Archi Sculpture at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Sculpture on medieval buildings was distinctly subservient to the archi sculpturetecture. Especially was this true up to the Gothic period. On the fagade of the Church of St. Trophime at Aries the sculpture was so intimately woven into the archi sculpturetectural elements that the separation of the two arts is here unthinkable. Figures seem to grow out of the walls, to be part of one organic creation. Figures were often distorted to fit archi sculpturetectural areas, or, as on the west fac.ade of the Cathedral of Chartres, they were elongated to accord with the archi sculpturetectural character of the columns to which they were attached.

Rome is a veritable treasury of art and archi sculpturetecture coming down to us from earliest times and on through the Renaissance. The greatest masterpieces of Michelangelo are here, both in painting (the Sistine Chapel ceiling) and archi sculpturetecture (the dome of St. Peter's), and some of his finest works in sculpture as well. Raphael too, is at his best in his celebrated tapestry designs in the Vatican's Raphael Room. The Vatican Museums are perhaps the world's richest collections of sculpture.

The great sculptors of the Early Renaissance, like Donatello in his statues for niches on the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore and Or San Michele, gave their statues so much character and vitality that one hardly thinks of the archi sculpturetectural functions. The latter do exist, however, even if they seem to lie chiefly in the realm where the archi sculpturetecture is ancillary to the extent of providing a frame and setting for the sculpture. The independence of the sculpture is often more marked by being different in color and material from the archi sculpturetecture.