Furnishing the Home of Good Taste | Page 3

striving to give
expression to it, we see it in the scratched pieces of bone and stone of
the cave dwellers, in the designs of savage tribes, and in Druidical and
Celtic remains, and in the great ruins of Yucatan. The meaning of these
monuments may be lost to us, but we understand the spirit of trying to
express the sense of beauty in the highest way possible, for it is the
spirit which is still moving the world, and is the foundation of all
worthy achievement.
Egypt and Assyria stand out against the almost impenetrable curtain of
pre-historic days in all the majesty of their so-called civilization. Huge,
massive, aloof from the world, their temples and tombs and ruins
remain. Research has given us the key to their religion, so we
understand much of the meaning of their wall-paintings and the
buildings themselves. The belief of the Egyptian that life was a short
passage and his house a mere stopping-place on the way to the tomb,
which was to be his permanent dwelling-place, explains the great care

and labor spent on the pyramids, chapels, and rock sepulchers. They
embalmed the dead for all eternity and put statues and images in the
tombs to keep the mummy company. Colossal figures of their gods and
goddesses guarded the tombs and temples, and still remain looking out
over the desert with their strange, inscrutable Egyptian eyes. The
people had technical skill which has never been surpassed, but the great
size of the pyramids and temples and sphinxes gives one the feeling of
despotism rather than civilization; of mass and permanency and the
wonder of man's achievement rather than beauty, but they personify the
mystery and power of ancient Egypt.
The columns of the temples were massive, those of Karnak being
seventy feet high, with capitals of lotus flowers and buds strictly
conventionalized. The walls were covered with hieroglyphics and
paintings. Perspective was never used, and figures were painted side
view except for the eye and shoulder. In the tombs have been found
many household belongings, beautiful gold and silver work, beside the
offerings put there to appease the gods. Chairs have been found, which,
humorous as it may sound, are certainly the ancestors of Empire chairs
made thousands of years later. This is explained by the influence of
Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, but there is something in common
between the two times so far apart, of ambition and pride, of grandeur
and colossal enterprise.
Greece may well be called the Mother of Beauty, for with the Greeks
came the dawn of a higher civilization, a striving for harmony of line
and proportion, an ideal clear, high and persistent. When the Dorians
from the northern part of Greece built their simple, beautiful temples to
their gods and goddesses they gave the impetus to the movement which
brought forth the highest art the world has known. Traces of Egyptian
influence are to be found in the earliest temples, but the Greeks soon
rose to their own great heights. The Doric column was thick, about six
diameters in height, fluted, growing smaller toward the top, with a
simple capital, and supported the entablature. The horizontal lines of
the architrave and cornice were more marked than the vertical lines of
the columns. The portico with its row of columns supported the
pediment. The Parthenon is the most perfect example of the Doric order,

and shattered as it is by time and man it is still one of the most beautiful
buildings in the world. It was built in the time of Pericles, from about
460 to 435 B.C., and the work was superintended by Phidias, who did
much of the work himself and left the mark of his genius on the whole.
The Ionic order of architecture was a development of the Doric, but
was lighter and more graceful. The columns were more slender and had
a greater number of flutes and the capitals formed of scrolls or volutes
were more ornamental.
The Corinthian order was more elaborate than the Ionic as the capitals
were foliated (the acanthus being used), the columns higher, and the
entablature more richly decorated. This order was copied by the
Romans more than the other two as it suited their more florid taste. All
the orders have the horizontal feeling in common (as Gothic
architecture has the vertical), and the simple plan with its perfect
harmony of proportion leaves no sense of lack of variety.
The perfection attained in architecture was also attained in sculpture,
and we see the same aspiration toward the ideal, the same wonderful
achievement. This purity of taste of the Greeks has formed a standard
to which the world has returned again and again and whose influence
will continue to be felt as long as the world lasts.
The minor