Works of architecture have further quite a special relation to light; they
gain a double beauty in the full sunshine, with the blue sky as a
background, and again they have quite a different effect by moonlight.
Therefore, when a beautiful work of architecture is to be erected, special
attention is always paid to the effects of the light and to the climate.
The reason of all this is, indeed, principally that all the parts and
their relations are only made clearly visible by a bright, strong light;
but besides this I am of opinion that it is the function of architecture
to reveal the nature of light just as it reveals that of things so
opposite to it as gravity and rigidity. For the light is intercepted,
confined, and reflected by the great opaque, sharply outlined, and
variously formed masses of stone, and thus it unfolds its nature and
qualities in the purest and clearest way, to the great pleasure of the
beholders, for light is the most joy-giving of things, as the condition
and the objective correlative of the most perfect kind of knowledge of
perception.
Now, because the Ideas which architecture brings to clear perception, are
the lowest grades of the objectivity of will, and consequently their
objective significance, which architecture reveals to us, is comparatively
small; the æsthetic pleasure of looking at a beautiful building in a good
light will lie, not so much in the comprehension of the Idea, as in the
subjective correlative which accompanies this comprehension; it will
consist pre-eminently in the fact that the beholder, set free from the
kind of knowledge that belongs to the individual, and which serves the
will and follows the principle of sufficient reason, is raised to that of
the pure subject of knowing free from will. It will consist then
principally in pure contemplation itself, free from all the suffering of
will and of individuality. In this respect the opposite of architecture,
and the other extreme of the series of the fine arts, is the drama, which
brings to knowledge the most significant Ideas. Therefore in the æsthetic
pleasure afforded by the drama the objective side is throughout
predominant.
Architecture has this distinction from plastic art and poetry: it does not
give us a copy but the thing itself. It does not repeat, as they do, the
known Idea, so that the artist lends his eyes to the beholder, but in it
the artist merely presents the object to the beholder, and facilitates for
him the comprehension of the Idea by bringing the actual, individual
object to a distinct and complete expression of its nature.