Architecture, Its Purpose And Place Amongst The Arts.

surface , may do this . Tou may say " No , that Avas a monument , not architecture . " lie granted that it was a monument , and the A'ery rudest conceivable . All he contended for was , that iii that rude monument la _ y the very germ of that yearning for expression which was developed into alf the fine arts ; and that

in a history of architecture , the history of monoliths should stand as chapter the first . A mere plain wall may be a most thorough piece of arshitecture without a shadow of elaborate ornament , when used with some clearly marked expression , no matter how elementary the idea it contaias , Avhether merely that of rude

display or that of power and defiance , as the cyelopean work of the Oscans was evidently intended to produce . If we trace up-its history by a comparison of its ornaments , our attention will at last be draAvn up its many ramifications to that spot to which the eyes of all nations turn as the home of their common

forefathers . Even the American Indian points northward , whence his race descended to their present huntingfields , acknowled ging an original home beyond the northern passage . 'Ihe traditions of Asiatic and European concentrate upon it as the spot whence races , languages , and arts all silently assent to trace their ori gin . There can be little doubt that forms of ornamentation have travelled in our direction

from the East . Very many of them which characterize the earlier forms of European art bear too strong a - resemblance to what Ave know to have been loug before in favour in the East , to be mistaken . But with architecture in its larger sense it need not have been so . Architecture has

always been a human necessity . The common obligation to follow the natural law of mechanics , and to be bound by the nature of materials , may have led tribes without a tradition of relationship , to adopt precisely the same methods of construction and ornament .

Long before the day of that questionable happiness , when tenderer civilisation began to take the place of wild and hardy independence , there were men Avith whom an impulse much akin to the inspiration of religion forced them to look forward in vague search for something which their common language could not express . This poetic sense of the good and beautiful

formed its first utterance in the rude measure of a hymn ; and thus art began . Then men began to be bound together more closely . Their sympathies were roused , and the idea of nationality began to be sacred . Under such influences three styles of architecture have arisen ; or rather , he had better perhaps express

it , three distinct architectural systems have been developed , mechanically and decoratively antagonistic to each other . They are the types of ail the st yles which have ever existed , and that ever can exist . He meant the Egyptian and the Gothic , and that which spreads over the extreme Eastwhichfor Avant of a

, , better name , he should call Chinese . The first of these , the Egyptian , was based on an idea of strength and stability . In construction , it Avas simple and rectangular . It trusted for artistic effect ( exclusive of its colour and its statuary ) to vastness of bulk and length of lineof Avhich the spare relief of curved

, capitals and hollow cornice only added to the majestic simplicity . Gothic , on the contrary , was constructed exclusiA r ely with reference to the use of the arch . Its most striking effect was that of lightness and hei ght , and its idea of beauty Avas as much that of the

truthful expression of its construction as that of more ostensible ornament , for which it pressed into its service all the most beautiful forms it could collect ( from the great treasury of nature ) . The third typical style , which he had rather vaguely called the Chinese , appeared to him to differ from the other two , principally in having , neither constructively nor artistically , any princip les at all . Anything is fish that comes to its net . But what could

be expected of a people whose ideas of beauty are founded on their own ugly type of humanity , which they delight to honour by still further refinements of distortion ? Prom these three central influences ; that is , from the horizontal principle , the upright principle , and the no princip le at all , architecture must be derived . All true forms of

architectural art have been based on simple good judgement and practical common sense . And just as now from , the examination of most ancient languages , the roots of some primieval tongue are traced ; so does the genealogy of art lead to a centre of common origin , —a centrenot of lacebut of nature ; a centre Avhich .

, p , marks significantly the unity of the human race , the oneness of their physical necessities , the following the same principles , and the expression of the same ideas . In this , of course , he referred only to the similarity of first principles ; similarity of ultimate result as the rare exception . Distant nations , who

have no record of communication , have never developed their arts alike , Avith one solitary exception . Mere savages living at each other ' s antipodes , may have carved the knobs of spears and tomahawks alike , and had war paint and tattoo patterns as similar as if handed down Avith rigour of sanctity from their first

gifted inventor ; they may have built alike , and have made their wooden villages , on the surface of lakes alike , from the bronze or iron age of mankind to the era of the first Doge of Venice . Their minor arts

also may have been alike traceable to their ornaments , to the universal instinct and love of beauty in the simplest forms . The one remarkable case of similarity between most distant nations ( which remains still to be explained ) is that between certain arts practised by the first civilized inhabitants of Central America and those of the Egyptians . A similarity of national

character would certainly . induce a similarity of arts , because arts have always been fostered under the influence of statecraft , national government , and national state religion . But we haA e no means of tracing any similarity of influences between them . Living at the antipodes of each otherthe two most

, civilized nations of their respective hemispheres developed systems of art which bear a surprising relationshi p to each other . In the use of hieroglyphics they had hit upon the same method of writing ; in architecture the same principle of building . Their system of building is carried out

into a system of architecture , with points . of similarity too remarkable to be derived from the common requirements or common instincts of the two nations . The relationship of styles in other countries better known to us is very simple . Everywhere is the same tale told of poAver and wealth going to the shrine to

consecrate the arts to the dignity of the state and the honour of relig ion ; and everyAvhere architecture seems to have been the art on Avhich they lavished all the resources of ingenuity and genius which craft