ADDENDA TO LECTURES I. AND II 87

is par excellence the art of proportion,” could never be made except by persons who know nothing of art in general; and, in fact, never is made except by those architects, who, not being artists, fancy that the one poor æsthetic principle of which they are cognizant is the whole of art. They find that the “disposition of masses” is the only thing of importance in the art with which they are acquainted, and fancy therefore that it is peculiar to that art; whereas the fact is, that all great art begins exactly where theirs ends, with the “disposition of masses.” The assertion that Greek architecture, as opposed to Gothic architecture, is the “architecture of proportion,” is another of the results of the same broad ignorance. First, it is a calummy of the old Greek style itself, which, like every other good architecture that ever existed, depends more on its grand figure sculpture, than on its proportions of parts; so that to copy the form of the Parthenon without its friezes and frontal statuary, is like copying the figure of a human being without its eyes and mouth;¹and, in the second place, so far as modern pseudo-Greek work does depend on its proportions more than Gothic work, it does so, not because it is better proportioned, but because it has nothing but proportion to depend upon. Gesture is in like manner of more importance to a pantomime actor than to a tragedian, not because his gesture is more refined, but because he has no tongue. And the proportions of our common Greek work are important to it undoubtedly, but not because they are or ever can be more subtle than Gothic proportion, but because that work has no sculpture, nor colour, nor imagination, nor sacredness, nor any other quality whatsoever in it, but ratios of measures. And it is difficult to express with sufficient force the absurdity of the supposition that there is more room for refinements of proportion in the relations of seven or eight equal pillars, with the triangular end of a roof above them, than between the shafts, and buttresses,

¹ [Compare Stones of Venice, vol. i. (Vol. IX. p. 284).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]