Bk. IX. Ch. VII. VILLAGE CHURCHES. 487 13th. It retains its shafted apse, its bulb-shaped Tartar dome, and, as is always the case in Russia, a square detached belfry — though in tliis instance ap])arently more modern than the edifice itself. Woodcut No. 944 is the type of a great number of the old village churches, which, like the houses of the peasants, are of wood, generally of logs laid one on the other with their round ends intersecting at the angles, like the log-huts of America at the present day. As ••irchitectnral objects they
- n-e of course insignificant,
but still tlicy are character- istic and pictures(|ue. Internally all the ar- rangements of the stone churches are such as are appro] )riate for pictorial rather than for sculptural decoration. The pillars are generally large cylin- ders covered with portraits of saints, and the capitals are plain, cushion -like rolls with painted orna- ments. The vaults are not relieved by ribs, or by any projections that could interfere with the cofored decorations. In the wooden churches the construction is plainly shown, and of course is far lighter. In them also color almost wholly supersedes carving. The peculiarities of these two styles ai-e well illustrated in the two Woodcuts No. 945 and 946, from churches near Kostroma in Eastern Russia. Both belong to the Middle Ages, and both are favorable specimens of their respective classes. In these examples, as indeed in every Greek church, the principal object of ecclesiastical furniture is the iconostasis, or image-bearer, corresjionding to the rood-screen that separates the choir from the nave in Latin churches. The rood-screen, however, never assumed in the West the importance which the icoTu>stasis always possessed in the East. There it separates and liides from the church the sanctuary and the altar, from which the laity are wholly excluded. Within it the elements are consecrated, in the presence of the priests alone, and are then brought forward to be displayed to the public. On this screen, as performing so important 944. Village Church near Tzarskoe Selo. (From Durand.)
