Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/349

 CHAP. X. MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE. 297 in 1575. As it stands on a rising ground, when looked at from below, its appearance is noble beyond that of any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps in the whole world. This gateway may also be quoted as a perfectly satisfactory solution of a problem which has exercised the ingenuity of architects in all ages, but was more successfully treated by the Saracenic architects than by any others. It was always manifest that to give a large building a door at all in proportion to its dimensions was, to say the least of it, very inconvenient. Men are only 6 ft. high, and they do not want portals through which elephants might march. The Greeks never ventured, however, to reduce the proportionate size of their portals, though it may be they only opened the lower half, and they covered them, in almost all instances, with porticos to give them a dignity that even their dimensions failed to impart. The Gothic architects tried, by splaying their deeply- embowed doorways, and by ornamenting them richly with carving and sculpture, to give them the dignity that was indispensable for their situation without unnecessarily increasing the size of the openings. It was left, however, for the Saracenic architects completely to get over the difficulty. They placed their portals one, or three, or five, of very moderate dimensions at the back of a semi-dome. This last feature thus became the porch or portico, and its dimensions became those of the portal, wholly irrespective of the size of the opening. No one, for instance, looking at this gateway can mistake that it is a doorway and that only, and no one thinks of the size of the openings which are provided at its base. The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence. The same system pervades almost all the portals of the age and style, and always with a perfectly satisfactory result sometimes even more satisfactory than in this instance, though it may be in less proportionate dimensions. The principle seems the best that has yet been hit upon, and, when that is right, failure is as difficult as it is to achieve success when the principle of the design is wrong. Taking it altogether, this palace at Fathpur-Sikri is a romance in stone, such as few very few are to be found anywhere ; and it is a reflex of the mind of the great man who built it more distinct than can easily be obtained from any other source. 1 1 The architecture of Fathpur-Sikri has been admirably surveyed and illustrated by the late Mr. Edmund W. Smith, in four "parts " or volumes, with over 400 plates and photographs, of which about 320 are excellent architectural drawings, pub- lished by the Government of the North- Western Provinces, Allahabad, 1894-97. Conf. G. Le Bon, ' Les Monuments de 1'Inde,' pp. 213-218, figs. 341-355.