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Post by davidpenrod on Feb 3, 2012 17:33:49 GMT -5
And this image depicts the Long Barracks on the ground in 1868. Unfortunately, all these images I've posted have been reduced in size from the original to fit the forum's standards. Alot of fine detail is smooshed. If you would like a copy of the originals, let me know. Keep in mind that these are sketches and I am not a commercial artist (you can do with them as you please). These sketches do not include perspective angles - yet. Attachments:
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 3, 2012 19:32:32 GMT -5
I'm getting a large, high quality image by clicking on the image (or touching with the touch screen).
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Post by davidpenrod on Feb 3, 2012 21:54:41 GMT -5
Its okay. I had to reduce the size. I might post the originals on Flikr or Picasa if folks want them.
What do you think of the comparison. Stark difference between them?
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 3, 2012 22:42:51 GMT -5
Very well thought out and presented theory. My only question is why do you believe there were no windows or door in the south wall of the long barrack prior to the Q.M. Depot redu?
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Post by davidpenrod on Feb 4, 2012 2:46:07 GMT -5
Rich, good question and an important one. My response, unfortunately, will have to be long and boring because there is alot of data to sift through and consider. Anyway, here my evidence:
1. Neither Fulton (in 1837) nor Bolleart (in 1843) include windows in the second story of the south side of the convento in their drawings, although they both include windows in the second story of the convento's west side. Both Fulton and Bolleart drew their sketches while facing the south side of the Convento, with the Church to their right and all or a portion of the Low Barracks masking the first floor of the convento. It would have been quite easy for them both to include windows in the upper level of the convento if windows had actually been present, but they did not - just some scribblings. The upper level of the convento's west side was at an extreme angle to them both but they still included clear, unmistakable windows up there within an area quite narrow due to perspective compared to the relative expanse of the south side. In other words, Fulton and Bolleart did not see any windows in the second story of the convento's south side.
2. Maverick (in 1838), Bissett (in 1839) and Moore (also in 1839) did not include windows and doors in the south side of the convento. Of course, unlike Fulton and Bolleart, they were facing the west side of the convento instead of the south - with the south side angling away from them toward the Church's north side. However, they could have easily included windows and doors on the south side, just like Blake would do in 1845, but they did not. This is especially true of Moore's depiction. In other words, Maverick, Bissett and Moore did not see any windows and doors in the south side of the convento.
3. The two most compelling pieces of evidence against the existence of windows and doors in the south side of the convento during the siege of 1836 are the maps drawn by Edward Everett in 1846 and in 1848:
In his map of 1846, Everett does not include any windows, doors or any other openings or apertures in the south side of the convento - although he does accurately portray numerous doors and windows throughout the interior and exterior of both the Long Barracks and Church. That's why I included a portion of this map in my renderings.
In his 1848 map, however, Everett includes all the same windows and doors from the 1846 map but also includes openings in the south side of the Long Barracks that were not present in 1846. In other words, in 1846 Edward Everett did not see any windows and doors in Long Barracks south side; in 1848 he did. That can only mean one thing: the United States Army carved out those doors and windows between 1846 and 1848.
An argument against my theory is the 1845 drawing by Edmund Blake which not only depicts windows and doors in the south side of the Long Barracks, but also depicts a two story room on the east side of the Long Barracks where the convento's cloister would have been (I argue in another thread that there were no rooms of any kind on the east side of the Convento, just a cloister - an arcaded passageway - but that's another fight).
Blake's drawing precedes Everett's map by 1 year.
So what gives?
Well, I think Blake made it up.
I think he took the Long Barracks as it appeared after its modification and tried to depict what he imagined it had looked like before those modifications. As a result, he kind of gives the parapet line on the south side a quasi-peaked roof - almost following the new roof line built by the Army. That's why I included a depiction of the south side in 1868 - so you could see that the Army's roof line and Blake's parapet match. And you can also see that the Army built a gabled roof over the west side of the Long Barracks but not the east.
The problem for Blake is this: Fulton, Bolleart, Maverick, Bissett, and Moore do not include a two story room on the west side of the Convento, only on the east side.
Blake simply didn't know that the one and two story rooms on the east side of the convento had been built by the US Army from the ruins of the Cloister, the center of which had collapsed sometime after the siege. The Army had simply cleared away the rubble and debris in the center and enclosed the remaining Cloister spans, creating a two story room on the south side and a one story room on the north with a gap between them.
So, how do we know this for sure? Well, take a look at the maps of Sanchez-Navarro and La Batista from 1836 and Everett's map of 1846. None of these diagrams include any rooms on the east side of the Convento - just an arcaded gallery running alongside the two story Convento from the "connecting wall" on the south to a point some 3 yards shy of the junction of the Convento's 1 story room and the 19 foot tall Granary.
So that's it. I think the evidence is convincing, although I dont like it. I prefer the consensus view with the windows and doors and hand-hewn stone decorations above the little gate in the connecting wall. Unfortunately, the evidence does not support that concept. But I may be wrong - I hope I am - but I have a bad feeling we will be left in the end with only a boring, plane-jane stone wall.
Love to read an argument against my theory.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 4, 2012 3:21:59 GMT -5
Well, your response was long, but certainly not boring. Most has seated into my brain, but I don't yet accept your "Blake making it up" theory. Seems too convenient a solution (Fate couldn't let you off the hook that easily. LOL). In any event, I shall revisit all items with this new view and see what happens. Thanks for the very thorough answer -- and reasearch. This is what it's all about.
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Post by Mike Harris on Feb 4, 2012 19:12:40 GMT -5
Hello David,
Enjoyed your theories on the LB.
In regards to the openings on the southside, isn't it possible that these openings were blocked in with stone or adobe during the siege and were still blocked in to some degree at the time of the Blake sketch in '45 as well as the Everett map in '46?
Everett also does not show that there are windows on the facade of the church for the baptistry and "confessional" (of course we know those were there). We do know that they were at one time blocked in with stone, based on the drawing of the facade by Falconer in '41. So isn't it possible that Everett did not include openings, doors or windows, in his map if they were no longer used as such or were still blocked or partially blocked.
Just curious.
p.s. Enjoyed your renderings of the long barrack.
Mike
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Post by davidpenrod on Feb 4, 2012 20:22:57 GMT -5
Hello, Mike.
Great question!
You may be right - it is possible the openings were there but plugged at the time of those sketches.
I think the Everett maps would be stronger evidence against my theory had Everett included the baptismal/confessional windows in the facade of the church in his '48 map. But he didn't. I think that's significant because they are an outstanding feature of the church facade. And yet, he didn't include them in either the '46 map or '48 map. So, for some odd reason, he is consistent on that point in both maps. The only features that change between the two, besides several Army "improvements" such as the wooden staircase and landing on the east side of the convento, is the windows and doors on the south side of the convento. So I think my argument holds together on this point.
Actually, your question reminds of another issue I am considering - the possibility that the arches in the Cloister had been filled in. Take a look at both of Everett's maps. The openings in he depicts in the cloister run are very small - more like windows instead of the ample arcade openings we see there today (apparently built on the foundations of the original arches). I wonder if the arcade had been filled in with stone or adobe and then windows cut through them.
Anyway, back to your question:
Fulton depicts the arched gateway in the courtyard wall (or connecting wall) and it is blocked up with stone or adobe (I chose adobe in my own sketch to contrast it with the surrounding stone - it could have been either stone or adobe or even a combination of whatever was available). I think if he had seen in-filled windows on the second story of the convento's south side, he would have included them.
Something else, Mike: both Fulton and Bolleart depict what appears to be a window in the south wall of the church's chancel (what some folks inaccurately call the apse) - the location of the Fortin de Cos. Or am I just imagining things?
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Post by Jake on Feb 5, 2012 17:12:32 GMT -5
There's a very long debate about the location of the first church in an old thread: alamostudies.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=alamohistory&action=display&thread=91If the general consensus is that Mark Lemon and Craig were right, then I'm shocked and horrified at the waste of all that verbiage I posted to prove them wrong. (me being shocked and horrified) And as to "apse," although the more formal meaning is "a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome," in church architecture in general, the word means "a semi-circular or polygonal termination of the main building at the liturgical east end (where the altar is), regardless of the shape of the roof ..." So that's the apse back there. And you're right, both Fulton and Bollaert show a window, well, a squarish outline, back there, and those are both are pretty much our earliest ... but nobody else shows an opening there, so ... what the hey? If there had been a window there, we'd be able to see the filled outline on the building, just like that arched opening in the south transept is still there, so someone should look.
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Post by Jake on Feb 5, 2012 18:44:20 GMT -5
David -- actually, that's a massive amount of stuff to read through quickly, so I'll give you the short version. I think I was the one who started the idea that there was a first church up at the front beside the south end of the convento (although George Nelson might argue with me on that -- maybe we both came up with it independently), and it did explain a lot. But then I decided that it was skewed somehow, I don't know, too neat or something, and realized I could explain all the details in the reports and inventories by assuming that it was all the same church, the temporary one in the granary, up until they started using the new one in the 1740s, and then it fell in, and then they rebuilt it on the same foundation -- which explains things about the present church that otherwise remain odd. I couldn't find anything to disprove this idea, and since it was the simplest, least assumptions needed sort of explanation, I went over to it.
It doesn't explain the stuff on the wall. Craig Covner insists that you can see those patterns in one of the photos as well, but it always looked to me like splotches and imagination (Rorschach architectural analysis), although going to the original negative and doing some computer enhancement might answer that one way or the other -- but I'll stay with the granary>present church foundation>rebuild on present foundation theory until more evidence or a better idea comes along.
I'm going to go back and read through your points in favor of a first church up front, and see what I think about them. I'll be back at some point.
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Post by davidpenrod on Feb 5, 2012 21:17:50 GMT -5
Hey, Jake - take a look at the footings of the Mission Espada - bears a striking resemblance to the Alamo's footprint - assuming the facade of the original Alamo church was flush with the west face of the Convento.
I've read your posts concerning the Granary as the original church. I think Espada converted its Granary to a church before the attempted construction of the permanent facility - and then used it as a permanent church after the "permanent" church either collapsed or could not be completed.
I think you're right about the religious decorations on the "connecting wall." They existed only in the imagination of Theodore Gentilz and nowhere else.
Of all witnesses to the Alamo's physical plant, Gentilz is the most frustrating. He is both the most accurate and inaccurate of them. And at the same time.
He is the one guy I'd love to go back in time so I could interview him and then throttle him.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 6, 2012 0:53:37 GMT -5
Jake, do Gentilz' sketches in the DRT Alamo Library reveal anything his paintings don't? I looked through them many years ago, before I was too savy (like I am now. LOL), but I don't recall anything startling. I know however that his pencil study for "Dia de la Sandia" has MANY details noted on it and much clearer renditions of architecture than his final idealized painting. The painting was always described as looking at "the Governor's Palace" in the background behind the watermelon race. But one look at the drawing and it is obvious that it is actually the east side of Main Plaza with the Casas Reales and Calle Calaboso -- and the Watch Tower on Powder House Hill in the background. What I wouldn't give to see one like that of the connecting wall.
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Post by Mike Harris on Feb 9, 2012 0:44:50 GMT -5
Hello, ye Gentilz wall design sayers of nay.
Quick question: Do the connecting wall designs, whether they were interior or exterior, necessarily have to exist at another mission or missions for it to validate their existence at the Alamo?
I have seen one sketch of the wall by Gentilz, Rich, although a bad xerox copy probably 50 times removed, but he does show it. No question. I don't see his motivation to "make up" the wall designs years before he painted them, anymore than I see Blake's motivation to "make up" windows and doors a year or so before they existed in the exact same location. It's beyond coincidence.
And I also see the designs (splotches and imagination) in the photo you mention, Jake. Of course they're not as crisp and clear as Gentilz makes them in his paintings, but shouldn't we give him the benefit of artistic license to retro-date-paint (is that a word?) the wall's deterioration including the deterioration of the designs?
So, David, should you happen upon Mr. Gentilz in another life, I beg you to spare him the unsolicited throttling! I don't think he's crazy, but I do imagine he is somewhere laughing his butt off trying to figure out why all these grown men are spending hours debating his wall designs!
au revoir!
p.s. regarding the Fulton and Bollaert apse window: Since I don't see it any other drawings or photos, I'd have to say they made it up!
Mike
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 9, 2012 9:44:58 GMT -5
I'm looking at the 1837 sketch of the Alamo drawn by George W. Fulton, which was featured on the cover of the "Alamo Journal" June 2005 issue (#137). The AJ credits Tom Lindley for arranging its appearance on the AJ cover, courtesy of The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. It is the oldest original image of the Alamo made after the 1836 battle. It clearly shows all sorts of features on the connecting wall and the south end of the Long Barrack. I see a large, arched opening, two windows, one single door and what looks like a double door.
Allen
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Post by TRK on Feb 9, 2012 10:22:32 GMT -5
It clearly shows all sorts of features on the connecting wall and the south end of the Long Barrack. I see a large, arched opening, two windows, one single door and what looks like a double door. As I'm sure you know, the "two windows, one single door and what looks like a double door" are on the low barrack. Pic here: www.visitfultonmansion.com/index.aspx?page=894
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