DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0080
41
HISTORY OP ARCIilTECTURE.
Part I.
Unless the arb-critic can free himself from the influence of these
adventitions associations, his judgments lose half their value ; but, on
the other hand, to the historian of art they are of the utmost importance.
It is because architecture so fully and so clearly expresses the feelings
of the jneople who practised it that it becomes frequently a better
vehicle of history than the written page ; and it is these very asso-
ciations that give life and meaning to blocks of stone and mounds of
brick, and bring so vividly before our eyes the feelings and the
aspirations of the long-forgotten past.
The importance of association in giving value to the objects of
architectural art can hardly be overrated either by the student or
historian. What has to be guarded against is that unreasoning enthu-
siasm which mistakes the shadow for the reality, and would force us
to admire a rude piece of clumsy barbarism erected yesterday, and to
which no history consequently attaches, because something like it was
done in some long past age. Its reality, its antiquity, and its weather
stains may render its prototype extremely interesting, even if not
beautiful; while its copy is only an antiquarian toy, as ugly as it is
absurd.
XVII.—Uew Style.
There is still one other point of view from which it is necessary to
look at this question of architectural design before any just conclusion
can be arrived at regarding it. It is in fact necessary to answer two
other questions, nearly as often asked as those proposed at the beginning
of Section III. “ Can any one invent a new style 1 ”—“ Can we ever
again have a new and original style of architecture ? ” Reasoning from
experience alone, it is easy to answer these questions. Uo indiviclual
has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the
world. No one can even be named who during the prevalence of a
true style of art materially advanced its progress, or by his individual
exertion clid much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that
as this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will
ever occur now.
If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other
may as certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation
in any age or in any part of the globe has failed to invent for itself a
true and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set
about it in the right way, and there certainly can be no great difficulty
in our doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to
work in a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process
which others have followed to obtain this result.
AVhat that process is, may perhaps be best explained by such an
example as that of ship-building before alluded to, which, though
HISTORY OP ARCIilTECTURE.
Part I.
Unless the arb-critic can free himself from the influence of these
adventitions associations, his judgments lose half their value ; but, on
the other hand, to the historian of art they are of the utmost importance.
It is because architecture so fully and so clearly expresses the feelings
of the jneople who practised it that it becomes frequently a better
vehicle of history than the written page ; and it is these very asso-
ciations that give life and meaning to blocks of stone and mounds of
brick, and bring so vividly before our eyes the feelings and the
aspirations of the long-forgotten past.
The importance of association in giving value to the objects of
architectural art can hardly be overrated either by the student or
historian. What has to be guarded against is that unreasoning enthu-
siasm which mistakes the shadow for the reality, and would force us
to admire a rude piece of clumsy barbarism erected yesterday, and to
which no history consequently attaches, because something like it was
done in some long past age. Its reality, its antiquity, and its weather
stains may render its prototype extremely interesting, even if not
beautiful; while its copy is only an antiquarian toy, as ugly as it is
absurd.
XVII.—Uew Style.
There is still one other point of view from which it is necessary to
look at this question of architectural design before any just conclusion
can be arrived at regarding it. It is in fact necessary to answer two
other questions, nearly as often asked as those proposed at the beginning
of Section III. “ Can any one invent a new style 1 ”—“ Can we ever
again have a new and original style of architecture ? ” Reasoning from
experience alone, it is easy to answer these questions. Uo indiviclual
has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the
world. No one can even be named who during the prevalence of a
true style of art materially advanced its progress, or by his individual
exertion clid much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that
as this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will
ever occur now.
If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other
may as certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation
in any age or in any part of the globe has failed to invent for itself a
true and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set
about it in the right way, and there certainly can be no great difficulty
in our doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to
work in a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process
which others have followed to obtain this result.
AVhat that process is, may perhaps be best explained by such an
example as that of ship-building before alluded to, which, though