A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, ArchitectureWaters, Clara Erskine Clement
History
A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture
Waters, Clara Erskine Clement
Art -- History
The Museum (Berlin), 177
The Walhalla, 178
The New Opera House (Paris), 180
The United States Capitol (Washington), 182
State Capitol (Columbus, Ohio), 183
Sir William Pepperell's House (Kittery Point, Maine), 185
Old Morrisania (Morrisania, New York), 187
Residence at Irvington, New York, 189
[Illustration]
ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT OR HEATHEN ARCHITECTURE.
3000 B.C. TO A.D. 328.
Architecture seems to me to be the most wonderful of all the arts. We
may not love it as much as others, when we are young perhaps we cannot
do so, because it is so great and so grand; but at any time of life one
can see that in Architecture some of the most marvellous achievements
of men are displayed. The principal reason for saying this is that
Architecture is not an imitative art, like Painting and Sculpture. The
first picture that was ever painted was a portrait or an imitation of
something that the painter had seen. So in Sculpture, the first statue
or bas-relief was an attempt to reproduce some being or object that the
sculptor had seen, or to make a work which combined portions of several
things that he had observed; but in Architecture this was not true. No
temples or tombs or palaces existed until they had first taken form in
the mind and imagination of the builders, and were created out of space
and nothingness, so to speak. Thus Painting and Sculpture are imitative
arts, but Architecture is a constructive art; and while one may love
pictures or statues more than the work of the architect, it seems to
me that one must wonder most at the last.
We do not know how long the earth has existed, and in studying the
most ancient times of which we have any accurate knowledge, we come
upon facts which prove that men must have lived and died long before
the dates of which we can speak exactly. The earliest nations of whose
Architecture we can give an account are called heathen nations, and
their art is called Ancient or Heathen Art, and this comes down to the
time when the Roman Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity,
and changed the Roman Capitol from Rome to Constantinople in the year
of our Lord 328.
The buildings and the ruins which still remain from these ancient times
are in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Judea, Asia Minor, Greece, Etruria, and
Rome. Many of these have been excavated or uncovered, as, during the
ages that have passed since their erection, they had been buried away
from sight by the accumulation of earth about them. These excavations
are always going on in various countries, and men are ever striving
to learn more about the wonders of ancient days; and we may hope that
in the future as marvellous things may be revealed to us as have been
shown in the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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