y
their play, sculpture and painting their work. All great works of
architecture in existence are either the work of single sculptors or
painters, or of societies of sculptors and painters, acting collectively
for a series of years. A Gothic cathedral is properly to be defined as a
piece of the most magnificent associative sculpture, arranged on the
noblest principles of building, for the service and delight of
multitudes; and the proper definition of architecture, as distinguished
from sculpture, is merely "the art of designing sculpture for a
particular place, and placing it there on the best principles of
building."

Hence it clearly follows, that in modern days we have no _architects_.
The term "architecture" is not so much as understood by us. I am very
sorry to be compelled to the discourtesy of stating this fact, but a
fact it is, and a fact which it is necessary to state strongly.

Hence also it will follow, that the first thing necessary to the
possession of a school of architecture is the formation of a school of
able sculptors, and that till we have that, nothing we do can be called
architecture at all.

62. This, then, being my second proposition, the so-called "architects"
of the day, as the reader will imagine, are not willing to admit it, or
to admit any statement which at all involves it; and every statement,
tending in this direction, which I have hitherto made, has of course
been met by eager opposition; opposition which perhaps would have been
still more energetic, but that architects have not, I think, till
lately, been quite aware of the lengths to which I was prepared to carry
the principle.

The arguments, or assertions, which they generally employ against this
second proposition and its consequences, are the following:

First. That the true nobility of architecture consists, not in
decoration (or sculpture), but in the "disposition of masses," and that
architecture is, in fact, the "art of proportion."

63. It is difficult to overstate the enormity of the ignorance which
this popular statement implies. For the fact is, that _all_ art, and
all nature, depend on the "disposition of masses." Painting, sculpture,
music, and poetry depend all equally on the "proportion," whether of
colors, stones, notes, or words. Proportion is a principle, not of
architecture, but of existence. It is by the laws of proportion that
stars shine, that mountains stand, and rivers flow. Man can hardly
perform any