employed to add beauty in appropriate positions; but there was one ornament, the crowning invention of the Gothic artists, which largely influenced the design of the finest buildings, and which reflected a glory on them such as nothing else can approach: this was stained glass.

So much of the old glass has perished, and so little modern glass is even passable, that this praise may seem overcharged to those who have never seen any of the best specimens still left. We have in the choir at Canterbury a remnant of the finest sort of glass which England possesses. Some good fragments remain at Westminster, though not very many; but to judge of the effect of glass at its best, the student should visit La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, or the Cathedrals of Chartres, Le Mans, Bourges, or Rheims, and he will find in these buildings effects in colour which are nothing less than gorgeous in their brilliancy, richness, and harmony.

Fig. 29.—Stained Glass Window from Chartres Cathedral.

The peculiar excellence of stained glass as compared with every other sort of decoration, is that it is luminous. To some extent fresco-painting may claim a sort of brightness; mosaic when executed in polished materials possesses brilliancy; but in stained glass the light which comes streaming in through the window itself gives radiance, while the quality of the glass determines the colour, and thus we obtain a glowing, lustre of colour which can only be compared to the beauty of gems. In order properly to fill their place as decorations, stained-glass windows must be something quite different from transparent pictures, and the scenes they represent must not detach themselves too violently from the general ground. The most perfect effect is produced by such windows as those at Canterbury or Chartres (Fig.29), which recall a cluster of jewels rather than a picture.

Colour was also freely introduced by the lavish employment of coloured materials where they were to be had, and by painting the interiors with bright pigments. We meet with traces of rich colour on many parts of ancient buildings, where we should hardly dare to put it now, and we cannot doubt that painted decoration was constantly made use of with the happiest effect.

Fig. 30.—Sculpture from the Entrance to the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey. (1250.)

The last, perhaps the noblest ornament, is sculpture. The Gothic architects were alive to its value, and in all their best works statues abounded; often conventional to the last degree; sometimes to our eyes uncouth, but always the best which those who carved them could do at the time; always sure to contribute to architectural effect; neverwithout a picturesque power, sometimes rising to grace and even grandeur, and sometimes sinking to grotesque ugliness. Whatever the quality of the sculpture was, it was always there, and added life to the whole. Monsters gaped and grinned from the water-spouts, little figures or strange animals twisted in and out of the foliage at angles and bosses and corbels. Stately effigies occupied dignified niches, in places of honour; and in the mouldings and tympanum of the head of a doorway there was often carved a whole host of figures representing heaven, earth, and hell, with a rude force and a native eloquence that have not lost their power to the present day.

In the positions where modest ornamentation was required, as for example the capitals of shafts, the hollows of groups of mouldings, and the bosses of vaulting, carving of the most finished execution and masterly design constantly occurs. Speaking roughly, this was chiefly conventional in the E. E. period, chiefly natural in the Dec. and mixed, but with perhaps a preference for the conventional in the Perp. Examples abound, but both for beauty and accessibility we can refer to no better example than the carving which enriches the entrance to the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey (Fig.30).

Miserere Seat from Wells Cathedral.

FOOTNOTES:[17]For illustrations consult theGlossaryunderJamb.[18]For illustrations consult theGlossaryunderArch.[19]Address to the Conference of Architects. Reported in theBuilderof 24th June, 1876. Outlines illustrating some of these varieties of vault will be found in theGlossaryunderVault.[20]SeeGlossary.[21]For illustrations consult theGlossary.[22]For further illustrations see theGlossary.

[17]For illustrations consult theGlossaryunderJamb.

[18]For illustrations consult theGlossaryunderArch.

[19]Address to the Conference of Architects. Reported in theBuilderof 24th June, 1876. Outlines illustrating some of these varieties of vault will be found in theGlossaryunderVault.

[20]SeeGlossary.

[21]For illustrations consult theGlossary.

[22]For further illustrations see theGlossary.

Stained glass from Chartres Cathedral

THE architecture of France during the Middle Ages throws much light upon the history of the country. The features in which it differs from the work done in England at the same period can, many of them, be directly traced to differences in the social, political, or religious situation of the two nations at the time. For example, we find England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the hands of the Normans, a newly-conquered country under uniform administration; and accordingly few local variations occur in the architecture of our Norman period. The twelfth-century work, at Durham or Peterborough for instance, differs but little from that at Gloucester or Winchester. In France the case is different. That country was divided into a series of semi-independent provinces, whose inhabitants differed, not only in the leaders whom they followed, but in speech, race, and customs. As might be expected, the buildings of each province presented an aspect different in many respects from those of every other; and we may as well add that these peculiarities did not die out with the end of the round-arched period of architecture, but lingered far into the pointed period.

Fig. 31.—Church at Fontevrault. (Begun 1125.)

The south of France was occupied by people speaking what are now known as the Romance dialects, and some writers have adopted the name as descriptive of the peculiarities of the architecture of these districts. The Romance provinces clung tenaciously to their early formsof art, so that pointed architecture was not established in the south of France till half a century, and in some places nearly a whole century, later than in the north.

On the other hand, the Frankish part of the country was the cradle of Gothic. The transition from round to pointed architecture first took place in the royal domain, of which Paris was the centre, and it may be assumed that the new style was already existing when in 1140 Abbot Suger laid the foundations of the choir of the church of St. Denis, about forty years before the commencement of the eastern arm of our own Canterbury.

De Caumont, who in his “Abécédaire” did for French architecture somewhat the same work of analysis and scientific arrangement which Rickman performed for English, has adopted the following classification:—

Romanesque Architecture.Architecture Romane.Primitive.5th to 10th century.Primordiale.Second.End of 10th to commencement of 12th century.Secondaire.Third or Transition12th century.Tertiaire ou de Transition.Pointed Architecture.Architecture ogivale.First.13th century.Primitive.Second.14th century.Secondaire.Third.15th century.Tertiaire.

Fig. 32.—Doorway at Loches, France. (1180.)

The transitional architecture of France is no exception to the rule that the art of a period of change is full of interest. Much of it has disappeared, but examples remain in the eastern part of the cathedral of St. Denis already referred to, in portions of the cathedrals of Noyon and Sens, thewest front of Chartres, the church of St. Germain des Prés at Paris, and elsewhere. We here often find the pointed arch employed for the most important parts of the structure, while the round arch is still retained in the window and door-heads, and in decorative arcades, as shown in our illustrations of a section of the church at Fontevrault (Fig.31), and of a doorway at Loches (Fig.32).

The first pointed architecture of the thirteenth century in France differs considerably from the early English of this country. The arches are usually less acute, and the windows not so tall in proportion to their width. The mouldings employed are few and simple compared with the many and intricate English ones. Large round columns are much used in place of our complicated groups of small shafts for the piers of the nave; and the abacus of the capital remains square. An air of breadth and dignity prevails in the buildings of this date to which the simple details, noble proportions, and great size largely contribute. The western front of Notre Dame, Paris (Fig.33), dates from the early years of this century, the interior being much of it a little earlier. The well-known cathedrals of Chartres, Rheims, Laon, and later in the style, Amiens, and Beauvais, may be taken as grand examples of French first pointed. To these may be added the very graceful Sainte Chapelle of Paris, the choir and part of the nave of the cathedral at Rouen, the church of St. Etienne at Caen, and the cathedrals of Coutances, Lisieux, Le Mans, and Bourges. This list of churches could be almost indefinitely extended, and many monastic buildings, and not a few domestic and military ones, might be added. Among the most conspicuous of these may be named the monastic fortress at Mont St. Michel, probablythe most picturesque structure in France, the remarkable fortifications of Carcassonne, and the lordly castle of Couçy.

Fig. 33.—Notre Dame, Paris, West Front. (1214.)

The second pointed, or fourteenth century Gothic of France, bears more resemblance to contemporary English Gothic than the work of the centuries preceding or following. Large windows for stained glass, with rich geometrical tracery prevailed, and much the same sort of ornamental treatment as in England was adopted in richly decorated buildings. Specimens of the work of this century occur everywhere in the shape of additions to the great churches and cathedrals which had been left unfinished from the previous century, and also of side chapels which it became customary to add to the aisles of churches. The great and well-known abbey of St. Ouen at Rouen is one of the few first-class churches which can be named as begun and almost entirely completed in this century. The tower and spire of the church of St. Pierre at Caen (Fig.13) are very well-known and beautiful specimens of this period.

French fifteenth century architecture, or third pointed, is far from being so dignified or so scientific as English perpendicular, and differs from it considerably. Exuberant richness in decoration was the rage, and shows itself both in sculpture, tracery, and general design. Much of the later work of this period has received the name of flamboyant, because of the flame-like shapes into which the tracery of the heads of windows was thrown. In flamboyant buildings we often meet with art which, though certainly over-florid, is brilliant, rich, and full of true feeling for decoration.

In this century, secular and domestic buildings attained more prominence than at any previous periods. Some of them are among the best works which this period produced. Familiar examples will be found in the noble Palais de Justice at Rouen, and the Hôtel de Bourgtherouldin the same city; in parts of the great château at Blois, the splendid château of Pierrefonds, and the Hôtels de Ville of Oudenarde and Caen.

Fig. 34.—Plan of Amiens Cathedral. (1220-1272.)

The plans of French cathedrals and other buildings conform in general to the description of Gothic plans given in ChapterII., but they have of course certain distinctive peculiarities (Fig.34). The cathedrals areas a rule much broader in proportion to their length than English ones. Double aisles frequently occur, and not infrequently an added range of side chapels fringes each of the main side walls, so that the interior of one of these vast buildings presents, in addition to the main vista along the nave, many delightful cross views of great extent. The transepts are also much less strongly marked than our English examples. There are even some great cathedrals (e.g., Bourges) without transepts; and where they exist it is common to find that, as in the case of Notre Dame de Paris, they do not project beyond the line of the side walls, so that, although fairly well-marked in the exterior and interior of the building, they add nothing to its floor-space. The eastern end of a French cathedral (and indeed of French churches generally, with very few exceptions) is terminated in an apse. When, as is frequently the case, this apse is encircled by a ring of chapels, with flying buttresses on several stages rising from among them, the whole arrangement is called achevet, and very striking and busy is the appearance which it presents.

The walls are rarely built of any other material than stone, and much splendid masonry is to be found in France. Low towers are often to be met with, and so are projecting staircase turrets of polygonal or circular forms. The façades of cathedrals, including ends of transepts as well as west fronts, are most striking, and often magnificently enriched. It is an interesting study to examine a series of these fronts, each a little more advanced than the last, as for example Notre Dame (Fig.33), the transept at Rouen, Amiens (Fig.35), and Rheims, and tonote how the horizontal bands and other level features grow less and less conspicuous, while the vertical ones are more and more strongly marked; showing an increasing desire, not only to make the buildings lofty, but to suppress everything which might interfere with their looking as high as possible.

Fig. 35.—Amiens Cathedral, West Front. (1220-1272.)

The column is a greater favourite than the pier in France, as has already been said. Sometimes, where the supports of the main arcade are really piers, they are built like circular shafts of large size; and even when they have no capital (as was the case in third-pointed examples), these piers still retain much of the air of solid strength which belongs to the column, and which the French architects appear to have valued highly. In cases where a series of mouldings has to be carried—as for example when the main arcade of a building is richly moulded—English architects would usually have provided a distinct shaft for each little group (or as Willis named them order), into which the whole can be subdivided. In France, at any rate during the earlier periods, the whole series of mouldings would spring from the square unbroken abacus of a single large column, to which perhaps one shaft, or as in our illustration (Fig.36) four shafts, would be attached which would be carried up to the springing of the nave vault, at which point the same treatment would be repeated, though on a smaller scale, with the moulded ribs of that vault.

Fig. 36.—Piers and Superstructure, Rheims Cathedral. (1211-1240.)

A peculiarity of some districts of southern France is the suppression of the external buttress; the buttresses are in fact built within the church walls instead of outside, and masonry enough is added to make each into aseparating wall which divides side chapels. Some large churches,e.g., the cathedral at Alby, in Southern France, consist of a wide nave buttressed in this way, and having side chapels between the buttresses, but without side aisles.

The plans of the secular, military, and domestic buildings of France also present many interesting peculiarities, but not such as it is possible to review within the narrow limits of this chapter.

The peculiarly English feature of an open roof is hardly ever met with in any shape: yet though stone vaults are almost universal, they are rarely equal in scientific skill to the best of those in our own country. In transitional examples, many very singular instances of the expedients employed before the pointed vault was fully developed can be found. In some of the central and southern districts, domes, or at least domical vaults, were employed. (See the section of Fontevrault, Fig.31). The dome came in from Byzantium. It was introduced in Perigord, where the very curious and remarkable church of St. Front (begun early in the eleventh century) was built. This is to all intents a Byzantine church. It is an almost exact copy in plan and construction of St. Mark’s at Venice, a church designed and built by Eastern architects, and it is roofed by a series of domes, a peculiarity which is as distinctive of Byzantine (i.e., Eastern early Christian), as the vaulted roof is of Romanesque (or Western early Christian) architecture. Artists from Constantinople itself probably visited France, and from this centre a not inconsiderable influence extended itself in various directions, and led to the use of many Byzantine features both of design and ornament.

As features in the exterior of their buildings, the roofs have been in every period valued by the French architects; they are almost always steep, striking, and ornamented. All appropriate modes of giving prominence and adding ornament to a roof have been very fully developed in French Gothic architecture, and the roofs of semicircular and circular apses, staircase towers, &c., may be almost looked upon as typical.[23]

The treatment of openings gives occasion for one of the most strongly marked points of contrast between French and English Gothic architecture. With us the great windows are unquestionably the prominent features, but with the French the doors are most elaborated. This result is reached not so much by any lowering of the quality of the treatment bestowed upon the windows, but by the greatly increased importance given to doorways.

The great portals of Notre Dame at Paris (Fig.33), Rheims, or Amiens (Fig.35), and the grand porches of Chartres may be named as the finest examples, and are probably the most magnificent single features which Gothic Art produced in any age or any country; but in its degree the western portal of every great church is usually an object upon which the best resources of the architect have been freely lavished. The wall is built very thick so that enormous jambs, carrying a vast moulded arch, can be employed. The head of the door is filled with sculpture, which is also lavishly used in the sides and arch, and over the whole rises an ornamental gable, frequently profusely adorned with tracery andsculpture, its sides being richly decorated by crockets or similar ornaments, and crowned by a sculptured terminal or finial.

The windows in the earliest periods are simpler than in our E. E., as well as of less slender proportions. In the second and third periods they are full of rich tracery, and are made lofty and wide to receive the magnificent stained glass with which it was intended to fill them, and which many churches retain. Circular windows, sometimes called wheel-windows, often occupy the gables, and are many of them very fine compositions.

The mouldings of the French first pointed are usually larger than our own. Compared with ours they are also fewer, simpler, and designed to produce more breadth of effect. This may partly result from their originating in a sunshiny country where effects of shade are easily obtained. In the second and third periods they more nearly resemble those in use in England at the corresponding times.

The carving is very characteristic and very beautiful. In the transition and first pointed a cluster of stalks, ending in a tuft of foliage or flowers, is constantly employed, especially in capitals. The use of this in England is rare; and, on the other hand, foliage like E. E. conventional foliage is rare in France. In the second pointed, natural foliage is admirably rendered (Fig.37). In the third a somewhat conventional kind of foliage, very luxuriant in its apparent growth, is constantly met with.

This carving is at every stage accompanied by figure-sculpture of the finest character. Heads of animals, statues, groups of figures, and has reliefs are freely employed, butalways with the greatest judgment, so that their introduction adds richness to the very point in the whole composition where it is most needed. In every part of France, and in every period of Gothic architecture, good specimens of sculpture abound. Easily accessible illustrations will be found in the west entrance and south transept front of Rouen Cathedral, the porches and portals at Chartres, the choir inclosure of Notre Dame at Paris, and the richly sculptured inclosure of the choir of Amiens Cathedral.

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