Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/333

 x] ARCHITECTURE 315 jected to stress and pressure approaching their limit of resistance, and the eye at once judges the size of a structure by the massiveness of its supports.^ Thus the scale is marked. But, beyond this, the size of the cathedral is enhanced and made evident by the many divisions of the interior, and the dimensions grow as unseen spaces are disclosed to one moving be- neath the bays of nave and pillared aisle and choir. The height is raised by the prominence of perpendicu- lar or oblique ascending lines. Not infrequently the arcades are lowered as they recede from the entrance ; and sometimes the lines of the choir are converged. Thus the effect of perspective is enhanced and the length of the building exaggerated. Gothic symmetry also is different from the Greek or Byzantine. Instead of a succession of like members the symmetry of a Gothic cathedral may consist in regular recurrence of dissimilarity. A general balance of masses is preserved, while more diversity of archi- tectural design and decorative detail is admitted within this general balance than in a Greek temple or a Byzantine church. Here the Gothic building is nearer to the symmetry of natural growth.^ But its single statues and groups of statuary rarely equal the Greek artist's consummate symmetry of life. Gothic 1 Neither the Romanesque nor the Oothic columns lessen toward the top, nor have they entasis; they are cylindrical. There is no proportion men t of diameter to height, as in the antique, but the diameter depends on the weight to be supported. Corinthian was the only classical order imitated in Romanesque, and the imitation was free. >On these matters, see Choisy, op. eU., U, 167-170, 807-415; Dehio, op. cU., p. 196.