Lectures on Architecture, Tr. by B. Bucknall - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1877. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... LECTURE VI. TERIOD OF DECLINE IN ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE--STYLE AND DESIGN--ORIGIN OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE--WESTERN ARCHITECTURE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA. Was Christianity favourable or unfavourable to the development of the arts? Supposing the world had not been enlightened by its divine rays, could Pagan Art have modified itself? could it have risen again after having once fallen'? Have the civilisations of Christian origin arts of their own? Does Art with them inevitably tend towards decline? or is it destined to be always progressive? To give an answer to these questions, a brief review of ancient and modern civilisations is necessary. The civilisations of Antiquity (I speak, be it understood, only of those with which we are acquainted) attain more or less rapidly to a complete development, and then decline to rise no more. Civilisations of Christian origin waver for a long time irresolute; they have their moments of brilliancy and their periods of obscurity, but they never fall so low as to be unable to collect vigour sufficient to start again upon a new career; they constantly renew their energies in an inexhaustible fountain of active principles; we see them slumber, but they never die. After an existence of eighteen centuries, based on the ruins of the past, having survived torrents of blood, despite the most monstrous excesses, despite ignorance with its retinue of error, fanaticism, prejudices, disorder, revolutions, wars, tyranny and anarchy, the West, so far from being exhausted, seems to live with a renewed life. The trials it has endured have weakened neither its intellectual vigour nor its material preponderance in the affairs of the world. Shall we admit that Art alone does not share this vital force of the modern societies of Western Europe,--that...