Antiquities Of Westminster The Old Palace St Stephens Chapel PDF Download

Excerpt from Antiquities of Westminster, the Old Palace; St. Stephen's Chapel (Now the House of Commons) &C. &C: Containing Two Hundred and Forty-Six Engravings of Topographical Objects, of Which One Hundred and Twenty-Two No Longer Remain That the present work may not be thought one of these where beauty and importance have been sacrificed to the consideration of Antiquity, it may be necessary to point out on what grounds, and in what respects, the subjects here presented to View are entitled to the notice they now solicit and though it is not intended to anticipate that intelligence which it is the purpose of the ensuing pages to disclose, it is presumed enough may be said, in a very small compass, to convince the reader they merit attention. Of the antiquity of these subjects, which, on many such occasions as the present, is a point to be made out by a deduction Of circumstances, there cannot be any doubt, as they are decidedly known to be of the time of Edward III: and they consist of specimens of architectural ornaments, of most exquisite beauty in design and execution, paintings of more than com mon merit, especially considering the time when they were done; and frag ments Of painted glass, which, if inferior in point of drawing to the other paintings before mentioned, are at least valuable for the beauty and vivacity of their colours, a recommendation which has Often been known to succeed with those who were incapable of judging of any other. In stating, however, these claims to regard, it is not intended to assert that the human figure is here to be found represented with such correctness of drawing, and strict adherence to anatomical exactness and science, as was afterwards practised by those truly great men, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Annibal Caracci, Poussin, and others, because this would be to suppose an effect, when the only adequate cause which could have produced it, did not exist. The painters of the middle ages knew little of the form, and nothing of the mechanism, of the human body and limbs, and in those parts, therefore, they were always defective, but the faces were often drawn with great beauty and! Sweetness, and finished with the delicacy of miniatures, a circumstance much admired by many persons. These excel lences the paintings in question also possess in an eminent degree, together with the additional and singular advantage of being decided specimens of painting in oil above sixty-three years anterior to its supposed invention by John ab Eyck, in 1410, and considerably earlier than any instances known to be already published for invalidating his claim to the discovery, which has, with very great reason and success, been disputed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.