THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

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could only float through these houses. The Pompeian playfulness has never been considered in its utopian aspect before, although the latter even appears in details, in a
wholly tangible way: namely in the anticipation of later styles. Only the ‘impracticable element’ was noted, and Vitruvius already reproached this painted architecture on
account of it. But precisely this unsound triviality allowed the painter to produce effects which were not yet due at all in a sound way. Thus the profusion of houses
crookedly piled up in the decoration of Boscoreale displays a Gothic aspect. Even more undoubtedly, Baroque motifs appear: here in a sweeping row of pillars, there
in broken or rearing gables, there again in bosquets and the like which the Rococo period was able to copy later, without breaking its style on this account. Ancient
architecture was not familiar with this bizarre phenomenon at all, or it touched on it only very late, on the Syrian borders of the empire, in Baalbek or Petra. The circular
temple in Baalbek displays the curved entablature in Pompeian drawings, the rock façade of Petra the truncated gable corners, with a turban­shaped rotunda in
between. But this kind of thing only sporadically reached Rome and then long after the destruction of Pompeii, in Hadrianic buildings. And even in the latter there was
only an occasional suggestion of what the central country town had so vividly executed on the wall. Only the late Italian and German Baroque produces the split gables
and curved portals which Pompeian master whitewashers effortlessly put up. These master craftsmen very often used patterns from scene­painting of the time, and this
origin explains both the shaky and the bold element. Delicate halls seem as if they have flown in out of coloured air, and thus bring dream­play with them.
Festive decorations and Baroque stage sets
With crayon and paint things were later built in a much more boisterous way. Namely where it was a question of forming a great mask, an open illusion. This is the case
with the festival, and then on the stage; both use Pompeian games. To begin with the festival and with the manner of celebrating it, its intention in any case is to forget all
everyday routine, it can never be original enough. The festive element is insatiably settled in the broad, playful or glittering realm of its pleasure. The orgy distinguishes
man from animals, more clearly than reason; man does not stop when he has enough. The most brilliant age for celebrating festivals was at the close of the Middle Ages
and in the Baroque period; at that