CHAPTER XXIII

THE EDGE AND FILLET

§ 1. THE decoration of the angle by various forms of chamfer and bead, as above described, is the quietest method we can employ; two quiet, when great energy is to be given to the moulding, and impossible, when, instead of a bold angle, we have to deal with a small projecting edge, like c in Fig. 51. In such cases we may employ a decoration, far ruder and easier in its simplest conditions than the bead, far more effective when not used in too great profusion; and of which the complete developments are the source of mouldings at once the most picturesque and most serviceable which the Gothic builders invented.

§ 2. The gunwales of the Venetian heavy barges being liable to some what rough collision with each other, and with the walls of the streets, are generally protected by a piece of timber, which projects in the form of a fillet a, Fig. 51; but which, like all other fillets, may, if we so choose, be considered as composed of two angles, or edges, which the natural and most wholesome love of the Venetian boatmen for ornament, otherwise strikingly evidenced by their painted sails and glittering flag-vanes, will not suffer to remain wholly undecorated. The rough service of these timbers, however, will not admit of rich ornament, and the boat-builder usually contents himself with cutting a series of notches in each edge, one series alternating with the other, as represented at 1, Plate 9.

§ 3. In that simple ornament, not as confined to Venetian boats, but as representative of a general human instinct to hack at an edge, demonstrated by all school-boys and all idle possessors of penknives or other cutting instruments on both

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]