the superstructure
are horizontal, and their horizontal status is as strongly marked as
possible by the terminating lines of the cornice--the whole of the
pressures of the superstructure are simply vertical, and the whole of
the lines of design of the supports are laid out so as to emphasize
the idea of resistance to vertical pressure. The Greek column, too,
has only one simple office to perform, that of supporting a single
mass of the superstructure, exercising a single pressure in the same
direction. In the Gothic building the main pressures are oblique and
not vertical, and the main feature of the exterior substructure, the
buttress, is designed to express resistance to an oblique pressure;
and no real progress was made with the development of the arched style
until the false use of the apparent column or pilaster as a buttress
was got rid of, and the true buttress form evolved. On the interior
piers of the arcade there is a resolution of pressures which
practically results in a vertical pressure, and the pier remains
vertical; but the pressure upon it being the resultant of a complex
collection of pressures, each of these has, in complete Gothic, its
own apparent vertical supporting feature, so that the plan of the
substructure becomes a logical representation of the main features and
pressures of the superstructure. The main tendency of the pointed
arched building is toward vertically, and this vertical tendency is
strongly emphasized and assisted by the breaking up of the really
solid mass of the pier into a number of slender shafts, which, by
their strongly marked parallel lines, lead the eye upward toward the
closing-in lines of the arcade and of the vaulted roof which forms the
culmination of the whole. The Greek column is also assisted in its
vertical expression by the lines of the fluting; but as the object of
these is only to emphasize the one office of the one column, they are
strictly subordinate to the main form, are in fact merely a kind of
decorative treatment of it in accordance with its function. In the
Gothic pier the object is to express complexity of function, and the
pier, instead of being a single fluted column, is broken up into a
variety of connected columnar forms, each expressive of its own
function in the design. It may be observed also that the Gothic
building, like the Greek, falls into certain main divisions arising
out of the practical conditions of its construction, and which form a
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