The decline of the West, Volume 1 : $b Form and actualitySpengler, Oswald
Philosophy
The decline of the West, Volume 1 : $b Form and actuality
Spengler, Oswald
Civilization -- History
The organic history of a style comprises a "pre—," a "non—" and a "post—
." The bull tablet of the First Dynasty of Egypt[238] is not yet
“Egyptian.” Not till the Third Dynasty do the works acquire a style—but
then they do so suddenly and very definitely. Similarly the Carolingian
period stands “between-styles.” We see different forms touched on and
explored, but nothing of inwardly necessary expression. The creator of
the Aachen Minster “thinks surely and builds surely, but does not feel
surely.”[239] The Marienkirche in the Castle of Würzburg (c. 700) has
its counterpart in Salonika (St. George), and the Church of St. Germigny
des Près (c. 800) with its cupolas and horseshoe niches is almost a
mosque. For the whole of West Europe the period 850-950 is almost a
blank. And just so to-day Russian art stands between two styles. The
primitive wooden architecture with its steep eight-sided tent-roof
(which extends from Norway to Manchuria) is impressed with Byzantine
motives from over the Danube and Armenian-Persian from over the
Caucasus. We can certainly feel an “elective affinity” between the
Russian and the Magian souls, but as yet the prime symbol of Russia, the
_plane without limit_,[240] finds no sure expression either in religion
or in architecture. The church roof emerges, hillock-wise, but little
from the landscape and on it sit the tent-roofs whose points are coifed
with the “kokoshniks” that suppress and would abolish the upward
tendency. They neither tower up like the Gothic belfry nor enclose like
the mosque-cupola, but _sit_, thereby emphasizing the horizontality of
the building, which is meant to be regarded merely from the outside.
When about 1760 the Synod forbade the tent roofs and prescribed the
orthodox onion-cupolas, the heavy cupolas were set upon slender
cylinders, of which there may be any number[241] and which sit on the
roof-plane.[242] It is not yet a style, only the promise of a style that
will awaken when the real Russian religion awakens.
In the Faustian West, this awakening happened shortly before A.D. 1000.
In one moment, the Romanesque style was there. Instead of the fluid
organization of space on an insecure ground plan, there was, suddenly, a
strict dynamic of space. From the very beginning, inner and outer
construction were placed in a fixed relation, the wall was penetrated by
the form-language and the form worked into the wall in a way that no
other Culture has ever imagined. From the very beginning the window and
the belfry were invested with their meanings. The form was irrevocably
assigned. Only its development remained to be worked out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account