DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5596#0345
310
APPENDIX.
oast it out, and shake the dust of it from our feet for ever. Whatever has any
connection with the five orders, or with any one of the orders—whatever is
Doric, or Ionic, or Tuscan, or Corinthian, or Composite, or in any wise Grecized
or Romanized ; whatever betrays the smallest respect for Vitruvian laws, or
conformity with Palladian work,—that we are to endure no more. To cleanse
ourselves of these cast clouts and rotten rags is the first thing to be done in the
court of our prison." (Stones of Billingsgate, iii. 194.)
Nor is he prejudiced only against ancient art, but, contrary to
the universal suffrage of mankind, he pronounces the architecture
and ornaments of the Alhambra " detestable ; " and in the pleni-
tude of his wrath he denounces grammar, logic, and rhetoric as
" base sciences," and accuses philology also of having a " debasing
tendency." (iii. 105.)
Our author never condescends to use argument, but either
lectures his opponents like the Romish Pope turned schoolmaster,
or he hectors them, and launches out his anathemas, like a pauper-
schoolmaster turned Pope of Rome.
Such a writer, by the fanatical language which he has used, has
missed his aim; for however he may be looked up to by his own
party, he has set calm-thinking men against him : whereas, if he
had used greater moderation in the enunciation of his views, and
treated his opponents with greater courtesy, he might have been
the means of invoking a more serious, thoughtful, passionate study
of art in general, at the same time that he endeavoured to lead
the public taste to a greater appreciation of the beauties of what
he considered as the most appropriate style for the present age.
We regret, then, that a writer of such established power should
so commit himself against Greek art: for we verily believe that
if the ancient Greeks were now in existence, there are many points
in which they would agree with the sentiments he so forcibly and
so constantly promulgates. They would listen with delight when
they heard him expatiate on the importance and necessity of truth-
fulness, delicacy, tenderness, study of nature, admiration of the
human form, and necessity of uniting a knowledge of sculpture
and painting to that of architecture. Scopas, who designed the
capital at Ephesus ; Callimachus, who invented th.e capital at
Corinth ; they who observed and idealized the parsley and the
acanthus, the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the lotus ; would behold
APPENDIX.
oast it out, and shake the dust of it from our feet for ever. Whatever has any
connection with the five orders, or with any one of the orders—whatever is
Doric, or Ionic, or Tuscan, or Corinthian, or Composite, or in any wise Grecized
or Romanized ; whatever betrays the smallest respect for Vitruvian laws, or
conformity with Palladian work,—that we are to endure no more. To cleanse
ourselves of these cast clouts and rotten rags is the first thing to be done in the
court of our prison." (Stones of Billingsgate, iii. 194.)
Nor is he prejudiced only against ancient art, but, contrary to
the universal suffrage of mankind, he pronounces the architecture
and ornaments of the Alhambra " detestable ; " and in the pleni-
tude of his wrath he denounces grammar, logic, and rhetoric as
" base sciences," and accuses philology also of having a " debasing
tendency." (iii. 105.)
Our author never condescends to use argument, but either
lectures his opponents like the Romish Pope turned schoolmaster,
or he hectors them, and launches out his anathemas, like a pauper-
schoolmaster turned Pope of Rome.
Such a writer, by the fanatical language which he has used, has
missed his aim; for however he may be looked up to by his own
party, he has set calm-thinking men against him : whereas, if he
had used greater moderation in the enunciation of his views, and
treated his opponents with greater courtesy, he might have been
the means of invoking a more serious, thoughtful, passionate study
of art in general, at the same time that he endeavoured to lead
the public taste to a greater appreciation of the beauties of what
he considered as the most appropriate style for the present age.
We regret, then, that a writer of such established power should
so commit himself against Greek art: for we verily believe that
if the ancient Greeks were now in existence, there are many points
in which they would agree with the sentiments he so forcibly and
so constantly promulgates. They would listen with delight when
they heard him expatiate on the importance and necessity of truth-
fulness, delicacy, tenderness, study of nature, admiration of the
human form, and necessity of uniting a knowledge of sculpture
and painting to that of architecture. Scopas, who designed the
capital at Ephesus ; Callimachus, who invented th.e capital at
Corinth ; they who observed and idealized the parsley and the
acanthus, the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the lotus ; would behold