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                                                                      	                  L’ORANGE  ROMAN ARCH
                                                                      
                                                                          Arch at L’Orange:  It has a rich basrelief of a battle on both
                                                                      sides at the top, for finer than I supposed Romans could do[;]
                                                                      no ideal form nor much grace but thorough hard fighting,
                                                                       rich confusion of forms;  and vigorous ornamental arrange-
                                                                      ment of them;  Below this an[h]d above the main arch story
                                                                      runs round a narrow frieze of which only a fragment is
                                                                      left, on the south side, in which from the peculiar small-
                                                                      ness yet distinctness of the figures, I first observed
                                                                       what I found presently to be a characteristic of the
                                                                      nas reliefs throughout every figure is traced by an
                                                                       outline formed by a sharp incision, exactly correspondent
                                                                      to one of Prouts hard block outlines;  At a great height,
                                                                      when the figures are in low relief, it is impossible too
                                                                      much to admire the clearness and sharpness of effect given
                                                                      by this device.  The figures on the small frize  are all
                                                                      single, in various actions of effort.  Below them,
                                                                      above the lower arches is a mass of noble trophy
                                                                      ornamentation, most picturesquely and deepl[,]y[l] cut
                                                                      chiefly ship’s heads and armour;  the latter covered with
                                                                      ornamentation, not as in the side cenque cento, in raised
                                                                      relief, but all simply drawn by lines of sharp incision
                                                                      on the surface.  It is Proutism of the purest kind so
                                                                       much so that I think Prout is in art precisely  the  re-
                                                                      presentative of Romanism in architecture.  No one so fit
                                                                      to draw Roman Ruins, consider if I get Treves Temple of
                                                                      Pallas, etc.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]