Aesthetics Vs. Meaning Part III: The Architect in Architecture

In the last article, we saw how the Hindu temple is pulsating with meaning and speaks the language of spiritual symbolism through every structural part of its architecture. We also saw how Islamic architecture in India, despite being aesthetically exquisite, failed to convey higher truths of life and existence to its visitors.

We studied how Christianity destroyed the spiritual foundation of sacred architecture in Europe. In the second part, we will see how the loss of meaning and the introduction of the architect in architecture led to the degeneration of the architectural tradition in the West.

The Exile of the Sacred in Post-Pagan Europe

Though Hindu architecture took the sacred meaning to its height in its construction techniques, other architectural idioms all over the world were not devoid of spiritual meaning either. All pagan architecture like the ancient Greek buildings or the Chinese pagodas and the Shinto temples in Japan pulsated with meaning.

Most pagan architecture like Hindu temple architecture was unnamed and did not mention the name of the architect. In Hindu architecture, the architect is completely absent from his creation. Instead, the cosmic architect, Lord Vishwakarma, is attributed with every creation. The archetypal architect, the divine agency, the devata, and the supreme principle replace the individual genius of the personal architect.

This foregoing of all individuality in favor of the divine principle and the divine doer is impossible if the meaning of creation is not spiritually elevating. When the Hindu architect abandoned the name in favor of divine bliss, he did that for he knew that his creation would transport millions during his time and till eternity to the higher planes of consciousness. Such an ennobling goal and such a deep meaning transcended his individual ego.

When Christianity invaded Europe and destroyed paganism throughout the Greek and Roman cultural spheres, something was irrevocably lost. When the Christian fanatics burned pagan philosophers, destroyed pagan temples in Athens and Rome, and myriad other cities all throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, they did not just destroy physical structures but managed to destroy a complete knowledge system. (Nixey xxxiv)

When they destroyed the sculpture of Zeus in Athens and Jupiter in Rome, they destroyed the ancient ways of knowing. When they destroyed the Parthenon in Athens or the Temple of Diana in Rome, they did not just destroy structures, but entire schools of symbols, symbols which were capable of transferring the greatest of truths in the simplest of ways.

When Christianity started raising its own monuments on the ruins of pagan temples, the sacred was exiled from architecture. The church was a religious building, but not a sacred one. It was meant for prayers and for communion. The purpose was social, political, and religious but scarcely spiritual.

In a pagan temple, deepest of spiritual mysteries were discussed; mystical experiences were had with consciousness enhancing drugs. People could meditate there and contemplate on the divine. The church, on the other hand, was very much an instrument of power and spoke in that language.

The Symbolism of Gothic Architecture

The symbolism did not disappear instantly. The early churches were quite simple affairs but by the middle ages, complex culture of church building had developed in Europe, particularly in the form of Gothic architecture which spoke in terms of symbols and incorporated symbolic devices through structural components of the architecture. Though the overt symbolism was Christian, the spirit of meaningful architecture was thoroughly pagan.

Through its sky-scraping pinnacles and spires, the Gothic cathedral tried to speak a heavenly language. Using stained glass in a way in which it has neither before nor after been used like this, the Gothic church sculpted natural light into meaningful stories. The play of light and darkness was used upon the visitor for the sake of impression and power but also for the sake of telling a story.

The façade was not just used to impress with its scale and height but also through its symbolism. In the 13th century Reims Cathedral in France, the façade is sculpted all over. “Approaching the principal west façade of the cathedral of Reims, where decorative carving extends from the ground to the summit the viewer’s eye is drawn upwards to the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin in the gable above the central west door…” (Sekules 90)

From the outside symbolic sculpture and architecture told the story to the visitor. As the visitor entered inside the stained glass windows led the way in telling the story through their beautiful play of light, color, and darkness. The invention of the historiated capitals meant that every pillar, (and there were a huge number of pillars in a Gothic building) would tell a story.

The particular style of building in Gothic architecture ensured that in all aisles there was a possibility of creating small chapels of the Virgin Mary and other Angels, thus providing small cubicles like private spaces. This kind of building was capable of more than prayer and congregation. That Christianity lacked a spiritual core is a reason this architecture never evolved to arrive upon the meaning that the Hindu architecture conveys.  

The Loss of Meaning

These tools of conveying meaning which had been lingering on in the motifs of Gothic Architecture in medieval Europe disappeared soon after the Renaissance took root and neo-paganism started guiding the Renaissance architects. In sculpture and painting, pagan themes experienced a major revival during the High Renaissance, but this revival did not touch the spirit of paganism but only overtly took its themes and used its mythology as the subject matter of the artist.

Passed through the Christian sieve, the paganism that seeped through to the Renaissance artists was devoid of its meaning and soul. The form made through the ages, the spirit was lost in translation. In architecture, this effect was more severe, as the very means of conveying meaning which pagan cultures of ancient Greece and Rome had incorporated inside them were completely lost and more so in the urgency to reincorporate the science and technology of ancient Greece.

The discussions that went on in the creation of Brunelleschi’s Dome or the Oculus at the Pantheon did not figure symbolism anymore. The discussions were technical and scientific: how big a dome can be without the support of the flying buttresses? Or how could they distribute the weight of the dome? How to bring more natural light into the building? (Murray 24)

All of these were great advances in building techniques and really brought about welcome changes in European Architecture and then later all over the world. They once again built upon Vitruvius and other Roman and Greek architects of antiquity. They relearned the pagan techniques of building, but only those which were functionally useful for them.

The spiritual meaning which had managed to linger on in the medieval architecture went missing in Renaissance architecture and the pagan meaning of the ancient Greek temple was never transferred. Put through first the Christian sieve, and then the rationalist and humanist sieve of the Renaissance, the spiritual meaning and the spiritual techniques of the building were gradually lost upon the Renaissance architects.

The Individual Architect Arrives

Just like in painting, the individual architect was gradually becoming important. Even in the medieval ages, we find the architect surreptitiously signing himself into the building at various places throughout Europe, like in the Monreale Cathedral in Palermo, Sicily. The loss of spiritual core during the Holocaust of paganism perpetrated by Christianity and the gradual loss of meaningful architecture during the Middle Ages meant that the architects could no longer remain anonymous.

The church was increasingly becoming a power statement. Richer kings built higher churches. The impression of the scale was gradually winning over the impression of meaning. It was only a matter of time before the architect who actually built a piece of the building would start feeling to be as important as the patron who commissioned it. It is significant that even in the medieval ages, it was Italy which led Europe in having the most number of signed buildings, as Sekules says:

“A greater number of examples of such praise for identified sculptors has survived in Italy than elsewhere in Europe.” (Sekules 53)

In the High Renaissance, we get great names of architects such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Brunelleschi. Particular buildings are attributed to them and their genius. Florence Cathedral and its famous Dome, now known as Brunelleschi’s Dome made the fortunes and fames of many of these famous architects. Once the symbols were out and the meaning was gone all that remained was aesthetic and technical innovations and individuals who make them could not help but be proud of them.

The architecture was still more of a collaborative art than other arts. Many architects worked on the same building and it was impossible for any architect to put his ideas on the ground without the patronage of a great king or a nobleman. Thus the ethnic and the regional character were still important after the High Renaissance had passed. But what characterized these ‘schools of architecture’ and these movements, were their peculiar and ‘strange innovations’.

In Baroque, the façade remained simple and the innovations of the Renaissance were enhanced and used to the full but what characterizes it is the profuse interior decoration. The great age of soirees, balls, and parties that were immortalized by Lev Tolstoy and Jane Austen later was just starting. And the grand halls in which these balls and parties took place were more often than not Baroque and Rococo.

More than ever, the social life of Europe was receding inside the closed rooms and huge and high ceilinged halls. It was imperative that ‘interior designing’ became more important and a ballroom became more decorated on the inside than the outside.

Every inch of the interior is full of painting, terracotta sculpture, and gilding. The gold color is used everywhere. Showing off was the norm of the day. But what characterizes Baroque and Rococo the most is their obsession with staircases. An architecture movement that had a profusely decorated interior was forced to invent pedestals to watch and admire the fine work that covered every inch of the walls.

In many of the balls discussed above, the hosts and the important dignitaries would often descend from a magnificent staircase to the admiration of the audience in the hall.

What is characteristic of Baroque and Rococo is that the search for spiritual meaning is almost abandoned. Ostentation and ornamentation for its own sake is the norm. A natural reaction occurs in the neoclassical movement which strips the ornamentation a little too much. We can clearly see that by the 18th and 19th centuries, movements were rising and falling rigorously on the Western architectural scene, but their direction seems to be random. The search for meaning is lost and it is movement specific idiosyncrasies that characterize them.

Authored by Pankaj Saxena. Published by IndicaToday.