DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32867#0051
LOCAL SCHOOLS
dry masonry, employing huge masses of cut stone, and resorting to every other
device for building their walls and making their roofs, devices which, in the main,
may be found in ancient Greek architecture. If I have succeeded in making this
clear, it will be seen that the difference between the Byzantine style and that practised
by the architects of Northern Syria is one of essentials and origin. The Byzantine
style is the result of a union of the native Roman with Persian and other Oriental styles,
while that of the Syrian buildings is the issue of an alliance between the Greek style
and some unrecognizable Oriental style. The Syrian style inherits so little through
Rome which it could not have inherited directly from Greece, that it may more properly
be called post-classical Greek than Romanesque, bearing a relation to the ancient
Greek style analogous to that between the classic and post-classic Greek literature;
for the term “ Romanesque,” as we know it, excludes almost entirely the Greek ele-
ments in Roman architecture. Almost none of the Greek elements appeared in the
Romanesque architecture of northern Europe, where the architects made use only of
thosc features of the old style that 'were of peninsular origin. They used concrete
and mortar in great quantities, and had no other idea than how they could best pro-
vide their churches with vaults of stone. Everything gave way to this; they made
their walls of prodigious thickness, they enlarged their supports, they reduced their
openings to the minimum, that their stone vaults, weighted with masses of rubble,
mio-ht be held in place. The Italian architects of the Renaissance revived the classic
styie 0f ancient Rome, with its Greek and native elements combined. The Syrian
architects of the fifth and sixth centuries carried out the ancient Greek principles of
construction, introducing only the arch and the semi-dome of the Romans, which
they employed in a fashion more in keeping with Greek methods than with Roman,
and infusing the ornament with theii own feeling.
If a term could be coined out of the word “ Greek ” which would correspond with
the word “ Romanesque,” we should have a name more applicable to this architec-
ture ; but as that would not include the native elements, we should be obliged to com-
bine'the words “ Syrian ” and “ Greek,” and “ Greco-Syrian ” would be the result.
II
LOCAL SCHOOLS
IT is a curious fact, and one not readily explained, that the Djebel il-ATa and the
Djebel Barisha, which are far richer in monuments of the second century than the
Djebel Riha, should have fallen behind the latter in the quality of their architectural
productions during the centuries which followed, and that classic models should have
obtained longer in the latter region than in the former.
dry masonry, employing huge masses of cut stone, and resorting to every other
device for building their walls and making their roofs, devices which, in the main,
may be found in ancient Greek architecture. If I have succeeded in making this
clear, it will be seen that the difference between the Byzantine style and that practised
by the architects of Northern Syria is one of essentials and origin. The Byzantine
style is the result of a union of the native Roman with Persian and other Oriental styles,
while that of the Syrian buildings is the issue of an alliance between the Greek style
and some unrecognizable Oriental style. The Syrian style inherits so little through
Rome which it could not have inherited directly from Greece, that it may more properly
be called post-classical Greek than Romanesque, bearing a relation to the ancient
Greek style analogous to that between the classic and post-classic Greek literature;
for the term “ Romanesque,” as we know it, excludes almost entirely the Greek ele-
ments in Roman architecture. Almost none of the Greek elements appeared in the
Romanesque architecture of northern Europe, where the architects made use only of
thosc features of the old style that 'were of peninsular origin. They used concrete
and mortar in great quantities, and had no other idea than how they could best pro-
vide their churches with vaults of stone. Everything gave way to this; they made
their walls of prodigious thickness, they enlarged their supports, they reduced their
openings to the minimum, that their stone vaults, weighted with masses of rubble,
mio-ht be held in place. The Italian architects of the Renaissance revived the classic
styie 0f ancient Rome, with its Greek and native elements combined. The Syrian
architects of the fifth and sixth centuries carried out the ancient Greek principles of
construction, introducing only the arch and the semi-dome of the Romans, which
they employed in a fashion more in keeping with Greek methods than with Roman,
and infusing the ornament with theii own feeling.
If a term could be coined out of the word “ Greek ” which would correspond with
the word “ Romanesque,” we should have a name more applicable to this architec-
ture ; but as that would not include the native elements, we should be obliged to com-
bine'the words “ Syrian ” and “ Greek,” and “ Greco-Syrian ” would be the result.
II
LOCAL SCHOOLS
IT is a curious fact, and one not readily explained, that the Djebel il-ATa and the
Djebel Barisha, which are far richer in monuments of the second century than the
Djebel Riha, should have fallen behind the latter in the quality of their architectural
productions during the centuries which followed, and that classic models should have
obtained longer in the latter region than in the former.