Jump to content

Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/78

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
66
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.

unison with the rest of the building, and do not draw too much attention.

Fig. 14, according to this rule, is a very good chimney. It is graceful without being pretending, and its grotesqueness well suits the buildings round it—we wish we could give them; they are at Cordova.

Figs. 16 and 17 ought to be seen, as they would be in reality, rising brightly up against the deep blue heaven of the south, the azure gleaming through their hollows; unless perchance a slight breath of refined, pure, pale vapour finds its way from time to time out of them into the light air; their tiled caps casting deep shadows on their white surfaces, and their tout ensemble causing no interruption to the feelings excited by the Moresco arches and grotesque dwelling-houses with which they would be surrounded; they are sadly spoiled by being cut off at their bases.

Figs. 13, 19, and 20 are Italian. Fig. 13 has only been given because it is constantly met with among the more modern buildings of Italy. Figs. 19 and 20 are almost the only two varieties of chimneys which are to be found on the old Venetian palaces (whose style is to be traced partly to the Turk, and partly to the Moor). The curved lines of Fig. 19 harmonise admirably with those of the roof itself, and its diminutive size leaves the simplicity of form of the large building to which it belongs entirely uninterrupted and uninjured. Fig 20. is seen perpetually carrying the whiteness of the Venetian marble up