DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27192#0367
Chap. X,
MYSORE AND OUDH
327
which to some extent redeems its other defects (Woodcut
No. 439). Like all the other specimens of Oriental Italian
Architecture, it offends painfully, though less than most others,
from the misapplication of the details of the Classical Orders.
439. Begam Kothi, Lucknow. (From a Photograph.)
Of course no native of India can well understand either the
origin or motive of the various parts of our Orders—why the
entablature should be divided in architrave, frieze, and cornice
—why the shafts should be a certain number of diameters in
height, and so on. It is, in fact, like a man trying to copy an
inscription in a language he does not understand, and of which
he does not even know the alphabet. With the most correct
eye and the greatest pains he cannot do it accurately. In
India, besides this ignorance of the grammar of the art, the
natives cannot help feeling that the projection of the cornices is
too small if meant to produce a shadow, and too deep to be of
easy construction in plaster in a climate subject to monsoons.
They feel that brick pillars ought to be thicker than the Italian
Orders generally are, and that wooden architraves are the worst
possible mode of construction in a climate where wood decays
so rapidly, even if spared by the white ants. The consequence
is, that, between his ignorance of the principles of Classic Art on
MYSORE AND OUDH
327
which to some extent redeems its other defects (Woodcut
No. 439). Like all the other specimens of Oriental Italian
Architecture, it offends painfully, though less than most others,
from the misapplication of the details of the Classical Orders.
439. Begam Kothi, Lucknow. (From a Photograph.)
Of course no native of India can well understand either the
origin or motive of the various parts of our Orders—why the
entablature should be divided in architrave, frieze, and cornice
—why the shafts should be a certain number of diameters in
height, and so on. It is, in fact, like a man trying to copy an
inscription in a language he does not understand, and of which
he does not even know the alphabet. With the most correct
eye and the greatest pains he cannot do it accurately. In
India, besides this ignorance of the grammar of the art, the
natives cannot help feeling that the projection of the cornices is
too small if meant to produce a shadow, and too deep to be of
easy construction in plaster in a climate subject to monsoons.
They feel that brick pillars ought to be thicker than the Italian
Orders generally are, and that wooden architraves are the worst
possible mode of construction in a climate where wood decays
so rapidly, even if spared by the white ants. The consequence
is, that, between his ignorance of the principles of Classic Art on