VI.—Durability.
As the complement to stability, the length of time during which architectural objects are calculated to endure confers on them an impress of durability which can hardly be attained by any of the sister arts. Sculpture may endure as long, and some of the Egyptian examples of that art found near the Pyramids are as old as anything in that country, but it is not their age that impresses us so much as the story they have to tell. The Pyramids, on the other hand, in the majesty of their simple Technic grandeur, do challenge a quasi-eternity of duration with a distinctness that is most impressive, and which there, as elsewhere, is one of the most powerful elements of architectural expression.
When Horace sang—
“Vixêre fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, sed omnes illacrimabiles
Urgentur ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro,”
he overlooked the fact that long before Troy was dreamt of, Egyptian kings had raised pyramids which endure to the present day, and the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties had filled the valley of the Upper Nile with temples and palaces and tombs which tell us not only the names of their founders, but reveal to us their thoughts and aspirations with a distinctness that no sacred poet could as well convey. From that time onward the architects have covered the world with monuments that still remain on the spot where they were erected, and tell all, who are sufficiently instructed to read their riddles aright, what nations once occupied these spots, what degree of civilisation they had reached, and how, in erecting these monuments on which we now gaze, they had attained that quasi-immortality after which they hankered.
Sculpture and painting, when allied with architecture, may endure as long, but their aim is not to convey to the mind the impression of durability which is so strongly felt in the presence of the more massive works of architectural art. Even when ruined and in decay the buildings are almost equally impressive, while ruined sculptures or paintings are generally far from being pleasing objects, and, whatever their other merits may be, certainly miss that impression obtained from the durability of architectural objects.