Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/497

 Bk. II. Oh. I. PROVENCE. 465 supporting pointed instead of round arches. At Aix there is another, similar to that at Aries, and fragments of such colonnades are found in many places. That of Fontifroide (Woodcut No. 325) is one of the most complete and perfect, and some of its capitals are treated with a freedom and boldness, and at the same time with an elegance, not often rivalled anywhere. They even excel — for the purpose at least — the German capitals of the same age. Those at Elne are more curious than those of any other cloister in France, so far as I know — some of them showing so distinct an imitation of Egyptian work as instantly to strike any one at all familiar with that style. Yet they are treated with a lightness and freedoni so wholly mediaeval as to show that it is possible to copy the spirit without a servile adlierence to the form. Here, as in all the examples, every capital is different — the artists revelling in freedom from restraint, and sparing neither time nor pains. We find in these examples a delicacy of handling and refinement of feeling far more characteristic of the South than of the ruder North, and must admit that their architects have in these cloisters produced objects with which nothing of the kind we have in England can coniijete. 320. 327 Capitals at Cloister, Elne. From Taylor and Kodier.) VOL. I.— 30