It Is Very Remarkable, But I Would Rather It
Were In Another Place.
Arles is delightfully pagan,
and Saint Trophimus, with its apostolic sculptures, is
rather a false note.
These sculptures are equally re-
markable for their primitive vigor and for the perfect
preservation in which they have come down to us.
The deep recess of a round-arched porch of the
twelfth century is covered with quaint figures, which
have not lost a nose or a finger. An angular, Byzan-
tine-looking Christ sits in a diamond-shaped frame at
the summit of the arch, surrounded by little angels,
by great apostles, by winged beasts, by a hundred
sacred symbols and grotesque ornaments. It is a
dense embroidery of sculpture, black with time, but as
uninjured as if it had been kept under glass. One
good mark for the French Revolution! Of the in-
terior of the church, which has a nave of the twelfth
century, and a choir three hundred years more recent,
I chiefly remember the odd feature that the Romanesque
aisles are so narrow that you literally - or almost -
squeeze through them. You do so with some eager-
ness, for your natural purpose is to pass out to the
cloister. This cloister, as distinguished and as per-
fect as the porch, has a great deal of charm. Its four
sides, which are not of the same period (the earliest
and best are of the twelfth century), have an elaborate
arcade, supported on delicate pairs of columns, the
capitals of which show an extraordinary variety of
device and ornament.
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