inch deep at the
utmost. Consider for an instant the enormous differences which this
single condition compels between the sculptural decoration of the
incrusted style, and that of the solid stones of the North, which may be
hacked and hewn into whatever cavernous hollows and black recesses we
choose; struck into grim darknesses and grotesque projections, and
rugged ploughings up of sinuous furrows, in which any form or thought
may be wrought out on any scale,--mighty statues with robes of rock and
crowned foreheads burning in the sun, or venomous goblins and stealthy
dragons shrunk into lurking-places of untraceable shade: think of this,
and of the play and freedom given to the sculptor's hand and temper, to
smite out and in, hither and thither, as he will; and then consider what
must be the different spirit of the design which is to be wrought on
the smooth surface of a film of marble, where every line and shadow must
be drawn with the most tender pencilling and cautious reserve of
resource,--where even the chisel must not strike hard, lest it break
through the delicate stone, nor the mind be permitted in any impetuosity
of conception inconsistent with the fine discipline of the hand.
Consider that whatever animal or human form is to be suggested, must be
projected on a flat surface; that all the features of the countenance,
the folds of the drapery, the involutions of the limbs, must be so
reduced and subdued that the whole work becomes rather a piece of fine
drawing than of sculpture; and then follow out, until you begin to
perceive their endlessness, the resulting differences of character which
will be necessitated in every part of the ornamental designs of these
incrusted churches, as compared with that of the Northern schools. I
shall endeavor to trace a few of them only.

Sec. XXXVIII. The first would of course be a diminution of the builder's
dependence upon human form as a source of ornament: since exactly in
proportion to the dignity of the form itself is the loss which it must
sustain in being reduced to a shallow and linear bas-relief, as well as
the difficulty of expressing it at all under such conditions. Wherever
sculpture can be solid, the nobler characters of the human form at once
lead the artist to aim at its representation, rather than at that of
inferior organisms; but when all is to be reduced to outline, the forms
of flowers and lower animals are always more intelligible, and are felt
to approach