Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/626

 594 BELGIAN ARCHITECTURE. Pakt II but less ornate than these generally were. At one angle of it are two spires, represented in Woodcut iSTo. 443 ; the more slender of these would not excite remark if found in Cairo or Ale^jpo, so exactly does it take the Eastern form ; the other, on the contrary, seems to belong to the 16th or 17th cen- tury: it is only one, however, of the numerous instances that go to pi-ove how completely it returned, at the period called the Renaissance, to the point from which it started some four or five cen- turies earlier. It returned with something- more of purity of detail and better con- struction, but unfortunately without that propriety of design and grandeur of con- ception which mark even the rude build- inofs of the lienaissance of Gothic art. Belgium is rich in small specimens of transitional architecture, and few of lier more extensive ecclesiastical establish- 443. 's^TTTtiTe Chapel of St. Sang, ments are without some features of this (From a ske^rby'the Author.) class, often of great beauty. Their age has not vet, however, been determined with anything like precision by the Belgian antiquaries ; but, on the whole, it seems that in this, as in most other respects, this country followed the German much more closely than the Frencli type, hesitating long before it adopted the pointed arch, and cling- ing to circular forms long after it had been employed elsewhere, oscillating between the two in a manner very puzzling, and rendering more care necessary in determining dates than in most other parts of Europe. Be- sides this, none of the Belgian build- ings have yet been edited in such a manner as to afford materials for the establishment of any certain rule. Perhaps the most interesting specimen ___ of the transitional period, and cer- 4«. Window in Church at ViUers, near tainlv One of the most beautiful ruins (From a Sketch by the Author.) -^ i^q country, IS the abbey cliurch of Villers, near Genappe, a building 388 ft. in lengtli by 67 in width, built with all the purity of what we would call the early English style, but with a degree of experimental im])erfection in the tracery of which I hardly know an example elsewhere. The re])resentation