282 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

resolutely made. It was contrary to the religion of the Arab to introduce any animal form into his ornament;¹ but although all the radiance of colour, all the refinements of proportion, and all the intricacies of geometrical design were open to him, he could not produce any noble work without an abstraction of the forms of leafage, to be used in his capitals, and made the ground plan of his chased ornament. But I have above noted that colouring is an entirely distinct and independent art; and in the Seven Lamps² we saw that this art had most power when practised in arrangements of simple geometrical form: the Arab, therefore, lay under no disadvantage in colouring, and he had all the noble elements of constructive and proportional beauty at his command: he might not imitate the sea-shell, but he could build the dome. The imitation of radiance by the variegated voussoir, the expression of the sweep of the desert by the barred red lines upon the wall, the starred inshedding of light through his vaulted roof, and all the endless fantasy of abstract line,* were still in the power of his ardent and fantastic spirit. Much he achieved; and yet, in the effort of his overtaxed invention, restrained from its proper food, he made his architecture a glittering vacillation of undisciplined enchantment, and left the lustre of its edifices to wither like a startling dream, whose beauty we may indeed feel, and whose instruction we may receive, but must smile at its inconsistency, and mourn over its evanescence.

* Appendix 22: “Arabian Ornamentation” [p. 469].

¹ [The representation of animal forms was forbidden by the religion of Mahomet.]

² [Ch. iv. § 40, Vol. VIII. p. 184.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]