The color of the stone of St. Martin, which the present pencil sketch must fail dismally to convey, is unique among the churches of France. Quarries in the region of Colmar yield stone of a great variety of colors, ranging through an entire grayed spectrum, and the builders of St. Martin seem to have omitted none of them in weaving a pattern of soft and symphonic colors. To do the stonework of this church justice, one needs a palette cooler, but quite as varied as that needed to make a color cartoon of the stained glass of Chartres.
The interior of the church has suffered periodically during the centuries, and recently has been refitted in a manner which all too unhappily savors of the ecclesiastical shops on the rue St. Sulpice.
St. Martin is the only church in Colmar, I believe, which is not crowned with a stork’s nest. Many of the spires of the city are capped with this huge basket of straw, like a pom-pom on a dunce cap. Most of the nests are inhabited by authentic storks, while some are mere iron baskets, hospitably placed to encourage tenants of this variety.
There is a touch of Bruges in the clump of fanciful old houses which make up Colmar’s “Little
Venice.” Their long roof lines are reflected in a stream whose lazy waters barely suffice to transport long flat barges laden with turnips and cabbages. At intervals are the traps of fish merchants, filled with plump trout. The fisherman scoops up an assortment in a crab net for the approval of passing housewives, who place the selected specimen in market baskets, floundering frantically among lettuce heads. The stream’s edge resounds with the paddling of energetic laundresses and the water is milky gray from the presence of strong soap. Whether the imprisoned fish find this to their fancy is not certain, but one may hazard a guess in the negative.
Colmar merits a closing paragraph full of flourishes and superlatives, but just at the moment when these should be forthcoming we have discovered three villages so perfect, so unreasonably, violently picturesque that Colmar appears as an imperfect jewel indeed. They go under the ponderous names of Ammerschwihr, Kaisersberg and Riquewih r. and if the lead pencils don’t run out, they will claim space in a forthcoming number of The American Architect.
A STREET IN COLMAR
The interior of the church has suffered periodically during the centuries, and recently has been refitted in a manner which all too unhappily savors of the ecclesiastical shops on the rue St. Sulpice.
St. Martin is the only church in Colmar, I believe, which is not crowned with a stork’s nest. Many of the spires of the city are capped with this huge basket of straw, like a pom-pom on a dunce cap. Most of the nests are inhabited by authentic storks, while some are mere iron baskets, hospitably placed to encourage tenants of this variety.
There is a touch of Bruges in the clump of fanciful old houses which make up Colmar’s “Little
Venice.” Their long roof lines are reflected in a stream whose lazy waters barely suffice to transport long flat barges laden with turnips and cabbages. At intervals are the traps of fish merchants, filled with plump trout. The fisherman scoops up an assortment in a crab net for the approval of passing housewives, who place the selected specimen in market baskets, floundering frantically among lettuce heads. The stream’s edge resounds with the paddling of energetic laundresses and the water is milky gray from the presence of strong soap. Whether the imprisoned fish find this to their fancy is not certain, but one may hazard a guess in the negative.
Colmar merits a closing paragraph full of flourishes and superlatives, but just at the moment when these should be forthcoming we have discovered three villages so perfect, so unreasonably, violently picturesque that Colmar appears as an imperfect jewel indeed. They go under the ponderous names of Ammerschwihr, Kaisersberg and Riquewih r. and if the lead pencils don’t run out, they will claim space in a forthcoming number of The American Architect.
A STREET IN COLMAR