Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/33

Materials and Methods of Building. 3 From the artistic working out of these various systems of construction, the different styles of architecture were developed. Materials and Methods of Building. The materials used for a building are of the greatest importance in determining the nature of the whole structure. The following are employed : — 1. Natural Stone — such as granite, sandstone, or lime- stone — is the best substance that can be used : it is gener- ally hewn and dressed in regular blocks. In very early times, for building massive piles without any elaboration of plan — such as still remain in India — large, undressed stones were used in the irregular forms in which they came from the quarry. The interstices between these large polygons (many-cornered) were filled up with rubble, or stone broken into small pieces. This mode of building, which was chiefly prevalent in the earliest ages in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, is known as the Cyclopean style. This term originated in Greece, from the tradition that structures of this description were the work of the Cyclopes, a Thracian tribe. Of all the ancient buildings constructed of hewn stone, the Greek temples, mostly built of white marble, were the finest. To increase the appearance of solidity, the surface of the stone is sometimes left rough. This is the case in certain varieties of the masonry called rustic, the name given to the kind of work in which the joints of the stones are marked by grooves or channels. 2. Brick structures mark a certain step in the develop- ment of the building art, as it is necessary in the first place to form the material for them of the soft earth or clay provided by nature ; moreover, other artificial sub- B 2