Ornaments from Rouen, St, Lô, and Venice, drawn by John Ruskin

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Ornaments from Rouen, St. Lô, and Venice

John Ruskin

R. P. Cuff, engraver

1855

6 7/8 x 4 5.32 inches

Plate I, Figure 2, The Seven Lamps of Architecture in Works, 8.16

(a) Flower work from the transepts of Rouen (pp. 133, 173)

(b) Flower work from the South door of St. Lô (p. 133)

Photograph (2010) of carving

Scanned image and text by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL]

From “The Lamp of Power”

[I] In Plate I., fig. 2 (a), I have given two from the transepts of Rouen. It will be observed how absolutely the eye rests on the forms of the leaves, and on the three berries in the angle, being in light exactly what the trefoil is in darkness. These mouldings nearly adhere to the stone ; and are very slightly, though sharply, undercut. In process of time, the attention of the architect, instead of resting on the leaves, went to the stalks. These latter were elongated (6, from the south door of St. L6 ;) and to exhibit them better, the deep concavity was cut behind, so as to throw them out in lines of light. The system was carried out into continually increasing intricacy, until, in the transepts of Beauvais, we have brackets and flamboyant traceries, com- posed of twigs without any leaves at all. This, however, is a partial, though a sufficiently characteristic, caprice, the leaf being never generally banished, and in the mouldings round those same doors, beautifully managed, but itself rendered liny by bold marking of its ribs and veins, and by turning up, and crisping its edges, large intermediate spaces being always left to be occupied by intertwining stems, (c, from Caudebec). The trefoil of light formed by berries or acorns, though diminished in value, was never lost up to the last period of living Gothic. [p. 133]

[II] This moulding is on the lateral buttress, and on a level with the top of the north gate: it cannot therefore be closely seen except from the wooden stairs of the belfry; it is not intended to be so seen, but calculated for a distance of, at least, forty to fifty feet from the eye. In the vault of the gate itself, half as near again, there are three rows of mouldings, as I think, by the same designer, at all events part of the same plan. One of them is given in Plate I., fig. 2a. It will be seen that the abstraction is here infinitely less; the ivy leaves have stalks and associated fruit, and a rib for each lobe, and are so far undercut as to detach their forms from the stone; while in the vine-leaf moulding above, of the same period, from the south gate, serration appears added to other purely imitative characters. Finally, in the animals which form the ornaments of the portion of the gate which is close to the eye, abstraction nearly vanishes into perfect sculpture. [p. 173]

Bibliography

Ruskin, John. Works, "The Library Edition." eds. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 39 vols. London: George Allen, 1903-1912.

Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture in Works, vol. 8. Hathi Trust Digital Library. Web. 6 June 2010.

Last modified 2 June 2010