THIS WILL KILL THAT.
Our lady readers will us if we pause for a moment to what have been the those of the archdeacon: “This will kill that. The book will kill the edifice.”
To our mind, this had two faces. In the place, it was a thought. It was the of the in the presence of a new agent, the press. It was the terror and of the men of the sanctuary, in the presence of the press of Gutenberg. It was the and the taking the at the printed word: something to the of a which should the Legion his six wings. It was the of the who already and swarming; who in the future, faith, opinion belief, the world off Rome. It was the of the who sees thought, by the press, from the recipient. It was the terror of the soldier who the ram, and says:—“The tower will crumble.” It that one power was about to succeed another power. It meant, “The press will kill the church.”
But this thought, the and most one, no doubt, there was in our opinion another, newer one, a of the first, less easy to and more easy to contest, a view as and no longer to the alone but to the and the artist. It was a that thought, in its form, was about to its mode of expression; that the idea of each would no longer be with the same matter, and in the same manner; that the book of stone, so solid and so durable, was about to make way for the book of paper, more solid and still more durable. In this the archdeacon’s had a second sense. It meant, “Printing will kill architecture.”
In fact, from the of to the century of the Christian era, inclusive, is the great book of humanity, the of man in his different of development, either as a or as an intelligence.
When the memory of the itself overloaded, when the of of the so and so that speech and flying, ran the of them on the way, men them on the in a manner which was at once the most visible, most durable, and most natural. They sealed each a monument.
The were of rock, “which the iron had not touched,” as Moses says. Architecture like all writing. It was an alphabet. Men planted a upright, it was a letter, and each was a hieroglyph, and upon each rested a group of ideas, like the on the column. This is what the did everywhere, at the same moment, on the surface of the entire world. We the “standing stones” of the Celts in Asian Siberia; in the of America.
Later on, they words; they upon stone, they those of granite, and some combinations. The Celtic and cromlech, the Etruscan tumulus, the Hebrew galgal, are words. Some, the tumulus, are proper names. Sometimes even, when men had a great of stone, and a plain, they a phrase. The of Karnac is a complete sentence.
At last they books. Traditions had symbols, which they like the of a tree its foliage; all these in which to grow, to multiply, to intersect, to more and more complicated; the no longer to them, they were overflowing in every part; these now the tradition, like themselves, and upon the earth. The symbol the need of in the edifice. Then was in with thought; it a with a thousand and a thousand arms, and all this in an eternal, visible, form. While Dædalus, who is force, measured; while Orpheus, who is intelligence, sang;—the pillar, which is a letter; the arcade, which is a syllable; the pyramid, which is a word,—all set in movement at once by a law of and by a law of poetry, themselves, combined, amalgamated, descended, ascended, themselves by on the soil, themselves in in the sky, until they had under the of the idea of an epoch, those books which were also edifices: the Pagoda of Eklinga, the Rhamseion of Egypt, the Temple of Solomon.
The idea, the word, was not only at the of all these edifices, but also in the form. The temple of Solomon, for example, was not alone the of the book; it was the book itself. On each one of its walls, the read the word and to the eye, and thus they its from to sanctuary, until they it in its last tabernacle, under its most form, which still to architecture: the arch. Thus the word was in an edifice, but its image was upon its envelope, like the on the of a mummy.
And not only the of edifices, but the for them, the which they represented, according as the symbol to be was or grave. Greece her with a temple to the eye; India hers, to those pagodas, up by of elephants.
Thus, the six thousand years of the world, from the most of Hindustan, to the of Cologne, was the great of the race. And this is so true, that not only every religious symbol, but every thought, has its page and its in that book.
All in and ends in democracy. This law of is in architecture. For, let us upon this point, must not be to be powerful only in the temple and in the and symbolism; in in upon its pages of the tables of the law. If it were thus,—as there comes in all a moment when the symbol is out and under of thought, when man from the priest, when the of and the of religion,—architecture not this new of thought; its leaves, so on the face, would be empty on the back; its work would be mutilated; its book would be incomplete. But no.
Let us take as an example the Middle Ages, where we see more it is nearer to us. During its period, while is Europe, while the Vatican is and about itself the of a Rome from the Rome which in around the Capitol, while Christianity is all the of the of civilization, and with its a new universe, the to is the priest—one a echo from that chaos, and then, little by little, one sees, from the of Christianity, from the hand of the barbarians, from the of the Greek and Roman architectures, that Romanesque architecture, sister of the of Egypt and of India, of pure catholicism, of the unity. All the of that day is written, in fact, in this sombre, Romanesque style. One in it authority, unity, the impenetrable, the absolute, Gregory VII .; always the priest, the man; caste, the people.
But the Crusades arrive. They are a great popular movement, and every great popular movement, may be its and object, always sets free the of from its final precipitate. New into life every day. Here opens the period of the Jacqueries, Pragueries, and Leagues. Authority wavers, is divided. Feudalism to with theocracy, while the of the people, who will assume the part of the lion: Quia leo. Seignory through sacerdotalism; the commonality, through seignory. The of Europe is changed. Well! the of is also. Like civilization, it has a page, and the new of the time her to at its dictation. It returns from the with the pointed arch, like the nations with liberty.
Then, while Rome is dismemberment, Romanesque dies. The the cathedral, and itself to the keep, in order to to feudalism. The itself, that so dogmatic, by the bourgeoisie, by the community, by liberty, the and into the power of the artist. The artist it after his own fashion. Farewell to mystery, myth, law. Fancy and caprice, welcome. Provided the has his and his altar, he has nothing to say. The four to the artist. The book no longer to the priest, to religion, to Rome; it is the property of poetry, of imagination, of the people. Hence the and of that which but three centuries, so after the of the Romanesque architecture, which six or seven. Nevertheless, art on with strides. Popular originality the which the fulfilled. Each its line upon the book, as it passes; it the Romanesque on the of cathedrals, and at the most one only sees out here and there, the new symbol which it has deposited. The popular the religious to be suspected. One cannot an idea of the which the then take, toward the Church. There are of and monks, coupled, as on the of pieces in the Palais de Justice, in Paris. There is Noah’s to the last detail, as under the great portal of Bourges. There is a monk, with ass’s ears and in hand, laughing in the of a whole community, as on the of the Abbey of Bocherville. There at that epoch, for in stone, a to our present of the press. It is the of architecture.
This goes very far. Sometimes a portal, a façade, an entire church, presents a to worship, or to the Church. In the thirteenth century, Guillaume de Paris, and Nicholas Flamel, in the fifteenth, such pages. Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie was a whole church of the opposition.
Thought was then free only in this manner; hence it itself out on the books called edifices. Thought, under the of edifice, have itself in the public square by the hands of the executioner, in its form, if it had been to itself thus; thought, as the door of a church, would have been a of the of as a book. Having thus only this resource, masonry, in order to make its way to the light, itself upon it from all quarters. Hence the quantity of which have Europe—a number so that one can it after having it. All the material forces, all the of the same point: architecture. In this manner, under the of churches to God, art was in its proportions.
Then was a an architect. Genius, in the masses, in every under as under a of bucklers, no issue in the direction of architecture,—gushed through that art, and its Iliads the of cathedrals. All other obeyed, and themselves under the of architecture. They were the of the great work. The architect, the poet, the master, up in his person the which his façades, painting which his windows, music which set his to pealing, and into his organs. There was nothing to poetry,—properly speaking, that which in in manuscripts,—which was not forced, in order to make something of itself, to come and itself in the in the shape of a or of prose; the same part, after all, which the of Æschylus had played in the of Greece; Genesis, in the temple of Solomon.
Thus, to the time of Gutenberg, is the writing, the writing. In that book, by the Orient, by Greek and Roman antiquity, the Middle Ages the last page. Moreover, this of an of the people an of caste, which we have just been in the Middle Ages, is with every movement in the at the other great of history. Thus, in order to here only summarily, a law which it would to develop: in the high Orient, the of times, after Hindoo came Phœnician architecture, that mother of Arabian architecture; in antiquity, after Egyptian architecture, of which Etruscan and are but one variety, came Greek (of which the Roman is only a continuation), with the Carthaginian dome; in modern times, after Romanesque came Gothic architecture. And by there three series into their parts, we shall in the three sisters, Hindoo architecture, Egyptian architecture, Romanesque architecture, the same symbol; that is to say, theocracy, caste, unity, dogma, myth, God: and for the three sisters, Phœnician architecture, Greek architecture, Gothic architecture, whatever, nevertheless, may be the of in their nature, the same also; that is to say, liberty, the people, man.
In the Hindu, Egyptian, or Romanesque architecture, one the priest, nothing but the priest, he calls himself Brahmin, Magian, or Pope. It is not the same in the of the people. They are and less sacred. In the Phœnician, one the merchant; in the Greek, the republican; in the Gothic, the citizen.
The of all are immutability, of progress, the of lines, the of the types, the of all the of men and of nature to the of the symbol. These are dark books, which the alone how to decipher. Moreover, every form, every even, has there a which it inviolable. Do not ask of Hindoo, Egyptian, Romanesque to their design, or to their statuary. Every attempt at is an to them. In these it as though the of the had spread over the like a of second petrifaction. The of popular masonry, on the contrary, are progress, originality, opulence, movement. They are already from religion to think of their beauty, to take of it, to without their of or arabesques. They are of the age. They have something human, which they with the symbol under which they still produce. Hence, to every soul, to every intelligence, to every imagination, still, but as easy to as nature. Between and this there is the that a language and a language, and art, Solomon and Phidias.
If the reader will up what we have briefly, very briefly, indicated, a thousand proofs and also a thousand of detail, he will be to this: that was, to the century, the register of humanity; that in that not a which is in any its in the world, which has not been into an edifice; that every popular idea, and every religious law, has had its records; that the has, in short, had no which it has not in stone. And why? Because every thought, either or religious, is in itself; the idea which has moved one to move others also, and a trace. Now, what a is that of the manuscript! How much more solid, durable, unyielding, is a book of stone! In order to the word, a and a Turk are sufficient. To the word, a social revolution, a are required. The passed over the Coliseum; the deluge, perhaps, passed over the Pyramids.
In the century changes.
Human a mode of itself, not only more and more than architecture, but still more and easy. Architecture is dethroned. Gutenberg’s of lead are about to Orpheus’s of stone.
The book is about to kill the edifice.
The of is the event in history. It is the mother of revolution. It is the mode of of which is totally renewed; it is off one and another; it is the complete and of skin of that which since the days of Adam has intelligence.
In its printed form, is more than ever; it is volatile, irresistible, indestructible. It is with the air. In the days of it a of itself, and took powerful of a century and a place. Now it itself into a of birds, itself to the four winds, and all points of air and space at once.
We repeat, who not that in this it is more indelible? It was solid, it has alive. It from in time to immortality. One can a mass; how can one ubiquity? If a comes, the will have long the waves, while the will still be about; and if a single on the surface of the cataclysm, they will upon it, will with it, will be present with it at the of the waters; and the new world which from this will behold, on its awakening, the of the world which has been above it, and living.
And when one that this mode of is not only the most conservative, but also the most simple, the most convenient, the most for all; when one that it not after it baggage, and not set in motion a apparatus; when one forced, in order to itself into an edifice, to put in motion four or five other and of gold, a whole of stones, a whole of timber-work, a whole nation of workmen; when one it to the which a book, and for which a little paper, a little ink, and a pen suffice,—how can one be that should have for printing? Cut the of a river with a out its level, and the river will its bed.
Behold how, with the of printing, away little by little, and bare. How one the water sinking, the departing, the of the times and of the people from it! The is almost in the century; the press is, as yet, too weak, and, at the most, from powerful a of life. But with the sixteenth century, the of is visible; it is no longer the of society; it art in a manner; from being Gallic, European, indigenous, it Greek and Roman; from being true and modern, it pseudo-classic. It is this which is called the Renaissance. A decadence, however, for the Gothic genius, that sun which sets the press of Mayence, still for a while longer with its that whole of Latin and Corinthian columns.
It is that setting sun which we mistake for the dawn.
Nevertheless, from the moment when is no longer anything but an art like any other; as soon as it is no longer the total art, the art, the art,—it has no longer the power to the other arts. So they themselves, the of the architect, and take themselves off, each one in its own direction. Each one of them by this divorce. Isolation everything. Sculpture statuary, the image painting, the music. One would it an at the death of its Alexander, and kingdoms.
Hence Raphael, Michael Angelo, Jean Goujon, Palestrina, those of the sixteenth century.
Thought itself in all at the same time as the arts. The arch-heretics of the Middle Ages had already large into Catholicism. The sixteenth century religious unity. Before the of printing, would have been a schism; it into a revolution. Take away the press; is enervated. Whether it be Providence or Fate, Gutenburg is the of Luther.
Nevertheless, when the sun of the Middle Ages is set, when the Gothic is upon the horizon, dim, its color, more and more effaced. The printed book, the of the edifice, and it. It bare, of its foliage, and visibly emaciated. It is petty, it is poor, it is nothing. It no longer anything, not the memory of the art of another time. Reduced to itself, by the other arts, is it, it in place of artists. Glass the painted windows. The stone-cutter succeeds the sculptor. Farewell all sap, all originality, all life, all intelligence. It along, a mendicant, from copy to copy. Michael Angelo, who, no doubt, in the sixteenth century that it was dying, had a last idea, an idea of despair. That Titan of art the Pantheon on the Parthenon, and Saint-Peter’s at Rome. A great work, which to unique, the last originality of architecture, the of a artist at the of the register of which was closed forever. With Michael Angelo dead, what this architecture, which itself in the of a spectre, do? It takes Saint-Peter in Rome, copies it and it. It is a mania. It is a pity. Each century has its Saint-Peter’s of Rome; in the seventeenth century, the Val-de-Grâce; in the eighteenth, Sainte-Geneviève. Each country has its Saint-Peter’s of Rome. London has one; Petersburg has another; Paris has two or three. The testament, the last of a art into it dies.
If, in place of the which we have just described, we the of art from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, we notice the same of and phthisis. Beginning with François II., the of the itself more and more, and the form, like the of an invalid, to prominent. The lines of art give way to the cold and lines of geometry. An is no longer an edifice; it is a polyhedron. Meanwhile, is in her to this nudity. Look at the Greek upon the Roman pediment, and versâ. It is still the Pantheon on the Parthenon: Saint-Peter’s of Rome. Here are the houses of Henri IV., with their corners; the Place Royale, the Place Dauphine. Here are the churches of Louis XIII., heavy, squat, thickset, together, with a like a hump. Here is the Mazarin architecture, the Italian of the Four Nations. Here are the of Louis XIV., long for courtiers, stiff, cold, tiresome. Here, finally, is Louis XV., with and vermicelli, and all the warts, and all the fungi, which that decrepit, toothless, and old architecture. From François II. to Louis XV., the has in progression. Art has no longer anything but skin upon its bones. It is perishing.
Meanwhile what of printing? All the life which is comes to it. In as ebbs, and grows. That of which had been in edifices, it in books. Thus, from the sixteenth century onward, the press, to the level of architecture, with it and kills it. In the seventeenth century it is already the sovereign, triumphant, in its victory, to give to the world the of a great century. In the eighteenth, having for a long time at the Court of Louis XIV., it again the old of Luther, puts it into the hand of Voltaire, and to the attack of that Europe, it has already killed. At the moment when the eighteenth century comes to an end, it has everything. In the nineteenth, it to reconstruct.
Now, we ask, which of the three has for the last three centuries? which it? which not only its and vagaries, but its vast, profound, movement? which itself, without a break, without a gap, upon the race, which walks a with a thousand legs?—Architecture or printing?
It is printing. Let the reader make no mistake; is dead; by the printed book,—slain it for a time,—slain it more. Every millions. Let the reader now what an investment of it would to the book; to thousands of to once more upon the soil; to return to those when the of was such, according to the of an witness, “that one would have said that the world in itself, had off its old in order to itself with a white of churches.” Erat ut si mundus, semet, vetustate, indueret. (GLABER RADOLPHUS.)
A book is so soon made, so little, and can go so far! How can it us that all in this channel? This not that will not still have a monument, an masterpiece, here and there. We may still have from time to time, under the of printing, a I suppose, by a whole army from melted cannon, as we had under the of architecture, Iliads and Romanceros, Mahabâhrata, and Nibelungen Lieds, by a whole people, with up and melted together. The great accident of an of may in the century, like that of Dante in the thirteenth. But will no longer be the social art, the art, the art. The poem, the edifice, the work of will no longer be built: it will be printed.
And henceforth, if should again accidentally, it will no longer be mistress. It will be to the law of literature, which the law from it. The positions of the two will be inverted. It is that in epochs, the poems, it is true, the monuments. In India, Vyasa is branching, strange, as a pagoda. In Egyptian Orient, has like the edifices, and of line; in Greece, beauty, serenity, calm; in Christian Europe, the Catholic majesty, the popular naïvete, the rich and of an of renewal. The Bible the Pyramids; the Iliad, the Parthenon; Homer, Phidias. Dante in the thirteenth century is the last Romanesque church; Shakespeare in the sixteenth, the last Gothic cathedral.
Thus, to up what we have said, in a fashion which is necessarily and mutilated, the has two books, two registers, two testaments: and printing; the Bible of and the Bible of paper. No doubt, when one these two Bibles, so open in the centuries, it is permissible to the visible of the of granite, those in colonnades, in pylons, in obelisks, those of which the world and the past, from the to the tower, from Cheops to Strasbourg. The past must be upon these pages of marble. This book, by architecture, must be and incessantly; but the of the which in its turn must not be denied.
That is colossal. Some of has calculated, that if all the which have from the press since Gutenberg’s day were to be one upon another, they would the space the earth and the moon; but it is not that of of which we to speak. Nevertheless, when one to in one’s mind a image of the total of to our own days, not that total appear to us like an construction, upon the entire world, at which without relaxation, and is in the of the future? It is the of intelligence. It is the come all imaginations, those bees, with their honey.
The has a thousand stories. Here and there one on its the of science which its interior. Everywhere upon its surface, art its arabesques, rosettes, and to the eyes. There, every work, and it may seem, has its place and its projection. Harmony results from the whole. From the of Shakespeare to the of Byron, a thousand towers are pell-mell above this of thought. At its are some titles of which had not registered. To the left of the entrance has been the bas-relief, in white marble, of Homer; to the right, the Bible its seven heads. The of the Romancero and some other forms, the Vedas and the Nibelungen on.
Nevertheless, the still incomplete. The press, that machine, which all the of society, without pause fresh materials for its work. The whole is on the scaffoldings. Each mind is a mason. The his hole, or places his stone. Rétif de La Bretonne his of plaster. Every day a new rises. Independently of the original and of each writer, there are contingents. The eighteenth century the Encyclopedia, the the Moniteur. Assuredly, it is a which and up in spirals; there also are of tongues, activity, labor, of all humanity, promised to intelligence, a new Flood against an overflow of barbarians. It is the second tower of Babel of the race.
BOOK SIXTH.
