medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
> The capitals _were_ chiselled down. In 1837 large parts of the upper
church were stuccoed and then marbelized (painted so as to resemble
variegated marbles).
something similar was done to the choir of Chartres in the 18th c., masking
the main arcade up to the bottom of the triforium level (as i mentioned
earlier) so that we can't tell whether or not the columns of the m.a. have
smaller attached colonettes like the ones we see at Soissons.
"sanitizing classicism" one might call it.
1837 is a bit late for such a phenomenon, it seems to me --but a taste for the
medieval and "gothic" in particular was building in England (and, later,
France) from the later 18th c.; apparently it didn't catch on in Italy.
of course, the Neo-Classical (Renaissance, Baroque, Rococco, etc.) tradition
in Italy is so much richer in Italy than it is in France, where it is almost
always the manifestation of a stunningly sterile gout.
>In the course of this labor all the capitals of the double columns were
scraped down in order to receive overlays of stucco that were then molded to
appear as Corinthian capitals.
of course.
>These false elegances were removed during a later stage of the restoration of
1950-60.
leaving us with the worst of both worlds : nothing medieval, nothing from the
1830s.
> The only small consolation in all this is that these capitals were not
the originals but instead were baroque "copies" installed in 1637.
well, that's pretty amazing, if it is a question of baroque "copies" of
medieval capitals.
never heard tell of suchlike a thing.
the impost block in one of those .jpgs did look relatively "pure" in its
classicism.
c
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