DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4423#0324
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 249
The ancient Architects were unacquainted with what is understood in Europe by Styles
of Architecture, and they never considered it requisite literally to copy any ancient work, or
to adhere to the forms of any particular century, although they had present to their minds
many varieties of Architecture, in the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Pelasgic, the Etruscan, the
early Greek, &c, but whatever ideas the Greeks derived, either from Egypt or from Asia,
they impressed upon them the marks of their own higher scientific cultivation, so that in the
smallest fragment taken from the Parthenon, or from any other work of the best period of Art,
we at once perceive that it has received the marks upon it of a cultivated mind, and is not
the rudely executed idea of a common workman.
It was this intellectual and scientific character that rendered the stream of ancient
Art, that commenced in Egypt and flowed onward with varying degrees of strength and
depth, through the best Greek and Roman periods, so different to that of any other country
in the world. The Arts were then united with the geometry, and with the highest intellectual
culture, whereas, we find in India, in Assyria, and, in the middle ages, in Europe, that Archi-
tecture everywhere attained a certain degree of excellence, suited to the climate and to the
wants of society, and then became stationary and decayed, for without the geometry it could
not advance beyond the first elementary state, and there was no power to refine and perfect
the first ideas.
In the investigation of the works of nature, either with the telescope or with the
microscope, the fact that nature is always working by the laws of geometry, both upon the
largest and upon the smallest scale, is continually made apparent to us, and it is this
perfection and accuracy of design and execution, that we admire in all the works of nature,
that true Art should strive to attain, by being guided by the same mathematical laws and
principles.
It was not until the European mind, in the fifteenth century, was linked again to the
ancient stream of geometry and philosophy, that a real advance was made in any branch of
modern science, and probably no real progress will be made in Architecture until we can
completely recover and freely use the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world in all that
relates to the science of Art, and make it a basis and a starting point. But there is no
reason why the designs of modern Europe should be in any degree inferior, either in concep-
tion or in execution, to those of the best ages of the ancient world; or why, with the
civilization of the nineteenth century, we should impress upon our public monuments the
marks of the twelfth, or of any other century that has preceded us.
FINIS.
The ancient Architects were unacquainted with what is understood in Europe by Styles
of Architecture, and they never considered it requisite literally to copy any ancient work, or
to adhere to the forms of any particular century, although they had present to their minds
many varieties of Architecture, in the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Pelasgic, the Etruscan, the
early Greek, &c, but whatever ideas the Greeks derived, either from Egypt or from Asia,
they impressed upon them the marks of their own higher scientific cultivation, so that in the
smallest fragment taken from the Parthenon, or from any other work of the best period of Art,
we at once perceive that it has received the marks upon it of a cultivated mind, and is not
the rudely executed idea of a common workman.
It was this intellectual and scientific character that rendered the stream of ancient
Art, that commenced in Egypt and flowed onward with varying degrees of strength and
depth, through the best Greek and Roman periods, so different to that of any other country
in the world. The Arts were then united with the geometry, and with the highest intellectual
culture, whereas, we find in India, in Assyria, and, in the middle ages, in Europe, that Archi-
tecture everywhere attained a certain degree of excellence, suited to the climate and to the
wants of society, and then became stationary and decayed, for without the geometry it could
not advance beyond the first elementary state, and there was no power to refine and perfect
the first ideas.
In the investigation of the works of nature, either with the telescope or with the
microscope, the fact that nature is always working by the laws of geometry, both upon the
largest and upon the smallest scale, is continually made apparent to us, and it is this
perfection and accuracy of design and execution, that we admire in all the works of nature,
that true Art should strive to attain, by being guided by the same mathematical laws and
principles.
It was not until the European mind, in the fifteenth century, was linked again to the
ancient stream of geometry and philosophy, that a real advance was made in any branch of
modern science, and probably no real progress will be made in Architecture until we can
completely recover and freely use the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world in all that
relates to the science of Art, and make it a basis and a starting point. But there is no
reason why the designs of modern Europe should be in any degree inferior, either in concep-
tion or in execution, to those of the best ages of the ancient world; or why, with the
civilization of the nineteenth century, we should impress upon our public monuments the
marks of the twelfth, or of any other century that has preceded us.
FINIS.