THE BAROQUE IN ROMAN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES C. I60O-C. 1760
the South had its more concrete realisation of an all-embracing
oneness and a presence of the infinite in the architects* and decor-
ators* unification of real and fictitious worlds, and in their spatial
effects stepping beyond the bounds of what the beholder can
rationally explain to himself.'And Neumann's work proves con-
clusively what architectural purity and subtlety can be achieved by
such spatial magic, provided the visitor to his buildings is able to
follow his guidance. We of the 2Oth century do not usually find it
easy to concentrate on spatial counterpoint just as our audiences in
church and concert no doubt hear musical counterpoint less dis-
tinctly than those for whom Bach wrote. The parallelism is in fact
striking in quality too. The best German 18th-century architecture
is up to the standard of the best German 18th-century music.
Take Neumann's pilgrimage church of Vierzehnheiligen in Fran-
conia, built from 1743 to 1772 (pi. Lxxn and figs. 7*-73)- The first
impression on entering this vast, solitary pilgrimage church is one of
bliss and elation. All is light: white, gold, pink. In this the church
testifies to its later date than that of St. JohnNepomuk. Asam*swork
is still Baroque in the 17th-century sense, Neumann's belongs to that
lastphase of the Baroque which goes under the name Rococo. For the
Rococo is not a separate style. It is part of the Baroque, as Decorated
is part of the Gothic style. The difference of Baroque and Rococo is
only one of sublimation. The later phase is light, where the earlier
was sombre; delicate, where the earlier was forceful; playful, where
the earlier was passionate. But it is just as mouvementl, as vivacious,
as voluptuous as the Baroque* One connects the term Rococo
chiefly with France and the age of Casanova on the one hand,
Voltaire on the other. In Germany it is not intellectually or sensually
sophisticated—it is as direct an expression of the people's aesthetic
instinct as kte Gothic architecture and decoration had been, and one
can see from the devotion to-day of the peasants in these German
Baroque—and the Italian Baroque—churches that their style is not
a style of interest only to a privileged set of virtuosi.
Yet the style of Vierzehnheiligen is not an easy style. It is not
enough to be overwhelmed by it, as anyone may be in Asam
churches; it asks for an exact understanding—which is a job for the
expert: architects* architecture, as the fugue is musicians* music. The
oval central altar in the middle of the nave may well please the
rustic worshippers who kneel round this gorgeous object, half a
ooral reef and half a fairy sedan chair. Having taken in this glory of
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