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Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility.  We build for use.  But the geometrical proportions which the architect observes, contain the element of beauty and powerfully influence the soul.  Into the language of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and facade and pediment, of spire and vault, the architect translates emotion, vague perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable.  When we say that a building is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it.  The emotions connected with these qualities are inspired in us when we contemplate it, and are presented to us by its form.  Whether the architect deliberately aimed at the sublime or graceful—­whether the dignified serenity of the Athenian genius sought to express itself in the Parthenon, and the mysticism of mediaeval Christianity in the gloom of Chartres Cathedral—­whether it was Renaissance paganism which gave its mundane pomp and glory to S. Peter’s, and the refined selfishness of royalty its specious splendour to the palace of Versailles—­need not be curiously questioned.  The fact that we are impelled to raise these points, that architecture more almost than any art connects itself indissolubly with the life, the character, the moral being of a nation and an epoch, proves that we are justified in bringing it beneath our general definition of the arts.  In a great measure because it subserves utility, and is therefore dependent upon the necessities of life, does architecture present to us through form the human spirit.  Comparing the palace built by Giulio Romano for the Dukes of Mantua with the contemporary castle of a German prince, we cannot fail at once to comprehend the difference of spiritual conditions, as these displayed themselves in daily life, which then separated Italy from the Teutonic nations.  But this is not all.  Spiritual quality in the architect himself finds clear expression in his work.  Coldness combined with violence marks Brunelleschi’s churches; a certain suavity and well-bred taste the work of Bramante; while Michelangelo exhibits wayward energy in his Library of S. Lorenzo, and Amadeo self-abandonment to fancy in his Lombard chapels.  I have chosen examples from one nation and one epoch in order that the point I seek to make, the demonstration of a spiritual quality in buildings, may be fairly stated.

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Sculpture and painting distinguish themselves from the other fine arts by the imitation of concrete existences in nature.  They copy the bodies of men and animals, the aspects of the world around us, and the handiwork of men.  Yet, in so far as they are rightly arts, they do not make imitation an object in itself.  The grapes of Zeuxis at which birds pecked, the painted dog at which a cat’s hair bristles—­if such grapes or such a dog were ever put on canvas—­are but evidences of the artist’s skill, not of his faculty as artist.  These two plastic, or, as I prefer to call them, figurative arts, use their imitation of the external world for the expression, the presentation of internal, spiritual things.  The human form is for them the outward symbol of the inner human spirit, and their power of presenting spirit is limited by the means at their disposal.