The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3)

by John Ruskin

Fig. LIII.

But it has, in the form above given, this grave disadvantage, that it looks as 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 needed 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. LIII.]; and this mode of turning an angle is one of the very best ever invented. By enlarging and deepening the incision, we get in succession the forms b, c, d; and by describing a small equal arc on each of the sloping lines of these figures, we get e, f, g, h.

§ X. I do not know whether these mouldings are called by architects chamfers or beads; but I think bead a bad word for a continuous moulding, and the proper sense of the word chamfer is fixed by Spenser as descriptive not merely of truncation, but of trench or furrow:—

“Tho gin you, fond flies, the cold to scorn, And, crowing in pipes made of green corn, You thinken to be lords of the year; But eft when ye count you freed from fear, Comes the breme winter with chamfred brows, Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows.”

So I shall call the above mouldings beaded chamfers, when there is any chance of confusion with the plain chamfer, a, or b, of [Fig. LII.]: and when there is no such chance, I shall use the word chamfer only.

§ XI. Of those above given, b is the constant chamfer of Venice, and a of Verona: a being the grandest and best, and having a peculiar precision and quaintness of effect about it. I found it twice in Venice, used on the sharp angle, as at a and b, [Fig. LIV.], a being from the angle of a house on the Rio San Zulian, and b from the windows of the church of San Stefano.

Fig. LIV.

§ XII. There is, however, evidently another variety of the chamfers, f and g, [Fig. LIII.], formed by an unbroken curve instead of two curves, as c, [Fig. LIV.]; and when this, or the chamfer d, [Fig. LIII.], is large, it is impossible to say whether they have been devised from the incised angle, or from small shafts set in a nook, as at e, [Fig. LIV.], or in the hollow of the curved chamfer, as d, [Fig. LIV.] In general, however, the shallow chamfers, a, b, e, and f, [Fig. LIII.], are peculiar to southern work; and may be assumed to have been derived from the incised angle, while the deep chamfers, c, d, g, h, are characteristic of northern work, and may be partly derived or imitated from the angle shaft; while, with the usual extravagance of the northern architects, they are cut deeper and deeper until we arrive at the condition f, [Fig. LIV.], which is the favorite chamfer at Bourges and Bayeux, and in other good French work.

I have placed in the Appendix[73] a figure belonging to this subject, but which cannot interest the general reader, showing the number of possible chamfers with a roll moulding of given size.

§ XIII. If we take the plain chamfer, b, of [Fig. LII.], on a large scale, as at a, [Fig. LV.], and bead both its edges, cutting away the parts there shaded, we shall have a form much used in richly decorated Gothic, both in England and Italy. It might be more simply described as the chamfer a of [Fig. LII.], with an incision on each edge; but the part here shaded is often worked into ornamental forms, not being entirely cut away.