Nationalism and Culture (87 page)

Of course the mighty structures of the ancients did not arise all at once, but in the course of a long cultural development in which, in Egypt as well as in Babylonia, peoples of the most widely different descent took part. In a very stirring and scholarly work of the Egyptologist, Henry Schafer, the gradual growth of the builder's art among the peoples of the Nile Valley is very convincingly presented: * how stone construction gradually developed from clay-, brick-, wood-, and reed-hut structure, and how its inventors tried at first to imitate in stone the ancient types. From the older sepulchres, which because of their casket-like shape the Arabs called mustabasy that is, "rest-banks," arose gradually the pyramids, by piling these stone caskets one upon another. The famous terraced pyramids of Sakkarah and the "flat" pyramids of Dashoor, still display for us the several transitions which led at last in the Fourth Dynasty to the marvelous structures at Gizeh.

* Heinrich Schafer, Die Leistung der agyftischen Kunst. Leipzig, 1929.

Schafer shows us to what a degree the majestic buildings of the peoples of the Nile Valley stimulated all the neighboring peoples and transmitted to them the rectangular type of structure—indeed, of stone construction in general. That already in very early times there was cultural intercourse between the Egyptians and the prehistoric population of what was later Greece, is today no longer disputed by any prominent investigatory also, the results of the excavations of Evans and others in Crete reveal clearly connections with Asia and Egypt. It is becoming ever more probable that the peculiar Egyptian columnar type of the structures of Deir-el-Bahri and Beni Hassan was not without influence on the creations of the Greeks. Likewise, the intercourse between the Egyptians and the numerous peoples that occupied the Levant, especially that region of primeval culture through which flow the Euphrates and the Tigris, are being brought more clearly to light by the more recent investigations. It is true that we are not yet in a position to establish in detail the manifold actions and reactions of this intercourse, even in a preliminary way. Still, we shall probably not go astray if we accept the view that there occurred here a mutual stimulation which proceeded from peoples of various races and was not without influence on the development of the several styles. It would be quite inconceivable that two such mighty culture systems as Egypt and Babylon, which developed at the same time and in closest proximity to one another, should have had no relationship with one another. It is probable that these reciprocal influences already existed before the lordship of the Pharaohs on the Nile or the dominion of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings on the Tigris and the Euphrates had been thought of. One can even accept with tolerable certainty that the great intermixtures of races and peoples, which from earliest antiquity has played so large a part in those regions, was one of the most important causes of the development of the two cultures.

As in the Egyptian, so also in the Babylonian and the Assyrian art of building, there can be observed a gradual development of styles, which was perhaps caused and fostered by the intrusion of new peoples. When the peoples involved were simple nomadic tribes which possessed no culture worth mentioning they were quickly absorbed by the ancient culture. But it was quite otherwise when the realm was invaded by more highly developed peoples. In this event, after the termination of military conflict, new art'forms appeared, which gradually blended with those already in use and led to new types of style. Unfortunately, the building material which was available to the peoples along the Tigris and the Euphrates, unlike the stone structures of Egypt, was not of a sort to resist time. It is therefore not easy to reconstruct from the ruins of this long-past culture any complete picture of it. Still, the strong influence of the Persian invasions upon the ancient style of building can be clearly

recognized. If the ruins of the ancient royal palaces of Chorsabad are compared with those of Persepolis the difference leaps to meet the eye. The Medes and Persians, who, as is well known, were not, like the Babylonians and the Assyrians, Semitic peoples, brought from their homeland a style of wooden construction which now sought for itself new means of expression under different conditions and under the influence of the Assyrian forms. The slender columns in Xerxes' palace at Persepolis with their fantastic capitals bear witness to this new development. These structures have not, of course, the mighty dimensions of the gigantic palaces of Chorsabad, but they are distinguished by a more graceful pattern and, especially, by a greater harmony of the external and internal elements of structure. In the ancient buildings at Susa, which are related to the palaces of Persepolis, Greek influence is already apparent.

If the inner connections in the building art of the Egyptian and Levantine peoples are, in their details, still largely unknown to us, we have a much better picture of the gradual development of the various styles of building in Europe. It is true that here, also, the beginnings are veiled in darkness, for the earliest Grecian temples that we know stand already at a very high stage of perfection. Still, the excavations at Tiryns and Mycenae in Asia Minor and those at Knossos and Phaestos in Crete have proved clearly that here, too, the stimulation of Egypt and the Levant had been felt. This is shown especially by numerous ornaments from Crete, like, for example, the symbols of fertility, which point to the tree of life of the Assyrians. In Mycenae, similar connections can be traced.

In the Greek temple we see for the first time a work of art that presents a close-knit unity. Interior and exterior form an undisturbed harmony. The whole structure follows a natural law by which every form arises of itself. Upon a three-stepped socle arise the columns and the walls of the cella, which encloses the sacred quadrangle. They carry the entablature that serves to support the saddle-shaped roof. The most important achievement of the Grecian art of building is the harmonious shaping of the cornice and its connection with the horizontal cover of the outer hall and with the gable. The external and internal ornamentation in a measure grew out of the whole structure. The works of sculpture and painting occupy just the place that seems destined for them by the whole and derive their correct values only from their relations in space. The whole structure seems like a happy combination of mathematical forms and musical feeling. As remarkably typical as the Grecian temple is, it lends itself to manifold variations, so that the creative genius of the artist is in no wise restricted and he never needs to repeat himself. The great variety in the forms of the columns, especially the rich choice among the capitals, as expressed in the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian styles, pro-

duced ever varying impressions. The intrinsic completeness of the Greek structure has, in fact, such an overpowering effect that one understands why the later defenders of classic art would admit the validity of no other ideal of beauty.

The last art form that Greece produced, the so-called "Hellenic" style, which developed chiefly in Asia Minor and Egypt, is the connecting link with the Roman style. The Roman temple is a blending of Grecian and Etruscan forms. Here the use of columns is combined with the arch and wall which the Etruscans brought with them out of Asia. This style led to a whole series of other creations, out of which there grew, in turn, a large number of later styles. Thus there was developed from the so-called barrel-vault, which resembled a cylinder split lengthwise, the later cross-vault, which consisted of two such half-cylinders intersecting at right angles and blending together. The form of room thus produced later played an important part in the development of Christian church architecture.

The practical Romans were not content to restrict the use of the forms received from the Etruscans and the Greeks merely to their temples, they applied them also in the construction of numerous buildings which served purely secular purposes. In this way they developed the most important type of enclosed room in architecture, the basilica. The basilica was at first a large, rectangular hall in the heart of the city which served the merchants and the city officers as a council hall, but which very early found use also as a place for the settlement of legal differences. The middle space was shut off lengthwise by two rows of columns, which separated from it at right and left two narrow lateral corridors, above which there was often a gallery. It is unmistakable that the later Christian master builders borrowed the most important forms of their arrangement of rooms from the ancient basilica.

The development of the barrel-vaulted room led logically from the cross-vault through various intermediate types to the creation of the cupola, which found such perfect expression in the Pantheon at Rome. The Pantheon is the most perfect central-domed building. Its designation as a monument to the Julian imperial family makes clear to us that the building was not regarded as the assembly hall of a community but merely as an enclosed space surrounding the statue of the Caesar. The effect of the interior is, in fact, fascinating. The cupola, which admits from above a uniform light, offers no point that arrests the eye and gives the beholder the feeling of gently soaring upward. The Oriental influence is more noticeable in the Pantheon than in any other example of the Roman vaulted structure.

It was formerly thought that the domed buildings of the Arsacides and the later Sassanides in Persia were to be traced to Roman influence j

today we are coming more and more clearly to recognize that the influence operated in the opposite direction. In his Architektonische Raumlehre Ebe takes the standpoint that this type of building is to be regarded as a continuation of Mesopotamian beginnings, which later also served the Christian-Byzantine as well as the Islamic architecture as a starting point. In general, we are fairly sure today that in the development of the Byzantine style, which made its appearance with the spread of Christianity, Persian, Syrian, and even Egyptian influences cooperated strongly. It is true that the beginnings of Byzantine architecture have not been preserved for us. Still, the Oriental influence is unmistakable in the structures of the later periods. A number of celebrated historians of style have expressed the opinion that the beginnings of Byzantine art occurred on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, because there the influences of the various types of style focused like rays from a burning-glass, constantly offering new stimuli to the artist. In fact, that part of the Orient produced a whole line of distinguished masters of Byzantine architecture j among others> Anthemius of Tralles and Isidoros of Miletus, the two builders of the celebrated church of Saint Sophia at Constantinople, which is held to be the most perfect product of Byzantine architecture.

The Byzantine church-building presents essentially the fusion of two spacial types, which—considered purely esthetically—seem to avoid one another, yet gradually to grow together into a unity j the oblong of the Christian basilica, and the central-domed structure. Such a union gave wide scope to the architect's impulse to design, and led to manifold products in style. In fact, Byzantine art had a strong influence on all Europe and the countries of the Orient and for centuries dominated artistic production. The numerous buildings that date from the early Middle Ages in Constantinople, Italy, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and so on, bear witness to this. From the tenth to the twelfth centuries there still persisted a revival of the Byzantine style which, in the Greek Catholic countries, persists even today. The building art of the Mohammedan peoples also harks back to the Byzantine style. Its first products, the mosques at Jerusalem and Damascus, are pure Byzantine and were erected by Byzantine masters. Whether the further development of Mohammedan architecture may properly be designated as "Islamic style," as is often done, is very questionable. Such uniformity as it possessed was owing merely to the fact that the Mohammedan religion had helped to determine the internal framing of the mosque, just as the Christian had determined the spacial arrangement of the church building. Quite outside of this, however, an enormous number of different forms are to be found in Islamic building. Islam, which in its victorious progress through the East swept every land, from the shores of the Ganges to the banks of the Ebro, learned in its course the styles of every possible people and race,

and evaluated all of them after its fashion. Thus there are found in the Islamic builder's art Persian, Semitic, Egyptian, Indian, Byzantine and antique elements, which asserted themselves in manifold ways and later had their effect upon the building art of the Christian West.

Out of the oblong of the Christian basilica there developed gradually a new style which set its stamp upon European architecture from the tenth to the thirteenth century. We are speaking of the Romanesque type of building, which in its beginnings harks back to the late Roman style, but which attained its highest development in the northern countries. The word "Romanesque" as a designation for a definite manifestation of style is, if possible, even less appropriate than the term "Gothic" or "Renaissance." French archeologists gave the word currency at the beginning of the eighteenth century to indicate the unity of a style which up to that time had been called in different countries sometimes Lombard, sometimes Rhenish, Norman, or by yet some other name. Of course, the alleged uniformity left much to be desired, and the inventors of the new term had in mind at first only certain details from the Roman antique, such as the rounded arch in combination with columns, which were of little importance in the total picture. In this Romanesque style of building also there can be distinguished the influence of a whole series of different styles, which in many regions gave it a quite distinctive stamp. Let one think of the Romanesque structures erected in Sicily of the time of the Norman domination by Saracen master-builders and show unmistakable features of Islamic style. Just so the Byzantine influence on the Romanesque churches of Northern Italy is so manifest that one speaks with entire justice of a Byzantine-Romanesque style.