Pilaster

“ Thus the simplest provision is a mere projecting pilaster, carrying the cross ribs, the wall itself taking the place of the lateral ones. This pilaster may be converted into a shaft or a double shaft, or the rib may be amplified by a central semi-roll moulding, and the whole carried by a triple shaft or other combinations, or a corbel substituted for the pilaster or group of shafts. Thus we have vaulting reduced to a principle which, however plain, is at once artistic and constructionally good, and is susceptible of all degrees of ornamentation. ”

“ The column expanded into the shaft, or into the huge pilaster rising unbanded from tier to tier; shaft and pilaster were associated in ordered groups, and the ideas of singleness and limited elevation once attached to them, swept away for ever; the stilted and variously centered arch existed already: the pure ogive followed—where first exhibited we stay not to inquire;—finally, and chief of all, the great mechanical discovery of the resistance of lateral pressure by the weight of the superimposed flanking pinnacle. ”

“ In the revival of Classic architecture, and especially in Italy, architects seem to have considered that no building was complete without a network of pilasters on every storey, and France and England followed their example, and not only externally but inside the great cathedrals and churches the pilaster is adopted as the simplest and best way of dividing the bays. ”

“ The Corinthian capital would be affected in the same way, and should also be not less than half a diameter in projection in order to obtain a satisfactory result.
The pilaster is usually tapered, and when associated with columns and supporting the same entablature it is essential to preserve universal alignment in the upper extremities and the architrave, but when used by itself the pilaster is often not tapered. At the angle of buildings, where both faces are displayed, it is an invariable rule that pilasters should be straight. ”

“ The lower storey 21 or 22 feet square, and 10 ft. 81⁄2 in. high, with semi-plain and slightly projecting pilasters or antæ at the angles, surmounted by Ionic capitals, one volute being on each face, from which spring two lotus-like flowers, one from above and the other from below. A plain fascia, surmounted by a few bold simple mouldings, forms a [222] cornice to the lower order, 1 ft. 9 in. high, or one-fifth the height of the pilaster; it runs in an unbroken line along the four faces of the tomb. A false window appears on three of the sides. ”

“ The eight side chapels alone are complete, and their pointed arches spring from Renaissance pilasters planted on black marble elephants, the Malatesta emblems, or on baskets of' fruit held by children. The surface of the pilasters is divided into compartments encrusted with bas-reliefs of various subjects and styles. Everywhere-on the balustrades closing the chapels, round the base of the pilasters, along the walls, beneath the cornice of both the exterior and the interior of the church-there is one ornament that is perpetually repeated, the interwoven initials of Sigismondo and Isotta. ”

“ There is no string-course, shelf, or set-off upon the face of the wall. The west-central pilaster, being pierced by the entrance,64 is mainly of ashlar, as are the pilaster and adjacent wall, about the north-east angle of the building, where the gate of the ward seems, from traces in the masonry, to have abutted. Here, too, the joints being very wide are made good with single or double rows of thin ordinary bright-red roofing tiles. The base of the east face was repaired about forty years ago, and now has a modern ashlar plinth of about 15 feet high. ”

“ FIFTH DIVISION. Before the fifth pilaster is a notable piece of sculpture found in the villa of Antoninus Pius—an erect figure of the youthful Bacchus clothed in the skin of a panther; and here also is a square altar ornamented with sphinxes in bas-relief, Apollo, Diana, and various religious symbols. A colossal toe attracts considerable attention in this division. ”

“ Advancing up the nave, you admire the beauty of the variegated marble under your feet, and the splendour of the golden vault overhead, the lofty Corinthian pilasters with their bold entablature, the intermediate niches with their statues, the arcades with the graceful figures that recline on the curves of their arches. But how great your astonishment when you reach the foot of the altar, and, standing in the centre of the church, contemplate the four superb vistas that open around you ”

“ The surface of a pier or pilaster may be enriched by any kind of fluting or chasing that does not materially diminish its substance, but to sink panels in such supporting members is to destroy in a measure the expression of homogeneous compactness. The classic details in this building show the same disregard for correct classic forms and proportions that we find in the art of the Renaissance generally. The superimposed pilasters on the angles are of uniform width, though they differ greatly in height, and those of the various openings are of still different proportions and sizes. ”

“ We find that the Italians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often hung their walls with upright strips of work, in the guise of pilasters. The walls were thus divided into panelled spaces, which separated pictures, statues, and cabinets, of which the style did not agree in juxtaposition. These pilasters were generally of “opus consutum,” or “appliqué” in its different forms. Above, next to the cornice, and below, next to the dado, or even touching the floor, they were connected by borders of similar work. ”

“ A complete construction of post and lintel, of pilaster and entablature, is supplemented by another construction of flying buttresses which are clearly superfluous and irrelevant, and which, instead of resisting the thrust of an arch, have the appearance of ineffectually “shoring up” a structure which, though complete, is unstable. ”

“ The Gothic arches which open on to the nave are covered with classic ornament. The spandrils are coloured green and are embossed with shields and a splendid floral design. The wall spaces between each chapel, as well as the west end, have a wonderful arrangement of very beautiful Corinthian pilasters that rest on a sculptured frieze with a blue ground on which are shields bearing the I and S. From this frieze depend floral festoons on bands of green and red, with medallions of coloured marble beneath. At the bases of the pilasters are figures holding shields. ”

“ The designer appears to have had not the slightest idea that arches and columns, pilasters and entablatures, have any meaning save as elements of abstract ornamental composition to be played about according to his fancy. The front (Plate V) is an upright rectangle, crowned with an entablature and a low pediment. A broad pilaster is set on each angle, and the space between is filled with a wide and deep recess having a splayed arch reaching to the entablature on splayed jambs. ”

“ The ornament on a pilaster must be symmetrically built with the strongest elements at the base and the lightest at the top. The best examples of this kind of decoration are Roman, Italian, and French Cinque-Cento work. The latter may be seen in the well-known pilasters of Louis XII. The artists of those times paid the same attention to pilaster decoration that the{94}
Fig. ”

“ In the great order Wren has departed from the scheme of St. Peter's in giving only one pilaster to each pier of the nave, though in the larger piers under the great dome he has set them in pairs. Under the archivolts of "the great arcade and under the aisle vaulting the smaller pilasters are coupled, while in St. Peter's they are single. ”

“ Usually the flat exterior faces are relieved by broad pilaster strips of slight projection from 5 feet to 10 feet wide, by 6 inches in depth, one at the end of and flanking each face, and in the larger keeps one, or even two, between them. The flanking pilasters are commonly placed so as to cover the angle, the two meeting; sometimes, however, they do not quite meet, and the solid angle is replaced by a hollow nook, occasionally, in late keeps, as at Castle Rising and Scarborough, occupied by a bold bead or engaged shaft. ”

“ At the sides there are broad pilasters below, with the usual lanky Doric pilasters above reaching to the main cornice, above which there now rises only an unfinished gable end. The inside is much more pleasing. The barrel vaults of the chapels are beautifully panelled and enriched with egg and tongue; between each, two pilasters rise only to the moulding from which the chapel arches spring, and support smaller pilasters with a niche between. In the spandrels of the arches are rather badly carved angels holding shields, and on the arches themselves, as at São Marcos, are cherubs' heads. ”

“ On the inside, the arches of the nave are pointed, almost the only circumstance retained of their original form. The piers are now ornamented with architraves and Corinthian pilasters; the former of which are cut up by a multitude of small mouldings, but each still retains the character of an architrave. The pilasters are divided in their heights, like towers of several stories, composed of a succession of distinct architectural compositions. We wonder to see the effects of so pure a taste without, combined with such puerilities within. ”

“ Q. Were there any buttresses used at this period?
Norman Buttress, Chancel of St. Mary's, Leicester.
A. Yes; but the walls being enormously thick, and requiring little additional support, those in use are like pilasters, with a broad face projecting very little from the building; and they seem to have been derived from the pilaster strips of stonework in Anglo-Saxon masonry. They are generally of a single stage only, but sometimes of more, and are not carried up higher than [65] the cornice, under which they often but not always finish with a slope. ”

“ The general design is a series of semicircular arches, alternately large and small, divided by pilasters with foliated capitals, and surmounted by a frieze and a turreted and battlemented cornice. The pilasters, divided like the whole design up to the frieze, are of three heights. The basement of the wainscoting, about one-eighth of its entire height, is plainly panelled, and devoid of all ornament. The second height, rising to more than a third of the whole, is of a much more decorated character. ”

“ As the Pilaster is used structurally in order to give support, so its treatment in interior decoration must conform to architectural requirements, and the decoration should be symmetrical on a central axis and vertical in direction.
When flutes are employed to decorate the pilasters, they should be unequal in number—seven being a favourite number. The flutes may be further decorated by cabling, though this should extend to only one-third of the height. The cabling can be elaborated into a series of husks which may arise from the base or be pendant from the top of the pilaster. ”

“ These pilasters are raised on pedestals forming ressauts to a podium, and some of the windows are grouped in pairs, some in double pairs, and some are single. In the taller part the windows are taller, and show considerable differences of design. One group, consisting of a double pair, has flanking pilasters reaching only to the impost, with a stilt-block rising from the capital of each to the crowning entablature, while Corinthian colonnettes, with strongly marked entasis, support the archivolts—both pilasters and shafts being raised on low pedestals. ”

“ The windows of the top story are flanked by very slender pilasters of equal height with those of the main order, and smaller pilasters carry the archivolts. The end windows of the central group and the inner ones of the lateral bays come close to the pilasters of the main order, thus giving on each side a group of pilasters of three different proportions and magnitudes, as in Figure 93. The front as a whole is good in its proportions, and quiet in effect. ”

“ From the outside we see two round-headed arches each supported by two pilasters, built of stones of no great size, which are laid in mortar, without rustic work, and form a perfectly smooth face, in strong contrast with the genuine ancient blocks in the lower parts of the walls on each side, and at each corner. ”

“ Ranges of pillars, or pilasters, compose the bulk of the ornamentation, both above and below the cornice. A strange if not very artistic and delicate decoration found elsewhere on this building, is the figure of a man standing on his hands with his legs spread apart. The lintels are of stone, and many of the doorways are of triple width, in which cases the lintel is supported by two rudely-formed columns, about six and a half-feet high, with square capitals, as shown in the following cut. ”

“ There is nothing like the huge, single, insulated column, or the clustered slim pilasters, that separate the nave from the side aisles of the Gothic churches of the early and middle ages.
"The principal altar between the nave and the choir is admired for its size and grandeur of effect, but it is certainly ill-placed; it is perhaps too ornamental, looking like a detached piece which does not harmonise with the surrounding objects. ”

“ This church is cruciform, and has barrel vaulting with interpenetrations for light, and a dome on pendentives over the crossing. The piers are heavy, with a single engaged column of the composite order, raised on a high pedestal, against each one, except at the crossing, where the columns are coupled with pilasters, while the wide archivolts rest on pairs of smaller pilasters of the Corinthian order, without pedestals (Fig. 53) . ”