Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/277

 1868.] The Origin of the Pointed or Gothic Style. 233 discordant materials ; and in interiors, where many larger and smaller antique columns were requisite, to upbear weight, the purpose could only be effected through arches. The materials being; scarce, as well as unrelated, it was often an object to run the arches, whether from taller or shorter pillars, to the same height. The shorter pillars would, of necessity, be closer together than the taller. If then the taller had semi-circular arches, the shorter could only have arches, at all, by condensing them laterally, in other phrase, either by stilting them, which consists in placing block upon block, from the capital of the pier or pillar upwards, until the requisite altitude is attained, when the arch is made semi-circular from the two uppermost blocks, or by making the arches pointed, when their keystones could be got to harmonize in horizontal range with those of semi-circular arches. It will be felt from the preceding facts, that not even this theory is needed, as, sooner or later, the pointed arch must arise from geometry ; but this method is known to have been used ; and would produce what later writers very plausi- bly claim for it.* Where original materials, and not fragments from former edifices, were em- ployed, the intermixture of the pointed arch with the semi-circular one, in the same building, not unlikely arose from the inaccuracj' of the workmen, who, not observing the correct measures in the other parts, and exceeding the due ex- tent, were constrained, in order to make the whole elevation suit the foundations, to place some of the columns nearer each other than the due distance. Hawkins says, that whoever will take pains to measure the extent of arches and dis- side addition to the residence of a gentleman in this city, constructed not many months ago of wood, in which the carpenter to avoid using more than four posts, has repre- sented the distributing supports as a segment arch upon the side and pointed gothic arches at the end. This prob- ably being a late spontaneous example of the process in question, Us constructor, not unlikely, never having occupied himself with the history and theory of styles. tances between columns in some of the Gothic minsters of England, as was done for his book, will find a great difference in those spaces, which appear to the eye to be the same ; and that the principles of the two sorts of arches are not so very dissimilar, as the semi-circular arch is, as its name implies, half a circle, while the pointed arch was and is con- structed of two segments of a circle. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre also contains clustered columns or pillars, a distinguishing trait of the Gothic style, doubtless derived from this edifice, always an object of high interest, and, in those days, of great veneration, which circumstance would cause it to be imitated continually. The original idea was derived from the mediaeval gener- ally received ©pinion "that the stem of "the palm, if loaded with more than it " can support, will not swerve from the " upright, but resist the weight, and en- " deavor to bend upwards. "(!) A plausi- ble cloud is sometimes as efficient as a demonstrable reason. In reality the palm is strong for its bulk and very elastic. Tall, and with a graceful flowing top, it was and remains a conspicuous object in Palestine, where there are no trees of any bulk for timber. The trunk of the palm is of the same size all the way up ; and a number of palm stems, bound together at intervals for an increase of strength, would give exactly the ap- pearance of a Gothic clustered pillar. In fine, it was natural for Eastern architects to imitate the trees of their own country ; and it would be quite as natural for European Christian archi- tects to imitate those of the Holy Land. So far we have spoken of plain, or early Gothic. Bishop Warburton con- jectures, as have, in effect, a number of others, that Gothic originated with the Visigoths, in Spain, and was derived from the impression produced upon the imagination of the architects, by con- templating the intricacies of figures formed by the perspective of the branches in groves of trees. This shows him to
 * We have seen, within a few days, a second-story