Esthetic Evolution. 227 



ing effect. He begins by conceding * that there is no 

 force in those five objections to gothic just noticed as 

 anti-Roman, over-columned, dark, cold, or hiding the 

 altar. These concessions are, however, followed by the 

 following hostile assertions : He says (i) that gothic 

 churches are ill adapted to the existing exigencies of 

 Catholic worship; (2) that they are unsuited to the use 

 of paintings ; (3) that they are also unfavourable to the 

 use of sacred images, which latter were, he asserts, in 

 gothic architecture too much subordinated to architectu- 

 ral features; his chief contention, however, is (4) that 

 a majestic "unity" finds expression in almost every 

 Italian church, while in gothic ones unity is lost in mul- 

 tiplicity of detail and complexity of design. He asserts 

 again and again that a church should be the material 

 expression of a divine religious unity which can be ap- 

 prehended "at one glance," that it should be well 

 adapted to the most recent developments of ritual, and 

 especially harmonious with the modern religious develop- 

 ments of the pictorial and plastic arts. He also main- 

 tains that an Italian church need not cost more than a 

 similarly sized gothic one; and to the affirmation that 

 a common structure of the former style is a mere 

 "room," he rejoins by stigmatising an inferior gothic one 

 as a mere " barn." 



Now it is not probable that the first of these writers 

 would deny the needfulness of the positive characters 



