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“The Lamp of Truth”

[boldface type added to make it easier to identify the passages where sections of the plate are discussed.]

[I]n the junction of the circles of the window of the Palazzo Foscari, Plate VIII., given accurately in fig. 8, Plate IV., the section across the line s, is exactly the same as that across any break of the separated moulding above, as s. It sometimes, however, happens, that two different mouldings meet each other. This was seldom permitted in the great periods, and, when it took place, was most awkwardly managed. Fig. 1, Plate IV., gives the junction of the mouldings of the gable and vertical, in the window of the spire of Salisbury. That of the gable is composed of a single, and that of the vertical, of a double cavetto, decorated with ball flowers; and the larger single moulding swallows up one of the double ones, and pushes forward among the smaller balls with the most blundering and clumsy simplicity. In comparing the sections it is to be observed that, in the upper one, the line a b represents an actual vertical in the plane of the window; while, in the lower one, the line e d represents the horizontal, in the plane of the window, indicated by the perspective line d e.

The very awkwardness with which such occurrences of difficulty are met by the earlier builder, marks his dislike of the system, and unwillingness to attract the eye to such arrangements. . . . he exhibition of technical dexterity in work of this kind, is often marvellous, the strangest possible shapes of sections being calculated to a hair's breadth, and the occurrence of the under and emergent forms being rendered, even in places where they are so slight that they can hardly be detected but by the touch. It is impossible to render a very elaborate example of this kind intelligible, without some fifty measured sections; but fig. 6, Plate IV., is a very interesting and simple one, from the west gate of Rouen. It is part of the base of one of the narrow piers between its principal niches. The square column k, having a base with the profile p r, is supposed to contain within itself another similar one, set diagonally, and lifted so far above the inclosing one, as that the recessed part of its profile p f shall fall behind the projecting part of the outer one. The angle of its upper portion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper inclosing shaft, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two vertical cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines the whole way up the shaft. Two small pilasters are run, like fastening stitches, through the junction, on the front of the shafts. The sections, n, taken respectively at the levels k, n, will explain the hypothetical construction of the whole. Fig. 7 is a base, or joint rather, (for passages of this form occur again and again, on the shafts of flamboyant work,) of one of the smallest piers of the pedestals which supported the lost statues of the porch ; its section below would be the same as n, and its construction after what has been said of the other base, will be at once perceived. . . . [pp. 94-96]

Fig. 2, Plate IV., is part of a flying buttress from the apse of St. Gervais at Falaise, in which the moulding whose section is rudely given above at f (taken vertically through the point f) is carried thrice through itself, in the cross-bar and two arches ; and the flat fillet is cut off sharp at the end of the cross-bar, for the mere pleasure of the truncation. Fig. 3 is half of the head of a door in the Stadthaus of Sursee, in which the shaded part of the section of the joint, gg, is that of the arch moulding, which is three times reduplicated, and six times intersected by itself, the ends being cut off when they became unmanageable. This style is, indeed, earlier exaggerated in Switzerland and Germany, owing to the imitation in stone of the dovetailing of wood. [p. 97]

[N]o principal stones are introduced in positions apparently impossible for them to retain, although a riddle here and there, in unimportant features, may some- times serve to draw the eye to the masonry, and make it interesting, as well as to give a delightful sense of a kind of necromantic power in the architect. There is a pretty one in the lintel of the lateral door of the cathedral of Prato (Plate IV. fig. 4); where the maintenance of the visibly separate stones, alternate marble and serpentine, cannot be understood until their cross-cutting is seen below. Each block is, of course, of the form given in fig. 5. [pp.70-71]

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. 2 June 2010.

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Last modified 6 June 2010