Читать книгу Picturesque Pala / The Story of the Mission Chapel of San Antonio de Padua Connected with Mission San Luis Rey - George Wharton James - Страница 7

Every lover of the artistic and the picturesque on first seeing the bell-tower of Pala stands enraptured before its unique personality. And this word "personality" does not seem at all misapplied in this connection. Just as in human beings we find a peculiar charm in certain personalities that it is impossible to explain, so is it with buildings. They possess an individuality, quality, all their own, which, sometimes, eludes the most subtle analysis. Pala is of this character. One feels its charm, longs to stand or sit in contemplation of it. There is a joy in being near to it. Its very proximity speaks peace, contentment, repose, while it breathes out the air of the romance of the past, the devoted love of its great founder, Peyri, the pathos of the struggles it has seen, the loss of its original Indians, its long desertion, and now, its rehabilitation and reuse in the service of Almighty God by a band of Indians, ruthlessly driven from their own home by the stern hand of a wicked and cruel law to find a new home in this gentle and secluded vale.

As far as I know or can learn, the Pala Campanile, from the architectural standpoint, is unique. Not only does it, in itself, stand alone, but in all architecture it stands alone. It is a free building, unattached to any other. The more one studies the Missions from the professional standpoint of the architect the more wonderful they become. They were designed by laymen—using the word as a professed architect would use it. For the padres were the architects of the Missions, and when and where and how could they have been trained technically in the great art, and the practical craftsmanship of architecture? Laymen, indeed, they were, but masters all the same. In harmonious arrangement, in bold daring, in originality, in power, in pleasing variety, in that general gratification of the senses that we feel when a building attracts and satisfies, the priestly architects rank high. And, as I look at the Pala Campanile, my mind seeks to penetrate the mind of its originator. Whence conceived he the idea of this unique construction? Was it a deliberate conception, viewed by a poetic imagination, projected into mental cognizance before erection, and seen in its distinctive beauty as an original and artistic creation before it was actually visualized? Or was it mere accident, mere utilitarianism, without any thought of artistic effect? We must remember that, to the missionary padres, a bell-tower was not a luxury of architecture, but an essential. The bells must be hung up high, in order that their calling tones could penetrate to the farthest recesses of the valley, the canyons, the ravines, the foothills, wherever an Indian ear could hear, an Indian soul be reached. Indians were their one thought—to convert them and bring them into the fold of Mother Church their sole occupation. Hence with the chapel erected, the bell-tower was a necessary accompaniment, to warn the Indian of services, to attract, allure and draw the stranger, the outsider, as well as to remind those who had already entered the fold. In addition its elevation was required for the uplifting of the cross—the Emblem of Salvation.