Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/93

Rh Bk. VI. Ch. Y. south C4ERMANY. 77 disagreeable effect, but when filled with painted glass the case must have been different, and the effect of this immense screen of Ijrilliant colors must have been most beautiful. A better example of tliis arrangement is found in the cathedral at Metz, where, from its proximity to France, the whole style was better understood, and the details are consequently more perfect. Externally, it must be confessed, the immense lieight of the clerestory gives to the church a wire-drawn appearance, very destructive of architectiiral beauty ; but internally, partly from the effect of perspective and jiartly from the brilliancy of such glass as remains, criticism is disarmed. The result, however contrary to the rules of art, is most fascinating; and at all events, though an error, it is in a far more pleasing direction than that of the southern architects. These may perhaps be considered the great and typical examples of the pointed style as applied to church architecture in Germany ; but besides these there are numerous examples scattered all over the country, many of which, as being less directly under French influence, display an originality of design, and sometimes a beauty, not to be found in the larger examples. Among these is the church at Limburg on the Lahn. This build- ing belongs to the early part of the 13th century, and exhibits the transitional style in its greatest purity, and with less admixture of foreign taste than is to be found in almost any subsequent examples. Though measuring only about 180 ft. by 75, it has, from its crown of towers and general design, a more imposing appearance externally than many buildings of far larger dimensions. The interior is also singularly impressive. The church of St. Emeran at Ratisbon, a square building of al)out the same age and style, is chiefly remarkable for the extensive series of galleries which surround the whole of the interior, being in fact the application of the system of double chapels (see p. 32) to a parish cliurch ; not that vaulted galleries are at all rare in Germany, but that generally speaking they are insertions ; though here they seem part of the original design. At Schulporta in Saxony there is a very elegant church of the best age, and both in design and detail very different from anything else in Germany. Its immense relative length gives it a jjerspective rarely found in this country, where squareness is a much more com- mon characteristic. At Oppenheim is a church the choir of which is a simple and pleasing German apse with elongated windows. The nave, four bays in length, is an elaborate specimen of German ornamentation in its utmost extravagance, and, considering its age, in singularly bad taste, at least the lower part. The clerestory is unobjectionable, but the tracery of the windows and walls of the side-aisles shows how ingeni-