A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayFergusson, James
History
A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- History
Their remaining literature is of such modern growth, and was so
specially copied from what had preceded it, or so influenced by the
contemporary effusions of other people, that it is impossible accurately
to discriminate what is due to race and what to circumstances. All that
can safely be said is, that Celtic literature is always more
epigrammatic, more brilliant, and more daring than that of the sober
Aryan; but its coruscations neither light to so great a depth, nor last
so long as less dazzling productions might do. They may be the most
brilliant, but they certainly do not belong to the highest class of
literary effort; nor is their effect on the destiny of man likely to be
so permanent.
ARTS.
The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence. It is
perhaps not too much to assert that without his intervention we should
not have possessed in modern times a church worthy of admiration, or a
picture or a statue we could look at without shame.
In their arts, too,—either from their higher status, or from their
admixture with Aryans,—we escape the instinctive fixity which makes the
arts of the pure Turanian as unprogressive as the works of birds or of
beavers. Restless intellectual progress characterises everything they
perform; and had their arts not been nipped in the bud by circumstances
over which they had no control, we might have seen something that would
have shamed even Greece and wholly eclipsed the arts of Rome.
They have not, it is true, that instinctive knowledge of colour which
distinguishes the Turanian, nor have they been able to give to music
that intellectual culture which has been elaborated by the Aryans: but
in the middle path between the two they excel both. They are far better
musicians than the former, and far better colourists than the last-named
races; but in modern Europe Architecture is practically their own. Where
their influence was strongest, there Architecture was most perfect; as
they decayed, or as the Aryan influence prevailed, the art first
languished, and then died.
Their quasi-Turanian theology required Temples almost as grand as those
of the Copts or Tamuls; and, like them, they sought to honour those who
had been mortals by splendour which mortals are assumed to be pleased
with; and the pomp of their worship always surpassed that with which
they honoured their Kings. Even more remarkable than this is the fact
that they could and did build Tombs such as a Turanian might have
envied, not for their size but for their art, and even now can adorn
their cemeteries with monuments which are not ridiculous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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