There are good things, too, in the centre of the town—the Flemish belfry in the Place Monge; ancient houses in the Rue de Lorraine; and especially a glimpse of a fifteenth century, pink-washed corner shop, topped by the graceful lantern of the Hospice de la Charité.
Here we are back at Notre Dame, one of the finest churches in Burgundy, but so hemmed in by other buildings that it is not seen to advantage, except from the west side, at a point in the street beyond the Colombier. There only do you get the whole building and the proportions of the tower in good perspective. The view from the east end, however, is presentable. The apsidal chapels, the ambulatory and lofty choir, leading the eye upward, stage by stage, to the glorious dome tiled in red, green, and yellow, give a quite Burgundian effect of satisfying solidity, and of colouring that, though, on the whole, rather cold, is harmonious in certain lights.
As usual, the heavy flying buttresses, that fail to fly, are an architectural defect.
The gem of the exterior is the early thirteenth-century, triple, open-aisled porch, of two bays, with gloriously carved panelled doors of the fifteenth century. For grace and harmony of proportion this porch is one of the best in France. It recalls that most successful of all façades, Peterborough Cathedral.
The interior has all the features of twelfth-century Burgundian romanesque—an almost barrel-vaulted nave, and aisle, with slightly stilted horseshoe arches, and quadripartite vaulting, groined, without ribs. Some of the cushion capitals are plain, some carved, and the vaulting shafts throughout, except in the transept, take the ordinary Burgundian form of fluted pilasters.
Each bay of the triforium is divided, as usual, into three round-headed arches—of which two are blind and the centre one pierced—with fluted, or zig-zagged pilasters between them. In the chapel of St. Léger are two quite interesting fifteenth century frescoes of the raising of Lazarus, and the stoning of Stephen—both, probably, by a painter of the Flemish school. The former picture, though mutilated and faded, is still quite realistic; too much so, in a sense; for the bystanders are so interested in the miracle that they have elbowed the Christ quite to one side of the picture. Martha is prominent, in the conventional attitude, with her handkerchief to her nose. "Jam Foetet."
PORCH OF EGLISE NOTRE DAME—BEAUNE
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