Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/200

184 leave the lower part so strong that it is sufficient to sup- port the upper part cut off. Commonly, however, one builds with twentyfold strength, i.e., one lays upon every support only 1/20th of the maximum it could bear. A glar- ing example of burden without support is presented to the eye by the balconies at the corners of many houses built in the elegant style of the present day. We do not see what supports them; they seem to hang suspended, and disturb the mind.

That in Italy even the simplest and most unornamented buildings make an æsthetic impression, while in Germany this is not the case, depends principally upon the fact that in Italy the roofs are very flat. A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two halves mutually support each other, but the whole has no weight corresponding to its extension. Therefore it presents to the eye an ex tended mass which is entirely foreign to the æsthetic end, serves merely a useful end, consequently disturbs the former, of which the theme is always only support and burden.

The form of the column has its sole ground in the fact that it affords the simplest and most suitable support. In the twisted column inappropriateness appears as if with intentional perversity, and therefore shamelessness: hence good taste condemns it at the first glance. The four-cornered pillar, since the diagonal exceeds the sides, has unequal dimensions of thickness which have no end as their motive, but are occasioned by the accident of greater feasibleness; and just on this account it pleases us so very much less than the column. Even the hexa- gonal or octagonal pillar is more pleasing, because it approaches more nearly to the round column; for the form of the latter alone is exclusively determined by the end. It is, however, also so determined in all its other proportions, primarily in the relation of its thickness to its height, within the limits permitted by the difference of the three columnar orders. Therefore its diminution