Musings on fancy ancient stonework!

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You have to wonder at the cost of labour back in the 1500s, along with priorities in the stonework business. And I apologise in advance if I'm about to be something of an architecture heathen.

You see, I was visiting York and gazing up at the Minster, destroyed and rebuilt a number of times over the last 1000 years. And, while I was hugely impressed by the size of the thing (and yes, we went inside for the tour), as my eyes focussed in on some of the details, I started to notice something.

Details on the details. And those details had details added to them. Almost fractal.

As an example, take one of the very smallest spires on the Minster, only a few feet high and positioned a hundred feet off the ground. One of them is helpfully displayed on its own inside:

I can't really imagine the discussions between the foreman of the time and the stone masons, perched possibly precariously on 1500-era scaffolding, 100ft off the ground. 

"Yes, can you put in 50 little spires, each 5ft high, to really break up the stonework of the upper ledge"

"What sort of spire?" 

"Oh, just something plain and simple, after all, no one's going to see any detail because it's all so far off, we've been tasked with building a functional cathedral, after all."

Harumph, thinks the stonemason, and takes a pride in his work, so implements a system of intricate pointy bits and textures, taking days to complete. Per spire. (While, no doubt per-spiring - ahem, I'll get my coat!)

And my musing is, while you have to admire that commitment to his (or her) art, at the same time this simply couldn't be done today. You'd have to factor in their wages per hour and the cost of putting in 50 such sculpted spires would be utterly prohibitive. While the foreman was exactly right, it's impossible to see this detail from the ground unless you have binoculars - so, what exactly was the point in all this effort being put in?

The bottom line is that the point was art, and art like this wouldn't happen in 2022. So we should just appreciate its ancient existence, perhaps?

Comments

Martin said…
I don't know about medieval times but in 1991 I lived in Barcelona for three months and went twice a week to see a stone mason carve the decorations on an arch by hand with a hammer and chisels at La Sagrada Familia. While he was having a break I asked him who decides what design or pattern to use.I do he said, I have a feel of the rough stone and it tells me (he was being serious) I design it on paper with pencil and agree with my bosses.

Incidentally he did approximately a 30cm length of approx 10cm wide arch in three months. Sometimes he'd not work but be feeling and looking at the stone from various angles.

The block laying and construction is straight forward. Carving institu is for an artist only.
2:15 PM
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