This distinction is, in architecture, still more necessary; for there
are two marked styles dependent upon it: one in which the forms are
drawn with light upon darkness, as in Greek sculpture and pillars; the
other in which they are drawn with darkness upon light, as in early
Gothic foliation. Now, it is not in the designer's power determinately
to vary degrees and places of darkness, but it is altogether in his
power to vary in determined directions his degrees of light. Hence, the
use of the dark mass characterises, generally, a trenchant style of
design, in which the darks and lights are both flat, and terminated by
sharp edges; while the use of the light mass is in the same way
associated with a softened and full manner of design, in which the darks
are much warmed by reflected lights, and the lights are rounded and melt
into them. The term applied by Milton to Doric bas-relief--"bossy," is,
as is generally the case with Milton's epithets, the most comprehensive
and expressive of this manner, which the English language contains;
while the term which specifically describes the chief member of early
Gothic decoration, feuille, foil or leaf, is equally significative of a
flat space of shade.
XV. We shall shortly consider the actual modes in which these two kinds
of mass have been treated. And, first, of the light, or rounded, mass.
The modes in which relief was secured for the more projecting forms of
bas-relief, by the Greeks, have been too well described by Mr.
Eastlake[I] to need recapitulation: the conclusion which forces itself
upon us from the facts he has remarked, being one on which I shall have
occasion farther to insist presently, that the Greek workman cared for
shadow only as a dark field wherefrom his light figure or design might
be intelligibly detached: his attention was concentrated on the one aim
at readableness, and clearness of accent; and all composition, all
harmony, nay, the very vitality and energy of separate groups were, when
necessary, sacrificed to plain speaking. Nor was there any predilection
for one kind of form rather than another. Bounded forms were, in the
columns and principal decorative members, adopted, not for their own
sake, but as characteristic of the things represented. They were
beautifully rounded, because the Greek habitually did well what he had
to do, not because he loved roundness more than squareness; severely
rectilinear forms were associated with the curved ones in the cornice
and triglyph, and the mass of the pillar was divided by a fluting,
which, in distant effect, destroyed much of its breadth. What power of
light these primal arrangements left, was diminished in successive
refinements and additions of ornament; and continued to diminish through
Roman work, until the confirmation of the circular arch as a decorative
feature. Its lovely and simple line taught the eye to ask for a similar
boundary of solid form; the dome followed, and necessarily the
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