What: Portico de la Gloria
Where: Hall of Cast Courts inside the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Design: Domenico Brucciani
Date: 1866
The Victoria & Albert museum allowed me to gather a visual library of different garden and floral motifs on different types of materials and how long they were made to last. The ancient pieces were adorned with figures of people but with some garden and leaves mixed in. This could be a bit of the appeasement for the gods or God. Newer pieces are furniture so something that people see everyday.
My personal experience of the cast of Portico de la Gloria took me back in surprise when I first walked up to it. The people all over the cast are extremely regal and feel almost biblical.
The arch is present here, still showing signs of the Roman rule. The original piece was incredibly useful for teaching the lower class, who could not read, about the bible. The space of the room has open spaces and high expansive ceiling and the piece was new and innovative for the time period. This piece is believed to have had influence from Gothic as it was design that was making its way into Europe.
Design aspects that are of large influence is that it is a Spanish set of gates so the influence of the Roman Empire is just as present there as it was in Britain. The adorned columns almost appear to be cover in vine and leaf work but is actually the human form. It also appears to have similarities to the Wellington Arch. The actual garden and floral motifs on this piece are hidden in between the human figures covering the area. The sense of movement in both the people and the garden shapes mimics the real leaves and nature of the plant, and the nature of the person.
Citations:
V&A. "V&A · Cast Collection." Victoria and Albert Museum. Accessed May 3, 2019. https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/cast-collection#objects.