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314 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION
in architecture of every kind, very constantly in Norman cornices and arches, as in fig. 2, Plate 4, at Sens.1
§ 9. The third, or convex chamfer, as it is the gentlest mode of treatment, so (as in medicine and morals) it is very generally the best. For while the two other methods produce two corners instead of one, this gentle chamfer does verily get rid of the corner altogether, and substitutes a soft curve in its place.
But it has, in the form above given, this grave disadvantage, that it looks as
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if the corner had been rubbed or worn off, blunted by time and weather, and in want of sharpening again. A great deal often depends, and in such a case as this everything depends, on the Voluntariness of the ornament. The work of time is beautiful on surfaces, but not on edges intended to be sharp. Even if we need them blunt, we should not like them blunt on compulsion; so, to show that the bluntness is our own ordaining, we will put a slight incised line to mark off the rounding, and show that it goes no farther than we choose. We shall thus have the section a, Fig. 53; and this mode of turning an
1 [The MS. here adds: “It is to these two conditions that the word Chamfer is specially applied.”]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
