1845.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



141 



ON OBELISKS, WITH SOME REMARKS ON EGYPTIAN 



ARCHITECTURE, 



13/ Henry Fdlton, M.D. 



Tlie ancients havi? left us few examples of monuments such as are 

 luited to endure our climate in an "unhoused condition." To Egypt 

 we are indebted for the pyramid and tho obelisk, although, indeed, we 

 can scarcely consider pyramids in the light of monuments, for they are 

 rather edifices of mere utility, or at least wen; so considered by thoso 

 who erected them, and who appear in other matters to be too well in- 

 structed in the principles which constitute beauty and grandeur in 

 esthetic composition, to flatter themselves that these enormous struc- 

 tures had any claim to admiration on these grounds. Be this as it 

 may, the pyramids ofTor no models for ui, nor need we regret that they 

 are beyond our reasonable efforts, because the end would not be worth 

 the cost. The only pyramid of any account in Europe is that of 

 C. Cestus at Rome, and it is not probable that we shall ever have 

 another. 



It is true there is Fompey's pillar in Egvpt, but it is not of Egypt, 

 it may rather be classed with those of Tr.ijau and Antoninus, though, 

 for reasons which we shall state, tho columns of the two emperors 

 have stronger claims on our admiration than that which is distin- 

 guished, on somewhat doubtful evidence, with the name of the consul, 

 and which may be said to enjoy a monopoly as a model in the prac- 

 tice of modern architects; and, indeed, judging from the late ex- 

 hibitions at the Royal Academy, we might almost venture to con- 

 clude that in future we shall have nothing else, although isolated 

 columns are very objectionable. Poetic feeling denies the existence 

 in the wilderness to more than one pelican, and rejects any number of 

 swans save two on the tiny lake : the poetry of architecture (if I may 

 so speak) repudiates the word column in the singular number, andean 

 only consider it, no matter in what locality, as part of a range ; such 

 is the column of Pompey (which some suppose did form part of a 

 range), and that of Santa Maria Maggiore (which was taken out of the 

 Temple of Peace), and such are all those of which they are the types. 



In this utilitarian age, we are prone to forget that ut modus in rebus, 

 there is a fitness in the form of things, which should not be lost sight 

 of in matters of taste, however convenient it may be to do so when we 

 aim at no such elevated object. I do not know whether those who 

 have written on taste have referred to this or not, but it appears to 

 me that good taste must look with suspicion on a thing used for a very 

 different purpose from that with which it naturally is, and ought to be 

 associated in our minds ; for instance, some things which are placed 

 as ornaments and objects of curiosity in the saloons and cabinets of 

 the wealthy in Europe, were, as I can vouch, made in Asia for ignoble 

 purposes ; and again, some of our own manufactures, diffeiing in 

 nothing but shape from our most highly prized specimens of table 

 china ware, have been in the East exhibited on the festive board along 

 with plates and dishes: in such cases ignorance is surely bliss, and no 

 doubt in the eyes of an ignoramus a monstrous column, like the York 

 or Nelson, supporting a statue, or like that of the monument of the 

 great fire of London supporting nothing, may appear wondrous fine, 

 although to others not so blessed it must appear as much out of place 

 as Wedgewood's china ware did in the eyes of the Nizam's horror- 

 struck European guests at Hydrabad. Mr. Hosking, in his excellent 

 treatise on architecture, in comparing the London monument with the 

 lofty shot tower uear the south-west angle of Waterloo Bridge, justly 

 says, "they are both of cylindrical form ; but the one is crowned by a 

 square abacus, and the other by a bold cornice which follows its own 

 outline, the greater simplicity and consequent beauty of the latter is 

 such as to strike the most unobservant." The learned professor might 

 have added that the former was a tasteless perversion of a Greek 

 order, the latter almost a copy of an Irish round tower, and that the 

 " consequent beauty" depends not so much on the figure as the appli- 

 cation of the thing, for a range of shot towers would exhibit as little 

 beauty asan isolated column. 



The columns of Trajan and Antoninus at Rome, and that of Napo- 

 leon in the Place Vendome at Paris, are not so liable to the objections 

 urged, as the sculpture which encases iheir shafts partly removes 

 them from the class of edificial columns : but to support a statue even 

 such examples are perfectly useless, inasmuch as they necessarily 

 raise the figure far beyond the point of sight, so that neither its re'- 

 semblance nor proportions can be distinguished, and the highest praise 

 that can be given to them under such circumstances is that they are very 

 convenient asylums for ill-executed statuary. But with whatever in- 

 terest we may view the sculptured columns just alluded to, no such 

 feeling can exist when we inspect one which has merely their cold 

 and dry outline, like the Nelson in Dublin and the Melville in Edin- 

 burgh, 



The last column erected in this country is the one in Trafalgar 

 Squ ire, London, and it is by no means an exception to the rule. Why 

 an obelisk did not suggest itself to the minds of those who had the 

 direction of the testimonial, as particularly appropriate to celebrate 

 the achievements of the hero of the Nile is not easily to be accounted 

 for, if any credit for classical association or taste be given to them, 

 unless it were that none of those heretofore elevated in Europe had 

 been supplied with suitable bases or pedestals, and that the sliaft rising 

 abruptly from the ground, as they would appear to do in the views of 

 those still remaining in Egypt, was not desirable or according to our 

 received notions and practice in other cases. 



In order to obtain some insight into the mode of erection as prac- 

 tised by the ancient Egyptians, — and happily for the cultivation of 

 taste the architecture of that people is (with the unaccountable excep- 

 tion of obelisks) better illustrated than that of any other, not except- 

 ing Greece itself, — I have consulted upwards of fifty books of travels 

 ^ind description relating to it, and although all of tliem speak of obe- 

 lisks, as indeed how could we expect to find any work assuming to 

 treat on its antiquities which did not, yet the information to be gleaned 

 from any such source, as far as I am acquainted, is scanty in the ex- 

 treme and only whets the appetite for investigation : some of the 

 books go so far as to give the exact measurement of every external 

 stone of the great pyramid, yet only give information, and that im- 

 perfect, whether the obelisks had bases or not, and in all the viewi 

 the soil appears to be so much raised at the base of the shaft that we 

 connot make anything out from them. In Captain Head's " Descrip- 

 tion of Eastern and Egyptian Scenery," the pedestal of the obelisk at 

 Alexandria, called Cleopatra's Needle, is stated to have been seven 

 feet high (which is the same as the diameter of the shaft at its base), 

 and nine feet broad, but whether or not this pedestal was a mere 

 foundation stone does not appear, and he says that the base has lately 

 (1833) been broken up for building materials. 



In a copy of some hieroglyphics in one work, an obelisk is repre- 

 sented elevated on a fiat rectangular zocco, exceeding in length about 

 one-third of the diameter of the shaft at its base, this is nearly the 

 same proportion as that given by Captain Head, and we may reason- 

 ably presume was the usual practice of the Egyptians, Montfmcon 

 gives a view of an obelisk, which he briefly designates as "that of St. 

 Manto," but where that is I cannot say, never having heard either of 

 the saint or the place before. I have examined the English, French, 

 and Latin editions, and, judging from the aentexf, perhaps it may be 

 some place in Tuscany; this obelisk "of St. Manto" has abase pre- 

 cisely the same as that of the hieroglyphic alluded to. So low an 

 elevation (about one-third of the diameter of the shaft at its base), 

 would not accord with our practice or idea of the elevation which a 

 monument should have, nor does it appear in any instance to have met 

 with favour in the eyes of the Roman architects of the cinque cento 

 school, but how those which they erected at Rome were placed by the 

 old Roman architects when first brought from Egypt I know not, but 

 Montfaucon, and those who have followed in his wake, in giving a 

 restored view of a Roman circus, as he says it appeared in the six- 

 teenth century, place obelisks on the spine, raised some on four balls 

 and others on the same number of paws, just as cabinet makers occa- 

 sionally do modern furniture, and these balls and paws rest on 

 the square zocco ; but the learned padre is not a very trustworthy 

 architectural authority, at least for detail. The comparatively modern 

 Roman architects, just as might be expected those professed restorers 

 of ancient art would do, have given them spruce pedestals with Roman 

 mouldings and surbase ; the best of these pedestals are those which 

 resemble the square altars of ancient Rome. The obelisk which is in 

 front of St. Peter's was elevated by Fontana, and nothing can be worse 

 than its details, if we except some of those of St. Peter's itself; the 

 diameter of the shaft is given as eight feet four inches, and the height 

 seventy-six feet, the height of the entire, including a cross on the apex, 

 12G feet. I believe all the obelisks at Rome have something or other 

 of this kind on the apes — a practice as detrimental to eli'ect, without 

 being as useful, as that of placing weather-cocks in the same situation 

 on (he spires of churches in our own country. Both the spire and its 

 prototype under such circumstances convey the idea that there was no 

 object aimed at in their erection except that of supporting whatever 

 is placed on the top. 



The French architects who lately elevated the Luxor Obelisk at 

 Paris in the arrangement of its base appear to have had no other idea 

 than that of making almost an exact copy of those designed by Fon- 

 tana, and such are all those which I hare seen in this country, with 

 the exception of the little one in Fleet Street, London, [and which I 

 speak of from memory]. The architect who designed it felt the 

 necessity of giving it an Eyptian base, in character at least, and has 

 made the pedestal tapering, with au inclination corresponding to that 

 of the shaft, and on the dado (if I recollect rightly), has placed an 



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