CH. III THE LAMP OF POWER 133

north door of Rouen,) it grows and pushes out as gradually as a budding plant:¹ sharp at first on the edge; but, becoming prominent, it receives a truncation, and becomes a definite fillet on the face of the roll. Not yet to be checked, it pushes forward until the roll itself becomes subordinate to it, and is finally lost in a slight swell upon its sides, while the concavities have all the time been deepening and enlarging behind it, until, from a succession of square or cylindrical masses, the whole moulding has become a series of concavities edged by delicate fillets, upon which, (sharp lines of light, observe,) the eye exclusively rests. While this has been taking place, a similar, though less total, change has affected the flowerwork itself. In Plate I., fig. 2 (a), I have given two from the transepts of Rouen. It will be observed how absolutely the eye rests on the forms of the leaves, and on the three berries in the angle, being in light exactly what the trefoil is in darkness. These mouldings nearly adhere to the stone; and are very slightly, though sharply, undercut. In process of time, the attention of the architect, instead of resting on the leaves, went to the stalks. These latter were elongated (b, from the south door of St. Lô;) and to exhibit them better, the deep concavity was cut behind, so as to throw them out in lines of light. The system was carried out into continually increasing intricacy, until, in the transepts of Beauvais, we have brackets and flamboyant traceries, composed of twigs without any leaves at all. This, however, is a partial, though a sufficiently characteristic, caprice, the leaf being never generally banished, and in the mouldings round those same doors, beautifully managed, but itself rendered liny by bold marking of its ribs and veins, and by turning up, and crisping its edges, large intermediate spaces being always left to be occupied by interwining stems, (c, from Caudebec). The trefoil of light formed by berries or acorns, though diminished in value, was never lost up to the last period of living Gothic.

§ 23. It is interesting to follow into its many ramifications,

¹ [For “a budding plant,” ed. 1 reads “a stag’s horns.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]