The monuments of Greek and Roman architecture present a wholly different character. Here, the aim of utility appears clearly distinct from expression. The purpose, the design of the monument comes out in an evident manner. It is a dwelling, a shelter, a temple, etc.
Sculpture, for its part, is detached from architecture, and assigns its end to it. The image of the god, enclosed in the temple, is the principal object. The temple is only a shelter, an external attendant. Its forms are regulated according to the laws of numbers, and the proportions of a learned eurythmy; but its true ornaments are furnished to it by sculpture. Architecture ceases then to be independent and symbolic; it becomes dependent, subordinated to a positive end.
As to Christian architecture or that of the Middle Ages, it presents the union of the two preceding characteristics. It is at once devoted to a useful end, and eminently expressive or symbolic—dependent and independent. The temple is the house of God; it is devoted to the uses and ceremonies of worship, and shows throughout its design in its forms; but at the same time these symbolize admirably the Christian idea.
Thus the symbolic, classic and romantic forms, borrowed from history, and which mark the whole development of art, serve for the division and classification of the forms of architecture. This being especially the art which is exercised in the domain of matter, the essential point to be distinguished is whether the monument which is addressed to the eyes includes in itself its own meaning, or whether it is considered as a means to a foreign end, or finally whether, although in the service of a foreign end, it preserves its independence.
The basis of the division being thus placed, Hegel justifies it by describing the characters of the monuments belonging to these three epochs. All this descriptive part can not be analyzed: we are obliged to limit ourselves to securing a comprehension of the general features, and to noting the most remarkable points.
(a) Since the distinctive characteristic of symbolic architecture is the expression of a general thought, without other end than the representation of it, the interest in its monuments is less in their positive design than in the religious conceptions of the people, who, not having other means of expression, have embodied their thought, still vague and confused, in these gigantic masses and these colossal images. Entire nations know not how otherwise to express their religious beliefs. Hence the symbolic character of the structures of the Babylonians, the Indians and the Egyptians, of those works which absorbed the life of those peoples, and whose meaning we seek to explain to ourselves.
It is difficult to follow a regular order in the absence of chronology, when we review the multiplicity of ideas and forms which these monuments and these symbols present. Hegel thinks, nevertheless, that he is able to establish the following gradations:
In the first rank are the simplest monuments, such as seem only designed to serve as a bond of union to entire nations, or to different nations. Such gigantic structures as the tower of Belus or Babylon, upon the shores of the Euphrates, present the image of the union of the peoples before their dispersion. Community of toil and effort is the aim and the very idea of the work; it is the common work of their united efforts, the symbol of the dissolution of the primitive family and of the formation of a vaster society.
In a rank more elevated, appear the monuments of a more determined character, where is noticeable a mingling of architecture and sculpture, although they belong to the former. Such are those symbols which, in the East, represent the generative force of nature; the phallus and the lingam scattered in so great numbers throughout Phrygia and Syria, and of which India is the principal seat; in Egypt, the obelisks, which derive their symbolic significance from the rays of the sun; the Memnons, colossal statues which also represent the sun and his beneficent influence upon nature; the sphinxes, which one finds in Egypt in prodigious numbers and of astonishing size, ranged in rows in the form of avenues. These monuments, of an imposing sculpture, are grouped in masses, surrounded by walls so as to form buildings.
They present, in a striking manner, the twofold character indicated above: free from all positive design, they are, above all, symbols; afterward, sculpture is confounded with architecture. They are structures without roof, without doors, without aisles, frequently forests of colums where the eye loses itself. The eye passes over objects which are there for their own sake, designed only to strike the imagination by their colossal aspect and their enigmatic sense, not to serve as a dwelling for a god, and as a place of assemblage for his worshippers. Their order and their disposition alone preserve for them an architectural character. You walk on into the midst of those human works, mute symbols which remind you of divine things; your eyes are everywhere struck with the aspect of those forms and those extraordinary figures, of those walls besprinkled with hieroglyphics, books of stone, as it were, leaves of a mysterious book. Everything there is symbolically determined—the proportions, the distances, the number of columns, etc. The Egyptians, in particular, consecrated their lives to constructing and building these monuments, by instinct, as a swarm of bees builds its hive. This was the whole life of the people. It placed there all its thought, for it could no otherwise express it.