Architecture and Building; A Journal of Investment and Construction Volume 12 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ...restored, and this not by very young students, but by men who would here be in practice. M. Paulin's restoration of Diocletian's Baths is admirable, and has an artistic grace that was probably wanting in the original, while some of the mosaic has that dignity of color that befits a grand public building. This is especially notable in that with the white ground. This practice of restoration has often been as much objected to by the French public as it has been neglected here. But what does M. Chas. Garnier reply to the objectors who say " What is the use of it?" "Why, unjust and churlish souls, it is useful for the history and palpitating life of the arts, it serves to compare the past with the present, and it serves, above all (for that la its end), the artist who has worked l Do you think the time he has passed in measuring those fragments, in interrogating those ruins, in assigning them their place and their employment---do you believe that this time has been lost to the artist? He has familiarized himself with the first notions of art and construction; he has lived the life of other times; he has brought t-' gether the history cf men and of stones; he has learned to study, to compare, to reason, which he must do later when he builds for you; he has, in short, the alphabet of architecture. Whatever may be his ideas in the future, he will know how to express them. If his colleagues have already done similar work, is that a reason why he should not do them? If my neighbor at ' Continued from Vol. XII, No. ll. page 129. college has translated Virgil or Cicero, is that a reason why I should not in my turn? Does the education of one man give education to another? Do not laugh at these ignorant attacks; it is noble...