Identifier: byzantineromanes131jack (find matches)
Title: Byzantine and Romanesque architecture
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Jackson, Thomas Graham, Sir, 1835-1924
Subjects: Architecture, Byzantine Architecture, Romanesque
Publisher: Cambridge (Eng.) University press
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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er part is covered with plaster or dis-temper, which is coloured like gold and has patternspainted on it probably often, if not generally, reproducingthe mosaic pattern behind. The six winged seraphs inthe pendentives of the dome are left uncovered, but theirfaces are either concealed or picked out and replaced bya pattern in plain gold.The A very happy effect is produced by varying^ the colonnades , ^^ ,^^-^ , i • i r numbers of columns and arches m the two storeys otthe screens that fill the north and south arches of thecentral square (Plate XIV). There are four greatcolumns on the ground, carrying five arches, and sixsmaller columns above with seven arches. This featurein the design has the true artistic touch. The samevariety occurs in the exedrae, where two columns inthe lower storey carry six in that over it. The least satisfactory part of the design is the greatlunette wall that rests on the upper arcade in the northand south arches of the dome. These arches, as has Plate XIV
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S. SOPHIA—CONSTANTINOPLE CH. vi) S. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 99 been explained above, are in fact barrel vaults with asoffit of over 15 ft. The lunette wall is three feet thick,and contains 12 small round-headed windows. Mosaicdecoration may have relieved the baldness of this com-position to some extent, but it can never have beenentirely pleasing. It has been suggested on the strengthof a passage in Agathias that originally the closing wallwas flush with the outside of the 15 foot vault, somewhatas it is at S. Irene, and rested on the inner range ofcolumns in the gallery, so that the 12 foot soffit wouldhave been inside the church instead of outside. Thisview has much to commend it, but as half the weight ofthis great wall would have been taken by the two marblecolumns of the inner arcade on ground and gallery floors,I doubt whether it would have been practicable, evenhad the lunette been relieved by so great a window asthat at the west end\ The sculpture of the capitals is remarkabl

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