Such are the comedies invented by our new playwright, the genius of civil engineers. Still, the High Level Bridge at Newcastle looks well on a misty day; by moonlight it is more impressive than a Whistler nocturne; and in Brangwyn’s art it represents our industrial age with a vigour that is manly and impressive.
For the rest, from the pictures in this book you will be able to choose for yourself many a convention in the craft of bridge-building. Study, for example, the arches and their shapes, noting those which have a character of their own. These mark a new departure, and are famous. Thus the bridge at Avignon is admired by technicians because its architect, the great Saint Bénézet, gave to the arches what Professor Fleeming Jenkin has described as “an elliptical outline with the radius of curvature smaller at the crown than at the haunch, a form which accords more truly with the linear equilibrated arch than the modern flat ellipse with the largest radius at the crown.” Good Bénézet! Seven hundred and thirty years have gone by since he turned from the Roman tradition of semicircular arches, and designed an excellent arch of his own, a beautiful thing, with a look of triumph in its quiet dignity. Many writers think that L’arc de Saint Bénézet is original also in construction, its vault being composed of four separate bands put side by side in stones of about equal bulk. Sometimes this method of building is condemned as weak, though four of Bénézet’s arches have outlived seven centuries of war; and what engineer would feel disgraced if he were baffled by the terrific floods to which the Rhône is subject?
Moreover, Bénézet was not an originator in this matter; he borrowed from the Romans. In his time there was a bridge that carried the Via Domitiana over the Vidourle at Pont Ambroise; the vaults of its five arches were built in precisely the same manner, in four parallel arcs or bands that touched each other; and the bridge was notable for other reasons, and thus attractive to all bridge-builders. In the first place, a Bull of Pope Adrian IV, dated 1156, now treasured at Nîmes in the Church of Nôtre Dame, has proved that in the twelfth century a chapel was built either on or from the middle of the bridge; it was dedicated to St. Mary, and it belonged to the chapter of Nîmes Cathedral. A Roman bridge sanctified by a Christian chapel recalls to one’s mind the devotion of the Flavian family that placed the monogram of Christ among the ensigns of ancient Rome. Unless the chapel stood out on corbels from the side of the bridge, it must have been a tiny place of prayer, for the bridge was only three metres wide, while the Via Domitiana had an average width of six metres. Further, the roadway across the bridge was peculiar; it followed in gentle curves the contour of the arches, instead of being either flat (as in most Roman bridges) or with a slight incline at the abutment ends (as in the bridge of Augustus at Rimini).[22] We cannot suppose that this bridge, so noteworthy in several ways, was unknown to Bénézet, head of the Pontist Friars. Anyhow, the immense Pont du Gard, near Nîmes, a Roman masterpiece, must have been known to him; and the arches of its second tier have in the belly of each vault three parallel bands of equal-sized stones. If this method of construction be unsound, how are we to explain the heroic stability of the Pont du Gard, the finest of all the Roman aqueducts?
Myself, I do not believe that Bénézet was inexpert as a borrower. We shall meet him again ([p. 236]), but let us note here that his work is rhythmical and charming; so it does not belong to the underbred heaviness that bridge-builders often copied from the art of mediæval fortification. This art was an unthrifty engineer; it employed far and away too much blind masonry. Castle walls were ten feet thick, and brave soldiers at home feared the light of day, merely to show respect for arrows and machine-worked catapults. They were not discreet; they made caution too timid and too uncomfortable. Did gallant married knights forget to sleep in their suits of mail? Was a honeymoon in armour a trifle more tiresome than were twelfth-century castles with their arrow slits for windows? For many a year home life was an ill-smelling twilight, particularly to persons of rank; and from this we may infer that the custom of war during the Middle Ages went hand-in-hand with a superstitious dread of death. Bénézet needed courage as well as genius when he slighted in a graceful manner the ponderous conventions of safety that ruled in his day over castles (1177-1185). It was his arch that saved the vigour of his design from being dull and clumsy.
Some other arches in French bridges have provoked paper wars. This is true of those in the bridges at Albi and Espalion, chosen by Brangwyn partly because of their controversial interest, and partly because they illustrate a mood of handicraft which may be called the uncouth picturesque.
AN OLD TOWN BRIDGE IN PERUGIA, ITALY, TO ILLUSTRATE A POINTED ARCH WHICH HAS IN ITS CURVE A SORT OF LINGERING SENTIMENT FOR THE ROUND ARCH OF THE ROMANS
IV
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