II. Now in all other kind of energies except that of man's mind, there is no question as to what is life, and what is not. Vital sensibility, whether vegetable or animal, may, indeed, be reduced to so great feebleness, as to render its existence a matter of question, but when it is evident at all, it is evident[Pg 143] as such: there is no mistaking any imitation or pretence9 of it for the life itself; no mechanism10 nor galvanism can take its place; nor is any resemblance of it so striking as to involve even hesitation11 in the judgment12; although many occur which the human imagination takes pleasure in exalting13, without for an instant losing sight of the real nature of the dead things it animates15; but rejoicing rather in its own excessive life, which puts gesture into clouds, and joy into waves, and voices into rocks.
III. But when we begin to be concerned with the energies of man, we find ourselves instantly dealing16 with a double creature. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious17 counterpart, which it is at his peril18 if he do not cast off and deny. Thus he has a true and false (otherwise called a living and dead, or a feigned19 or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a false hope, a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a false life. His true life is like that of lower organic beings, the independent force by which he moulds and governs external things; it is a force of assimilation which converts everything around him into food, or into instruments; and which, however humbly20 or obediently it may listen to or follow the guidance of superior intelligence, never forfeits21 its own authority as a judging principle, as a will capable either of obeying or rebelling. His false life is, indeed, but one of the conditions of death or stupor22, but it acts, even when it cannot be said to animate14, and is not always easily known from the true. It is that life of custom and accident in which many of us pass much of our time in the world; that life in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent23 to what we do not understand; that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is moulded by them, instead of assimilating them; that, which instead of growing and blossoming under any wholesome24 dew, is crystallised over with it, as with hoar frost, and becomes to the true life what an arborescence is to a tree, a candied agglomeration25 of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle26, obstinate27, and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but must be crushed and broken to bits, if it stand in our way.[Pg 144] All men are liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this sort; all are partly encumbered28 and crusted over with idle matter; only, if they have real life in them, they are always breaking this bark away in noble rents, until it becomes, like the black strips upon the birch tree, only a witness of their own inward strength. But, with all the efforts that the best men make, much of their being passes in a kind of dream, in which they indeed move, and play their parts sufficiently29, to the eyes of their fellow-dreamers, but have no clear consciousness of what is around them, or within them; blind to the one, insensible to the other, νωθροι. I would not press the definition into its darker application to the dull heart and heavy ear; I have to do with it only as it refers to the too frequent condition of natural existence, whether of nations or individuals, settling commonly upon them in proportion to their age. The life of a nation is usually, like the flow of a lava30 stream, first bright and fierce, then languid and covered, at last advancing only by the tumbling over and over of its frozen blocks. And that last condition is a sad one to look upon. All the steps are marked most clearly in the arts, and in Architecture more than in any other; for it, being especially dependent, as we have just said, on the warmth of the true life, is also peculiarly sensible of the hemlock31 cold of the false; and I do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind is once awakened32 to its characteristics, than the aspect of a dead architecture. The feebleness of childhood is full of promise and of interest,—the struggle of imperfect knowledge full of energy and continuity,—but to see impotence and rigidity33 settling upon the form of the developed man; to see the types which once had the die of thought struck fresh upon them, worn flat by over use; to see the shell of the living creature in its adult form, when its colors are faded, and its inhabitant perished,—this is a sight more humiliating, more melancholy34, than the vanishing of all knowledge, and the return to confessed and helpless infancy35.
Nay36, it is to be wished that such return were always possible. There would be hope if we could change palsy into puerility37; but I know not how far we can become children[Pg 145] again, and renew our lost life. The stirring which has taken place in our architectural aims and interests within these few years, is thought by many to be full of promise: I trust it is, but it has a sickly look to me. I cannot tell whether it be indeed a springing of seed or a shaking among bones; and I do not think the time will be lost which I ask the reader to spend in the inquiry38, how far all that we have hitherto ascertained39 or conjectured40 to be the best in principle, may be formally practised without the spirit or the vitality41 which alone could give it influence, value, or delightfulness42.
IV. Now, in the first place—and this is rather an important point—it is no sign of deadness in a present art that it borrows or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or if it imitates without choice. The art of a great nation, which is developed without any acquaintance with nobler examples than its own early efforts furnish, exhibits always the most consistent and comprehensible growth, and perhaps is regarded usually as peculiarly venerable in its self-origination. But there is something to my mind more majestic45 yet in the life of an architecture like that of the Lombards, rude and infantine in itself, and surrounded by fragments of a nobler art of which it is quick in admiration46 and ready in imitation, and yet so strong in its own new instincts that it re-constructs and re-arranges every fragment that it copies or borrows into harmony with its own thoughts,—a harmony at first disjointed and awkward, but completed in the end, and fused into perfect organisation47; all the borrowed elements being subordinated to its own primal48, unchanged life. I do not know any sensation more exquisite49 than the discovering of the evidence of this magnificent struggle into independent existence; the detection of the borrowed thoughts, nay, the finding of the actual blocks and stones carved by other hands and in other ages, wrought50 into the new walls, with a new expression and purpose given to them, like the blocks of unsubdued rocks (to go back to our former simile) which we find in the heart of the lava current, great witnesses to the power which has fused all but those calcined fragments into the mass of its homogeneous fire.[Pg 146]
V. It will be asked, How is imitation to be rendered healthy and vital? Unhappily, while it is easy to enumerate51 the signs of life, it is impossible to define or to communicate life; and while every intelligent writer on Art has insisted on the difference between the copying found in an advancing or recedent period, none have been able to communicate, in the slightest degree, the force of vitality to the copyist over whom they might have influence. Yet it is at least interesting, if not profitable, to note that two very distinguishing characters of vital imitation are, its Frankness and its Audacity52; its Frankness is especially singular; there is never any effort to conceal53 the degree of the sources of its borrowing. Raffaelle carries off a whole figure from Masaccio, or borrows an entire composition from Perugino, with as much tranquillity55 and simplicity56 of innocence57 as a young Spartan58 pickpocket59; and the architect of a Romanesque basilica gathered his columns and capitals where he could find them, as an ant picks up sticks. There is at least a presumption60, when we find this frank acceptance, that there is a sense within the mind of power capable of transforming and renewing whatever it adopts; and too conscious, too exalted61, to fear the accusation62 of plagiarism,—too certain that it can prove, and has proved, its independence, to be afraid of expressing its homage63 to what it admires in the most open and indubitable way; and the necessary consequence of this sense of power is the other sign I have named—the Audacity of treatment when it finds treatment necessary, the unhesitating and sweeping64 sacrifice of precedent65 where precedent becomes inconvenient66. For instance, in the characteristic forms of Italian Romanesque, in which the hypaethral portion of the heathen temple was replaced by the towering nave67, and where, in consequence, the pediment of the west front became divided into three portions, of which the central one, like the apex68 of a ridge69 of sloping strata70 lifted by a sudden fault, was broken away from and raised above the wings; there remained at the extremities71 of the aisles72 two triangular73 fragments of pediment, which could not now be filled by any of the modes of decoration adapted for the unbroken space; and the difficulty became greater[Pg 147] when the central portion of the front was occupied by columnar ranges, which could not, without painful abruptness74, terminate short of the extremities of the wings. I know not what expedient75 would have been adopted by architects who had much respect for precedent, under such circumstances, but it certainly would not have been that of the Pisan,—to continue the range of columns into the pedimental space, shortening them to its extremity76 until the shaft77 of the last column vanished altogether, and there remained only its capital resting in the angle on its basic plinth. I raise no question at present whether this arrangement be graceful78 or otherwise; I allege79 it only as an instance of boldness almost without a parallel, casting aside every received principle that stood in its way, and struggling through every discordance80 and difficulty to the fulfilment of its own instincts.
VI. Frankness, however, is in itself no excuse for repetition, nor audacity for innovation, when the one is indolent and the other unwise. Nobler and surer signs of vitality must be sought,—signs independent alike of the decorative81 or original character of the style, and constant in every style that is determinedly83 progressive.
Of these, one of the most important I believe to be a certain neglect or contempt of refinement84 in execution, or, at all events, a visible subordination of execution to conception, commonly involuntary, but not unfrequently intentional85. This is a point, however, on which, while I speak confidently, I must at the same time reservedly and carefully, as there would otherwise be much chance of my being dangerously misunderstood. It has been truly observed and well stated by Lord Lindsay, that the best designers of Italy were also the most careful in their workmanship; and that the stability and finish of their masonry87, mosaic88, or other work whatsoever89, were always perfect in proportion to the apparent improbability of the great designers condescending90 to the care of details among us so despised. Not only do I fully86 admit and re-assert this most important fact, but I would insist upon perfect and most delicate finish in its right place, as a characteristic of all the highest schools of architecture, as much as it is[Pg 148] those of painting. But on the other hand, as perfect finish belongs to the perfected art, a progressive finish belongs to progressive art; and I do not think that any more fatal sign of a stupor or numbness91 settling upon that undeveloped art could possibly be detected, than that it had been taken aback by its own execution, and that the workmanship had gone ahead of the design; while, even in my admission of absolute finish in the right place, as an attribute of the perfected school, I must reserve to myself the right of answering in my own way the two very important questions, what is finish? and what is its right place?
VII. But in illustrating92 either of these points, we must remember that the correspondence of workmanship with thought is, in existent examples, interfered93 with by the adoption94 of the designs of an advanced period by the workmen of a rude one. All the beginnings of Christian95 architecture are of this kind, and the necessary consequence is of course an increase of the visible interval96 between the power of realisation and the beauty of the idea. We have at first an imitation, almost savage97 in its rudeness, of a classical design; as the art advances, the design is modified by a mixture of Gothic grotesqueness98, and the execution more complete, until a harmony is established between the two, in which balance they advance to new perfection. Now during the whole period in which the ground is being recovered, there will be found in the living architecture marks not to be mistaken, of intense impatience100; a struggle towards something unattained, which causes all minor102 points of handling to be neglected; and a restless disdain103 of all qualities which appear either to confess contentment or to require a time and care which might be better spent. And, exactly as a good and earnest student of drawing will not lose time in ruling lines or finishing backgrounds about studies which, while they have answered his immediate104 purpose, he knows to be imperfect and inferior to what he will do hereafter,—so the vigor105 of a true school of early architecture, which is either working under the influence of high example or which is itself in a state of rapid development, is very curiously106 traceable, among other [Pg 149] signs, in the contempt of exact symmetry and measurement, which in dead architecture are the most painful necessities.
PLATE XII. PLATE XII.—(Page 149—Vol. V.)
Fragments From Abbeville, Lucca, Venice, and Pisa.
VIII. In Plate XII. fig54. 1 I have given a most singular instance both of rude execution and defied symmetry, in the little pillar and spandril from a panel decoration under the pulpit of St. Mark's at Venice. The imperfection (not merely simplicity, but actual rudeness and ugliness) of the leaf ornament108 will strike the eye at once: this is general in works of the time, but it is not so common to find a capital which has been so carelessly cut; its imperfect volutes being pushed up one side far higher than on the other, and contracted on that side, an additional drill hole being put in to fill the space; besides this, the member a, of the mouldings, is a roll where it follows the arch, and a flat fillet at a; the one being slurred109 into the other at the angle b, and finally stopped short altogether at the other side by the most uncourteous and remorseless interference of the outer moulding: and in spite of all this, the grace, proportion, and feeling of the whole arrangement are so great, that, in its place, it leaves nothing to be desired; all the science and symmetry in the world could not beat it. In fig. 4 I have endeavored to give some idea of the execution of the subordinate portions of a much higher work, the pulpit of St. Andrea at Pistoja, by Nicolo Pisano. It is covered with figure sculptures, executed with great care and delicacy110; but when the sculptor111 came to the simple arch mouldings, he did not choose to draw the eye to them by over precision of work or over sharpness of shadow. The section adopted, k, m, is peculiarly simple, and so slight and obtuse112 in its recessions as never to produce a sharp line; and it is worked with what at first appears slovenliness113, but it is in fact sculptural sketching114; exactly correspondent to a painter's light execution of a background: the lines appear and disappear again, are sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, sometimes quite broken off; and the recession of the cusp joins that of the external arch at n, in the most fearless defiance116 of all mathematical laws of curvilinear contact.
IX. There is something very delightful43 in this bold expression of the mind of the great master. I do not say that it is[Pg 150] the "perfect work" of patience, but I think that impatience is a glorious character in an advancing school; and I love the Romanesque and early Gothic especially, because they afford so much room for it; accidental carelessness of measurement or of execution being mingled117 undistinguishably with the purposed departures from symmetrical regularity118, and the luxuriousness119 of perpetually variable fancy, which are eminently120 characteristic of both styles. How great, how frequent they are, and how brightly the severity of architectural law is relieved by their grace and suddenness, has not, I think, been enough observed; still less, the unequal measurements of even important features professing121 to be absolutely symmetrical. I am not so familiar with modern practice as to speak with confidence respecting its ordinary precision; but I imagine that the following measures of the western front of the cathedral of Pisa, would be looked upon by present architects as very blundering approximations. That front is divided into seven arched compartments122, of which the second, fourth or central, and sixth contain doors; the seven are in a most subtle alternating proportion; the central being the largest, next to it the second and sixth, then the first and seventh, lastly the third and fifth. By this arrangement, of course, these three pairs should be equal; and they are so to the eye, but I found their actual measures to be the following, taken from pillar to pillar, in Italian braccia, palmi (four inches each), and inches:—
Braccia. Palmi. Inches. Total in inches.
1. Central door 8 0 0 = 192
2. Northern door 6 3 1? = 157?
3. Southern door 6 4 3 = 163
4. Extreme northern space 5 5 3? = 143?
5. Extreme southern space 6 1 0? = 148?
7. Southern intervals between the doors 5 2 1? = 129?
There is thus a difference, severally, between 2, 3 and 4, 5, of five inches and a half in the one case, and five inches in the other.
X. This, however, may perhaps be partly attributable to[Pg 151] some accommodation of the accidental distortions which evidently took place in the walls of the cathedral during their building, as much as in those of the campanile. To my mind, those of the Duomo are far the most wonderful of the two: I do not believe that a single pillar of its walls is absolutely vertical124: the pavement rises and falls to different heights, or rather the plinth of the walls sinks into it continually to different depths, the whole west front literally125 overhangs (I have not plumbed126 it; but the inclination127 may be seen by the eye, by bringing it into visual contact with the upright pilasters of the Campo Santo): and a most extraordinary distortion in the masonry of the southern wall shows that this inclination had begun when the first story was built. The cornice above the first arcade128 of that wall touches the tops of eleven out of its fifteen arches; but it suddenly leaves the tops of the four westernmost; the arches nodding westward129 and sinking into the ground, while the cornice rises (or seems to rise), leaving at any rate, whether by the rise of the one or the fall of the other, an interval of more than two feet between it and the top of the western arch, filled by added courses of masonry. There is another very curious evidence of this struggle of the architect with his yielding wall in the columns of the main entrance. (These notices are perhaps somewhat irrelevant130 to our immediate subject, but they appear to me highly interesting; and they, at all events, prove one of the points on which I would insist,—how much of imperfection and variety in things professing to be symmetrical the eyes of those eager builders could endure: they looked to loveliness in detail, to nobility in the whole, never to petty measurements.) Those columns of the principal entrance are among the loveliest in Italy; cylindrical131, and decorated with a rich arabesque132 of sculptured foliage133, which at the base extends nearly all round them, up to the black pilaster in which they are lightly engaged: but the shield of foliage, bounded by a severe line, narrows to their tops, where it covers their frontal segment only; thus giving, when laterally135 seen, a terminal line sloping boldly outwards136, which, as I think, was meant to conceal the accidental leaning of the western walls, and, by its exagger[Pg 152]ated inclination in the same direction, to throw them by comparison into a seeming vertical.
XI. There is another very curious instance of distortion above the central door of the west front. All the intervals between the seven arches are filled with black marble, each containing in its centre a white parallelogram filled with animal mosaics137, and the whole surmounted138 by a broad white band, which, generally, does not touch the parallelogram below. But the parallelogram on the north of the central arch has been forced into an oblique139 position, and touches the white band; and, as if the architect was determined82 to show that he did not care whether it did or not, the white band suddenly gets thicker at that place, and remains140 so over the two next arches. And these differences are the more curious because the workmanship of them all is most finished and masterly, and the distorted stones are fitted with as much neatness as if they tallied141 to a hair's breadth. There is no look of slurring142 or blundering about it; it is all coolly filled in, as if the builder had no sense of anything being wrong or extraordinary: I only wish we had a little of his impudence143.
XII. Still, the reader will say that all these variations are probably dependent more on the bad foundation than on the architect's feeling. Not so the exquisite delicacies144 of change in the proportions and dimensions of the apparently145 symmetrical arcades146 of the west front. It will be remembered that I said the tower of Pisa was the only ugly tower in Italy, because its tiers were equal, or nearly so, in height; a fault this, so contrary to the spirit of the builders of the time, that it can be considered only as an unlucky caprice. Perhaps the general aspect of the west front of the cathedral may then have occurred to the reader's mind, as seemingly another contradiction of the rule I had advanced. It would not have been so, however, even had its four upper arcades been actually equal; as they are subordinated to the great seven-arched lower story, in the manner before noticed respecting the spire147 of Salisbury, and as is actually the case in the Duomo of Lucca and Tower of Pistoja. But the Pisan front is far more subtly proportioned. Not one of its four arcades is of like height[Pg 153] with another. The highest is the third, counting upwards148; and they diminish in nearly arithmetical proportion alternately; in the order 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 4th. The inequalities in their arches are not less remarkable149: they at first strike the eye as all equal; but there is a grace about them which equality never obtained: on closer observation, it is perceived that in the first row of nineteen arches, eighteen are equal, and the central one larger than the rest; in the second arcade, the nine central arches stand over the nine below, having, like them, the ninth central one largest. But on their flanks, where is the slope of the shoulder-like pediment, the arches vanish, and a wedge-shaped frieze150 takes their place, tapering151 outwards, in order to allow the columns to be carried to the extremity of the pediment; and here, where the heights of the shafts152 are so far shortened, they are set thicker; five shafts, or rather four and a capital, above, to four of the arcade below, giving twenty-one intervals instead of nineteen. In the next or third arcade,—which, remember, is the highest,—eight arches, all equal, are given in the space of the nine below, so that there is now a central shaft instead of a central arch, and the span of the arches is increased in proportion to their increased height. Finally, in the uppermost arcade, which is the lowest of all, the arches, the same in number as those below, are narrower than any of the fa?ade; the whole eight going very nearly above the six below them, while the terminal arches of the lower arcade are surmounted by flanking masses of decorated wall with projecting figures.
XIV. Now I call that Living Architecture. There is sensation in every inch of it, and an accommodation to every architectural necessity, with a determined variation in arrangement, which is exactly like the related proportions and provisions in the structure of organic form. I have not space to examine the still lovelier proportioning of the external shafts of the apse of this marvellous building. I prefer, lest the reader should think it a peculiar5 example, to state the structure of another church, the most graceful and grand piece of Romanesque work, as a fragment, in north Italy, that of San Giovanni Evangelista at Pistoja.[Pg 154]
The side of that church has three stories of arcade, diminishing in height in bold geometrical proportion, while the arches, for the most part, increase in number in arithmetical, i. e. two in the second arcade, and three in the third, to one in the first. Lest, however, this arrangement should be too formal, of the fourteen arches in the lowest series, that which contains the door is made larger than the rest, and is not in the middle, but the sixth from the West, leaving five on one side and eight on the other. Farther: this lowest arcade is terminated by broad flat pilasters, about half the width of its arches; but the arcade above is continuous; only the two extreme arches at the west end are made larger than all the rest, and instead of coming, as they should, into the space of the lower extreme arch, take in both it and its broad pilaster. Even this, however, was not out of order enough to satisfy the architect's eye; for there were still two arches above to each single one below: so at the east end, where there are more arches, and the eye might be more easily cheated, what does he do but narrow the two extreme lower arches by half a braccio; while he at the same time slightly enlarged the upper ones, so as to get only seventeen upper to nine lower, instead of eighteen to nine. The eye is thus thoroughly153 confused, and the whole building thrown into one mass, by the curious variations in the adjustments of the superimposed shafts, not one of which is either exactly in nor positively154 out of its place; and, to get this managed the more cunningly, there is from an inch to an inch and a half of gradual gain in the space of the four eastern arches, besides the confessed half braccio. Their measures, counting from the east, I found as follows:—
Braccia. Palmi. Inches.
1st 3 0 1
2nd 3 0 2
3rd 3 3 2
4th 3 3 3?
The upper arcade is managed on the same principle; it looks at first as if there were three arches to each under pair; but there are, in reality, only thirty-eight (or thirty-seven, I[Pg 155] am not quite certain of this number) to the twenty-seven below; and the columns get into all manner of relative positions. Even then, the builder was not satisfied, but must needs carry the irregularity into the spring of the arches, and actually, while the general effect is of a symmetrical arcade, there is not one of the arches the same in height as another; their tops undulate all along the wall like waves along a harbor quay155, some nearly touching156 the string course above, and others falling from it as much as five or six inches.
XIV. Let us next examine the plan of the west front of St. Mark's at Venice, which, though in many respects imperfect, is in its proportions, and as a piece of rich and fantastic color, as lovely a dream as ever filled human imagination. It may, perhaps, however, interest the reader to hear one opposite opinion upon this subject, and after what has been urged in the preceding pages respecting proportion in general, more especially respecting the wrongness of balanced cathedral towers and other regular designs, together with my frequent references to the Doge's palace, and campanile of St. Mark's, as models of perfection, and my praise of the former especially as projecting above its second arcade, the following extracts from the journal of Wood the architect, written on his arrival at Venice, may have a pleasing freshness in them, and may show that I have not been stating principles altogether trite157 or accepted.
"The strange looking church, and the great ugly campanile, could not be mistaken. The exterior158 of this church surprises you by its extreme ugliness, more than by anything else."
"The Ducal Palace is even more ugly than anything I have previously159 mentioned. Considered in detail, I can imagine no alteration160 to make it tolerable; but if this lofty wall had been set back behind the two stories of little arches, it would have been a very noble production."
After more observations on "a certain justness of proportion," and on the appearance of riches and power in the church, to which he ascribes a pleasing effect, he goes on: "Some persons are of opinion that irregularity is a necessary part of its[Pg 156] excellence161. I am decidedly of a contrary opinion, and am convinced that a regular design of the same sort would be far superior. Let an oblong of good architecture, but not very showy, conduct to a fine cathedral, which should appear between two lofty towers and have two obelisks162 in front, and on each side of this cathedral let other squares partially163 open into the first, and one of these extend down to a harbor or sea shore, and you would have a scene which might challenge any thing in existence."
Why Mr. Wood was unable to enjoy the color of St. Mark's, or perceive the majesty164 of the Ducal Palace, the reader will see after reading the two following extracts regarding the Caracci and Michael Angelo.
"The pictures here (Bologna) are to my taste far preferable to those of Venice, for if the Venetian school surpass in coloring, and, perhaps, in composition, the Bolognese is decidedly superior in drawing and expression, and the Caraccis shine here like Gods."
"What is it that is so much admired in this artist (M. Angelo)? Some contend for a grandeur165 of composition in the lines and disposition166 of the figures; this, I confess, I do not comprehend; yet, while I acknowledge the beauty of certain forms and proportions in architecture, I cannot consistently deny that similar merits may exist in painting, though I am unfortunately unable to appreciate them."
I think these passages very valuable, as showing the effect of a contracted knowledge and false taste in painting upon an architect's understanding of his own art; and especially with what curious notions, or lack of notions, about proportion, that art has been sometimes practised. For Mr. Wood is by no means unintelligent in his observations generally, and his criticisms on classical art are often most valuable. But those who love Titian better than the Caracci, and who see something to admire in Michael Angelo, will, perhaps, be willing to proceed with me to a charitable examination of St. Mark's. For, although, the present course of European events affords us some chance of seeing the changes proposed by Mr. Wood carried into execution, we may still esteem167 ourselves fortunate in hav[Pg 157]ing first known how it was left by the builders of the eleventh century.
XV. The entire front is composed of an upper and lower series of arches, enclosing spaces of wall decorated with mosaic, and supported on ranges of shafts of which, in the lower series of arches, there is an upper range superimposed on a lower. Thus we have five vertical divisions of the fa?ade; i.e. two tiers of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, below; one tier of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, above. In order, however, to bind168 the two main divisions together, the central lower arch (the main entrance) rises above the level of the gallery and balustrade which crown the lateral134 arches.
The proportioning of the columns and walls of the lower story is so lovely and so varied169, that it would need pages of description before it could be fully understood; but it may be generally stated thus: The height of the lower shafts, upper shafts, and wall, being severally expressed by a, b, and c, then a:c::c:b (a being the highest); and the diameter of shaft b is generally to the diameter of shaft a as height b is to height a, or something less, allowing for the large plinth which diminishes the apparent height of the upper shaft: and when this is their proportion of width, one shaft above is put above one below, with sometimes another upper shaft interposed: but in the extreme arches a single under shaft bears two upper, proportioned as truly as the boughs170 of a tree; that is to say, the diameter of each upper = 2/3 of lower. There being thus the three terms of proportion gained in the lower story, the upper, while it is only divided into two main members, in order that the whole height may not be divided into an even number, has the third term added in its pinnacles171. So far of the vertical division. The lateral is still more subtle. There are seven arches in the lower story; and, calling the central arch a, and counting to the extremity, they diminish in the alternate order a, c, b, d. The upper story has five arches, and two added pinnacles; and these diminish in regular order, the central being the largest, and the outermost172 the least. Hence, while one proportion ascends173, another descends174, like parts in music; and yet the pyramidal form is secured for the whole,[Pg 158] and, which was another great point of attention, none of the shafts of the upper arches stand over those of the lower.
XVI. It might have been thought that, by this plan, enough variety had been secured, but the builder was not satisfied even thus: for—and this is the point bearing on the present part of our subject—always calling the central arch a, and the lateral ones b and c in succession, the northern b and c are considerably175 wider than the southern b and c, but the southern d is as much wider than the northern d, and lower beneath its cornice besides; and, more than this, I hardly believe that one of the effectively symmetrical members of the fa?ade is actually symmetrical with any other. I regret that I cannot state the actual measures. I gave up the taking them upon the spot, owing to their excessive complexity176, and the embarrassment177 caused by the yielding and subsidence of the arches.
Do not let it be supposed that I imagine the Byzantine workmen to have had these various principles in their minds as they built. I believe they built altogether from feeling, and that it was because they did so, that there is this marvellous life, changefulness, and subtlety178 running through their every arrangement; and that we reason upon the lovely building as we should upon some fair growth of the trees of the earth, that know not their own beauty.
XVII. Perhaps, however, a stranger instance than any I have yet given, of the daring variation of pretended symmetry, is found in the front of the Cathedral of Bayeux. It consists of five arches with steep pediments, the outermost filled, the three central with doors; and they appear, at first, to diminish in regular proportion from the principal one in the centre. The two lateral doors are very curiously managed. The tympana of their arches are filled with bas-reliefs, in four tiers; in the lowest tier there is in each a little temple or gate containing the principal figure (in that on the right, it is the gate of Hades with Lucifer). This little temple is carried, like a capital, by an isolated179 shaft which divides the whole arch at about 2/3 of its breadth, the larger portion outmost; and in that larger portion is the inner entrance door. This exact correspondence, in the treatment of both gates, might lead us to expect a corre[Pg 159]spondence in dimension. Not at all. The small inner northern entrance measures, in English feet and inches, 4 ft. 7 in. from jamb to jamb, and the southern five feet exactly. Five inches in five feet is a considerable variation. The outer northern porch measures, from face shaft to face shaft, 13 ft. 11 in., and the southern, 14 ft. 6 in.; giving a difference of 7 in. on 14 ? ft. There are also variations in the pediment decorations not less extraordinary.
XVIII. I imagine I have given instances enough, though I could multiply them indefinitely, to prove that these variations are not mere107 blunders, nor carelessnesses, but the result of a fixed180 scorn, if not dislike, of accuracy in measurements; and, in most cases, I believe, of a determined resolution to work out an effective symmetry by variations as subtle as those of Nature. To what lengths this principle was sometimes carried, we shall see by the very singular management of the towers of Abbeville. I do not say it is right, still less that it is wrong, but it is a wonderful proof of the fearlessness of a living architecture; for, say what we will of it, that Flamboyant181 of France, however morbid182, was as vivid and intense in its animation183 as ever any phase of mortal mind; and it would have lived till now, if it had not taken to telling lies. I have before noticed the general difficulty of managing even lateral division, when it is into two equal parts, unless there be some third reconciling member. I shall give, hereafter, more examples of the modes in which this reconciliation184 is effected in towers with double lights: the Abbeville architect put his sword to the knot perhaps rather too sharply. Vexed185 by the want of unity186 between his two windows he literally laid their heads together, and so distorted their ogee curves, as to leave only one of the trefoiled panels above, on the inner side, and three on the outer side of each arch. The arrangement is given in Plate XII. fig. 3. Associated with the various undulation of flamboyant curves below, it is in the real tower hardly observed, while it binds187 it into one mass in general effect. Granting it, however, to be ugly and wrong, I like sins of the kind, for the sake of the courage it requires to commit them. In plate II. (part of a small chapel188 attached to the West front of the[Pg 160] Cathedral of St. Lo), the reader will see an instance, from the same architecture, of a violation189 of its own principles, for the sake of a peculiar meaning. If there be any one feature which the flamboyant architect loved to decorate richly, it was the niche190—it was what the capital is to the Corinthian order; yet in the case before us there is an ugly beehive put in the place of the principal niche of the arch. I am not sure if I am right in my interpretation191 of its meaning, but I have little doubt that two figures below, now broken away, once represented an Annunciation; and on another part of the same cathedral, I find the descent of the Spirit, encompassed192 by rays of light, represented very nearly in the form of the niche in question; which appears, therefore, to be intended for a representation of this effulgence193, while at the same time it was made a canopy194 for the delicate figures below. Whether this was its meaning or not, it is remarkable as a daring departure from the common habits of the time.
XIX. Far more splendid is a license195 taken with the niche decoration of the portal of St. Maclou at Rouen. The subject of the tympanum bas-relief is the Last Judgment, and the sculpture of the inferno196 side is carried out with a degree of power whose fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as a mingling197 of the minds of Orcagna and Hogarth. The demons198 are perhaps even more awful than Orcagna's; and, in some of the expressions of debased humanity in its utmost despair, the English painter is at least equalled. Not less wild is the imagination which gives fury and fear even to the placing of the figures. An evil angel, poised200 on the wing, drives the condemned201 troops from before the Judgment seat; with his left hand he drags behind him a cloud, which is spreading like a winding-sheet over them all; but they are urged by him so furiously, that they are driven not merely to the extreme limit of that scene, which the sculptor confined elsewhere within the tympanum, but out of the tympanum and into the niches202 of the arch; while the flames that follow them, bent203 by the blast, as it seems, of the angel's wings, rush into the niches also, and burst up through their tracery, the three lowermost niches being represented as all on fire, while, [Pg 161] instead of their usual vaulted204 and ribbed ceiling, there is a demon199 in the roof of each, with his wings folded over it, grinning down out of the black shadow.
PLATE XIII. PLATE XIII.—(Page 161—Vol. V.)
Portions of an Arcade on the South Side of the Cathedral of Ferrara.
XX. I have, however, given enough instances of vitality shown in mere daring, whether wise, as surely in this last instance, or inexpedient; but, as a single example of the Vitality of Assimilation, the faculty205 which turns to its purposes all material that is submitted to it, I would refer the reader to the extraordinary columns of the arcade on the south side of the Cathedral of Ferrara. A single arch of it is given in Plate XIII. on the right. Four such columns forming a group, there are interposed two pairs of columns, as seen on the left of the same plate; and then come another four arches. It is a long arcade of, I suppose, not less than forty arches, perhaps of many more; and in the grace and simplicity of its stilted206 Byzantine curves I hardly know its equal. Its like, in fancy of column, I certainly do not know; there being hardly two correspondent, and the architect having been ready, as it seems, to adopt ideas and resemblances from any sources whatsoever. The vegetation growing up the two columns is fine, though bizarre; the distorted pillars beside it suggest images of less agreeable character; the serpentine207 arrangements founded on the usual Byzantine double knot are generally graceful; but I was puzzled to account for the excessively ugly type of the pillar, fig. 3, one of a group of four. It so happened, fortunately for me, that there had been a fair in Ferrara; and, when I had finished my sketch115 of the pillar, I had to get out of the way of some merchants of miscellaneous wares208, who were removing their stall. It had been shaded by an awning209 supported by poles, which, in order that the covering might be raised or lowered according to the height of the sun, were composed of two separate pieces, fitted to each other by a rack, in which I beheld210 the prototype of my ugly pillar. It will not be thought, after what I have above said of the inexpedience of imitating anything but natural form, that I advance this architect's practice as altogether exemplary; yet the humility211 is instructive, which condescended212 to such sources for motives213 of thought, the boldness, which could depart so[Pg 162] far from all established types of form, and the life and feeling, which out of an assemblage of such quaint44 and uncouth214 materials, could produce an harmonious215 piece of ecclesiastical architecture.
XXI. I have dwelt, however, perhaps, too long upon that form of vitality which is known almost as much by its errors as by its atonements for them. We must briefly216 note the operation of it, which is always right, and always necessary, upon those lesser217 details, where it can neither be superseded218 by precedents219, nor repressed by proprieties220.
I said, early in this essay, that hand-work might always be known from machine-work; observing, however, at the same time, that it was possible for men to turn themselves into machines, and to reduce their labor221 to the machine level; but so long as men work as men, putting their heart into what they do, and doing their best, it matters not how bad workmen they may be, there will be that in the handling which is above all price: it will be plainly seen that some places have been delighted in more than others—that there has been a pause, and a care about them; and then there will come careless bits, and fast bits; and here the chisel222 will have struck hard, and there lightly, and anon timidly; and if the man's mind as well as his heart went with his work, all this will be in the right places, and each part will set off the other; and the effect of the whole, as compared with the same design cut by a machine or a lifeless hand, will be like that of poetry well read and deeply felt to that of the same verses jangled by rote99. There are many to whom the difference is imperceptible; but to those who love poetry it is everything—they had rather not hear it at all, than hear it ill read; and to those who love Architecture, the life and accent of the hand are everything. They had rather not have ornament at all, than see it ill cut—deadly cut, that is. I cannot too often repeat, it is not coarse cutting, it is not blunt cutting, that is necessarily bad; but it is cold cutting—the look of equal trouble everywhere—the smooth, diffused223 tranquillity of heartless pains—the regularity of a plough in a level field. The chill is more likely, indeed, to show itself in finished work than in any other—men cool[Pg 163] and tire as they complete: and if completeness is thought to be vested in polish, and to be attainable224 by help of sand paper, we may as well give the work to the engine-lathe at once. But right finish is simply the full rendering225 of the intended impression; and high finish is the rendering of a well intended and vivid impression; and it is oftener got by rough than fine handling. I am not sure whether it is frequently enough observed that sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself. The sculptor must paint with his chisel: half his touches are not to realize, but to put power into the form: they are touches of light and shadow; and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, or a spot of darkness. In a coarse way, this kind of execution is very marked in old French woodwork; the irises226 of the eyes of its chimeric227 monsters being cut boldly into holes, which, variously placed, and always dark, give all kinds of strange and startling expressions, averted228 and askance, to the fantastic countenances229. Perhaps the highest examples of this kind of sculpture-painting are the works of Mino da Fiesole; their best effects being reached by strange angular, and seemingly rude, touches of the chisel. The lips of one of the children on the tombs in the church of the Badia, appear only half finished when they are seen close; yet the expression is farther carried and more ineffable230, than in any piece of marble I have ever seen, especially considering its delicacy, and the softness of the child-features. In a sterner kind, that of the statues in the sacristy of St. Lorenzo equals it, and there again by incompletion. I know no example of work in which the forms are absolutely true and complete where such a result is attained101; in Greek sculptures is not even attempted.
XXII. It is evident that, for architectural appliances, such masculine handling, likely as it must be to retain its effectiveness when higher finish would be injured by time, must always be the most expedient; and as it is impossible, even were it desirable that the highest finish should be given to the quantity of work which covers a large building, it will be[Pg 164] understood how precious the intelligence must become, which renders incompletion itself a means of additional expression; and how great must be the difference, when the touches are rude and few, between those of a careless and those of a regardful mind. It is not easy to retain anything of their character in a copy; yet the reader will find one or two illustrative points in the examples, given in Plate XIV., from the bas-reliefs of the north of Rouen Cathedral. There are three square pedestals under the three main niches on each side of it, and one in the centre; each of these being on two sides decorated with five quatrefoiled panels. There are thus seventy quatrefoils in the lower ornament of the gate alone, without counting those of the outer course round it, and of the pedestals outside: each quatrefoil is filled with a bas-relief, the whole reaching to something above a man's height. A modern architect would, of course, have made all the five quatrefoils of each pedestal-side equal: not so the Medi?val. The general form being apparently a quatrefoil composed of semicircles on the sides of a square, it will be found on examination that none of the arcs are semicircles, and none of the basic figures squares. The latter are rhomboids, having their acute or obtuse angles uppermost according to their larger or smaller size; and the arcs upon their sides slide into such places as they can get in the angles of the enclosing parallelogram, leaving intervals, at each of the four angles, of various shapes, which are filled each by an animal. The size of the whole panel being thus varied, the two lowest of the five are tall, the next two short, and the uppermost a little higher than the lowest; while in the course of bas-reliefs which surrounds the gate, calling either of the two lowest (which are equal), a, and either of the next two b, and the fifth and sixth c and d, then d (the largest): c::c:a::a:b. It is wonderful how much of the grace of the whole depends on these variations.
XXIII. Each of the angles, it was said, is filled by an animal. There are thus 70 x 4=280 animals, all different, in the mere fillings of the intervals of the bas-reliefs. Three of these intervals, with their beasts, actual size, the curves being traced upon the stone, I have given in Plate XIV.
[Pg 165]
PLATE XIV. PLATE XIV.—(Page 165—Vol. V.)
Sculpture from the Cathedral of Rouen.
I say nothing of their general design, or of the lines of the wings and scales, which are perhaps, unless in those of the central dragon, not much above the usual commonplaces of good ornamental231 work; but there is an evidence in the features of thoughtfulness and fancy which is not common, at least now-a-days. The upper creature on the left is biting something, the form of which is hardly traceable in the defaced stone—but biting he is; and the reader cannot but recognise in the peculiarly reverted232 eye the expression which is never seen, as I think, but in the eye of a dog gnawing233 something in jest, and preparing to start away with it: the meaning of the glance, so far as it can be marked by the mere incision234 of the chisel, will be felt by comparing it with the eye of the couchant figure on the right, in its gloomy and angry brooding. The plan of this head, and the nod of the cap over its brow, are fine; but there is a little touch above the hand especially well meant: the fellow is vexed and puzzled in his malice235; and his hand is pressed hard on his cheek bone, and the flesh of the cheek is wrinkled under the eye by the pressure. The whole, indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, when it is seen on a scale in which it is naturally compared with delicate figure etchings; but considering it as a mere filling of an interstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and as one of more than three hundred (for in my estimate I did not include the outer pedestals), it proves very noble vitality in the art of the time.
XXIV. I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment236—was the carver happy while he was about it? It may be the hardest work possible, and the harder because so much pleasure was taken in it; but it must have been happy too, or it will not be living. How much of the stone mason's toil237 this condition would exclude I hardly venture to consider, but the condition is absolute. There is a Gothic church lately built near Rouen, vile238 enough, indeed, in its general composition, but excessively rich in detail; many of the details are designed with taste, and all evidently by a man who has studied old work closely. But it is all as dead as leaves in December;[Pg 166] there is not one tender touch, not one warm stroke, on the whole fa?ade. The men who did it hated it, and were thankful when it was done. And so long as they do so they are merely loading your walls with shapes of clay: the garlands of everlastings239 in Père la Chaise are more cheerful ornaments240. You cannot get the feeling by paying for it—money will not buy life. I am not sure even that you can get it by watching or waiting for it. It is true that here and there a workman may be found who has it in him, but he does not rest contented241 in the inferior work—he struggles forward into an Academician; and from the mass of available handicraftsmen the power is gone—how recoverable I know not: this only I know, that all expense devoted242 to sculptural ornament, in the present condition of that power, comes literally under the head of Sacrifice for the sacrifice's sake, or worse. I believe the only manner of rich ornament that is open to us is the geometrical color-mosaic, and that much might result from our strenuously243 taking up this mode of design. But, at all events, one thing we have in our power—the doing without machine ornament and cast-iron work. All the stamped metals, and artificial stones, and imitation woods and bronzes, over the invention of which we hear daily exultation—all the short, and cheap, and easy ways of doing that whose difficulty is its honor—are just so many new obstacles in our already encumbered road. They will not make one of us happier or wiser—they will extend neither the pride of judgment nor the privilege of enjoyment. They will only make us shallower in our understandings, colder in our hearts, and feebler in our wits. And most justly. For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily244: neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart and of the will, and is useless in itself; but, at all events, the little use it has may well be spared if it is not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It does[Pg 167] not become our immortality245 to take an ease inconsistent with its authority, nor to suffer any instruments with which it can dispense246, to come between it and the things it rules: and he who would form the creations of his own mind by any other instrument than his own hand, would, also, if he might, give grinding organs to Heaven's angels, to make their music easier. There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality enough in human existence without our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism; and since our life must at the best be but a vapor247 that appears for a little time and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel.
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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imperatively
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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exalting
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| a.令人激动的，令人喜悦的 | |
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animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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animates
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| v.使有生气( animate的第三人称单数 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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dealing
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fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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forfeits
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| 罚物游戏 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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agglomeration
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brittle
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obstinate
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encumbered
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sufficiently
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lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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puerility
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| n.幼稚，愚蠢；幼稚、愚蠢的行为、想法等 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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delightfulness
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| n.delightful（令人高兴的，使人愉快的，给人快乐的，讨人喜欢的）的变形 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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enumerate
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| v.列举，计算，枚举，数 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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53
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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54
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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55
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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56
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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57
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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58
spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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59
pickpocket
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| n.扒手；v.扒窃 | |
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60
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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61
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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62
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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63
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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64
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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65
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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66
inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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67
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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68
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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69
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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70
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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71
extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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72
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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73
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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74
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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75
expedient
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|
| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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76
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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77
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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78
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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79
allege
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| vt.宣称，申述，主张，断言 | |
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80
discordance
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|
| n.不调和，不和，不一致性；不整合；假整合 | |
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81
decorative
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|
| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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82
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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83
determinedly
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|
| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
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84
refinement
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|
| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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85
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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86
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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87
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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88
mosaic
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|
| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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89
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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90
condescending
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|
| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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91
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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92
illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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93
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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94
adoption
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|
| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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95
Christian
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|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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96
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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97
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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98
grotesqueness
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99
rote
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| n.死记硬背，生搬硬套 | |
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100
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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101
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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102
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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103
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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104
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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105
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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106
curiously
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|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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107
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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108
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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109
slurred
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|
| 含糊地说出( slur的过去式和过去分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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110
delicacy
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|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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111
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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112
obtuse
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| adj.钝的；愚钝的 | |
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113
slovenliness
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114
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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115
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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116
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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117
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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118
regularity
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|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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119
luxuriousness
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120
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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121
professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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122
compartments
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|
| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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123
intervals
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|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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124
vertical
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|
| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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125
literally
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|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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126
plumbed
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|
| v.经历( plumb的过去式和过去分词 )；探究；用铅垂线校正；用铅锤测量 | |
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127
inclination
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|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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128
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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129
westward
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|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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130
irrelevant
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|
| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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131
cylindrical
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|
| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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132
arabesque
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| n.阿拉伯式花饰；adj.阿拉伯式图案的 | |
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133
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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134
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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135
laterally
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| ad.横向地；侧面地；旁边地 | |
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136
outwards
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|
| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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137
mosaics
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|
| n.马赛克( mosaic的名词复数 )；镶嵌；镶嵌工艺；镶嵌图案 | |
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138
surmounted
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|
| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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139
oblique
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|
| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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140
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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141
tallied
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|
| v.计算，清点( tally的过去式和过去分词 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
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142
slurring
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|
| 含糊地说出( slur的现在分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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143
impudence
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|
| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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144
delicacies
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|
| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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145
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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146
arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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147
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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148
upwards
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|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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149
remarkable
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|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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150
frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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151
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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152
shafts
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|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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153
thoroughly
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|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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154
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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155
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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156
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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157
trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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158
exterior
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|
| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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159
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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160
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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161
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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162
obelisks
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| n.方尖石塔，短剑号，疑问记号( obelisk的名词复数 ) | |
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163
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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164
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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165
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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166
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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167
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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168
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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169
varied
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|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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170
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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171
pinnacles
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|
| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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172
outermost
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|
| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
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173
ascends
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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174
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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175
considerably
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|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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176
complexity
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|
| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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177
embarrassment
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|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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178
subtlety
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|
| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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179
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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180
fixed
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|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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181
flamboyant
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|
| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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182
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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183
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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184
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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185
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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186
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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187
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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188
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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189
violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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190
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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192
encompassed
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| v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
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193
effulgence
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| n.光辉 | |
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194
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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195
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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196
inferno
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| n.火海；地狱般的场所 | |
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197
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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198
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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199
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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200
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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201
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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203
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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205
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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207
serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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208
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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209
awning
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| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
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210
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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211
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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212
condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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precedents
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| 引用单元； 范例( precedent的名词复数 )； 先前出现的事例； 前例； 先例 | |
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proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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226
irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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chimeric
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| adj.妄想的，荒诞不经的 | |
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228
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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231
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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234
incision
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| n．切口，切开 | |
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235
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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236
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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237
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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238
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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239
everlastings
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| 永久，无穷（everlasting的复数形式） | |
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240
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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241
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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242
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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243
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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244
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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245
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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246
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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247
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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