292 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Part II. 



cation of the colour ; for its predominance both in the sky and 

 water does not help us to an explanation. 



With equal inconsistency, it has been thought that a love 

 of some particular kind of art must be connected with religion ; 

 and the enthusiast in the one often becomes the enthusiast in 

 the other. It is true the most elevated sentiment in painting 

 is derived from sacred subjects; but a man of sense and taste 

 need not be influenced in his feelings for religion, or art, by such 

 accidental circumstances ; as he may admire Greek statues and 

 Greek architecture without any Pagan predilections. (See 



below, § 87.) 



The supposed "eminently Christian" architecture, the pointed 

 style, was in reality derived from the Moslems : Eome, which 

 has been considered an important Christian city, before and 

 after its introduction, never adopted it ; and the early Chris- 

 tians were perfectly innocent of its religious importance and 

 peculiarities. The theories of vertical lines ascending towards 

 heaven, and being therefore connected with a religious senti- 

 ment, may amuse imaginative minds, but are neither consis- 

 tent with common sense, nor in accordance with fact ; and are 

 only liable to end in confusion, without eliciting any truths 

 connected with architecture. 



74. The origin of the pointed arch has been a question 

 still more obscure than that of various styles of architecture ; 

 but the attempts to derive it from the intersection of two round 

 arches, groined vaults, the interlacing of trees, or other acci- 

 dental combinations, have now been wisely abandoned. Indeed, 

 when we find it used throughout the mosk of Ahmed ebn 

 Tooloon, at Cairo, as early as 879 a.d.*, and constantly em- 

 ployed after that period as the received style of building of 

 the day, we may feel convinced that some more reasonable, and 



* The horse-shoe round arch was also used about the same time; and it is 

 found in the court attached to the same mosk, though added after the com- 

 pletion of that building. 



