Just as Kandinsky turned his back on figuration, so did the atonal composers of the early 20th century, led by Arnold Schoenberg, abandon tonal harmony, the fundamental ordering principle on which all Western classical music had previously been based.
Figural and symbolic reliefs are not high overhead as in the Parthenon or Chartres Cathedral, but at one's own level so that one is immersed in the visual experience most of the piers are little more than twice my height, and the figuration begins immediately above the socle (base).