Curvilinear

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I was introduced to the word "rectilinear", as many are, in school mathematics. I came across it later when I was studying the history of art. The third definition of the word in my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) best describes what I usually mean by the word: "Of a figure or angle: bounded or formed by straight lines". Often these meet at right-angles. It was also the history of art (actually, architecture) that introduced me to the word, "curvilinear". Looking up this word in the OED I find the first definition, for my purposes,could not be bettered. It says: "Consisting of, or contained by, a curved line or lines; having the form of a curved line. (Opposed to rectilinear, and in Gothic Archit. to perpendicular, as applied to window tracery."

Today's photograph is a detail of the fourteenth century curvilinear (often called "flowing") Gothic tracery of the main south transept window of the church of St Andrew at Heckington, Lincolnshire. You can see all of the window, in its setting, here. This style of tracery, and variations on it, was the fashion in churches and other buildings of substance, for most of the 1300s in England. I've often imagined what it must have been like to be  the designer of such windows. They seem to have been motivated by a desire to achieve forms that embrace utility (admitting light whilst offering structural support to the arch), beauty and novelty. However, looking at the tracery of many churches within a given locality you do wonder to what extent inter-parish rivalry figured in the production of these elaborate designs.

Architectural historians call it the Decorated style and it replaced Early English, a style of narrow, pointed (lancet) windows that later had tracery of geometrically correct circles and cusps. The real characteristic of the Decorated, Curvilinear or Flowing style is the "ogee", the elongated, serpentine, "s" shaped line that is everywhere in this window. Here you can see it in the main ribs that curve upwards from the capitals of the mullions, in the top cusp at the head of each light, and in the top and bottom cusps of the mouchettes. This style was followed, in the fifteenth century, by one known as Perpendicular. This, the OED rightly notes, is essentially rectilinear in overall form, and has sometimes been identified by that name.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Beauty and Heckington church

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The church of St Andrew at Heckington is essentially a creation of the fourteenth century. It exemplifies a style that English architectural historians call Decorated. Anyone choosing Lincolnshire's best dozen churches would be likely to include Heckington. It is a large, town-size church - 164 feet long and 185 feet tall to the top of its spire - constructed of Ancaster stone located in a big village.

What makes Heckington church a beautiful and outstanding example of medieval church architecture? The exterior of the building is well-proportioned, though it could be argued that the spire is too short for its tower (or the tower too tall for its spire). However, it is the quantity and quality of the external decoration that sets it apart. Fine pinnacles and niched buttresses abound as do statues (38). Finials, crockets and gargoyles are abundant and elaborate. So too is the tracery of the windows with its trefoils, quatrefoils, mouchettes, daggers, ogees: those of the south transept (above) and east chancel window are classic, much quoted examples of the period. After an exterior of such quality the interior comes as something of a disappointment. However, it compensates by having a small collection of features - the font, a tomb recess, Easter sepulchre, piscina and sedilia, that transcend the ordinary and in some cases are of national significance.

Being a big church in a small churchyard, surrounded by quite close housing, Heckington is not easy to photograph in its entirety. The churchyard planting, though very good, adds to the difficulty. Consequently I was reduced to photographing a part rather than the whole, the tower, south porch and south transept, glimpsed between a couple of conifers.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ballflower ornament

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Symbolism has always interested me. That must account - in part - for my fascination with the history of ecclesiastical architecture. Churches are packed with symbolism and it is sometimes a real pleasure to wander around one of these old buildings decoding the fittings, furnishings and architecture, seeing how artists and craftspeople used ornament to illustrate their faith.

In Christian churches the Trinity is especially subject to symbolic representation: how else can you depict God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost as a single entity? In 2010 I photographed and wrote about a building that is almost entirely dedicated to the symbolic representation and celebration of the Trinity - Rushton Triangular Lodge. However, every church, somewhere or other builds in references to the number three because of its special significance. Three steps often lead up to the altar. The baptismal font is frequently at the top of three steps too. Windows are often split into three "lights", triangular shapes frequently feature in ornament, three-leaved foliage abounds, tracery has trefoils; I've even seen in a very modern church three vertical lines moulded into the concrete above an altar, rather like cricket wickets with the bails missing. Mind you, minimalism of that kind wasn't unknown in the eighteenth century, as this small spire at Little Gidding church in Cambridgeshire shows - notice the three rectangular holes piercing it, surely another representation of the Trinity.

In the period around 1300 to 1325 a particular form of ornament came into being that represents the Trinity. The ballflower is a three petalled flower that encloses a ball: three and one if not quite 3 in one. You can see them in their dozens edging the tracery of this chapel window (above) of the church at Ledbury, Herefordshire. Its a small thing, but heavily repeated so that cumulatively it can't be ignored. I've always been in two minds about its effectiveness as ornament because it turns elegant, smooth, curving stone into stone with an encrusted, almost organic quality. Over the years I've decided that in small doses I like it, but I'm glad it quite quickly went out of fashion.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 34.9mm (94mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On