340 



ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. 



Part II. 



(55.) 

 y 



Q 



p. 244). Many of our spires again, sin, like our modern 

 obelisks (Jig. 2, a), in their ill-proportioned obtuse points (56) ; 

 others are far too thin and painfully sharp ; and others, being 

 circular, look like extinguishers, and have a some- 

 what discordant effect on a square tower ; while some 

 broach spires, elongated beyond all reason, appear 

 as if they had been drawn upwards when in a 

 plastic state ; the operation condemning the tri- 

 angular splay at the base to the same attenuated 

 character, and depriving it of the appearance of solidity and 

 use (fig. 3). 



Indeed, we are not singular in this misunderstanding of a 

 spire ; and Belgians, Germans, and others, delight in pro- 

 ducing an effect upon it not unlike that of 

 an aphis on plants, by afflicting it with a 

 goitre-like protuberance of hideous shape, at 

 once at variance with proportion and form.] 

 These mistakes are sometimes owing to the 

 inability of small minds to comprehend the 

 beauty of a line. They dread its extending 

 beyond a very limited length, and therefore 

 break it up by projections and indentations, 

 without perceiving that the decomposition of 

 an outline gives an impression of meanness, 

 totally at variance with grandeur and breadth 

 of treatment so necessary for architectural 

 beauty. They woidd be alarmed at the long line of the en- 

 tablature and roof of the great temple of Neptune at Psestum, 

 and would find the broken entablatures of Roman time more 

 suited to their taste. The same dread of a continuous line 

 makes them break the curve of an arch by a ponderous key- 

 stone descending below the level of the archivolt, often ren- 

 dered more unsightly by a grim face sculptured upon it, and 

 more out of keeping when of stone inserted into a brick arch. 



