orkmen, and each differs from the
other and is a mass of light and shade shot with all sorts of uncouth
fancies. Wherever, for some constructive reason, a column is omitted
against a wall, the capital becomes a corbel, carrying the arches. In
many cases the corbels alone are used, and an arcaded corbel course
becomes the favorite termination of a wall in the place of a classic
entablature. Finally the arches are omitted, and the corbels alone
support the eaves.

It will be noticed that while the Byzantine decorated the interior of
the churches, the Romanesque builder merely constructed the interior and
wrought out the most of his design upon the facade. As a large arch was
to him for a long time a _tour de force_, he naturally beautified the
necessarily large entrance, and the beginning of the development of the
beautiful Gothic portals is seen in the early Romanesque churches.

The Romanesque is an architecture of inertia, with arches heavily
weighted by great masses of wall, and with broadly contrasting masses of
light and shade. It does not depend for its effect upon intellectual
quality beyond a rigorous sense of simplicity, or upon refinement of
conception or detail, but rather upon size, picturesque mass, and
staccato light and shade. The proportion of capital to column in
quantity of surface was very slight. The proportion of voussoirs to
arches naturally depended upon the size of the arch,--large voussoirs to
large arches, small voussoirs to small arches. Columns were only grouped
around piers and on either side of openings; and lastly, the natural
development of the column in Romanesque work was toward
attenuation,--the later and the better the work, the more slender became
the columns, until at last they were merged into the Gothic
multiple-columned piers. The carving upon the arch-mouldings is, to a
great extent, geometric, consisting of numerous facets cut in the stone,
lozenges, etc.; the so-called dogtooth moulding is a very favorite form
of decoration. All these carved mouldings were picked out in color,
usually in red and green. The acanthus in the Romanesque has lost much
of its vigor, is flat, heavy-tipped, round-edged, and scratched with
V-cuts, and the vine is the leaf preferred by designers. Frequently
masses of wall are cut in geometric diaper patterns, also touched with
color. Borders are not broad; and circular forms, except in the arches,
are seldom used. Romanesque was a barbaric art at the be