REMARKS UPON TASTE. 



261 



a correct taste, founded on rules ; a delicate 

 taste, founded on a delicate organisation ; an 

 intense taste, founded on powerful passions or 

 affections ; and a refined taste, founded on 

 intellectual cultivation, superadded to delicacy 

 or intensity of feeling. No one person can 

 have any taste in architecture, whose taste 

 may not be classed under one or other of 

 these heads ; and no one can have a taste ap- 

 proximating to perfection, in which all these 

 qualities are not united in a greater or less 

 degree. The union of these qualities in the 

 same mind may be considered as the beau 

 idial to which the artist and the critic ought 

 to aspire ; but which, from the conditions in- 

 separable from human nature, he can never 

 absolutely attain. 



The 'principal circumstances which pre- 

 vent indiiriduals from attaining a perfe t 

 taste in architecture, may be included under 

 the heads of locality, education, public opi- 

 nion, fashion, and received prejudices. 



The influence of locality on a taste for ar- 

 chitecture, is much greater than might be at 

 first sight imagined. If we suppose an indi- 

 vidual with a taste just, correct, delicate, in- 

 tense, and refined, living in a country where 

 any particular style of architecture prevailed, 

 we must perceive that he would hardly be 

 able to avoid certain prejudices in favor of 

 that architecture. For example, if he lived 

 in a counti-y where almost all the churches 

 and cathedrals wore in the Gothic style, as in 

 England, he could hardly avoid entertaining 

 an opinion that that style is particularly 

 adapted to churches and cathedrals ; and if he 

 went to Ital\-, or to Russia, where he would 

 find ecclesiastical buildings everywhere built 

 in the Grecian or Roman manner, he would 

 consider them gloomy and unsuitable. In 

 like manner, a man of architectural taste, 

 living in a country where the houses have flat 

 roofs, or roofs of very low pitch, as in the 

 higher class of dwelling-houses in Italy and 



England, could, if he were travelling through 

 a country where all the houses were high- 

 roofed, as in the greater part of Germany, 

 hardly avoid disliking them, from his preju- 

 dice in favor of low roofs. The Italian artist 

 who was the biographer of Winkelmaun re- 

 lates that he, though a German, after residing 

 many years in Rome, occupied solely with the 

 study of the fine arts, became so prejudiced in 

 favor of flat roofs, that, when passing through 

 Switzerland, on his road to his native coun- 

 try, he could not be reconciled to the high 

 roofs of the cottages, though he was told that 

 they were necessary to prevent the snow, 

 when melting, from penetrating the roof. 

 Now AVinkclniann appears to have been a 

 man, notwithstanding his prejudices, whose 

 taste was both intense and refined, though it 

 was far from being just, as may be learned 

 from the following passage : — 



" From Yerona, we proceeded to the Tyro- 

 lean Alps. When we reached the first defile 

 of the mountains, I observed that Wiukelniann 

 suddenly changed countenance : he then said 

 to me, in a pathetic tone, ' See, my friend, 

 what a horrible country ! what terrible heights !' 

 A short time afterwards, when we had entered 

 on the German territory, he cried out, 'What 

 poor architecture I Look at those roofs, how 

 steep they are !' This he said with so much 

 vehemence, as strongly to express the disgust 

 with which these objects had inspired him. 

 At first I thought he M'as jesting ; but when 

 I found that he was in earnest, I replied, that 

 the height of the mountains had a grandeur 

 which charmed me ; and that, as to the steep- 

 ness of the roofs of the houses, this ought 

 rather to shock mc, who was an Italian, than 

 him, who was a German. ' Besides,' continued 

 I, ' we must judge of all things relatively ; in 

 a country subject to heavy falls of snow, these 

 high steep roofs are indispensable.'" (Vie 

 de Winkelmann, p. cxxviii.) 



We see, by this example, that the great in 



