Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/607

 Bk. II. Ch. X. BUTTRESSES. 575 instance, constituting an object of great beauty. The abuse of this ex])edient, as in the cathedral at Cologne and elsewhere, went very far to mar the proper effect. The cathedral at Chartres presents a singular but very beautiful instance of an earlier form of flying buttress ; there the immense span of the central vault put the architects on their mettle to provide a sufficient abutment, and they did it by building what was literally an open wall across the aisle (see Woodcut Xo. 394), strongly arched, and the arches connected by short, strong pillars radiating with the voussoirs of the arch. Xothing could well be stronger and more scientific than this, but the absence of perpendicularity in the })illars was unpleasing to the eye then as now, and the contrivance was never repeated. A far more pleasing form was that adopted afterwards at Amiens (Woodcut Xo. 430) and elsewhere, where a series of small traceried arches stand on the lower flying buttress, and support the upper, which is straight-lined. Even here, however, the difliculty is not quite got over; the unequal height of these connecting arches, and the awkward angle which the lower supports make Avith the curvilinear form on which they rest, deprive them of that constructive propriety which alone secures a perfectly satisfactory result in architect- ure. The problem, indeed, is one which the French never thor- oughly solved, though they bestowed immense pains upon it. Brilliant as the effect sometimes is of the immense mass of pin- nacles and flying buttresses, they are seldom so put together as to leave an entirely satisfactory result on the mind of the spectator. Taken all in all, perhaps the most pleasing example is that of Rlieims (Woodcut No. 395) — those on each side of the nave especially — where two bold simple arches transmit the pressure from a bold exquisitely pinnacled buttress to the sides of the clerestory, and in such a manner as to leave no doubt whatever either as to their purpose or their sufficiency to accomplish their object. Notwithstanding the beauty which the French attained in their flying buttresses, it is still a question whether they did not carry this feature too far. It must be confessed that there is a tendency in the 430. Flying Buttress at Amiens. (From Chapuy.)