Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/327

 AND AFTER-GOTHIC STYLES IN GERMANY. 229 connected with the central mass, and combine with it in forming a crown of pinnacles, out of which the open work spire rises. The western towers of Cologne have no portion of blank wall in the lower part as the tower of Freiburg has ; but imme- diately from the ground they are resolved into a frame-work of several orders (buttresses, shafts, window sides, &c.), which frame-work is constructed with reference to the whole tower and spire. It appears to me that, in this respect, Cologne would have oained somethino; if the towers had somewhat more resembled Freiburg, and had had solid and plain portions in their lower jDarts. It appears to be a general rule with regard to the ornamentation of buildings, and especially of Gothic buildings, that the more elaborate and complicated ornaments should appear in the upper part ; the lower part appearing more in the nature of a support to the upper structure, or a bed, out of which its growths spring ; and this rule is recognised in the rest of the cathedral at Cologne, for the lower parts of the buttresses in the rest of the building are plain, and form a strong contrast with the copious paneling and tabernacling above. And another inconvenience results from thus continuing the whole of the decorative frame-work of the tower down to the ground. The parts of this frame- work are, of course, on a very great scale, having reference to the whole spire, in which each side of the octagon forms a single tracery window, as at Freiburg ; and the ^indows and masses of buttress which appear in the first upper story of the tower are grand from their size and connection. But the portal below this, which is inserted between the buttresses, as a sort of independent structure, with its own arch and triangular canopy, seems to be constructed on a smaller scale, and to have no organic connection with the whole : an incongruity which would disappear if the portal were an opening in a mass of masonry in which the frame- work which is to be developed in the upper part has not yet shown itself In the great church at Ulm, in St. Stephen's at Vienna, in the cathedral at Strasburg, and in that of Frankfort, we have the transition from the square to the octagon managed in a way somewhat similar, but with great variety in the different cases. The artists of the Middle Ages did not copy one example from another ; but having, in this idea of a