(γγ) The frieze, moreover, which rests on the entablature, carries the wreath or cornice. The function of this is to support the roof, which completes the whole upwards. Here we at once meet with questions of what form this final limitation is to be. For we may have in this respect two kinds of termination, either the horizontal and rectangular, or the one inclined to an acute or obtuse angle. If we look at the mere question of natural necessity we shall see that Southerners, who suffer little from rain and storm, merely require protection from sunlight; in their case a horizontal and rectangular roofing of house is likely to suffice. Northerners, on the contrary, have to protect themselves against inevitable showers of rain, against contingency of snow, that the weight may not prove too great; they require inclining roofs. At the same time, in the case of a fine art of building, mere necessity is not only of account; as art it has also to satisfy the profounder requirements of what is pleasing and beautiful. What mounts upwards from the ground must be conceived with a base, a foot, on which it stands and which serves it for support; and in addition to this columns and the partitions of genuine architecture supply us visibly with the means of support. That which closes all above, the roofing, has no longer to support a weight, but merely to be supported, and is bound to declare in itself this definite aspect that it no longer supports anything. In other words, it must be so constructed that it is actually unable to support, and consequently fine down to an angle, whether it be acute or obtuse. Ancient temples have in consequence no horizontal roofing, but two roof surfaces which meet at obtuse angles, and it is out of consideration for beauty that the building is thus terminated. In short, roof surfaces that are horizontal do not give us the appearance of a building entirely complete; a horizontal flat may always add further weight to its height; this the line in which inclining roof surfaces terminate is no longer able to do. To take an analogous case in the art of painting, it is the pyramidal form in the grouping of figures which best satisfies artistic taste.
(γ) The final determining factor which we have to consider is that of the enclosing, the walls, and partitions. Columns no doubt support and form a boundary, but they do not enclose; they are, on the contrary, as such boundary, incompatible with the interior which is hemmed in by walls. If we require such an absolute enclosure we must have also thick and solid dividing walls erected. This is actually the case in temple construction.
(αα) We have nothing further to add with respect to walls except the fact that they must be built in a straight and even line and perpendicularly for the reason that walls that rise obliquely to acute and obtuse angles present the threatening aspect of collapse, and possess no direction once and for all securely defined; it can merely appear as a matter of chance that they are reared in whatever more acute or obtuse angle it may happen to be. The demand of scientific rule and purpose alike is here also once more for the right angle.
(ββ) Owing to the fact that walls act as enclosures no less than as means of support, while we restricted the true function of the column to that of mere support, we approximate to the conception that where we have to satisfy these two distinct needs of support and enclosure columns may be set up and may be united to one another by means of thick walls in such partitions; it is thus that we get half columns. In this way, for example, Hirt, following Vitruvius, makes a start in his original type of construction with four corner-posts. If the necessity of an enclosure is to be satisfied no doubt our columns, if we are obliged to include such, must be walled up and it is not difficult to prove that half columns date from remote antiquity. Hirt, for instance[89], affirms that the employment of half columns is as old as the art of building itself, and deduces their origin from the circumstance that columns and piers supported and carried the roofing and other superimposed structures, but at the same time rendered partition walls necessary as a protection against sun and inclement weather. Since, however, the columns already supported the main building in a sufficient manner, it was not necessary to erect partition walls of either so thick or firm a material as the columns, and consequently this latter, as a rule, abutted on the exterior of the building. This theory of their origin may be correct, but for all that half columns are repugnant to a rational view of them; we have, in short, here two ends standing side by side in opposition, and essentially confounding each other, without any law of necessity being disclosed. It is of course possible to defend half columns, if the point of departure in considering even the column is so strictly that of the structure of wood, that we regard their essential function to be that of an enclosure. Placed in thick walls, however, the column has lost all its significance; it is degraded to the mere post. The true column is in its nature round, essentially complete, and expresses by this very trait of exclusiveness in a visible way that it is antagonistic to an even surface, and, consequently, every inclusion in a wall. If, therefore, we desire to have the support of walls such must be even, not circular columns, but surfaces which can be extended evenly in a wall.
As far back as 1773 Goethe exclaimed with spirit to the like effect in his youthful essay, "On the German Art of Building": "What does it matter to us, you philosophical art-critic of the latest French school, that original man, spurred on by his needs to invent, drove into the ground four trunks, then fastened four poles on top and covered the whole with branches and moss. And after all it is wholly false to say that this hut of yours was the first begotten on earth. Two poles that cross each other at their ends, two behind and one stuck diagonally above in forest fashion is and remains, as you may any day see for yourself in the huts of the fields and the vineyard slopes, a far earlier discovery from which it is quite impossible for you to deduce a principle for your pig-stye." In other words Goethe seeks to prove that columns enclosed in walls placed in buildings whose essential object is that of mere enclosure have no meaning. This is not because he would not recognize the beauty of the column. On the contrary, he is loud in its praise. "But take good care," he adds, "not to employ them improperly: it is their nature to stand up free. Woe to the wretch who has soldered their slender growth in blockish walls." It is from such a point of view that he proceeds to consider the building art of the Middle Ages and our own time and affirms: "The column is of no value as a constituent feature of our dwellings: it rather contradicts the essence of all our buildings. Our houses do not consist of four columns in four corners; they consist of four walls on four sides, which stand in the place of all columns, totally exclude such, and where they are thrust in they are a burdensome superfluity. This applies to our palaces and churches, subject to one or two exceptions, which it is not necessary to particularize." We have in the above statement, which is the result of independent observation of the facts, the principle of the column correctly expressed. The column must place its foot down in front of the wall and appear in complete independence of it. In our more modern architecture no doubt we find pilasters freely used; architects, have, however, regarded them as the repeated adumbration of previous columns, and made them flat rather than round.
(γγ) From this it is clear that though no doubt walls may serve as support, yet, for the reason that the function of support is already independently performed by columns, they must, on their part in finished classical architecture be accepted as essentially having for their object the enclosure. If they are taken as columns are taken, to provide means of support, the essentially distinct defining functions of these latter are not, as is most desirable, performed also as by distinct constituent parts of the building[90], and the conception of what walls ought to provide is impaired and confused. We consequently find even in temples that the central hall, where the statue of the god was placed, to enclose which was the main object, is often left open in the upper part. If, however, a roofing is required, the claims of the lofty style of beauty made it necessary that the same should be supported independently. In other words the direct imposition of entablature and roof on the enclosing walls is purely a matter of necessity and need; it is not appertinent to free architectural beauty, because in the art of classical buildings we require as means of support neither partitions nor walls, which would be rather derogatory to the design in so far as—we have already noticed the fact—they put together contrivances and a wall-space of greater extent than is actually necessary.
These would be the main distinguishing features which in classical architecture we have to keep apart.
(c) Although we may then, on the one hand, declare it as a principle of first importance that the distinctions which have been summarily indicated must appear with their differences emphasized, it is equally necessary on the other that they should be united in a whole. We will shortly, in conclusion, draw attention to this union which in architecture will be rather and simply a juxtaposition, association, and a thorough eurhythmy of the entire construction. Generally speaking the Greek temple buildings present an aspect which both satisfies, and if we may use the expression, sates us to the full.
(α) There is no soaring up, but the whole just expands on the broad level and is extended without particular elevation. In order to view the building's face it is barely necessary to raise the sight with intention; it is, on the contrary, allured to the bare expanse, while the building art of Germany in the Middle Ages strives up almost without mass and soars. Among the ancients breadth, regarded as secure and convenient foundation on the earth, is the main thing. Height is rather borrowed from the height of man, and merely is increased in proportion as the building increases in breadth and width.
(β) Furthermore, embellishments are so effected that they do not impair the impression of simplicity. For much also depends on the mode of decoration. The ancients, more particularly the Greeks, preserve here the finest sense of proportion. Extensive surfaces and lines of entire simplicity, for instance, do not appear so large in this undivided simplicity as in the case where some variety, somewhat that destroys this uniformity is introduced, by which at once an extension of more definite outline is presented to the vision. If this subdivision, however, and its adornment is wholly elaborated in detail, so that we have nothing before us but a variety and its details, even the most imposing relations and dimensions appear to be crumbled away and destroyed. The ancients, therefore, as a rule are actuated in their works neither to let the same and their proportions by such means appear in any way greater than they actually are, nor do they break up the whole by means of interruptions and embellishments to the extent that—because all parts are small and a unity is absent which shall once more bring everything together and fuse it throughout—therefore the whole also shall appear as insignificant. To quite as little an extent are their works of beauty in their perfection merely piled up as mere weight on the ground, or tower up out of all relation to their breadth to the skies. They preserve in this respect, too, the mean of beauty, and offer at the same time in their simplicity necessary scope to a duly proportioned variety. Above all, however, the dominant feature of the whole and its simple particularities appear to permeate in the most transparent way through all and everything, and overmasters the individuality of the configuration precisely in the way that in the classical Ideal the universal substance retains its power to control what is accidental and particular, in which the same receives its living form, and to bring it into harmony with itself.