EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE.
While the Brandenburg Gate was building, the storm which was the necessary result of the high tension of the eighteenth century burst in Paris. The French Revolution had overturned a world, and desired to set up a new one. The Republic linked itself to the ancient world, and from this Republic, which copied the Roman, there sprung the new Roman Empire .of Napoleon I., which found its expression in a strict adoption of the architectural forms of the first Roman Empire. It was the school of Durand which adopted these forms and spread them beyond France wherever Napoleon's power was felt.
Church of La characteristic work of the period is the Madeleine (pl. 49, figs. I, 2). The present magnificent structure was begun in 1-764. The work was several times discontinued, and the struc ture was finally completed (1804-1842) according to Vignon's plans as a Temple of Fame. Externally it is a Corinthian peripteros, while inter nally it follows the system of the Roman baths.
Triumphal seemed probable to the architects that very soon the idea of a temple would be abandoned and a Christian church take its place, and they therefore strove to develop true architectural forms. In 1805, Percier and Fontaine erected on the Place du Carrousel a triumphal arch which was a copy of that of Constantine, and in 18°6 the already-mentioned Chalgrin, who was active during the preceding period, commenced the famous Arc de lttoile (fig. 4). This was continued until 1814, then again between 1823 and IS28, and was finally finished (1832-1836) by Blouet.
The Vene/lime Column (fig. 3) was erected by Napoleon (iSo6-181o) in commemoration of the victory of Austerlitz; it occupied the site of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV. which had been destroyed at the Revolu tion. The design is attributed to Lepere. At the summit stood a statue of the emperor in the guise of a triumphant Roman; this was taken down in 1814. Louis Philippe replaced it with a figure of the emperor in the costume of his period; Napoleon III. set up the triumphant Roman again, and in 1871 the entire work was overthrown by the Communists, but has since been re-erected. After mention of the Paris Bourse (iSoS–IS26) as a work of that period, we will follow the spread of the style in other lands.
2S7 The Bank of England (r78S) showed an approach to that classicism which in iSoS was expressed by Robert Smirke in his Covent Garden Theatre.' Italy followed the example of France the more readily since politically it was under French influence, and since it had before its eyes the monu ments of the Roman Empire, though in a much worse state of preserva tion than those of the fifteenth century.
purposes of study Germany sent its architects to Paris, whence they accompanied young Frenchmen to Rome; yet it was not until the yoke of French tutelage had been thrown off that the Ger man architect found an opportunity to display greater activity in building. Friederich Weinbrenner found the first great task in his native city, Carlsruhe, where previous to about the end of the second decade he exe cuted a series of partially-connected buildings. The architectural forms are so extremely rude that they can scarcely be called forms, but he knew how to make the ensemble magnificent, and the plan of the whole quarter, from the now destroyed Ettlinger Gate (a barbaric copy of the Propykea), through streets of varied width broken up with squares and leading up to the castle, may serve as an example of an artistically-laid-out city. The principal structures, notwithstanding the rude details and the severe architecture, have a dignified and imposing appearance as a whole. Weinbrenner was succeeded by others, as Moller at Darmstadt, Zanth at Stuttgart, etc.
Church of St. Isaac.--Classical art also found its way into Russia, and produced in St. Petersburg a series of buildings, among which the Church of St. Isaac (bl. fig. 7), which again brought into play the magnifi cent cupola of the previous period, must be considered the most important. It was begun in 1S19 by the Frenchman Montferrand, but was finished considerably later. The Cathedral of Gran, in Hungary, is also an immense domed building begun early iu this century, but finished much later. It is less magnificent than St. Isaac's, and impresses rather by its massiveness than by its artistic qualities. Other works in Hungary in the antique manner, as the museum at Pesth, are similar in these respects.