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ART 495
were happier in the decorative work of capitals and voussoirs,
in the small trellised scenes of the outside of the Malmesbury
porch or in the subtle variations of the simple foliage capitals
that were the only ornaments tolerated by the strict Cistercian
houses. A curious trend is noticeable in decorative art: the
elaborate intertwinings, inhabited scrolls, and beakheads ofthe
Reading school give way to a severely geometric, regular pat'
tern, the finest example ofwhich is perhaps Hugh du Puiset's
doorway in the castle ofDurham; this in turn is replaced by the
new classicism, the magnificent acanthus capitals ofthe rebuilt
choir at Canterbury, the freely curving foliage of Wells, inter'
spersed with a three^petalled leaf that has a new naturalism of
growth.
To contemporaries, however, if we may judge from the
comments of the chroniclers, art meant above all the shining
splendour of metal work, inlaid with enamels and jewels, the
great candlesticks, the carved altars and shrines, that gleamed
in the great cathedrals and were singularly adapted to their ill/lit
mysteriousness. Nitens, 'gleaming*, is the characteristic word;
but all this admired output is hardly known to us, save for
small models such as the Gloucester candlestick (Victoria and
Albert Museum) (PL 97 &), or enamel plaques, mainly dex
tached from the object they originally decorated. This love of
sparkle and brilliance can, however, still be appreciated by us
in one medium, that of stained glass, and in particular at
Canterbury where there remains much late twelfth'century
glass, displaced, restored, but sufficiently preserved to show its
great beauty, the final flowering of our Romanesque style; and
in the cathedral's later windows we can follow the develop'
ment, in the panes of the miracles of Becket, of the new
Gothic mannerisms.
For the classic phase of transition is not truly Gothic in its
figural representation; rather was it striving after a sense of
which was soon to find itself at variance
weight and dignity
with the narrow, pointed,
crocketed tabernacles of Gothic art.
These, whether the decoration was drawn or carved, demanded
lightness and elegance rather than substance and gravity. In
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