Arcading

“ There was one moment he stood clear against the glory, then her arms lifted, enfolded him, and the Arch was one arc of a wheel that revolved slowly as man and maid descended into the white central flame, and whirled faster and faster until human endurance broke before that vast and dreadful radiance. ”

“ What subject of extended inquiry have we in this word, ranging from the cementless clefts between the couchant stones of the walls of the kings of Rome, whose iron rivets you had but the other day placed in your hands by their discoverer, through the grip of the stones of the Tower of the Death-watch, to the subtle joints in the marble armour of the Florentine Baptistery!
Our own work must certainly be left with a rough surface at this place, and we will fit the edges of it to our next piece of study as closely as we may. ”

“ There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, nor set down in human words: but this great mythical expression of the conquest of the earth-clay and brute-force [Pg 113] by vital human energy, will become yet more interesting to you when you reflect what enchantment has been cut, on whiter clay, by the tracing of finer furrows;—what the delicate and consummate arts of man have done by the plowing of marble, and granite, and iron. ”

“ But Nature had an admirable way of taking down these rock giants hanging between the heavens and the earth. Arch after arch was at length made in wondrous grandeur from that rugged and distorted atmospheric land; and if ever man's eye rested upon the sublime, in an act of God's creative power, it was when He arcuated the heavens with such a line of stupendous mountains! ”

“ Such is Arcadia, if I have read aright: a realm where sunshine never scorches, and yet shade is sweet; where simple pleasures please; where the blue sky and the bright water and the green fields satisfy forever. ”

“ Let us, then, consider in this light the old pastoral or Arcadian ideal. But first certainly one thing must be definitely recognised. This Arcadian art and literature is a lost enthusiasm. To study it is like fumbling in the love-letters of a dead man. To us its flowers seem as tawdry as cockades; the lambs that dance to the shepherd's pipe seem to dance with all the artificiality of a ballet. ”

“ Ages elapsed from the time the first rough stone was laid as a foundation till the last spire and pinnacle were shaped, and the hand which laid the foundation-stone was never the same as that which set the last stone upon the coping. ”

“ It is rather a heavy weight to bear, but a solid arch spans over our heads. The great Architect has built it of the best materials; and never could man have given it so wide a stretch. What are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals, compared with this far reaching vault, with a radius of three leagues, beneath which a wide and tempest-tossed ocean may flow at its ease? ”

“ But who can give a soul to an image, or make a stone, or metal, or clay, or wood, or wax, or paper to live? Certainly no man whatever; for this arcanum doth enter into an artist of a stiff neck; he only hath it who transcends the progress of angels and comes to the very Archtype himself. ”

“ The brain, informed and stimulated by its new harvest of impressions, imagined fresh feats of skill and directed them. The rude stone, lifted from the ground and used as a hammer, was gradually shaped as an axe, a scraper, a chisel, an arrowhead. ”

“ But all is cleansed when the marble weeps.
⁠Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore,
⁠Blows all the dust about the floore:
But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps.
⁠Blest be the Architect, whose art
⁠Could build so strong in a weak heart. ”

“ If our architect succeeded in rearing a noble edifice, using the rough wedge-shaped fragments for the arches, the longer stones for the lintels, and so forth, we should admire his skill even in a higher degree than if he had used stones shaped for the purpose. ”

“ An arch formed by the intersection of two short sprouting lines could suggest only a feeble power of growth; but the lines of the tall mediæval arch seem to express a crescent force immensely surpassing that of nature. ”

“ One is the visible direction or curve of the arch, which may generally be considered as the under edge of its voussoirs, and which has often no more to do with the real stability of the arch, than a man’s apparent conduct has with his heart. ”

“ These scattered limbs beneath the marble shafts—
A hundred thousand whom the earth devours,
Who, torn and bloody, palpitating yet,
Entombed beneath their hospitable roofs,
In racking torment end their stricken lives. ”

“ Man rising on these awful and unbroken wings of stone seems to me more majestic and more mystic than man fluttering for an instant on wings of canvas and sticks of steel. How sublime and, indeed, almost dizzy is the thought of these veiled ladders on which we all live, like climbing monkeys! ”

“ Permanence, you observe, is the object, not multiplicability;—that is quite an accidental, sometimes not even a desirable, attribute of engraving. Duration of your work—fame, and undeceived vision of all men, on the pane of glass of the window on a wet day, or on the pillars of the castle of Chillon, or on the walls of the pyramids;—a primitive art,—yet first and last with us. ”

“ The pillars supporting the arches display an extraordinary richness of ornament, of the character of which some idea may be formed from the fragments given in our woodcuts: it consists of figures of men, animals, dragons, foliage gracefully arranged, elegant knotted work, and various kinds of tracery. ”

“ A spectator of the scene might have well imagined that some mighty spell was in operation, by which the order of nature had been reversed:—while the marble glowed with more than human passion, the living man was colder than stone! ”

“ Then, when you have mounted, you will have the power to restore to life all those who, through lack of will and strength of purpose, were turned into stone, for on the summit of the rock there is a huge jar filled with magic water, and he who safely reaches the summit may take some of this water, and sprinkle it over those who have been turned to stone; they will then awake to life, and regain their form and figure. ”

“ Some critics see nothing more than the unequal size of these arcades, when the real point is to find the architectural centre, whence the composition radiates, majestic and imperious. The topmost arches and their crowning dignify the whole structure with a completeness akin to that which is given to a long range of columns by a fine entablature and cornice. ”

“ Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. ”

“ You will know then how to build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal. ”

“ He pushes a brick; what caused the brick to fall? He feels that it was his own force that caused it; he no longer looks upon the push and the fall as if the former merely preceded the latter; he imagines a connection of necessity between the push and the fall, the cause and the effect, and gradually comes to imagine himself as the causer of the cause. ”

“ As soon as the arrow shall pierce her last tie upon earth, the fable that she was turned into stone, or dissolved into a fountain of tears, will be but a feeble emblem of the sadness of hopelessness, in which the few and evil years of her remaining life, we feel, must flow away. ”

“ Thus its movement must be not only with them, but beyond them, and as one arch of life retains (and I say retains, not only of men, but also of other living creatures) almost all the lives, ascending and descending, they must be, as it were, similar in appearance to the form of the arch. Returning, then, to our course of life which at present we are seeking to understand, I say that it proceeds after the manner of this arch, ascending and descending. ”

“ Even in the title therefore in this case the inanimate object takes the first place, relegating to a secondary rank the human interest. Very wonderfully does the artist convey to our eyes a sense of the gigantic bulk and height of the huge Amphitheatre, and with accurate archæological knowledge has he reconstructed its form upon his canvas. Here are its two tiers of arcades, whose arches, we learn from the evidence of tradition, inscriptions and ancient coins, were filled, as in the painting, with groups of colossal white marble statues. ”

“ Each arcanum, made visible and tangible by one of these pictures, is a formula of the law and of a human activity in its relation with the spiritual forces and the material forces the combination of which produces the phenomena of life. ”

“ A kind of box or strong chest used by the ancients as a receptacle for money, clothes, or any valuable effects. (2) A strong box or money chest; (3) a rough chest used for a coffin; (4) a cage for criminals, made of oak; (5) a wooden caisson, answering the purpose of a modern coffer-dam.
Arcade. A series of arches.
Arcadi. A Literary Academy established at Rome in 1690. The members adopted pastoral names. Their device was a Pandæan pipe, surrounded by a wreath of olive and pine.
Arcatures, Arch. A series of blind arcades represented on a wall, in relief or painting. ”

“ Thus do they become mere limbs of the gigantic trunk, whose impulses they mechanically carry out, while ignorant of the design, like the stonecutter who shapes out a stone, unaware if it be for cathedral or bagnio. ”

“ By looking attentively at old and smeared walls, or stones and veined marble of various colours, you may fancy that you see in them several compositions, landscapes, battles, figures in quick motion, strange countenances, and dresses, with an infinity of other objects. By these confused lines the inventive genius is excited to new exertions. ”

“ In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life, and those works are the delight and study of archangels. ”

“ Arches are constructions built of wedge-shaped blocks, which by reason of their shape give support one to another, and to the super-imposed weight, the resulting load being transmitted through the blocks to the abutments upon which the ends of the arch rest. An arch should be composed of such materials Arches.and designed of such dimensions as to enable it to retain its proper shape and resist the crushing strain imposed upon it. ”

“ There were numbers of men, working high up in these hills—on the sides—clearing away, and sending down the broken masses of stone and earth, to make way for the blocks of marble that had been discovered. ”

“ I thus conclude my sketch, such as it is, of the archæology of the world. Its aim has been to bring under review the rude implements and weapons of primeval man; the colossal structures of civilised man in Egypt and India; the strangely-compounded palace-sculptures of Assyria and Babylonia; the exquisitely ornamented columns of 62Persian halls; the massive architecture of Phœnicia; the Gothic-like rock-tombs of Lycia; the lovely temples, and incomparable works of art of every kind, great and small, of Greece; the military impress of Roman conquest ”

“ Instead of these appeared a reflection of the last and innermost nature of the man, the rock foundation, as it were, upon which was built the false and decorated superstructure that he showed to the world. ”

“ And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hills—that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,—how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow,—nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it—poised as a white bird hovers over its nest? Or those war clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire,—how is their barbed strength bridled? What bits are those they are champing with their vapourous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam? ”

“ They began to rise, and immediately moved together as if giants had built the walls; and on these the building arose, and it seemed as if countless hands were working invisibly, and placing one stone upon another. ”

“ If her arch falls, a stronger arch may be formed by its ruins; if her worlds collide, other worlds may be born of the collision; if one species perishes, other species may take its place; always if her 'bark sinks, 't is to another sea.' She is all in all, and all the parts are hers. ”

“ Huge stone structures of all kinds, both in their erection and by their influence when erected, rather oppress than liberate the mind. They are tombs for the souls of men, as frequently for their bodies also. ”

“ No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs: all comfortless they stand, between the two eternities of the Vacancy and the Rock; yet with such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them,—fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride—unnumbered, unconquerable. ”

“ A true arch is formed of a series of wedge-like stones or of bricks, supporting each other, and all bound firmly together by the pressure of the centre one upon them, which latter is therefore distinguished by the name of keystone. ”