From, Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium, Including many which have been destroyed during the war. Reproductions in Colour and Monochrome from rare old Prints and Drawings, by and after Prout, Boys, Coney, W. Callow, David Roberts, C. Wild and others, with descriptive notes, by C. Harrison Townsend, F.R.I.B.A.; New York: The Hubbell Publishing Co., 1916; pp. 34-37.
ANTWERP : CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT
(G. Simonau)
N size, the Cathedrals of Belgium are at least equal to those of France, while none of the latter exceed the Cathedral of Antwerp as a gorgeous example of Gothic architecture. It is one of the most remarkable churches in Europe. Its seven aisles with their series of arches, and the play among them of light and shade and gloom, together with the great length — nearly 400 feet — of this fine building, give it great charm and dignity. Though much of its detail and carving is late and almost decadent in feeling, still, as a great writer says, “A man
36
must have very little feeling for the poetry of art who can stop to criticize it too closely.” As we have said, the old houses encumbering the lower portion of its exterior were in process of removal a couple of years ago. It is only too likely that, under German conditions, this work is, for the present, suspended.
A writer of to-day speaks of “the fairy-like structure of the Cathedral spire, with its flying buttresses, rising high above the expanse of the city in such strong contrast to the horizon fringed with poplar-trees — the characteristic feature of the Scheldt landscape” — and pictures it for us on that “awful night of the bombardment and fire, when its dainty masonry was silhouetted against the blazing sky under the black pall of smoke.”
Copyright © 2007 by Elfinspell