Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/320

 i CHAPTER X CHRISTIAN ART I. The Transition from Antique to Medicevcd Architecture The course of architecture from antiquity to the Middle Ages shows a gradual transition from classical forms to a style based upon other principles of con- struction, embodying other elements of beauty, using other modes of decoration, — a style suggesting what its colored and sculptured ornament expressed, the universal plan, the spiritual scope, the infinite yearn- ing, the extreme and mystic emotion, of the Christian faith. This completely Christian style was the Gothic. Perfect classical types are the Doric, with its mas- culine strength, its definite proportion, its absolute unity ; and the Ionic, in its limpid grace forming the complementary feminine style. The Doric and Ionic styles present temperance, reverence, and beauty, the one in modes proper to man, the other in modes proper to woman. They both embody Greek intellect; and they disclose complementary modes of Greek feeling which might, however, exist together in the complete Greek personality. Plato is Ionic as well as Doric. The younger sister of the Ionic was the Corinthian, a style less strictly classical, more pliant, and touched with the possibilities of Romanticism. 302