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110 IX. THE CAPITAL. CONSTRUCTIONS tions the most important shafts are in the inside of the building. The dripstone sections of their capitals are therefore unnecessary and ridiculous. § x. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary. The edge of the dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, and the capital fails, therefore, in its own principal function; and besides this, the undercut contour admits of no distinctly visible decoration; it is, therefore, left utterly barren, and the capital looks as- if it had been turned in a lathe. The Early English capital has, therefore, the three greatest faults that any design can have: (1) it fails in its own proper purpose, that of support; (2) it is adapted to a purpose to which it can never be put, that of keeping off rain; (3) it cannot be decorated. The Early English capital is, therefore, a barbarism of triple grossness, and degrades the style in which it is found, otherwise very noble, to one of second-rate order. § xi. Dismissing, therefore, the Early English capital, as deserving no place in our system, let us reassemble in one view the forms which have been legitimately developed, and which are to become hereafter subjects of decoration. To the forms a, b, and c, Fig. XIX., we must add the two simplest truncated forms e and g, Fig. XIX., putting their abaci on them (as we considered their contours in the bells only), at'd we shall have the five forms now given in parallel perspective in Fig. XXII., which are the roots of all good capi-. ta?s existing, or capable of existence, and whose variations, infinite and a thousand times infinite, are all produced by r-x
Title | The stones of Venice - 1 |
Creator | Ruskin, John |
Publisher | J. Wiley |
Place of Publication | New York |
Date | 1889 |
Language | eng |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Title | 00000135 |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Transcript | 110 IX. THE CAPITAL. CONSTRUCTIONS tions the most important shafts are in the inside of the building. The dripstone sections of their capitals are therefore unnecessary and ridiculous. § x. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary. The edge of the dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, and the capital fails, therefore, in its own principal function; and besides this, the undercut contour admits of no distinctly visible decoration; it is, therefore, left utterly barren, and the capital looks as- if it had been turned in a lathe. The Early English capital has, therefore, the three greatest faults that any design can have: (1) it fails in its own proper purpose, that of support; (2) it is adapted to a purpose to which it can never be put, that of keeping off rain; (3) it cannot be decorated. The Early English capital is, therefore, a barbarism of triple grossness, and degrades the style in which it is found, otherwise very noble, to one of second-rate order. § xi. Dismissing, therefore, the Early English capital, as deserving no place in our system, let us reassemble in one view the forms which have been legitimately developed, and which are to become hereafter subjects of decoration. To the forms a, b, and c, Fig. XIX., we must add the two simplest truncated forms e and g, Fig. XIX., putting their abaci on them (as we considered their contours in the bells only), at'd we shall have the five forms now given in parallel perspective in Fig. XXII., which are the roots of all good capi-. ta?s existing, or capable of existence, and whose variations, infinite and a thousand times infinite, are all produced by r-x |
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