362 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



their main vertical lines, while consoles and pedestals were diversified 

 by gentle swellings and taperings. In the plan of features there was 

 the similar tendency to round off corners, to adopt curved outlines, 

 simple and compound, and to introduce variety by setting piers at all 



sorts of angles. 



The architectural 

 elements seem to 

 have acquired a 

 pliant consistency 

 and to ripple as it 

 were in the wind, or, 

 like the latest phase 

 of Flamboyant, with 

 which the rococo has 

 many analogies, to 

 resemble vegetable 

 growth. But among 

 this mass of curved 

 lines the greatest 

 care was taken to 

 avoid either luscious- 

 ness or insipidity. 

 Curves were in- 

 finitely varied and 

 cunningly con- 

 trasted, curves of 

 contrary flexure 

 being everywhere 

 opposed or com- 

 bined in a play of 

 coquettish advance 

 and retreat. 



"ROCAILLE" AND 

 PALM MOTIVES. 

 The elements em- 

 ployed in the enrich- 

 ments of framing 

 members were not 

 newly invented, but 

 developments of older ones. Prominent among these is the so-called 

 "Rocaille" motive. " Rocaille " originally meant rock-work or rockery, 

 and though rock-work is occasionally imitated in decoration of this 

 period, the " rocaille " motive seems rather to be the development of the 

 shell motive common to all Renaissance styles, and to have acquired its 



CHANTII.I.Y: PANEL FROM TIII: 

 SINGES." 



SALON DKS 



