the photograph are well
calculated to emphasize this quality in the design, and we can readily
find justification here for the estimate of Fergusson quoted above.
XIII. and XIV.
PRINCIPAL DOORWAY TO THE BASILICA AT ALTAMURA, ITALY, AND DETAIL OF THE
SAME.
XV.
DOOR OF MADONNA DI LORETO, TRANI, ITALY.
XVI.
ENTRANCE TO THE CHURCH OF THE ROSARY, TERLIZZI, ITALY.
[Illustration: XI. The Principal Doorway to the Cathedral at Conversano,
Italy.]
#Advice to Young Architects.#
Prof. Aitchison's Royal Academy Lectures upon Architecture should be
read by all students who can obtain access to them, and this is not
really very difficult to accomplish, as they are always reported at
length in the English architectural periodicals, and then usually
reprinted without credit by one or more of the American papers. The
latest one, reported in the _Builder_ of Feb. 16, is that delivered on
Feb. 4, under the general title "The Advancement of Architecture." It
deals in a common-sense fashion with the aesthetics of architecture, and
contains many valuable suggestions upon the study and practice of
architecture as an art. The three following quotations are well worth
attentive reading:--
"Swift, in his 'Letters to a Young Clergyman,' says: 'I cannot forbear
warning you in the most earnest manner against endeavoring at wit in
your sermons, because, by the strictest computation, it is very near a
million to one that you have none.' Perhaps that would be good advice to
all who consciously seek for what is called originality, which is mostly
attained by exaggeration, disproportion, and oddness of arrangement;
real originality only comes from original minds, and will in that case
show itself properly and naturally, just as wit shows itself
spontaneously in the witty; for surely those original architects, who
have only been able to raise in us emotions of contempt or disgust,
would have been judicious had they abstained from the attempt. I think
that most architectural students, if they will only study the best
buildings, will make their plans to accurately answer the purposes
wanted, including the efficient lighting of the rooms, will study the
Vitruvian symmetry until their eye revolts from disproportion, will try
and make their profiles tell the story they want told, and will try and
bring such parts that, from the exigencies of the case, obtrude
themselves in odd places into harmony with the whole, that the
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