Late Roman artistic volition wanted to see the individual shape of a building in its three-dimensional, fully spatial boundaries. Connected with this was the separation of the individual shape out of the universal visual plane (ground) and its isolation from the ground level and from other individual shapes. I would like to bring to the attention of the scholars an art historical source, which has been to date neglected to the same degree as the literary sources were, which contain external, local and time data that have been the object of greatest appreciation and diligent studies. Yet a time which liked to perceive the work of art as a mechanistic product of raw material, technique and the immediate external reason of purpose, could in the utterances of authors concerning the artistic volition of their time, see nothing else than speculative fantasies: in the eyes of the art materialists there exists no conscious artistic volition and what was said about it in earlier times could in the best case be just a worthless self-deception, not to say, intended deception. But whoever realized that mankind meant to see the visual appearances according to oulines and color on the plane or in space at different times in a different manner, will without hesitation, be familiar with the thought that the utterances of studious and learned men about what they expected from the work of art of their time deserve full attention from art historical research. This can be see as a medium which might help us test whether ideas reached by us with our subjective observation about the leading artistic intentions of a certain period were indeed the ideas of those belonging to the period. In other words, if at that time one indeed wanted from the visual arts what we imagine it to have been based on our investigation of the monuments, then this obviously will be the true and only realiable proof for our results of research.
Paper instructions:

For Text 1, answer the following questions:

1. What is the ‘artistic volition’ mentioned in this text?

2. In which architectural fetures does one see the result of this artistic volition?

3.To what other explanation of the origins, or causes, of artistic creation is this volition compared in the text?