Travels In India: During The Years 1780, 1781, 1782, And 1783

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: I all the great monuments are conftructed; but I fhall confine myfelf to a few loofe remarks on the prototypes, or firft models of architecture, as far as it is an art both of tafte and convenience. That the Grecian Architecture comprizes all that is excellent in the art, I cannot help 'confidering as a doctrine, which is in itfelf as erroneous and fervile, as in its confequences it is deftructive of [every hope of improvement. Architecture undoubtedly mould, and muft be adapted, to all the climates and countries which mankind inhabit, and is varioufly, more than any other art, influenced and modified by the nature of the climate and materials, as well as by the habits and pur- fuits of the inhabitants. I Have not read Father Ladola's famous difTertation on the abfurdity of the mifplaced and unprincipled imitation of Greek architecture; nor am I in the leaft prejudiced againfl its very eminent beauties and perfections: but why Ihould we admire it in an exclufive manner; or, blind to the majefty, boldnefs, and magnificence of the Egyptian, Hindoo, Moorifh, and Gothic, as admirable wonders of architecture, unmercifully blame and defpife them, becaufe they are more various in their forms, and not reducible to the precife rules of the Greek hut, prototype, and column ? or becaufe in fmaller parts, perhaps accidentally fimilar, their proportions are different from thofe to which we are become familiar by habit. Allowing what muft be allowed, that the Greek columns, as they are drawn and applied by genius, are the moft beautiful ftone reprefentations of the wooden props or fupports of their original hut, and that in their general forms, and each fubordinate part, they are the ne plus ultra of fimplicity, ftrength, and elegance, fhall we precipitately determine, that the whol...