354 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

§ 13. I believe there is little else to be noted of general laws of ornament respecting the wall veil. We have next to consider its concentration in the shaft.

Now the principal beauty of a shaft is its perfect proportion to its work,-its exact expression of necessary strength. If this has been truly attained, it will hardly need, in some cases hardly bear, more decoration than is given to it by its own rounding and taper curvatures; for, if we cut ornaments in intaglio on its surface, we weaken it; if we leave them in relief, we overcharge it, and the sweep of the line from its base to its summit, though deduced in Chap. VIII., from necessities of construction, is already one of gradated curvature, and of high decorative value.

§ 14. It is, however, carefully to be noted, that decorations are admissible on colossal and on diminutive shafts, which are wrong upon those of middle size. For, when the shaft is enormous, incisions, or sculpture on its sides (unless colossal also), do not materially interfere with the sweep of its curve, nor diminish the efficiency of its sustaining mass. And if it be diminutive, its sustaining function is comparatively of so small importance, the injurious results of failure so much less, and the relative strength and cohesion of its mass so much greater, that it may be suffered in extravagances of ornament or outline which would be unendurable in a shaft of middle size, and impossible in one of colossal. Thus, the shafts drawn in Plate XIII. of the Seven Lamps,¹ though given as examples of extravagance, are yet pleasing in the general effect of the arcade they support; being each some six or seven feet high. But they would have been monstrous, as well as unsafe, if they had been sixty or seventy.

§ 15. Therefore, to determine the general rule for shaft decoration, we must ascertain the proportions representative of the mean bulk of shafts: they might easily be calculated from a sufficient number of examples, but it may perhaps

¹ [Vol. VIII., facing p. 212.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]