1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



293 



quity, of which such numerous examples are extant, offer the most 

 convincing proofs of the opposite extremes which beauty may touch, 



Antique Tiir/ods. 



where it is relative and connected with the principle of reason and 

 utility. How different are the proportions of these objects, modelled 

 on the same general form and outline, and destined to the same offi- 



ces, according to the material, marble or bronze, in which the artist 

 has thought proper to execute them. Change the material, and the 

 one becomes absurdly heavy, the other impracticable. And yet so 

 little attentiou has been paid by the moderns to a principle which 

 might be supposed too obvious to be missed, that it would be very 

 easy to point out candelabra copied from antique marbles and cast in 

 iron, without regard to the absurdity of executing the mass in metal, 

 when designs so much more consistent with the material, and equally 

 authorised by antiquity (since it seems indispensable to copy some- 

 thing) were to be had for choosing ; and others might be indicated in 

 which a better feeling, as regards the shaft, only renders more obvious 

 the disproportions of a lumpy pedestal, substituted for the exquisite 

 tripedal arrangement, universal in the metal candelabra of antiquity. 

 Cast-iron, however, being so much more brittle than bronze, would 

 require a somewhat different treatment, if considered in an original 

 spirit. Besides candelabra and tripods, we may point to antique 

 seats, in which the modification from the same cause is no less 

 striking. And even in those forms, which are less open to variety 

 from being the direct representations of natural objects, the handling 

 is with equal skill adapted to the materials. The draperies of sta- 

 tues are studied with especial reference to this point; and some 

 works of antiquity which have descended to us in marble, have been 

 pronounced by competent authorities to be copies from bronze, on ac- 

 count of their peculiarity in this respect. In vases, also, there is a 

 marked difference in the design, as the material is marble or bronze 



Antique Seats. 



as may be seen in innumerable examples in the museum at Naples. 

 If our means are deficient fur carrying this parallel of the ancient 

 practice in marble and metal much farther, it makes at least a strong 

 case, that it is uniform and consistent as far as it goes. It is no ob- 

 jection to the argument which has been drawn from the decorative 

 architecture of Heiculaneum and Pompeii, that the ancients never 

 attempted to approach that style in execution, by reducing their sup- 

 ports to the minimum which might have been permitted by the mate- 

 rials they were in the habit of employing. It is not contended that 

 cast-iron is necessarily to be reduced to its minimum. The trabeated 

 system, which is the fundamental principle of Greek architecture, 

 and the predominant feature in the derivative style of the Romans, 

 demanded a certain proportion between the masses which were em- 

 ployed for the architraves, as connected with the marble ceilings of 

 the peristyles, the pediments, and the roof, and the columns on which 

 they rest. We learn from Vitruvius that the ancients studied the 



nicest shades of distinction in these proportions. And how happily 

 have they been determined! Human ingenuity has sought in vain 

 to improve upon them, and every palpable deviation in parallel com- 

 binations, brirgs with it the sensation, that the principles of relative 

 beauty are disturbed. Change the material, as in the timber archi- 

 traves of the Tuscan order, according to the doctrine of Vitruvius, 

 and the proportions are at once revolutionized — but without any com- 

 promise of the essential principle of beauty, since the means and 

 the end remain consonant, and the parts are fitted to the design of the 

 whole. 



2. In considering the works of antiquity with reference to the in- 

 fluence of the use of metal upon architecture, we have been reduced 

 to aro-ue upon analogies. The consideration of another style of ar- 

 chitecture, which divides with the chef* d'ceuvres of Greece itself, 

 the admiration of posterity, will afford us a much clearer view of the 

 influence which cast-iron may exercise upon art, and what is more 



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