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ni. PRIDE OF SYSTEM. II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE. 99
art of the multitude, and was affected by all their errors ; and
the great men who entered its field, like Michael Angelo, found
expression for all the best part of their minds in sculpture, and
made the architecture merely its shell. So the simpletons and
sophists had their way with it: and the reader can have no
conception of the inanities and puerilities of the writers, who,
with the help of Yitruvius, re-established its "five orders,"
determined the proportions of each, and gave the various recipes for sublimity and beauty, which have been thenceforward
followed to this day, but which may, I believe, in this age of
perfect machinery, be followed out still farther. If, indeed,
there are only five perfect forms of columns and architraves,
and there be a fixed proportion to each, it is certainly possible,
with a little ingenuity, so to regulate a stonecutting machine,
as that it shall furnish pillars and friezes to the size ordered,
of any of the five orders, on the most perfect Greek models,
in any quantity; an epitome, also, of Yitruvius, may be made
so simple, as to enable any bricklayer to set them up at their
proper distances, and we may dispense with our architects
altogether.
§ xci. But if this be not so, and there be any truth in the
faint persuasion which still lurks in men's minds that architecture is an art, and that it requires some gleam of intellect to
practise it, then let the whole system of the orders and their
proportions be cast out and trampled down as the most vain,
barbarous, and paltry deception that was ever stamped on
human prejudice; and let us understand this plain truth, common to all work of man, that, if it be good work, it is not a
copy, nor anything done by rule, but a freshly and divinely
imagined thing. Five orders ! There is not a side chapei in
any Gothic cathedral but it has fifty orders, the worst of them
better than the best of the Greek ones, and all new; and a
single inventive human soul could create a thousand orders in
an hour.* And this would have been discovered even in the
* That is to say, orders separated by such distinctions as the old Greek
ones : considered with reference to the bearing power of the capital, all
orders may be referred to two, as long ago stated ; just as trees may be referred to the two great classes, monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous.
| Title | The stones of Venice - 3 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000113 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | ni. PRIDE OF SYSTEM. II. ROMAN RENAISSANCE. 99 art of the multitude, and was affected by all their errors ; and the great men who entered its field, like Michael Angelo, found expression for all the best part of their minds in sculpture, and made the architecture merely its shell. So the simpletons and sophists had their way with it: and the reader can have no conception of the inanities and puerilities of the writers, who, with the help of Yitruvius, re-established its "five orders," determined the proportions of each, and gave the various recipes for sublimity and beauty, which have been thenceforward followed to this day, but which may, I believe, in this age of perfect machinery, be followed out still farther. If, indeed, there are only five perfect forms of columns and architraves, and there be a fixed proportion to each, it is certainly possible, with a little ingenuity, so to regulate a stonecutting machine, as that it shall furnish pillars and friezes to the size ordered, of any of the five orders, on the most perfect Greek models, in any quantity; an epitome, also, of Yitruvius, may be made so simple, as to enable any bricklayer to set them up at their proper distances, and we may dispense with our architects altogether. § xci. But if this be not so, and there be any truth in the faint persuasion which still lurks in men's minds that architecture is an art, and that it requires some gleam of intellect to practise it, then let the whole system of the orders and their proportions be cast out and trampled down as the most vain, barbarous, and paltry deception that was ever stamped on human prejudice; and let us understand this plain truth, common to all work of man, that, if it be good work, it is not a copy, nor anything done by rule, but a freshly and divinely imagined thing. Five orders ! There is not a side chapei in any Gothic cathedral but it has fifty orders, the worst of them better than the best of the Greek ones, and all new; and a single inventive human soul could create a thousand orders in an hour.* And this would have been discovered even in the * That is to say, orders separated by such distinctions as the old Greek ones : considered with reference to the bearing power of the capital, all orders may be referred to two, as long ago stated ; just as trees may be referred to the two great classes, monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous. |
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