The architecture of humanism; a study in the history of taste

82 THEARCHITECTURE

OF HUMANISM

as possessing a value

in the visual arts.

And one

cause ofoffence in Renaissance

architectureis pre-

ciselyitslackof

thispicturesquenessof

whichNature

issofull. Forthesakeofthis

merittotheeye,

how

much decay has been endured and

awkwardness

forgiven! In a theory of architecture,

what place

then,ifany,canbefound forthistrue

meritofthe

picturesque? What

was,

in fact, its place in the

architecture
oftheRenaissance?

j

To

thesequestions

an answer should be given before the romantic

criticism of architecture can be fairly and finally

dismissed,

i/If the wild and the accidental are absent

from

Renaissance

architecture,it iscertainlynotbecause

themenofthatperiod

were

blindtotheirattraction.\

Thetermpittorescowas,afterall,theirowninvention.

Itstood,onitsownshowing,for

the

qualitieswhich

suggesta

picture,andareofuseinthemaking

ofit.

Picturesque

elements—elements that are curious,

fantastic, accidental, had been sought after inthe

painting of Italian

backgrounds almost from

the

first. Their

presence gave a special popularity to

suchsubjectsastheAdorationoftheKings,depicted,

asbyconvention

theyhabituallywere,with

strange

exoticretinues

andeverycircumstanceofthefancied

East. Thus the word itself,

when, soon after

the

middleoftheseventeenth

century,itcameinto

use,

marked not so

muchanewvirtuein

painting

asa