lled, "one of the grandest in Europe," seems to me
pure Philistinism--the cult of the merely big and obvious, to the
disregard of delicacy and beauty. Big it is assuredly, and
superficially astonishing; but anything more barn-like architecturally,
or spiritually unexalting, I can hardly call to memory. Outside it
lacks entirely all shadow of homogeneity; the absence of a central
tower, felt perhaps even in the great cathedrals of Picardy and the Ile
de France, just as it is felt in Westminster and in Beverley Minster,
is here actually accentuated by the hideous little cupola--I hardly
know how properly to call it--that squats, as though in derision, above
the crossing; whilst even the natural meeting and intersection at this
point of high roofs, which in itself would rise to dignity, is wantonly
neglected to make way for this monstrosity. The church, in fact, looks,
when viewed externally, more like four separate churches than one; and
when we step inside, with all the best will in the world to make the
best of it, it is hard to find, much to admire, and anything at all to
love, in these acres of dismally whitewashed walls, and long, feeble
lines of arcades without capitals. The inherent vice of Belgian
architecture--its lack of really beautiful detail, and its fussy
superfluity of pinnacle and panelling--seems to me here to culminate.
Belgium has really beautiful churches--not merely of the thirteenth
century, when building was lovely everywhere, but later buildings, like
Mons, and St. Pierre at Louvain; but Antwerp is not of this category.
Architecturally, perhaps, the best feature of the whole church is the
lofty spire (over four hundred feet), which curiously resembles in
general outline that of the Hotel de Ville at Brussels (three hundred
and seventy feet), and dates from about the same period (roughly the
middle of the fifteenth century). As usual in Belgium, it is quite out
of scale; it is lucky, indeed, that the corresponding south-west tower
has never been completed, for the combination of the two would be
almost overwhelming. It is curious and interesting as an example of a
tower tapering upwards to a point in a succession of diminishing
stages, in contrast with tower and spire. France has something like it,
though far more beautiful, in the thirteenth-century tower at Senlis;
but England affords no parallel. I am not sure who invented the quite
happy phrase, "Confectioner's Gothic," but this tower at Antwerp i