CH. IV THE LAMP OF BEAUTY 139

since they presume that the feeling of mankind on this subject is universal and instinctive, I shall base my present investigation on this assumption; and only asserting that to be beautiful which I believe will be granted me to be so without dispute, I would endeavour shortly to trace the manner in which this element of delight is to be best engrafted upon architectural design, what are the purest sources from which it is to be derived, and what the errors to be avoided in its pursuit.

§ 2. It will be thought that I have somewhat rashly limited the elements of architectural beauty to imitative forms. I do not mean to assert that every happy arrangement of line is directly suggested by a natural object; but that all beautiful lines are adaptations of those which are commonest in the external creation; that, in proportion to the richness of their association, the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, must be more closely attempted, and more clearly seen; and that beyond a certain point, and that a very low one, man cannot advance in the invention of beauty, without directly imitating natural form. Thus, in the Doric temple the triglyph and cornice are unimitative; or imitative only of artificial cuttings of wood. No one would call these members beautiful. Their influence over us is in their severity and simplicity.¹ The fluting of the column, which I doubt not was the Greek symbol of the bark of the tree,² was imitative

¹ [In the MS. “their weight, power, and simplicity.”]

² [Ruskin’s conjecture is more reasonable than the once popular explanation that the flutings were provided for the reception of the spears of persons visiting the temples-a more unsuitable place for them could not be imagined. More probably, their origin may be found in the polygonal column, whose sides received a greater play of light by being hollowed out-a refinement which would not be long unperceived by the Greeks (see Gwilt’s Encyclopædia of Architecture, p. 64). For the “delicate and beautiful effects” of cast shadows, owing to variations in the form of the flutes, see F. C. Penrose’s Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture, ed. 1888, p. 51. A reviewer in commenting upon the above passage suggests further reasons: “This symbolism may have given birth to the flutes; but the beauty which continued their use and made it invariable, and which, as Mr. Ruskin allows, is instantly felt in it, has many accounts better than this to render of itself. The business of the shaft is to support weight; the aim of the Greek architect was to make it express, as well as perform, that business. The mind instinctively attributes motive and ascendant energy to a series of vertically convergent lines, which are checked before reaching their focus. This effect is much increased in the Doric shaft by the gentle swell, or entasis,

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