Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter 33. In this chapter we propose to explain the general form and arrangement of ancient churches and their furniture, which as before mentioned, is of far greater importance than mere detail: for of what use is good writing if the spelling be bad? or of what use is good spelling if the words have no sense in them? So a knowledge of detail in Architecture is of little worth, if the greater principles of combination be not thoroughly understood. The sin of modern Church Architecture in England until these last few years has not been in the badness of detail, for it has oft times been most pure, yet the building where it is found has been most wretched. It has consisted in the misapplication of those details; sometimes by copying them on too small a scale, thereby rendering them absurd, as. the building churches for dolls or cathedrals for babies: sometimes by misplacing them, as in putting windows well suited for a flank elevation in a western front, or a cathedral doorway in a village porch, and vice versa. When we consider what Architecture really is; that it implies not only the art of building well, but building beautifully and appropriately, we shall soon see that something beyond a mere correctness of detail is necessary to produce a perfect building. When we look abroad on the world and trace the hand of God in the vegetable, animal or mineral kingdom, it is not the beauty of form alone which the most enchants us;--it is not alone the peculiar suitability of each portion to do its particular work that engages our admiration; but it is the combination of utility with beauty which impresses us with wonder and awe, and which tells us in language not to be mistaken, " The hand that made us is divine." In creation beauty appears...
