Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/38

24 chief cause of the difference in scale between the Egyptian and Greek temple.

The subject might be pursued much further. It might be observed that in Gothic architecture, where the building is dedicated to a Being who dwells not in temples made with hands, and whose presence there is rather shadowed forth by the whole character of the edifice than embodied in the tangible form of a statue, the structural necessities are supreme; the painting and sculpture are not, as in Greek buildings, works of art set in an architectural frame, but subordinate and accessory to the main design.

I have glanced for a moment at this relation between Architecture and Imitative Art. because the principle it involves is equally applicable to all cases where decoration is added to structure.

The Archaeologist cannot fail to remark how severe, in a true age of art. is the observance of this great Architectonic law,—how its influence pervades all design,—how the pictures on Greek vases, or the richly embossed and chased work of the medieval goldsmiths, are all adjusted to the form and surface allotted to them by an external necessity.

Having considered the greatest form of constructive art. Architecture, at such length. I have hardly time to do more than allude very briefly to the remaining material products of man comprised under the general term,—Monumental Evidence.

To attempt here to classify these miscellaneous antiquities would be as difficult as the classification of the various objects which may form part of the great Exhibition of 1851. The task which England has undertaken for 1851 is an Exhibition of the Industry of all nations at the present day; the object which Archaeology would achieve if possible, is not less than the Exhibition of the Industry of all nations for all time.

Wherever man has left the stamp of mind on brute-matter; whether we designate his work as structure, texture, or mixture, mechanical or chymical; whether the result be a house, a ship, a garment, a piece of glass, or a metallic implement, these memorials of economy and invention will always be worthy of the attention of the Archaeologist.

Our true motto should be—