The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.14

v1.c9.14

**[41] Vertical style:** Another and a more effectual remedy was “to increase the apparent dimensions of a building by a scientific disposition of the parts, and a skilful arrangement of ornament, thereby making it look very much larger than it really was.”⁸ As the temples had to depend upon their height for their grandeur and effect, the builders not only carefully avoided cornices and continuous commanding horizontal mouldings, but so arranged the projections as not only to remove the baldness of dead walls by an agreeable play of light and shade, but to enhance the apparent height by a series of vertical, or upright, lines and forms. The plinths were broken by deep and strongly marked projections; the piers and pilasters were made narr ow and tall; the architraves were so designed as nowhere to offer a continued, or unbroken, line; the facades were attenuated by repeated canting of the corners of projections, and other devices; the niches were narrowed and elongated; the mouldings were made to tend upwards; and the sculptured ornaments were to such an extent forced to the vertical position that even figures of lions and elephants had to stand in an unnatural erect posture like men. In short, the composition is throughout vertical, or, so to say, of the perpendicular mediaeval Gothic ordinance, as opposed to the horizontal composition of the Greeks and the Romans. The artistic effect of this arrangement is most advantageous; the eye of the observer is always directed upwards, and temples of even moderate size look lofty, towering, and highly imposing.