XLII. I have an intense love for these monochrome figures, owing to
their wonderful life and spirit in all the works on which I found them;
nevertheless, I believe that the excessive degree of abstraction which
they imply necessitates our placing them in the rank of a progressive or
imperfect art, and that a perfect building should rather be composed of
the highest sculpture (organic form dominant and sub-dominant),
associated with pattern colors on the flat or broad surfaces. And we
find, in fact, that the cathedral of Pisa, which is a higher type than
that of Lucca, exactly follows this condition, the color being put in
geometrical patterns on its surfaces, and animal-forms and lovely
leafage used in the sculptured cornices and pillars. And I think that
the grace of the carved forms is best seen when it is thus boldly
opposed to severe traceries of color, while the color itself is, as we
have seen, always most piquant when it is put into sharp angular
arrangements. Thus the sculpture is approved and set off by the color,
and the color seen to the best advantage in its opposition both to the
whiteness and the grace of the carved marble.
XLIII. In the course of this and the preceding chapters, I have now
separately enumerated most of the conditions of Power and Beauty, which
in the outset I stated to be the grounds of the deepest impressions with
which architecture could affect the human mind; but I would ask
permission to recapitulate them in order to see if there be any building
which I may offer as an example of the unison, in such manner as is
possible, of them all. Glancing back, then, to the beginning of the
third chapter, and introducing in their place the conditions
incidentally determined in the two previous sections, we shall have the
following list of noble characters:
Considerable size, exhibited by simple terminal lines (Chap. III. § 6).
Projection towards the top (§ 7). Breadth of flat surface (§ 8). Square
compartments of that surface (§ 9). Varied and visible masonry (§ 11).
Vigorous depth of shadow (§ 13), exhibited especially by pierced
traceries (§ 18). Varied proportion in ascent (Chap. IV. § 28). Lateral
symmetry (§ 28). Sculpture most delicate at the base (Chap. I. § 12).
Enriched quantity of ornament at the top (§ 13). Sculpture abstract in
inferior ornaments and mouldings (Chap. IV. § 31), complete in animal
forms (§ 33). Both to be executed in white marble (§ 40). Vivid color
introduced in flat geometrical patterns (§ 39), and obtained by the use
of naturally colored stone (§ 35).
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