DECORATION XX. MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT 257

they have purpose of this kind, they are of course perfectly right; but they are then part of the building’s conversation,¹ not conducive to its beauty. The French have managed, with great dexterity, the representation of the machinery for the elevation of their Luxor obelisk,² now sculptured on its base.

§ 7. (2.) Drapery. I have already spoken of the error of introducing drapery, as such, for ornament, in the Seven Lamps.³ I may here note a curious instance of the abuse in the church of the Jesuiti at Venice (Renaissance). On first entering you suppose that the church, being in a poor quarter of the city, has been somewhat meanly decorated by heavy green and white curtains of an ordinary upholsterer’s pattern: on looking closer they are discovered to be of marble, with the green pattern inlaid. Another remarkable instance is in a piece of not altogether unworthy architecture at Paris (Rue Rivoli),⁴ where the columns are supposed to be decorated by images of handkerchiefs tied in a stout knot round the middle of them. This shrewd invention bids fair to become a new order. Multitudes of massy curtains and various upholstery, more or less in imitation of that of the drawing-room, are carved and gilt, in wood or stone, about the altars and other theatrical portions of Romanist churches; but from these coarse and senseless vulgarities we may well turn, in all haste, to note, with respect as well as regret, one of the errors of the great school of Niccolo Pisano,-an error so full of feeling as to be sometimes all but redeemed, and altogether forgiven,-the sculpture, namely, of curtains around the recumbent statues upon tombs, curtains which angels are represented as withdrawing, to gaze upon the faces of those who are at rest. For some time the idea was simply and slightly expressed, and though there was always a painfulness in finding the shafts of stone, which were felt

¹ [See above, ch. ii. § 1, p. 60.]

² [Presented to Louis Philippe by Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, in 1831; erected in the Place de la Concorde in 1836.]

³ [Ch. iv. § 11, Vol. VIII. p. 150.]

⁴ [The Rue de Rivoli was constructed at various times between 1802 and 1865.]

IX. R

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