. The Open court . upon some heavenly inspiration;they were influenced, as were their masters, by the examples ofPersian art they saw all about them. In fact, most of them weremen trained in the Orient, if not indeed Orientals themselves. Some strange, preservative influence has been at work that per-mitted that country, in spite of its ups and downs and the mutations r>oo THE OPEN COURT. and vicissitudes of time, the Elam of old, the hirthplace of art, toretain its place among nations as the highest exponent of the truescience of building, of the perfection of form and the correct balanceb
. The Open court . upon some heavenly inspiration;they were influenced, as were their masters, by the examples ofPersian art they saw all about them. In fact, most of them weremen trained in the Orient, if not indeed Orientals themselves. Some strange, preservative influence has been at work that per-mitted that country, in spite of its ups and downs and the mutations r>oo THE OPEN COURT. and vicissitudes of time, the Elam of old, the hirthplace of art, toretain its place among nations as the highest exponent of the truescience of building, of the perfection of form and the correct balancebetween structure and ornament. The absence of stone and timber in quantities necessitated theuse of bricks and materials of small dimensions, hence their skill inhandling such small parts and incorporating them into magnificentmasses. When wide openings were required the arch was the onlymeans of spanning them. Such construction forced them into theknowledge of statics and into scientific experimenting and calcula-. THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE. tions. Their inborn love of beauty and color forced them to theuse of enamels, dainty pottery, inlays and mosaics. At the time Iwrite of, the art had been brought to a state almost of perfection. The Romans and other despoilers of the East, admiring theseworks, had robbed it of much of its portable treasures. The mer-chants of the West trafficking back and forth—the East was thenthe great storehouse of the world, the land of gold and of promise,and was in much the same relation to the West as America was re-garded by Europe in the seventeenth century—had left stations,settlements all along the great highways from India to Rome, and to THE INFLUENCE OF ORIENTAL ART. 601 the north, built after the manner of the East, and filled with itsproductions. All about Constantinople were such stations, such in-fluences ; all breathed of Persia and of Arabia, Araby the blest,and of far-off India. The founders of the new capital were
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
