Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/100

34 ' POINTED STYLE IN GERMANY. Part II. suggesting a vegetable theory for the whole art. All these steps are easily to be traced in the sequence of German i:)ainted. glass still pre- served to us. The more extravagant and intricate the design, the more it was admired by the Germans. It was, therefore, only natural that the masons should strive after the same standard, and should try to realize in stone the ideas which the painters had so successfully started on the plain surface of the glass. The difficulty of the task was an incentive. Almost all the absurdities of the later styles may be traced more or less to this source, aii4-w^H'e-it-w-orth~"vr}TTl:e;Trr^'Fre this the place, it Avould be easy to trace the gradual decay of true art from this cause. One example, taken from a church at Chemnitz (Woodcut No. 528), must suffice, where what was usual, perhaps admissible, in glass, is represented in stone as literally as is conceiv- able. When art came to this, its revival was impossible among a people with Avhom such absurdities could be admired, as their fre- quency proves to have been the case. What a fall does all this show in that people who invented the old Round-Gothic style of the Rhenish and Lombard churches, which still excite our admiration, as much from the simple majesty of their details as from the imposing grandeur of their whole design ! Civil Akchitectuee. If the Germans failed in adapting the pointed style of architecture to the simple forms and purposes of ecclesiastical buildings, they were still less likely to be successful when dealing with the more compli- cated arrangements of civil buildings. It is seldom difficult to impart a certain Amount of architectural character and magnificence to a single hall, especially when the dimensions are considerable, the materials good, and a certain amount of decoration admitted; but in grouping together as a whole a number of small apartments, to be applied to various uses, it requires great judgment to insure that every part shall express its own purpose, and good taste to prevent the whole degene- rating into a mere collection of disjointed fragments. These qualities the Germans of that age did not jwssess. Moreover, there seems to have been singularly little demand for civil edifices in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is probable that the free cities were not organized to the same extent as in Belgium, or had not the same amount of manu- facturing industry that gave rise to the erection of the great halls in that country ; for, with the exception of the Kauf Haus at Mayence, no examj^le has come down to our days that can be said to be remarkable for architectural design. Even this no longer exists, having been pulled down in 1812. It Avas but a small building, 125 ft. in length b^ 92 in width at one end, and 75 at the other. It was built in the best time of German ])ointed architecture, and was a pleasing specimen of its class. At Cologne there is a sort of Guildhall, the Gurzenich, and