to press upon you is, that it should be equally welcomed into our
revived Gothic architecture. That revival needs but such a welcoming of
all that is good and noble to render it _complete_, and no feature
possesses these qualities in a higher degree than the cupola. Let us,
therefore, make it _our own_.
I have myself made some few attempts at this, which I venture to submit
to you.[71]
The dome, however, without its appropriate decorations, is but the body
without the soul. It is the sister art of painting which breathes life
into the otherwise breathless form. This painting must, however, be
adapted to its position with skill, knowledge, and study. I have not
time left to dilate on this subject, but commend it to the students of
that art, only begging them to remember that, while exercising their art
upon an object like the dome, which has an essential form on which its
very stability, real or apparent, depends, they _must_ keep it in such
subordination as not to disturb that essential, but rather to bring out
and emphasise it; otherwise, what I am urging will not prove a loving
union, but a hostile collision, of the two sister arts.