Arche

“ A series of architectural pillars, supporting gothic arches or miniature dormer windows, may be seen on the one hand, and at certain angles, odd and fantastic figures, some of them half human in appearance, present themselves, while here and there a block of stone appears like the unfinished work of the sculptor. ”

“ It is painful to mark the injuries effected by a few centuries on the richly sculptured arches of the Normans, the graceful mouldings of the early English architects, and the rich foliage of the decorated and later Gothic styles. ”

“ The pillars supporting the arches display an extraordinary richness of ornament, of the character of which some idea may be formed from the fragments given in our woodcuts: it consists of figures of men, animals, dragons, foliage gracefully arranged, elegant knotted work, and various kinds of tracery. ”

“ Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite porticoes and arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, as if this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there. ”

“ It makes a massive arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect as people pass under it to the open gardens of the Archeveche, which extend to a considerable distance in the rear of the church. The structure supporting the arch has the girth of a largeish house, and con- tains chambers with whose uses I am unacquainted, but to which the deep pulsations of the cathedral, the vibration of its mighty bells, and the roll of its organ- tones must be transmitted even through the great arm of stone. ”

“ The world, we know, was shut out by high walls and another world suggested by the broad arches and domes, and by the very blueing of the atmosphere which their great height enabled them to bring about. ”

“ It is rather a heavy weight to bear, but a solid arch spans over our heads. The great Architect has built it of the best materials; and never could man have given it so wide a stretch. What are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals, compared with this far reaching vault, with a radius of three leagues, beneath which a wide and tempest-tossed ocean may flow at its ease? ”

“ The number of arches in each tier is different; they are smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The preservation of the thing is extraordinary; nothing has crumbled or collapsed; every feature remains ”

“ And if to disengage the charm of space, Raphael and Perugino and Francia and even Mariotto Albertinelli make such noble use of the arch, was it not that its lovely limitation and definition of the landscape had from early Roman antiquity been revealed by Architecture? Arches and perspectives of arches, cloisters and colonnades, were weaving a rhythm of space round the artists in their daily walks. Where Nature was beautiful and Art was second Nature, the poets in paint were made as well as born. ”

“ Some critics see nothing more than the unequal size of these arcades, when the real point is to find the architectural centre, whence the composition radiates, majestic and imperious. The topmost arches and their crowning dignify the whole structure with a completeness akin to that which is given to a long range of columns by a fine entablature and cornice. ”

“ Here is a place called the "Garden," where you are surrounded by pinnacles, richly ornamented Gothic arches, flying buttresses, with representations of leaves, flowers, pomegranate heads, tracery, statuary, and ornaments in such prodigality as to fairly excite exclamation at the profuseness displayed. In every angle of the building the eye meets new and surprising beauties, magnificent galleries, graceful arcs, and carved parapets, pointed, needle-like pinnacles, Gothic arches, and clustered pillars. ”

“ Arches are constructions built of wedge-shaped blocks, which by reason of their shape give support one to another, and to the super-imposed weight, the resulting load being transmitted through the blocks to the abutments upon which the ends of the arch rest. An arch should be composed of such materials Arches.and designed of such dimensions as to enable it to retain its proper shape and resist the crushing strain imposed upon it. ”

“ Here the architects of the middle ages might have found studies for every form of the sacred art which sprang from the development of the pointed arch. A mile farther we had to bow our heads under corniced elliptic arches in the romanesque style ”

“ And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hills—that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,—how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow,—nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it—poised as a white bird hovers over its nest? Or those war clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire,—how is their barbed strength bridled? What bits are those they are champing with their vapourous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam? ”

“ One will hardly find another such example among all the ruins of antiquity. Yes, I never get tired of arches. They are noble when shaped of solid marble blocks, each carefully beveled for its position. ”

“ No altar or shrine or image: there is no god but God. No carving or lattice-work: but the simple pillars and arches, the few cupolas and domes, are yet the richest of ornamentation. No paint or gems—only the clear harmonious veining of the marble. Only space and proportion, form and whispers of colour—and it is so beautiful that you can hardly breathe for rapture. The radiant marble ripples from shade to shade—snow-white, pearl-white, ivory-white—till it seems half alive. The bells and pinnacles are so light that they seem to float in the air. ”

“ Pillars, ruined castles, triumphal arches, city gates, bridges, crosses, towers, all can be completed to the perfect satisfaction of a child, with the eight little cubes. They are all so many texts on which useful and pleasant talk can be established. ”

“ History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust? ”

“ Over this most have arches, which are often a quarter of an inch broad, drawn one above the other as high as their short ribs, and neatly worked on their edges with indentations, etc. These arches are their great pride: both men and women show them with great pleasure, whether as a mark of beauty, or a proof of their perseverance and resolution in bearing pain I cannot tell. ”

“ The earth was parched, the trees were sear'd,
And blasted every branch appear'd;
At one end yawned a gloomy cave,
Black, as its mouth were that of the grave;
And dark, as if the waters of death
Were in its depths, rose a well beneath. ”

“ A trefoiled arch on each face, supported upon clusters of shafts at the four angles, forms the design, the arches inclosed within a square301 projecting moulding, with their spandrels not carved but bearing marks of painting. The great beauty of the work is the exquisite foliage which is carved in such masses all round the arches and elsewhere as quite to take the place of mouldings. ”

“ Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautiful clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of decay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with a history in every stone that strews the ground. ”

“ The dim old ruins of Europe, so eagerly sought after by travelers, have something pleasing about them, whatever their historical associations; for they at least lend some beauty to the landscape. Their picturesque towers and arches seem to be kindly adopted by nature, and planted with wild flowers and wreathed with ivy; while their rugged angles are soothed and freshened and embossed with green mosses, fresh life and decay mingling in pleasing measures, and the whole vanishing softly like a ripe, tranquil day fading into night. ”

“ What must it have been when nave, and transept, and aisle were perfect, when the great windows were perfect glories of colored glass, the carvings fresh from the sculptor's chisel, and the chant of a hundred monks floated through the lofty arches! In those times when these holy men gave their hearts and hands to the extending and embellishing of those temples erected to the great Architect of the Universe, by that wonderful order of men, the Freemasons, and did it with an enthusiasm and taste which proved that they deemed a love of the beautiful not incompatible with the love of religion! ”

“ Resting upon a sort of lateral piers, here, sinking into elliptic arches, there, rising in ogive mouldings, losing itself in the dark bays, half seen in the shadow through the fantastic arches, ornamented by a profusion of projections which seemed like pendants, this vaulted roof afforded a picturesque blending of all the architectures—Byzantine, Roman, Gothic—that the hand of man has produced. ”

“ The arches of the woods, even at high noon, cast their sombre shadows on the spot, which the brilliant rays of the sun that struggled through the leaves contributed to mellow, and, if such an expression can be used, to illuminate. It was probably from a similar scene that the mind of man first got its idea of the effects of gothic tracery and churchly hues, this temple of nature producing some such effect, so far as light and shadow were concerned, as the well-known offspring of human invention. ”

“ The whole arch is a rich blue, fading at the horizon to a thin, pale transparency. The landscape is painted with a few washes of fresh primary colors, each one deep, but limpid, like the tints in the heart of a gem. ”

“ But Nature had an admirable way of taking down these rock giants hanging between the heavens and the earth. Arch after arch was at length made in wondrous grandeur from that rugged and distorted atmospheric land; and if ever man's eye rested upon the sublime, in an act of God's creative power, it was when He arcuated the heavens with such a line of stupendous mountains! ”

“ The Atlantic States were all rivals of each other, reaching out by one bold stroke after another across forest, mountain, and river to the gigantic and fruitful West. Step after step the inevitable conquest went on. Foremost in time marched the sturdy pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces quietly biding their time in the rear—the Conestogas, the steamboat, the canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. ”

“ From this lovely picture of nature, we turn to gaze on the countless objects of beauty and splendor, the productions of the highest efforts of human genius, which constitute the exterior decorations of this extraordinary temple. Before us stood a forest of towers one hundred and thirty-six in number, each adorned with twenty- five marble figures, life size, and thousands of ornamental objects in white marble, imparting to the scene richness, beauty and grandeur. ”

“ The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones. ”

“ If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven! ”

“ Nothing in Nature ever moved me more than the first view of that magnificent arch. With something of the proportions of a cathedral roof it rises above you in massive grandeur, showing beyond, through the opening, a line of sky, and then another cavern-like arch. ”

“ A rock, a wood, or a valley, however the scenery may be diversified, always conveys a perfect and distinct image to the mind; but a temple, an altar, a palace, or a pavilion, requires a detail, minute even to tediousness, and which, after all, gives but an imperfect notion of the object. ”

“ They came like the pestilence that walks in darkness, unexpected and unseen. They had marched along the buffalo traces or stolen through the forests without having given to any one any notice of their intention. ”

“ The graceful lines of arch and pillar, the low, broad sweep of roof and corridor, the delicate, yellowish-white of the adobe outlined against a sky of royal blue, stir the sleeping sense of beauty in our hearts and make us pause to worship at such favoured shrines. ”

“ On the great steeple—surmounting the myriad of spires—inside of the spires—over the doors, the windows—in nooks and corners—every where that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself! ”

“ Passing in at the portal, the spectator is amazed at the vast mass of elegant columns of marble, porphyry, verd antique, agate, and other elegant stone, superb mosaics, gilding and ornament in profusion that meet his view on every side. ”

“ Each arch is a mighty leap of architectural achievement,—golden stars, shining down on glowing arabesque; hangings of embroidered work, in which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass and the whiteness of the sea foam ”

“ In short, architecture is here a living art. Go where you will in these up-town regions, you can see imagination and cultured intelligence in the act, as it were, of impressing beauty of proportion and detail upon brick and terra-cotta, granite and marble. ”

“ At one end rises a rock crowned with houses; on one side are a few mean edifices, mingled with masses of tottering ruins; on the other a hill formed altogether of crumbled atoms of bricks, mortar, and precious marbles. ”