File:Ecclesiastical Architecture by J. J. McCarthy in Duffy's Irish Catholic Magazine March 1847.png

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Ecclesiastical Architecture. Part I.

Amongst the various gratifying signs of our age, as indicative of a return to the Faith and practices of ancient times, the present movement on the Continent and in England in favour of the revival of the Ecclesiastical Architecture of the middle ages, ist most conspicuous. In the mind of the mere antiquary or virtuoso, who is accustomed to examine works of art by ideas of abstract beauty, and to whom the portico of Erectheium is as interesting as the west front of Well's Cathedral, or the Dome of Cologne, this aspect of affairs can produce feelings little comparable to those by which the Catholic churchman is affected. The latter looks upon mediæval art as the offspring and production of the Christian church, inseparably connected, so far as the genuine existence of the arts themselves is concerned, with the rites and institutions of religion, and illustrative of, while it is glorieid by their influence; and he consequently hails all just appreciation of the beautifies of Christian art in its true light, as an indication of a return to the principles by which they were produced. The former endeavours to analyze it by some indefinite and unsatisfactory notions of abstract beauty, to the utter exclusion of the divine idea whence it emanated. For a century or more, the influence of this artistic dilettantism had prevailed, with results by no means commensurate with the labours and energy expended on the pursuit. And so it would been till our own time, had not a

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