Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/612

 580 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Pakt II. produce a similar effect because these details are all — if the expression may be used — machine-made. The same forms and ornaments are repeated throughout, and too frequently borrowed from some other place Avithout any evidence of thought or fitness in their application, and consequently call u|i no responsive feeling in the mind of the spectator. On this side of the Alps, in the best age, e'ery moulding, every detail, exhibits an amount of thought combined with novelty, and is always so appropriate to the place or use to Avhich it is applied, that it never fails to produce the most pleasing effect, and to heighten to a great extent the beauty of the building in which it is found. The corbel, for instance, re])re- sented in Woodcut No. 433 is as much a niche for the statue as a bracket to support the ends of the ribs of the vaults, and is one of the thousand instances which are met with everywhere in Gothic art of that ha])py mixture of the arts of the mason, the carAcr, and the sculptor, which, when suc- cessfully combined, produce a true artistic effect. These combina- tions are so numerous and so varied that it w^ould be hopeless to attempt to classify them, or even to at- tempt to illustrate the varieties found in any single cathedral.' The same may be said of the capitals of the pillars, w hidi in all the best buildings vary Avith every shaft, and appear to have been executed, after the archi- tect had finished his labors, by artists of a very high class. In the best age, in France at least, as in the examples from Rheims, shown in 433. Corbel. (From Didron. " Annales Arch6ologiques.") Capitals from ICht'iiiis. ' M. Viollet Le Due's "' Dictionnaire d' Architecture " contains several hun- dred examples of these minor architect- ural details of French Mediteval archi- tecture. All are there drawn with skill, and engraved with exquisite taste. They form a wondoi'ful illustration of the ex- uherance of fancy and fertility of inven- tion of the French architects in those days. The limits of this work do not adnnt of more than a mere passin.i^ allu- sion to this most fascinating subject.