Chapter 35 Notre Dame de Paris (2) Volume 5 This will destroy that (7)

Whether called Brahmins, monks or popes, in Indian architecture, Egyptian architecture, or Roman architecture, people always feel that priests are everywhere, and there is nothing but priests.This is not the case with public buildings.Such buildings are more colorful and less holy.Phoenician architecture has the atmosphere of merchants; Greek architecture has the atmosphere of republic; Gothic architecture has the atmosphere of citizens. The general characteristics of any theocratic architecture are immutability, fear of progress, adherence to traditional lines, worship of primitive forms, and often inexplicable ingenuity, using symbols to distort all shapes of man and nature.These are obscure books, understood only by those who have been taught the mystical teachings.Moreover, any form, even any grotesque, has a meaning, so that any form becomes inviolable.Never ask Indian, Egyptian, or Roman constructions to alter their blueprints, or to improve their art of sculpture.To them any attempt at perfection is treasonous.In these architectural arts, the rigid dogma seems to have spread to the stone, as if petrified again.Contrary to this, however, the general characteristics of popular architecture are diversity, progress, novelty, abundance, and permanence.

It has got rid of the shackles of religion, and can consider the beauty of the building, carefully beautify it, and continuously improve the decoration of statues or patterns.This kind of architecture is secular and has a certain taste of people, but it is constantly mixed with the symbols of God, and it is still presented under the cover of the symbols of God.There are thus many buildings which any man, any intellect, any imagination can comprehend, and though still symbolic, are as comprehensible as nature.Between divine and popular architecture there is a difference from sacred language to popular language, from pictography to art, from Solomon to Phidias.

All that we have said has been extremely brief, and has left out numerous arguments and hundreds of petty objections.If it is generalized, the following conclusions can be drawn: until the fifteenth century, architectural art has always been the main record of human activities; during this period, any more complex ideas that appeared in the world were all transformed into buildings; Like any religious law, it has its magnificent monuments; finally, any important thought of human beings is recorded in stone.What is the reason?For any thought, whether religious or philosophical, is concerned with perpetuation; ideas that once shook the minds of one generation hope to shake other generations and leave their mark.Besides, the so-called immortality of manuscripts is so unreliable!A building is a strong book, durable, strong!A fire or a tyrant suffices to destroy the written word; but to destroy the architectural word requires a social revolution, an earthly revolution.Barbarians have indeed trampled on the Colosseum in ancient Rome, and perhaps the pyramids of ancient Egypt have also experienced the flood of Noah's time.

① Phidias (490-431 BC), a famous sculptor in ancient Greece. In the fifteenth century, everything changed. The human mind has discovered a method of perpetuation which is not only stronger and more durable than buildings, but also easier and easier to do.The art of architecture then lost its throne.Orpheus' stone writing was soon to be replaced by Gutenberg's lettered writing. Books will destroy architecture. The invention of printing is one of the greatest events in history.It is the mother machine of revolution, the complete renewal of human expression, the transformation of human thought from one form to another, the last complete and thorough transformation of the symbolic snake that represents wisdom since Adam. Metamorphosis.

In printed form, thought is more indelible than ever; it is in flight, it cannot be caught, it cannot be destroyed.It mixes with air. In the era of architectural art dominance, ideas turned into mountains, majesticly controlling a century and controlling a region.Thoughts are now a flock of birds, flying about, occupying both the space and the ground. ① The allusion comes from "Old Testament Genesis". The snake tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, saying that eating the fruit would give people wisdom. We may repeat that in this way the thought becomes ever more indelible, and who does not see that?It has changed from being solid and solid to being vigorous now, from being permanent to being immortal.A huge building can be demolished, but how can the ubiquitous thought be eradicated?Even if there is a big flood, the mountains will be swallowed by the rolling waves long ago, but the flocks of birds will still fly in the sky; moreover, as long as there is an ark floating on the flood, the flocks of birds will come and stop, and drift with the ark , Watching the flood recede together.The new world that emerges from this chaos will wake to see the thoughts of the submerged world, winged and alive, soaring over the new world.

As long as people see that this way of expression is not only the easiest to preserve, but also the simplest, most convenient, and easiest for everyone to implement; only if one compares the two facts: that thought, in order to become a building, has to employ four or five other arts, tons of gold, whole mountains of stone, whole forests of wood , whole swarms of workmen, and ideas into books need only a little paper, a little ink, a quill; what wonder, then, that human wisdom abandons the art of architecture in favor of printing? ?If a channel is dug below the water level of the river bed and the original river bed of the river is suddenly cut off, the river will definitely abandon the original river bed and divert.

It can be seen that since the invention of printing, the art of architecture has gradually dried up, declined and declined.How strongly one feels that the world is in decline, that the vitality is lost, that the minds of all ages and peoples have departed from the art of architecture!This neglect was scarcely perceptible in the fifteenth century, when the printing press was too feeble and could at most steal a little excess life from the mighty art of architecture.However, from the sixteenth century onwards, the disease of architectural art became obvious, basically unable to express social thoughts any more, and pitifully became classical art, from Gallic style, European style, local style to Greek and Roman style, from real And modern styles become fake ancient styles.It is this decline that is called the Renaissance.After all, this decline is not less magnificent, because the old Gothic elf, the setting sun that sank behind the huge printing press in Mainz, sometimes still shines on the Latin arcade with its afterglow. A whole pile of buildings mixed with Corinthian colonnades.

This is clearly the afterglow of the setting sun, but we regard it as the dawn of dawn. And since the art of architecture is just like every other art, since it is no longer the all-encompassing art, the supreme art, the all-encompassing art, it has no power to hold back other arts.So the other arts were liberated one after another, broke the shackles of the architect, and went their separate ways.Every art benefits from this separation.Separated from each other, the whole grows stronger.Sculpture became the art of sculpture, tempera became the art of painting, the canon ① became music.It is as if an empire fell apart after the death of its Alexander, and each province became a separate kingdom.

Then came Raphael Michelangelo, Jean Goujon, Palestrina, artists of the splendid sixteenth century. ①Jean Gouron (1510-about 1566), French sculptor, painter and architect. ② Refers to early polyphonic religious music, which later evolved into Western music. ③ Palestrina (about 1525-1594) Italian composer. At the same time as the liberation of art, the mind is also liberated everywhere.The heretical ancestors of the Middle Ages opened a huge gap in Catholicism, and the sixteenth century shattered the dominance of religion.Before printing, the Reformation was nothing more than sectarian schisms. With printing, the Reformation became a revolution.Heresy would be powerless without the printing press.Whether by destiny or providence, Gutenberg was Luther's forerunner.

However, when the sun of the Middle Ages had completely sunk, and the spirit of Gothic art had perished in the sky of art, architectural art gradually faded and disappeared.The printed book—the moth of the building—sucks its blood and gnaws at its flesh.Architectural art then, like a tree, peels off its bark, falls its leaves, and visibly dries up, becoming vulgar, poor, and worthless.It can no longer express anything, not even the memory of the art of an age.When the human mind forsakes it, the other arts also forsake it, and it is reduced to solitude, where, having no artist to care for it, it has to turn to the artisan for help.So plain white glass replaced stained glass in church windows, and stonemasons took over from sculptors.What vitality, character, vitality, wisdom, all have been lost.Architectural art has become a poor factory beggar, relying solely on imitation and plagiarism to survive.As early as the sixteenth century, Michelangelo probably felt that the art of architecture was declining. Finally, he had an idea and put all his eggs in one basket. This art giant piled the Pantheon on top of the Parthenon and built St. Peter's Church in Rome.This cathedral is still a great work without parallel in the world, the last original creation in the history of architecture, the signature of a master of art at the bottom of the magnificent stone history book that is about to close.After Michelangelo's death, what could architecture do to survive in a state of phantoms and shadows, miserable?It just copied St. Peter's Church, copied it as it was, and imitated it.It has become a eccentricity, which is really sad.In this way, each century has its own St. Peter's in Rome, the seventeenth century has its St. Grace's, and the eighteenth has its St. Riviève.Every country also has its St. Peter's in Rome, London has its own, Petersburg has its own, Paris has two or three of its own.It is the final delirium of a dying great art returning to childhood, the meaningless last words.

① The religious reformer Martin Luther