|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[M.153L] [M.153] St Marks. Atrium door 153
but as might have been expected, both the horizontal shoulders
gave way under the weight of wall: and the rest, seen in No
116, begins where the flower leaf upper moulding is broken away
behind the angels head; its course is then concealed by the tracery
but the tracery itself is of course broken in its weakest part, behind
the angels shortest wing - and so down under its hand coming out
in a flaky fracture above the stilt On the other side the same
fracture has taken place in the same points - but more destructively
- crushing the ornaments to pieces - they have been stuck in again
shapelessly, mixed with bits of the leaf plinth - and the new
portion of leaf moulding has been fitted in below the angel.
The entire mosaic of the tympanum has I suppose been added
for support; with the rose and leaf architrave, and the whole
further strengthened by a thick iron bar. The smaller
band of jointed masonry round the arch is in a dark lilac
brown spotted marble - facing merely, like the rest of the wall.
The leaf traceries which form the background to the figures
are deeply undercut, attached only here & there to the back in
the angle of the arch under the angels longer wing, the left hand
angels left wing, is a recess cut deep down behind the roll,
enough to put one’s hand into, of which I cannot conceive the
use. Fig 2 No 116 shows the mode in which the leaf
roll stops on the flat dark stone of the wall, & is changed above into
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Version 0.05: May 2008]