قراءة كتاب Monumental Java
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CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY, THE PEOPLE AND THEIR WORK
It is the crowning virtue of all great Art that, however little is left of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely. John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence (Santa Croce).
Java’s ancient monuments are eloquent evidence of that innate consciousness of something beyond earthly existence which moves men to propitiate the principle of life by sacrifice in temples as gloriously divine as mortal hand can raise. Fear, however, especially where Buddhism moulded their thought by contemplation intent upon absorption of self, entered little into the religion of the children of this pearl of islands. Nature, beautiful, almighty nature, guided them and their work; even the terror inspired by the cosmic energy throbbing under their feet, by frequent volcanic upheavals dealing destruction and death, flowered into promise of new joy, thanks to the consummate art of their builders and sculptors, whose master minds, conceiving grandly, devising boldly and finishing with elaborate ornament, emphasised most cunningly the lofty yet lovely majesty of their natural surroundings. They made them images of the Supreme Being in his different aspects and symbolised attributes, free from the abject dread which dominated his worship by other earthlings of his fashioning in other climes, whose notion of All-Power was more one of Vengeance than of All-Sufficiency. They lived and meditated and wrought, impressing their mentality upon the material world given for their use; and so they created marvels of beauty, developed an architecture which belongs pre-eminently to their luxuriant soil under the clear blue of their sky, in the brilliant light of their sun.
Truly high art ever shows a natural fitness, as we can observe in our gothic cathedrals, in the classic remains of Hellas, including those of Magna Graecia, the temples of Poseidonia, Egesta and Acragas, the theatres of Syracuse and Tauromenium, gates opened to the splendour of heaven and earth by the undying virtue of mortal endeavour. Other countries, other revelations of the divine essence in human effort, but not even the shrines of India as I came to know them, born of a common origin with Javanese religious structures in almost similar conditions of climate, physical needs, moral aspirations, can equal their stately grandeur balanced by exquisite elegance, calm yet passionate, always in keeping with the dignified repose of landscapes which at any moment may have their charms dissolved in earthquakes, fire and ashes. Angkor-Vat, turned from the service of four-faced Brahma to Buddhist self-negation, stands perhaps nearest in the happy effect produced, if not in outline. And what is the secret of that quiet, subtle magic exercised by the builders of Java? Nothing but a matter of technical skill, of such a control over the practical details of their craft as, for instance, made them scorn metal bindings, while using mortar only to a very limited extent? Or was it their faith, leavening design and execution, attaching the master’s seal to general plan and minutest ornamental scroll? In this connection it seems worthy of remark that architect and sculptor, though independent in their labours (with the exception of one or two edifices of a late date), achieved invariably, in the distribution of surfaces and decoration, both as to front and side elevations, complete unity of expression of the fundamental idea.
Geographically, the ancient monuments of Java may be divided into three main groups: a western one, rather