DOI Heft:
Część 2: Konteksty architektury
DOI Artikel:Bałus, Wojciech: Space and beholder in Nineteenth‑century sacred architecture
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.54671#0221
Wojciech Bałus
Instytut Historii Sztuki, Uniwersytet Jagielloński
ORCID: 0000-0002-7108-2184
Space and Beholder in Nineteenth-Century
Sacred Architecture1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26881/porta.2020.19.ll
I
In his sonnet Cathedrals etc., published in the third series of Ecclesiastical
Sketches (From the Restoration to the Present Time), William Wordsworth wrote:
Open your gates, ye everlasting Piles!
Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared;
Not loth we quit the newly-hallowed sward
And humble altar, ’mid your sumptuous aisles
To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles,
Or down the nave to pace in motion slow;
Watching with upward eye, the tali tower grow
And mount, at every step, with living wiles
Instinct-to rouse the heart and lead the will
By a bright ladder to the world above.2
In the poem two interrelated modes of reception were presented of a Gothic-
and by analogy, also a neo-Gothic-church: one of these modes may be called
‘ecstatic’, andthe other, ‘kinaesthetic’.
The former was related to the impression madę on the beholder by the soar-
ing building, especially its tower rising to the sky First, this view sets off affects,
this being the lowest, basie and instinctive reaction (affectio) aroused in the
human body by external objects (‘mount [...] with living wiles instinct’).3 This
bodily movement is quickly followed by a morę conscious reaction developed
in the form of feelings (‘rouse the heart’) which culminate in a desire (Tead the
will’) to detach oneself from the earth and rise into the sky
1 The article was written with the financial support of the De Brzezie Lanckoroński Foundation.
2 William Wordsworth, ‘Cathedrals etc.’, in: idem, The Complete Poetical Works, ed. Henry
Reed, Philadelphia, 1848, p. 309.
3 Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley, San Francisco, 1988,
pp. 48-51.
221
Instytut Historii Sztuki, Uniwersytet Jagielloński
ORCID: 0000-0002-7108-2184
Space and Beholder in Nineteenth-Century
Sacred Architecture1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26881/porta.2020.19.ll
I
In his sonnet Cathedrals etc., published in the third series of Ecclesiastical
Sketches (From the Restoration to the Present Time), William Wordsworth wrote:
Open your gates, ye everlasting Piles!
Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared;
Not loth we quit the newly-hallowed sward
And humble altar, ’mid your sumptuous aisles
To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles,
Or down the nave to pace in motion slow;
Watching with upward eye, the tali tower grow
And mount, at every step, with living wiles
Instinct-to rouse the heart and lead the will
By a bright ladder to the world above.2
In the poem two interrelated modes of reception were presented of a Gothic-
and by analogy, also a neo-Gothic-church: one of these modes may be called
‘ecstatic’, andthe other, ‘kinaesthetic’.
The former was related to the impression madę on the beholder by the soar-
ing building, especially its tower rising to the sky First, this view sets off affects,
this being the lowest, basie and instinctive reaction (affectio) aroused in the
human body by external objects (‘mount [...] with living wiles instinct’).3 This
bodily movement is quickly followed by a morę conscious reaction developed
in the form of feelings (‘rouse the heart’) which culminate in a desire (Tead the
will’) to detach oneself from the earth and rise into the sky
1 The article was written with the financial support of the De Brzezie Lanckoroński Foundation.
2 William Wordsworth, ‘Cathedrals etc.’, in: idem, The Complete Poetical Works, ed. Henry
Reed, Philadelphia, 1848, p. 309.
3 Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley, San Francisco, 1988,
pp. 48-51.
221