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Post by stuart on Feb 11, 2008 15:43:59 GMT -5
So anyway, yes, the patterns are an anomoly, and I don't know what to make of them. Insufficient data. From my point of view, as a European surrounded by a lot more of this stuff than you have in the New World, I have to say that decoration of the kind Gentilez seems to have recorded to the exterior of buildings isn't exactly unprecedented. It could have been decorative work on the outside of the convento which worshippers would have passed by on the way to mass, but as Jake says we really don't have enough data. What I can reiterate with confidence however is that over here internal decoration could be finely moulded plaster-work, carved wood, or painting on flat plaster. Carved stone went outside sor two reasons (1)much better/finer work could be done inside using either of the three mediums just described, and (2) it had to be done in stone outside because none of the fine mediums would survive the weather. In short, decoratively carved stonework of this kind - a bas relief as distinct from carving on pillars - would point to an external rather than an internal wall.
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Post by marklemon on Feb 11, 2008 19:29:51 GMT -5
I really feel that a distinction must be made between Old World cathedral carvings, and New World church decoration, particularly Franciscan missions, on which, other than very selective locations (church facade, sacristy windows, etc,) the ornamentation was very economically applied, almost to the point of being rather plain. No other example exists, as far as I am aware, of such an oddly-applied carving on an outside wall, not centered, and not symmetrical, at a Franciscan mission.
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Post by bmoses on Feb 11, 2008 23:17:27 GMT -5
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Post by stuart on Feb 12, 2008 1:52:55 GMT -5
I really feel that a distinction must be made between Old World cathedral carvings, and New World church decoration, particularly Franciscan missions, on which, other than very selective locations (church facade, sacristy windows, etc,) the ornamentation was very economically applied, almost to the point of being rather plain. No other example exists, as far as I am aware, of such an oddly-applied carving on an outside wall, not centered, and not symmetrical, at a Franciscan mission. Wouldn't disagree with that at all, but its there. The point really is whether you can show similar stonework - as distinct from plaster or wood - inside a church/ecclesliastical building rather than outside.
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Post by stuart on Feb 12, 2008 3:26:49 GMT -5
Since writing the foregoing, it occurs to me that a possible explanation for the complete and apparently rapid disappearance of this feature may be that it was indeed plasterwork rather than stone.
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Post by Jake on Feb 12, 2008 11:46:23 GMT -5
Stuart: Yes, your thinking about plaster vs. stonework is good. For example, we have cases here where decorative plasterwork was used extensively inside mission churches -- most surviving examples are in the really dry country of southern Arizona and northern Sonora. Even there, when the roof falls in, the plaster is exposed to the weather and decays and falls off the walls.
However, like Mark says, things here in missions on the Spanish frontier are somewhat different from the older churches in Europe. Facades are plainer, especially the farther north you get, although part of that is because it costs more money to hire master masons and finecarvers to produce such facades the farther north you get, and interiors tend to be covered with painted decoration rather than carved or molded.
So I'm not willing to say that stonework like Gentilz shows would be more likely to be interior or exterior stuff. Stuart's suggestion that it might have been interior plaster that fell off is certainly possible, but would require that the plaster survive exposed to the weather for about 120 years before it fell -- on the other hand, we have coarse plaster on the walls of some of the missions still in place after more than 250 years, so it's certainly possible that molded or carved plaster decorative designs could survive from about 1745 to about 1870.
Mark, I found an example of the quatrefoil pattern, or whatever we should call it, on a church wall -- unfortunately, it's on the facade of San Miguel Arcangel de Ures, in Sonora, and it's unclear that it was built in the Spanish or even Mexican period. There are two of the things, just used as designs, symmetrically on either side of the main doorway. They may have been windows to the second floor or upper part of the first floor of the two bell towers, and later filled.
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Post by cantador4u on Feb 12, 2008 12:00:20 GMT -5
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Post by billchemerka on Feb 27, 2008 16:18:19 GMT -5
While examing some Alamo images in one of my files I discovered Oriana Day's Mission San Carlos Del Rio Carmelo. The print features a unique embellishment over the door that is adjacent to the front of the church. To be sure, this feature may further incrassate the current debate.
See the image at this link from the De Young Museum's website [the site allows you to focus on details]. Cut and paste the entire address since, for some reason, only part of it is highlighted:
search.famsf.org:8080/search.shtml?keywords=Oriana%20Day
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