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

54

THE

ARCHITECTURE OF

HUMANISM

association.»/Moreover,sinceliterary

exercisesinvite

effectsofcontrast,thearchitecture

ofthe

Renaissance

comestobetreated,likethevillain

inthemelodrama,

asa

merefoiltothemediaevalmyth.)

Andbecause

Renaissance lifehappened

to yield no stimulus to

thenineteenth century

imagination,thearchitecture

which ministeredtotheusesofthat

lifebecame

ipso

facto

commonplace, Acombinationofplasticforms

has a

sensuous valueapart fromanything we may

know about them. Romanticism allows what it

knows,orconceivesitselftoknow,aboutthecircum-

stancesamong which the

forms

were produced, to

divertitfromgivingunbiassedattentiontothepurely

aesthetic character, the sensuous value, ofthe con-

crete arts. If it is a question ofarchitecture, the

architecturaldesignistakenasstandingfortheperiod

which invented and

is associated with it, and

as

suggesting, conventionally, the general imaginative

state,thecomplexfeelingsofapprovalordisapproval

which the idea of that period happens to evoke.

Architecture, in fact, becomes primarily symbolic.

It ceases

to be an immediate and direct source of

enjoyment,andbecomes

amediateandindirect

one.

^Undertheromantic

influence,then, theinterestin

architecture

is

symbolic,and tastebecomescaprici-

ous. But that is.

not all. It becomesalsounduly

stylistic,and

undulyantiquarian. Forinproportion

as architectural form is

symbolically conventional