But though the gaiety of Gothic is one of its features,it also is not the secret of its unique effect.We see a domestic topsy-turvydom in many Japanese sketches.But delightful as these are,with their fairy tree-tops,paper houses,and toddling,infantile inhabitants,the pleasure they give is of a kind quite different from the joy and energy of the gargoyles.Some have even been so shallow and illiterate as to maintain that our pleasure in medieval building is a mere pleasure in what is barbaric,in what is rough,shapeless,or crumbling like the rocks.This can be dismissed after the same fashion;South Sea idols,with painted eyes and radiating bristles,are a delight to the eye;but they do not affect it in at all the same way as Westminster Abbey.Some again (going to another and almost equally foolish extreme)ignore the coarse and comic in mediaevalism;and praise the pointed arch only for its utter purity and simplicity,as of a saint with his hands joined in prayer.Here,again,the uniqueness is missed.There are Renaissance things (such as the ethereal silvery drawings of Raphael),there are even pagan things (such as the Praying Boy)which express as fresh and austere a piety.None of these explanations explain.And I never saw what was the real point about Gothic till I came into the town of Lincoln,and saw it behind a row of furniture-vans.
第57章 THE ARCHITECT OF SPEARS(1)（2 / 2）