DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0254
234
A rchitectural Beauty
PART III
eye along the whole facade, give an element of unity to the
composition. Yet, on the other hand, the Doric temple has
also, like the Egyptian monument, an air of monolithic con-
struction. The columns are not in fact, but in appearance,
monoliths, the architrave is that of Egypt repeated. The
whole is exceedingly massive, even megalithic in style.
Whence come the diversifying elements in the Greek fagade
upon which so much of its artistic effect depends ?
§ 143. Transference of Timber forms to Stone, the
secret of ancient Architecture.
The real secret of ancient architecture is only understood
when we regard the forms so familiar in classical stonework
as not stone forms at all, but as forms transferred to stone
from previous construction in quite a different material.
We come in contact here with one of the fundamental con-
ventions of architecture—the transference to one material oj
forms which really belong to another, and their adaptation
in their new connection to purely artistic purposes. This
is undoubtedly a contravention of the principle that archi-
tecture is ‘ construction beautified,’ for it is a fact that most
of the features and details which make the life of monu-
mental buildings are not the logical outcome of the con-
struction employed, but are conventional forms that have
the highest artistic, but no constructive, significance.
Whether a massive stone style could ever have developed
these features is more than doubtful. The development of
such a style which seemed to have begun in Egypt when
the Dolmen became the ‘Temple of the Sphinx’ came to a
sudden standstill, and a change was made, both in Egypt
and afterwards in Greece, to a style that used stone indeed
as its material, but borrowed all its features from construc-
tion in wood.
A rchitectural Beauty
PART III
eye along the whole facade, give an element of unity to the
composition. Yet, on the other hand, the Doric temple has
also, like the Egyptian monument, an air of monolithic con-
struction. The columns are not in fact, but in appearance,
monoliths, the architrave is that of Egypt repeated. The
whole is exceedingly massive, even megalithic in style.
Whence come the diversifying elements in the Greek fagade
upon which so much of its artistic effect depends ?
§ 143. Transference of Timber forms to Stone, the
secret of ancient Architecture.
The real secret of ancient architecture is only understood
when we regard the forms so familiar in classical stonework
as not stone forms at all, but as forms transferred to stone
from previous construction in quite a different material.
We come in contact here with one of the fundamental con-
ventions of architecture—the transference to one material oj
forms which really belong to another, and their adaptation
in their new connection to purely artistic purposes. This
is undoubtedly a contravention of the principle that archi-
tecture is ‘ construction beautified,’ for it is a fact that most
of the features and details which make the life of monu-
mental buildings are not the logical outcome of the con-
struction employed, but are conventional forms that have
the highest artistic, but no constructive, significance.
Whether a massive stone style could ever have developed
these features is more than doubtful. The development of
such a style which seemed to have begun in Egypt when
the Dolmen became the ‘Temple of the Sphinx’ came to a
sudden standstill, and a change was made, both in Egypt
and afterwards in Greece, to a style that used stone indeed
as its material, but borrowed all its features from construc-
tion in wood.