COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2993, 28 January 1881, Page 3

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.

(From the Times, Oct, 15.) The proportions of this building seem rather mathematic than really resthetic. The towers —over 500 feet —are as high as the cathedral is long, which is not long enough either for internal orexter.-u' effect. The external height of the roof is about equal to the width of the transept —that is more than 230 ft. The internal height of the building is over 160 ft., which is twice the usual internal height of our first-class cathedrals, and 60ft. higher than the highest part of the interior of the Westminster Abbey. Yet, at Cologne, the width of tbe nave and choir, without the aisles, is very little ovsr 40ft., and in that immense interior there is positively no space clear of pillars larger than a square of 40ft. The extra width, therefore, is obtained by double aisles, and the result is a forest of tall pillars. Tourists with a quarter of an hour to utilise generally spend most of it in trying to see the roof, and make out some bosses of special beauty and interest; but the mere distance of that vaulting from the eye interferes with its effect as a vista, stretching before the spectator, as well as above him. But there are graver faults evenj than these, or even than the, dumpy and crowded effect of the exterior. Ingenious critics tell us that the legend has marvellously hit the character of the design, or rather that the design bears out the legend. It wants originality. It wants free, inventive, and creative grace. It is an Jendless repetition of the same identical forms —tho same pillars, the samo windows, the same niches, tho same'moulding3, the same pinnacles, the same ornamental features. When you have seen a part you have seen all—that is, so far as the I details are concerned. This seems to reduce the edifice to an enormous exaggeration and multiplication, a mere feat of ambitious arithmetic instead of a work of true art. These criticisms have been made, and they speak for themselves. It must be remembered that the variety desiderated is oftener the result of successive additions and alterations than of one original design. Such a design there was in this instance ; it, was left incomplete for ages, and therefore could not be added to ; it survived by centuries the disuse of Gothic architecture. Had there been successive additions, and had fresh architects been allowed to indulge in their own fancies, most (probably we should have had the cathedral plastered over with Palladian. In fine, we must take the cathedral as it is, and thank Heaven for it.