Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/512

Rh 454 ARCHITECTURE [APPLICATION ings appear to be of much the same feeling as were English architects some years ago. The churches are often Gothic, but the other great edifices are in the main Italian, such as the capitols of Ohio, New York (Albany), and Washington. The last is a building of great size and picturesque outline, depending for its chief effect on the lavish use of porticoes and colonnades. In Canada very much the same state of things exists as in the United States, the art in each being much the reflex of that in the old country. The adoption of Greek, Roman, or Italian architectural details, little modified by climate and customs, is, in fact, to be noted in almost every country any form of art pecu liarly national being now abandoned in their favour ; and if the houses in Paris were to be transported to Berlin or Cairo, they would simply agree with what has already been done in those cities. And if, further, the Bourse or the Pantheon at Paris, the Museum at Berlin, the Glyptothek at Munich, or the great church of St Isaac at St Petersburg, were to be fairly in harmony with the modern works around it. though the nationality and language of the peoples in those cities are utterly distinct from each other. This abandon ment of natural and peculiar styles is now producing another result quite foreign to anything known in art history before. From the earliest period known until the 17th century almost every nation had its own peculiar forms of art, and practised it (modified, perhaps, by the conditions of climate) in every part of the world which it colonised or conquered ; and the result was the interesting remains of Roman art, clearly to be identified as such in Europe, Asia, and Africa ; of Norman in France, England, Italy, and Sicily; and of Saracenic from Spain to India. This clear identification of a nation by its art works is as valuable to the historian as to the artist. But we can look for this no longer. We ourselves build Greek, Roman, or Italian palaces in our great towns of India, whilst close by, perhaps, is a church or cathedral in our English style FIG. 65. The Capitol at Washington. of Gothic, and a college in the style of the Saracens, who themselves, centuries back, brought it with them as the art of foreign conquerors from Egypt or Persia. And the French in Algiers, to celebrate the triumph of their religion, erect a Bplendid church copied from the mosques of the people whom they have conquered, and whose religion they detest. ON THE APPLICATION OF COLOUR TO ARCHITECTURE. On none of the subsidiary arts connected with architec ture has there been in modern practice so little agreement with all ancient rules or customs as on this. It is only of late years that any one has conceded that the duty of architects is to give the best possible combination of form and colour, and that the completest form of architecture is that which affords examples of such a combination. For the last three centuries architects have shown almost a contempt for colour, to such a degree, indeed, that the world till lately was taught to believe that purity of style and absence of colour always went together ; and tint it was only a vulgar and uneducated eye which saw the greatest evidence of good and matured taste in the harmonious application of colour and form. Our sculptors encouraged this feeling by their dislike to the application of colour to their work, even when it was purely archi tectural. Both architects and sculptors found it con venient, apparently, to disencumber themselves of one- half of the responsibilities of their calling, and escaped all obligation of studying the laws of colour, or of enter ing on the large field of its application to architecture ; whilst our painters, partly because they lacked the oppor tunity, partly, it is true, because their art had ceased to be exercised for the public benefit in the old sense, had ceased to regard wall-painting as their legitimate work, and had so completely sunk into the habit of treating only small subjects in a small way, that it will take an age to develop in them the power of dealing properly with those large wall spaces which present them with the grandest opportunity of achieving real distinction. It is abundantly clear that those who argue against the applica tion of colour to architecture, do so without the weight which the authority of their ancestors would have given them. Of late years much attention has been devoted to this point; there has been considerable discussion, and in the end, though there has been much difference of opinion as to the extent to which colour was applied by the Greeks
 * be severally changed to any of the other cities, it wi.uH