Esthetic Evolution. 237 



seems to me a mistake. Surely such are the very cha- 

 racters which such images should present ! 



Passing by the requirement as to expense, which ap- 

 pears to be about equally capable of fulfilment by either 

 gothic or Italian, we may pass to the last requirement, 

 that, namely, as to the reasonableness which should 

 pervade it and should manifest itself in the constructions 

 it inspires. In this matter it must be allowed that 

 gothic has a most decisive advantage over Italian. Me- 

 diaeval architecture has developed with admirable skill 

 the art of forming the largest and most durable construc- 

 tions with the least expenditure of material. It may be 

 called emphatically the most rationalistic and truthful 

 system of stone construction which the world has yet 

 witnessed. That canon for which Mr. Ruskin has had 

 so much credit, but which was, years before, enunciated 

 by Augustus Welby Pugin, "that nothing should be con- 

 structed for ornament, but that all construction should be 

 useful first, and secondarily made the vehicle for orna- 

 ment," is thoroughly embodied in " pointed " architecture 

 alone. 



No doubt this rule was occasionally transgressed by 

 mediaeval architects, as, e.g., by the designer of the west 

 front of Wells cathedral ; but in Italian architecture it is 

 persistently ignored. Thus the erection of flying but- 

 tresses is almost a necessity where a massive stone roof is 

 suspended at a great altitude over a spacious interior ; but 



