CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
I think it must be clear, in the light of the foregoing considerations, that the architecture of the Renaissance is an art without consistent principles. We have seen that it assumed a great variety of phases at different times and in different localities; but that it was never either really classic or structurally truthful. While professing to aim at restoring the "good ancient manner," the neo-classic designers rarely conformed to any ancient standards save, at most, in some details of their compositions. They designed for the most part, as we have seen, on a basis of mediæval forms, and overlaid their structures with a facing of details derived, indeed, from classic sources, but altered, mixed, and misapplied in all manner of unclassic ways. Of true classic art, i.e. Greek art of the best time of Greek culture, they had, as before remarked (p. 4), no knowledge. By the "good ancient manner" they meant the imperial Roman manner. But even this they did not faithfully follow. The wide departure from ancient modes of design so constantly manifested in the neo-classic architecture has not escaped notice by modern writers, who are wont to speak of it as showing that the revivalists were not servile copyists, but inventive designers adapting the ancient elements to new conditions. But there is no justification for this view. As to essential forms of building there were no new conditions to be met. In seeking to change architecture superficially by an application of classic details the neo-classicists erred. They ought to have seen that classic details do not lend themselves to new uses. Their very perfection for classic use unfits them for any other. To distort and misadjust them, as the architects of the Renaissance did, is not to adapt them. There was no true adaptation of classic elements in Renaissance design. Such adaptation involves creative modifications which so transform original elements
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