The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1883-12-21
A PLAIN CITY OF EUROPE.
British Geometry Applied to the
Architecture OF Paris.

architecture 0I IdFIS.
From the Pail Mali Budget.
Turning round a corner one
suddenly on a pillar of diagy, dull hue,
whose outline bulges unpleasantiy. III
London you would shrug your shout
ders, mutter ~"hideous," and pass on,
This is the famous Vendome Column.
AS for the Column of July, it is so insig-
niicant, so silly (no other word express
ses itso WELL that Il second glance is care
fully avoided. The Hotel de Vile, q
vast white building, is past description,
1t i so plain and 50 repallant in is ma
ked, alaring assertion. From about old
Eo,re Dame they have removed every
medieval outwork which had gown up
around and rendered it life like, it, now
rises perpendicular and abrupt
from the white surface Of the
square. Unless 0 had been told
that il was the Notra Dame of Victor
Hugo YOU would not look at is exterior
twice. The interior is another matter.
In external form Notre Dame cannot
enter into competition with Canterbury.
The b~arrack-like Hotel des Invalides,
the tomb Of NapOIe0n-was ever n tomb
SO miserably lacking in all that should
inspire a re ~verential feeling? The mar
bic tub in which the urn is sunk the
gilded chapel and the yellow windows,
could anything be more artificial and
less appropriate? They iaron the senses,
they insult the torn flaos which were
carried by the veterans at A~usterlitz,
and which now dgoup, never again TO be
unfurled to the wind of battle. The tiny
Seine might as well flow in q tunnel,
being bridged so much. There remains
but the Arc de Triomphe, the only piece
Of architecture i'll all modern Paris
worth a second look. Even this is
spoiled by the same intolerable %artific;-
ality. The ridiculous sculpture on the
face, the fignres blowing trumpets,
aad above all the group on
the summit, which is quite beyond the
tongue of mea to describe, so utterly
hideous is it, destroy the noble lines of
the arch, if any one is 20 imprudent as
TO approach near it. Preceding down
the Avenu G Friedland--somewhat aslant
the che smut trees presently conceal
the side sculpture; and then, ny fitting
ones hat so that the brinI shall hide the
group OH the summit, it is possible to
admire the proportions of the Arc.
In the Tuileries gardens there is a spot
where distance obliterates the sculpture
and the probe citing bough of an elm con-
ceals the group on the top. Here the
arch appears noble, but it is no longer
French; it is now merely a copy OF a
Roman original, which any of our own
architects could erect for us in Hyde
Park. For the most part the yaunted
bouleva rds are but planted with planes,
the least pleasing OF trees, whose leaves
present an ~unvarying green, till they
drop 3 dead brown, and the horse chest.
nut in the Champs Elysees are set in
straightlinesto repeatthe geometry ofthe
streets. Thus central Paris has no char
acter. 1t is without individuality a.d
expressionless. Suppose you said:
THE human face is really very irregu-
lar; it requires shaping. This nose pro-
jects; here, let us flatten it to the level
of the cheek. This mouth curves at the
corners, let us cut it stralght1 This color
is too festl-like; bring white paint. Be-
sides, the features move, they laugh,
they assume sadness; this is wrong.
Here, divide the muscles, that they may
~henceforth remain in unyarying rigid
ity." That is what has been done to
Paris. 1t is made straight, it is idealized
'er Euclid; it rs stiff, W ari
some and feeble. Lastly, it has no ex-
preston. The distances as observed Mt
the commencement remain always the
same. partly because of the popularity
OF the atmosphere, for which, of course,
the Partisan is not responsible. but
should have remembered IN building.
Advantage might surely have been taSen
ofso clear an air in some manner. The
color and tone, the light and shade,
the change n variety of London, are
entirely wanting: in short, Paris ;s the
plainest city in Europe.