But even for the first decoration of the archivolt itself, they were probably indebted to the Greeks in a degree I never apprehended, until by pure happy chance, a friend gave me the clue to it just as I was writing the last pages of this lecture.
In the generalization of ornament attempted in the first volume of the 'Stones of Venice,' I supposed the Norman zigzag (and with some practical truth) to be derived from the angular notches with which the blow of an axe can most easily decorate, or at least vary, the solid edge of a square fillet. My good friend, and supporter, and for some time back the single trustee of St. George's Guild, Mr. George Baker, having come to Oxford on Guild business, I happened to show him the photographs of the front of Iffley church, which had been collected for this lecture; and immediately afterwards, in taking him through the schools, stopped to show him the Athena of Ægina as one of the most important of the Greek examples lately obtained for us by Professor Richmond. The statue is (rightly) so placed that in looking up to it, the plait of hair across the forehead is seen in a steeply curved arch. "Why," says Mr. Baker, pointing to it, "there's the Norman arch of Iffley." Sure enough, there it exactly was: and a moment's reflection showed me how easily, and with what instinctive fitness, the Norman builders, looking to the Greeks as their absolute masters in sculpture, and recognizing also, during the Crusades,
