FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. 1 — IV.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY FROM THE FIFTH TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY. — II.
A NEW art is always the creation of a new people,
which has preserved intact its primitive characteristics. Just as the members of the same race of mankind are recognized by certain distinctive physiological tokens, such as general structure, features or a common physiognomy, so there are certain intellectual and moral faculties corresponding to these external lineaments, which are developed in this race with an accentuation not encountered elsewhere in a like degree.
These faculties are exceedingly varied and are often independent of one another. At times some of them are entirely wanting, while others take on an extraordinary development: in antiquity — where we will look for examples in order not to offend the amour-propre of any modern nation — no purely original artistic work existed among the Hebrews or Phœnicians, which might be considered as the expression of an aptitude for plastic productions; they borrowed everything from the Egyptians and Assyrians, and, at a later date, from the Greeks. This partial inferiority did not, however, deprive the Hebrews of that gift which enabled them to create a literature unsurpassed by any other. In another line, Phœnicia and her principal colonies displayed, from remotest times, an audacity in their undertakings, a talent for organization, commercial qualifications and at times a military spirit, which mark incontestably a vigorous and bold race. In like manner, in the Roman, artistic and literary qualities were always subordinated to the powerful faculties of the administrator and the soldier.
In some peoples, an harmonious balance of these various aptitudes is met with. But every race has an intellectual cast peculiarly its own, as it has a physiognomy recognizable by certain typical external features; it has its own conception of beauty, and also the faculty of creating in conformity with this conception; and for this very reason, its productions present characteristics which differ widely from those observed in the works of other peoples.
In a word, if the intellect, like the face, has features varying infinitely with the individual, it is not less true that the members of the same race, so long as it remains pure, have likenesses sufficiently striking to enable one to recognize their common parentage, and distinguish them from persons of every other race. In time, however, migrations, invasions, wars and the constant relationships and interchangings incident upon the growth of civilization, inevitably lead to fusions which complicate, attenuate and, perhaps, completely transform the most sharply-defined primitive characteristics. The race may thereby acquire new faculties which can be harmonized with the first, rounding them out or correcting them, and resulting at last in gain rather than loss. Sometimes, however, the native and the acquired qualities are too dissimilar to be grafted on one another, in which case the fruit becomes abortive and decay sets in.
This is always a critical period in the history of a people, the more so because, though it may come out of it equipped for immediate achievements, it may also have its vigor and vitality so sapped that it will disappear in the sea of humanity, without leaving an eddy to mark the place where it went down.
It is, then, through the contact of a new race with a more advanced civilization that a period of great artistic, architectural and literary fertility is ushered in: when a people makes its way out of the limbo of barbarism and appears on the confines of history, it bears in its bosom new faculties which, though often pregnant with power, are, nevertheless, for the time devoid of consciousness or at least dormant; the germ ready to burst needs a suitable and well-prepared soil, one which has hith
erto been denied it. In the first place, a condition of settled comfort is requisite to the conquering race, which its former wandering and precarious existence could not assure to it. To the poet and artist, a delicate and even refined training for their work is sometimes necessary, a cultured intellectual milieu, and a following disposed to listen and apt to comprehend. As for the architect, he needs, as we know, in addition to all this, to have access to previously acquired knowledge, which it is difficult to assimilate, even with time.
Undoubtedly, it is not impossible for a race, though isolated and limited solely to its own inspirations, to attain that degree of civilization which is necessary for the creation of an art; this thing must have happened at least once, in the beginning. But it was then the work of ages, without the occurrence during the long formative period of more violent disturbances than it was able to resist; Egypt probably offers an example of this, as well as China and perhaps India. We know how lasting the productions were in these cases.
Generally, when a new race is once settled in the bosom of an ancient civilization, it promptly assimilates all that has been acquired before its advent, eliminates such elements as are too foreign, and introduces fresh ones of sufficient vigor to rejuvenate and often to transform the structures started again on the old foundations. It was thus with the Greeks when they came in contact with Egypt and the Orient; with the Romans, conquerors of Greece; with the Arabs, vanquishers of Persia and the Byzantine Empire; and with the barbarians, when brought face to face with Latin and Byzantine civilization.
This contact of a newly appeared race with an ancient civilization is ordinarily a necessary condition to the abridgment of the long term, which its unaided natural development would require; a period of exposure to the myriad chances and catastrophes of the perpetual conflicts of history.
But this condition is far from being all-sufficient. How many invasions have left in their track ruin to the invaded civilizations, without working lasting benefit to the conquerors? How few have given birth to a new civilization, marking, as a beacon, one of those moments towards which successive generations turn their gaze with feelings of admiration and gratitude
Success in such an event depends upon the rare, almost extraordinary conjunction of circumstances, which are at the same time complicated and independent of one another. In this sense it may be said that the great artistic periods have nearly always been ushered in by chance; for what we call chance is nothing else than the fortuitous coincidence of independent conditions, a coincidence effected in accordance with no regular law, so far as we can discern.
If a barbarous race be devoid of the necessary qualifications, or if, on the other hand the invaded civilization fails to retain sufficient vitality; if by the natural effects of time its traditions have gone to decay and its artistic faculties have too far degenerated; if, in the eyes of the barbarians, it no longer exercises a due prestige; or again, if the genius of the two peoples is too unlike, if the incongruities are too irreconcilable; finally, if the invading race is so weak numerically that it is swallowed up in the mass around it, without forming a permanent stock; or if, on the other hand, misery and dispersion impoverish the enslaved nation to an excessive degree, — if any one of these dangers shows itself too prominently, the invasion will merely result in a general downfall, with no ulterior compensation and with no prospect of a resurrection at some future day.
It is with these fusions of peoples as with the compounding of metals. Not all metals can be made to enter into an alloy, nor in all proportions. There are some which will remain obstinately separate, at the bottom of the hottest crucible; those even which show some affinity for one another will lie distinct in the mass, unless introduced in certain narrowly defined proportions; and only an incoherent mixture will be obtained, wherein the original properties of each metal are marked or altered, weakened or destroyed by those of other heterogeneous elements. Only when all necessary precautions have been taken, and when each element is present in exactly the right proportion, is the composition produced which we call alloy, in which each metal loses its own independence and goes to make up an entirely new and homogenous body. However small a particle you detach from this alloy, you will find it always of the same composition, one and inseparable; and the alloy obtained presents new and special properties which sometimes differ totally from the properties peculiar to each of the constituent elements.
In the twelfth century, all the conditions requisite to the
1 From the French of P. Planat, in Planat’s “Encylop&die de lʽArchitecture
et de la Construction. ” Continued from page 37, No. 799.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY FROM THE FIFTH TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY. — II.
A NEW art is always the creation of a new people,
which has preserved intact its primitive characteristics. Just as the members of the same race of mankind are recognized by certain distinctive physiological tokens, such as general structure, features or a common physiognomy, so there are certain intellectual and moral faculties corresponding to these external lineaments, which are developed in this race with an accentuation not encountered elsewhere in a like degree.
These faculties are exceedingly varied and are often independent of one another. At times some of them are entirely wanting, while others take on an extraordinary development: in antiquity — where we will look for examples in order not to offend the amour-propre of any modern nation — no purely original artistic work existed among the Hebrews or Phœnicians, which might be considered as the expression of an aptitude for plastic productions; they borrowed everything from the Egyptians and Assyrians, and, at a later date, from the Greeks. This partial inferiority did not, however, deprive the Hebrews of that gift which enabled them to create a literature unsurpassed by any other. In another line, Phœnicia and her principal colonies displayed, from remotest times, an audacity in their undertakings, a talent for organization, commercial qualifications and at times a military spirit, which mark incontestably a vigorous and bold race. In like manner, in the Roman, artistic and literary qualities were always subordinated to the powerful faculties of the administrator and the soldier.
In some peoples, an harmonious balance of these various aptitudes is met with. But every race has an intellectual cast peculiarly its own, as it has a physiognomy recognizable by certain typical external features; it has its own conception of beauty, and also the faculty of creating in conformity with this conception; and for this very reason, its productions present characteristics which differ widely from those observed in the works of other peoples.
In a word, if the intellect, like the face, has features varying infinitely with the individual, it is not less true that the members of the same race, so long as it remains pure, have likenesses sufficiently striking to enable one to recognize their common parentage, and distinguish them from persons of every other race. In time, however, migrations, invasions, wars and the constant relationships and interchangings incident upon the growth of civilization, inevitably lead to fusions which complicate, attenuate and, perhaps, completely transform the most sharply-defined primitive characteristics. The race may thereby acquire new faculties which can be harmonized with the first, rounding them out or correcting them, and resulting at last in gain rather than loss. Sometimes, however, the native and the acquired qualities are too dissimilar to be grafted on one another, in which case the fruit becomes abortive and decay sets in.
This is always a critical period in the history of a people, the more so because, though it may come out of it equipped for immediate achievements, it may also have its vigor and vitality so sapped that it will disappear in the sea of humanity, without leaving an eddy to mark the place where it went down.
It is, then, through the contact of a new race with a more advanced civilization that a period of great artistic, architectural and literary fertility is ushered in: when a people makes its way out of the limbo of barbarism and appears on the confines of history, it bears in its bosom new faculties which, though often pregnant with power, are, nevertheless, for the time devoid of consciousness or at least dormant; the germ ready to burst needs a suitable and well-prepared soil, one which has hith
erto been denied it. In the first place, a condition of settled comfort is requisite to the conquering race, which its former wandering and precarious existence could not assure to it. To the poet and artist, a delicate and even refined training for their work is sometimes necessary, a cultured intellectual milieu, and a following disposed to listen and apt to comprehend. As for the architect, he needs, as we know, in addition to all this, to have access to previously acquired knowledge, which it is difficult to assimilate, even with time.
Undoubtedly, it is not impossible for a race, though isolated and limited solely to its own inspirations, to attain that degree of civilization which is necessary for the creation of an art; this thing must have happened at least once, in the beginning. But it was then the work of ages, without the occurrence during the long formative period of more violent disturbances than it was able to resist; Egypt probably offers an example of this, as well as China and perhaps India. We know how lasting the productions were in these cases.
Generally, when a new race is once settled in the bosom of an ancient civilization, it promptly assimilates all that has been acquired before its advent, eliminates such elements as are too foreign, and introduces fresh ones of sufficient vigor to rejuvenate and often to transform the structures started again on the old foundations. It was thus with the Greeks when they came in contact with Egypt and the Orient; with the Romans, conquerors of Greece; with the Arabs, vanquishers of Persia and the Byzantine Empire; and with the barbarians, when brought face to face with Latin and Byzantine civilization.
This contact of a newly appeared race with an ancient civilization is ordinarily a necessary condition to the abridgment of the long term, which its unaided natural development would require; a period of exposure to the myriad chances and catastrophes of the perpetual conflicts of history.
But this condition is far from being all-sufficient. How many invasions have left in their track ruin to the invaded civilizations, without working lasting benefit to the conquerors? How few have given birth to a new civilization, marking, as a beacon, one of those moments towards which successive generations turn their gaze with feelings of admiration and gratitude
Success in such an event depends upon the rare, almost extraordinary conjunction of circumstances, which are at the same time complicated and independent of one another. In this sense it may be said that the great artistic periods have nearly always been ushered in by chance; for what we call chance is nothing else than the fortuitous coincidence of independent conditions, a coincidence effected in accordance with no regular law, so far as we can discern.
If a barbarous race be devoid of the necessary qualifications, or if, on the other hand the invaded civilization fails to retain sufficient vitality; if by the natural effects of time its traditions have gone to decay and its artistic faculties have too far degenerated; if, in the eyes of the barbarians, it no longer exercises a due prestige; or again, if the genius of the two peoples is too unlike, if the incongruities are too irreconcilable; finally, if the invading race is so weak numerically that it is swallowed up in the mass around it, without forming a permanent stock; or if, on the other hand, misery and dispersion impoverish the enslaved nation to an excessive degree, — if any one of these dangers shows itself too prominently, the invasion will merely result in a general downfall, with no ulterior compensation and with no prospect of a resurrection at some future day.
It is with these fusions of peoples as with the compounding of metals. Not all metals can be made to enter into an alloy, nor in all proportions. There are some which will remain obstinately separate, at the bottom of the hottest crucible; those even which show some affinity for one another will lie distinct in the mass, unless introduced in certain narrowly defined proportions; and only an incoherent mixture will be obtained, wherein the original properties of each metal are marked or altered, weakened or destroyed by those of other heterogeneous elements. Only when all necessary precautions have been taken, and when each element is present in exactly the right proportion, is the composition produced which we call alloy, in which each metal loses its own independence and goes to make up an entirely new and homogenous body. However small a particle you detach from this alloy, you will find it always of the same composition, one and inseparable; and the alloy obtained presents new and special properties which sometimes differ totally from the properties peculiar to each of the constituent elements.
In the twelfth century, all the conditions requisite to the
1 From the French of P. Planat, in Planat’s “Encylop&die de lʽArchitecture
et de la Construction. ” Continued from page 37, No. 799.