ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

46 FRANCE AQUITAINE [CH. xixLoches church of LOCHES in Touraine, which really consists ofNot realdomesSculpturenothing but four steeples in a row (Plate XCIX), with theaddition of an apse at one end and a porch at the other.The two extreme steeples are carried up like ordinarycampaniles,but the other two between them are vastoctagonal pyramids, hollow, without windows, dim andmysterious as one looks up from below into their darkcavernous recesses.All these last mentioned structures are not real domes,in common with the construction of thehaving nothingByzantine cupola on pendentives, or with the domes ofP&rigueux, Cahors, Solignac and Angoulme. In fact thepyramids at Loches according to M. Viollet-le-Duc arebuilt with horizontal beds like the Gothic spire, andconsequently have no thrust, being formed by a systemof corbelling. But all the same there can be little doubtthat they were inspired by Byzantine tradition, forthey belong to that side of France in which alone thetrue dome is found, and in which its appearance can betraced to the commercial connexion which we knowexisted between those provinces and Venice and theEastSculpture does not play so large a part in the churchesof Aquitaine as in those of Provence or Burgundy. Thecapitals at S. Front are remotely derived from Corinthianas is the case in all early work, but though the church isbuilt on Byzantine lines the carving is singularly freefrom Greek feeling and is based more on Roman types.Of figure sculpture in this province there is compara-Poitiers, tively little during the Romanesque period. At Poitiersof the church of Notre Dame has(Plate C) the fa9adefigure sculpture in the niches and spandrels, and the frontof Angoulme is still more elaborately covered with figure