如果你喜歡剪貼,可以試著找出另外兩座著名大教堂的圖片。一座是彼得伯勒大教堂,正門上面有一排排大而尖的拱道——與屋頂差不多高。另一座是威爾士大教堂。它在雙翼交叉口的上方有一座著名的塔,我確信小朋友們一定會喜歡的。如果你沒有剪貼簿,為什么不試著做一本呢?如果你仔細(xì)搜尋可以貼到剪貼簿上的畫,會發(fā)現(xiàn)這非常有趣。你可以把它當(dāng)做一個游戲來看待,看看為你的剪貼簿找到八種不同的英國大教堂需要多長時間。你可以在雜志上、鐵路海報上,以及輪船的分類圖片上尋找。然后,等你哪一天有機會去英國,再看到圖片上的大教堂時,你會像看到老朋友一樣親切。
76 HERE AND THERE歐洲各地
I KNEW a man who spent one summer going on a bicycle from one place in Europe to another, seeing the sights. He was a young American architect and he wanted to see as many famous Gothic buildings as he could and get some exercise at the same time. He traveled eleven hundred miles on his bicycle. But when the summer was almost over he found there were certain buildings he very much wanted to see that he hadn’t had time to reach, especially as they were all in different parts of Europe. So he sold his bicycle and took airplane trips to these places, He traveled farther by airplane in a few days than he had by bicycle in three months.
First he flew to Cologne in Germany. Cologne sounds like a perfume, but it is a big city famous for its huge Gothic cathedral. Cologne Cathedral is the largest Gothic church of northern Europe. The spires are five hundred feet high—as high as ten three-story houses.
Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 and it took a very long time to build. It wasn’t finished till 1880, more than six hundred years later. But that was better than many cathedrals, which were not finished at all and never will be now.
Cologne Cathedral is so wide for its length that to many people it doesn’t seem as beautiful as the French cathedrals. Its twin western towers with their tall spires are so big and bulky at the bottom thai they make the rest of the building look smaller than it is. The proportions of one part of the building compared with another are not as fine as they might be. This means the building doesn’t look just right as a whole, although each part by itself may be correctly and splendidly made. Of course the young architect knew these faults, but he could forget the cathedral’s imperfections as he gazed with awe at the thousands of carved stone figures, the pinnacles, towers, and flying buttresses that make this building one of the best known in the world. It is magnificent, huge, impressive.
From Cologne my friend flew to Antwerp, in Belgium. There he went to see the most impressive church in Belgium—Antwerp Cathedral. This cathedral has a place for two towers on its western front, but only one tower is there. The other one was never built. Where it might have been is just a little steeple.
The one big tower rises high in the air and becomes narrower at the top, like a spire. It has so much stone carving on it that it looks like lace-work made of stone. The tower is graceful, but the lacy look seems a little too fancy. Probably Antwerp Cathedral really looks better for having only one tower. Two towers might have made the building seem mostly towers, like Cologne Cathedral.
This is just one of the many beautiful towers in Belgium. Many of them are not on churches at all but stand by themselves. They are often called singing towers because the bells inside ring out beautiful music. Singing towers were often useful as well as beautiful. The peal of the bells called the people together, spread an alarm in time of danger, and rang out in triumph to announce good news. Belgium can be proud of her beautiful Gothic towers.
No.76-1 TOWN HAIL BRUSSELS(布魯塞爾市政大廳)
Besides the singing towers there are many other Gothic buildings in Belgium that aren’t churches. Gothic architecture suits churches well because it seems to be trying to reach up to heaven. The most beautiful Gothic buildings are churches, but many of the other Belgian Gothic buildings are beautiful too. Naturally, these buildings would not be shaped like a cross. Some of them have towers and spires like churches and some have not. Some were built by the towns for town halls where the public business was carried on. Some were built as club houses, or headquarters, for gilds. Each kind of trade or business had its own gild, or band of skilled workers. There were gilds of stonemasons, goldsmiths, ship captains, merchants, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. Of course each gild wanted its own club house. Some of the Belgian gild houses show very beautiful Gothic architecture.
Many of the Gothic town halls and gild houses had steep roofs with rows of dormer windows. You know, a dormer window is the kind that sticks out of a sloping roof. The Cloth Hall at Ypres was one of the most famous of the Belgian buildings of the Middle Ages. But my friend the architect got to Belgium too late to see it. It was burned down during World War I.
“From Belgium,” the young architect told me, “I took a plane to Spain. I wanted to see the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. It is in the little Spanish town of Burgos. The twin towers with their tall spires reminded me a little of the towers of Cologne. There is a big eight-sided tower in the middle, besides the two spires at the end. Around the cathedral at Burgos are cloisters, chapels, and an archbishop’s palace.”
Burgos is in the northern part of Spain and is more like French and German cathedrals than the Spanish churches farther south. The Moors from Arabia had long ruled the south of Spain and the Gothic cathedrals there have many details that were suggested to the Spanish builders by the Moorish buildings. In another chapter I’ll tell you about these Moorish buildings.
No.76-2 THE DOGE’ S PALACE, VENICE(威尼斯總督府)
Now for a quick trip across the Pyrenees, across France, across the Alps to Italy. My friend knew what he wanted to see there—the Gothic buildings of Venice.
On the square of St. Mark stands the Cathedral of St. Mark with its five domes and Byzantine architecture. Next to St. Mark’s on the square stands a long building four stories high. It is called the Doge’s Palace. The Doge was the duke and ruler of Venice. The palace of the doges is Gothic (notice the pointed arches), but it is quite different from all other Gothic buildings. The two lower stories have long rows of the pointed arches on columns. Rows of arches like these, you remember, are called arcades. The arcades form covered porches around the Doge’s Palace.
The upper hall of the Doge’s Palace has flat walls of pink and white marble in a pattern. The flat upper half of the walls makes the fancier lower half look better, in just the way an old automobile makes a new one look newer. If more of the Doge’s Palace was like the upper part it would be too plain. As it is the whole building makes a beautiful part of the beautiful square of St. Mark.
Other smaller palaces and houses in the Gothic style can be found in Venice. You have to take a boat to see them, for most of them are on streets that are made of water. A boat can take you right up to the water steps leading to the front door. That’s what my architect friend did. He took a boat called a gondola and saw all he could see in the three days he had left before he had to sail for New York. On his trip home across the Atlantic he pasted in an album the photographs he had taken and he was glad that airplane traveling had let him get the pictures of—
Cologne Cathedral
Antwerp Cathedral
A singing tower of Belgium
A Gothic gild hall
The cathedral at Burgos
The Doge’s Palace
Some small Venetian palaces
And … a gondola.
我認(rèn)識一個人,他花了整整一個夏天,騎著自行車,在歐洲各地穿行觀光。他是一位年輕的美國建筑師。他希望能看到盡可能多的哥特式建筑物,并得到某些身體鍛煉。他騎了一千一百英里遠。當(dāng)一個夏天都快結(jié)束時,他發(fā)現(xiàn)還有幾處非常想看的建筑物還沒去,但時間卻不夠了,更有甚者,這些建筑物分布在歐洲的不同地區(qū)。所以他賣了自行車,改乘飛機前往那些地方。他乘飛機在幾天里所旅行的距離要比他騎車三個月遠得多。
他先飛往德國的科隆??坡÷犉饋硐袷且环N香水的名字,但它卻是以哥特式大教堂而聞名的一座大城市??坡〈蠼烫檬潜睔W最大的哥特式教堂。教堂尖頂高500英尺——相當(dāng)于三十層樓的高度。
科隆大教堂始建于1248年,花了很長時間才建好。直到1880年,即六個世紀(jì)之后才完工。但這要比許多從未造完‘也不會再建的半拉子大教堂好多啦。
科隆大教堂就其長度來說顯得太寬,所以在很多人看來,它就沒有法國的大教堂那么好看。它西邊的雙子塔的尖頂很大,底部很笨重,使得建筑物的其他部位看上去偏小。教堂各個部分的比例并沒有預(yù)想的那么協(xié)調(diào),這就意味著建筑的整體看起來并不怎樣,盡管各個部分都精確華麗。當(dāng)然,這位年輕的建筑師也看出了這些缺陷,但當(dāng)他看到成百上千的人物石像、小尖塔,以及使其聞名于世的飛扶壁時,他驚呆了,渾然忘卻了這些缺陷。它是那么高大、壯觀、令人難忘。
我這朋友從科隆出發(fā),到達比利時的安特衛(wèi)普。他去那兒看了比利時最讓人流連忘返的教堂——安特衛(wèi)普大教堂。這座大教堂的西邊正面有個位置可以建造兩座塔,但實際上只建了一座,另一座一直沒建。這里也許曾經(jīng)建過一個小尖塔。
這座獨一的塔很高大,直聳云霄,頂端縮小,形成尖頂狀。塔身刻有許多石雕,像石頭刻出的花邊。塔形優(yōu)美,但花邊看上去似乎有點花哨。安特衛(wèi)普大教堂可能就是因為只造了一座塔,反而更加中看。要是造了兩座塔,就會使整個建筑物全是塔了,就像科隆大教堂那樣。
這個塔只是比利時許多美觀的塔的其中之一。有很多塔并沒有建在教堂上,而是獨自矗立。它們常被叫做“歌塔”,因為塔里的大鐘會奏出美妙的音樂。歌塔不但美觀,而且實用。響亮持久的鐘聲將人們召集到一起,在危機時刻發(fā)出警報,在勝利之時宣告好消息。比利時人為自己擁有美麗的哥特式塔而感到自豪。
除了歌塔,比利時還有許多其他非教堂哥特式建筑。哥特式建筑很適合教堂,因為它給人一種直聳云天的感覺。所以最好看的哥特式建筑就是教堂了,但比利時還有許多其他好看的建筑。當(dāng)然了,這些建筑并不是十字形建構(gòu)。有些像教堂一樣有塔、尖頂,有些則沒有。有些是由城鎮(zhèn)出資所建的市政大廳,供市民辦理公共事務(wù)。有些是行會建的俱樂部或總部。各行各業(yè)都有自己的行會,或技術(shù)工人團隊。譬如石匠行會、金匠行會、船長行會、商人行會、屠夫行會、面包師行會,以及燭仟工行會。當(dāng)然,每一種行會都希望能夠擁有自己的會館。比利時有些會館是非常漂亮的哥特式建筑。
許多哥特式市政廳和會館都建有斜屋頂和一排排天窗。你知道嗎,屋頂天窗是一種建在陡峭屋頂上伸出來的天窗。位于伊普爾的克勞士廳是中世紀(jì)比利時最著名的建筑之一。但我那位建筑師朋友去得太晚了,因為它在第一次世界大戰(zhàn)期間就被燒毀了。
“我從比利時出發(fā),”這位年輕的建筑師告訴我,“搭乘飛機去西班牙。我想去見識一下世界上最大的哥特式大教堂。它位于西班牙的布爾格斯小鎮(zhèn)。它那高聳的雙子尖塔讓我有點想到了科隆大教堂的塔。它除了在末端有兩個尖頂外,中間還有一座八邊形高塔。布爾格斯大教堂的周圍建有修道院、禮拜堂以及一座大主教宮殿。”
布爾格斯在西班牙北部,但布爾格斯大教堂與偏南的西班牙教堂比起來更像是法國和德國的大教堂。來自阿拉伯的摩爾人長期統(tǒng)治西班牙南部。在西班牙人眼里,哥特式大教堂的許多細(xì)節(jié)都來源于摩爾人的建筑風(fēng)格。關(guān)于摩爾建筑我會在其他章節(jié)再作介紹。
我的朋友迅速穿越了比利牛斯山、法國和阿爾卑斯山,來到意大利。他知道到這里來是要看什么——威尼斯的哥特式建筑。
圣馬可廣場上矗立的圣馬可大教堂,呈拜占庭風(fēng)格,上有五座圓頂,旁邊有一座有四層樓高的長形建筑物,是總督府??偠绞钱?dāng)時威尼斯的統(tǒng)治者,由親王擔(dān)任??偠礁m也是哥特式建筑(注意一下尖拱),但它與其他所有哥特式建筑物都不一樣??偠礁紫聝蓪拥闹由戏接幸慌排砰L長的尖拱。你還記得嗎?像這樣一排排的拱門,叫做拱廊。拱廊形成拱門游廊,環(huán)繞著總督府。
總督府上層大廳的墻壁是用粉白色大理石按某種圖案砌成的平面墻壁。墻壁的上半部的扁平,更加襯托出墻壁下半部的美妙。單用這種方式,一輛新車可以在舊車的存托下,顯得更新。如果總督府大部分墻面都呈上半部的平面狀,那就太死板了。正因為如此,這座總督府也成了美麗的圣馬可廣場的一道風(fēng)光。
在威尼斯還可以看到其他較小一點的哥特式宮殿和房屋。不過你得要坐船觀賞,因為大多數(shù)建筑物都建造在水道旁。小船能把你帶到建筑物的門前臺階上。我的那位建筑師朋友就是這么做的。他搭了一只小劃船,在三天內(nèi)游遍了所有想看的地方。他三天后返回美國紐約。他在途徑太平洋時,把拍攝的照片貼在相冊上。他很慶幸后來改乘飛機才拍攝到下面這些建筑物的照片——
科隆大教堂
安特衛(wèi)普大教堂
比利時歌塔
哥特式會館
布爾格斯大教堂
總督府
威尼斯的小型宮殿