Wow ! This publication from 1882 is a weath of insight, history and enjoyment. I was just going to take a peek and two hours later....
Definitely a resource of art, and so much more. Even the advertisings listed in the back are a source of insight. Too much is packed between thes pages to lay out in a summary. Open the pages I linked you to The Old Masters- but just turn the pages from there. Take some time to look through.
I read about Chartres page 353,; The Shepherd's Tower, Florence page 47 ; The Initial Letters of the Early Printers page 36 ; Artistic Metal Work page 313, and other articles. Each article contains an unexpected depth of knowledge in such a pleasurable reading flow.
For Gossamer Readers
"... Chartres Cathedral, however, as it now stands, or rather as it stood some few years ago, was so beautiful that no such patchwork seemed necessary to enable it to satisfy all the needs of the imagination. Unhappily even then an ominous amount of scaffolding was being set up against its walls, and it was only too evident that the noxious desire to do something to improve some part of the building had seized on some one possessed of authority, and the chances were that it would suffer grievously from such pernicious activity. Whatever may be said of the necessity of strengthening the masonry of any part of a cathedral like Chartres --and it is, of course, possible that such necessity may exist--it is certain that the very best builder of the present day would find it next to impossible to equal the work of his forerunner of the dark ages. -written 1882 by Margaret Hunt, Published in The Art Journal.
