Page:Alexis de Chateauneuf - The Country House.djvu/20

 This simile would be more literally appropriate had the uses to which the two styles were applied been more nearly alike.

With respect to modern architecture, it may be said that it has quite rejected the services of the other two arts, and, as I fear, greatly to its own detriment; while these latter arts, notwithstanding the eminence they have attained apart from architecture, are not so solidly united as they otherwise would be, nor capable of so completely developing their powers, had the union of the three been complete.

It is well known that, owing to the fetters imposed upon them in Egypt by the religion of the people and its priesthood, it was only in Europe that sculpture and painting could at different epochs attain to maturity. But it is not perhaps so generally known or considered, that it is one characteristic mark of European architecture, that it has at all times, whether those of its progress and advancement, or its decline, availed itself of natural forms, both vegetable and animal, for purposes of decoration; while the Asiatic styles were confined to geometrical figures for the ornaments.

The above cursory glance at the history of the art, may at least serve to shew(archaic usage) [sic] how incumbent it is upon the architect of the present day to make himself acquainted with the creative power and processes of his art, by studying them as they actually manifest themselves at different epochs, and according to the different views and purposes to which the art was applied. By so doing, however, he is in some danger of being worked upon by conflicting impressions, occasioned by the diversity of styles and the opposite tastes they exhibit. Yet, unless I am greatly mistaken, the whole system of the art, as developed in the different styles, must henceforth have considerable influence upon our modern architecture.

Limiting our views for the present to those architectural productions in which a union with the other arts is more directly attainable, we find Grecian or early Italian architecture the predominating style. The last grafted on the former, may be said to be more or less complete in the greater or less proportion in which it derives its nourishment from the parent stem. If we look, for example, to the progress or course of painting in Italy, that art flourished there in proportion to the nourishment it derived from the antique. The works of Mantegna, M. Angelo, LionardoLeonardo [sic] da Vinci, and Raphael bear testimony to this; and those great men would probably have attained to a higher degree of excellence, had they been as well acquainted with the sculptures of the Parthenon, and the Greek bronzes, as they were with the works of the Romans. Most assuredly a knowledge of the architecture of the time of