Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/496

 464 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Part II. Cloisters. Nearly all, and certainly all the more important churches of which we have been speaking, were collegiate, and in such establishments the cloister forms as imjiortant a j>art as the church itself, and fre- quently the more beautiful object of the two. In our own cold wet climate the cloisters lose much of their ajipropriateness ; still they always were used, and always with a i)leasin<r effect ; but in the warm sunny South their charm is increased ten- fold. The artists seem to have felt this, and to have devoted a large share of their attention to these objects — cre- ating in fact a new style of architecture for this special purpose. With us the arcades of a cloister are gener- ally, if not always a i-ange of unglazed ^vin- dows, presenting the same features as those of the church, which, though beautiful when filled with glass, are somewhat out of place without that indispen- sable adjunct. In the South the cloister is never a window, or any- thing in the least ap- proaching to it in de- sign, but a range of small and elegant ))illars, sometimes single, some- times coupled, generally alternately so, and supporting arches of light and elegant design, all the features being of a character suited to the place Avhere they are used, and to that only. The cloister at Aries has long occupied the attention of travellers and artists, and perha]>s no l)uilding, or part of one, in this style has been so often drawn or so much admired. Two sides of it are of the same age and in the same style as the porch (Woodcut No. 314), and equally beautiful. The other two are somewhat later, the columns 325. Cloister at Fontifroide. (From Tavlor ami Noiliei.)