CO
THE COMPLETE WOEKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN VOLUME
1
POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
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CO
THE COMPLETE WOEKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN VOLUME
1
POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
.-
i\
{
:
11 'J
A
-^
COLLEGE
\1
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE; OR,
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE NATIONS OF EUROPE CONSIDERED IN ITS ASSOCIATION WITH NATURAL SCENERY AND NATIONAL CHARACTER.
CONTENTS. PAGE
INTRODUCTION
.
1
PART /.—THE COTTAGE. I.
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE
n.
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE
—ENGLAND — ITALY
AND FKANCE
15
.
in.
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE — SWITZERLAND
IV.
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE
V. VI.
II.
III.
IV.
V. VI.
25
— WESTMORELAND
35
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS
THE COTTAGE
— CONCLUDING
45
REMARKS
PART //.—THE I.
7
— LAGO VILLA — LAGO
57
.
VILLA.
THE MOUNTAIN ^^LLA
DI
COMO
THE MOUNTAIN
DI
COMO (CONTINUED)
67 .
.
.80
THE ITALIAN VILLA (CONCLUDED).
—ENGLAND —PRINCIPLES
94
THE LOWLAND VILLA
THE ENGLISH VILLA
104
OF COMPOSITION
THE BRITISH VILLA. -PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION. TIVATED,
.
.
.
(THE CUL-
OR BLUE COUNTRY, AND THE WOODED, OR GREEN
country) VII.
118
THE BRITISH VILLA.
126
—PRINCIPLES
OR BROWN country)
OF COMPOSITION.
(THE HILL, 145
LIST OF PLATES.
lo.
1.
Old Windows; from an early sketch by the Author
.
2.
Italian Cottage Gallery, 1846
.
.
.
.
Cottage near 3.
la Cite,
Swiss Cottage, 1837.
Magazine)
.
Val d'Aosta, 1838
Facing Page 13 .
.20 .21
...... ..... ..... ......
(Reproduced from the Architectural 28
4.
Cottage near Altorf, 1835
29
5.
Swiss Chalet Balcony, 1842
32
6.
The Highest House
7.
Chimneys. (Eighteen sketches redrawn from the Architectural Magazine)
8.
in England, at
Malham
Coniston Hall, from the Lake near Brantwood, 1837.
produced from the Architectural Magazine) 9.
Chimney
at Neuchatel;
the distance 10.
Broken Curves.
Old English Mansion, 1837.
Windows.
.
.
50
in
.20
(Redrawn from the Architec98
.
.
.
.
.101
(Reproduced from the Archi.
.
.
,
.116
......
(Three designs, reproduced from the Architec-
tural Magazine) 14.
.
.
(Three diagrams, redrawn from the Archi-
tectural Magazine) 13.
.
......
Petrarch's Villa, Arqua, 1837.
tectural Magazine) 12.
.
48
(Re-
Dent du Midi and Mont Blanc
.
tural Magazine) 11.
.42
.
.
Leading Lines of Villa-Composition. from the Architectural Magazine)
123
(Diagram redrawn .
.
.
164
—
PREFATORY NOTES. work Mr. Ruskin says in his Autobiography: The idea had come into my head in the summer of '37,
Of
'^
this
and, I imagine, rose immediately out of
my
sense of the
Westmoreland and those number of Loudon's November Anyhow, the of Italy. with Introduction opens Architectural Magazine for 1837 contrast between the cottages of
'
to the Poetry of Architecture; or the Architecture of the Nations of Europe considered in its Association with
Natural Scenery and National Character,' by Kata Phusin. I could not have put in fewer, or more inclusive words, the definition of what half my future life was to be spent
According TO Natueb,' was equally expressive of the temper in which I was to discourse alike on that, and every other The adoption of a nom-de-plume at all implied (as subject. also the concealment of name on the first publication of Modern Painters ') a sense of a power of judgment in myself, which it would not have been becoming in a youth of in discoursing of
while the nom-de-plume I chose,
;
'
*
eighteen to claim.
" As
it
is,
.
.
."
these youthful essays,
though deformed by
assumption, and shallow in contents, are curiously right up and already distinguished above to the points they reach ;
most of the literature of the time, for the skill of language, which the public at once felt for a pleasant gift in me." {Prceterita, vol,
I.
chap. 12.)
In a paper on " My First Editor," written in 1878, Mr. Ruskin says of these essays that they " contain sentences nearly as well put together as any I have done since." The Conductor of the Architectural Magazine in review" One series ing the year's work said (December, 1838) of papers, commenced in the last volume and concluded in :
V
—
— PEEFATOEY KOTES.
VI
the present one,
young
the
we
architect.
consider to be of particular value to
We
allude
to
the
'
Poetry of Architecture/ by Kata Phusin. will afford little pleasure to the
architect
who has no
Essays on the These essays
mere builder, or
to
the
principle of guidance but precedent;
They
but for such readers they were never intended.
are
addressed to the young and unprejudiced artist; and their
induce
him
to think
great object
is
reason.
There are some, we
.
who
.
.
to
and
to exercise his
trust, of the rising genera-
from the trammels and and his followers and it is to such alone that we look forward for any real improvement in architecture as an art of design and taste." The essays are in two parts: the first describing the cottages of England, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and giving hints and directions for picturesque cottage-building. The second part treats of the villas of Italy and England with special reference to Como and Windermere and contion,
are able to free themselves
architectural bigotry of Vitruvius
;
;
cludes Avith a discussion of the laws of artistic composition,
and practical suggestions of
interest to the builders of country-
houses. It was the Author's original intention to have proceeded from the cottage and the villa to the higher forms of Architecture but the Magazine to which he contributed was ;
brought to a close shortly after the completion of his chapters on the villa, and his promise of farther studies was not
redeemed until ten years later, by the publication of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and still more completely in
The Stones
of Venice.
Other papers contributed by Mr. Ruskin to the same Magazine, on Perspective, and on the proposed monument to Sir Walter Scott at Edinburgh, are not included in this volume, as they do not form any part of the series on the Poetry of Architecture.
The
text
Magazine.
is
A
square brackets.
carefully reprinted from the Architectural few additional notes are distinguished by
PREFATOKY XOTES.
A
few of the old
Vll
cuts, necessary to the text, are repro-
duced, and some are replaced by engravings from sketches Possessors of the Architectural Magazine, by the Author. be interested in comparing the wood-cut of the Val d'Aosta (p. 104 of that volume) with the photogravure from the original pencil drawing, which faces It is much to be regretted that the p. 21 of this work. Coniston Hall (fig. 8 p. 50 of this work) original of the has disappeared, and that the Author's youthful record of a scene so familiar to him in later years should be represented only by the harsh lines of Mr. Loudon's engraver. vol. v., will
cottage in
;
THE EDITOR
INTRODUCTION. The
1.
Science of Architecture, followed out to
its full
which have reference It is not merely a only to the creations of human minds. science of the rule and compass, it does not consist only extent, is one of the noblest of those
in the observation of just rule, or of fair proportion:
or ought to be, a science of feeling
more than of
ministry to the mind, more than to the eye.
how much upon its
its
less the
If
we
a
consider
beauty and majesty of a building depend
pleasing certain prejudices of the eye, than upon
rousing certain trains of meditation in the mind,
show
it is,
rule,
moment how many
in a
are involved in
tlie
it
will
intricate questions of feeling
raising of an edifice
;
it
will convince
us of the truth of a proposition, which might at
appeared startling, that no is not a metaphysician. 2.
To
first have can be an architect, who
the illustration of the department of this noble
science which this
man
may
be designated the Poetry of Architecture,
and some future
articles will be dedicated.
It is this
peculiarity of the art which constitutes its nationality; and it
will be
found as interesting as
it is
useful, to trace in the
distinctive characters of the architecture of nations, not only its
adaptation to the situation and climate in which
it
has
and connection with, the prevailing turn of mind by which the nation who first employed it is distinguished. 3. I consider the task I have imposed upon myself the more necessary, because this department of the science, perhaps regarded by some who have no ideas beyond stone and mortar as chimerical, and by others who think nothing necessary but truth and proportion as useless, is at a miserarisen,
but
its
strong similarity
1
to,
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
2
ably low ebb in England.
And what
is
the consequence?
have Corinthian columns placed beside pilasters of no
We
order
at
surmounted by monstrosified
all,
pepper-boxes,
Gothic in form and Grecian in detail, in a building nominally and peculiarly " ISTational " Ave have Swiss cottages, ;
and calumniously so entitled, dropped in the brickfields round the metropolis; and we have staring squarewindowed, flat-roofed gentlemen's seats, of the lath and plaster, mock-magnificent, Eegent's Park description, rising on the woody promontories of Derwentwater.
falsely
4.
How
deeply
is it to
be regretted,
how much
is it to
be
in a country whose school of painting,
wondered though degraded by its system of meretricious coloring, and disgraced by hosts of would-be imitators of inimitable individuals, is yet raised by the distinguished talent of those individuals to a place of well-deserved honor; and the studios of wdiose sculptors are filled with designs of the most pure simplicity, and most perfect animation; the school of at,
that,
architecture should be so miserably debased 5.
There
lamentable.
am
are,
however,
In the
many
first place,
!
reasons
for
a
fact
so
the patrons of architecture
from the lowest more numerous and less capable class The general public, and I say it than those of painting. with sorrow, because I know it from observation, have little (I
speaking of
all classes
of buildings,
to the highest), are a
to do with the encouragement of the school of painting, beyond the power which they unquestionably possess, and
unmercifully use, of compelling our artists to substitute glare for beauty.
Observe the direction of public taste
of our exhibitions.
We
at
any
see visitors at that of the Society of
Painters in Water Colors, passing Tayler with anathemas and Lewis with indifference, to remain in reverence and
admiration before certain amiable white lambs and waterwhose artists shall be nameless. We see them, in the
lilies,
Royal Academy, passing by Wilkie, Turner and Callcott, with shrugs of doubt or of scorn, to fix in gazing and enthusiastic crowds upon kettles-full of witches, and His
INTRODUCTIOX.
6
Majesty's ships so and so lying to in a gale, etc., etc. But these pictures attain no celebrity because the public admire
them, for trusted.
it
is
not to the public that the judginent
is
in-
by our nobility and men that the decision is made, the fame
It is by the chosen few,
of taste and talent,
bestowed, and the artist encouraged. 6.
iSTot so
in architecture.
Every
diffused.
citizen
may
There, the power
a tenement as suits his taste or inclination his vassal,
perpetrate.
and must permit him not only
The palace
is
generally
box himself up in as barbarous ;
the architect
is
to criticise, but to
or the nobleman's seat
may
be raised
and become the admiration of a nation; but the influence of their owner is terminated by the boundary of his estate: he has no command over the adjacent scenery, and the possessor of every thirty acres around him The streets of our cities are examples has him at his mercy. of the effects of this clashing of different tastes and they are in
good
taste,
;
either remarkable for the utter absence of all
attempt at
embellishment, or disgraced by every variety of abomination. 7. Again, in a climate like ours, those few who have knowledge and feeling to distinguish what is beautiful, are frequently prevented by various circumstances from erecting it. John Bull's comfort perpetually interferes with his good taste, and I should be the first to lament his losing so much of his nationality, as to permit the latter to prevail. He cannot put his windows into a recess, without darkening his rooms he cannot raise a narrow gable above his walls, Avithout knocking his head against the rafters; and, worst of all, he cannot do either, without being stigmatized by the awful, inevitable epithet, of " a very odd man." But, though much of the degradation of our present school of architecture is owing to the want or the unfitness of patrons, surely it is ;
yet more attributable to a lamentable deficiency of taste and talent
among our
architects themselves.
a country affording so so
many
causes for
its
we should have any
It is true, that in
encouragement, and presenting absence, it cannot be expected that Michael Angelo Buonarottis, The
little
;;
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
4
is expended in raising " neat " poorand "pretty" charity schools; and, if they ever enter upon a work of higher rank, economy is the order of the day plaster and stucco are substituted for granite and marble; rods of splashed iron for columns of verd-antique and in the wild struggle after novelty, the fantastic is mis-
energy of our architects houses,
:
taken for the graceful, the complicated for the imposing, superfluity of ornament for beauty, and its total absence for simplicity. 8.
But
these disadvantages might in some degree be
all
counteracted,
were
it
these
all
abuses in
some degree prevented,
not for the slight attention paid by our architects to
that branch of the art which I have above designated as the Poetry of Architecture.
All unity of feeling (which
principle of good taste)
we
is
nothing we have pinnacles without but incongruous combination height, windows without light, columns with nothing to the
first
is
neglected;
see
:
sustain,
and buttresses with nothing
to support.
We
have
parish paupers smoking their pipes and drinking their beer
under Gothic arches and sculptured niches and quiet old English gentlemen reclining on crocodile stools, and peeping out of the windows of Swiss chalets. ;
9.
I shall attempt, therefore, to endeavor to illustrate the
principle
from the neglect of which these abuses have arisen
that of unity of feeling, the basis of all grace, the essence of all
as
beauty. it
is
We
shall consider the architecture of nations
influenced by their feelings and manners, as
connected with the scenery in which
it
is
it
is
found, and with
it was erected we shall be led as and the cottage as to the temple and the tower; and shall be more interested in buildings raised by feeling, than in those corrected by rule. We shall commence with the lower class of edifices, proceeding from the roadside to the village, and from the village to the city and, if
the skies under which
much
;
to the street
;
we succeed more
in directing the attention of a single individual
directly
to
this
science of architecture,
most interesting department of the shall not have written in vain.
we
PART I. Ube
Cottage.
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE — ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY: THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE :— SWITZERLAND AND WESTMORELAND: A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS: :
AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ON COTTAGE-BUILDING.
THE
POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE. I.
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE—ENGLA:tTD AWD FEANCE. 10. Or all embellishments by which the efforts of man can enhance the beauty of natural scenery, those are the most effective which can give animation to the scene, while the spirit which they bestow is in nnison with its general character.
It is generally desirable to indicate the presence of
animated existence in
a scene of natural
of such existence as shall be
beauty
imbued with the
;
spirit,
but only
and
shall
partake of the essence, of the beauty, which, without
would be dead.
If our object, therefore,
a scene the character of
which
is
is
to
it,
embellish
peaceful and unpretending,
we must not erect a building fit for the abode of wealth or pride. However beautiful or imposing in itself, such an object immediately indicates the presence of a kind of exist-
ence unsuited to the scenery which
which,
own
when
it
it
inhabits
;
and of
a
mind
sought retirement, was unacquainted with
its
ruling feelings, and which consequently excites no sjanpa-
thy in ours
:
but, if
we
erect a dwelling
adapted to the wants, and
which may appear
sufficient for the comfort,
gentle heart and lowly mind,
we have 7
of a
instantly attained our
TJIE
»
object
POETRY OF AECIIITECTUKE.
we have bestowed animation, but we have not
:
dis-
turbed repose. It is for this
11.
bellishments consideration.
reason that the cottage
It
is
which
scenery
natural
of
one of the em-
and
always,
beautiful
is
deserve
attentive
everywhere.
Whether looking out of the woody dingle with its eye-like window, and sending up the motion of azure smoke between the silver trunks of aged trees or grouped among the bright or forming gray clusters cornfields of the fruitful plain along the slope of the mountain side, the cottage always ;
;
gives the idea of a thing to be beloved
:
a quiet life-giving
voice, that is as peaceful as silence itself.
With
12.
these feelings,
we
shall devote
some time
to the
consideration of the prevailing character, and national pecul-
The
of European cottages.
iarities,
principal thing worthy
of observation in the lowland cottage of
The thatch
neatness.
is
England
is its
finished
firmly pegged doAMi, and mathemat-
ically leveled at the edges; and,
though the martin
is
per-
mitted to attach his humble domicile, in undisturbed security, to the eaves, he
may
be considered as enhancing the effect of
the cottage, by increasing tribute to the comfort of
wash
is
and
stainless,
rough surface catches a side light
as a front one
as brightly
gracefully
its
its usefulness, and making it conmore beings than one. The white-
over
the
:
the luxuriant rose
window;
and
the
is
trained
gleaming
lattice,
divided not into heavy squares, but into small pointed dia-
monds, l)reeze,
their
is
thrown half open,
among
glance
that,
as is just
discovered by
its
the green leaves of the sweetbrier, to admit the as
fragrance.
it
passes over the flowers, becomes full of
The
light
wooden porch breaks the
its
projection
;
and
flat
two of wandering honeysuckle spread over the low hatch. A few square feet of garden and a latched wicket, persuading the weary and dusty pedestrian, with expressive eloquence, to lean upon it for an instant and request a drink of water or milk, complete a picture, which, if it be far enough from London to be unspoiled by town sophistications, is a very of the cottage face by
a 1)rancli or
:
EXGLAXD AND FRANCE.
THE COTTAGE
9
The ideas it awakens are agreeits waj.^ and the architecture is all that we want in such a situation. It is pretty and appropriate and if it boasted of any other perfection, it would be at the expense of its propriety.13. Let us now cross the Channel, and endeavor to find perfect thing in able,
;
a
country cottage on the other side,
There are many
difficult matter.
if
we can;
for
it
is
a
villages; but such a thing
an isolated cottage is extremely rare. Let us try one or two of the green valleys among the chalk eminences which sweep from Abbeville to Rouen. Here is a cottage at last, and a picturesque one, which is more than we could say "What then is the difference ? for the English domicile. nonchalance about the French There is a general air of peasant's habitation, which is aided by a perfect want of and rendered more conspicuous everything like neatness by some points about the building which have a look of Half of the neglected beauty, and obliterated ornament. whitewash is worn off, and the other half colored by various mosses and wandering lichens, which have been permitted to vegetate upon it, and which, though beautiful, constitute a kind of beauty from which the ideas of age and decay are as
;
inseparable.
The
fantastically out
tall
roof
of the garret
and underneath
;
had a plain double
lattice, is a
it,
window
stands
where, in England,
deep recess,
flatly
we
arched at
the top, built of solid masses of gray stone, fluted on the
edge; while the brightness of the glass within (if there be any) is lost in shade, causing the recess to appear to the
The door has the same character which is so much broken and disguised as to The prevent it from giving any idea of strength or stability. no roses, or anything else, are entrance is always open wreathed about it several outhouses, built in the same style, give the building extent; and the group (in all probability, the dependency of some large old chateau in the distance) does not peep out of copse, or thicket, or a group of tall and
observer like a dark eye. it is
also of stone,
;
;
[*
Compare Leeturea on ArehUecture and Painting,
T.
§ 16.]
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTURE.
10
beautiful trees, but stands comfortlessly between two individuals of the columns of long-trunked facsimile elms,
which
keep guard along the length of the public road. 14.
Xow,
how
be observed
let it
perfectly,
how
singularly,
the distinctive characters of these two cottages agree with those of the countries in which they are built; and of the
people for whose use they are constructed.
England
country whose every scene
Its green val-
leys are not
wide
its
;
dewy
of no extent, or, rather, a
more sounding
title
is
in miniature."
hills are
not high
;
and there
forests are
its
has nothing that can pretend to than that of " wood." Its cham-
is
;
we can never
quiet nook and sheltered lane. fore,
is
see
a sense of something inexpressi-
except by the truly English word " snug/'
ble,
a
it
paigns are minutely checkered into fields far at a time
;
is
The English
in
every
cottage, there-
equally small, equally sheltered, equally invisible
at a distance.
15.
But France
is
a country
on
Low, but
a large scale.
sweep away for miles into vast uninterrupted immense forests shadow the country for hundreds of square miles, without once letting through the light of day; its pastures and arable land are divided on the same scale there are no fences we can hardly place ourselves in any spot where we shall not see for leagues around and there is a kind of comfortless sublimity in the size of every scene. long,
hills
champaigns
;
;
;
;
The French large it
cottage, therefore, is on the same scale, equally and desolate looking; but we shall see, presently, that
can arouse feelings which, though they cannot be said to it sublimity, yet are of a higher order than any which
give
can be awakened at the sight of the English cottage. 16. Again, every bit of cultivated ground in England has a finished neatness; the fields are all divided by hedges or fences the fruit trees are neatly pruned the roads beautifully made, etc. Everything is the reverse in France the fields are distinguished by the nature of the crops they ;
;
:
[*
Compare with
this chapter,
Modern Painters,
vol. iv. chap. 1.]
THE COTTAGE
ENGLAND AND FEANCE.
11
bear; the fruit trees are overgrown with moss and mistletoe;
and the roads immeasurably wide, and miserably made. 17. So much for the character of the two cottages, as they assimilate with the countries in which they are found. Let us now see how they assimilate with the character of England is a country of the people by whom they are built. perpetually increasing prosperity and active enterprise but, for that very reason, nothing is allowed to remain till it gets old. Large old trees are cut down for timber old houses are pulled down for the materials and old furniture is laughed Everything is perpetually altered and at and neglected. renewed by the activity of invention and improvement. The cottage, consequently, has no dilapidated look about it it is never suffered to get old; it is used as long as it is comfortable, and then taken down and rebuilt for it was originally ;
;
;
;
;
raised in a style incapable of resisting the ravages of time.
But, in France, there prevail two opposite feelings, both in
which preand that of the modern revolutionists, which destroys unmercifully. Every object has partly the appearance of having been preserved with infinite care from an indefinite age, and partly exhibits the evidence of recent ill-treatment and disfiguration. Primeval forests rear their trunks vast over those of many younger generations growing up beside them the chateau or the palace, showing, by its style of architecture, its venerable age, bears the marks of the cannon-ball, and, from neglect, is withering into desolation. Little is renewed there is little spirit of improvement and the customs which prevailed centuries ago are still taught by the extreme
;
that of the old pedigreed population,
serves unlimitedly
;
;
:
;
The we should have
the patriarchs of the families to their grandchildren.
French
cottage, therefore,
is
just such as
expected from the disposition of
windows,
its
inhabitants its massive whole air and appearance, of venerable age, respected and predilapidation wears an appearance of
broken ornaments,
all tell
the
same
served,
till
at last its
tale
its
;
its
neglect. 18.
Again, the Englishman will sacrifice everything to
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
12
it, but he has generally also the power of doing so for the English The peasant is, on the average, wealthier than the French.
comfort, and will not only take great pains to secure :
French peasant has no idea of comfort, and therefore makes no effort to secure it. The difference in the character of their inhabitants is, as we have seen, written on the fronts The Englishman is, also, fond of their respective cottages. of display but the ornaments, exterior and interior, with which he adorns his dwelling, however small it may be, are either to show the extent of his possessions, or to contribute to some personal profit or gratification: they never seem desigTied for the sake of ornament alone. Thus, his wife's love of display is shown by the rows of useless crockery in her cupboard and his own by the rose tree at the front door, from which he may obtain an early bud to stick in the buttonhole of his best blue coat on Sundays the honeysuckle Xot is cultivated for its smell, the garden for its cabbages. so in France. There, the meanest peasant, with an equal or ;
;
:
much
greater love of display, embellishes his dwelling as lies in his
what
and
The
agreeable to the eye.
is
shaped beams,
the niche at
;
as
power, solely for the gratification of his feeling of its
corner
is
gable of his roof richly carved
;
is prettily
the
wooden
there be any, are fashioned into grotesque figures even the " air neglige " and general dilapidation of the if
tell a thousand times more agreeably to an eye accustomed to the picturesque, than the spruce preservation of the English cottage. 19. J^o building which we feel to excite a sentiment of
building
mere complacency can be said
when
contrary,
the building
neither astonish by
and when
it is
as to render
its
is
to be in
good
taste.
of such a class, that
beauty, nor impress by
its
the
it
can
sublimity,
likewise placed in a situation so uninteresting
something more than mere
fitness or propriety
necessary, and to compel the eye to expect something
building
On
itself, a
from the
gentle contrast of feeling in that building
exceedingly desirable
and
is
something has passed away, the presence of which would have bestowed ;
if possible, a sense that
ENGLAND AND FRANCE.
THE COTTAGE
on the whole
a deeper interest
The fancy
scene.
diately try to recover this, and,
endeavor,
the
in
13 will
immeMB
obtain
will
the desired effect from an indefinite cause.
NoAv,
20.
French
the
tage cannot please by priety, for
cot-
pro-
its
can only be ad-
it
apted to the ugliness around and,
as
ought
it
to
cannot but be, adapted
How,
beauty.
please to
There
?
to this,
able to please by
it is still less
its
;
and
be,
gayety in
is
then, can it no pretense
appearance,
its
no green flower-pots in ornamental lattices but the substantial style of any orna;
ments
it
may
the
possess,
It-
recessed
windows,
carvings,
and the general
the
stone size
of the whole, unite to produce
I
y
an impression of the buildinghaving once been fit for the residence
prouder
of
inhabi-
having once possessed strength, which is now withered, and beauty, which tants
is
;
of
now
its
This
faded.
of something
lost,
sense
something
which has been, and is not, is what is wanted. The
precisely
imagination
work
made aware a beauty, the
eye
is
is
actively to
set
in an instant
;
and we are
of the presence of
Fig.
I.
Old Windows : from an by the Author.
early sketch
more pleasing because visionary
;
and, while the
pitying the actual humility of the present building.
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
14
mind is admiring mark of dilapidation the
the imagined pride of the past.
Every
increases this feeling; while these very
marks (the fractures of the stone, the lichens of the moldering walls, and the graceful lines of the sinking roof) are all delightful in themselves. 21. Thus, is
we have shown
pretty from
its
that,
while the English cottage
propriety, the French cottage, having the
same connection with
its
climate, country, and people, pro-
duces such a contrast of feeling as bestows on addressing itself to the mind, and
good
taste.
If
we
is
it
a beauty
therefore in perfectly
are asked why, in this instance, good taste
produces only what every traveler feels to be not in the least striking, we reply that, where the surrounding circumstances are unfavorable, the very adaptation to
them which we have
declared to be necessary renders the building uninteresting;
and that, in the next paper, we shall see a very different result from the operations of equally good taste in adapting a cottage Our to its situation, in one of the noblest districts of Europe. subject will be, the Lowland Cottage of North Italy. Oxford,
Sept., 1837.
II.
THE LO^yLAXD COTTAGE— ITALY. " Most musical, most melancholy."
Let
22.
it
not be thought that "we are unnecessarily detain-
ing our readers from the proposed subject, if
we premise
a few remarks on the character of the landscape of the country
we have now
entered. It will always be necessary to obtain knowledge of the distinctive features of a country, before we can form a just estimate of tlie beauties or the errors of its architecture. We wish our readers to imbue themselves as far as may be with the spirit of the clime which
some
we
definite
are
now
away
entering; to cast
all
general ideas; to look
only for unison of feeling, and to pronounce everything wrong
which
them
where they are
color over their
ment 23.
We must make we must throw a peculiar light and imaginations then we will bring their judg-
contrary to the humors of nature.
is
feel
;
into play, for then
We
have
;
it
i3assed, it
will be capable of just operation.
must be observed (in leaving Eng-
land and France for Italy), from comfort to desolation; from excitement, to sadness we have left one country prosperous :
in
its
prime, and another frivolous in
its age,
for one glorious
in its death.
Xow, we have to
prefixed the hackneyed line of II Penseroso
our paper, because
What
it is
a definition of the essence of the
most musical, will always be found most melancholy and no real beauty can be obtained without a touch of sadness. Whenever the beautiful loses its melan-
beautiful.
is
;
choly,
it
We appeal to the memoour observing readers, whether they have treasured
degenerates into prettiness.
ries of all
15
;
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTURE.
16 lip
any
more than pretty, which has melancholy or a sense of danger either a tinge of
scene, pretending to be
not about
it
the one constitutes the beautiful, the other the sublime. 24, This postulate being gTanted, as we are sure it will
by
most (and we beg to assure those who are refractory or argumentative, that, were this a treatise on the sublime and beautiful, we could convince and quell their incredulity to their entire satisfaction by innumerable instances), we proceed to
remark
here, once for
ian landscape it
should be so
is its
all,
that the principal glory of the Ital-
extreme melancholy.
It is fitting that
the dead are the nations of Italy
:
her
;
name
and her strength are dwelling with the pale nations underneath the earth ;.the chief and chosen boast of her utmost pride is the hie jacet; she is but one wide sepulcher, and all her And therefore, or, present life is like a shadow or a memory. rather, by a most beautiful coincidence, her national tree is the cypress and whoever has marked the peculiar character which these noble shadowy spires can give to her landscape, lifting their majestic troops of waving darkness from beside the fallen column, or out of the midst of the silence of the shadowed temple and worshipless shrine, seen far and wide over the blue of the faint plain, without loving the dark trees for their sympathy with the sadness of Italy's sweet cemetery shore, is one who profanes her soil with his footsteps. 25. Every part of the landscape is in unison; the same glory of mourning is thrown over the whole the deep blue of the heavens is mingled with that of the everlasting hills, or melted away into the silence of the sapphire sea the pale cities, temple and tower, lie gleaming along the champaign; but how calmly no hum of men no motion of multitude in the midst of them they are voiceless as the city of ashes. ;
;
;
;
!
:
The transparent air is gentle among the blossoms of the orange and the dim leaves of the olive; and the small fountains, which, in any other land, would spring merrily along, sparkling and singing among tinkling j^ebbles, here flow calmly
and
with
some pale font of marble, all beautiful worked bv some unknown hand, lona; aa-o nerveless,
silently into
life,
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE
17
ITALY.
and fall and pass on among wan flowers, and scented copse, throngh cool leaf-lighted caves or gray Egerian grottoes, to join the Tiber or Eridanus, to swell the waves of Xemi, or the Larian Lake. The most minute objects (leaf, flower, and stone), while they
add
to the beauty,
seem
to share in the
sadness, of the Avhole. 26. But, if one principal character of Italian landscape is
We have no simple rusis elevation. no cowslip and buttercup humility of seclusion. Tall mulberry trees, with festoons of the luxuriant vine, purple with ponderous clusters, trailed and trellised between and over them, shade the wide fields of stately Indian corn luxuriance of lofty vegetation (catalpa, and aloe, and olive), ranging itself in lines of massy light along the wan chammelancholy, another ticity of scene,
;
paign, guides the eye
away
to the unfailing wall of
mountain,
no cold long range of shivery gray, but dazzling light of snow, or imdulating breadth of blue, fainter and darker, in infinite variety peak, precipice, and promontory passing away into the wooded hills, each with its tower
Alp or Apennine
;
;
or white village sloping into the plain; castellated battle-
ments cresting their undulations
;
some wide majestic river its breast, and the
gliding along the champaign, the bridge on
on
city
its
shore
;
the
whole
with
canopied
cloudless
azure, basking in mistless sunshine, breathing the silence of
odoriferous 27.
Xow
air.
comes the question.
this pomp memory of dewhat are we naturally
In a country of
of natural glory, tempered with melancholy
parted pride, what are
we
wish for, her most humble edifices those which are most connected with present life least with the past? what are we to consider fitting or beautiful in her to
to expect in the character of
cottage
We
—
;
?
it to be comfortable, when everything and desolation in the works of decay around it betokens man. We do not wish it to be neat, where nature is most But we naturally look for an beautiful, because neglected.
do not expect
elevation of character, a richness of design or form, which,
2
THE POETEY OF ARCHITECTUEE.
18
while the building iar
air
of cottage
is
kept a cottage,
aristocracy
;
may
yet give
a beauty
it
a pecul-
(no matter
how
which may appear to have been once fitted for i!^ow, let the surrounding splendor of scene and climate. The reader who has us fancy an Italian cottage before us. dilajjidated)
traveled in Italy will find
little difiiculty
in recalling one to
and shadow, and its his memory, with its broad and desolagrandeur strange, but not unpleasing mixture of Let us examine its details, enumerate its archition. tectural peculiarities, and see how far it agrees with our preconceived idea of what the cottage ought to be ? lines of light
28.
The
first
remarkable point of the building
is
the roof.
which more agreeThe jorm of the
It generally consists of tiles of very deep curvature, rib it into distinct vertical lines, giving it a far
able surface than that of our flatter tiling.
always excessively flat, so as never to let it and the consequence is, that, while an English village, seen at a distance, appears all red roof, the Italian is all white wall; and therefore, though always bright, is never gaudy. We have in these roofs an excellent example of what should always be kept in mind, that everyroof, however, is
intrude upon the eye
;
thing will be found beautiful, which climate or situation
render useful.
The strong and constant heat
sun would be intolerable
if
admitted
at the
of the Italian
windows
;
and,
therefore, the edges of the roof project far over the walls,
and throw long shadows downwards, so as to keep the upper windows constantly cool. These long oblique shadows on the white surface are always delightful, and are alone sufficient to They are peculiar to the buildgive the building character. ings of Spain and Italy for owing to the general darker color of those of more northerly climates, the shadows of their roofs, however far thrown, do not tell distinctly, and render Another ornamental use of them, not varied, but gloomy. ;
these shadows
is,
that they break the line of junction of the
wall with the roof: a point always desirable, and in every
kind of building, whether we have to do with lead, slate, This object is tile, or thatch, one of extreme difficulty.
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE
19
ITALY.
farther forwarded in the Italian cottage, by putting two or
windows up under the very eaves themselves, which is done for coolness, so that their tops are formed by the roof; and the wall has the appearance of having been termi-
three also
nated by large battlements and roofed over. And, finally, the eaves are seldom kept long on the same level double or treble rows of tiling are introduced long sticks and irregular wood:
;
work
are occasionally attached to them, to assist the festoons
and the graceful irregularity and marked character of the whole must be dwelt on with equal delight by
of the vine
;
the eye of the poet, the artist, or the unprejudiced architect. All, however, is exceedingly
humble
we have not
;
We
with the elevation of character we expected. it however as we proceed.
yet
29. The next point of interest is the window. modern Italian is completely owl-like in his habits.
the daytime he lies idle and inert
met
shall find
The All
but during the night
;
is mere activity of inoccupation. by the temperature of the climate, and partly consequent on the decaying prosperity of the nation, leaves indications of its influence on all his under-
he
all
is
activity, but
it
Idleness, partly induced
takings.
He
prefers
patching up
a
ruin
to
building
a
and hovels, the abodes of inactive, vegetating, brutish poverty, under the protection of aged and ruined, yet stalwart, arches of the Roman amphitheater and the habitations of the lower orders frequently present traces of ornament and stability of material evidently belonging to the remains of a prouder edifice. This is the case sometimes to such a degree as, in another country, would be disagreeable from its impropriety but, in Italy, it corresponds with the general prominence of the features Thus, the eye rests of a past age, and is always beautiful. with delight on the broken moldings of the windows, and house
;
he raises shops
;
;
the sculptured capitals of the corner columns, contrasted, as
they are, the one with the glassless blackness within, the other with the ragged and dirty confusion of drapery around.
The
Italian window, in general,
is
a
mere hole in the thick
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
20
wall, always well proportioned; occasionally arched at the top,
sometimes with the addition of a
little
rich ornament:
seldom, if ever, having any casement or glass, but
with any bit of striped or colored cloth, which
filled
up
may have
the slightest chance of deceiving the distant observer into the belief that
it is
a legitimate blind.
This keeps
off the sun,
which is the gTeat object. When it is absent, the window becomes a mere black hole, having much the same relation to a glazed window that the
and allows a free circulation of
air,
hollow of a skull has to a bright eye
;
not unexpressive, but
frowning and ghastly, and giving a disagreeable impression of utter emptiness and desolation within. Yet there is character in them: the black dots tell agreeably on the walls at a distance, and have no disagreeable sparkle to disturb the repose of surrounding scenery. Besides, the temperature renders everything agreeable to the eye, which gives it an idea of ventilation. A few roughly constructed balconies, projecting from detached windows, usually break the uniformity of the wall. In some Italian cottages there are wooden galleries, resembling those so frequently seen in '
Switzerland
;
but this
is
not a very general character, except
mountain valleys of Xortli Italy, although sometimes a passage is effected from one projecting portion of a house to another by means of an exterior galler3% These are very delightful objects and when shaded by luxuriant vines, which is frequently the case, impart a gracefulness to the in the
;
building otherwise unattainable. 30.
The next
the building.
striking point
This
is
is
the arcade at the base of
general in cities
;
and, although fre-
quently wanting to the cottage, is present often enough to render it an important feature. In fact, the Italian cottage is usually found in groups. Isolated buildings are rare and the arcade affords an agreeable, if not necessary, shade, in passing from one building to another. It is a still more unfailing feature of the Swiss city, where it is useful in deep snow. But the supports of the arches in Switzerland are
generally square masses of wall, varying in size, separating
'
m
i^^V-
^-f ;:^"
,/
".
•'*-.'^,
%m0'i»^ .
^"4^f^ "g^?*.'^ •^^.J''^--^ 4i<^«.
'^^
iiifirSt
/
;
THE LOWI.AXD O^TTAGE the arches by irregular intervals,
massj buttresses
21
ITALY.
and sustained bv broad and
while in Italy, the arches generally rest on
;
from one and
legitimate columns, varying in height
a half to
four diameters, with huge capitals, not unfrequently rich in
These give great gracefulness
detail.
to
the buildings in
groups: they will be spoken of more at large
when we
arc
treating of arrangement and situation.
The square tower,
31.
to
rising over the roof of the farther
will not escape observation.
It has been allowed remain, not because such elevated buildings ever belong to
cottage,
mere
cottages, but, first, that the truth of the scene
not be destroyed;* and, secondly, because or nearly
is
it
might
impossible,
obtain a group of buildings of any sort, in
so, to
Italy, without one or
more such
objects rising behind them,
beautifully contributing to destroy the monotony, and contrast with the horizontal lines of the flat roofs
We
walls. relief
we
think
it
and contrast which, in
reality, it possessed,
are at present speaking of 32.
and square
right, therefore, to give the cottage the
it
even though
in the abstract.
Having now reviewed the distinctive parts of the we shall proceed to direct our atten-
Italian cottage in detail,
tion to points of general character.
The
roof, being flat, allows of
I.
Simplicity of form.
no projecting garret windows,
no fantastic gable ends the walls themselves are equally flat no bow-windows or sculptured oriels, such as we meet with perpetually in Germany, France, or the Xetherlands, vary :
their white fronts. *
The annexed
more
illustration will, perliaps,
The
intelligible.
unites in itself
markable
:
all
building,
which
is
make
is,
perhaps, the
the remarks advanced
close to the city
of Aosta,
the peculiarities for which the Italian cottage
is re-
the dark arcade, the sculptured capital, the vine-covered gal-
lery, the flat
we wish
Xo\v, this simplicity
and confused roof; and clearly exhibits the points
to
which
particularly to direct attention; namely, brightness of effect,
simplicity of form, and elevation of character.
however, that
sucli a
combination of attributes
Let is
it
not be supposed,
rare; on the contrary,
common to the greater part of the cottages of Italy. This building has not been selected as a rare example, but it is given as a good one. [These remarks refer to a cut in the magazine text, represented in the it is
illustrated edition
by
a photogravure from the original sketch.]
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTUEE.
22
principal attribute by which the Italian cottage attains the
we
elevation of character
desired and expected.
All that
is
fantastic in form, or frivolous in detail, annihilates the aristocratic air of a building:
and
size,
it
at once destroys its sublimity
besides awakening, as
is
almost always the case,
mean and low character. we think of cock-lofts the
The moment we we observe
associations of a see a gable roof, a projecting
;
window, of
attics
instant
and tent-bedsteads.
Italian cottage assumes, with the simplicity,
buildings of a higher order; and, though
avoids
it
!N^ow, the
Vair nohle of all ridicu-
mimicry of the palace, it discards the humbler attributes of the cottage. The ornament it assumes is dignified no grinning faces, or unmeaning notched planks, but lous miniature
;
well-proportioned arches, or tastefully sculptured columns.
While there
is
nothing about
it
unsuited to the humility of
which harmonizes beautifully with the nobility of the neighboring edifices, or the glory of the surrounding scenery. 33. 11. Brightness of effect. There are no weather stains on the walls there is no dampness in air or earth, by which they could be induced the heat of the sun scorches away all lichens, and mosses and moldy vegetation. jSTo thatch or stone crop on the roof unites the building with surrounding vegetation all is clear, and warm, and sharp on the eye the its
inhabitant, there
is
a general dignity in its air,
:
;
;
more
;
distant the building, the
comes,
till
more generally bright
be-
the distant village sparkles out of the orange copse,
or the cypress grove, with so
much
might be must be re-
distinctness as
thought in some degree objectionable.
membered
it
But
it
that the prevailing color of the Italian landscape
the olive, which forms a great proportion of the vegetation, is not green, but gray the cypress and its varieties, dark and neutral, and the laurel and myrtle far from bright. Now, white, which is intolerable with green, is agreeably contrasted with blue and is
blue
;
sky, hills, water, are equally azure
:
;
;
must be ascribed that the white of the Italian building is not found startling and disagreeable in the landThat it is not, we believe, will be generally allowed. scape. to this cause it
THE LOWLAND COTTAGE 34. selves
We
III. Elegance of feeling.
23
ITALY.
never can prevent our-
from imagining that we perceive in the graceful
gence of the Italian cottage, the evidence of a taste
negli-
among
the
lower orders refined by the glory of their land, and the beauty We have always had strong faith in the of its remains. influence of climate on the mind, discuss the subject at length
and
feel strongly
tempted to
but our paper has already ex-
;
ceeded its proposed limits, and we must content our^iiflves with remarking what will not, we think, be disputed, that the eye, by constantly resting either on natural scenery of noble tone and character, or on the architectural remains of classical beauty,
tastefully
;
must contract
a
habit of feeling correctly and
the influence of which,
we
think,
is
seen in the
most modern and the most humble. Dilapidation. We have just used the term 35. Lastly, " graceful negligence " whether it be graceful, or not, is a matter of taste but the uncomfortable and ruinous disorder and dilapidation of the Italian cottage is one of observation. The splendor of the climate requires nothing more than shade from the sun, and occasionally shelter from a violent storm: the outer arcade affords them both it becomes the nightly lounge and daily dormitory of its inhabitant, and the interior Indolence watches the tooth is abandoned to filth and decay. Religion, or of Time with careless eye and nerveless hand. style of edifices the
:
;
;
its
abuse, reduces every individual of the population to utter
inactivity three days out of the seven
;
and the habits formed
Abject poverty takes away
in the three regulate the four.
the power, while brutish sloth weakens the will filthy habits of the Italian
;
and the
prevent him from suffering from
the state to which he is reduced.
The
shattered roofs, the
dark, confused, ragged windows, the obscure chambers, the tattered and dirty draperies, altogether present a picture is sometimes revolting to the eye, always mind. Yet even this many would not wish
which, seen too near,
melancholy
to the
to be otherwise. is
The prosperity
of nations, as of individuals,
cold and hard-hearted, and forgetful.
deed, trampled
down by
The dead
die, in-
the crowd of the living; the place
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
24 thereof shall
know them no more,
for that place
is
not in the
hearts of the survivors for whose interests they have
Bnt adversity and rnin point
way, it is
made
to the sepulcher,
not trodden on; to the chronicle, and
it
and
doth not decay.
Who
would substitute the rush of a new nation, the struggle dreamy sleep of Italy's desolation, for her sweet silence of melancholy thought, her twilight time of everlasting memories ?
of an awakening power, for the
36.
Such,
we
think, are the principal distinctive attributes
Let it not be thought that we are wasting time in the contemplation of its beauties; even though they are of a kind which the architect can never of the Italian cottage.
no command over time, and no choice and which he ought not to imitate, if he could,
imitate, because he has
of situation
;
because they are only locally desirable or admirable. object, let
it
always be remembered,
is
architectural data, but the formation of taste. Oct. 12,
1837
Our
not the attainment of
;:
III.
THE MOUXTAIX COTTAGE— S^YITZERL AND. 37.
Ix
the three instances of the lowland cottage
which
have been already considered, are inclnded the chief peculI have iarities of style which are interesting or important. not,
it is
true,
spoken of the carved oaken gable and shadowy
of the black crossed rafters and which delight the eyes of the German nor of the Moorish arches and confused galleries which mingle so magnificently with the inimitable fretwork of the gray But these are not peculiarities temples of the Spaniai-d. solely belonging to the cottage: they are found in buildings of a higher order, and seldom, unless where they are com-
roof of the Xornian village
;
fantastic proportions
They are therefore rather to be bined with other features. considered, in future, as elements of street effect, than, now, as the peculiarities of independent buildings.
My
remarks
on the Italian cottage might, indeed, be applied, were
it
not
for the constant presence of Moorish feeling, to that of Spain. The architecture of the two nations is intimately connected modified, in Italy, by the taste of the Roman; and, in Spain, by the fanciful creations of the Moor. When I am considering the fortress and the palace,* I shall be compelled to devote a very large share of my attention to Spain; but for characteristic examples of the cottage, I turn rather to Switzerland and England. Preparatory, therefore, to a few general remarks on modern ornamental cottages, it will be instructive to observe the peculiarities of two varieties of the mountain [*
zine
part, however, was not written, as the " Architectural ^lagastopped running soon after the conclusion of Part II. " The Villa."]
That ''
25
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTUKE.
26
cottage, diametrically opposite to each other in
most of their
features; one always beautiful, and the other frequently
so.
Well do I remember the thrilling and exquisite moment when first, first in my life (which had not been over long), I encountered, in a calm and shadowy dingle, darkened with the thick spreading of tall pines, and voiceful with the singing of a rock-encumbered stream, and passing up towards the flank of a smooth green mountain, whose swarded summit shone in the summer snow like an emerald set in silver; when, I say, I first encountered in this calm defile of the Jura, the unobtrusive, yet beautiful, 38. First, for Helvetia.
front of the Swiss cottage.
I thought
had ever had the
it
the loveliest piece of
contemplating yet nothing but a few mossy fir trunks, loosely nailed together, with one or two gray stones on the architecture I it
was nothing in
felicity of
;
itself,
power was the power of association; its beauty, and humility. How different is this from what modern architects when they attempt to produce what is, by courtesy,
roof: but
its
that of fitness 39. erect,
called
a
Swiss cottage.
Britain by that
name
The modern building known
in
has very long chimneys, covered with
various exceedingly ingenious devices for the convenient reception and hospitable entertainment of soot, supposed by the innocent and deluded proprietor to be " meant for ornament."
an acute angle, and terminates in an and romantic manner, at each extremity, in a Its walls are very precisely and prettily plastooth-pick. tered and it is rendered quite complete by the addition of two neat little bow windows, supported on neat little mahogany brackets, full of neat little squares of red and yellow glass. Its door is approached under a neat little veranda, " imcommon green," and is flanked on each side by a neat little round table, with all its legs of different lengths, and by a variety of neat little wooden chairs, all very peculiarly uncomfortable, and amazingly full of earwigs: the whole being surrounded by a garden full of flints, burnt bricks and cinders, with some water in the middle, and a fountain in the middle of it, which Its gable roof slopes at
interesting
;
;
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE
SWITZERLAND.
2Y
accompanied by some goldfish, which won't swim and by two or three ducks, which will splash. Xow, I am excessively sorry to inform the members of any respectable won't plav
;
;
English family, who are making themselves uncomfortable in one of these ingenious conceptions, under the idea that they are living in a Swiss cottage, that they labor under a melan-
choly deception; and shall
now proceed
to investigate the
peculiarities of the real building.
The
of a Swiss peasant
is divided into two periods watching his cattle at their summer pasture on the high Alps,* and that in which he seeks shelter from the violence of the winter storms in the most retired parts of the low valleys. During the first period, he requires
40.
life
that in which he
is
only occasional shelter from storms of excessive violence;
during the
latter, a sufficient protection
clement weather. is a
The Alpine
or
from continued
summer
in-
cottage, therefore,
rude log hut, formed of unsquared pine trunks, notched
The roof being excessively no surface to the wind, is covered with
into each other at the corners. so as to offer
flat,
fragments of any stone that will split easily, held on by crossing logs which are in their turn kept down by masses of ;
stpne
;
the whole being generally sheltered behind
some pro-
tecting rock, or resting against the slope of the mountain, so
from one
that,
the chalet.
side,
When
you may
step
upon the
roof.
That
is
well grouped, running along a slope of
mountain side, these huts produce a very pleasing effect, being never obtrusive (owing to the prevailing grayness of their tone), uniting well with surrounding objects, bestowing at once animation and character.
41.
and
But the winter residence, the Swiss cottage, properly much more elaborate piece of workmanship.
so-called is a
The principal
requisite
is,
of course, strength
always observable in the large
:
and
size of the timbers,
this is
and the
ingenious manner in which they are joined, so as to support
and
relieve each other,
* I use the word Alp
mountain pasture
;
liere,
not in
its
when any
of
them are severely
tried.
and ia future, iu its proper sense, of a high secondary sense, of a snowy peak.
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUEE.
28
generally meeting at an angle of 155°, and projecting from 5 ft. to 7 ft. over the cottage side,
The
roof
is
always very
flat,
order to prevent the windows from being thoroughly That this projection may not be clogged up with snow. in
Fig.
3-
Swiss Cottage.
1837.
crushed down by the enormous weight of snow which it must sometimes sustain, it is assisted by strong wooden supports (seen in Fig. 3), which sometimes extend half down the walls for the sake of strength, divide the side into regular
compartments, and are rendered ornamental by grotesque
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE carving.
with
its
SWITZERLAND.
29
Every canton has its own window. That of Uri, diamond wood-work at the bottom, is, perhaps, one
The galleries are generally (See Fig. 4.) rendered ornamental by a great deal of labor bestowed npon
of the richest.
Fig.
4.
Cottage near Altorf.
1835.
This is best executed in the canton of always six or seven feet from the ground, and occasionally much more, that it may be accessible in snow and is reached by an oblique gallery, leading up to a The base of the horizontal one, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4. their wood-work.
Berne.
;
The door
is
;
THE POETRY OF ABCHITECTUKE.
30 cottage
is
formed of
stone, generally
whitewashed.
neys must have a chapter to themselves
;
The chim-
they are splendid
examples of utility combined with ornament.
Such are the chief
characteristics of the
separately considered.
I
Swiss cottage,
must now take notice of
its effect
in scenery. 42. When one has been wandering for a whole morning through a valley of perfect silence, where everything around, which is motionless, is colossal, and everything which has
where the strength and the glory of nature upon and where, in the midst of mightiness which
motion, resistless
;
are principally developed in the very forces which feed
her majesty seems imperishable, ;
of desolation; one
that
all
indeed eternal
is
is
the influence
apt to be surprised, and by no means
is
agreeably, to find, crouched behind some projecting rock, a piece of architecture
which
is
weak
the midst of wildness,
neat in the extreme, though in in the midst of strength, con-
There
temptible in the midst of immensity. offensive in its neatness fectly clean,
and looks
quently raw in
This
:
for the
is
is
something
almost always per-
it is conseit had just been cut and destitute of all variety of tone.
as if
its color,
;
when
especially disagreeable,
is
wood
the eye has been pre-
and finds, everywhere around, the exquisite mingling of color, and confused, though perpetually graceful, forms, by which the details of mountain scenery are peculiarly distinguished. Every fragment of rock is finished in its effect, tinted with thousands of pale lichens and fresh mosses every pine tree is warm with the life of various vegetation; every grassy bank glowing with mellowed color, and waving with delicate leafage. How, then, can the contrast be otherwise than painful, between this perfect loveliness, and viously accustomed
to,
;
the dead, raw, lifeless surface of the deal boards of the cottage.
Its
weakness
is pitiable
;
for,
though there
is
always
evidence of considerable strength on close examination, there is
no
effect of strength
:
the real thickness of the logs is con-
cealed by the cutting and carving of their exposed surfaces
and even what
is
seen
is felt to
be so utterly contemptible,
when opposed
to the destructive forces
which are in operation at the imagined audac-
around, that the feelings are irritated ity of the inanimate object, with the self-conceit of tence; and, finally, the eye
is
31
SWITZERLAND.
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE
offended at
its
its
impo-
want of
size.
might be at first supposed, enhance the sublimsurrounding scenery by its littleness, for it provokes no comparison and there must be proportion between objects, If the Parthenon, or the or they cannot be compared. Pyramid of Cheops, or St. Peter's, were placed in the same It does not, as
ity of
;
mind would
situation, the
first
form
a just estimate of the
magnificence of the building, and then be trebly impressed
with the
size
of the masses which overwhelmed
The
it.
and the crags would gain, by the juxtaposition but the cottage, which must be felt to be a thing which the weakest stream of the Alps could toss down
would not
architecture
lose,
;
before
it
like a foam-globe, is offensively contemptible: it is
like a child's toy let fall accidentally
not unite with the scene
it is
;
on the hillside;
does
and personify humility and peace but it draws attenupon itself by its pretension to decoration, while its
corner,
tion
it
not content to sink into a quiet ;
decorations themselves cannot bear examination, because they are useless, 43.
unmeaning and incongruous.
So much for
upon them, the biased in
its
Now
its
faults;
rather, because I
favor by
my
and I have had no mercy
am
always afraid of being
excessive love for
its
sweet nation-
Wherever it is found, it always ality. ideas gentle, pure, and pastoral life.* One suggests of a hands carved the planks so feels that the peasants whose industriously, and still neatly, and adorned their cottage so drunken, preserve it so perfectly, and so neatly, can be no dull, lazy boors
;
for
one
its
beauties.
feels, also, that it requires
both firm resolution,
maintain so successful a struggle against " the crush of thunder, and the warring winds." Sweet ideas float over the imagination of such passages of
and determined industry,
to
life as the gentle Walton so loved; of the full milkand the mantling cream-bowl of the evening dance and
peasant pail, [*
;
Compare Modern
Painters, vol. iv. chap,
xi,
and
vol. v. chap, ix.]
32
TIIK
the matin song
of the herdsmen on the Alps, of the maidens
;
of all that is peculiarly and indisputably For the cottage is beautifully national there is nothbe found the least like it in any other country. The
by the fountain Swiss,
ing to
POETKV OF ARCHITECTURE.
;
;
moment
a
glimpse
knows that
it
is
caught of
is
its
projecting galleries, one
the land of Tell and Winkelried
traveler feels, that, M'ere he indeed Swiss-born a bit of that
would be
and the and Alp-bred, ;
carved plank, meeting his eye in a foreig-n land,
as effectual as a note of the
Banz des
upon
Vaclies
the ear. 44.
Again, when
a
together, they break
number
of these cottages are grouped
upon each
other's formality, and
form
window and
over-
a mass of fantastic proportion, of carved
hanging
roof,
An
treme.
full of character
excellent
of TJnterseen. rate, yet
example of
and picturesque in the
Again, when the ornament
enough
to preserve the character,
old,
and not very well kept (suppose in
and
a little rotten, the effect is beautiful
ex-
Bernese village not very elaljo-
this is the is
and the cottage
is
a Catholic canton),
the timber becomes and of a fine Avarm brown, harmonizing delightfully with the gray stones on the roof, and the dark green of surrounding pines. If it be fortunate enough to be situated in some quiet glen, out of sight of the gigantic features of the scene, and surrounded with cliffs to which it bears some proportion and if it be partially concealed, not intruding on the eye, but well united with everything around, it becomes altogether perfect; humble, beautiful, and interesting. Perhaps no cottage can then be found to equal it and none can be more finished in effect, graceful in detail, and :
weather-stained,
;
;
characteristic as a whole. 45.
The ornaments employed in the decoration of demand much attention they
Swiss cottage do not
;
the are
usually formed in a most simple manner, by thin laths,
which are carved into any fanciful form, or in which rows and they are of holes are cut, generally diamond shaped then nailed one above another to give the carving depth. Pinnacles are never raised on the roof, though carved spikes ;
^?wisN
Chalet Balcony,
1842.
THE MOUXTAIA'^ COTTAGE are occasionally suspended from
mental work
The
33
Xo
at the angles.
orna-
ever employed to disgaiise the beams of the
is
nor does any run along
projecting part of the roof, edges.
it
SWITZERLAND.
its
canton of Uri, are occasionally 4, which have
galleries, in the
supported on arched beams, as shoMTi in Fig. a very pleasing effect.
46.
Of
the
adaptation of the building to
When
character, little can be said.
I called
it
climate ''
and
national,"
I meant only that it was quite sui generis, and, therefore, being only found in Switzerland, might be considered as a national building; though it has none of the mysterious
connection with the
mind
of
its
inhabitants which
But there
in all really fine edifices.
is
is
evident
a reason for this;
Switzerland has no climate, properly speaking, but an assemblage of every climate, from Italy to the Pole the vine The Swiss wild in its valleys, the ice eternal on its crags. themselves are what we might have expected in persons ;
dwelling in such a climate
;
The
they have no character.
sluggish nature of the air of the valleys has a malignant
operation on the mind; and even the mountaineers, though generally shrewd and intellectual, have no perceptible nationality they have no language, except a mixture of Italian and bad German they have no peculiar turn of mind they :
;
;
mielit be taken as easilv for
correspondence,
consequently,
Germans
as for Swiss.
can exist
Xo
between national
architecture and national character, where the latter
is
not
Generally speaking, then, the Swiss cottage
distinguishable.
cannot be said to be built in good taste
;
but
it is
occasionally
picturesque, frequently pleasing, and, under a favorable conIt is not, however, a currence of circumstances, beautiful. thing to be imitated it is always, when out of its own coun;
never harmonizes with anything around therefore be employed only in mimicry of what and can it, improvement of what does. I mean, exist, not in does not has on his estate a dingle shaded with who that any one stream, may manufacture a bit rapid pines, with larches or a try,
incongruous
;
it
of Switzerland as a toy 3
;
but such imitations are always
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTTJEE.
34
contemptible, and he cannot use the Swiss cottage in any other modified form of it, however, as will be hereafter way.
A
shown,
may be employed with
paper, to derive
more
advantage.
satisfaction
I hope, in
my next
from the contemplation of
the mountain cottage of Westmoreland, than I have been able to obtain
from that of the Swiss.
;
IV.
THE MOUi^TAIE' COTTAGE—WE STMOKEL AND. 47.
When
I devoted so
much time
to tlie consideration
of the peculiarities of the Swiss cottage, I did not previously
endeavor to ascertain feelings excited
induced
the
vt'hat
influenced by the
mind,
by the nature of
its
situation,
to expect, or disposed to admire.
from the general rule which I hope
would be
I thus deviated
to be able to follow out
but I did so only because the subject for consideration was incapable of fulfilling the expectation
when
excited, or cor-
responding with the conception when formed.
But now, in
order to appreciate the beauty of the Westmoreland cottage, it
will be necessary to fix
with which
One
it
may
excellence,
of the principal charms of mountain scenery
solitude.
ISTow,
as
just
without motion, solitude
Even
tige of life.
in
upon a standard of
be compared.
some
slight
silence is
its
is
never perfect or deep
is
never perfect without some ves-
desolation
is
not felt to be utter, unless
degree interrupted
unless
:
the
cricket
is
chirping on the lonely hearth, or the vulture soaring over the field of corpses, or the one
mourner lamenting over the
red ruins of the devastated village, that devastation felt to
The anathema
be complete.
is
not
of the prophet does not
wholly leave the curse of loneliness upon the mighty city, And, until he tells us that " the satyr shall dance there." if desolation, its
which
is
the destruction of
life,
cannot leave
impression perfect without some interruption,
can solitude, which out some contrast. perfect as
when
a
is
only the absence of
life,
much
less
be felt with-
Accordingly, it is, perhaps, never so populous and highly cultivated plain,
35
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
36
immediately beneath,
is
visible
through the rugged ravines,
summits of some
or over the cloudy
tall, vast,
and voiceless
mountain. 48.
When
such a prospect
not attainable, one of the
is
chief uses of the mountain cottage, paradoxical as the idea
may it
appear,
is to
it is
necessary that
l^resence should
it
it
it is
as
seen at a considerable distance,
should be visible,
or, at least, that its
be indicated, over a considerable portion
of surrounding space.
shaded by
Xow,
increase this sense of solitude.
when
will only do so
must
It
trees, or itvwill
not, therefore, be too
be useless; but
if,
be too conspicuous on the open hillside,
much
on the contrary, it
will be liable
to most of the objections Avhich were advanced against the
Swiss cottage, and to another, which was not then noticed. Anything which, to the eye, is split into parts, appears less as a whole than what is undivided. Xow, a considerable mass, of whatever tone or color divisible
by dots
as
by
lines
;
it
that
may is,
consist, is as easily a
conspicuous point,
on any part of its" surface, will divide it into two portions, each of which will be individually measured by the eye, but which will never make the impression which they would have made, had their unity not been interrujited. A conspicuous cottage on a distant mountain side has this effect in a fatal degi'ee, and is, therefore, always intolerable. 49. It should accordingly, in order to reconcile the attain-
ment of visible
:
the good, with the avoidance of the evil, be barely it
should not
should on the
mind
;
tell as
for be
a cottage on the eye, though it
observed that,
if it is
it
only by
we can ascertain it to be a answer the purpose of increasing the solitude quite as well as if it were evidently so because this impression is produced by its appeal to the thoughts, not by its effect on the eye. Its color, therefore, should be as nearly as possible that of the hill on which, or the the closest investigation that
human
habitation,
it
will
;
crag beneath which,
it
is
placed
;
its
form, one that will
incorporate well with the ground, and approach that of a large stone more than of anything else. The color will conse-
; :
WESTMORELAND.
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE
37
quentlv, if this rule be followed, be subdued and grayish,
but rather Avarm; and the form simple, graceful, and unThe building should retain the same general pretending. character on
a
closer
Everything about
examination.
should be natural, and should appear as
if
it
the influences
and forces which were in operation around it had been too strong to be resisted, and had rendered all efforts of art to check their power, or conceal the evidence of their action,
an alien child of the mountains; but it must show that it has been adopted and This effect is only attainable by great cherished by them. ease of outline and variety of color; peculiarities which, as will be presently seen, the Westmoreland cottage possesses in a supereminent degree. 50. Another feeling, with which one is impressed during I found fault with the a mountain ramble, is humility. insignificance of the Swiss cottage, because " it was not content to sink into a quiet corner, and personify humility." Now, had it not been seen to be pretending, it would not have been felt to be insignificant for the feelings would have been gratified with its submission to, and retirement from, the majesty of the destructive influences which it Such prerather seemed to rise up against in mockery. tension is especially to be avoided in the mountain cottage it can never lie too humbly in the pastures of the valley, nor shrink too submissively into the hollows of the hills it should seem to be asking the storm for mercy, and the mountain for protection and should appear to owe to its weakness, rather than to its strength, that it is neither overwhelmed by the one, nor crushed by the other. 51. Such are the chief attributes, without which a mounentirely unavailing.
It cannot but be
;
:
tain cottage cannot be said to be beautiful. others,
It
may
possess
which are desirable or objectionable, according
their situation,
or
other
accidental
to
The
circumstances.
nature of these will be best understood by examining an individual building. easily
attainable
The material
is,
of course, what
and available without much
is
labor.
most
The
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
38
Cumberland and Westmoreland
hills
are,
in general, com-
posed of clay-slate and gray-wacke, with occasional masses of chert* (like that which forms the
porphyritic greenstone, and syenite.
summit of Scawfell), The chert decomposes
deeply, and assumes a rough brown granular surface, deeply worn and furrowed. The clay-slate or gray-wacke, as it is shattered by frost, and carried down by torrents, of course forms itself into irregular flattish masses. The splintery edges of these are in some degree worn off by the action of
water; and, slight decomposition taking place on the surface of the clay-slate, furnishes an aluminous soil, which is im-
mediately taken advantage of by innumerable lichens, which
change the dark gray of the original substance into an inof pale and warm colors. These stones, thus shaped to his hand, are the most convenient building materials the peasant can obtain.f He lays his foundation and strengthens his angles with large masses, filling up the intervals with pieces of a more moderate size and using here and finite variety
;
cement
bind the whole together, and to keep the wind from getting through the interstices; but never there a
little
enough
to
to
them altogether up, or to render the face of the At intervals .of from 4 ft. to 6 ft. a horizontal and broad fragments is introduced projecting from the wall. Whether this is supposed to give
fill
wall smooth. line of flat
about a foot strength, I
know
not
;
but as it is invariably covered by luxualways a delightful object.
riant stonecrop,
it
is
The door
is
flanked and roofed by three large oblong
52.
whose form seems not to be considered Those which form the cheeks of the windows are generally selected with more care from the debris of some rock, which is naturally smooth and sheets of gray rock,
of the slightest consequence.
polished, after being subjected to the weather, such as granite
or
syenite.
The window
itself
is
narrow and deep
set
in the better sort of cottages, latticed, but with no affecta[*
That
[t
Compare the treatment
iv.,
is
to 8ay, a flinty volcanic asli.]
chaps, viii.-x.]
of a similar
theme
in
Modern Painters,
vol.
;:
WESTMOKELA K D.
THE MOUNTAIJN^ COTTAGE tion of sweetbrier or eglantine
about
it.
may
It
served of the whole of the cottage, that, though
nothing
tiful,
is
pretty.
The roof
is
rather
flat,
39 be ob-
all is
beau-
and covered
with heavy fragments of the stone of which the walls are built, originally very loose but generally cemented by accu;
mulated
and bound together by houseleek, moss, and brilliant in color, and singular in abundance.
soil,
stonecrop
:
The form
of the larger cottages, being frequently that of
would hurt the eye by the sharp angles of the roof, were it not for the cushion-like vegetation with which they Varieties of the fern someare rounded and concealed. times relieve the massy forms of the stonecrop, with their Windows in the roof are seldom light and delicate leafage. with. the chimney met Of I shall speak hereafter. prevailing peculiarities of the West53. Such are the moreland cottage. " Is this all ? " some one will exclaim " a hovel, built of what first comes to hand, and in the most simple and convenient form; not one thought of architec" Even so tural beauty ever coming into the builder's head to this illustration of an excellent rule, I wished particularly to direct attention that the material which IsTature furnishes, in any given country, and the form which she suggests, will always render the building the most beautiful, because the most appropriate. Observe how perfectly this cottage fulfills the conditions which were before ascertained to be necesIts color is that of the ground on which sary to perfection. it stands, always subdued and gray, but exquisitely rich, the color being disposed crnmblingly, in groups of shadowy a cross,
!
:
spots
a
;
deep red brown, passing into black, being finely con-
and whose name I do not know all mingling with each other as on a native rock, and Avith the same beautiful effect the mass, consequently, at a
trasted with the pale yellow of the Lichen geographicus,
the subdued white of another lichen, ;
:
distance, tells only as a large stone would, the simplicity of
form contributing still farther to render it inconspicuous. placed on a mountain-side such a cottage will become point of interest, which will relieve its monotony, but will
its
When a
40
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTURE.
never cut the
hill in
two, or take
awaj from
its size.
In the
valley, the color of these cottages agrees with everything
:
the
which trembles through the leafage of the taller trees, falls with exquisite effect on the rich gray of the ancient roofs: the deep pool of clear water is not startled from its peace by their reflection; the ivy, or the creepers to which the superior wealth of the peasant of the valley does now and green
light,
then pretend, in opposition to the general custom, cling grace-
and easily to its innumerable crevices and rock, lake, and meadow seem to hail it with a brotherly affection, as if l^ature had taken as much pains with it as she has with them. There is not 54. Again, observe its ease of outline. a single straight line to be met with from foundation to The form of every stone roof; all is bending or broken. in its walls is a study; for, owing to the infinite delicacy fully
;
of structure in all minerals, a piece of stone 3 in, in diameter,
irregularly fractured, and a
little
worn by
the weather,
has precisely the same character of outline which we should find and admire in a mountain of the same material 6000 * and, therefore, the eye, though not feeling the ft, high ;
on every cranny, and crack, and fissure with we have no idea that every small projection, if of chert, has such an outline as Scawfell's if
cause, rests delight.
It is true that
;
of gray-wacke, as Skiddaw's; or
if
of slate, as Helvellyn's;
but their combinations of form are, nevertheless, felt to be exquisite, and we dwell upon every bend of the rough roof
and every hollow of the loose wall, feeling it to be a design which no architect on earth could ever equal, sculptured by a chisel of unimaginable delicacy, and finished to a degree of perfection, which is unnoticed only because it is everywhere, This ease and irregularity is peculiarly delightful 55. where gracefulness and freedom of outline and detail are, as they always are in mountain countries, the chief characteristics of every scene. It is well that, where every plant
is
wild and every torrent
free,
every
field irregular
in its form, every knoll various in its outline, one is not [*
Compare Modern
Painters, vol. iv. chap. 18, § 7.
;:
THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE startled
WESTMORELAND.
by well built walls, or unyielding
roofs,
41 but
is
permitted to trace in the stones of the peasant's dwelling, as in the crags of the mountain side, no evidence of the line or the mallet, but the operation of eternal influences,
presence
the
of
connected with
its
an
Almighty hand.
ease of outline
Another perfection severity of character
is, its
there is no foppery about it not the slightest effort any kind of ornament, but what nature chooses to bestow
at
;
;
it
wears all its decorations wildly, covering its nakedness, not with what the peasant may plant, but with what the winds may bring. There is no gay color or neatness about it no green shutters or other abomination all is calm and quiet, ;
:
and
severe, as the
somber.
It
is
mind
of a philosopher, and, withal, a
evidently old, and has stood
many
little
trials in
its
and the snow, and the tempest, and the torrent have all spared it, and left it in its peace, with its gray head unbowed, and its early strength unbroken, even though the spirit of decay seems creeping, like the moss and the lichen, through the darkness of its crannies. This venerable and slightly melancholy character is the very soul of all its beauty. 56. There remains only one point to be noticed, its humilThis was before stated to be desirable, and it will here ity. The building draws as little attenbe found in perfection. tion upon itself as possible since, with all the praise I have bestowed upon it, it possesses not one point of beauty in which it is not equaled or excelled by every stone at the side of the road. It is small in size, simple in form, subdued in tone, easily concealed or overshadowed often actually so and one is always delighted and surprised to find that what
day
;
;
;
courts attention so
Yet
little is
capable of sustaining
has no appearance of weakness
it
so well.
though and one ceases to fear for its sake the violence of surrounding agencies, which, it may be seen, will be partly deprecated by its humility. 57. Such is the mountain cottage of Westmoreland and such, with occasional varieties, are many of the mountain cottages of England and Wales. It is true that my memory it
rudely, built
:
it is
stoutly,
;
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
42 rests
with peculiar pleasure in a certain quiet valley near little known to the general tourist, distant from
Kirkstone,
any public track, and, therefore, free from all the liorrors of improvement ^' in which it seemed to me that the architecture of the cottage had attained a peculiar degree of :
But I think
perfection.
that this impression
was rather
produced by a few seemingly insignificant accompanying circumstances, than by any distinguished beaut}^ of design in the cottages themselves. Their inhabitants were evidently poor, and apparently had not repaired their dwellings
since
their
first
erection;
torn one tuft of moss or fern
and,
certainly,
from roofs
had never which
or walls,
were green with the rich vegetation of years. The valley was narrow, and quiet, and deep, and shaded by reverend trees, among whose trunks the gray cottages looked out, with a perfection of effect which I never remember to have seen equaled, though I believe that, in many of the mountain districts of Britain,
the peasant's domicile
is
erected with
equal good taste. 58. I have always rejoiced in the thought, that our native highland scenery, though, perhaps, wanting in sublimity, is
distinguished by a delicate finish in its details, and by a unanimity and propriety of feeling in the works of its inhabitants, which are elsewhere looked for in vain; and the
reason of this
The mind
evident.
is
the continent, in general,
tions than that of the islander. tions,
purer in
in its anger
;
but
It is higher in its aspira-
passions, wilder in
its
it is
of the inhabitant of
capable of deeper and finer sensa-
is
wanting
its
dreams, and fiercer
and in its simand incapable of
in gentleness,
plicity; naturally desirous of excitement,
experiencing, in equal degree, the calmer flow of ity, the stillness
human
felic-
of domestic peace, and the pleasures of the
humble hearth, consisting
in everyday duties performed,
everyday mercies received
;
of architecture, where the
we never have
mind is to be impressed or elevated, we never shall equal, them. It
equaled, and [*
and
consequently, in the higher walks
Troutbeck, sixty years since
?]
W!!!W'^^^^^^^^^^^
;
THE
MOUNTAi:^' COTTAGE
will be seen hereafter,
when we
WESTMORELAND.
43
leave the lowly valley for the
torn ravine, and the grassy knoll for the ribbed precipice, that, if the continental architects cannot adorn the pasture with the humble roof, they can crest the crag with eternal battlements * if they cannot minister to a landscape's peace, they can add to its terror; and it has been already seen, that, ;
where high and was to be excited, or majesty bestowed, the architect was successful, and his labor was jierfect: but, now, nothing is required but humility and gentleness; and this, which he does not feel, he cannot give it is contrary to the whole force of his in the lowland cottages of
France and
Italy,
refined feelings were to be induced, where melancholy
:
It is uneven at the time when the soul is most chastened and subdued for the epitaph on the grave is affected in its sen-
character, nay, even to the spirit of his religion. felt
;
timent, and the tombstone gaudily gilded, or wreathed with
vain flowers.
We
59.
cannot, then, be surprised at the effort at orna-
ment and other fancied architectural beauties, which injure the effect of the more peaceful mountain scenery abroad but
should
still less
we be
surprised at the perfect propriety
which prevails in the same kind of scenery at home for the error which is there induced by one mental deficiency, is here prevented by another. The uncultivated mountaineer of Cumberland has no taste, and no idea of what archihe ne^^er thinks of what is right, or what tecture means is beautiful, but he builds what is most adapted to his purposes, and most easily erected: by suiting the building and, by to the uses of his own life, he gives it humility ;
;
;
raising
This
it
with the nearest material, adapts
is all
that
is
required,
the requirement, since the effect,
The
and he has no
moment he
it
to its situation.
credit in fulfilling
begins to think of
he commits a barbarism by whitewashing the whole.
cottages
of
Cumberland would
piece of improvement, were
it
suffer
much by
of mountain rains and mountain Avinds. [*
this
not for the salutary operation
This too refers to the unwritten sequel. 1
THE POETEY OF ARCHITECTURE.
44
So much for the hill dwellings of our own country. I think the examination of the five examples of the cottage which I have given have furnished all the general principles which are important or worthy of consideration and I shall therefore devote no more time to the contemplation 60.
;
But, before I leave the cottage
of individual buildings. altogether,
it
will be necessary to notice a part of the build-
ing which I have in the separate instances purposely avoided mentioning, that I might have the advantage of immediate
comparison; a part exceedingly important, and which seems to
have been essential
ever since the time gift of the sun
to the palace as well as to the cottage,
when Perdiccas
from
his
received his significazit
Macedonian master,
OS ^v Kara rrjv KairvoBoKrjv is tov oTkov
rjkioVi
irepLypdipa? to»
i(Te)(^u)v.*
And
then
I shall conclude the subject by a few general remarks on
modern ornamental
cottages, illustrative of the principle so
admirably developed in the beauty of the Westmoreland building; to which, it must be remembered, 'the palm
was assigned, in preference to the Switzer's not because was more labored, but because it was more natural. ;
Oxford, Jan., [*
it
1838.
Herodotus viii,
137, freely
quoted from memory.
The story was thtv The queen, who
three brothers took service with a kinglet in Macedonia.
herself, for it was in tlie good old times, noticed that the portion of Perdiccas, the youngest, alwaj'S " rose " three times as large
cooked their food
The king judged this to be an omen of the lad's coming to and dismissed them. They demanded their wages. "When the king heard talk about wages you must know the sun was sJdning into the house, down the chimney he said (for God had liardened his heart) There's your wage; all you deserve and all you'll get: and pointed to the sunThe elder brothers were dumfoundered when they heard that but shine. the lad, who happened to have his knife with him, said, We accept. King, the gift.' With his knife he made a scratch around the sunstreak on the as
any
other.
fortune
;
—
—
'
'
;
'
floor,
took the shine of
we
it
three times into the fold of his kirtle "
— "avd went
— his
way." Eventually he became king of Macedonia, and ancestcr of Alexander the Gvea*.] pocket,
should say nowadaj's
his
V.
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS. It appears from the passage in Herodotus, which we alluded to in the last paper, that there has been a time, even 61.
the
in
was
most civilized countries, when the king's palace
entirely unfurnished with anything having the slightest
pretension to the dignity of chimney tops; and the savory vapors which were wont to rise from the hospitable hearth, at
which the queen or princess prepared the feast with the
whitest of hands, escaped with indecorous facility through a
simple hole in the is
now
The dignity
flat roof.
better understood,
and
it is
of smoke, however,
dismissed through Gothic
pinnacles, and (as at Burleigh House) through Tuscan columns, with a most praiseworthy regard to its comfort and convenience. Let us consider if it is worth the trouble. 62. We advanced a position in the last paper, that silence
That is, unless something never perfect without motion. which might possibly produce sound is evident to the eye, the absence of sound is not surprising to the ear, and, there-
is
Let
fore, not impressive.
much
it
be observed, for instance,
the stillness of a summer's evening
how
enhanced by the perception of the gliding and majestic motion of some calm river, strong but still or of the high and purple clouds or To of the voiceless leaves, among the opening branches. produce this impression, however, the motion must be uniOne of the chief peculform, though not necessarily slow. iarities of the ocean thoroughfares of Venice, is the remarkable silence which rests upon them, enhanced as it is by the swift, but beautifully uniform motion of the gondola. Now, there is no motion more uniform, silent or beautiful 45 ;
is
;
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
46
than that of smoke
;
and, therefore,
stillness of a scene to
draw the attention to 63. In the cottage,
when we
be impressive,
it
is
Avish the peace or
highly useful to
it.
therefore, a building peculiarly adapted
for scenes of peace, the chimney, as conducting the eye to
what
is
agreeable,
well managed,
may
be considered as important, and,
But
a beautiful accompaniment.
Owing
of a higher class, smoke ceases to be interesting. to their general gTeater elevation,
it is
if
in buildings
relieved against the
sky, instead of against a dark background, thereby losing
the fine silvery blue,
—which
among
trees, or rising
—
out of
and assuming motion becomes useless for the idea of stillness is no longer desirable, or, at least, no longer attainable, being interrupted by the nature of the a distant country,
is so
exquisitely beautiful,
a dingy yellowish black
:
its
;
building itself: and, finally, the associations it arouses are not dignified we may think of a comfortable fireside, per;
haps, but are quite as likely to
and shoulders of mutton.
dream of
kitchens,
jSTone of these
and
spits,
imaginations are
in their place, if the character of the building be elevated;
they are barely tolerable in the dwelling house and the ISTow, when smoke is objectionable, it is certainly street. improper to direct attention to the chimney; and, therefore, for two weighty reasons, decorated chimneys, of any sort or size whatsoever, are inexcusable barbarisms; first, because,
where smoke is beautiful, decoration is unsuited to the and secondly, because, where smoke is ugly, decora-
building
;
tion directs attention to its ugliness. 64. It is unfortunately a prevailing idea with architects, that
what
is
some of our
a disagi-eeable object in itself
may
be relieved or concealed by lavish ornament and there never was a greater mistake. It should be a general principle, ;
that
what
is
intrinsically ugly should be utterly destitute of
ornament, that the eye
may
not be drawn to
it.
The
pre-
tended skulls of the three Magi at Cologne are set in gold, and have a diamond in each eye and are a thousand times more ghastly than if their brown bones had been left in ;
;
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS.
47
Such an error as tins ought never to be committed If any part of the building has disagree-
peace.
in architecture.
able associations connected with
ment
Keep
it.
it
let it
it,
alone: do not orna-
subdued, and simply adapted to
and the eye will not go
to
it,
nor quarrel with
it.
its
It
use
would
have been well if this principle had been kept in view in the renewal of some of the public buildings in Oxford. In All Souls College, for instance, the architect has carried his
chimneys half
as high as all the rest of the building,
them with Gothic.
fretted
The eye
is
and
instantly caught by
plated candlestick-like columns, and runs with some complacency up the groining and fret-work, and alights finally and fatally on a red chimney-top. He might as well have built a Gothic aisle at an entrance to a coal wharf. We have no scruple in saying that the man who could desecrate the Gothic trefoil into an ornament for a chimney has not the slightest feeling, and never will have any, of its beauty or its use he was never born to be an architect, and the
;
never will be one.
chimneys are not to be decorated (since their it becomes an object of some importance to know what is to be done with them and we enter into the inquiry before leaving the cottage, as in its most proper place because, in the cottage, and only in the 65. j^ow, if
existence
is
necessary),
:
;
cottage,
it is
desirable to direct attention to smoke.
Speculation, however, on
never
what
it
built,
unshackled
be
ought to
what
find that
it
it
be,
;
tiie
hcau ideal of a chimney can though we may imagine
because,
we can never
tell,
must be; we may require
will smoke, unless
until the house it
to
long; or,
it is
is
be short, and
we may
desire
and find it will not go unless it is open. We can fix, therefore, on no one model but by looking over the chimneys of a few nations, we may deduce some general principles from their varieties, which may always be brought it
to be covered,
;
into play,
may
by whatever circumstances our own imaginations
be confined.
66.
Looking
first
to
the
mind
of the people,
we cannot
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTTJEE.
48
expect to find good examples of the chimney, as
The
the south.
Italian or the Spaniard does not
we go to know the
use of a chimney, properly speaking; they have such things,
and they light a fire, five days in the year, chiefly of wood, which does not give smoke enough to teach the chimney its business; but they have not the slightest idea of the meaning or the beauty of such things as hobs, and hearths, and Christmas blazes; and we should, therefore, expect, a priori, that there would be no soul in their chimneys; that they would have no practiced substantial air about them; that they would, in short, be as awkward and as
much in the way, as individuals of the human race are, when they don't know what to do with themselves, or what But in England, sweet carbonaceous they were created for. England, we flatter ourselves we do know something about fire,
and smoke
too, or
our eyes have strangely deceived us;
and, from the whole comfortable character and fireside disposition of the nation, tecture
of
the
matter of taste
we should
conjecture that the archi-
chimney would be understood, both as a and as a matter of comfort, to the ne plus Let us see how far our expectations
ultra of perfection.
are realized. 67. Fig.
7,,
a, h
distinguishable,
a
do^\Tiright
unaffected,
we
and
are English chimneys.
serviceableness
decent,
from
of
appearance,
and chimney-like
contemplation of which edification,
c
think, at a glance,
particularly as
it
seems
a
They
by
substantial,
in
the
infinite pleasure
and
to
all
are
the rest,
deportment,
we experience
contrasted with an appearance, in
all
us to be strongly
the other chimneys,
of an indefinable something, only to be expressed by the interesting word " humbug." Fig. 7 a is a chimney of
Cumberland, and the north of Lancashire.
It
is,
as
may
be seen at a glance, only applicable at the extremity of the roof, and requires a bent flue. It is built of unhewn stones, in the
same manner
as the
Westmoreland cottages; the
flue
being not one-third the width of the chimney, as is seen at the top, where four flat stones placed on their edges itself
f'
K
;
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS.
49
flue itself, and give lightness of Cover this with a piece of paper, and observe how heavy and square the rest becomes. A few projecting stones continue the line of the roof across the center of the chimney, and two large masses support the projection of the whole, and unite it agreeably with the wall. This is exclusively a cottage chimney; it cannot, and must not, be built of civilized materials it must be rough, and mossy, and broken but it is decidedly the best chimney of the whole set. It is simple and substantial, without being cumbrous it gives great variety to the wall from which it projects, terminates the roof agreeably, and dismisses its smoke with infinite propriety. 68. Fig. Z) is a chimney common over the whole of the north of England being, as I think, one that will go well in almost any wind, and is applicable at any part of the roof. It is also roughly built, consisting of a roof of loose stones, sometimes one large flat slab, supported above the flue by
form the termination of the appearance
to the whole.
;
;
;
;
four large supports, each of a single stone. light in its appearance,
agreeably.
It is rather
and breaks the ridge of a roof very
Separately considered,
it is
badly proportioned
which a long chimney at the extremity of the building would rise above the roof (as in a), it is quite right in situ, and would be ungainly if it were higher. The upper part is always dark, owing to the smoke, and tells agreeably against any background seen
but, as it just equals the height to
through the hollow. 69. Fig. c is the chimney of the Westmoreland cottage which formed the subject of the last paper. The good taste which prevailed in the rest of the building is not so conspicuous here, because the architect has begun to consider effect instead of utility, and has put a diamond-shaped piece of ornament on the front (usually containing the date of the building), which was not necessary, and looks Tie has endeavored to build neatly too, and out of place. has bestowed a good deal of plaster on the outside, by all which circumstances the work is infinitely deteriorated. We
4
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTURE.
50
have always disliked cylindrical chimneys, probably because they put us in mind of glasshouses and manufactories, for
we
are aware of no
more
definite reason
endurable, and has a character about
;
yet this example
which
Sometimes when the square part
pity to lose.
the whole front of the cottage,
some gray tower, and
Fig.
it
8.
is
it
is
it
would be
carried
is
a
down
looks like the remains of
not felt to be a chimney at
all.
Such
Coniston Hall, from the Lake near Brantwood (1837).
deceptions are always very dangerous, though in this case
sometimes attended with good effect, as in the old building on the shores of Coniston Water, whose distant outline (Fig. 8) is rendered light and picturesque, by the size and shape of its chimneys, which are the same in called Coniston Hall,
character as Fig. 70.
c.
Of English chimneys adapted
for buildings of a
more
A CHAPTER elevated character,
OIS"
CHIM2CEYS.
51
we can adduce no good examples. The we see in some of our venerable
old red brick mass, which
manor-houses, has a great deal of English character about
it,
always agreeable, when the rest of the building is Fig. p is a chiranev of this kind there is nothing of brick. remarkable in it it is to be met with all over England but we have placed it beside its neighbor q to show how the same
and
is
:
;
;
form and idea are modified by the mind of the nations who employ it. The design is the same in both, the proportions also; but the one is a chimney, the other a paltry model of a paltrier edifice. Fig. q is Swiss, and is liable to all the objections
advanced against the Swiss cottages; it is a despicable a large building, like the tower in the engraving
mimicry of
of the Italian cottage (§ 31), carved in stone, it is true, but Fig. p, on the contrary, not the less to be reprobated. is adapted to its use, and has no affectation about it. It would be spoiled, however, if built in stone because the marked bricks tell us the size of the whole at once, and prevent the eye from suspecting any intention to deceive it with a mockery of arches and columns, the imitation of which would be too perfect in stone and therefore, even in this case, we have failed in discovering a chimney adapted ;
;
to the higher class of edifices.
71. Fig.
cZ
is
a Xetherland chimney, e
and / German,
Fig. d belongs to an old Gothic building in ^Malines, and a good example of the application of the same lines to the chimney which occur in other parts of the edifice, without bestowing any false elevation of character. It is roughly carved in stone, projecting at its base grotesquely from The pointed arch, by the roof, and covered at the top. which its character is given, prevents it from breaking in upon the lines of the rest of the building, and, therefore, in reality renders it less conspicuous than it would otheris
We should never have noticed its existhad we not been looking out for chimneys. 72, Fig. e is also carved in stone, and where there is much variety of architecture, or where the buildings are wise have been. ence,
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
52 grotesque, son, that
it
a
good cliimnej, for the very simple rea-
resembles nothing but a chimney, and Fig.
graceful.
with
would be /,
effect in situations
too conspicuous
;
its lines
are
though ugly in the abstract, might be used
but both
where perfect simplicity would be e and / are evidently the awkward
produce something original: we admired in a, without obtaining the grace and spirit of I and o. In fact, they are efforts of a tasteless nation, to
they have lost the chastity which
essentially
German.
73. Figs.
7i
m, inclusive, are Spanish, and have a
to
peculiar character, which would render
it
quite impossible to
employ them out of their own country. Yet they are not decorated chimneys. There is not one fragment of ornament on any of them. All is done by variety of form; and with such variety no fault can be found, because it is necessary to give them the character of the buildings, out of which they rise. For we may observe here, once for all, that character may be given either by form or by decoration, and that where the latter is improper, variety of form is allowable, because the humble associations which render ornament objectionable, also render simplicity of form unnecessary.* We need not then find fault with fantastic
chimneys, provided they are kept in unison with the and do not draw too much attention.
rest of the building,
74. Fig. h, according to this rule, is a very
It
is
good chimney. and its grotesqueness we wish we could give
graceful without pretending,
will suit the buildings
them: they are Figs. Jc and reality,
rising
round
it
—
at Cordova. I
ought
brightly
of the south, the
to
be seen, as they would be in
up against
the deep blue heaven azure gleaming through their hollows;
unless perchance a slight breath of refined, pure, pale vapor finds its
way from time
to
time out of them into the light shadows on their white
air; their tiled caps casting deep
* Elevation of character, as was seen in the Italian cottage, depends simplicity of form.
upon
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS. surfaces,
and their
tout ensemble causing
53
no interruption
the feelings excited hy the Moresco arches
to
and grotesque
dwelling houses with which they would be surrounded
;
they
are sadly spoiled by being cut off at their bases. 75.
Figs,
g, n, o
Fig. g has only been given,
are Italian.
met with among the more modern buildings of Italy. Figs, n and o are almost the only two varieties of chimneys which are to be found on the old because
it
is
constantly
Venetian palaces
(whose style
is
be traced partly to
to
The curved
the Turk, and partly to the Moor).
n harmonize admirably with
those of the roof
lines of
itself,
and
diminutive size leaves the simplicity of form of the large building to which it belongs entirely uninterrupted and un-
its
Fig.
injured.
is
seen perpetually carrying the whiteness
but it is too tall, and by far too much attention, being conspicuous on the
of the Venetian marble up into the sky attracts
;
sides of all the canals. 76.
Figs, q,
an extensive
r,
s are
Fig. r is one specimen of chimneys, met with in the never large, and consequently
Swiss.
class of decorated
northeastern cantons.
It is
having no false elevation of character, and being always seen with eyes which have been prepared for it, by resting on the details of the Swiss cottage, is less disagreeable than might be imagined, but ought never to be imitated. The pyramidal form is generally preserved, but the design is the
same in no two examples. Fig. s is a chimney very common in the eastern cantons, the principle of which we never understood. The oblique part moves on a hinge, so as to be capable of covering the chimney like a hat; and the whole is covered with wooden scales, like those of a fish. This chimney sometimes comes in very well among the confused rafters of the mountain cottage, though
rather too remarkable to be in good taste. seems then, that out of the eighteen chimneys, which we have noticed, though several possess character, and one or two elegance, only two are to be found fit for it is
77. It
imitation;
and,
of
these,
one
is
exclusively
a
cottage
— THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUKE,
54
This
chimney. proof
is
somewhat remarkable and may serve
as a
:
what we at first asserted, that chimneys which any way attract notice (and if these had not, we should not have sketched them) were seldom to be imitated that there are few buildings which require them to be singular, and none which can tolerate them if decorated and that the architect should always remember that the size and height being by necessity fixed, the form which draws least First, of
in
;
;
attention 78.
is
the best.
Secondly, that this inconspicuousness
is to
be obtained,
not by adhering to any model of simplicity, but by taking
chimney are no interruption, which it Thus Figs, li to m would be far more actually rebelongs. markable in their natural situation, if they were more simple in their form for they would interrupt the character of the Fig. d, rich architecture by which they are surrounded. rising as it does above an old Gothic window, would have attracted instant attention, had it not been for the occurrence The form of the same lines in it which prevail beneath it. which it with closely the roof on more assimilates it of n onbf kind, for this imitate chimneys of not we must stands. But especial care that the lines of the
and
its
color no contrast, to those of the building to
;
their excellence consists only in their agreement with other
from which they would be objectionable; we can only follow the principle of the design, which appears, from all that we have advanced, to be this: we require, in a
details, separated
good chimney, the character of the building longs divested of all
deprived of 79. This
all their it
is,
its elevation,
and
its
to
which
it
be-
prevailing lines,
ornament.
no doubt, excessively
difficult
to
give;
and, in consequence, there are very few cities or edifices in
which the chimneys are not objectionable.
We
must
omit to notice the fulfillment of our expecThe only two chimtations, founded on English character. neys fit for imitation, in the whole eighteen, are English; not, therefore,
and we would not infer anything from
this,
tending to
A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS.
55
invalidate the position formerly advanced, that there
no taste in England
;
but we would adduce
illustration of the rule,
that
what
it
most adapted
is
was
as a farther to
its
purpose is most beautiful. For that we have no taste, even in chimneys, is sufficiently proved by the roof effects, even of the most ancient, unaffected, and unplastered of our streets, in which the chimneys, instead of assisting in the composition of the groups of roofs, stand out in staring masses of
and black, with foxes and cocks whisking about, like little black devils, in the smoke on the top of them, interrupting all repose, annihilating all dignity, and awaking every possible conception which would be picturesque, and every imagination which would be rapturous, to the mind scarlet so
many
of master-sweeps.
On
the other hand, though they have not on the Con-
tinent the
same knowledge of the use and beauty of chimneys
80.
in the abstract, they display their usual good taste in group-
them and, whether we find them mingling with the fantastic domiciles of the German, with the rich imaginations of the Spaniard, with the classical remains and ing, or concealing
;
creations of the Italian, they are never intrusive or disagreeable;
and either
assist the
grouping, and relieve the horizon-
remain entirely unnoticed smoking their pipes in peace.
tality of the lines of the roof, or
and
insignificant,
81, It is utterly impossible to give rules for the attain-
ment of
these effects, since they are the result of a feeling
of the proportion and relation of lines, which,
if
not natural
by long j^ractice and presupposes a power rarely be-
to a person, cannot be acquired, but
close
observation
;
and
it
stowed on an English architect^ of setting regularity at defiance, and sometimes comfort out of the question. We could give some particular examples of this grouping; but,
we we come to the consideration of street Of the chimney in the abstract, we are
as this paper has already swelled to an unusual length, shall defer
them
until
effects in general.
afraid we have only said enough to illustrate, without removing, the difficulty of designing it but we cannot but ;
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
56
think that the general principles which have been deduced, if carefully
followed out, would be found useful, if not for
the attainment of excellence, at least for the prevention of
barbarism. Oxford,
Feb. 10, [1838].
VI.
THE COTTAGE—CONCLUDING REMARKS. "Nunquam
aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia, dicit."
Juvenal xiv. 321.
It now only remains for us to conclude the subject of few general remarks on the just application of modern buildings to adorn or vivify natural scenery. There are, we think, only three cases in which the cottage is considered as an element of architectural, or any other 82.
the cottage, by a
kind of beauty, since it is ordinarily raised by the peasant where he likes, and how he likes; and, therefore, as we have seen, frequently in good taste. 83. I. When a nobleman, or man of fortune, amuses himself with superintending the erection of the domiciles of his II. When ornamental summer-houses, or mimicdomestics. ries of
wigwams, are to be erected as ornamental adjuncts which the owner has done all he can to spoil, may be worthy of the honor of having him to look
to a prospect
that at
it
it.
III.
When
the landlord exercises a certain degree
of influence over the cottages of his tenants, or the improve-
ments of the neighboring tone of feeling in the
new
village,
so as to induce such a
erections as he
may
think suitable
to the situation.
84.
In the
of these cases, there
first
for the habitation of the domestic
is
is little to
be said;
generally a dependent
feature of his master's, and, therefore, to be considered as a part of to
it.
Porters' lodges are also dependent upon, and
be regulated by, the style of the architecture to which
they are attached
;
and they are generally well managed
in England, properly united with the gate, and adding to
the effect of the entrance.
57
THE POETRY OF ARCIIITECTUKE.
58
In the second case, as the act is in itself a barbarism, it would be useless to consider what would be the best mode of perpetrating
it.
In the third
few general
we think
case,
principles,
it will be useful to apply a deduced from positions formerly
advanced. 85. All buildings are, of course, to be considered in con-
nection with the country in which they are to be raised.
Xow,
landscape must possess one out of four distinct
all
characters. It
must be
either woody, the green country; cultivated,
the blue country
wild, the gray country
;
;
brown
or hilly, the
country. I.
The Woody,
or green. Country.
By
this is to be im-
derstood the mixture of park, pasture, and variegated forest,
which
is
only to be seen in temperate climates, and in those
parts of a tors,
kingdom which have not often changed proprie-
but have remained in unproductive beauty (or at
least,
furnishing timber only), the garden of the wealthier population.
It is to be seen in
as in England.
In other
no other country, perhaps, districts,
we
so well
find extensive masses
of black forest, but not the mixture of sunny glade, and
dewy sward, which we meet with
various foliage, and
in
This kind of country it never is always surgy, oceanic, and massy, in its outline affords blue distances, unless seen from a height and, even
the richer park districts of England.
:
;
and draw away the attenfrom the background. The under soil is kept cool by the shade, and its vegetation rich; so that the prevailing color, except for a few days at the fall of the leaf, is a fresh green. A good example of this kind of country is the view from then, the nearer groups are large, tion
Richmond Hill. 86. Xow, first,
us consider what sort of feeling this
let
green country excites
and, in order to do so, be it observed, apparently enduring and unchangeable gives us an impression rather of future, than of past, durathat anything which
tion of existence
;
;
is
but anything which being perishable, and
THE COTTAGE from
its
COXCLUDIXG
59
KE:MAPvKS.
nature subject to change, has yet existed to a great an impression of antiquity, though, of course,
age, gives us
A
mountain, for instance (not geologicfurrows on its brow give it age as visible as was ever wrinkled on human forehead, but considering it as it appears to ordinary eyes), appears to be beyond the influence of change it does not put us in mind
none of
stability.
ally speaking, for then the
:
of
its
past existence, by showing ns any of the effect of time
itself; we do not feel that it is old, because it is not approaching any kind of death; it is a mass of unsentient undecaying matter, which, if we think about it, we discover
upon
must have existed for some time, but which does not tell this fact to our feelings, or, rather, which tells us of no time at which it came into existence and therefore, gives us no standard by which to measure its age, which, unless meas;
ured, cannot be distinctly is it
But
felt.
a very old forest tree
a thing subject to the same laws of nature as ourselves: is an energetic being, liable to an approaching death; its
age
is
written on every spray
;
and, because
we see it is suswe imagine it
ceptible of life and annihilation, like our own,
must be capable of the same
feelings,
faculties, and, above all others,
and possess the same
memory:
it is
always telling
us about the past, never pointing to the future; it,
as to a thing
which has seen and
felt
we appeal
during a
life
to
similar
our own, though of ten times its duration, and therefore So receive from it a perpetual impression of antiquity. to
again a ruined town gives us an impression of antiquity the stones of which it is built, none for their age is not written ;
;
upon them. 87. This being the case, it is evident that the chief feeling induced by woody country is one of reverence for its antiqThere is a quiet melancholy about the decay of the uity. patriarchal trunks, which is enhanced by the green and
young saplings the noble form of the and the subdued light which penetrates their entangled boughs, combine to add to the impression; and the whole character of the scene is calculated to excite
elastic vigor of the
forest aisles,
;
;
THE POETRY OF AECHITECTUKE.
60
The man who could remain
conservative feeling.
a
wood country
is a
a radical in
disgrace to his species.
mixed melancholy and veneration which the modern cottage must not
88. ISTow, this feeling of
the one of
is
all
others
be allowed to violate.
It
may
be fantastic or rich in detail
make
for the one character will
it
look old-fashioned, and
the other will assimilate with the intertwining of leaf and
but it must not be spruce, or natty, or very and the older it looks the better. A little grotesqueness in form is the more allowable, because the imagination is naturally active in the obscure and indefinite daylight of wood scenery; conjures up innumerable beings, of every size and shape, to people its alleys and smile through its thickets and is by no means displeased to find some of its inventions half-realized in a decorated panel
bough around
bright in color
it
:
;
;
or grinning extremity of a rafter. 89.
These characters being kept in view, as objects
to be
attained, the remaining considerations are technical.
For the form. Select any well-grown group of the tree which prevails most near the proposed site of the cottage. Its summit will be a rounded mass. Take the three principal points of its curve namely, its apex and the two points where :
unites itself with neighboring masses.
it
Strike a circle
through these three points and the angle contained in the segment cut off by a line joining the two lower points is to ;
be the angle of the cottage roof.
thinking of interior convenience
:
(Of course we are not must establish
the architect
mode
of beauty first, and then approach it as nearly as he This angle will generally be very obtuse; and this one reason why the Swiss cottage is always beautiful when
his
can.) is
it is set
among walnut
or chestnut trees.
Its obtuse roof is
With pines or larches, the angle should not be regulated by the form of the tree, but by the slope of the branches. The building itself should be low and
just about the true angle.
long, so that, if possible,
may be partially tances.
it
may
not be seen
all at
once, but
concealed by trunks or leafage at various dis-
;
THE COTTAGE
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
61
For the color, that of wood is always beautiful. wood of the near trees be used, so much the better but the timbers should be rough-hewu, and allowed to get 90.
If the
Cold
weather-stained.
will
colors
not
with
suit
green
and, therefore, slated roofs are disagreeable, unless, as in
Westmoreland
the
cottage,
when
lichenous vegetation,
but thatch walls
warmed with
is
will do well with anything;
If the building be not of wood, the
better.
is
may
the gray roofit
be built of anything which will giye them a quiet
and unobtruding warmth of tone. White, if in shade, is sometimes allowable but, if visible at any point more than 200 yards off, it will spoil the whole landscape. In general, as we saw before, the building will bear some fantastic ;
finishing, that
is,
if it
massive groups of
among
be entangled in forest; but, if separated by smooth sward,
trees,
must
it
be kept simple. II. The Cultivated, or blue. Country. This is the champaign land, in which large trees are more sparingly scattered, and which is chiefly devoted to the purposes of agriculture. In this we are perpetually getting blue distances from the slightest elevation, which are rendered more decidedly so by their contrast with warm corn or plowed fields in the foreground. Such is the greater part of England. The view from the hills of Malvern is a good example. In
91.
rich
districts of this kind, all is
memory
of
usefulness
:
its
change; -one year's crop has no
predecessor;
nothing
all
is left to
obscurity, no poetry, no nonsense
scape are bright and varied
glowing with animal
;
activity, prosperity,
is
the imagination
it
:
is
;
there
is
and no
the colors of the land-
thickly populated,
and
Here, then, the character of the cottage must be cheerfulness; its colors may be vivid: white is always beautiful; even red tiles are allowable, and red bricks endurable. its
roof
may
!N"eatness will not spoil it
be acute,
red and abundant tic, it
life.
;
but
it
must be evidently
and have
the angle of
:
windows sparkling, and its roses must not be ornamented nor fantas-
its
built for the uses of
common
a matter-of-fact business-like air about
it.
life,
Its out-
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
62
houses, and pigsties, and dunghills should therefore, be kept
may be made very pretty objects, by twistpitchfork, and plaiting them into braids, with the ing them Swiss do. as the " Wild " is not 92. III. The Wild, or gray, Country. in sight: the latter
exactly a correct epithet; less
we mean wide,
uninclosed, tree-
undulations of land, whether cultivated or not.
The
greater part of northern France, though well brought under
would come under the denomination of gray
plow,
the
Occasional masses of monotonous forest do not
country.
destroy this character. ness of form; but
Here, size
we must have no
is
desirable,
and massi-
brightness. of color in the
would draw the eye to it at three miles and the whole landscape would be covered with conWhite is agreeable, if sobered down; slate spicuous dots. allowable on the roof as well as thatch. For the rest, we need only refer to the remarks made on the propriety of the French cottage.
cottage, otherwise it off,
93.
Lastly, Hill, or brown. Country.
England
And
here
if
we
look
remarks formerly advanced, in the consideration of the Westmoreland cottage, are sufficient but if we go into mountain districts to
alone, as peculiarly a cottage country, the
;
of
more varied
character,
we
shall find a difference existing
between every range of hills, which will demand a corresponding difference in the style of their cottages. The principles, however, are the same in all situations, and it would be a hopeless task to endeavor to give more than general principles. In hill country, however, another question is introduced, whose investigation is peculiarly necessary in cases in which the ground has inequality of surface, that of position.
And
the difficulty here
where the building ought suggesting any inquiry as to
prevent
its
just
is,
not so
to be, as to to the
application
put
much it
to ascertain
there, without
mode
in which it got there from appearing artificial.
But we cannot enter into this inquiry, before laying dc^vn a number of principles of composition, which are applicable, not only to cottages, but generally and which we cannot ;
THE COTTAGE deduce until we come
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
63
to the consideration of buildings in
groups.
Such are the great divisions under which country and may be comprehended but there are intermediate conditions, in w^hich modified forms of the cottage are applicable and it frequently happens that country which, considered in the abstract, would fall under one of these classes, possesses, owing to its peculiar climate or associa94.
rural buildings
;
;
tions, a
very different character.
country; yet country.
it
We
Italy, for instance, is blue
has not the least resemblance to Ejiglish blue have paid particular attention to wood first,
we had
;
any previous paper, considered what was beautiful in a forest cottage and secondly, because in such districts there is generally much more influence exercised by proprietors over their tenantry, than in populous and cultivated districts; and our English park scenery, though exquisitely beautiful, is sometimes, we think, a little monotonous, from the want of this very feature. 95. x\nd now, farewell to the cottage, and, with it, to the because
not, in
;
humility of natural scenery.
We
are sorry to leave
it
;
not
we have any idea of living in a cottage, as a comfortable thing; not that we prefer mud to marble, or deal to mahogany but that, with it, we leave much of what is most beautithat
;
ful of earth, the low
and bee-inhabited scenery, which
of quiet and prideless emotion, of such calmness as
is full
we can
imagine prevailing over our earth when it was new in heaven. are going into higher walks of architecture, where we shall find a less close connection established between the building and the soil on which it stands, or the air with which it is surrounded, but a closer connection with the character of its inhabitant. We shall have less to do with natural feeling, and more with human passion we are coming out of
We
;
stillness into turbulence, out of seclusion into the multitude,
out of the wilderness into the world.
PART II. Ube
IDilla.
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA LAGO DI COMO THE LOWLAND VILLA ENGLAND THE BRITISH VILLA PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION. :
:
:
:
—
:
; :
I.
THE MOUNTAIX VILLA— LAGO DI COMO. 96.
In
all arts
we can determine what we must ascertain what is
or sciences, before
jnst or beautiful in a group,
is
which compose it, separately considand therefore it will be most advantageous in the present case, to keep out of the village and the city, until we have searched hill and dale for examples of isolated buildings. This mode of considering the subject is also agreeable to the feelings, as the transition from the higher orders of solitary edifices, to grouj^s of associated edifices, is not so sudden or startling, as that from nature's most humble peace, to man's most turbulent pride. We have contemplated the rural dwelling of the peasant desirable in the parts
ered
;
let us next consider the ruralized domicile of the gentleman and here, as before, we shall first determine what is theoretically beautiful, and then observe how far our expectations are fulfilled in individual buildings. But a few preliminary
observations are necessary.
Man,
is a being of more marked national man, the educated and refined. For nationality is founded, in a great degree, on prejudices and feelings inculcated and aroused in youth, which grow inveterate in
97.
the peasant,
character, than
the
mind
as long as its
views are confined
to the place of its
molded by the customs of its country, and its conversation limited to a circle composed of individuals of habits and feelings like its own but which are gradually softened down, and eradicated, when the mind is led into general views of things, when it is guided by reflection instead of habit, and has begim to lay aside opinions contracted birth
;
its
ideas
;
67
;
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
68
under the influence of association and prepossession,
substi-
from the calm tuting in their room thoughts, and and cuscontemplation of the various tempers, will with remain toms, of mankind. The love of its country philosophical deductions
undiminished strength in the cultivated mind, but the national modes of thinking will vanish from the disciplined intellect.
98.
'Now
architecture the
mind
of
as
it is
only by these mannerisms of thought that
is affected, its
we
shall find that, the
for its architect will be led
of
ideal
beauty,
by deep-rooted hand.
He
more polished
designer, the less national will be the building
and
away by not
will
be
a search after a
model
involuntarily
guided
feelings, governing irresistibly his heart
and
will therefore be in perpetual danger of forgetting
the necessary unison of scene
and climate, and, following up
the chase of the ideal, will neglect the beauty of the natural
an error which he could not commit, were he less general in his views, for then the prejudices to which he would be subject, would be as truly in unison with the objects which created them, as answering notes with the chords which
awaken them.
We must
not, therefore, be surprised, if build-
ings bearing impress of the exercise of fine thought and high
by perpetual diswe sometimes derive less instruction, and less pleasure from the columnar portico of the Palace, than from the latched door of the
talent in their design, should yet offend us
cords with scene and climate
;
and
if,
therefore,
Cottage.
Again: man, in his hours of relaxation, when he is engaged in the pursuit of mere pleasure, is less national than when he is under the influence of any of the more violent The reason of this feelings which agitate everyday life. may at first appear somewhat obscure, but it will become evident, on a little reflection. Aristotle's deflnition of pleasure, perhaps the best ever given, is " an agitation, and settling of the spirit into its own proper nature " similar, by the by, to the giving of liberty of motion to the molecules of a min99.
;
eral,
followed by their crystallization, into their
own proper
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
Xow
form.
this "
LAGO
DI COMO.
proper nature," virdpxovaav
the acquired national habit, but the
69 is
<^wcrtv,
common and
not
universal
This constitution is kept constitution of the human soul. under by the feelings which prompt to action, for those feelings depend upon parts of character, or of prejudice, which are peculiar to individuals or to nations; and the pleasure which all men seek is a kind of partial casting away of these more active feelings, to return to the calm and unchanging constitution of mind which is the same in all. 100. We shall, therefore, find that man, in the business of his
life,
in religion, war, or ambition, is national, but in
common to every individual Turk, for instance, and an English farmer, smoking their evening pipes, differ only in so much as the one has a mouthpiece of amber, and the other one of sealing wax the one has a turban on his head, and the other a nightrelaxation he manifests a nature
A
of his race.
;
cap
;
they are the same in feeling, and to
But
poses the same men.
a
all intents and purTurkish janissary and an English
modes of thinking, feeling, So again, a Tyrolese evening dance, though the costume, and the step, and the music may be different, is the same in feeling as that of the
grenadier differ widely in
all their
and acting; they are
strictly national.
Parisian guinguette
but follow the Tyrolese into their tem-
;
and their deep devotion and beautiful though superstitious reverence will be found very different from any feeling exhibited during a mass in ]^^otre-Dame. This being the case, ples,
it is
a direct consequence, that
in the
Church
we
shall find
much
nationality
any building devoted but very little in that which
or the Fortress, or in
the purposes of active
life,
dedicated exclusively to relaxation, the
Villa.
We
to is
shall
be compelled to seek out nations of very strong feeling and
imaginative disposition, or we shall find no correspondence
whatever between their character, and that of their buildings devoted to pleasure. 101. In our
own
country, for instance, there
slightest.
Beginning
ning (V)vm
its
is
not the
head of Windermere, and runborder for about six miles, there are six imporat the
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
70
may
tant gentlemen's seats, villas they
which
order, set in a green avenue, sloping
second
be called
;
the first of
a square white mass, decorated with pilasters of
is
is
down
to the
water
;
no the
an imitation, we suppose, of something possessing
theoretical existence in Switzerland, with sharp gable ends,
and wooden
flourishes turning the corners,
dumpy mound with
a slate wall
ing with iron pyrites
;
running
the third
is
set on round it,
all
a little glitter-
a blue dark-looking box,
squeezed up into a group of straggly larches, with a bog in front of
it
;
the fourth
a cream-colored domicile, in a large
is
park, rather quiet and unaflfected, the best of the four, though that
is
not saying
much
;
the fifth
is
an old-fashioned thing,
formal, and narrow-windowed, yet gray in
and not
to
be maligned; and the sixth
is
its tone,
cular, putty-colored habitation, with a leaden
top of
and
quiet,
a nondescript, cir-
dome on
the
it.
we
102. If, however, instead of taking Windermere,
Lago and nationality; and
the shore of the
however, to England,
di
Como, we
shall find
there, therefore, will
when we have
trace
some expression
we
go, to return,
obtained some data by
which to judge of her more fortunate edifices. We notice the mountain villa first, for two reasons because effect is always more considered in its erection, than when it is to be situated in a less interesting country, and because the effect desired is ;
very rarely given, there being far greater difficulties to contend with. But one word more, before setting off for the
Though,
south.
as
we saw
before, the gentleman has less
national character than the boor, his individual character
more marked,
especially in
its
finer
features,
is
which are
and perfectly developed by education; consequently, had anything to do with its erection, we might expect to find indications of individual and peculiar feelings, which it would be most interesting to follow out. But this is no part of our present task at some future period we hope to give a series of essays on the habitations of the most distinguished men of Enirope, showing how the alterations which they directed, and the expression which clearly
when
the inhabitant of the villa has
;
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO DI COMO.
71
they bestowed, corresponded with the turn of their emotions, and leading intellectual faculties: but at present we have to deal only with generalities
;
we have
to ascertain not
what
Avill
be pleasing to a single mind, but what will afford gratificati,on to every eye possessing a certain degree of experience, and
every
mind endowed with
a certain degree of taste.
103. Without further preface, therefore, let us endeavor ascertain
to
shore, or
what would be theoretically beautiful, on the
among
the scenery of the Larian Lake, preparatory
to a sketch of the general features of those villas
there, in too great a
which
multitude to admit, on our part, of
exist
much
individual detail.
For the general tone of the scenery, we may refer to the paper on the Italian cottage for the shores of the Lake of ;
Como little
*
have generally the character there described, with a more cheerfulness, and a little less elevation,* but
That
Italian
mountain scenery has
less elevation of character
than the
may appear singular; but there are many simple reasons for a fact which, we doubt not, has been felt by every one (capable of feeling anyThe first is, that thing), who ever left the Alps to pass into Lombardy. a mountain scene, as we saw in tlie last paper, bears no traces of decay, plains
The desolation of the sterile peaks, it never possessed any of life. never having been interrupted, is altogether free from the melancholy which is consequent on the passing away of interruption. They stood up in the time of Italj^'s glory, into the voiceless air, while all the life and since
light which she remembers now was working and moving at their feet, an animated cloud, which they did not feel, and do not miss. That region of life never reached up their flanks, and has left them no memorials of its being; they have no associations, no monuments, no memoi'ies; we look on them as w^e would on other hills; things of abstract and natural
man could not increase, nor his consequence, destitute of all that renders the name of Ausonia thrilling, or her champaigns beautiful, beyond the mere splendor of climate; and even that splendor is unshared by the
magiiificeuce, wiiich
departure sadden.
mountain
;
its
the presence of
They
are, in
cold atmosphere being undistinguished by any of that rich, which gives the air of the plains its depth of
purple, ethereal transparency feeling,
— we can find no better expression.
though there is increase of size, there is not speaking of views from summits, but of the average aspect of valleys. Suppose the mountains be 10,000 feet high their summit will not be more than six miles distant in a direct line: Secondly.
want
In
of distance.
all hill
scenery,
We are
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
72
aided bj great variety of form. in vegetation as the plains
:
They
are not quite so rich
both because the
soil is scanty,
there being, of course, no decomposition going on and there
among
the
a general sense of confinement, inducefl by their wall-like is painful, contrasted with the wide expatiation of
is
boundaries, which
induced by a distant view over plains.
In ordinary countries, howan uninteresting mass of cultivation, the sublimity of distance is not to be compared to that of size: but, where every yard of the cultivated country has its tale to tell where it is perpetually intersected by rivers whose names are meaning music, and glancing with cities and villages every one of which has its own halo round its head; and where the eye is carried by the clearness of the air over the blue of tlie farthest horizon, without finding one wreatii of mist, or one sliadowy cloud, to check the distinctness of the impression the mental emotions excited are richer, and deeper, and swifter than could be aAvakened by the noblest hills of the earth, unconnected with the deeds of men. Lastly. The plain country of Italy has not even to choose between the glory of distance and of size, for it has both. I do not thiak there is a spot, from Venice to Messina, where two ranges of mountain, at the least, are not in sight at the same time. In Lombardy, the Alps are on one side, the Apennines on the other; in the Venetian territory, the Alps, Apennines and Euganean hills; going southward, the Apennines always, their outworks running far towards the sea, and tlie coast itself frequently mountainous. Now, the aspect of a noble range of hills, at a considerable distance, is, in our opinion, far more imposing (considered in the spirit
ever,
where the plain
is
;
;
abstract) than they are, seen near: their height
is
better told, their out-
and more melodious, their majesty more mysterious. But, in Italy, they gain more by distance than majesty: they gain life. They cease to be the cold forgetful things they were; they hold the noble plains in their lap, and become venerable, as having looked down upon them, and watched over them forever, unchanging they become part of the picture of associations we endow them with memory, and then feel them to be possessed of all that is glorious on earth. For these three reasons, then, the plains of Italy possess far more elelines softer
;
:
hill scenery. To the northward, this convery strikingly, as the distinction is well marked, the Alps rising sharply and suddenly. To the southward, the plain is more mingled with low projecting promontories, and unites almost every kind of beauty. However, even among her northern lakes, the richness of the low climate, and the magnificence of form and color presented by the distant Alps, raise the character of the scene immeasurably above that of most hill land-
vation of character than her
trast is felt
scapes, even
were those natural features entirely unassisted by associations
which, though more sparingly scattered than in the south, are sufficient to give light to every leaf, and voice to every wave.
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO
DI COMO.
73
rocks of black marble which form the greater part of the
shore
and because the mountains
;
rise steeply
from the water,
leaving only a narrow zone at their bases in the climate of
In that zone, however, the
Italy.
olive
grows in great luxuriand vine, the
ance, with the cypress, orange, aloe, myrtle, latter
always
104.
Xow,
trellised.
as to the situation of the cottage,
we have
al-
ready seen that great humility was necessary, both in the building and its site, to prevent it from offending us by an apparent struggle with forces, compared with which its strength was dust
:
but
we cannot have
this
extreme humility
in the villa, the dwelling of wealth and power, and yet
we
any more, suggest the idea of its resisting natural must influences under which the Pyramids could not abide. The not,
only
way
shall
seem
of solving the difficulty
is, to select such sites as have been set aside by nature as places of rest, as points of calm and enduring beauty, ordained to sit and smile in their glory of quietness, while the avalanche brands the mountain top," and the torrent desolates the valley yet
to
;
so preserved, not
by
shelter amidst violence, but
placed wholly out of the influence of violence.
they must differ from the
may row
site
by being For in this
of the cottage, that the peasant
seek for protection under some low rock or in some nardell,
but the villa must have a domain to
itself,
at
once
conspicuous, beautiful, and calm. 105.
As regards
* There are
snow
the
two kinds
form of the
cottage,
we have
seen
how
of winter avalanches; the one, sheets of frozen
sliding on the surface of others.
clavendier of the Convent of
The
swiftness of these, as the
Bernard told me, he could compare to nothing but that, of a cannon ball of equal size. The other is a rolling mass of snow, accumulating in its descent. This, grazing the bare hillside, tears up its surface like dust, bringing away soil, rock, and vegetation, as a grazing ball tears flesh; and leaving its withered path distinct on the green hill-side, as if tlie mountain had been branded with red-hot iron. They generally keep to the same paths but when the snow accumulates, and sends one down the wrong way, it has been known to cut down a pine forest, as a scythe mows grass. The tale of its work is well told b}' the seared and branded marks on the liill summits and sides. St.
;
;
THE POETfiY Oe ABCHITECTUBE.
74
Westmoreland cottage harmonized with the ease of outby the irregularity of its details but, here, no such irregularity is allowable or consistent, and is not even desirable. For the cottage enhances the wildness of the surrounding scene, by sympathizing with it the villa must do the same thing, by contrasting with it. The eye feels, in a far greater degree, the terror of the distant and the
line so conspicuous in hill scenery, ;
desolate peaks,
when
down
their ravined sides to slopguided from these to the rich in the low zones, and through this glow
it
ing and verdant
hills,
glow of vegetable
life
passes
and
is
some noble edifice, peaceful even in its must not be sudden, or it will be startling and harsh and therefore, as we saw above, the villa must be placed where all the severe features of the scene, though not concealed, are distant, and where there is a graduation, so to speak, of impressions, from terror to loveliness, the one softened by distance, the other elevated in its style: and the form of the villa must not be fantastic or angular, but must be full of variety, so tempered by simplicity as to obtain to the tall front of
But
pride.
this contrast ;
ease of outline united with elevation of character; the first
being necessary for reasons before advanced, and the second, that the whole
may harmonize
with the feelings induced by
the lofty features of the accompanying scenery in any hill
country, and yet more, on the Larian Lake, by the deep
mem-
and everlasting associations which haunt the stillness of its shore. Of the color required by Italian landscape we have spoken before, and we shall see that, particularly in this case, ories
white or pale tones are agreeable. 106.
the
We
villa.
Como
shall
now
As regards
proceed to the situation and form of situation; the villas of the
Lago
di
are built, par preference, either on jutting promon-
tories of
low crag covered
on those parts of the
w^ith olives, or
shore where some mountain stream has carried out a bank of alluvium into the lake. of situation
is,
opening of the
One
object proposed in this choice
to catch the breeze as it hills,
and
to
comes up the main
avoid the reflection of the sun's
rays from the rocks of the actual shore
;
and another
is,
to ob-
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA up
tain a prospect
the building
is
built
is
it
DI COMO.
75
the lake, and of the hills on whose :
but the effect of this choice
considered the object,
where
into the place
down
or
projection the villa
LAGO
ought
to be,
far
is
when
to carry it exactly
from the
steep preci-
pice and dark mountain, to the border of the winding bay and citron-scented cape, where
it
stands at once conspicuous and
view of Villa Serbelloni * from across the lake, although the eye falls suddenly from the crags above to the promontory below, yet all the sublime and severe features of the scene are kept in the distance, and the villa itself is mingled with graceful lines, and embosomed in rich vegetation. The promontory separates the Lake of Lecco from that of Como, properly so-called, and is three miles from the opposite shore, which gives room enough for in peace.
For
instance, in the
aerial perspective.
107.
We
now
shall
consider the form of the
villa.
It is
generally the apex of a series of artificial terraces, which con-
duct through
These are formal in and majestic in their slope, the steps being generally about ^ ft. high and 4^ ft, wide its
gardens
to the water.
their design, but extensive, wide,
(sometimes hoAvever much deeper). They are generally supported by white wall, strengthened by unfilled arches, the angles being turned by sculptured pedestals, surmounted by
Along the terraces are carried rows, some-
statues, or urns.
times of cypress, more frequently of orange or lemon trees, with myrtles, sweet bay, and aloes, intermingled, but always
with dark and spiry cypresses occurring in groups tached to these terraces, or to the villa
itself,
;
and
at-
are series of
arched grottoes built (or sometimes cut in the rock) for cool-
now the dependence of the Hotel Grande Bretagne and Villa Somma-Riva, now called Villa Carlotta, at Cade-
[* Villa Serbelloni,
at Bellaggio,
nabbia, and visited are both too well
by every
known
modern statuary, by the very poor wood-cuts the "Architectural Magazine." The
tourist for its collection of
to need illustration
which accompanied this chapter in original drawings are lost; judging from that of the cottage in Val d'Aosta we may safely believe that they were most inadequately represented by the old cuts.]
;;
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTURE.
76
overhanging the water, kept dark and fresh, and altogether delicious to the feelings. A good instance of these united peculiarities is seen in Villa Somma-Riva, Lago di Como. ness, frequently
The
effect of these
ing to many, from is
it.
all
right, because
approaches
is
formality
its
;
disputable.
but
we
a national style,
it is
It is displeas-
are persuaded that
and therefore has in and
probability due connection with scene and character
this connection
108.
we
shall
endeavor
:
to prove.
The frequent occurrence of
the arch
is
always de-
lightful in distant effect, partly on account of its graceful line,
partly because the shade
it
casts is varied in depth,
becoming deeper and deeper as the grotto because
it
supports.
retires,
and partly
gives great apparent elevation to the walls which
The
it
grottoes themselves are agreeable objects seen
near, because they give an impression of coolness to the eye
and they echo
sounds with great melody
all
;
small streams
are often conducted through them, occasioning slight breezes
by their motion.
Then
the statue and the urn are graceful in
meaning, and correct in their where could they be more appropriate than here the one ministering to memory, and the other to mourning. their outline, classical in their
position, for
The
terraces themselves are dignified in their character (a
necessary
effect, as
we saw
above), and even the formal rows
of trees are right in this climate, for a peculiar reason.
Efwere
fect is always to be considered, in Italy, as if the sun
always to shine, for it does nine days out of ten. Xow the shadows of foliage regTilarly disposed, fall with a grace which it is impossible to describe, running up and down across the marble steps, and casting alternate statues into darkness; and checkering the white walls with a '' method in their madness," altogether unattainable by loose grouping of trees and therefore, for the sake of this kind of shade, to which the eye, ;
as well as the feeling,
or orange trees
109.
But
is
there
is
attracted, the long row^ of cypresses
allowable. is
a
still
more important reason for it, of a which its formality would
directly contrary nature to that
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA seem
to require.
In
a certain regularity
DI COMO.
77
beautiful designs of exterior descent,
all
necessary
is
LAGO
;
the lines should be grace-
but they must balance each other, slope answering to Now this mathematical regularity slope, statue to statue. ful,
would hurt the eye excessively in the midst of scenes of natural grace, were it executed in bare stone but, if we make part of the design itself foliage, and put in touches of regular shade, alternating with the stone, whose distances and ;
darkness are as mathematically limited as the rest of the is
changeful and varied in indi-
we have obtained
a link between nature and art,
grouping, but whose nature vidual forms,
from the
a step of transition, leading the feelings gradually
beauty of regularity
that of freedom.
to
would not be obtained,
as
might
And
at first appear,
this effect
by interming-
ling trees of different kinds, at irregular distances, or wher-
ever they chose to grow; for then the design and the foliage
would be instantly separated by the eye, the symmetry of the one would be interrupted, the grace of the other lost the nobility of the design would not be seen, but its formality would be felt; and the w^ildness of the trees would be injuriOn principles ous, because it would be felt to be out of place. ;
of composition, therefore, the regular disposition of decorative foliage is right,
ture; but
it
when such
foliage
is
mixed with
architec-
requires great taste, and long study, to design
this disposition properly.
Trees of dark leaf and
little
color
should be invariably used, for they are to be considered, it must be remembered, rather as free touches of shade than as trees.
110. Take, for instance, the most simple bit of design, such as a hollow balustrade,
cold or raw,
when
and suppose that
it is
found
executed, and to want depth.
to look
Then put
small pots, with any dark shrub, the darker the better, at fixed places behind them, at the
same distance
as the balus-
between every two or three, and keep them cut down to a certain height, and we have immediate depth and increased ease, with undiminished symmetiy. But the great difficulty is to keep the thing within proper limits, since too trades, or
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
78
much
of
it
will lead to paltriness, as is the case in a slight
degree in Isola Bella, on Lago Maggiore
and not to let it run remembered, that it is only in the majesty of art, in its large and general effects, that this regularity is allowable nothing but variety should be studied in detail, and therefore there can be no barbarism greater than the lozenge borders and beds of the French garden. The scenery around must be naturally rich, that its variety of line may relieve the slight stiffness of the architecture itself: and the climate must always be considered for, as we saw, the chief beauty of these flights of steps depends upon the presence of the sun and, if they are to be in shade half the year, the dark trees will only make them gloomy, the grass will grow between the stones of the steps, black weeds will flicker from the pedestals, damp mosses discolor the statues and urns, and the whole will become one incongruous ruin, into small details
:
for,
be
;
it
;
;
;
one ridiculous decay. ter,
even could
it
Besides, the very dignity of
its
charac-
be kept in proper order, would be out of
place in any country but Italy. Busts of Virgil or Ariosto would look astonished in an English snowstorm statues of Apollo and Diana would be no more divine, where the laurels of the one would be weak, and the crescent of the other would never gleam in pure moonlight. The whole glory of the de;
sign consists in
and with the
its
unison with the dignity of the landscape,
classical tone of the country.
Take
it
away from
concomitant circumstances, and, instead of conducting the 6ye to it by a series of lofty and dreamy impressions, bring it through green lanes, or over copse-covered crags, as would its
be the case in England, and the whole system becomes utterly
and absolutely absurd, ugly in outline, worse than useless unmeaning in design, and incongruous in
in application, association.
111. It seems, then, that in the approach to the Italian
we have discovered great nationality and great beauty, which was more than we could have expected, but a beauty utterly untransferable from its own settled habitation. In our next paper we shall proceed to the building itself, which villa,
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA will not detain us long, as
it is
LAGO DI COMO.
generally simple in
79 its
design,
view of villa architecture over Italy. 112, We have bestowed considerable attention on this style of Garden Architecture, because it has been much abused by persons of high authority, and general good taste, who forgot, in their love of grace and ideal beauty, the connection with surrounding circumstances so manifest even in its formality.
and take
a general
Eustace,
we
of a kind he
think, is
is
one of these
;
and, although
perpetually committing, he
is so
it is
an error
far right, that
this
mannerism
own
peculiar domain, then becoming disagreeable, and
is
ways a dangerous
frequently carried into excess even in style in inexperienced hands.
however, paradoxical as the opinion
may
We
its
is al-
think,
appear, that every
one who is a true lover of nature, and has been bred in her wild school, will be an admirer of this symmetrical designing, in
its
place
;
and will
feel, as
often as he contemplates
it,
that
the united effect of the wide and noble steps, with the pure
water dashing over them like heated crystal, the long shadows of the cypress groves, the golden leaves and glorious light of blossom of the glancing aloes, the pale statues gleaming along the heights in their everlasting death in
life, their
motionless
brows looking down forever on the loveliness in which their beings once dwelt, marble forms of more than mortal grace lightening along the green arcades, amidst dark cool grottoes, full of the voice of dashing waters, and of the breath of myrtle blossoms, with the blue of the deep lake and the distant precipice mingling at every opening with the eternal snows glowing in their noontide silence, is one not unworthy of Italy's most noble remembrances.
;
II.
THE MOUXTAIX VILLA— LAGO DI COMO (Continued). 113. Haviis'g considered the propriety of the approach,
remains for us
by the
to investigate the
villas of the
Lago
di
it
nature of the feelings excited
Como
in particular,
and of Italy
in general.
We
mentioned that the bases of the mountains bordering Lake of Como were chiefly composed of black marble; black, at least, when polished, and very dark gTay in its genthe
eral effect.
This
is
very finely stratified in beds varying in
thickness from an inch to two or three feet
taken of a
medium
thickness,
form
;
and these beds,
flat slabs,
easily broken
into rectangular fragments, which, being excessively compact in their grain, are admirablv adapted for a buildins^ material.
There
is a little
pale limestone *
among
the hills to the south
but this marble, or primitive limestone (for crystalline), is not only
able stone.
Of
this,
more
it
is
not highly
more dur-
easy of access, but a
consequently, almost
all
the buildings on
the lake shore are built; and, therefore, were their material
unconcealed, would be of a dark monotonous and melancholy
gray tint, equally uninteresting to the eye, and depressing to the mind. To prevent this result,. they are covered with dif-
A coarse dolomite forms the mass of Lake Lecco, ]\Ionte Campione, etc. and part of the other side, as well as the Monte del Xovo, above Cadenabbia; but the bases of the hills, along the shore of the Lake of Lecco, and all the mounThe tains on both sides of the lower limb of Como are black limestone. whole northern half of the lake is bordered by gneiss or mica slate, with So that the dolomite is only tertiary deposit where torrents enter it. obtainable by ascending the hills, and incurring considerable expense of * Pale limostoue, with dolomite.
moimtains ou
tlie
east of
,
while the rocks of the shore split into blocks of their own accord, and are otherwise an excellent material.
carriage
;
80
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO
fereut compositions, sometimes Avhite,
and of varying depth
colored,
COMO.
DI
more frequently creamand pilasters
the moldings
;
The
being frequently of deeper tones than the walls. of the grottoes, however,
81
when not
cut in the rock
insides
itself,
are
uncovered, thus forming a strong contrast with the white-
left
ness
outside
;
giving great
depth,
and permitting weeds
and flowers to root themselves on the roughnesses, and rock through the fissures of the dark stones ; while parts of the building to which the eye is drawn, by their
streams to all
form or
distill
details (except the capitals of the pilasters), such as
the urns, the statues, the steps, or balustrades, are executed in very fine white marble, generally
from the quarries of
Carrara, which supply quantities of fragments of the finest quality,
which nevertheless, owing
to their
want of
size, or to
the presence of conspicuous veins, are unavailable for the
higher jiurposes of sculpture. 114. iSTow, the desirable
?
It
is
first
to
must be pronounced
question
be hoped
is,
so,
is
this
very pale color
or else the whole of Italy
full of impropriety.
The
first
circum-
one which, though connected only with lake scenery, we shall notice at length, as it is a point of high
stance in
its
favor
is
importance in our own country. When a small piece of quiet water reposes in a valley, or lies embosomed among crags, its chief beauty is derived from our perception of crystalline dejDth, united with excessive slumber. In its limited surface get the sublimity of extent, but we may have the beauty of peace, and the majesty of depth. The object must
we cannot
therefore be, to get the eye off
down, is
to beguile
it
its
surface,
and
to
draw
it
into that fairy land underneath, which
more beautiful than what
it
repeats, because
of dreams unattainable, and illimitable.
it
is all
full
This can only be done by keeping its edge out of sight, and guiding the eye off the land into the reflection, as if it were passing into a mist, until it finds itself swimming into the blue sky, with a thrill of unfathomable falling. (If there be not a touch of sky at the bottom, the water will be disagreeably black, and the clearer the more fearful.) Now, one touch of white reflection
THE POETKY OF AECHITECTUKE.
82
of an object at the edge will destroy the whole illusion, for
it
on armor, and will show the surface, not the depth it will tell the eye whereabouts it will define the limit of the edge and will turn the dream is
come
will
like the flash of light :
;
;
of limitless depth into a small, uninteresting, reposeless piece
In
of water.
all
small lakes or pools, therefore, steep borders
of dark crag, or of thick foliage, are to be obtained, ble
;
even a shingly shore will spoil them
:
and
if possi-
was one
this
remembered for our admiration of the Westmoreland cottage, because it never broke the repose of water by its reflection. 115. But this principle applies only to small pieces of water, on which we look down, as much as along the surface. reason,
it
will be
color of the
As soon depth
;
as
we
first,
get a sheet, even if only a mile across,
because
it is
we
lose
almost impossible to get the surface
without a breeze on some part of it and, again, because we look along it, and get a great deal of sky in the reflection, which, when occupying too much space, tells as mere flat ;
But we may have
light.
degree; and
it
is
water goes, that we !Now,
the beauty of extent in a very high
therefore desirable to
may have
border, at a great distance,
its
be defined by a very distinct line flat,
and cutting on the
eye.
know how
far the
a clear conception of its space.
;
is
always
and such a
To avoid
lost,
unless
it
line is harsh,
this, the
border
itself
may
be no
should be dark, as in the other case, so that there
continuous horizontal line of demarcation; but one or two bright white objects should be set here and there along or near their reflections will flash on the dark water, and inform the eye in a moment of the whole distance and
the edge will
:
transparency of the surface
it
is
traversing.
When
there
on the water, they will come down in long, beautiful, perpendicular lines, mingling exquisitely with the is
a slight swell
streaky green of reflected foliage
become
a distant
;
when
there
is
none, they
image of the object they repeat, endowed
with infinite repose. 116. These remarks, true of small lakes whose edges are green, apply with far greater force to sheets of water on
THE
83
I>AGO DI COMO.
MOU:!^TAIN VILTLA
which the eye passes over ten or twenty miles in one long and the prevailing color of whose borders is, as we
glance,
noticed
when speaking
Italian cottage, blue.
of the
The
white reflections are here excessively valuable, giving space, brilliancy, and transparency and furnish one very powerful ;
apology, even did other objections render an apology neces-
whose reflecand conspicuous situations, always considerable part in the scene, and are therefore things
sary, for the pale tone of the color of the villas, tions,
owing
take a
to their size
to be attentively considered in the erection of such buildings,
particularly in a climate whose calmness renders
its
lakes
Nothing, in fact, can be more beautiful than the intermingling of these bright lines with the darkness of the reversed cypresses seen against the deep azure of the distant hills in the crystalline waters of the lake, of which some one aptly says, " Deep within its azure rest, white villages sleep silently " * or than their quiet for the greater part of the day.
;
columnar perspective, as village after village catches the light, and strikes the image to the very quietest recess of the narrow water, and the very farthest hollow of the" folded hills.
Prom
117. villa in
water
all this, it is
but more doubtful. stantly
appears that the effect of the white
delightful.
The
On
first
when we imagine such
land
it is
objection,
quite as important,
which
pose, the startling glare of effect, induced tint.
But
strikes us in-
a building, is the
by
its
this objection does not strike us Avhen
want of reunsubdued
we
see the
building; a circumstance which was partly accounted for before, in
speaking of the cottage, and which Ave shall presently
see farther cause not to be surprised at.
objection
is,
A
more important
that such whiteness destroys a great deal of
venerable character, and harmonizes tones of surrounding landscape
:
ill
and
with the melancholy
this requires detailed
consideration. [*
A reminiscence
of
two
lines
written by the author in 1833.]
from a poem on the "Lago
di
Como
"
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUEE.
84
118. Paleness of color destroys the majesty of a building;
by hinting
first,
speak of the
and humble material; and,
at a disguised
appearance of age. We shall of the material presently ; but the depriva-
away
secondly, by taking effect
all
tion of apparent antiquity is dependent in a great degree on
and in
the color;
Italy, where, as
ought to point to the past,
we saw
before, everything
is
serious injury, though, for sev-
eral reasons, not so fatal as
might be imagined; for we do
not require, in a building raised as a light summer-house,
wherein
to
while away a few pleasure hours, the evidence of
which the chateau or palace can any beauty. We know that it is originally built more as a plaything than as a monument as the delight of an individual, not the possession of a race; and that the very lightness and carelessness of feeling with which such a' domicile is entered and inhabited by its first builder w^ould demand, to sympathize and keep in unison with them, not the ancestral dignity, without
possess hardly
;
kind of building adapted to excite the veneration of ages, but that which can most gayly minister to the amusement of
For
hours.
all
men
desire to have memorials of their ac-
we only wish that to be remembered which others will not, or cannot perform or experience; and we know that all men can enjoy recreation as much as ourselves. We wish succeeding gentions,
but none of their recreations; inasmuch as
erations to admire our energy, but not even to be aware of
our lassitude rested;
;
how we
to
know when we moved, but not when we how we condescended; and, there-
ruled, not
fore, in the case of the ace, if ers,
we
we
triumphal arch, or the hereditary pal-
are the builders,
we
desire stability
are offended with novelty
:
l)ut in
;
if
the behold-
the case of the villa,
the builder desires only a correspondence with his
beholder, evidence of such correspondence
;
humor
;
the
for he feels that
is most beautiful when it ministers most to pleasure cannot minister to pleasure without perpetual change,
the villa that
it
so as to suit the
of
varying ideas, and humors, and imaginations
it cannot possess this light and variable habit with any appearance of antiquity.
its
inhabitant, and that
THE MOUXTAIX VILLA And, for
119.
ance
a yet
not desirable.
is
LAGO
DI COMO.
b5
more important reason, such appearMelancholy, when it is productive of
accompanied either by loveliness in the object by a feeling of pride in the mind experiencing Without one of these, it becomes absolute pain, which it. all men throw off as soon as they can, and suffer under as Xow, when long as their minds are too weak for the effort. it is accompanied by loveliness in the object exciting it, it forms beauty when by a feeling of pride, it constitutes the pleasure we experience in tragedy, when we have the pride of endurance, or in contemplating the ruin, or the monument, by which we are informed or reminded of the pride of the past. Hence, it appears that age is beautiful only when it is the decay of glorj^ or of power, and memory only delightAll remains therefore of ful when it reposes upon pride.* what was merely devoted to pleasure all evidence of lost enjoyment all memorials of the recreation and rest of the depleasure,
exciting
is
or
it,
;
;
;
parted
;
in a word, all desolation of delight
is
productive of
mere pain, for there is no feeling of exultation connected with it. Thus, in any ancient habitation, we pass with reverence and pleasurable emotion through the ordered armory, where the lances lie, with none to wield through the lofty hall, where the crested scutcheons glow with the honor of the dead but we turn sickly away from the arbor which has no hand to tend it, and the boudoir which has no life to lighten it, and the smooth sward which has no light feet to So it is in the villa the more memory, the dance on it. more sorrow and, therefore, the less adaptation to its present ;
:
:
;
purpose.
expression
But, though cheerful, it should be ethereal in its " spiritual " is a good word, giving ideas of the
:
very highest order of delight that can be obtained in the mere present. * Observe,
we arc not speaking of emotions felt on remembering what ourselves have enjoyed, for then the imagination is productive of pleasure by replacing us in enjoyment, but of the feelings excited in the
we
indifferent spectator,
ment, of which the
by the evident decay of power
first
or desolation of enjoy,
ennobles, the other only harrows, the
spirit.
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
86
120. It seems, then, that for
ance of age
all
these reasons an appear-
not desirable, far less necessary, in the villa
is
existing character must be in unison with its country must appear to be inhabited by one brought up in that In Italy, country, and imbued with its national feelings.
but
its
and
it
especially, though we can even here dispense with one component part of elevation of character, age, we must have Ave must have high feeling, beauty of form, all the others and depth of effect, or the thing will be a barbarism the inhabitant must be an Italian, full of imagination and emo-
—
:
;
tion: a villa inhabited
by an Englishman, no matter how
close its imitation of others, will
We
find, therefore, that
white
always be preposterous. is
not to be blamed in the
villa for destroying its antiquity; neither is
it
reprehensible,
harmonizing ill with the surrounding landscape on the contrary, it adds to its brilliancy, without taking away from We shall consider it as an element of its depth of tone. landscape, more particularly, when we come to speak of as
:
grouping. 121. There remains only one accusation to be answered; viz., that it
hints at a paltry
and unsubstantial material
:
and
this leads us to the second question. Is this material allow-
were distinctly
by the eye to be stucco, there it would be decidedly disagreeable but all the parts to which the eye is attracted are executed in marble, and the stucco merely forms the dead flat of the building, not a single wreath of ornament being formed of it. Its surface is smooth and bright, and altogether avoids what a stone building, when not built of large masses, and uncharged with ornament, always forces upon the attention, the rectangular lines of the blocks, which, however nicely fitted they may be, are " horrible most horrible " There is also a great deal of ease and softness in the angular lines of the stucco, which are never sharp or harsh, like those of stone and it receives shadows with great beauty, a point of infinite importance in this climate giving them lightness and transparency, without any diminution of depth. able
?
If
it
felt
could be no question about the matter, ;
!
!
;
;
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO
It is also agreeable to the eye, to pass
DI COMO.
87
from the sharp carving
of the marble decorations to the ease and smoothness of the stucco
;
while the ntter want of interest in those parts which
are executed in
being offensive to the
prevents the humility of the material from
it :
for this passage of the eye
managed with the attention may be drawn
composition
who, that the
the picture which
and
from the marble
is
dexterity of the artist,
is
his subject, leaves the rest so obscured
slightly painted, that the
mind
to the single point of
loses it altogether in its
attention to the principal feature.
122. of
With
away
so
however, that can be alleged in extenuation
all,
its faults,
much
it
cannot be denied that the stucco does take
of the dignity of the building, that, unless
we
enough bestowed by its form and details to counterand a great deal more than counterbalance, the deterioration occasioned by tone and material, the whole edifice must be condemned, as incongruous with the spirit of the climate, and even with the character of its own gardens and apfind
balance,
It remains, therefore,
proach.
Its
selves.
quite
flat,
form
is
to notice the details
simple to a degree
so as to leave the
;
them-
the roof generally
mass in the form of
a parallelo-
piped, in general without wings or adjuncts of any sort.
Somma-Riva [Carlotta] is a good example of this genform and proportion, though it has an arched passage on each side, which takes away from its massiness. This excessive weight of effect would be injurious, if the building were set by itself but, as it always forms the apex of a series of complicated terraces, it both relieves them and gains great Villa
eral
;
dignity by effect of
its
form
own unbroken is
simplicity of
not injured, when, as
is
size.
This general
often the case, an
open passage is left in the center of the building, under tall and well-proportioned arches, supported by pilasters (never by columns). Villa Porro, Lago di Como, is a good example of this method. The arches hardly ever exceed three in number, and these are all of the same size, so that the crowns of the arches continue the horizontal lines of the rest of the building.
Were
the center one higher than the others, these
THE POETKY OF AECHITECTUKE.
bb
would be interrupted, and a great deal of simplicity The covered space under these arches is a delightful, shaded, and breezy retreat in the heat of the day; and the entrance doors usually open into it, so that a current of cool air is obtainable by throwing them open. lines
lost.
123. The building itself consists of three floors: we member no instance of a greater number, and only one
re-
or
two of fewer. It is, in general, crowned with a light balustrade, surmounted by statues at intervals. The windoM^s of the uppermost floor are usually square, often without any architrave. Those of the principal floor are surrounded with broad architraves, but are frequently destitute of frieze or cornice. They have usually flat bands at the bottom, and their aperture is a double square. Their recess is very deej), so as not to let the sun fall far into the interior. The interval between them is very variable. In some of the villas of highest pretensions, such as those on the banks of the Brenta, that of Isola Bella, and others, which do not face the south, it is not much more than the breadth of the two architraves, so that the rooms within are filled with light. When this is the case, the windows have friezes and cornices. But,
when
the building fronts the south, the interval
great, as in the case of the Villa Porro.
is
often very
The ground-floor
windows are frequently
set in tall arches, supported on deeply engaged pilasters as in the Villa Somma-Eiva. The door is not large, and never entered by high steps, as it generally opens on a terrace of considerable height, or on a wide landing-place at the head of a flight of fifty or sixty steps descending through the gardens.
124.
Xow,
it
will be observed, that, in these general forms,
though there is no splendor, there is great dignity. The lines throughout are simple to a degree, entirely uninterrupted by decorations of any kind, so that the beauty of their proporis left visible and evident. We shall see hereafter that ornament in Grecian architecture, while, when well managed, it always adds to its grace, invariably takes away from its majesty; and that these two attributes never can exist to-
tions
THE MOUXTAI2f VILLA getlier
LAGO DI COMO.
By
iu their highest degrees.
decoration,
therefore,
the
Italian
89
the utter absence of
villa,
possessing,
as
it
usually does, great beauty of proportion, attains a degree of
mind
elevation of character, which imjDresses the
ner which
man-
in a
by any consideration of its simple details or moderate size; while, at the same time, it lays so little claim to the attention, and is so subdued in its character, that it is enabled to occupy a conspicuous place in a landscape, without any appearance of intrusion. The glance of the beholder rises from the labyrinth of terrace and arbor beneath, almost weariedly it meets, as it ascends, with a gradual increase of bright marble and simple light, and with a proportionate diminution of dark foliage and complicated shadow, till it rests finally on a piece of simple brilliancy, chaste and unpretending, yet singularly dignified and docs not find its color too harsh, because its form is so simple for color of any kind is only injurious when the it
finds difficult to account for
;
;
:
eye
is
too
much
attracted to
it
;
and,
when
there
is
so
much
quietness of detail as to prevent this misfortune, the building will possess the cheerfulness, without losing the tranquillity,
and
Avill
mind
seem
to
have been erected, and
to be inhabited,
by a
of that beautiful temperament wherein modesty tem-
pers majesty, and gentleness mingles with rejoicing, which,
above all others, is most suited to the essence, and most interwoven with the spirit, of the natural beauty whose peculiar power is invariably repose. 125. So much for its general character. Considered by principles of composition, it will also be found beautiful. Its prevailing lines are horizontal and every artist knows that, where peaks of any kind are in sight, the lines above which they rise ought to be flat. It has not one acute angle in all its details, and very few intersections of verticals with horizontals while all that do intersect seem useful as sup;
;
porting the mass.
The
just application of the statues at the
top is more doubtful, and is considered reprehensible by several high authorities, who, nevertheless, are inconsistent enough to let the balustrade pass uncalumniated, though it is
— THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
90
objectionable on exactly the same grounds for, if the statues suggest the inquiry of " What are they doing there ? " the balustrade compels its beholder to ask, " whom it keeps from tumbling over ? " ;
126. their
The
truth
origin from
is,
that the balustrade
a period
when
and
statues derive
was easy access to the there was such access is
there
roof of either temj)le or villa; (that
proved by a passage in the Iphigenia Taurica, line 113, where Orestes speaks of getting up to the triglyphs of a Doric temple as an easy matter ;) and when the flat roofs were used, not, perhaps, as an evening promenade, as in Palestine, but as a place of observation, and occasionally of defense. They were composed of large flat slabs of stone (Kcpa/Ao?,*) peculiarly adapted for walking, one or two of which, when taken up, left an opening of easy access into the house, as in Luke V. 19, and were perpetually used in Greece as missile weapons, in the event of a hostile attack or sedition in the city,
by
parties of old
men, women, and children, who used, as a
matter of course, to retire to the roof as a place of convenient defense. By such attacks from the roof with the Kepafx-o^ the
Thebans were thrown into confusion in Platsa (Thucydides ii.
4.)
So, also,
we
find the roof immediately resorted to
Temple of
in the case of the starving of Pausanias in the
Minerva of the Brazen House, and the aristocratic party at Corcyra 'Ava/Savres Se
e/SaXXov T<5
€7rt
to reyos tov
in that of the massacre of (
Thucydides
olKijfjuaTO<;,
/cat
iv.
48)
:
SieAovre? t^v 6po(^rjV,
Kf.pa.fiw.
127. ISTow, where the roof was thus a place of frequent resort, there could be
trade
;
no more useful decoration than
a balus-
nor one more appropriate or beautiful than occasional
statues in attitudes of watchfulness, expectation, or observa* In the large buildings, that
and sometimes earthenware
is
:
Kepafiog also signifies
in general, as in Herodotus
iii.
earthen
tiling,
6 [where
it
is
used of earthen jars of wine.] It appears that such tiling was frequently used in smaller edifices. The Greeks may have derived their flat roofs from Egypt. Herodotus mentions of the Labj^rintli of the Twelve Kings, that bpoipf/ 6e KcivTuv roiiTuv ?.idcv?j, but not as if the circumstance were in the least extraordinary [Herodotus
ii.
148.]
;
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO DI COMO.
and even now, wherever the roof
tion:
is
91
we have an
flat,
idea of convenience and facility of access, which
still
renders
the balustrade agreeable, and the statue beautiful, if well designed.
must not be
It
far less should
it
a figure of perfect peace or repose
be in violent action: but
it
should be fixed
which is the result of intent observation or expectation, and which seems ready to start into motion every instant. Its height should be slightly colossal, as it is always to be seen against the sky and its in that quick, startled stillness,
;
draperies should not be too heavy, as the eye will always expect
them
to be
We
caught by the wind.
however, more fully hereafter.
this subject,
at present to vindicate
shall enter into
We
only wish
from the charge of impropriety one of
Its white figures, always marble, remain entirely unsullied by the weather, and stand out with great majesty against the blue air behind them, taking away from the heaviness, without destroying the simplicity, of the general form. 128. It seems then that, by its form and details, the villa
the chief features of the Italian villa.
Lago
of the
Como
di
attains so high a degree of elevation of
character, as not only brings
it
into
harmony
of its locus,
without any assistance from appearance of antiquity, but may, we think, permit it to dispense even with solidity of material, and appear in light
ing
itself
imperishable
in
summer marble.
stucco, instead of rais-
And
conclusion,
this
merely theoretical, is verified by fact for we remember no instance, except in cases where poverty had overpowered pretension, or decay had turned rejoicing into silence, in which the lightness of the material was offensive
which
is
to the feelings it is
:
;
in all cases,
it is
agreeable to the eye.
Where
allowed to get worn, and discolored, and broken,
duces a wretched mockery of the dignified form which serves
;
but, as long as
it
is
renewed
at
it in-
it
pre-
proper periods, and
watched over by the eye of its inhabitant, it is an excellent and easily managed medium of effect. 129. With all the praise, however, which we have bestowed upon it, we do not say that the villa of the Lariau Lake is
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTURE.
92 perfection
;
indeed we cannot say
so,
until
we have compared
found in Italy, on with a of the villa, native country being the whose soil we delay, as only spot almost the being properly so-called, and as ever yet found; of it are to be of Europe where any good specimens " " villa cubic erecterm a for we do not understand by the door, and tion, with one window on each side of a verdant three on the second and uppermost story, such as the word suggests to the fertile imagination of ruralizing cheesemongers; neither do we understand the quiet and unpretending country house of a respectable gentleman neither do we un-
few other
it
instances, chiefly to be
;
derstand such a magnificent mass of hereditary stone as generally forms the autumn retreat of an English noble but we ;
understand the light but elaborate summer habitation, raised however and wherever it pleases his fancy, by some individual of great wealth and influence, who can enrich it with every attribute of beauty furnish it with every appurtenance ;
of pleasure; and repose in
it
with the dignity of a mind Such a building could not
trained to exertion or authority. exist in Greece,
where every
square was quarreling with
and did
exist, in Italy,
quillity,
among raised
a
where the
and the
Roman
great
number
them
district a
all its
mile and
Roman power
constitution distributed
of individuals, on
a
quarter
It could exist,
neighbors.
secured tranits
authority
whom, while
it
to a position of great influence, and, in its later
times, of wealth,
it
did not bestow the power of raising
palaces or private fortresses.
The
villa
was
their peculiar
habitation, their only resource, and a most agTeeable one
;
be-
cause the multitudes of the kingdom being, for a long period, confined to a narrow territory, though ruling the world, ren-
dered the population of the city so dense, as to drive out
its
higher ranks to the neighboring hamlets of Tibur and Tus-
culum. 130. In other districts of Europe the villa is not found, because in very perfect monarchies, as in Austria, the power is thrown chiefly into the hands of a few, who build themselves
palaces,
not villas
;
and in perfect republics, as in
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA
LAGO DI COMO.
93
Switzerland, the power is so split among the multitude, that nobody can build himself anything. In general, in kingdoms of great extent, the country house becomes the permanent and hereditary habitation and the villas are all crowded together, and form gingerbread rows in the environs of the capital and, in France and Germany, the excessively disturbed state of affairs in the Middle Ages compelled every baron or noble to defend himself, and retaliate on his neighbors as he best could, till the villa was lost in the chateau and the fortress and men now continue to build as their forefathers built (and long may they do so), surrounding the domicile of pleasure with a moat and a glacis, and guarding while, in Engits garret windows with turrets and towers land, the nobles, comparatively few, and of great power, inhabit palaces, not villas and the rest of the population is chiefly crowded into cities, in the activity of commerce, or dispersed over estates in that of agriculture leaving only one ;
;
;
:
;
;
grade of
power
gentrj',
who have
neither the taste to desire, nor the
to erect, the villa, properly so-called.
We must not, therefore, be surprised if, on leaving where the crowd of poverty-stricken nobility can still repose their pride in the true villa, we find no farther examples of it worthy of consideration though we hope to have 131,
Italy,
;
far greater pleasure in contemplating
teau and the
fortress.
its substitutes,
the cha-
AVe must be excused, therefore, for
devoting one paper more to the state of villa architecture in
we shall endeavor to apply the principles have deduced to the correction of some abuses in the erection of English country houses, in cases where scenery would demand beauty of design and wealth permit finish of Italy; after which
we
shall
decoration.
III.
THE ITALIAN VILLA We
(Concluded).
is any truth in the aphorism, advanced in England, that the adaptation of shelter to the corporal comfort of the human race is the original and true end of the art of architecture, properly socalled: for, were such the case, he would be the most distinguished architect who was best acquainted with the properties of cement, with the nature of stone, and the various durability of wood. That such knowledge is necessary to the perfect architect we do not deny but it is no more the end and purpose of his application, than a knowledge of the alphabet
132.
now
do not think there
so frequently
;
is
the object of the refined scholar, or of
rhythm of
the
inspired poet. 133. For, supposing that sider that
we
we were
for a
moment
to con-
and that
built a house merely to be lived in,
the whole bent of our invention, in raising the edifice,
is
to
be directed to the provision of comfort for the life to be spent therein; supposing that
we
build
it
with the most perfect. dry-
ness and coolness of cellar, the most luxurious appurtenances
of pantry; that
we
build our walls with the most compacted
strength of material, the most studied econom.y of space
we
leave not a chink in the floor for a breath of
wind
;
that
to pass
through, not a hinge in the door, which, by any possible exerits irritable muscles, could creak; that we elevate our chambers into exquisite coolness, furnish them with every attention to the maintenance of general health, as well as the prevention of present inconvenience to do all this, we must be possessed of great knowledge and various skill let this knowledge and skill be applied with the greatest energy, and
tion of
:
;
94
THE ITALIAN VILLA what have thej done
CONCLUDED.
much
Exactly as
?
95
as brute animals
nothing more than bees and beavers, moles and magpies, ants and earwigs, do every day of their can do by mere instinct lives,
;
vi'ithout the slightest effort of
reason;
we have made
ourselves superior as architects to the most degraded animation of the universe, only
insomuch
as
we have
lavished the
highest efforts of intellect, to do what they have done with the
most limited sensations that can constitute life. 134. The mere preparation of convenience, therefore, is not architecture in which man can take pride, or ought to take delight * but the high and ennobling art of architecture is that of giving to buildings, whose parts are determined by necessity, such forms and colors as shall delight the mind, by preparing it for the operations to which it is to be subjected in the building: and thus, as it is altogether to the mind that ;
work of the
the
architect is addressed,
it is
not as a part of
his art, but as a limitation of its extent, that he
must be
ac-
quainted with the minor principles of the economy of domestic erections.
class of edifice,
For it
this reason,
though we shall notice every
does not come within our proposed plan, to
enter into any detailed consideration of the inferior build-
which afford no scope for the play of the imagination by their nature or size but we shall generally select the most perfect and beautiful examples, as those in ings of each class,
;
which alone the architect has the power of fulfilling the high purposes of his art. In the villa, however, some exception must be made, inasmuch as it will be useful, and perhaps interesting, to arrive at some fixed conclusions respecting the modern buildings, improperly called villas, raised by moderate wealth, and of limited size, in which the architect is compelled to produce his effect without extent or decoration. The principles which we have hitherto arrived at, deduced as they are from edifices of the noblest character, will be but of little use to a country gentleman, about to insinuate himself and his habitation into a quiet corner of our lovely country and, therefore, we must glance at the more humble homes ;
[*
Compare "The Seven Lamps
of Architecture," chap.
i.
§
1.
i
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
90
of the Italian, preparatory to the consideration of what will best suit our
own
less elevated scenery.
135. First, then,
we
lose the terraced approach, or, at least,
and splendor, as these require great wealth to erect For the them, and perpetual expense to preserve them. its size
chain of terraces
we
find substituted a simple garden, some-
what formally laid out; but redeemed from the charge of meanness by the nobility and size attained by most of its the line of immense cypresses which generally surtrees rounds it in part, and the luxuriance of the vegetation of its ;
It has
flowering shrubs.
frequently a large entrance gate,
sometimes singularly adorned with fragments of ancient sculpture, regularly in-
well designed, but carelessly executed
;
troduced, which the spectator partly laments, as preserved in a
mode
so
incongruous wath their ancient meaning, and partly
rejoices over, as preserved at
all.
The
grottoes of the supe-
garden are here replaced by light ranges of arched summerhouses, designed in stucco, and occasionally adorned in their interior with fresco paintings of considerable brightness and beauty. 136. All this, however, has very little effect in introducing rior
the eve to the villa itself, owino; to the general want of ine-
quality of level in the ground, so that the
main building
be-
comes an independent feature, instead of forming the apex Consequently, the weight of a mass of various architecture. of form which in the former case it might, and even ought to, possess, would here be cumbrous, ugly, and improper and accordingly we find it got rid of. This is done, first by the addition of the square tower, a feature which is not allow-ed to break in upon the symmetry of buildings of high architectural pretensions but is immediately introduced, Avhenever ;
;
approach, demands or admits of irregularity of form. It is a constant and most important feature in Italian landscape sometimes high and apparently detached, as when it belongs to sacred edifices; less richness of detail, or variety of
;
sometimes low and strong, united with the mass of the fortress, or varying the form of the villa. It is always simple in
THE ITALIAN VILLA
CONCLUDED,
97
being turned by very which are carried up the whole height of the tower, whatever it may be, without any regard to proportion, terminating in two arches on each side, in the villa most frequently filled up, though their curve is still disTwo black holes tinguished by darker tint and slight relief. on each side, near the top, are very often the only entrances by which light or sun can penetrate. These are seldom actually large, always proportionably small, and destitute of ornament or relief. 137. The forms of the villas to which these towers are attached are straggling, and varied by many crossing masses; its
design,
flat-roofed,
its
corners
slightly projecting pilasters,
but the great principle of simplicity
everything tall
is
is
always kept in view; no
square, and terminated by parallel lines
;
chimneys, no conical roofs, no fantastic ornaments are
ever admitted
the arch alone
:
allowed to relieve the
is
This
ness of the general eifect.
is
still-
introduced frequently,
but not in the windows, which are either squares or double
from each other, set deeply into and only adorned with broad flat borders. Where more light is required they are set moderately close, and protected by an outer line of arches, deep enough to keep the noonday sun from entering the rooms. These lines of arches cast soft shadows along the bright fronts, and are otherwise squares, at great distances
the walls
Their
of great value.
piece which, while
it
effect is pretty well seen in fig.
has no distinguished beauty
is
10; a
yet pleas-
and peculiarly so, when we know (some say, built) for its last and lonely habitation, by a mind of softest passion as of purest thought and to have sheltered its silent old age among the blue and quiet hills, till it passed away like a deep lost melody from the earth, leaving a light of peace about the gray tomb at which the steps of those who pass by always falter, and around this deserted, and decaying, and calm habitation ing by
its
entire simplicity
;
that simplicity to have been chosen
;
of the thoughts of the departed
;
Petrarch's, at Arqua.
more familiar instance of the application of these arches the Villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, though
7
it is
A is
improperlv stvled
;;;
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
98 a
villa,
being pretty well known to have been nothing but
stables.
138.
The
buttress is the only remaining point worthy of
It prevails to a considerable extent
notice.
of the south, being always broad and
among
the villas
and occasionally so frequent as to give the building, viewed laterally, a pyramiThe most usual form is that of dal and cumbrous effect. tall,
a simple sloped mass, terminating in the wall, Avithout the slightest finishing, and rising at an angle of about 84°.
Sometimes
it
wall
never has steps of increasing projection as
;
but
down.
it
By
architect,
perpendicular, sloped at the top into the
is
it
goes
observing the occurrence of these buttresses, an
who knew nothing
of geology, might accurately de-
termine the points of most energetic volcanic action in Italy for their use
is
to protect the building
from the injuries of
earthquakes, the Italian having far too
much good
use them, except in cases of extreme necessity. are never found in
begin to occur
North
among
Italy,
taste to
Thus, they
They
even in the fortresses.
the Apennines, south of Florence
they
;
become more and more frequent and massy towards Rome in the neighborhood of Naples they are huge and multitudinous, even the walls themselves being sometimes sloped and the same state of things continues as we go south, on the coast of Calabria and Sicily. 139. Now, these buttresses present one of the most extraordinary and striking instances of the beauty of adaptation of style to locality and peculiarity of circumstance, that can be met with in the whole range of architectural investigation. ;
Taken
in the abstract, they are utterly detestable, formal,
clumsy, and apparently unnecessary. Their builder thinks so himself: he hates them as things to be looked at, though
he erects them as things to be depended upon. idea that there
is
any propriety in
knows perfectly well
that there
is
He
has no
their presence, though he a great deal of necessity;
On rocks whose ? mass of buttresses, of precisely the same form on rocks which are cut and cloven by basalt and lava dikes and, therefore he builds them.
sides are one
Where
i-
Fig. 10.
Petrarch's Villa
;
Arqua.
— 1837.
THE ITALIAN VILLA
99
CONCLTIDED.
and wliich, being themselves secondary, wear away gradually by exposure to the atmosphere, leaving the intersecting dikes standing out in solid and vertical walls,
of every
size,
from the faces of their precipices. The eye passes over heaps of scoriae and sloping banks of ashes, over the huge ruins of more ancient masses, till it trembles for the fate of the crags but it finds them ribbed with basalt like still standing round bones, buttressed with a thousand lava walls, propped upon pedestals and pyramids of iron, which the pant and the pulse ;
of the earthquake itself can scarcely move, for they are its own work; it climbs up to their summits, and there it finds
work of man but
no puny domicile, no eggshell imagmountain itself, inclined at the same slope, ribbed in the same manner, protected by the same means against the same danger not, indeed, filling the eye with delight, but, which is of more importance, freeing it from fear, and beautifully corresponding with the prevalent lines around it, which a less massive form
the
;
ination,
it
is
it is
in a continuation of the
;
would have rendered, in some
Capo
di
cases, particularly
about Etna,
in the long
and luxuriant views. from
Monte, and the heights
to the east of Xaples, the
even ghastly.
Even
spectator looks over a series of volcanic eminences, generally,
indeed, covered with rich verdure, but starting out here and there in gray and
worn
walls, fixed at a regular slope,
and
breaking away into masses more and more rugged towards Vesuvius, till the eye gets thoroughly habituated to their fortress-like outlines.
Throughout the whole of this broken country, and, on the summits of these volcanic cones, rise innumerable villas but they do not offend us, as we should have expected, by their attestation of (Cheerfulness of life amidst the wrecks left by destructive operation, nor hurt the eye by non-assimilation with the immediate features of the landscape but they seem to rise prepared and adapted for resistance to, and endurance of, the circumstances of their position to be inhabited by beings of energy and force sufficient to decree and to carry on a steady struggle with opposing elements, and of l-iO.
;
:
;
THE POETRY OF AECIIITECTUEE.
100
form of the walls and to prevent the exultation and the lightness of transitory life from startling, like a mockery, the eternal remains of disguised taste
of
and feeling
men
sufficient to proportion the
to the clefts in the flanks of the volcano,
desolation.
141. We have always considered these circumstances as most remarkable proofs of the perfect dependence of architecture on its situation, and of the utter impossibility of judging of the beauty of any building in the abstract and we would also lay much stress upon them, as showing with what boldness the designer may introduce into his building, undisguised, such parts as local circumstances render desir:
able
;
for there will invariably be something in the nature of
that which causes their necessity, which will
endow them
with beauty. 142. These, then, are the principal features of the Italian villa,
modifications of which, of course more or less dignified
in size, material or decoration, in proportion to the
and
possessions of their proprietor,
may
power
be considered as com-
A few remarks posing every building of that class in Italy. conclude the subject. to on their general effect will enable us We
have been so long accustomed to see the horizontal lines and simple forms which, as we have observed, still prevail among the Ausonian villas, used with the greatest dexterity, and the noblest effect, in the compositions of 143.
Claude, Salvator, and Poussin
— and
so habituated to con-
sider these compositions as perfect models of the beautiful, as well as the pure in taste
—
that
it is difficult
to divest our-
selves of prejudice, in the contemplation of the sources
from
which those masters received their education, their feelings, and their subjects. We would hope, however, and we think it may be proved, that in this case principle assists and encourages prejudice.
First, referring only to the gratifica-
which we know to depend upon fixed mathematical principles, though those principles are not always developed, it is to be observed, that country is always most beautiful when it is made up of curves, and that one of tion afforded to the eye,
THE ITALIAN VILLA
CONCLUDED.
the chief characters of Ausonian landscape of
is
101
the perfection
curvatures, induced by the gradual undulation of prom-
its
ontories
into
the
In
plains.
suiting architecture to such a
country,
which be
to
it
which
building
that
interrupts
least
h
q
curve on
the
placed will be felt
is
most delightful
to
the
then
the
eye.
144. Let
us
simple form
take
a
h
rupting the curve
Now,
A],
inter-
d,
c c e
[fig.
11,
the eye will always
continue the principal lines of
such an object for is, it
on a
will carry
until
itself,
they cut the main curve 6 to
;
e,
that
and
the total effect of the interrup-
form d been the effect would
tion will be that of the c
d
e.
Had
nearer to a
have
the line h
c,
been
same.
the
just
Now, every curve may be
S
con-
sidered as composed of an infinite
number
of lines at right
angles to each other, as
made up
of o p,
B), whose ratio
p
m
q, etc.,
to
n
is Fig.
(fig.
each other varies with the direction of
the curve. -Then, if the right lines which c (fig.
A)
Broken Curves.
II.
be increased,
we have
form the curve at d e, that is, the
the figure c
apparent interruption of the curve
an increased part of the we can explain our meaning more clearly, by pointing out that, taking c for our origin, we have a c, a e, for the co-ordinates of e, and that,
curve
itself.
To
is
the mathematical reader
therefore, their ratio
is
the equation to the curve.
when any curve
Whence
broken in upon by a building composed of simple vertical and horizontal lines, the eye it
appears, that,
is
— THE POETET OF ARCHITECTURE.
102 is
furnished, bj the interruption, with the equation to that
part of the curve which
forms,
we
is
interrupted.
take obliquity, as
i^
s
If, instead of
C),
(fig.
t
square
we have one
line,
an absolute break, and the other r s, in false proportion. If we take another curve, we have an infinite number of lines, only two of which are where they ought to be. And s
t,
this is the true reason for the constant introduction of fea-
which appear
somewhat formal, into the most perand the true cause of the extreme beauty of the groups formed by Italian villages tures
to be
fect imaginations of the old masters,
in general.
Thus much for
115.
mere
the
effect
respondence with national character,
on the
eye.
we have shown
Of
cor-
that
we
must not be disappointed, if we find little in the villa. The unfrequency of windows in the body of the building is partly attributed to the climate; but the total exclusion of light
from some
parts, as the base of the central tower, carries our
thoughts back to the ancient system of Italian
every man's
home had
its
life,
when
dark, secret places, the abodes of
whose shadows were alone intrusted with the motion of his thoughts whose walls became the whited sepulchers of crime; whose echoes were never stirred except by such words as they dared not repeat * from which the rod bis worst passions
;
;
;
of power, or the dagger of passion, fore whose stillness princes
grew
came forth
invisible
;
be-
were prophesied or fulfilled by the horoscope or the hemlock; and nations, as the whisper of anarchy or of heresy was avenged by the opening of the low doors, through which those who pale, as their fates
entered returned not.
The mind
146.
of the Italian, sweet and smiling in
operations, deep and silent in
its
its
emotions, was thus, in some
by those abodes into which he was wont from the tumult and wrath of life, to cherish or
degree, typified
to
retire
to
—
* Shelley has caught the feeliug finely: " The house is penetrated to corners by the peeping insolence of tlie clay. "When the time comes the crickets shall not see me." Cenci [Act II. scene 1, quoted from
its
memory. ]
THE ITALIAN VILLA
CONCLUDED.
103
its struggles had excited abodes which now gleam brightly and purely among the azure mountains, and by the sapphire sea, but whose stones are dropped with blood whose vaults are black with the memory of guilt and grief unpunished and unavenged, and by whose walls the traveler hastens fearfully, when the sun has set, lest he should hear, awakening again through the horror of their
gratify the passions which
;
;
chambers, the faint wail of the children of Ugolino,* the
ominous alarm of Bonatti, or the long low cry of her who perished at Coll' Alto. Oxford, July,
1838.
[* Ugolino; Dante, Inferno xxxiii. Forli, Inferno xx., 118.
Guido Bonatti, the astrologer of perished at Coll' AUo, i.e. the between Siena and VoUerra was
The lady who
higher part of Colle de Val d'Elsa, Sapia; Purgatorio, xiii. 100-154.]
—
IV.
THE LOWLAND VILLA—ENGLA:ND. Although,
147.
as
we have
chief object in these papers
is,
frequently
isting between national architecture
fore
is
observed,
our
to discover the connection ex-
and character, and
there-
one leading us rather to the investigation of what
is,
than of what ought to be, we yet consider that the subject would be imperfectly treated, if we did not, at the conclusion of the consideration of each particular rank of building,
endeavor
to
apply such principles as
may
have been dem-
onstrated to the architecture of our country, and to dis-
cover the beau ideal of English character, which should be all the decorations which the builder may and through every variety which fancy may suggest. There never was, and never can be, a universal beau ideal in architecture, and the arrival at all local models of beauty would be the task of ages but we can always, in some degree, determine those of our own lovely country. We cannot, however, in the present case, pass from the contemplation of the
preserved through
desire,
;
villa of a totally different climate, to the investigation of
what
is
styles
now
beautiful here, without the slightest reference to or formerly adopted for our own " villas," if such
they are to be called
;
and therefore
it
will be necessary to de-
vote a short time to the observance of the peculiarities of such
we
styles, if
possess
them
;
or,
if not,
of the causes of their
absence.
148.
We
England
mind
;
have therefore headed this paper " The Villa, " awakening, without doubt, a different idea in the
who reads the words. Some, accustomed appearance of metropolitan villas, will think of brick buildings, with infinite appurtenances of black nicked chimof every one
to the
104
THE LOWLAND VILLA
ENGLAND.
105
and plastered fronts, agreeably varied with graceand undulatory shades of pink, brown, and green, communicated to the cement by smoky showers. Others will imagine large, square, mam'-windowed masses of white, set with careful choice of situation exactly where they will spoil the landscape to such a conspicuous degree, as to compel the gentlemen traveling on the outside of the mail to inquire of the guard, with great eagerness, " whose place that is " and to enable the guard to reply with great distinctness, that it nej-pots,
ful cracks,
;
belongs to Squire ,
and the
,
still
Squire gentlemen
to the infinite gratification of
more
infinite edification of the
Others will remember masses of on the outside of the mail. very red brick, quoined with stone with columnar porticoes, about one-third of the height of the building, and two niches, with remarkable looking heads and bag-wigs in them, on each side and two teapots, with a pocket-handkerchief hang;
;
ing over each (described to the astonished spectator as " Grecian urns ") located upon the roof, just under the chimneys.
Others will go back to the range of Elizabethan gables but none will have any idea ©f a fixed character, stamped on a class of national edifices. This is very melancholy, and very discouraging; the more so, as it is not without cause. 149. In the first, place, Britain unites in itself so many ;
geological formations, each giving a peculiar character to the
country which
it
composes, that there
is
hardly a district
five
miles broad, which preserves the same features of landscape
through its whole width.* If, for example, six foreigners were to land severally at Glasgow, at Aberystwith, at Falmouth, at Brighton, at Yarmouth, and at ]Srewcastle, and to confine
their
investigations to the
country within twenty
miles of them, what different impressions would they receive of British landscape If, therefore, there be as many forms !
* Length
is we might divide England into strips of country, running southwest and northeast, which would be composed of the same rock, and therefore would present the same character through-
another thing:
out the whole of their length. versely,
beds.
Almost all our great roads cut these transand therefore seldom remain for ten miles together on the same
;
THE POETKY OF AECHITECTURE.
106
of edifice as there are pe
we can have
no national style and if we abandon the idea of a correspondence with situation, we lose the only criterion capable of forming a national style.* 150, Another cause to be noticed is the peculiar independence of the Englishman's disposition a feeling which prompts him to suit his own humor, rather than fall in with ;
;
the prevailing cast of social sentiment, or of natural beauty *
we
find the most perfect schools of architecture have whose character is unchanging. Looking to Egypt first, we find a climate inducing a perpetual state of heavy feverish excitement, fostered by great magnificence of natural phenomena, and increased by tlie general custom of exposing the head continually to the sun (Herodotus, bk. III. chap. 13) so that, as in a dreaming fever we imagine distorted creatures and countenances moving and living in the quiet objects of the chamber, the Egyptian endowed all existence with disIt is
thus ihat
arisen in districts
;
torted animation
;
turned dogs into deities, and leeks into lightning-darters
then gradually invested the blank granite with sculptured mystery, designed in superstition, and adored in disease; and then such masses of architecture arose as, in delirium, we feel crushing down upon us with eternal weight,
and see extending
shapeless columns of colossal
life
;
far into the blackness above huge and immense and immeasurable avenues of ;
—
This was a perfect that is, a marked, enduring, and stone. decided school of architecture, induced by an unchanging and peculiar character of climate. Then in the purer air, and among the more refined
mountain
energies of Greece, architecture rose into a more studied beaut}% equally its school, because fostered in a district not 50 miles square, dependent isles and colonies, all of which were under the same In Rome, it became air, and partook of the same features of landscape. less perfect, because more imitative than indigenous, and corrupted by the traveling, and conquering, and stealing ambition of the Roman yet still a school of architecture, because the whole of Italy presented the same peculiarities of scene. So with the Spanish and Moresco schools, and many others; passing over the Gothic, which, though we hope hereafter to show it to be no exception to the rule, involves too many complicated questions to be now brought forward as a proof of it. [The comparison of Egyptian architecture with delirious visions seems to be an allusion to De Quincey's passage in " The Pains of Oiiium " the last paper in " the Confessions of an Opium-Eater " where, after describing Piranesi's Dreams, he tells how he fancied he was " buried for a thousand years, in stone cofllins, with mummies and sphinxes, in nairow cham-
perfect in
and
in its
;
—
bers at the heart of eternal pyramids,'' etc]
—
;
THE LOWLAND VILLA and expression
;
107
ENGLAND.
—there being much — produces strange
and which, therefore,
stinate originality in his mind,
ob-
varieties
more preposterous by England, and often absurdly indulged. 'Wealth is worshiped in France as the means of purchasing pleasure in Italy, as an instrument of power in England, as the means " of showing off." It would be a very great sacrifice indeed, in an Englishman
of dwelling, frequently rendered his love of display
;
still
a love universally felt in
;
;
of the average stamp, to put his villa out of the way, Avhere
nobody would ever
see
it,
or think of
him;
it is
his ambition
every one exclaiming, " What a pretty place whose And he cares very little about the peace which be ? "
to hear
!
can it he has disturbed, or the repose which he has interrupted though, even while he thus pushes himself into the way, he keeps an air of sulky retirement, of hedgehog independence, about his house, which takes away any idea of sociability or good-humor, which might otherwise have been suggested by his choice of situation.
151. But, in spite of
all
these unfortunate circumstances,
there are some distinctive features in our English country houses, which are well worth a
approach,
little attention.
we have one component
First, in the
may much study
part of effect, which
be called peculiarly our own, and which requires
it can be managed well,— the avenue. It is true that with noble lines timber cresting meet of trees some of the we
before
larger bastions of Continental fortified cities
;
we
see intermi-
nable regiments of mistletoed apple trees flanking the car-
and occasionall}- we approach a turreted chateau * by a broad way, " edged with poplar pale." But, al-
riage road;
lowing ours
all this,
still,
the legitimate glory of the perfect avenue
as will
appear by a
elements which constitute
The
its
little
is
consideration of the
beauty.
was given by the opening of the tangled glades in our most ancient forests. It is rather a 152.
original idea
* Or a city. Any one who remembers entering Carlsruhe from the north by the two miles of poplar avenue, remembers entering the most soulless of all cities, by the most lifeless of all entrances.
THE POETRY OF AECHITECTUEE.
108
curious circumstance that, in those woods whose decay has been most instrumental in forming the bog districts of Ireland, the trees have, in general, been planted in symmetrical rows, at distances of about twenty feet apart. If the arrangement of our later woods be 'not quite so formal, they at least present frequent openings, carpeted with green sward, and edged with various foliage, which the architect (for so
may
the designer of the avenue be entitled) should do
little
symmetry and place in position, preserving, as much as possible, the manner and the proportions of nature. The avenue, therefore, must not be too long. It more than reduce
is
to
quite a mistake to suppose that there
monotonous length of
indeed
line, unless
is it
sublimity in a
be carried to an
extent generally impossible, as in the case of the long walk at
Windsor. From three to four hun'dred yards is a length which will display the elevation well, and will not become tiresome from continued monotony. The kind of tree must, of course, be regulated by circumstances but the foliage must ;
be unequally disposed, so as to
in passages of light across
let
the path, and cause the motion of any object across
to
it
change, like an undulating melody, from darkness to light. It should
meet
at the top, so as to cause twilight, but not
obscurity; and the idea of a vaulted roof, without rigidity.
The ground should be green, so that the sunlight may tell 'Now, this kind of rich and with force wherever it strikes. shadowy vista is found in its perfection only in England it is an attribute of green country it is associated with all our memories of forest freedom, of our wood-rangers, and yeo:
;
men
with the " doublets of the Lincoln green
;
" with our
pride of ancient archers, whose art was fostered in such long
and breezeless glades with our thoughts of the merry chases of our kingly companies, when the dewy antlers sparkled ;
down
the intertwined paths of the windless woods, at the
morning echo of the hunter's horn with ;
contributed to give our land
Eiigland will have
;
a
name which,
some
its
all,
ancient
in fact, that once
name
in this age of steam
difficulty in keeping.
of "
merry "
and
iron, it
;
THE LOWLAND VILLA 153. This, then,
is
the
first
ENGLAND.
feature
we would
109 direct atten-
and be it remembered, that we are not speaking of the immense lines of foliage which guide the eye to some of our English palaces, tion
to,
as characteristic, in the English villa:
for those are rather the adjuncts of the park than the ap-
proach to the building; but of the more laconic avenue, with the two crested columns and the iron gate at
entrance,
its
leading the eye, in the space of a hundred yards or
so, to
the
gray mansion, A good instance of this approach may be found at Petersham, by following the right side of the Thames for about half a mile from Richmond Hill though the house, which, in this case, is approached by a noble avenue, is much to be reprehended, as a bad mixture of imitation of the Italian with corrupt Elizabethan though it is somewhat instructive, as showing the ridiculous effect of gables of
its
;
statues out of doors in a climate like ours.
154. And now that we have pointed out the kind of approach most peculiarly English, that approach will guide us to the only style of villa architecture which can be called English,
— the Elizabethan, and
its details,
its varieties,
—
a style fantastic in
and capable of being subjected
to
no rule, but, as which it arose.
we
think, well adapted for the scenery in
We
allude not only to the pure Elizabethan, but even to the
strange mixtures of classical ornaments with Gothic forms,
which we find prevailing in the sixteenth century. In the most simple form, we have a building extending round three
round several
sides of a court, and, in the larger halls,
in-
terminating in sharply gabled fronts, with broad oriels, divided into very narrow lights by channeled mullions, without decoration of any kind the roof relieved terior
courts,
;
by projecting dormer windows, whose divided into three, terminating in very
lights are generally flat
arches without
cusps, the intermediate edge of the roof being battlemented.
Then we the oriels
ornament introduced at the base of * ranges of short columns, the base of one upon
find wreaths of ;
the capital of another, running *
As
in a beautiful
example
in
up beside them
;
the bases
Brasenose College, Oxford.
— THE POETP.Y OF AECHITECTURE.
110 being very
sometimes decorated with knots of flowercolumns usually fluted, wreathed, in richer examples, with ornament. The entrance is frequently formed by double ranges of those short columns, with intermediate arches, with shell canopies, and rich crests above.* This portico is carried up to some height above the roof, which is charged with an infinite variety of decorated chimneys.
work;
tall,
—
the
155-.
Xow,
all this is
utterly barbarous as architecture;
but, with the exception of the chimneys, taste
for
;
it
was originally intended for
it
not false in
is
retired and quiet
habitations in our forest country, not for conspicuous palaces in the streets of the city
;
and we have shown, in speaking of
green country, that the eye tails
;
that
it is
is gratified f with fantastic deprepared, by the mingled lights of the natural
scenery, for rich and entangled ornament,
and would not
only endure, but demand, irregularity of system in the archi-
man, to correspond with the infinite variety of form in the wood architecture of nature. Few surprises can be imaginad more delightful than the breaking out of one tecture of
of these rich gables, with
its
decorated entrance,
among
the
dark trunks and twinkling leaves of forest scenery. Such an effect is rudely given in fig. 12. TTe would direct the attention chiefly to the following points in the building
156. First,
it is
:
a humorist, an odd, twisted, independent
being, with a great deal of mixed, obstinate, and occasionally
absurd originality. It has one or two graceful lines about and several harsh and cutting ones it is a whole, which
it,
;
would allow of no unison with any other architecture it is gathered in itself, and would look very ugly indeed, if pieces in a purer style of building were added. All this corre;
sponds with points of English character, with independency, and
its
its
horror of being put out of
humors,
its
its
own way.
* The portico of the [old] Schools and the inner courts of Merton and John's Colleges, Oxford; an old house at Charlton, Kent; and Burleigh House, will probably occur to the mind of the architect, as good examples St.
of the varieties of this mixed [f i.e.
when
ante, § 88.]
the spectator
st3-le.
is
surrounded by woodland scenery.
Vide
THE LOWLAND VILLA 157. x\.gain,
and
ENGLAND.
Ill
a thoroughly domestic building,
it is
cottage-like in
its
homely
prevailing forms, awakening no
ele-
It has none of vated ideas, assuming no nobility of form. the pride, or the grace of beauty, none of the dignity of delight which we found in the villa of Italy but it is a habitation of everyday life, a protection from momentary inconvenience, covered with stiff efforts at decoration, and exactly ;
mind
typical of the
not haughty in
beauty
its
of
its
but domestic in
;
inhabitant
:
not noble in
its taste,
recreation, not pure in its perception of its
pleasures, fond of matter-of-fact
rather than of imagination, yet sparkling occasionally with
odd wit and grotesque
The
association.
Italian obtains his
beauty, as his recreation, with quietness, with few and noble lines,
with great seriousness and depth of thought, with very
rare interruptions to the simple train of feeling.
Englishman's
villa is full of effort
to be playful,
an
it is
:
infinite labor to be
a business
ornamental
:
But
the
with him
he forces his
amusement with fits of contrasted thought, with mingling of minor touches of humor, with a good deal of sulkiness, but with no melancholy and therefore, owing to this last ad;
its
original state, cannot be called
and we ought not
to consider the effect of its pres-
junct,* the building, in beautiful,
ent antiquity, evidence of which
is,
as
was before proved,
generally objectionable in a building devoted to pleasure,f
and
only agreeable here, because united with the
is
memory
of a departed pride. 158. Again,
ments, brisk in roof,
it is
a lifelike building, sparkling in its case-
its air, letting
much
low and comfortable-looking in
dwelling
light in at the walls its
The
door.
and
Italian's
much walled
in, letting out no secrets from the and drowsy in its effect. Just such is the difference between the minds of the inhabitants the one passing away in deep and dark reverie, the other quick and business-like, enjoying its everyday occupations, and active in its is
inside, dreary
;
ordinary engagements. [*
Namely
impulse [f
;
V.
the fact that there
ante, § 23.]
See § 118 seq.J
is
uo melancholy
iu the
English play-
112
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUKE.
159. Again,
it
is
a regularly planned, mechanical, well-
its parts answering to its opornaments matched with similarity. The Italian (where it has no high pretense to architectural beauty) is a rambling and irregular edifice, varied with uncorresponding masses and the mind of the Italian we find similarly irregular, a thing of various and ungovernable impulse, without fixed principle of action; the Englishman's, regular and uniform in its emotions, steady in its habits, and firm even in its most trivial determinations. 160. Lastly, the size of the whole is diminutive, compared with the villas of the south, in which the effect was always Here the eye is drawn into the investigalarge and general. tion of particular points, and miniature details; just as, in comparing the English and Continental cottages, we found the one characterized by a minute finish, and the other by a massive effect, exactly correspondent with the scale of the features and scenery of their respective localities.
disciplined building; each of
posite,
each of
its
:
161. It appears, then, from a consideration of these several points, that, in our antiquated style of villa architecture,
some national feeling may be discovered; but in any buildings now raised there is no character whatever all is ridiculous imitation, and despicable affectation and it is much to :
;
be lamented, that now,
when
a great deal of public attention
has been directed to architecture on the part of the public, more efforts are not made to turn that attention from mimick-
ing Swiss chalets, to erecting English houses.
We
need not
devote more time to the investigation of purely domestic Eng-
though we hope to derive much instruction and pleasure from the contemplation of buildings partly adapted for defense, and partly for residence. The introduction of the means of defense is, however, a distinction which we do not wish at present to pass over and therefore, in our next paper, we hope to conclude the subject of the villa, by a few remarks on the style now best adapted for lish architecture,
;
English scenery.
V.
THE ENGLISH VILLA.—PRIiTCIPLES OF COMPOSITION. 162. It has lately become a custom,
among
the
more
en-
lightened and refined of metropolitan shopkeepers, to advocate the cause of propriety in architectural decoration,
by
ensconcing their shelves, counters, and clerks in classical ediagreeably ornamented with ingenious devices, typical of
fices,
the class of articles to which the tradesman particularly desires to direct the public attention.
We
find our grocers en-
shrined in temples whose columns are of canisters, and whose pinnacles are of sugar-loaves. soles
under Gothic
portals, with
Our shoemakers shape
their
pendants of shoes, and cano-
and our cheesemongers will, we doubt by raising shops the varied diameters of whose jointed columns, in their address to the eye, shall awaken memories of Staffa, Pnestum, and Palmyra and in their address to the tongaie, shall arouse exquisite associations of remembered flavor, Dutch, Stilton, and pies of "Wellingtons
;
not, soon follow the excellent example,
;
Strachino.
163.
Xow,
this
fit
of taste on the part of our tradesmen
only a coarse form of a disposition inherent in the
is
human
which the eye has been most frequently accustomed, and among which the intellect has formed its habits of action, and the soul its modes of emotion, become agreeable to the thoughts, from their correspondence mind.
Those objects
with their prevailing
to
cast, especially
when
has had any relation to those objects; for
the business of life it is
in the habitual
and necessary occupation that the most painless hours of
exist-
whatever be the nature of that occupation, the memories belonging to it will always be agreeable, and, 113 ence are passed
:
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTURE.
ll-i
awakening such memories
therefore, the objects
will invari-
ably be found beautiful, whatever their character or form. 164. It
is
thus that taste
memory and beauty ;
is
is tested,
the child and the slave of
not by any fixed standard, but
by the chances of association; so that in every domestic building evidence will be found of the kind of life through which its owner has passed, in the operation of the habits of mind which that life has induced. From the superannuated coxswain,
who
plants his old ship's figure-head in his six square
garden at Bermondsey, to the retired noble, the proud portal of whose mansion is surmounted by the broad shield and the crested gryphon, w^e are all guided, in our purest conceptions, our most ideal pursuit, of the beautiful, by remembrances of active occupation and by principles derived from industry regulate the fancies of our repose. 165. It would be excessively interesting to follow out the investigation of this subject more fully, and to show how the most refined pleasures, the most delicate perceptions, of the creature who has been appointed to eat bread by the sweat of his brow, are dependent upon, and intimately connected with, his hours of labor. This question, however, has no relation to our immediate object, and we only allude to it, that we may be able to distinguish between the two component feet of front
;
parts of individual character
;
the one being the consequence
of continuous habits of life acting upon natural temperdisposition, the other being the humor of characconsequent upon circumstances altogether accidental, tak-
ament and ter,
ing stern effect upon feelings previously determined by the first part of the character laying on, as it were, the finishing ;
touches, and occasioning the innumerable prejudices, fancies,
and
eccentricities, which, modified in every individual to
infinite extent,
166. IS^ow,
form the
we have
be, that of selecting
mind, by preparing
visible veil of the
human
an
heart.
defined the province of the architect to
such forms and colors as shall delight the it
for the operations to
subjected in the building. tecture, can thus prepare
Xow, no it
more
which
it is
to be
forms, in domestic archi-
distinctly than those
which
;
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
ENGLISH VILLA.
correspond closely with the
first,
that
is,
115
and funda-
the fixed
always so uniform in its action, as to induce great simplicity in whatever it designs. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more injurious than the mental, part of character, which
is
humors upon the edifice for the what is fltful in its energy, and petty in its imagination, would destroy all the harmony of parts, all the majesty of the whole would substitute singularity for beauty, amusement for delight, and surprise for veneration. We could name several instances of buildings erected by men of the highest talent, and the most perfect general taste, who slightest influence of the
;
influence of
;
having paid much attention to the first principles of architecture, permitted the humor of their disposition to pre-
yet, not
vail over the
majesty of their
intellect, and, instead of build-
ing from a fixed design, gratified freak after freak, and fancy after fancy, as they were caught by the dream or the desire mixed mimicries of incongruous reality with incorporations of undisciplined ideal awakened every variety of contending feeling and unconnected memory consummated confusion of form by trickery of detail and have left barbarism, where half the world will look for loveliness. 1G7. This is a species of error which it is very difiicult for persons paying superficial and temporary attention to architecture to avoid: however just their taste may be in criticism, it w^ill fail in creation. It is only in moments of ease and amusement that they will think of their villa they make it a mere plaything, and regard it with a kind of petty exultation, which, from its very nature, will give liberty to ;
;
;
:
the light fancy, rather than the deep feeling, of the mind.
It
not thought necessary to bestow labor of thought, and periods of deliberation, on one of the toys of life still less to is
;
undergo the vexation of thwarting wishes, and leaving favorite imaginations, relating to minor points, unfulfilled, for the sake of general effect.
168. This feeling, then,
is
the
first to
rect attention, as the villa architect's chief it
which we would
enemy he
perpetually and provokingly in his way.
:
He
is
di-
will find
requested,
— ;
THE POETRY OF AECHITECTIJRE.
116 perhaps, taste in
by some
situation.
a
man
of great wealth,
points, to
make
nay,
The future proprietor carries him upstairs to his him what he calls his " ideas and materials,"
study, to give
and, in
all
of established
a design for a villa in a lovely
probability, begins
somewhat thus
:
—"
This,
sir, is
a slight note I made it on the spot approach to Villa Reale, near Pozzuoli. Dancing nymphs, you perceive cypresses, shell fountain. I think I should like something like this for :
:
;
the approach
Then,
mine
:
classical,
:
you
perceive, sir
;
elegant, graceful.
made by an American Whee-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, King
sir,
this is a sketch,
friend of of the
Cannibal Islands, I think he said, sir. Log, you observe; Something like scalps, and boa-constrictor skins: curious. this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the front door; don't you ? Then, the lower windows, I've not quite decided upon I think I should but what would you say to Egyptian, sir ? storks like my windows Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, sir I brought and coffins, and appropriate moldings above some from Fountains Abbey the other day. Look here, sir; angels' heads putting their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage ;
:
with a dragon on each side riding on a broomstick, and the devil looking on from the mouth of an alligator, sir.* Odd, I think interesting. Then the corners may be turned by octagonal towers, like the center one in Kenilworth Castle with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with leaves,
;
cross slits for arrows, battlements for musketry, machicola-
and a room at the top for drying plums and the conservatory at the bottom, sir, with Virginian creepers up the towers; door supported by sphinxes, holding scrapers in their fore paws, and having their tails prolonged into warm-water pipes, to keep the plants safe in winter, etc." The architect is, without doubt, a little astonished by these ideas and combinations yet he sits calmly down to draw his elevations as if he were a stone-mason, or his employer an architect; and the fabric rises to electrify its beholders. tions for boiling lead,
;
;
acci confer immortality on its perpetrator.
* Actually carved on one
of the groins of Roslin Chapel.
Fig.
12,
Old English Mansion.
1837.
;;
ENGLISH VILLA. 169. This
PEINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
117
no exaggeration: we have not only listened
is
to speculations on the probable degree of the future majesty, but contemplated the actual illustrious existence, of several
such buildings, with sufficient beauty in the management of
had supereconomy intended them, and them and had projected to prove that a refined intellect had followed been fancy had projected a Vandalism, only because instead of judgment; with as much nonchalance as is evinced by a perfect poet, who is extemporizing doggerel for a baby full of brilliant points, which he cannot help, and jumbled into confusion, for which he does not care. 170. Such are the first difficulties to be encountered in They must always continue to occur in some villa designs. degree, though they might be met with ease by a determination on the part of professional men to give no assistance whatever, beyond the mere superintendence of construction, unless they be permitted to take the whole exterior design into their own hands, merely receiving broad instructions respecting the style (and not attending to them unless they
some of
their features to
show that an
architect
sufficient taste in their interior
;
like).
They should not make
out the smallest detail, unless
they were answerable for the whole.
In
this case, gentle-
on their own rewere adequate, they would be obliged to surrender the task into more practiced hands and, if they were adequate, if the amateur had paid so much
men
architects
would be thrown
so utterly
sources, that, unless those resources
attention to the art as to be capable of giving the design perfectly, it is probable he
would not
erect anything strikingly
abominable. 171. Such a system (supposing that fully into effect,
it
could be carried
and that there were no such animals
as senti-
mental stone-masons to give technical assistance) might, at first, seem rather an encroachment on the liberty of the subject, inasmuch as it would prevent people from indulging their edificatorial fancies, unless they knew something about the matter, or, as the sufferers would probably complain, from doing what they liked with their own. But the mistake would
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE,
118 evidently
lie
in their supposing, as people too frequently do,
that the outside of their house
is
their
own, and that they
have a perfect right therein to make fools of themselves in any manner, and to any extent, they may think proper. This is quite true in the case of interiors every one has an indisputable right to hold himself up as a laughing-stock to the whole ;
circle of his friends
and acquaintances, and
to consult his
own
private asinine comfort by every piece of absurdity which can in
any degree contribute
to the
same but no one has any right ;
to exhibit his imbecilities at other people's expense,
especially, where, as
observation
is
we saw
or to
In England,
claim the public pity by inflicting public pain.
before, the rage for attracting
universal, the outside of the villa
is
rendered,
by the proprietor's own disposition, the property of those who daily pass by, and whom it hourly affects with pleasure or pain. For the pain which the eye feels from the violation of a law to which it has been accustomed, or the mind from the occurrence of anything jarring to its finest feelings, is as distinct as that occasioned by the interruption of the physical economy, differing only inasmuch as it is not permanent and, therefore, an individual has as little right to fulfill his own conceptions by disgusting thousands, as, were his body as impenetrable to steel or poison, as his brain to the effect of
the beautiful or true, he
would have
to decorate his carriage
roads with caltrops, or to line his plantations with upas trees.
The violation of general feelings would thus be uneven were their consultation productive of continued To no one is the vexation to the individual: but it is not. 172.
just,
architecture of the exterior of a dwelling-house of so little
consequence as to comfort, and
its
its
inhabitant.
condition
may
Its material
may
affect his
touch his pride; but, for
architecture, his eye gets accustomed to
it
its
in a week, and,
after that, Hellenic, Barbaric, or Yankee, are all the
same
to
name of Home. Even the conceit of living in a chalet, or a wigwam, or a pagoda, cannot retain its influence for six months over the weak the domestic feelings, are all lost in the one
minds which alone can
feel
it
;
and the monotony of existence
:
ENGLISH VILLA. becomes
to
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
them exactly what
it
119
would have been had they
never inflicted a pang upon the unfortunate spectators, whose
unaccustomed eyes shrink daily from the impression
to
which
they have not been rendered callous by custom, or lenient by false taste.
when they allude only how much more when referring
173. If these considerations are just to buildings in the abstract, to
them
as materials of composition, materials of infinite
The
power, to adorn or destroy the loveliness of the earth. nobler scenery of that earth habitants
:
it is
belongs, to feed
but
it
the inheritance of
not merely for the few to
from
among
whom
it
all
her in-
temporarily
upon like horses, be the school of the minds which
like swine, or to stable
has been appointed to
are kingly
is
their fellows, to excite the highest ener-
humanity, to furnish strength to the lordliest intellect, and food for the holiest emotions of the human soul. The
gies of
presence of life
is,
indeed, necessary to
congenial with
its
character
;
and that
its
beauty, but of life
life is
not congenial
which thrusts presumiDtuously forward, amidst the calmness of the universe, the confusion of its own petty interests and groveling imaginations, and stands up w^ith the insolence of a moment, amid the majesty of all time, to build baby fortifications upon the bones of the world, or to sweep the copse from the corrie, and the shadow from the shore, that fools may risk, and gamblers gather, the spoil of a thousand summers. 174. It should therefore be remembered by every proprietor of land in hill country, that his possessions are the means of a peculiar education, otherwise unattainable, to the artists,
and in some degree
to the literary
men, of his country
;
that,
even in this limited point of view, they are a national possession, but much more so when it is remembered how many thousands are perpetually receiving from them, not merely
a transitory pleasure, but such thrilling perpetuity of pure
emotion, such lofty sid^ject for scientific speculation, and such
deep lessons of natural religion, as only the work of a Deity can impress, and only the spirit of an immortal can feel
THE POETEY OF AECHITECTTJEE.
120
thej should remember that the slightest deformity, the most contemptible excrescence, can injure the effect of the noblest natural scenery, as a note of discord can annihilate the expression of the purest
worms
harmony
;
not restore, create or consecrate
man
every
in the power of what angels could and that the right, which
that thus
it is
to conceal, to destroy, or to violate, ;
unquestionably possesses, to be an
ass, is
extended
who are innocent in idiotism, not to the more malicious clowns, who thrust their degraded motley conspicuously forth amidst the fair colors of earth, and mix only, in public, to those
their incoherent cries with the melodies of eternity, break with their inane laugh upon the silence which Creation keeps where Omnipotence passes most visibly, and scrabble over with the characters of idiocy the pages that have been written
by the
finger of God.
175. These feelings all
we would endeavor
impress upon
to
persons likely to have anything to do with embellishing,
as it is called, fine natural scenery
as they might, in
;
some
degree, convince both the architect and his employer of the
danger of giving free play to the imagination in cases
in-
volving intricate questions of feeling and composition, and
might persuade the designer of the necessity of looking, not to his
own
acre of land, or to his
the whole mass of forms
which he
is
own
peculiar tastes, but to
and combination of impressions with
surrounded.
176. Let us suppose, however, that the design entirely to the architect's discretion.
mestic architecture, the chief object in
Being its
is
yielded
a piece of do-
exterior design will
we saw before, it most distinctly by corresponding with the first part of
be to arouse domestic feelings, which, as will do
character.
Yet
spond with
its
it is still
situation
;
more necessary and hence
that
it
should corre-
arises another difficulty,
the reconciliation of correspondence with contraries it
is
;
for such,
deeply to be regretted, are too often the individual's
mind, and the dwelling-place it chooses. The polished courtier brings his refinement and duplicity with him to ape the Arcadian rustic in Devonshire the romantic rhymer takes a ;
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
ENGLISH VILLA.
window looking
plastere4 habitation, with one back
121
into the
Green Park; the soft votary of luxury endeavors to rise at seven, in some Ultima Thule of frosts and storms; and the rich stock-jobber calculates his percentages
among
dingles and woody shores of Westmoreland.
When
he must, of course, content him-
tect finds this to be the case, self
the soft
the archi-
with suiting his design to such a mind as ought to be
where the intruder's
is
;
for the feelings which are so
much
at
variance with themselves in the choice of situation, will not be
found
too critical of their domicile,
however
little
suited to
their temper.
aim at something employer into general conversation observe the bent of his disposition, and the habits of his mind notice every manifestation of fixed opinions, and then trans177. If possible, however, he should
more he should draw ;
his
;
;
much
of the feeling he has observed This he should do, not because the general spectator will be aware of the aptness of the building, which, knowing nothing of its inmate, he cannot be nor to please the individual himself, which it is a chance if any simple desigii ever will, and who never will find out how well his character has been fitted but because a portrait is always more spirited than a composed countenance and because this study of human passions will bring a degTee of energy, unity, and originality into every one of his desig-ns (all of which will necessarily be different), so simple, so domestic, and so lifelike, as to strike every spectator with an interest and a sympathy, for which he will be utterly unable to account, and to impress on him a perception of something more ethereal than stone or carving, somewhat similar to that which some will remember having felt disagreeably in their childhood, on looking at any old house authentically haunted. fer to his architecture as
as is distinct in its operation.
;
;
;
The
architect will forget in his study of life the formalities
him
of science,
and, while his practiced eye will prevent
from erring
in technicalities, he will advance, with the ruling
feeling, which, in masses of
mind,
is
nationality, to the con-
ception of something truly original, yet perfectly pure.
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
122 178.
He
will also find bis advantage in having obtained
a guide in the invention of decorations of wbicb, as
we
shall
show, we would have many more in English villas than economy at present allows. Candidus * complains, in his Note
Book, that Elizabethan architecture is frequently adopted, it is easy, with a pair of scissors, to derive a zigzag ornament from a doubled piece of paper. But we would fain hope that none of our professional architects have so far lost sight of the meaning of their art, as to believe that roughening
because
stone mathematically
is
bestowing decoration, though we are
too sternly convinced that they believe
mankind
to be
shortsighted by at least thirty yards than they are
;
more
for they
think of nothing but general effect in their ornaments, and lay on their flower-work so carelessly, that a good substantial captain's biscuit, with the small holes left by the penetration
of the baker's four fingers, encircling the large one which testifies
of the forcible passage of his thumb, would form quite
as elegant a rosette as
179.
Xow,
there
is
hundreds now perpetuated in stone. nothing which requires study so close,
or experiment so frequent, as the proper designing of orna-
ment.
For
given; but,
mined, the
its
use and position some definite rules
when
may
be
the space and position have been deter-
lines of curvature, the breadth, depth,
and sharp-
ness of the shadows to be obtained, the junction of the parts
of a group, and the general expression, will present questions for the solution of which the study of years will sometimes scarcely be sufficient
;
f for they depend upon the feeling of is nothing like perfection in
the eye and hand, and there
decoration, nothing which, in all probability, might not,
farther consideration, be improved.
Xow,
in cases in
by which
the outline and larger masses are determined by situation, the
[*
A contributor
to tlie " Architectual
Magazine."]
f For example, we would allow one of the modern builders of Gothic chapels a month of invention, and a botanic garden to work from, with perfect certainty that he would not, at the expiration of the time, be able to present us with one design of leafage equal in beauty to hundreds we could point out in the capitals and niches of Melrose and Roslin,
u
CQ
<
ENGLISH VILLA.
PKIA^CIPLES OF COMPOSITION,
123
it necessary to fall back upon means of obtaining character; and that which before was an unmeaning lump of jagged freestone, will become a part of expression, an accessory of beautiful design, varied in its form, and delicate in its effect. Then, instead of shrinking from his bits of ornament, as from things which will give him trouble to invent, and will answer no other purpose than that of occupying what would otherwise have looked blank, the designer will view them as an efficient corps de reserve, to be brought up when the eye comes to close quarters with the edifice, to maintain and
architect
"will
frequently find
his decorations, as the only
Much deepen the impression it has previously received. labor much more more time will be spent in the conception, in the execution, of such meaning ornaments, but both will be well spent and well rewarded. 180. Perhaps our meaning may be made more clear by Fig. 13 A, which is that of a window found in a domestic mixed and corrupt architecture, at Munich (which we give now, because Ave shall have occasion to allude Its absurd breadth of molding, so disproto it hereafter).
building of
portionate to
its
cornice, renders
excessively ugly, but capa-
it
forms one of a range of whose moldings join each other, their double breadth being the whole separation of the apertures, which are something more than double squares. Xow by alteration of the decoration, and depth of shadow, we have B and C. These three windows differ entirely in their feeling and manner, and are broad examples of such distinctions of style as might be adopted severally in the habitations of the man of imagination, the man of intellect and the man of If our alterations have been properly made, there feeling.* will be no difficulty in distinguishing between their expresThe sions, which we shall therefore leave to conjecture. character of A depends upon the softness with which the light is caught upon its ornaments, which should not have a
ble of great variety of effect.
It
four, turning an angle,
[*
Though
not in this order.
imaginative one.]
C
is
the intellectual
window
;
B, the
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
124
them and on the gradual, unequal, but inB should have all its forms undepth of its shadows. defined, and passing into one another, the touches of the chisel light, a grotesque face or feature occurring in parts, the shadows pale, but broad * and the boldest part of the single hard line in
;
tense,
;
The third should carving kept in shadow rather than light. and quiet in its in shades, strong its lines, in its be hard ornament. 181. These hints will be
and we have not space papers
is
to
sufficient to
explain our meaning,
do more, as the object of these
rather to observe than to advise.
tions of expression so intricate,
it is
Besides, in ques-
almost impossible to ad-
vance fixed principles every mind will have perceptions of its own, which will guide its speculations, every hand, and ;
and peculiar feeling, varying even from year to year. have only started the subject of correspondence with individual character, because we thinly that imaginative minds might take up the idea with some success, as furnishing them
eye,
We
with a guide in the variation of their designs, more certain than mere experiment on unmeaning forms, or than ringing indiscriminate changes on comjDonent parts of established
To
beauty.
the reverie, rather than the investigation, to the
dream, rather than the deliberation, of the architect, we recommend it, as a branch of art in which instinct will do more than precept, and inspiration than technicality. The correspondence of our villa architecture with our natural scenery
may
be determined with far greater accuracy, and will
require careful investigation. * It tain
is
too
number
much
the custom to consider a design as composed of a cer-
of hard lines, instead of a certain
various depth and dimension.
Though
number
of shadows of
these shadows change their posi-
always the same. They have most variety under a strong light without sun, most expression with the sun. A little observation of the infinite variety of shade which the sun is capable of casting, as it touches projections of different curve and character, will enable the designer to be certain of his effects. "We shall have occasion to allude to this subject again. [See Seven Lamps of Archition in the course of the day, they are relatively
tecture, III. 13, 23.]
ENGLISH VILLA.
We
had hoped
to
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
125
have concluded the Villa in this paper;
but the importance of domestic architecture at the present day, when people want houses more than fortresses, more than keeps, and sculleries more than dungeons, is cient apology for delay.
Oxford, August,
1838.
safes suffi-
VI.
THE BRITISH VILLA.— PRINCIPLES OE COMPOSITION The Cultivated, or Blue Country and the ^^^ooded, or Green Country. 182. Ia^ the j)a23ers hitherto devoted to the investigation
of villa architecture,
we have contemplated
the beauties of
what may be considered as its model, in its original and natural territory and we have noticed the difficulties to be It reencountered in the just erection of villas in England. principles of composionly down general mains to lay the tion, which in such difficulties may, in some degree, serve as a guide. Into more than general principles it is not consistent with our plan to enter. One obstacle, which was more particularly noticed, was, as it may be remembered, the variety ;
of the geological formations of the country.
This will com-
pel us to use the divisions of landscape formerly adopted in
speaking of the cottage, and to investigate severally the kind of domestic architecture required by each. 183, Eirst. Blue or cultivated country, which
is to
be con-
sidered as including those suburban districts, in the neigh-
borhood of populous cities, which, though more frequently black than blue, possess the activity, industry, and life, which
we before try.
We
noticed as one of the characteristics of blue counshall not, however,
allude to suburban villas at
because they are in country possessing nothing which can be spoiled by anything; and, secondly, because their close association renders them subject to laws which, present
;
first,
being altogether different from those by which we are to judge of the beauty of solitary villas, we shall have to develoj) in the consideration of street effects.
126
;
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
12Y
ISi. Passing over the suburb, then, we have to distinguish between the simple blue country, which is composed only of rich cultivated champaign, relieved in parts by low imdulations, monotonous and uninteresting as a whole, though cheerful in its character, and beautiful in details of lanes and
meadow
paths
and the picturesque blue country, lying
;
at
the foot of high hill ranges, intersected by their outworks,
broken here and there into
and dingle scenery;
bits of crag
perpetually presenting prospects of exquisite distant beauty,
and possessing in
its
valley
and river scenery,
specimens of the natural " green country."
we did not make which, owing to
and
in speaking of the cottage
its size,
its
monotonous
detached
;
the effect of
can extend only over a limited space
this space, if in picturesque blue country,
part of
fine
This distinction
cultivation,
when
it is
must be
either
to be considered
as belonging to the simple blue country, or part of its dingle
when
scenery,
it
becomes green country
just, to suit a cottage, actually placed in
eral effect of another color,
But
to do.
with which
and
;
it
would not be
one color, to the genit
could have nothing
the effect of the villa extends very often over a
considerable space, and becomes part of the large features of the district
;
whole character and expression of the must be considered, and thus the distinction
so that the
visible landscape
between the two kinds of blue country becomes absolutely necessary. Of the first, or simple, we have already adduced, as an example, the greater part of the South of England. Of the second, or picturesque, the cultivated parts of the ISTorth
and East Ridings of Yorkshire, generally Shropshire, and the north of Lancashire, and Cumberland, beyond Caldbeck Fells, are good examples perhaps better than all, the coimtry for twelve miles north, and thirty south, east, and west, of ;
Stirling.
A. Tlie Simple Blue Country. 185.
Now,
the matter-of-fact business-like activity of sim-
ple blue country has been already alluded
bute renders in
it
a
to.
This
attri-
plain palpable brick dwelling-house
— THE POETEY OF AECHITECTUEE.
128
allowable though a thing which, in every country but the simple blue, comjDels every spectator of any feeling to send ;
up
aspirations, that builders who, like those of Babel, have
brick for stone,
Here, however,
may
be put, like those of Babel, to confusion.
it is
not only allowable, but even agreeable,
for the following reasons
:
186. Its cleanness and freshness of color, admitting of
dampness or staining, firm in its consistence, not moldering like stone, and therefore inducing no conviction of anlittle
tiquity or decay, presents rather the appearance of such com-
enjoyment of temporary wealth, than of such solidity as is raised for the inheritance of unfluctuating power. It is thus admirably suited for that counfort as is contrived for the
is change, and all activity where the working and money-making members of the community are perpetually succeeding and overpowering each other enjoying, each in his turn, the reward of his industry yielding up the field, the pasture, and the mine, to his successor, and leaving no more memory behind him, no farther evidence of his individual existence, than is left by a working bee, in the honey for which we thank his class, forgetting the individual. The simple blue country may, in fact, be considered the diningtable of the nation from which it provides for its immediate necessities, at which it feels only its present existence, and in which it requires, not a piece of furniture adapted only to remind it of past refection, but a polished, clean, and convenient minister to its immediate wishes. Xo habitation, therefore, in this country, should look old: it should give an impression of present prosperity, of swift motion and high
try Avhere all
;
;
;
;
energy of
life
;
too rapid in
its
greatness, or allow of decay, in
successive operation to attain its
works.
This
is
the first
cause which, in this country, renders brick allowable. 187. Again, wherever the
soil
breaks out in simple blue
country, whether in the river shore, or the broken roadside
bank, or the plowed ively
warm
field, in
nine cases out of ten
it is
excess-
in its color, being either gravel or clay, the black
vegetable soil never remaining free of vegetation.
The warm
PKIXCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
129
is an admirable relief to the blue which we have taken as the distinctive feature of the country, tending to produce the perfect light withTherefore the red out which no landscape can be complete. glaring upon the eye, by its of the brick is prevented from falling in with similar colors in the ground, and contrasting
tone of these beds of soil
of the distances,
This
finely with the general tone of the distance.
is
another
instance of the material which nature most readily furnishes
In almost
being the right one.
all
the bed of clay, which
is
we have and we come to
blue country,
only to turn out a few spadefuls of loose
soil,
the best material for the building;
whereas we should have to travel hundreds of miles, or to dig thousands of feet, to get the stone which nature does not want, and therefore has not given. 188. Another excellence in brick
is its
perfect air of
It is utterly impossible for
lish respectability.
altogether of brick to look affected or absurd
rude,
may
it
place; but
it
look vulgar,
it
may
it
Eng-
edifice
may
look
wrong
look disgusting, in a
cannot look foolish, for
may
:
an
incapable of preten-
it is
master a brute, or an ignoramus, but we can never suppose him a coxcomb a bear he may be, a fop he cannot be; and, if we find him out of his place, we ^Ye
sion.
suppose
its
:
feel that
it is
owing
to error, not to
ance, not to self-conceit
for
:
to the
impudence
we
are brutes in
;
to self-ignor-
want, not the assumption of
It is thus that brick is peculiarly
feeling. effect
;
many
things,
English in
and we are
its
ig-nora-
muses in many things, and we are destitute of feeling in many things, but we are 7iot coxcombs. It is only by the utmost effort, that some of our most highly gifted junior gentlemen can attain such distinction of title and even then the honor sits ill upon them they are but awkward coxcombs. Affectation * never was, and never will be, a part of English ;
:
*
The
nation,
indeed, possesses one
we have
whose
affectation
villas:
but every rule has
is,
as
its
two
interesting individuals,
exceptions; and, even on these gifted person-
ages, the affectation sits so very
plowman's carroty 9
or
seen, strikingly manifested in their lake
hair, that
it
awkwardly, so is
like
a velvet bonnet on a Thus,
evidently a late acquisition.
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
130
we have too much national pride, too much conown dignity and power, too much estab-
character;
sciousness of our
lished self-satisfaction, to allow us to
imitative efforts
what he
is
;
and, as
it is
man
not, that a
become ridiculous by
only by endeavoring to appear ever can become
so,
speaking, our true-witted Continental neighbors,
from John Bull est bete,
il
as a brute, never laugh at
him
as a fool.
of English character; for, unable as
graceful,
shrink " II
n'est pas pourtant sot."
The brick house admirably corresponds with
189.
properly
who
or dignified,
it
is
it is
this part
to be beautiful, or
equally unable to be absurd.
proud independence about it, which seems conscious of its entire and perfect applicability to those uses for which it was built, and full of a good-natured intention to There
is
a
render every one
who
seeks shelter within
its
walls excess-
awkward
in no company; and, wherever it intrudes its good-humored red face, stares plaster and marble out of countenance with an insensible audacity, which we drive out of such refined company, as we would a clown from a drawing-room, but which we nevertheless seek in its own place, as we would seek the conversation of the clown in his own turnip-field, if he were ively comfortable
;
it
therefore feels
sensible in the main.
190. Lastly. Brick
admirably adapted for the climate
is
of England, and for the frequent manufacturing nuisances
makes marble mud, only renders brick and the inclement climate, which less glaring in its color makes the composition front look as if its architect had been amusing himself by throwing buckets of green water down from the roof, and before which the granite base of Stirling of English blue country
for the smoke, which
:
look like charcoal, and stucco like ;
one proprietor of land on Windermere, who has built unto himself a castelmansion with round towers, and a Swiss cottage for a stable, has yet, with that admiration of the " neat but not gaudy," which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green, painted the rocks at the back of his house pink, that they may look clean. lated
This
is
a
romance.
little
outcrop of English feeling in the midst of the assumed
;;
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
131
moldering into sand as impotent as ever was ribbed wreaks its rage in vain upon the bits of baked clay, by leaving them strong, and dry, and stainless, warm and comfortable in their effect, even when neglect has permitted the moss and wall-flower to creep into their crannies, and mellow Castle
is
ripple,
something like beauty that which is always comfort. Damp, which fills many stones as it would a sponge, is defled by the brick; and the warmth of every gleam of sunshine is caught by it, and stored up for future expenditure so that, both actually and in its effect, it is peculiarly suited for a climate whose changes are in general from bad to worse, into
and from worse to bad. 191. These then are the principal apologies which the brick dwelling-house has to offer for
however, only stand and, even there, only
it
its ugliness.
They
will,
in stead in the simple blue country
when
the following points are observed.
The brick should neither be of the white, nor the The white is worse than useless as a very dark red, kind. color its cold, raw, sandy neutral has neither warmth enough First.
:
nor gray enough to harmonize with, any natural
to relieve,
tones
it
;
does not please the eye by warmth, in shade
;
it
by dry heat in sun it has none of the advantages of effect which brick may have, to compensate for the vulgarity which it must have, and is altogether to be abhorred. The hurts
it,
;
is one of the ugliest warm colors that stumbled upon: it is never mellowed by damps or anything else, and spoils everything near it by its intolerable and inevitable glare. The moderately dark brick, of a neu-
very bright red, again, art ever
tral red, is to be chosen,
will possess all
and
this, after a
its
color
almost unnecessary to point out tion, not
year or two, will be
by atmospheric influence, and the advantages we have enumerated. It is
farther softened in
its fitness
for a
the inhabitant, but because
it
situa-
will the sooner contract a cer-
by microscopic which will leave no more brick-red than is agree the feelings where the atmosphere is chill.
tain degree of softness of tone, occasioned
vegetation, able to
damp
only as the best material for securing the comfort of
THE POETEY OF ARCHITECTUKE.
132
192. Secondly. color
;
and
as,
Even
this
kind of red
is a
very powerful
in combination with the other primitive colors,
little of it will complete the light, so, very little will answer every purpose in landscape composition, and every addiBrick, theretion, above that little, will be disagreeable. fore, never should be used in large groups of buildings, where those groups are to form part of landscape scenery: two or three houses, partly shaded with trees, are all that can be ad-
very
mitted at once.
There
tive of natural beauty,
with very scarlet
is
tiling,
trees; while there are
no object more villainously destruc-
than a large very
tall
of very red brick,
to^\'n,
chimneys, and very few
few objects that harmonize more agree-
ably with the feeling of English ordinary landscape, than the large, old, solitary, brick
manor house, with
cedars on the lawn in front, and the
its
group of dark
wrought-iron gates
tall
opening down the avenue of approach. 193. Thirdly.
Xo
quoining,
stone
(though, by the by, they are prettily
presence of any Quoins in general
or
contrasting color, should be admitted.
managed
in the old Tol-
and some other antique buildings in Scotland), are only excusable as giving an appearance of strength; while their zigzag monotony, when rendered conspicuous by difference of color, is altogether detestable. White cornices, niches, and the other superfluous introductions in stone and plaster, which some architects seem to think ornamental, only mock what they cannot mend, take away the whole expression of the edifice, render the brick-red glaring and harsh, and become themselves ridiculous in isola-
booth of Glasgow,
tion.
Besides, as a general principle, contrasts of extensive
and especially in and unmanageable tints. It is difficult to imagine whence the custom of putting stone ornaments into brick buildings could have arisen unless it be an imitation of the Italian custom of mixing marble with stucco, which aifords it no sanction, as the marble is only distinguishable from the The general material by the sharpness of the carved edges. Dutch seem to have been the originators of the custom and, color are to be avoided in all buildings,
positive
;
;
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
by the by,
133
we remember right, in one of the very finest now extant, a landscape by Rubens (in the Munich, we think), the artist seems to have sancif
pieces of coloring
gallery at
tioned the barbarism, by introducing a brick edifice, with But the truth is that he selected the white stone quoining. subject, partly under the influence of domestic feelings, the place being, as
it
is
thought, his
own
habitation,
and partly
as a piece of practice, presenting such excessive difficulties
of color, as he, the lord of color,
who
alone could overcome
them, would peculiarly delight in overcoming; and the harmony with which he has combined tints of the most daring force, and sharpest apparent contrast, in the edgy building,
and opposed them
an uninteresting distance of excessive is one of the chief wonders of the painting: so that this masterpiece can no more furnish an apology for the continuance of a practice which, though it gives some liveliness of character to the warehouses to
azure (simple blue country, observe),
of Amsterdam, is fit only for a place wdiose foundations are mud, and whose inhabitants are partially animated cheeses,
— than Caravaggio's
custom of painting blackguards should ambition among mankind in general of becoman introduce pencil. We shall have occasion again for his ing fit subjects to
allude
to
this
subject,
in
speaking
of
Dutch
street
effects.
194. Fourthly. It wull generally be found to agree best with the business-like air of the blue country, if the house be excessively simple, and apparently altogether the minister of utility but, where it is to be extensive, or tall, a few decThese orations about the upper windows are desirable. should be quiet and severe in their lines, and cut boldly in ;
the brick
itself.
Some
of the minor streets in the
King
of
Sardinia's capital are altogether of brick, very richly charged
with carving, with excellent model.
no
Of
effect,
a very
good
for we should be horrified by we have been accustomed to see in must be left to his own taste for laying
classical lines can be allowed
seeing that in brick which
marble.
and furnish
course no delicate ornament can be obtained, and
The
architect
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUEE.
134
and carefully, a few dispositions of well proporwhich tioned are all that can ever be required, 195. These broad principles are all that need be attended to in simple blue country anything will look well in it which is not affected; and the architect, who keeps comfort and utility steadily in view, and runs off into no expatiations of fancy, need never be afraid here of falling into error. on, sparingly line,
:
B. 196.
But
The Picturesque Blue Country,
the case
different with the joicturesque blue
is
Here, owdng to the causes mentioned in the notes at p. 71, we have some of the most elevated bits of landscape character, which the country, wdiatever it may be, can afford. Its first and most distinctive peculiarity is its grace it is all country.*
;
imdulation and variety of
line,
one curve passing into an-
other with the most exquisite softness, rolling
away
into faint
and far outlines of various depth and decision, yet none hard and in all probability, rounded off in the near or harsh ground into massy forms of partially wooded hill, shaded downwards into winding dingles or cliffy ravines, each form ;
melting imperceptibly into the next, without an edge or angle.
197. Its next character iarly distinguished
by
its
is
mystery.
It is a
country pecul-
possessing features of great sublim-
ity in the distance, without giving any hint in the foreground of their actual nature. A range of mountain, seen from a mountain peak, may have sublimity, but not the mystery with which it is invested, when seen rising over the farthest surge of misty blue, where everything near is soft and smiling, totally separated in nature from the consolidated
clouds of the horizon.
The picturesque blue country
from the nature of the ground, this kind,
so
as never to
is sure,
some distance of be without a high and ethereal to present
mystery. * In leaving simple blue country, we hope it need hardly be said that leave bricks at once and forever. Nothing can excuse them out of
we
their proper territory.
;
BEITISH VILLA.
The
198.
PKIIs^CIPLES
OF COMPOSITION.
third and last distinctive attribute
is
135
sensuality.
and requires some explanation. In the first place, every line is voluptuous, floating, and wavy deep, rich, and exquisitely soft in its color in its form drowsy in its effect like slow wild music letting the eye repose on it, as on a wreath of cloud, without one feature of harshness to hurt, or of contrast to awaken. In the second This
a startling word,
is
;
;
;
place, the cultivation, which, in the simple blue country, has
the forced formality of growth
which evidently
is to
supply
the necessities of man, here seems to leap into the sponta-
neous luxuriance of pleasures.
life,
which
The surface of
tion, especially
the
is
fitted to
earth
minister to his
exults
with anima-
tending to the gratification of the senses
;
and,
without the artificialness which reminds man of the necessity of his own labor, without the opposing influences which call for his resistance, without the vast energies that
remind him
of his impotence, without the sublimity that can call his noblest thoughts into action, yet, with every perfection that
can tempt him to indolence of enjoyment, and with such abundant bestowal of natural gifts, as might seem to prevent that indolence from being its own punishment, the earth appears to have become a garden of delight, wherein the sweep of the bright
bending
hills,
rivers,
without chasm or crag, the flow of the
without rock or rapid, and the fruitfulness of
the fair earth, without care or labor on the part of its inhabi-
most pleasant passions of eye and sense, and impressing no fear on the mind. In hill country we have a struggle to maintain with the elements in simple blue, we have not the luxuriance of delight here, and here only, all nature combines to breathe over us a lulling slumber, through which life degenerates into
tants, appeal to the
calling for no effort of body,
;
:
sensation.
199. These considerations are sufficient to explain what the epithet " sensuality." Now, taking these
we mean by
three distinctive attributes, the mysterious, the graceful, and
the voluptuous, what
—the Greek:
is
the whole character
for these attributes,
common
?
Very nearly
to all picturesque
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTUKE.
136
blue country, are modified in the degree of their presence by
every climate.
In England they are
we go southward,
but as
all
low in their tone;
the voluptuousness becomes deeper
in feeling as the colors of the earth and the heaven become purer and more passionate, and " the purple of ocean deepest
of dye
;
more to come
" the mystery becomes mightier, for the greater and
universal energy of the beautiful permits nearer,
and
features
its
wnthout causing
to rise into the sublime,
It is thus that we get the essence of the Greek feeling, was embodied in their finest imaginations, as it showed itself in the works of their sculptors and their poets, in which sensation was made almost equal with thought, and deified by its nobility of association at once voluptuous, refined, fear.
as
it
;
dreamily mysterious, infinitely beautiful. that the spirit of this blue country
is
Hence,
it
appears
essentially
Greek;
though, in England and in other northern localities, that
by
in a diminished and degraded degree. dominion of the villa, possessing all the attributes which attracted the Romans, when, in their hours spirit is possessed
it
It is also the natural
of idleness, they lifted the light arches along the echoing
promontories of Tiber.
It is especially suited to the expres-
sion of the edifice of pleasure
of being adorned by
;
and, therefore,
is
most capable
it.
The
attention of every one about to raise himself a any kind should, therefore, be directed to this kind of country first, as that in which he will not be felt to be an intruder; secondly, as that which will, in all probability,
200.
villa of
;
afford
him
the greatest degree of continuous pleasure,
when
become accustomed to the features of the locality. To the human mind, as on the average constituted, the features of hill scenery will, by repetition, become tiresome, and of wood scenery, monotonous while the simple blue can posPowerful intellect will sess little interest of any kind. his eye has
;
generally take perpetual delight in hill residence
general
mind soon
but the
;
feels itself oppressed with a peculiar mel-
ancholy and weariness, which
it is
ashamed
hear our romantic gentlemen begin to
call
to
own
;
and we
out about the want
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA. of society, while,
the animals were
if
fit
to live
137
where they
have forced themselves, they would never want more society than that of a gray stone, or of a clear pool of gushing water. On the other hand, there are few minds so degraded as not
any grandeur enough
to feel greater pleasure in the picturesque blue than in Its distance has generally
other country.
meet their moods of aspiration its near aspect is that of more human interest than that of hill country, and harmonizes more truly with the domestic feelings which are common to all mankind so that, on the whole, it will be found to
;
a
;
to
maintain
freshness of beauty to the habituated eye, in
its
a greater degree than
As
any other scenery.
becomes a its beauty especially as, being the natural dominion of its destruction the villa, it affords great opportunity for the architect to 201.
it
thus persuades us to inhabit
point of honor not to
make
it,
it
the attractiveness of
;
exhibit variety of design. Its spirit has been proved though that spirit is slightly though every good architect is Greek and Roman models are all blue country there is much
to
be Greek
;
and therefore,
manifested in Britain, and shy of importation, villas on admissible here. activity of
life,
Still, as
in
the principle
of utility should be kept in view, and the building should
have as much simplicity as can be united with perfect gracefulness of line.
It appears
from the principles of
comj)osi-
tion alluded to in speaking of the Italian villa, that in undu-
lating country the forms should be square and massy; and,
where the segments of curves are small, the buildings should be low and flat, while they may be prevented from appearing cumbrous by some well-managed irregularity of design, which will be agi-eeable to the inhabitant as well as to the spectator enabling him to change the aspect and size of his chamber, as temperature or employment may render such change desirable, without being foiled in his design, by finding the apartments of one wing matched, foot to foot, by those ;
of the other. 202. For the color,
it
has been shown that white or pale
THE POETKY OF AilCHITECTUKE.
138 tints are
warmth
agreeable in
in
it,
and
and useless with
The
glaring.*
all
but there must be gray being comfortless
blue country
a great deal too,
a cold distance
;
—
but
it
:
must not be raw or
roof and chimneys should be kept out of
much as possible; and therefore the one very flat, and the other very plain. We ought to revive the Greek custom of roofing with thin slabs of coarse marble, cut into the form of tiles. However, where the architect finds he has a very cool distance, and few trees about the building, and where it stands so high as to preclude the possibility of its sight as
being looked
very
flat
down upon, he
he be courageous, use a
will, if
roof of the dark Italian
The
tile.
eaves,
which and
are all that should be seen, will be peculiarly graceful
;
the sharp contrast of color (for this tiling can only be ad-
mitted with white walls)
may
be altogether avoided, by
ting them cast a strong shadow, and by running the walls into a range of
low garret windows,
He
line of the roof.
to
let-
up
break the horizontal
will thus obtain a bit of very strong
which will impart a general glow of cheerfulness to the building, and which, if he manages it rightly, will not be color,
* The epithet " raw," by the by, is vague, and needs definition. Every raw which is perfectly opaque, and has not all the three primitive colors in its composition. Thus, black is always raw, because it has no color white never, because it has all colors. No tint can be raw which tint is
;
may be taken away, either by actual depth and transparency, as in the sky by luster and texture, as in the case of silk and velvet, or by varietj^ of shade as in forest verdure. Two inis
not opaque; and opacity
;
stances will be sufficient to prove the truth of this. fired, is
always raw
a slight blue affords
it
;
but when
tint, assisted
the yellow.
It
it
has been a
Brick,
weathered,
little
when it
first
acquires
by the gray of the mortar: incipient vegetation thus obtains an admixture of the three colors,
raw no longer. An old woman's red cloak, though glaring, is never it must of necessity have folded shades those shades are of a rich gray; no gray can exist without yellow and blue. We have then It must be observed however, that when three colors, and no rawness. any one of the colors is given in so slight a degree that it can be overpowered by certain effects of light, the united color, when opaque, will be raw. Thus many flesh-colors are raw; because, though they must have and
is
raw
;
for
a little blue in their composition, a strong light.
:
it is
too
little to
be efficiently visible ia
BRITISH VILLA. glaring nor intrusive.
It is to be observed,
can only do this with villas
hnd
that he will seldom
common
139
PEINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
sense as to put
however, that he
of the most humble
order,
his employer possessed of so
up with
a tile roof.
When
and
much this is
the case, the flat slabs of the upper limestone (ragstone) are
usually better than
slate.
203. For the rest,
it is
always to be kept in view, that the is to be that of graceful
prevailing character of the whole simplicity; distinguished
by being that of
edifice,
from
the simplicity of the Italian
utility instead of that of pride.*
Consequently the building must not be Gothic or Elizabethan
it
:
provided
may
its
be as commonplace as the proprietor likes,
proportions be good
;
but nothing can ever exboth being
cuse one acute angle, or one decorated pinnacle,
—
which the eye is inthe undulations of the surrounding scenery.
direct interruption of the repose w^ith
dulged
by
Tower and
fortress outlines are indeed agreeable, for their grouping and roundness; but we do not allude to them,because nothing can be more absurd than the humor prevailing at the present day among many of our peaceable old gentlemen, who never smelt powder in their lives, to eat their morning muffin in a savage-looking round tower, and admit quiet old ladies to a tea-party under the range of twenty-six are all wooden cannon, which it is lucky for the china ones, as they are, in all probability, accurately and awfully pointed into the drawing-room windows. So much then for our British blue country, to which it was necessary to devote some time, as occupying a considerable portion of the island, and being peculiarly well adapted fine
—
—
—
for villa residences. * There must always be a difBculty in building in picturesque blue country in England; for the English character is opposed to that of the country: it is neither graceful, nor mysterious, nor voluptuous; therefore, what we cede to the country, we take from the nationality, and vice versd.
THE POETIIY OF AUCIIITECTURE.
1-10
The Woody
C.
The woody,
or Green Country.
which is next in order, and shown was was to be especially our Elizabethan was own. The pointed out as the style peculiarly belonging to it and farther criticism of that style was deferred until we came to the consideration of domestic buildings provided with the means of defense. We have therefore at present only to offer a few remarks on the prin204.
or green country,
spoken of before,
;
ciples to be observed in the erection of Elizabethan villas at
the present day.
205. First. excessively
The building must be either quite chaste, or in decoration. Every inch of ornament
rich
short of a certain quantity will render the whole effect poor
and ridiculous
while the pure perj^endicular lines of this
;
The
architecture will always look well if left entirely alone.
when limited as himself with making his oriels
should con-
architect therefore,
to expense,
tent
project boldly, channel-
ing their mullions richly, and, in general, rendering his ver-
and
tical lines delicate if his
])eautiful in their
workmanship;
but,
estimate be unlimited, he should lay on his ornament
richly, taking care never to confuse the eye.
Those parts ally directed, tiny,
that
to
which, of necessity, observation
must bo
the
may
eye
is
especi-
finished so as to bear a close scrurest
on them with satisfaction:
but their finish must not be of a character which would have attracted the eye
spicuous situation
form and
by ;
without being placed in a conunited attraction of
itself,
for, if it were, the
would confine the contemplation altogether and render it impossible for the mind to receive any impression of general effect. Consequently, the parts that project, and are to bear a strong light, must be chiseled with infinite delicacy so that the ornament, though it would have remained unobserved had detail
to the parts so distinguished,
;
the eye not been guided to
it,
tinguished beauty and power
;
when
observed,
may
be of
dis-
but those parts which are to be
;
BRITISH VILLA. flat
and
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
in shade should be
marked with great sharpness and
boldness, that the impression
When,
141
may
we have
be equalized.
do with oriels, to which immediately attracted by their projection, we may run wreaths of the finest flower-work up the mullions, charge the terminations with shields, and quarter them attention
for instance,
to
is
we must
join the window to the wall, where its by means of more deep and decided decoration. 206. Secondly. In the choice and design of his ornaments,
richly; but
shadow
falls,
the architect should endeavor to be grotesque rather than
graceful (though
little bits
of soft flower-work here and there
but he must not imagine he can be grotesque by carving faces with holes for eyes and knobs for will relieve the eye)
:
noses; on the contrary, whenever he mimics grotesque there should be wit and
humor
in every feature,
life,
fun and
frolic in every attitude; every distortion should be anatomical,
and every monster
we The
ture and therefore
207. Thirdly.
This
a studied combination.
question, however, relating
more nearly
a
is
Gothic architec-
to
shall not enter into it at present.*
gables must on no account be jagged
were to be perand down the other.
into a succession of right angles, as if people
petually engaged in trotting
up one
side
This custom, though sanctioned by authority, has very little apology to offer for itself, based on any principle of composition. In street effect indeed it is occasionally useful and where the verticals below are unbroken by ornament, may be used even in the detached Elizabethan, but not when decora;
tion has been permitted below.
up
They should then be
in curved lines, alternating with
the most, without pinnacles or hipknobs. is
carried
two angles, or three
A
at
hollow parapet
far better than a battlement, in the intermediate spaces
the latter indeed
is
when
never allowable, except
the build-
ing has some appearance of being intended for defense, and therefore
is
generally
barbarous
parapet admits of great variety of 208. Lastly. [*
Though
in
the
villa
;
while
the
effect.
the grotesque of Elizabethan archi-
See Stones of Venice, vol.
III.
chap,
iii.]
THE POETRY OF AKCHITECTUEE.
142 tecture
is
adapted for wood country, the grotesque of the
clipped garden, which frequently accompanies
The custom to
it,
of clipping trees into fantastic forms
be reprehended
:
because
first,
it
is
is
not.
always
never can produce the true
grotesque, for the material is not passive, and, therefore, a
perpetual sense of restraint
induced, while the great prin-
is
ciple of the grotesque is action
;
again, because
we have
a dis-
tinct perception of two natures, the one neutralizing the
other
;
for the vegetable organization
is
too palpable to let the
animal form suggest its true idea again, because the great beauty of all foliage is the energy of life and action, of which it loses the appearance by formal clipping; and again, because the hands of the gardener will never produce anything Much, however, need not be said really spirited or graceful. on this subject; for the taste of the public does not now prompt them to such fettering of fair freedom, and we should be as sorry to see the characteristic vestiges of it, which still remain in a few gardens, lost altogether, as to see the thing again becoming common. 209. The garden of the Elizabethan villa, then, should be laid out with a few simple terraces near the house, so as to unite it well with the ground lines of balustrade along the ;
;
edges, g-uided
away
into the foliage of the taller trees of the
garden, with the shadows falling at intervals. ters should be square rather
ward
The
balus-
than round, with the angles out-
and if the balustrade looks unfinished at the corners, be surmounted by a grotesque bit of sculpture, of any kind but it must be very strong and deep in its carved lines, and must not be large and all graceful statues are to be avoided, for the reasons mentioned in speaking of the Italian villa neither is the terraced part of the garden to extend to any distance from the house, nor to have deep flights of steps, for they are sure to get mossy and slippery, if not superintended with troublesome care and the rest of the garden should have more trees than flowers in it. A flower-garden is an ugly thing, even when best managed it is an assembly of unfortunate beings, pampered and bloated above their natit
;
may ;
;
:
;
:
; :
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA. iiral
size,
and heated into diseased growth
stewed
143
;
cor-
rupted bj evil communication into speckled and inharmonious colors; torn
from the
soil
which they loved, and of which
they were the spirit and the glory, to glare away their term of tormented life
among
mixed and incongruous essences know not, and in air that is
the
of each other, in earth that they
poison to them. 210.
The
florist
flowers never will.
may delight He who has
in this: the true lover of
taken lessons from nature,
who has observed the real purpose and operation of flowers how they flush forth from the brightness of the earth's being, as the melody rises up from among the moved strings of the instrument how the wildness of their pale colors passes over her, like the evidence of a various emotion how the quick ;
;
fire
of their life and their delight glows along the green
banks, where the
dew
falls the thickest,
and the mists of
in-
cense pass slowly through the twilight of the leaves, and the
intertwined roots
make
the earth tremble with strange joy at
the feeling of their motion
never take
;
he
who has watched
this will
the beauty of their being to mix into mere-
away
an existence of disease. And the it is unnatural in feeling it never will harmonize with anything, and if people will have it, should be kept out of sight till they get into it. 211. But, in laying out the garden which is to assist the effect of the building, we must observe, and exclusively use, ISTow, as far as we are the natural combinations of flowers.* tricious glare, or feed into
flower-garden
is
as ugly in effect as
aware, bluish purple *
Every one who
is
the only flower color
which Nature
about to lay out a limited extent of garden, in many flowers, should read and attentively study, first Shelley, and next Shakspeare. The latter indeed induces the most beautiful connections between thought and flower that can be found in the whole range of European literature; but he very often uses the symbolical effect of the flower, which it can only have on the educated mind, instead of the natural and true effect of the flower, which it must have, more or less, upon every mind. Thus, when Ophelia, presenting her wild flowers, says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts:" the inis
•which he wishes to introduce
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
144
ever uses in masses of distant effect; this, however, she does in the case of most heathers, with the
gineum, and,
wood
hyacinth.
be used to almost any extent, in masses the rose
Rhododendron
ferru-
wath the colder color of the Accordingly, the large rhododendron may
less extensively,
more sparingly
pansy should be
so^^ti
;
;
the pale varieties of
and, on the turf, the wild violet and
by chance,
so that they
may grow
in
undulations of color, and should be relieved by a few primAll dahlias, tulips, ranunculi, and, in general, what
roses.
are called florist's flowers, should be avoided like garlic.
212. Perhaps
we should
the Architectural
garden
and
all
is
apologize for introducing this in
Magazine; but
is
it
not out of place: the
almost a necessary adjunct of the Elizabethan
garden architecture
is
utterly useless unless
villa, it
be
by the botanical effect. These, then, are a few of the more important principles of architecture, which are to be kept in view in the blue and in
assisted
the green country.
The
wild,
or gray,
country
is
never
selected, in Britain, as the site of a villa; and, therefore,
it
only remains for us to offer a few remarks on a subject as
and important, the architecture
difficult as it is interesting
of
brown, country.
the villa in British hill, or
finite
beauty of the passage depends entirely upon the arbitrary meaning But, when Shellej* speaks of
attached to the flowers.
"
The
lily
of the vale,
Whom
youth makes so fair, and passion so pale. That the light of her tremulous bells is seen
Through he
is
their pavilion of tender green,"
etherealiziug an impression which the
the flower.
Consequently, as
flowers can address the
it
is
mind naturally
receives from
only by their natural influence that
mind through
the eye,
v.'e
must read
Shelley, to
how to use flowers, and Shakspeare, to learn to love them. In both writers we find the wild flower possessing soul as well as life, and min-
learn
gling
its
influence most intimately, like an untaught melody, with the
deepest and most secret streams of
human
emotion.
VII.
THE BRITISH VILLA.—PEIA^cipLES OF COMPOSITION. D.
HUJ
" Vivite contenti casulis
,
or
Brown Country.
et collibus istis."
—Juvenal [xiv.
179.]
213. Ijt the Boulevard des Italiens, just at the turning into the
Rue
de la Paix (in Paris), there stand a few dusky
and withered trees, beside a kind of dry ditch, paved at the bottom, into which a carriage can with some difficulty de-
and which affords access (not in an unusual manner) to the ground floor of a large and dreary-looking house, whose passages are dark and confined, whose rooms are limited in size, and whose windows command an interesting view of the dusky trees before mentioned. This is the town residence of one of the Italian noblemen, whose country house has already been figured as a beautiful example of the villas of the Lago di Como. That villa, however, though in one of the loveliest situations that hill,' and wave, and heaven ever combined to adorn, and though itself scend,
one of the most delicious habitations that luxury ever prois very rarely honored by the presmaster while attractions of a very different nature retain him, winter after winter, in the dark chambers of the
jected or wealth procured,
ence of
its
;
Boulevard des Italiens. 214. This appears singular to the casual traveler, who darts down from the dust and heat of the French capital to the light
and glory of the Italian
lakes,
and
finds the tall
marble chambers and orange groves, in which he thinks, were be possessed of them, he could luxuriate forever, left 145
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITEOTUEE.
146
desolate and neglected by their real
owner but, were he ;
we
such a residence for a single twelvemonth,
to try
believe his
wonder w'ould have greatly diminished at the end of the time. For the mind of the nobleman in question does not differ from that of the average of men inasmuch as it is a ;
well-known fact that a
sublime impressions, con-
series of
tinued indefinitely, gradually pall upon the imagination,
deaden its fineness of feeling, and in the end induce a gloomy and morbid state of mind, a reaction of a peculiarly melancholy character, because consequent, not upon the absence
upon the
of that which once caused excitement, but its
power.*
over
This
whom
is
not the case with
all
men
;
failure of
but with those
the sublimity of an unchanging scene can retain
power forever, we have nothing to do for they know any architect can, how to choose their scene,, and how to add to its effect we have only to impress upon them the propriety of thinking before they build, and of keeping their humors under the control of their judgment. its
;
better than
;
215. It that
we
him
it
is
man
not of them, but of the
of average intellect,
and upon
are thinking throughout all these papers;
cannot be too strongly impressed, that there are very few points in a hill countrj- at all adapted for a permanent residence. There is a kind of instinct, indeed, by which men become aware of this, and shrink from the sterner features
of hill scenery into the parts possessing a
and thus we
Vevay
to
human
interest
Lake Leman, from monotonous a bit of vine-
find the north side of the
Geneva, which
is
about as
country as any in Europe, studded with villas; while the south side, which be found in
all
is as
instinct in this case error.
exquisite a piece of scenery as
Switzerland, possesses, is
true
Thus, the Lake of
;
but
Como
we
think, two.
we frequently
is
find
is
to
The it
in
the resort of half Italy,
while the Lago Maggiore possesses scarcely one villa of importance, besides those on the
Lago Maggiore
is
Borromean
Islands.
taining a pleasurable impression, than that of Como. [*
Yet the
far better adapted for producing and sus-
Compare Modern
Painters, vol. III. chap. x. § 15.]
;
BRITISH VILLA.
The
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
14Y
which the architect has to do in down from heroics to common sense to teach him that, although it might be very well for a man like Pliny,* whose whole spirit and life was wrajit up in that of aS^ature, to set himself down under the splash of a cascade 400 feet high, such escapades are not becoming in English gentlemen and that it is necessary, for 216.
country
hill
first
thing, then,
is to
bring his employer
;
;
own
his
satisfaction, as well as that of others, that he should
keep in the most quiet and least pretending corners of the landscape which he has chosen. 217. Having got his employer well under control, he has
two points to consider. First, where he will spoil least and, secondl}-, where he will gain most. N^ow he may spoil a landscape in two ways either by destroying an association connected with it, or a beauty inherent in it. With the first barbarism we have nothing to do for it is one which would not be permitted on a large and even if it were, could not be perpetrated by any scale man of the slightest education. Xo one, having any pretensions to be called a human being, would build himself a house on the meadow of the Riitli, or by the farm of La Haye Of the inSainte, or on the lonely isle on Loch Katrine. justice of the second barbarism we have spoken already and it is the object of this paper to show how it may be avoided, as well as to develop the principles by which we may be guided in the second question that of ascertaining how much permanent pleasure will be received from the contemplation ;
:
;
;
;
;
of a given scene. 218. It
is
very fortunate that the result of these several
investigations will generally be found the skme.
dence which in the end
The
resi-
found altogether delightful, will be have been placed where it has committed no injury is
found to and therefore the best way of consulting our own convenience This passage seems to suggest that the Villa Pliniana on Como was by Pliny. It was, however, the work of an antiquarian nobleman of the Renaissance, and merely named after the great naturalist, who was born, perhaps, at Como, and mentions an ebbing spring on this site.] [*
built
;
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
148 in the
end
is,
beginning.*
to consult the feelings of the spectator in the
^ow,
the
first
grand rule for the choice of
situ-
never to build a villa where the ground is not richly productive. It is not enough that it should be capable of ation
is,
producing a crop of scanty oats or turnips in a fine season it must be rich and luxuriant, and glowing with vegetative power of one kind or another.f For the very chiefest part :}:
of the character of the edifice of pleasure
is,
and must
be, its
appearance of felicitous repose. This it can never have where the nature and expression of the land near it reminds us of the necessity of labor, and where the earth perfect ease,
its
niggardly of
is
ure
;
this
it
all
that constitutes its beauty
and our
pleas-
man
seems
can only have where the presence of
the natural consequence of an ample provision for his enjoy-
ment, not the continuous struggle of suffering existence with a rude heaven and rugged soil. There is nobility in such a struggle, but not
when
the villa, in Avhom
it
it
is
is
maintained by the inhabitant of
unnatural, and therefore injurious
The narrow
cottage on the desolate moor, or on the crest of the Alps, each leaves an ennobling impression of energy and endurance but the posin its effect.
the stalwart hospice
;
sessor of the villa should call, not
upon our admiration, but
* For instance, one proprietor terrifies the landscape
all round him, within a range of three miles, by the conspicuous position of his habitation; and is punished by finding that, from whatever quarter the wind may
sends in some of his plate-glass.
Another spoils a pretty bit of and has two or three tons of stone dropped through his roof, the first frosty night. Another occupies the turfy slope of some soft lake promontory, and has his cook washed away by the first flood. We do not remember ever liaving seen a dwelling-house destroying the effect of a landscape, of which, considered merely as a habitation we should wish to ])e the possessor. t We are not thinking of the effect upon the human frame of the air wliich is favorable to vegetation. Chemically considered, the bracing breeze of the more sterile soil is the most conducive to health, and is practically so, when the frame is not perpetually exposed to it; but the keenness which checks the growth of the plant is, in all probability, trying, to say tlie blow,
it
crag by building below
least, to X
We
it,
the constitution of a resident.
hope the English language
energetic superlative.
may
long retain this corrupt but
;
upon our sympathy
149
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
and
;
pression of the beauty and
his f imctiou is to t"he
deepen the im-
fullness of creation, not to ex-
majesty of man to show, in the intercourse of earth and her children, not how her severity may be mocked by their heroism, but how her bounty may be honored in their
hibit the
;
enjoyment. 219. This position, being once granted, will save us a great deal of trouble fit
;
for
it
will put out of our
for villa residence, nine-tenths of all
way, as totally unmountain scenery
beginning with such bleak and stormy bits of hillside as that which was metamorphosed into something like a forest by the author of " Waverley
;
" laying an equal veto on
all
the severe
landscapes of such districts of minor mountains as the Scotch
Highlands and Xorth Wales; and finishing by setting aside all the higher sublimity of Alp and Apennine. What, then, has it left us ? The gentle slope of the lake shore, and the spreading parts of the quiet valley in almost all scenery and the shores of the Cumberland lakes in our own, distinguished as they are by a richness of soil, which, though generally manifested only in an exquisite softness of pasture and roundness of undulation, is sufficiently evident to place them out of the sweeping range of this veto. 220. Now, as we have only to do with Britain at present, ;
we
shall direct particular attention to the
as they are the only ally, is
mountain
adapted for the
villa residence,
scenery, which in other districts in character
We
and
district
is
Cumberland
lakes,
which, taken gener-
and
as every piece of
so adapted, resembles
them
tone.
noticed, in speaking of the
feeling of humility with which
Westmoreland
we
cottage, the
are impressed during a
mountain ramble. Xow, it is nearly impossible for a villa of large size, however placed, not to disturb and interrupt this necessary and beautiful impression, particularly where the scenery is on a very small scale. This disadvantage may be obviated in some degree, as we shall see, by simplicity of architecture but another, dependent on a question of propor;
tion, is inevitable.
.
THE POETEY OF ARCHITECTURE.
150
221. "When an object, in which magnitude attribute,
leaves
is
a desirable
an impression, on a practiced eje, of
less
magnitude than it really possesses, we should place objects beside it, of whose magnitude we can satisfy ourselves, of larger size than that w^hich we are accustomed to for, by ;
finding these large objects in precisely the proportion to the
which we are accustomed, while we know their actual size to be one to which we are not accustomed, we become aware of the true magnitude of the principal feature. But where the object leaves a true impression of its size on the practiced eye, we shall do harm by rendering minor objects either larger or smaller than they usually are. Where the object leaves an impression of greater magTiitude than it really possesses, we must render the minor objects
grand
object, to
smaller than they usually are, to prevent our being undeceived.
222. ISTow, a mountain of 15,000 feet high always looks
lower than
near
it
it
really
is
;
therefore the larger the buildings
are rendered, the better.
Thus, in speaking of the
was observed that a building of the size of St. Peter's in its place, would exhibit the size of the mounA mountain 7000 feet high tains more truly and strikingly. Swiss cottage,
it
strikes its impression
neither side
;
with great truth
;
therefore the building near
we
are deceived on
it
should be of the
and thus the villas of the Lago di Como, being from 6000 to 8000 feet high, are well proportioned, being neither colossal nor diminutive but a moun* tain 3000 feet high always looks higher than it really is;
sf\'erage size
among
;
hills
:
* This position, as well as the two preceding, is important, and in need It has often been observed, that, when the eye is altogether unpracticed in estimating elevation, it believes every point to be lower than it really is but this does not militate against the proposition, for it is also well known, that the higher the point, the greater the deception. But when the eye is thoroughly practiced in mountain measure-
of confirmation.
;
ment, although the judgment, arguing from technical knowledge, gives a true result, the impression on the feelings is always at variance with it, except in hills of the middle height. We are perpetually astonished, in our own country, by the sublime impression left by such hills as Skiddaw,
;
BEITISH VILLA.
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
therefore the buildings near average. objects
;
And
it
151
should be smaller than the
what is meant by the proportion of namely, rendering them of such relative size as shall this is
produce the greatest possible impression of those attributes which are most desirable in both. It is not the true, but the
and it must desirable impression which is to be conveyed not be in one, but in both: the building must not be over;
whelmed by the mass of the mountain, nor the precipice (Proportion of mocked by the elevation of the cottage. dejiendent
color is a question of quite a different nature,
merely on admixture and combination). 223. For these reasons, buildings of a very large size are
decidedly destructive of effect
among the English lakes first, much diminished by them :
because apparent altitudes are
and, secondly, because, whatever position they
may
be placed
in, instead of combining with scenery, they occupy and overwhelm it for all scenery is divided into pieces, each of which has a near bit of beauty, a promontory of lichened crag, or a smooth swarded knoll, or something of the kind, to begin Wherever the large villa comes, it takes up one of with. these beginnings of landscape altogether; and the parts of crag or wood, which ought to combine with it, become sub;
or Cacler Idris, or
Ben Venue; perpetually vexed,
in Switzerland,
by
find-
ing that, setting aside circumstances of form and color, the abstract im-
moments
of peculiar effect, worth were standing the other day on the slope of the Brcvent, above the Prieure of Chamouni, with a companion, well practiced in climbing Highland hills, but a stranger among Pointing out a rock above the Glacier des Bossons, we rethe Alps. " I should think," was the reply, "I quested an opinion of its height. could climb it in two steps; but I am too well used to hills to be taken in This in that way; it is at least 40 feet." The real height was 470 feet.
pression of elevation
is
(except in some
a king's ransom) inferior to the truth.
deception of the
is
We
attributable to several causes (independently of the clearness
medium through which
the object
of place to discuss here, but the chief of
which
is seen),
which
is
it
would be out
the natural tendency of
the feelings always to believe objects subtending the same angle to be of the same height.
never betrays pression
is
its
We
say the feelings, not the eye
possessor,
not received.
;
for the practiced eye
though the due and corresponding mental im-
THE POETKY OF ARCHITECTUKE.
152 servient to
it,
and
lost
in
its
general effect
in a general effect of ugliness. case:
;
however intrinsically beautiful the
should
assist,
but not supersede
;
that
is,
ordinarily,
This should never be the edifice
may
join, but not eclipse
;
be, it
appear,
but not intrude.
The general
224. size
by which we are to determine the mass which will not overwhelm form, within two hundred yards of it and rule
to select the largest
is,
any object of if it does
fine
not do
;
this,
we may be
for the distant features
for
:
quite sure
it is
not too large
it is
one of Xature's most beau-
tiful adaptations, that she is never out of proportion
herself; that
is,
the
minor
with
details of scenery of the first class
bear exactly the proportion to the same species of detail in scenery of the second class, that the large features of the first bear to the large features of the second. Every mineralogist
knows
that the quartz of the St.
in
crystal than the quartz of
Gothard is as much larger Snowdon, as the peak of the one mountain overtops tlie peak of the other and that the crystals of the Andes are larger than either.* Every artist knows that the bowlders of an Alpine foreground, and the leaps of an Alpine stream, are as much larger than the bowlders, and as much bolder than the leaps, of a Cumberland foreground and torrent, as the Jungfrau is higher than Skiddaw. Therefore, if we take care of the near effect in any country, we need never be afraid of the distant. 225. For these reasons, the cottage villa, rather than the mansion, is to be preferred among our hills it has been preferred in many instances, and in too many, with an unfortunate result for the cottage villa is precisely that which its
;
:
;
affords the greatest scope for practical absurdity. try, proportion,
Symme-
and some degree of simplicity, are usually
kept in view in the large building; but, in the smaller, the * This
and we should be sorry to maintain but the crystals of almost all the rarer minerals are larger in the larger mountain and that altogether independently of the period of elevation, which, in the case of Mont Blanc, is later than that of our own Mendips. is
rather a bold assertion
the fact as universal
;
;
;
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
153
architect considers himself licensed to try all sorts of experiments, and jumbles together pieces of imitation, taken at random from his note-book, as carelessly as a bad chemist
mixing elements, from which he may by accident obtain something new, though the chances are ten to one that he obThe chemist, however, is more intains something useless. nocent than the architect
;
for the one throws his trash out of
compound
the window, if the
fail;
while the other always
lost.
The great one cause of
thinks his conceit too good to be all
the errors in this branch of architecture
of imitation, at once the most baneful
is,
the principle
and the most unintel-
perhaps the most natural, that the human mind Let it once be thoroughly or act upon.* encourage can
lectual, yet
we noticed the kind of error most common in amateur deand we traced that error to its great first cause, the assumption of the humor, instead of the true cliaracter, for a guide but we did not sufficiently specify the mode in whicli that first cause operated, by prompting By imitation we do not mean accurate copying, neither do to imitation. we mean working under the influence of tlie feelings by Avhich we may suppose the originators of a given model to have been actuated; but we mean the intermediate step of endeavoring to combine old materials in a novel manner. True copying may be disdained by architects, but it * In § 166
signs,
;
should not be disdained by nations
;
for
when
the feelings of the time in
which certain styles had their origin have passed away, any examples of It is the same style will invariably be failures, unless they be copies. utter absurdity to talk of building Greek edifices now no man ever will, or ever can, who does not believe in the Greek mythology and, precisely by so much as he diverges from the technicality of strict copy ism, he will But we ought to have pieces of Greek architecture, as we have err. reprints of the most valuable records, and it is better to build a new Parthenon than to set up the old one. Let the dust and the desolation of the Acropolis be undisturbed forever let them be left to be the school of our moral feelings, not of our mechanical perceptions; the line and rule of the prying carpenter should not come into the quiet and holy places of ;
;
;
the earth.
Elsewhere,
the national
we may
build marble models for the education of
mind and eye; but
it
is
useless to think of adapting the
architecture of the Greek to the purposes of the
done, and never will be.
a building as
We
La Madeleine
:
;
it
never has been
beautiful, because accurately copied
it is wholly unadapted for bad Greek as our National Gallery, it
;
useful,
But we must not think of its Christian worship; and were it aa would be equally unfit.
as teaching the eye of every passer-by.
purpose;
Frank
delight, indeed, in observing the rise of such
;
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTURE.
154
rooted out, and the cottage villa will become a beautiful and interesting element of our landscape.
much
226. So
The question of
for size.
position need not
detain us long, as the principles advanced in § 104 are true Beautiful and calm the situagenerally, with one exception.
—
— not conspicuous.
In whose former life has bestowed on every scene the greater part of the majesty which it possesses, ought to have a dignity inherent in it, which would be shamed by shrinking back from the sight
tion
must always
but
be,
in
England
Italy, the dwelling of the descendants of those
The mistake of our architects in general is, that they fancy they are speaking good English by speaking bad Greek. We wish, therefore, that copjang were more in vogue than it is. But imitation, the endeavor to be Gothic, or Tyrolese, or Venetian, without the slightest grain of Gothic or Venetian feeling; the futile effort to splash a building into age, or
daub
it
when
its shell is
dignity, to zigzag
into
nor baronial,
it
into sanctity, or
neither ancient nor dignified, and
— this
is
slit
it
its spirit
into ferocity,
neither jjriestly
the degrading vice of the age; fostered, as
if
man's
reason were but a step between the brains of a kitten and a monkey, in the mixed love of despicable excitement and miserable mimicry. If the English have no imagination, they should not scorn to be commonplace; or rather they should remember that poverty cannot be disguised by beggarly borrowing, that it may be ennobled by calm independence. Our national architecture never will improve until our population are generally convinced that in this art, as in all others, they cannot seem what they cannot be. The scarlet coat or the turned-down collar, which the obsequious portrait-painter puts on the shoulders and off the necks of his savage or insane customers, never can make the 'prentice look military, or the idiot poetical and the architectural appurtenances of Norman embrasure or Veronaic balcony must be equally ineffective, until they can turn shopkeepers into barons, and schoolgirls into Juliets. Let the national mind be elevated in its character, and it will naturally become pure in its conceptions let it be simple in its desires, and it will be beautiful in its ideas let it be modest in feeling, and it will not be inFor architect and for employer, there can be but one rule solent in stone. to be natural in all that they do, and to look for the beauty of the material creation as they would for that of the human form, not in the chanceful and changing disposition of artificial decoration, but in the manifestation of the pure and animating spirit which keeps it from the coldness of the grave. [With this remarkable foreshadowing of Mr. Ruskin's Art-teaching compare Seven Lamps and Lectures on Architecture and Painting, ;
;
;
throughout.]
BKinSH VILLA.
155
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
of men, and majesty enough to prevent such non-retirement from becoming intrusive but the spirit of the English landscape is simple, and pastoral and mild, devoid, also, of high associations (for in the Highlands and Wales almost every spot which has the pride of memory is unfit for villa resi;
dence)
;
and, therefore,
all
conspicuous appearance of
more wealthy inhabitants becomes
its
ostentation, not dignity;
impudence, not condescension. Their dwellings ought to be and no more, as forming part of the gentle animation and present prosperity which is the beauty of cultivated ground. And this partial concealment may be effected just evident,
without any sacrifice of the prospect which the proprietor will insist
upon commanding from
his
windows, and with
great accession to his permanent enjoyment.
227. For,
first,
the only prospect which
is
really desirable
from the window of the breakfast-room. This is rather a bold position, but it will appear evident on It is pleasant enough to have a pretty a little consideration. little bit visible from the bedrooms but, after all, it only makes .gentlemen cut themselves in shaving, and ladies never think of anything beneath the sun when they are dressing. Then, in the dining-room, windows are absolutely useless, because dinner is always uncomfortable by daylight, and the weight of furniture effect which adapts the room for the gastronomic rites, renders it detestable as a sitting-room. In or delightful,
is
that
;
the library, people should have something else to do, than
looking out of the windows
;
in the drawing-room, the
uncom-
fortable stillness of the quarter of an hour before dinner,
may, indeed, be alleviated by having something to converse about at the windows: but it is very shameful to spoil a prospect of any kind, by looking at it when we are not ourselves in a state of corporal comfort and mental good-humor, which nobody can be after the labor of the day, and before he has been fed. But the breakfast-room, where we meet the first light of the dewy day, the first breath of the morning air, the first glance of gentle eyes to which we descend in the very spring and elasticity of mental renovation and bodily ;
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTURE.
156
energy, in the gathering- up of our spirit for the
new
day, in
the flush of our awakening from the darkness and the mystery of faint and inactive dreaming, in the resurrection from
our daily grave, in the
first
tremuluus sensation of the beauty
of our being, in the most glorious perception of the lightning there, indeed, our expatiation of spirit, when it meets the pulse of outward sound and joy, the voice of bird and breeze and billow, does demand some power of liberty, some space for its going forth into the morning, some free-
of our life
dom
;
of intercourse with the lovely and limitless energy of
creature and creation.
228.
The breakfast-room must have
extensive one
;
under such sweet circumstances.
ward
architect
a
prospect,
and an
the hot roll and hyson are indiscussable except
who cannot
But he must be an awk-
afford an opening to one
window
without throwing the whole nuiss of the building open to public view; particularly as, in the second place, the essence of a good window view is the breaking out of the distant features in
little
well-composed morceaux, not the general glare of a
mass of one tone. Have we a line of lake 1 the silver water must glance out here and there among the trunks of near trees, just enough to show where it flows then break into an open swell of water, just where it is widest, or where the shore is prettiest. Have we mountains ? their peaks must appear over foliage or through it, the highest and boldest catching the eye conspicuously, yet not seen from base to summit, as if we wanted to measure them. Such a prospect as this is always compatible with as much concealment as we choose. In all these pieces of management, the architect's chief enemy is the vanity of his employer, who will always want to see more than he ought to see, and than he will have pleasure in seeing, without reflecting how the spectators pay for his peeping. 229. So much, then, for position. We have now only to settle the questions of form and color, and we shall then have closed the most tiresome investigation which we shall be called upon to enter into inasmuch as the principles which we may ;
;
arrive at in considering the architecture of defense,* though r* Referrina;
again to the intended sequel.]
;
BRITISH VILLA.
we hope they may
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION,
be useful in the abstract, will
157
demand, no
application to native landscape, in which, happily, no defense
now
and those relating to sacred edifices will, we also hope, be susceptible of more interest than can possibly be excited by the most degraded branch of the whole art of architecture, one hardly worthy of being included under that, namely, with which we have lately been the name occupied, whose ostensible object is the mere provision of shelter and comfort for the despicable shell within whose darkness and corruption that purity of perception to which all is
required
;
—
high art
is
addressed
is,
during
its
immaturity, confined.
230. There are two modes in which any mental or material
—
may be increased by contrast, or by assimilation. Supposing that we have a certain number of features or existences under a given influence then, by subjecting another feature to the same influence, we increase the universality, and therefore the effect, of that influence but by introducing another feature, not under the same influence, we render the subjection of the other features more palpable, and therefore more effective. For example, let the influence be one of effect
;
;
shade, to wdiicli a certain
We we
number of
add another feature, subjected
objects are subjected.
to the
same
feature,
7}ot
subjected to this influence,
influence,
and
we add the same and we have deepened
increase the general impression of shade
;
the effect of shade.
Now,
the principles by which
selection of one or other of these
tance,
we
are to be guided in the
means are of great impor-
and must be developed before we can conclude the
investigation of villa architecture.
231.
The impression produced by
ence depends upon
its
degree and
a given effect or influits
duration.
always means the proportionate energy exerted. is
either into time, or into space, or into both.
Degree Duration
The dura-
forming what is commonly called extent. The duration of sound is in space and time the space being in the size of the waves of air, which give depth to the tone. The duration of mental emotion is in time tion of color
is
in space alone,
;
158
THE POETEY OF AECHITECTUEE. J^Tow in all influences, as is the degree, so
alone.
impression
;
sion; that
is,
permanent operation upon the
its
the violence with which
and
the
is
as is the duration, so is the effect of the impres-
it
feelings, or
own
takes possession of our
facul-
opposed to the abstract impression of its existence, without such operation on our own essence. For example, the natural tendency of darkness or shade ties
senses, as
Now,
induce fear or melancholy.
is to
shade,
shade
so ;
the
is
abstract
as the degree of the
impression of the existence of
but as the duration of shade, so
choly excited by
is
the fear or melan-
it.
Consequently,
when we wish
im-
to increase the abstract
pression of the power of any influence over objects with
which we have no connection, we must increase degree but, when we wish the impression to produce a permanent effect upon ourselves, we must increase duration. Now, degree is always increased by contrast, and duration by assimilation. A few instances of this will be sufficient. 232. Blue is called a cold color, because it induces a feeling of coolness to the eye, and is much used by nature in her ;
cold effects.
Supposing that we have painted
a
storm scene, in desolate
country, with a single miserable cottage somewhere in front that
we have made
and the distance cold and
the atmosphere
and wish to heighten the comfortless impression. There is an old rag hanging out of the window shall
blue,
:
red or blue
If
?
trast strongly
and
chilliness
it
warm
be red, the piece of
it
be
color will con-
with the atmosphere will render its blueness immensely more apparent; will increase the ;
degree of both, and, therefore, the abstract impression of the existence of cold.
But,
if it
be blue,
it
will bring the iciness
of the distance up into the foreground visible space lief
with comfortless cold
from the desolation
;
;
;
will
will take
fill
the whole
away every
re-
will increase the duration of the
influence, and, consequently, will extend its operation into the
mind and looks.
feelings of the spectator,
who
will shiver as he
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
K'ow, if
moment
we
are
making
in goes the red
:
a 'picture,
we
159
shall not hesitate a
for the artist, while he wishes to
;
render the actual impression of the presence of cold in the landscape as strong as possible, does not wish that chilliness to pass over into, or affect, the spectator, but
make
endeavors to
the combination of color as delightful to his eye and
But,
feelings as possible.*
if
we
are painting a scene for
where deception is aimed at, we shall be as decided in our proceeding on the opposite principle in goes the blue for we wish the idea of cold to pass over into the spectator, and make him so uncomfortable as to permit his fancy to place him distinctly in the place we theatrical representation,
;
:
desire, in the actual scene.
233. Again, Shakspeare has been blamed by some few
Mercutio, and the humor of " Juliet " for the fool in " Lear for the porter in " Macbeth " the grave-diggers in " Hamcritical asses for the raillery of
the nurse, in "
Romeo and
;
;
;
let," etc.
feeling.
;
because,
Xo
said, these bits interrupt the tragic
it is
such thing; they enhance
extent; they deepen
its
it to
an incalculable
degree, though they diminish
its
And what is the result ? agony of the individuals brought before us is far stronger than it could otherwise have been, and our sympathies are more forcibly awakened while, had the contrast been wanting, the impression of pain would have come over into ourselves, our selfish feeling, instead of our sympathy, would have been awakened; the conception of the grief of others diminished and the tragedy would have made us very uncomfortable, but never have melted us to tears or excited us to indignation. When he, whose merry and satirical laugh rung in our ears the moment before, faints before us, with " a plague o' both your houses, they have made worms' meat of me," the acuteness of our feeling is excessive but, had we not heard the laugh before, there would have been a dull
that the impression of the
duration.
;
;
:
* This difference of principle artist,
is one leading distinction between the properly so called, and the scene, diorama, or panorama painter.
— THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
160
weight of melancholy impression, which would have been painful, not affecting.
234. Hence, w^e see the grand importance of the choice
of our means of enhancing
effect,
and we derive when we wish
the simple
rule for that choice, namely,
that,
abstract impression, or to call
upon the sympathy of the
we
tator,
are to use contrast
but, when we wish
;
the operation of the impression, or to ings,
we
This
awaken the
spec-
to extend
selfish feel-
are to use assimilation.
rule,
however, becomes complicated, where the fea-
ture of contrast
wish
to increase
is
not altogether passive
any
to give a conception of
what
feature, as well as in
it
relieves
always easy to know whether or
idea,
abstract
its
the degree of influence,
beauty
that
is,
where we
;
and, besides,
it is
not
will be best to increase the
it
operation. is
;
qualities inherent in that
;
In most
cases,
energy,
and, in many, the duration
In others, duration is sublimity, is monotony. and energv^ painful in a few, energy and duration are attainable and delightful together. 235. It is impossible to give rules for judgment in every case but the following points must always be observed First, when we use contrast, it must be natural and likely to of influence
:
:
;
occur.
Thus
the contrast in tragedy
is
the natural conse-
quence of the character of human existence it is what we see When a contrast is and feel every day of our lives. unnatural, it destroys the effect it should enhance. ;
Canning
called
on
a
French refugee in 1794,
The conver-
sation naturally turned on the execution of the Queen, then
a recent event.
Overcome by
his feelings, the Parisian
threw
himself upon the ground, exclaiming, in an agony of tears, " La bonne reine Presently he sprang la pauvre reine ! " !
up, exclaiming, " Cependant, Monsieur, voir
mon
petit chien danser."
in a Parisian,
was unnatural
il
faut vous faire
This contrast, though natural in the nature of things,
and
therefore injurious.
236. Secondly,
being external,
is
when
the
general
influence,
instead
an attribute or energy of the thing
of
itself,
;
BRITISH VILLA.
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
1<31
on it a permanent character, the contrast which the absence of that character is injurious, and by is obtained Thus, called an interruption of the unity. what is becomes in noticed cottage, Swiss the tone of colorless the raw and landscape, of the richness the contrast to § 42, is an injurious which is an inherent and necessary energy in surrounding SO as to bestow
So, the character of Italian landscape
objects.
is
curvilinear
therefore, the outline of the buildings entering into its composition must be arranged on curvilinear principles, as inves-
tigated in § 144.
But,
237. Thirdly.
if
the pervading character can be
obtained in the single object by different means, the contrast Thus, the elevation of character which will be delightful. the hill districts of Italy possess by the magnificence of their forms, is transmitted to the villa by its dignity of detail and simplicity of outline
;
and the rectangular interruption
to the
curve of picturesque blue country, partaking of the nature of that which it interrupts, is a contrast giving relief and while any Elizabethan acute angles, on the contrary, would have been a contrast obtained by the absence of the pervading energy of the universal curvilinear character, and interest,
therefore improper.
238, Fourthly,
when
the general energy, instead of per-
vading simultaneously the multitude of objects, as with one spirit, is independently possessed and manifested by every individual object, the result is repetition, not unity and conThus, a numtrast is not merely agreeable, but necessary. ber of objects, forming the line of beauty, is pervaded by one simple energy but if that energy is separately manifested in ;
;
each, the result
is
painful monotony.
Parallel right lines,
without grouping, are always liable to this objection and, therefore, a distant view of a flat country is never beautiful ;
unless
its
horizontals are lost in richness of vegetation, as in
Lombardy, or broken with masses of forest, or with distant hills. If none of these interruptions take place, there is immediate monotony, and no introduction can be more delightful than such a tower in the distance as Strasburg, or, indeed,
11
;
162
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTUKE.
than any architectural combination of verticals. Peterborough is a beautiful instance of such an adaptation. It is always,
then,
remembered
be
to
that
repetition
not
is
assimilation.
when any
239. Fifthly, that
is,
attribute
is
necessarily beautiful,
beautiful in every place and circumstance,
hardly say that the contrast consisting in It
ful.
only
is
opposition Sixthly.
may
when beauty
its
local
is
absence
we need is
pain-
accidental that
or
be emplo^'ed.
The edge
gradual change
is
of
all contrasts, so to
with decisive
soft as is consistent
speak, should be as
We
effect.
mean, that a
better than instantaneous transfiguration
But
though always less effective, it is more agreeable. left very much to the judgment.
for,
must be
this
Seventhly.
We
must
very
be
whether any given contrast
is
careful
external, or absence of internal, energy, for cult point to decide.
might, at
seem
first,
ascertaining
in
obtained by freedom from it is
often a
diffi-
Thus, the peace of the Alpine valley
to be a contrast caused
by the want of the
character of strength and sublimity manifested in the hills;
but
it
is
really caused
by the freedom from the general and
external influence of violence and desolation.
240. These, then, are principles applicable to
all arts,
with-
out a single exception, and of particular importance in paint-
ing and architecture.* rule comes in the
important
is,
way
sometimes be found that one in which case, the most be obeyed but, in general, they
It will
of another
of course, to
;
;
means of arriving at certain results, our conjectures must have been vague and
will afford us an easy
when, before, unsatisfactory.
We may now
proceed to determine the most proper form mountain villa of England. 241. We must first observe the prevailing lines of the near
for the
hills
:
if
they are vertical, there will most assuredly be monot-
ony, for the vertical lines of crag are never grouped, and accordingly, by our fourth rule, the prevailing lines of our [*
For further discussion of which, see Elements of Drawing Letter ,
III.]
:
163
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BEITISH VILLA.
On
Lake of Thun the tendency is repeated by the buildings,* and the composition becomes thoroughly bad but on the Lake of Como we have the same vertical tendency in the hills, while the grand lines of the buildings are horizontal, and the composition is good. But, if the prevailing lines of edifice
must be
of the hills
is
horizontal.
vertical
;
the
tendency
this
;
the near hills be curved (and they will be either curved or
we must
vertical),
not interrupt their character, for the
energy
is
edifice
must be rectangular.
then pervading, not individual
;
and, therefore, our
In both cases, therefore, the grand outline of the villa is same but in one we have it set off by contrast, in the other by assimilation and we must work out in the architecture of each edifice the principle on which we have begun. Commencing with that in which we are to work by contrast the vertical crags must be the result of violence, and the inthe
;
;
fluence of destruction,
of distortion,
speak
of torture, to
must be evident in their every line. We free the building from this influence, and give it repose, gracefulness, and ease; and we have a contrast of feeling as well as of line, by which the desirable attributes are rendered evident strongly,
in both objects, w^hile the duration of neither energy being
allowed, there can be no disagreeable effect
from the
tator, Avho will not shrink
upon the
spec-
terror of the crags, nor
want of excitement in the gentleness of the building. 242. Secondly, Solitude is powerful and evident in its effect on the distant hills therefore the effect of the villa should be joyous and life-like (not flippant, however, but serene) and, by rendering it so, we shall enhance the sublimity of the distance, as we showed in speaking of the Westmoreland cottage and, therefore, we may introduce a number of windows with good effect, provided that they are kept in horizontal lines, and do not disturb the repose which we have shown to be necessary. These three points of contrast will be quite enough there feel a
;
;
;
:
[* In their turrets
and pinnacles, as shown by a poor wood-cut
magazine, not worth reproduction.]
in the
;
THE POETKY
164 is
OP'
ARCIIITECTUKE.
no other external influence from which we can free the
building, and the pervading energy must be communicated to
or
it,
it
will not harmonize with our feelings; therefore,
we had
before proceeding, is
better determine
how
this contrast
to be carried out in detail.
243.
be as
Our
flat
lines are to be horizontal
We
as possible.
may
then the roof must
;
need not think of snow, because,
from and the the material, which, here, is the only proper one roof of the cottage is always very flat, which it would not be however much we
slope the roof,
it
will not slip off ;
if there
were any inconvenience attending such
for the sake of the second contrast,
we
ness and ease, as well as horizontality.
But,
a form.
are to have graceful-
Then we must break making
the line of the roof into different elevations, yet not the difference great, or
we
shall
verticals.
And
d, fig. 14, for the
length
have visible
must not be done at random. 244. Take a flat line of beauty, a
this
Fig.
of the edifice. let fall
draw
li
14.
Leading
Strike a h horizontally from a,
shall he to
;
by using different curves ;
d from d
make c f equal m n, the The curve should be so far continued as that h f Then we are sure of a beautic d as c d to a h.
the verticals, f.
c
maximum and
Much
fully proportioned form.
etc.
lines of Villa-composition.
;
variety
may
be introduced
joining parabolas with cycloids,
but the use of curves
is
always the best mode of
obtaining good forms.*
Further ease
For [*
may
be obtained by added combinations.
instance, strike another curve (a q h) through the flat
Compare Modern
DroMing, Letter IIL]
Painters, vol. IV. chap. xvii. g 49, and Elements of
BKITISH VILLA.
ah;
line
bisect the
maximum
make
(observing to
wards the smallest the balance), join r
165
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION. v p,
the largest
maximum q, s b,
of the same beautiful form.
draw the horizontal r
maximum
s,
of this curve to-
of the great curve, to restore
and we have another modification This
may
be done in either side
still
found monotonous,
of the building, but not in both.
245. Then, if the
may
flat
roof be
it
be interrupted by garret windows, which must not be
gabled, but turned with the curve a
h,
whatever that
may
be.
and take away any vestiges of Italian character which might hang about it, and which would be wholly out of place. The windows may have tolerably broad architraves, but no cornices an ornament both haughty and classical in its They should effect, and, on both accounts, improper here. be in level lines, but grouped at unequal distances, or they will have a formal and artificial air, unsuited to the irregularity and freedom around them. Some few of them may however, with arched, the curve be a b, the mingling of the curve and the square being very graceful. There should not be more than two tiers and the garrets, or the building will This will give instant humility
to the building,
;
be too high.
So much for the general outline of the villa, in which we work by contrast. Let us pass over to that in which we are to work by assimilation, before speaking of the material and color which should be common to both. 2-i6. The grand outline must be designed on exactly the same principles for the curvilinear proportions, which were are to
;
now be assimilation. Of course, we do not mean to say that every villa in a hill country should
opposition before, will
have the form a b c d ; -we should be tired to death if they had but we bring forward that form as an example of the agreeable result of the principles on which we should always work, but whose result should be the same in no two cases. :
A
modification of that form, however, will frequently be
found useful
;
for,
a hall of entrance
under the depression h and of exercise, which
f,
we may have
is
a requisite of
;
THE POETEY OF AKCHITECTURE.
166
extreme importance in liill districts, where it rains three hours out of four all the year round and under c d we may have the kitchen, servants' rooms, and coachhouse, leaving the ;
large division quiet and comfortable.
247. Then, as in the curved country there is no such distortion as that before noticed, no such evidence of violent
we need not be so careful about the appearance of we may be a little more dignified and a little more classical. The windows may be symmetrically aragency,
perfect peace
;
there be a blue and undulating distance, the even have cornices narrower architraves are to be used the garrets may be taken from the roof, and their inmates may be accommodated in the other side of the house but we must take care, in doing this, not to become Greek.
ranged
upper
;
and,
if
may
tier
;
;
The
material, as
ing unclassical
;
we
shall see presently, will assist us in keep-
and not
a vestige of
column or
capital
must
appear in any part of the edifice. All should be pure, but all should be English and there should be here, as elsewhere, ;
much
of the utilitarian about the whole, suited to the culti-
vated country in which
it is
placed.
248. It will never do to be speculative or imaginative in
our details, on the supposition that the tendency of fine scenery is to make everybody imaginative and enthusiastic.
Enthusiasm has no business with Turkey carpets or easychairs; and the very preparation of comfort for the body, which the existence of the villa supposes, is inconsistent with the supposition of any excitement of mind: and this is another reason for keeping the domestic building in richly proKature has set aside her sublime bits for ductive country.
us to feel and think in; she has pointed out her productive bits for us to sleep and eat in; and, if we sleep and eat
amongst the sublimity, we are brutal if we poetize amongst There are the time and place the cultivation, we are absurd. for each state of existence, and we should not jumble that which ISTature has separated. She has addressed herself, in one part, wholly to the mind there is nothing for us to eat but bilberries, nothing to rest upon but rock, and we have no ;
;
;
BRITISH VILLA.
167
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
business to concoct picnics, and bring cheese, and ale, and sandwiches, in baskets, to gratify our beastly natures, where
Nature never intended us to eat (if she had, we needn't have In the other part, she has provided brought the baskets). for our necessities and we are very absurd, if we make our;
Therefore,
selves fantastic, instead of comfortable.
we ought
to
do in the
man
tion of a
hill villa is, to
adapt
it
all
that
for the habita-
of the highest faculties of perception and feel-
but only for the habitation of his hours of common sense, not of enthusiasm it must be his dwelling as a man, not as a spirit as a thing liable to decay, not as an eternal energy ing
;
;
;
an immortal. 249. Keeping, then, in view these distinctions of form between the two villas, the remaining considerations relate equally to both. We have several times alluded to the extreme richness and variety of hill foreground, as an interRawness of nal energy to which there must be no contrast.
as a perishable, not as
color
especially avoided, but so,
to be
is
also,
is
poverty
add much to the beauty of the building, if in any conspicuous and harsh angle, or shadowy in molding, we introduce a wreath of carved leafwork, This sounds startling and expensive; but stone, of course. Ave are not thinking of expense: what ought to be, not what It will, therefore,
of effect.
—
can be afforded, in
shamming
is
tasticisms has been
Besides,
the question.
castles,
when
building pinnacles, and
shown
all
all
expense
other fan-
to be injurious, that Avhich other-
have been wasted in plaster battlements, to do harm, may surely be dcA^oted to stone leafage, to do good. jSTow, if there be too much, or too conspicuous, ornament, it will destroy simplicity and humility, and everything which Avise Avould
we
haA'e
been endeavoring
to get
;
therefore, the architect
must
be careful, and had better have immediate recourse to that natural
beauty
Avith
which
he
is
now endeavoring
to
assimilate.
250.
When Nature
determines on decorating a piece of
projecting rock, she begins
Avitli
the bold projecting surface,
to AAdiich the eye is naturally draAA^n
by
its
form, and (observe
;
THE POETKY OF AKCHITECTtlRE.
168
works by the principles which were before finishes this with lichens and mingled colors, to a degree of delicacy, which makes us feel that we never can look close enough but she puts in not a single mass of form to attract the eye, more than the grand outline renBut, where the rock joins the ground, where ders necessary.
how
closely she
investigated)
she
;
the shadow falls, and the eye is not attracted, she puts in bold forms of ornament, large leaves and grass, bunches of moss and heather, strong in their projection, and deep in their color.
Therefore, the architect must act on precisely may leave the
principle: his outward surfaces he
same wind and weather to finish in their own way; but he cannot allow Nature to put grass and weeds into the shadows ergo, he must do it himself; and, whenever the eye loses itself in shade, wherever there is a dark and sharp corner, there, if he can, he should introduce a wreath of flower-work. The carving will be preserved from the weather by this very propriety of situation it would have moldered away, had it been exposed to the full drift of the rain, but will remain safe in the
;
:
the crevices where
it is
required; and, also,
it
will not injure
the general effect, but will lie concealed until
and then
we
approach,
rise up, as it were, out of the darkness, to its
duty
bestowing on the dwellings that finish of effect which is manifested around them, and gratifying the natural requirements of the mind for the same richness in the execution of the designs of men, which it has found on a near approach lavished so abundantly, in a distant view subdued so beautifully into the large effect of the designs of Xature.
251. Of the ornament itself, it is to be observed that it is not to be what is properly called architectural decoration (that which is " decorous," becoming, or suitable to), namely, the combination of
minor forms, which repeat the
lines,
and
partake of the essence of the grand design, and carry out its meaning and life into its every member but it is to be true ;
sculpture; the presenting of a pure ideality of form to the eye,
which
of color
:
may give
it is to
perfect conception, without the assistance be the stone image of vegetation, not botani-
169
PKINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BRITISH VILLA.
callj accurate, indeed, but sufficiently near to permit us to be
sure of the intended flower or leaf.
any
a single line of
ISTot
other kind of ornament should be admitted, and there should
be more leafage than flower-work, as flow and
outline.
Deep
relief
it is
the
more easy in
its
need not be attempted, but the
edges of the leafage should be clearly and delicately defined.
The cabbage,
the vine, and the ivy are the best
tiful leaves
oak
:
is
a
little
too
stiff,
and most beauPar-
otherwise good.
ticular attention ought to be paid to the ease of the stems
and tendrils
;
such care will always be repaid.
be especially observed, that the carving
is
And
it is
to
not to be arranged
in garlands or knots, or any other formalities, as in Gothic work; but the stalks are to rise out of the stone, as if they were rooted in it, and to fling themselves down where
they are wanted, disappearing again in light sprays, as they were
still
if
growing.
252. All this will require care in designing; but, as
we
have said before, we can always do without decoration but, if we have it, it must be well done. It is not of the slightest ;
use to economize; every farthing improperly saved does a
worth of damage and that is getting a bargain the When one branch or group balances another, they must be different in composition. The same group may shilling's
;
wrong way.
be introduced several times in different parts, but not there
is
correspondence, or the effect will be unnatural
when ;
and
can hardly be too often repeated, that the ornament must be kept out of the general effect, must be invisible to all but it
the near observer, and, even to him,
must not become
a ne-
cessary part of the design, but must be sparingly and cautiously applied, so as to appear to have been thrown in by
chance here and there, as Nature would have thrown in a
bunch of herbage, affording adornment without concealment, and relief without interruption. 253. So much for form. The question of color has already been discussed at some length, in speaking of the cottage but it is to be noticed, that the villa, from the nature ;
of
its
situation, gets the higher hills back into a distance
THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
170
which
three or four times
is
more blue than any piece of
scenery entering into combination with the cottage
more warmth
of color
is
as greater cheerfulness of effect. stone, as the cottage should,
the
mind
so that
;
allowable in the building, as well
should not look like
It
but should
tell as a
White, therefore,
as well as the eve.
building on
is
frequently
allowable in small quantities, particularly on the border of a large
and
softly shored lake, like
Lomond
of Loch
;
other varieties of plaster-color
warmth
Windermere and
the foot
but cream-color, and putty-color, and the If more
inexcusable.
are
required by the situation than the sun will give
is
on white, the building should be darkened at once. A warm rich gray is always beautiful in any place and under any circumstance and, in fact, unless the proprietor likes to be kept damp like a traveling codfish, by trees about his house and close to it (which, if it be white, he must have, to prevent glare), such a gray is the only color which will be beautiful, or even innocent. The difficulty is to obtain it and this ;
;
naturally leads to the question of material. If the color
25-1.
for the shadows
is to
be white,
would make
it
we can have no ornament, we
far too conspicuous, and
The simple forms may be
should get only tawdriness.
cuted in anything that will stand wet
;
and the
cases, should be of the coarse slate of the country, as
They must be kept
exe-
roof, in all
rudely
moss and conspicuous vegetation, or there will be an improper appearance of decay but the more lichenous the better, and the put on as possible.
clear of
;
rougher the slate the sooner be gray,
we may use
it is
colored.
If the color
is to
the gray primitive limestone, which
is
not ragged on the edges, without preparing the blocks too
smoothly
;
or the
more compact and
pale-colored slate, which
frequently done in Westmoreland
and execute the ornaany very coarse dark marble. Greenstone is an excellent rock, and has a fine surface, but it is unmanageable. The grayer gTanites may often be used with good effect, as is
ments
when the gray is to be particuoutward surface of a loose block mav be
well as the coarse porphyries, larlv
;
in
warm.
An
171
PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
BKITISH VIT.LA.
ofteu turned to good account in turning an angle; as the colors which it has contracted by its natural exposure will
remain on it without inducing damp. It is always to be remembered, that he who prefers neatness to beauty, and who would have sharp angles and clean surfaces, in preference to curved outlines and lichenous color, has no business to live
among
hills.
255. Such, then, are the principal points to be kept in view in the edifice itself. Of the mode of uniting it with the near features of foliage and ground, useless to speak:
it is
it
would be utterly and inthat it would take
a question of infinite variety,
volving the whole theory of composition, so
up volumes to develop principles sufiicient to guide us to the result which the feeling of the practiced eye would arrive at The inequalities of the ground, the character in a moment. and color of those inequalities, the nature of the air, the exposure, and the consequent fall of the light, the quantity and form of near and distant foliage, all have their effect on the design, and should have their influence on the designer, inducing, as they do, a perfect change of circumstance in every Only one general rule can be given, and that we
locality.
The house must not be a noun substantive, it must itself, it must be part and parcel of a propor-
repeat.
not stand by
and he it must not even be seen all at once end should feel that, from the given data, he can arrive at no conclusion respecting the other, yet be impressed with a feeling of a universal energy, pervading with its beauty of unanimity all life and all inanimation, all forms tioned whole
who
;
:
sees one
of stillness or motion,
all
presence of silence or of sound.
we have reviewed
the most interesting and we have applied examples examples to the landscape the principles derived from those endeavored to have Throughout, we of our own country.
256. Thus, then,
of existing villa architecture,
direct attention to the spirit, rather than to the letter, of all
law, and to exhibit the beauty of that principle which
is
em-
bodied in the line with which we have headed this concluding paper of being satisfied with national and natural forms, ;
THE POETEY OF AKOHITECTUKE.
172
and not endeavoring
to introduce the imaginations, or imi-
former times. All is the bane of architecture. And, as v/e take leave of them, we vt'ould, once for all, remind our English sons of Sempronius '* qui villas attollunt marmore novas," novas in the full sense of the word, and who are setting all English feeling and all nattate the customs, of foreign nations, or of
imitation has
its
origin in vanity, and vanity
—
ural principles at defiance, that
it is
only the bourgeois gen-
tilhomme who will wear his dressing-gown
upside down, " parceque toutes les personnes de qualite portent les fleurs
en en-bas." Oxford,
October, 1838.
THE SEVEN LAMPS
OF
ARCHITECTURE
CONTENTS. Preface,
Lntkoductory,
The La.np
The Lamp
........ ...... o.
CHAPTER
I.
CHAPTER
11.
ix
1
of Sacrifice,
27
of Truth,
....»,. CHAPTER
The Lamp
PAOB
of
Power,
CHAPTER The Lamp
of Beauty,
The Lamp
of Life,
The Lamp
of
The Lamp
of Obedience,
.
.
III.
IV. .
c
=
=
........ CHAPTER
63
94
V.
...... ...... ........
137
CHAPTER VL
Memory,
163
CHAPTER VIL
Notes,
184
199
LIST OF PLATES. Facing Pag©
Plate
1.
Ornaments from Rouen,
St.
Lo, and Venice,
St.
Lo, Normandy,
"
2.
Part of the Cathedral of
"
8.
Traceries from Caen, Bayeux, Rouen, and Beauvais,
"
4.
Intersectional Mouldings,
"
5.
Capital from the
Venice,
"
6.
Arch from
.
.
25
48
.
.
53
58
of the Doge's Palace, .
.
.81
.
...... .......
the
Lucca,
.
....
Lower Arcade .
.
.
Fa9ade of the Church of San Michele
at
"
7.
"
8.
"Window from the Ca' Foscari, Venice,
"
9.
Tracery from the Campanile of Giotto,
"
10.
Traceries and Mouldings from
"
11.
Balcony
"
12.
Fragments from Abbeville, Lucca, Venice, and Pisa,
"
13.
Portions of an Arcade on the South Side of the Cathedral
84
Pierced Ornaments from Lisieux, Bayeux, Verona, and
Padua,
in the
of Ferrara,
Campo
St.
.
89
.
116
94
at Florence,
Rouen and
Salisbuiy.
Benedetto, Venice,
.
.
of Rouen,
.
125 144
.....
" 14 Sculptures from the Cathedral
86
.
156 .
159
;
PREFACE. The memoranda
wliicli
form the
basis of tlie following
Essay have been thrown together during the preparation of
one of the sections of the third volume of " Modern Painters." * I once thought of giving them a more expanded form but their utility, such as it may be, would probably be diminished by farther delay in their publication, more than it would ;
Obtained
be increased by greater care in their arrangement. in every case
them some
by personal observation, there may be among
details valuable
even to the experienced architect
but with respect to the opinions founded upon them I must
be prepared to bear the charge of impertinence which can hardly but attach to the writer who assumes a dogmatical tone
an art he has never practised. There are, howwhich men feel too keenly to be silent, and perhaps too strongly to be wrong I have been forced into this impertinence and have suffered too much from the destruction or neglect of the architecture I best loved, and from the erection of that which I cannot love, to reason cautiously respecting the modesty of my opposition to the principles which in speaking of
ever, cases in
;
;
*
The
inordinate delay in the appearance of that supplementary volume been chiefly owing to the necessity under which the writer
has, indeed, felt
many memoranda as possible of mediaeval Normandy, now in process of destruction, before that should be consummated by the Restorer or Revolutionist. His
himself, of obtaining as
buildings in Italy and destruction
from one side of masons were knocking down the other nor can he yet pledge himself to any time for the publication of the conclusion of " Modern Painters;" he can only promise that its delay shall not be owing to any indolence on his part. wliole time has been lately occupied in taking drawings buildings, of w^hich
;
PREFACE.
X
have induced the scorn of the one, or directed the design of And I have been the less careful to modify the the other. confidence of my statements of principles, because in the midst of the opposition and uncertainty of our architectural systems, it
seems
to
me
that there
opinion, though in
many
is
something grateful in any positive
points wrong, as even weeds are use-
grow on a bank of sand. Every apology is, however, due
ful that
to the reader, for the hasty
and imperfect execution of the plates. Having much more serious work in hand, and desiring merely to render them illustrative of my meaning, I have sometimes very completely and the text, being generally failed even of that humble aim written before the illustration was comj)leted, sometimes naively describes as sublime or beautiful, features which the ;
plate represents
by a
blot.
I shall be grateful if the reader
will in such cases refer the expressions of praise to the Archi-
and not to the illustration. however, as their coarseness and rudeness admit, the plates are valuable being either copies of memoranda made upon the spot, or (Plates IX. and XI.) enlarged and adapted from Daguerreotypes, taken under my own superinUnfortunately, the great distance from the ground tendence. of the window which is the subject of Plate IX. renders even the Daguerreotype indistinct and I cannot answer for the accuracy of any of the mosaic details, more especially of those which surround the window, and which I rather imagine, in tecture,
So
far,
;
;
the original, to be sculptured in
The
relief.
tions are, however, studiously preserved shafts are counted,
of the thing tion for rest I
and the
itself, as is
effect of the
;
general propor-
the spirals of the
whole
is as
near that
necessary for the purposes of illustra-
which the plate
is
given.
For the accuracy of the
can answer, even to the cracks in the stones, and the
number
of them and though the looseness of the drawing, and the picturesque character which is necessarily given by an endeavor to draw old buildings as they actually appear, may ;
perhaps diminish their credit for architectural veracity, they will do so unjustly.
H
PREFACE.
The system of lettering adopted in the few instances in which sections have been given, appears somewhat obscure in The line the references, but it is convenient upon the whole. which marks the direction of any section is noted, if the section be symmetrical, by a single letter and the section itseK by But if the section the same letter with a line over it, a. a. be unsymmeti'ical, its direction is noted by two letters, a. a. a.. and the actual section by the same letters at its extremities ;
—
;
with lines over them,
The
a. d. d^, at
the corresponding extremities.
reader will perhaps be surprised by the small
number But it is to
of buildings to which reference has been made.
be remembered that the following chapters pretend only to be a statement of principles, illustrated each by one or two examples, not an essay on European architecture and those examples I have generally taken either from the buildings which I ;
love best, or
from the schools of architecture which,
it
appeared
to me, have been less carefully described than they deserved.
I
could as fully, though not with the accuracy and certainty derived from personal observation, have illustrated the principles
subsequently advanced, from the architecture of Egypt, India, or Spain, as from that to which the reader will find his attention chiefly directed, the Italian affections, as well as
my
Romanesque and Gothic.
experience, led
me
But
my
to that line of richly
varied and magnificently intellectual schools, which reaches, like a
high watershed of Christian architecture, from the Adri-
atic to the
Northumbrian
seas,
bordered by the impure schools
of Spain on the one hand, and of
Germany on
the other
:
and
culminating points and centres of this chain, I have considered, first, the cities of the Yal d'Arno, as representing the as
Italian
Romanesque and pure
Yerona
as representing the Italian
Gothic; Yenice and Gothic colored by Byzan-
Italian
and Rouen, with the associated Norman cities, Caen, Bayeux, and Coutances, as representing the entire range
tine elements
;
of Northern architecture from the
Romanesque to Flamboyant. more examples from our
I could have wished to have given
early English Gothic to
work
;
but I have always found
it
impossible
in the cold interiors of our cathedi-als, while the daily
PREFACE.
ril
services, lamps,
and fumigation of those upon the Continent,
render them perfectly
safe.
In the course of
last
summer
I
undertook a pilgrimage to the English Shrines, and began with
where the consequence of a few days' work was a weakened health, which I may be permitted to name among the causes of the slightness and imperfection of the Salisbury,
state of
present Essay.
THE
SEVEN LAMPS OF AECHITECTURE. INTEODUCTORY. Some
years ago, in conversation with an artist whose works,
perliaps, alone, in tlie present day, unite perfection of witli resplendence of color, tlie writer
drawing
made some inquiry re-
specting the general means by which this latter quality was
most easily to be attained. The reply was as concise as it was comprehensive " Know what you have to do, and do it'' comprehensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to which it
—
—
temporarily applied, but as exjiressing the great principle of success in every direction of human effort for I believe that ;
frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labor, than to a confused understandfailure
is less
ing of the thing actually to be done
;
and therefore, while
it is
properly a subject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, that
men
propose to themselves a perfection of any kind, which
reason, temperately consulted,
possible with the
gerous error to
means
might have shown
to
be im-
command, it is a more danpermit the consideration of means to interfere at their
with our conception,
or, as is not impossible, even hinder our acknowledgment of goodness and perfection in themselves. And this is the more cautiously to be remembered because, while a man's sense and conscience, aided by Eevelation, are ;
always enough,
what
is
if
earnestly directed, to enable
right, neither his sense,
him
to discover
nor conscience, nor feeling, are
rS-TEODUCTORY.
2
ever enough, because tliej are not intended, to determine for He knows neither his own strength nor is possible.
him wliat that of
liis
fellows, neither the exact
dependence to be placed
nor resistance to be expected from his opponents.
on his allies These are questions respecting which passion may warp his conbut it is his own fault clusions, and ignorance must limit them if either interfere with the aj)prehension of duty, or the acknowledgment of right. And, as far as I have taken cognizance of the causes of the many failures to which the efforts of ;
intelligent
men are Kable, more especially in matters political, me more largely to spring from this single error
they seem to
than from
all others,
that the inquiry into the doubtful,
and in
some sort inexplicable, relations of capability, chance, resistance, and inconvenience, invariably precedes, even if it do not altogether supersede, the determination of what is absolutely deISJ^or is it any wonder that sometimes the too sirable and just. our powers should reconcile us too easily to of cold calculation our shortcomings, and even lead us into the fatal error of supposing that our conjectm-al utmost is in itself well, or, in other words, that the necessity of offences renders them inoffensive.
"What
is
true of
human
polity seems to
me
distinctively jDolitical art of Architecture.
not
less so
of the
I have long felt
its progress, of some defrom the confused mass of partial and dogmata with which it has become encumbered
convinced of the necessity, in order to
termined traditions
effort to extricate
during imperfect or restricted practice, those large principles of right which are applicable to every stage and style of
it.
Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially as humanity does soul and body, it shows the same infirmly balanced liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the interference of the constructive, with the purity
and simplicity of the reflective, element. This tendency, like every other form of materialism, is increasing with the advance of the age and the only laws which resist it, based upon partial precedents, and already regarded with disrespect as decrepit, if not with defiance as tyrannical, are evidently inappli;
INTEODrCTOET.
3
new forms and
functions of the art, which the day demand. How many these necessities may become, cannot be conjectured tliey rise, strange and impatient, out of every modern shadow of change. How far it cable to the
necessities of the
;
may tial
be possible to meet them witliout a
There
specific calculation or observance. ple,
based on past practice, which
moment, by the a
sacrifice of
the essen-
characters of architectural art, cannot be determined
new
material
arising of a
new
and the most
;
may
by
no law, no princinot be overthrown in a is
condition, or the invention of
rational, if not the only,
of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of
all
that
mode is sys-
tematic and consistent in our practice, or of ancient autliority in our
judgment,
is
to cease for a little while, our endeavors to
deal with the multiplying host of particular abuses, restraints,
or requirements
every right
effort,
—
laws,
knowledge,
;
and endeavor
to determine, as the guides of
some constant, general, and in-efragable laws of which based upon man's nature, not upon his
may
possess so far the
unchangeableness of the
one, as that neither the increase nor imperfection of the other
may be
able to assault or invalidate them.
There are, perhajjs, no such laws peculiar to any one art. Their range necessarily includes the entire horizon of man's action. But they have modified forms and operations belonging to each of his pursuits, and the extent of their authority cannot surely be considered as a diminution of
its
weight.
Those peculiar aspects of them which belong to the first of the arts, I have endeavored to trace in the following pages and since, if truly stated, they must necessarily be, not only safeguards against every form of error, but sources of every measure of success, I do not think that I claim too much for them ;
them the Lamps of Architecture, nor that it is indoendeavoring to ascertain the true nature and nobility
in calling lence, in
of their
fire,
to refuse to enter into
any curious or
tioning of the innumerable hindrances by which
special ques-
their light
has been too often distorted or overpowered.
Had this farther examination been attenrj^ted, tlie work would have become certainly more invidious, and perhaps less
;
INTEODUCTOKY.
4
which are avoided by the present simSimple though it be, its extent is too great plicity of its plan. to admit of any adequate accomplishment, imless by a devotion of time which the writer did not feel justified in withdrawing from branches of inquiry in which the prosecution of works Both arrangements and already undertaken has engaged him. nseful, as liable to errors
nomenclature are those of convenience rather than of system the one is arbitrary and the other illogical nor is it pretended :
that
or even the greater
all,
number
of,
the principles necessary
to the well-being of the art, are included in the inquiry.
Many,
however, of considerable importance will be found to develope themselves incidentally from those more specially brought forward.
Graver apology
is
necessary for an apparently graver fault.
no branch of human work with those which whose constant laws have govern every other mode of man's exertion. But, more than this, exactly as we reduce to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of connection or analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the mighty laws which govern the moral woi-ld. However mean or inconsiderable the act, there is something in the well doing of it, which has fellowship with the noblest forms of manly virtue and the truth, decision, and tempei'ance, which we rever-
It has been just said, that there
is
not close analogy
;
ently regard as honorable conditions of the spiritual being,
have a representative or derivative influence over the works of the hand, the movements of the frame, and the action of the intellect.
And
as thus
every action,
line or utterance of a syllable,
in the is
manner
of
it,
down even is
to the
drawing of a
capable of a peculiar dignity
which we sometimes express by saying
truly done (as a line or tone
is
it
true), so also it is capable of
For there is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore nor is any purpose so great but that slight actions may help it. and may be so done as to help it
dignity
still
higher in the motive of
;
it.
—
;
INTRODUCTORY. most especially that chief of Hence George Herbert
miTcli,
5
all
purposes, the pleasing
of God.
"
A servant
with this clause
Makes drudgery
divine
Who
sweeps a room, as for thy laws. Makes that and the action tine."
Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or man-
ner of acting,
ment
we have
choice of two
separate lines of argu-
one based on representation of the expediency or inherent value of the work, which is often small, and always disputable the other based on proofs of its relations to the higher :
;
orders of
human
goes, to
Him who
virtue, is
and of
its
acceptableness, so far as
it
The former
is
the origin of virtue.
commonly the more persuasive method, the more conclusive only it is liable to give ;
latter assuredly the
oifence, as if there
were irreverence in adducing considerations so weighty in ing subjects of small temporal importance.
treat-
I believe, however,
more thoughtless than this. We treat God Him from our thoughts, not by His will on slight occasions. His is not tlie finite
that no error
is
with irreverence by banishing referring to
authority or intelligence \vhich cannot be troubled witli small
There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His guidance of it, or insult Plim by taking it into our own hands and what is true of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use it most reverently when most tilings.
;
habitually to
it,
:
our insolence
our true honoring of
is
in ever acting without reference
it is
in its universal application,
I
been blamed for the familiar introduction of its sacred I am grieved to have given pain by so doing; but my words. excuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of every argument and the test of every action. We have them not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough in our lives. The snow, the vapor, and the stormy wind fulfil His word. Are our acts and thoughts lighter and wilder tlian these that we should forJiave
—
get
it ?
INTEODUCTOEY.
6
I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giving to some passages the appearance of iiTeverence, to take the higher line of argument wherever
it
1 would ask the reader
cause I think less
it
the best
appeared clearly traceable
mode
:
and
this,
observe, not merely be-
especially to
of reaching ultimate truth,
because I think the subject of more importance than
still
many
but because every subject should surely, at a period like The asthe present, be taken up in this spirit, or not at all. pect of the years that approach us is as solemn as it is full of others
;
mystery tend,
is
;
and the weight of
for the idleness of arts. its
evil against
which we have to conIt is no time
increasing like the letting out of water.
metaphysics, or the entertainment of the
The blasphemies
of the earth are sounding louder, and
miseries heaped heavier every day
the exertion which every good for their repression or relief,
moment, for a
man
it is
is
;
and
if,
called
in the midst of
upon
to put forth
lawful to ask for a thought,
any direction but overwhelming need, it is at least incumbent upon us to approach the questions in which we would engage him, in the spirit which has become the habit of his mind, and in the hope that neither his zeal nor his usefulness may be checked by the withdrawal of an hour which has shown him how even those things which seemed mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend for their j)erfection upon the acknowledgment of the sacred principles of faith, truth, and obedience, for which it has become the occupation of his life to for a
lifting of the finger, in
that of the immediate and
contend.
CHAPTER THE LAMP OF Aechitectuke
I.
the edifices raised by
of
them contributes It
is
is
I.
SACEIFICE,
the art which so disposes and adorns
man
for whatsoever uses, that
power and
to his mental health,
very necessary, in the outset of
all
tlie
sight
pleasure.
inquiry, to distin-
guish carefully between Architecture and Building.
To
build, literally
to
confirm,
by common understand-
is
ing to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice
Thus we have church
or receptacle of a considerable size. building, house building, ship
building, and coach building.
That one edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended on iron springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, if so it may be called, of building or edification.
The persons who
profess that art, are severally builders, ecclesi-
whatever other name their work may justify; but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects and it is no more architecture which raises a church, or which fits it to receive and astical,
naval, or of
;
contain with comfort a required
a carriage
mean
that
number
of persons occupied
makes commodious or a ship swift. I do not, of course, the word is not often, or even may not be legiti-
in certain religious ofiices, than
it is
architecture which
we speak of naval architecbut in that sense architecture ceases to be one of the fine arts, and it is therefore better not to run the risk, by mately, applied in such a sense (as ture)
;
which would arise, and from extending principles which belong
loose nomenclature, of the confusion
has
often arisen, altogether to building, into the sphere of architecture proper. Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art
— THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
8
which, taking np and admitting, as conditions of the necessities and its
form
common
working,
its
nses of the bnilding, impresses on
certain characters venerable or beautiful, but other-
Thus, I supj^ose, no one would
wise unnecessary.
call
the
laws architectural which determine the height of a breastwork
But
or the position of a bastion.
to the stone facing of
if
be added an unnecessary feature,
bastion
that
moulding, that
is
Ai'chitecture.
would be
It
as a
cable
similarly un-
reasonable to call battlements or machicolations architectural features, so long as they consist only of an
advanced gallery
supported on projecting masses, with open intervals beneath
But
for offence.
if
these j^rojecting masses be carved beneath
into rounded courses,
which
and
are useless,
the intervals be arched and tref oiled, which
if is
the headings of useless, tluit is
It may not be always easy to draw the line so and simply, because there are few buildings which
Architecture. sharjjly
have not some pretence or color of being architectural can there be any architecture which
nor any good architecture which but
distinct,
is
neither
not based on good building;
perfectly easy and very necessary to keep the ideas
is
it
;
not based on building,
is
and to understand fully that Architecture concerns
only with those characters of an edifice which are above
itself
and beyond
its
common
use.
I say
common because a buildmemory of men, has ;
ing raised to the honor of God, or in surely a use to which
not a use which
its
limits,
architectural
by any
adornment
fits
inevitable necessities,
it
its
;
but plan
or details. II.
under
proper,
Architecture five
heads
Devotional;
then,
naturally arranges
itself
:
including
all
buildings raised for God's ser-
vice or honor.
Memorial
including both
;
Civil; including
for purposes of
Military
common
including
;
monuments and tombs.
every edifice raised by nations or
all
societies,
business or pleasure.
private and public architecture of
defence.
Domestic including every rank and kind of dwelling-place. ;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
Now,
the
of
principles
mnst
velope, while all
9
which I would endeavor to dehave said, applical)le to every some, and especially tliose which are
be, as I
stage and style of the art,
exciting rather than directing, have necessarily fuller i-eference
and among these
to one kind of
buildiug than another
would place
that spirit which, having influence in
lirst
;
all,
I
has
nevertheless such especial reference to devotional and memorial architecture
—the
which
spirit
such work precious
offers for
things simply because they are precious; not as being necessary
an offering, surrendering, and
to the building, but as
of
what
is
that this feeling
is
sacrifice
seems to me, not only most cases wholly wanting in those who
to ourselves desirable. in
It
forward the devotional buildings of the present day; but that it would even be regarded as an ignorant, dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by
many among
enter into dispute of
all
ui-ged against
it
—they
I
us.
are
many and
me
to believe
it
a
may be
specious;
but I may,
down
those simple
good and
just feeling,
perhaps, ask the reader's patience while I set reasons which cause
have not space to
the various objections which
and as well-pleasing to God and honorable in men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the production of any gi'eat work in the kind with which we are at present concerned. III.
Now,
first,
to define this Lani]?, or Spirit of Sacrifice,
I have said that
clearly.
it
prompts us
to
the offering of
precious things merely because they are precious, not because It is a spirit, for instance, which two marbles, equally beautiful, applicable and durable, would choose the more costly because it was so, and of two kinds of decoration, equally effective, would choose the more elaborate because it was so, in order that it might in the same compass present more cost and more thought. It is therefore most unreasoning and enthusiastic, and perhaps best nega-
they are useful or necessary. of
tively defined, as the
modern
times,
which
opposite of
the prevalent
feeling
of
desires to produce the largest results at
the least cost.
Of
this feeling, then, there are
two
distinct
forms
:
the
first,
the wish to exercise self-denial for the sake of self-discipline
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
10
merely, a wish acted upon in the
abandonment
things
of
loved or desired, there being no direct call or purpose to be
answered by so doing
some one
please
practice
is,
;
and the second, the desire
by the
else
in the first case, either private or public
frequently, and jDerhaps most properly, private latter case, the act is
Now,
public.
it
honor or
to
The
costliness of the sacrifice.
but most
;
while, in the
;
commonly, and with greatest advantage,
cannot but at
first
appear futile to assert the
sake, when, for so many day necessary to a far greater degree than any of us practise it. But I believe it is just because we do not enough acknowledge or contemplate it as a good in itself, that we are apt to fail in its duties when they become imperative, and to calculate, with some partiality, w^hether the good
expediency of self-denial for sakes,
it is
its
own
e^^ery
proj)osed to others measures or warrants the
ance to ourselves,
instead
of
amount
accepting with
Be
opportunity of sacrifice as a personal advantage.
may,
who
for those
with the
this as
not necessary to insist upon the matter here
it is
there are always higher and fice,
of griev-
gladness the
more
;
it
since
useful channels of self-sacri-
chose to practise
it,
than any connected
arts.
While
in its
cerned with the
second branch, that which arts,
is
especially con-
the justice of the feeling
is
still
more
depends on our answer to the broad question. Can the Deity be indeed honored by the presentation to Him of any material objects of value, or by any direction of zeal or wisdom which is not immediately beneficial to men ? For, observe, it is not now the question whether the fairness and majesty of a building may or may not answer any doubtful
;
it
it is not the result of labor in any sort of which we are speaking, but the bare and mere costliness the substance and labor and time themselves are these, we ask, independently of their result, acceptable offerings to God, and
moral purpose
;
—
:
considered by
Him
as
doing
Him
honor ?
So long
as
we
refer
this question to the decision of feeling, or of conscience, or of
reason merely,
swered
;
it
it
will be contradictorily or imperfectly an-
admits of entire answer only
when we have met
;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
11
another and a far different question, whether the Bible be
God
indeed one book or two, and whether the character of
revealed in the Old Testament be other than His character revealed in the
TV. Now,
New. most
a
is
it
secure truth, that, although the
particular ordinances divinely appointed for special purjjoses at
any given period of man's
history,
divine authority abrogated at another,
any character of God, appealed
may be by it
is
the same
impossible
or described in
to
that
any
or-
dinance past or present, can ever be changed, or understood
by the abrogation
as changed,
and the same, and
is
of that ordinance.
God
is
one
pleased or displeased by the same things
His pleasure may be expressed one time rather than another, and although the mode in
for ever, although one part of at
which His pleasure ciously modified
to
to
is
the
be consulted
may
circumstances of
be by Him gramen. Thus, for
it was necessary that, in order to the understanding by man of the scheme of Redemption, that scheme should be foresliown from the beginning by the type of bloody sacrifice. But God liad no more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of Moses than He has now He never accepted as a propi-
instance,
;
tiation for sin
and that we
any
may
sacrifice
but the shigle one in prospective
not entertain any shadow of doubt on this
subject, the M-orthlessness of
proclaimed
at the
all
other sacrifice than this
is
when typical sacrifice was most God was a spirit, and could be
very time
imperatively demanded.
worshipped only in
and in truth,
spirit
when every day brought service or offering, as
its
as singly
and exclusively
claim of typical and material
now when He
asks for
none but that
of the heart. So, therefore, in the
stances
it
is
a
most safe and
manner of performing any can be traced which
legitimately conclude, pleased
circumstances will please of
all rites
Him
we God
it
has been
principle that,
if
any time, circumor
may
at that time, those
same
are
either told,
at all times, in the
or offices to which they
manner; unless
sui-e
rite at
may be
afterwards
performance
attached in like
revealed that, for
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
12
some
special purpose,
now His will tliat such circumstances And this argument vnll have all the
it is
should be withdrawn.
more
force
can be shown that such conditions were not
if it
essential to the completeness of the rite in its
bearings, and only
were added
to
it
as
human
uses and
being in themselves
pleasing to God.
Y. Now, was
it
necessary to the completeness, as a type, of
the Levitical sacrifice, or to
divine pui-poses, that wliose behalf
which of,
it
it
its utility as
an explanation of
should cost an}i;hing to the person in
was offered
On
?
the contrary, the sacrifice
foreshowed was to be God's free gift
it
;
and the cost
or difliculty of obtaining, the sacrificial type, could only
render that type in a measure obscure, and
less expressive of
the offering which God would in the end provide for all men. Yet this costliness was generally/ a condition of the accept" Neither will I offer unto the Lord ableness of the sacrifice. my God of that which doth cost me nothing." * That costliness, therefore, must be an acceptable condition in all human for if it was pleasing to God once, it offerings at all times must please Him always, unless directly forbidden by Him afterwards, which it has never been. Again, was it necessary to the typical perfection of the Levitical offering, that it should be the best of the flock ? ;
Doubtless the spotlessness of the pressive to the Christian
mind
;
sacrifice renders it
but was
it
more
ex:-
because so expres-
and in so many words, demanded by was demanded by Him expressly on the same grounds on which an earthly governor would demand it, as a testimony of respect. " Offer it now unto thy governor."f sive that
God ?
And
it
was
Not
at
actually,
all.
It
the less valuable offering was rejected, not because
not image Christ, nor
fulfil
the purposes of
sacrifice,
it
did
but be-
would grudge the best of its and because it was a bold possessions to Him who gave them dishonoring of God in the sight of man. Whence it may be cause
it
indicated a feeling that
;
infallibly concluded, that in
* 2 Sam. xxiv. t Mai. i. 8.
whatever offerings we 24.
Deut. xvi.
16, 17.
may now
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
God
see reason to present unto
13
say not what these
(I
a condition of their aeceptableness will
be now,
may
be),
was then,
as it
that they should be the best of tlieir kind.
YI. But farther, was
it
necessary to the carrying out of the
Mosaical system, that there should be either art or splendor in the form or services of the ta1)ernacle or temple
necessary to the perfection of any that there should be that ?
in
cedar and overlaying with gold
the
:
?
One
God whom
it
;
is evi-
a danger that
they so worshipped, might be associated in the
serfs of
Egypt with the gods
to
seen similar gifts offered and similar honors bility, in
{
thing at least
there was a deep and awful danger in
minds of the
it
hanging of blue, and purple, and scarthat working
those taches of brass and sockets of silver
let
dent
Was
?
one of their typical offices,
whom
jDaid.
they had
The
proba-
our times, of fellowship with the feelings of the
atrous Romanist
idol-
absolutely as nothing comjiared with the
is
danger to the Israelite of a sympathy with the idolatrous Egyptian;' no speculative, no unproved danger; but proved fatally
own
by
will
;
during a month's abandonment to their
tlieir
fall
a
into the
fall
most
servile idolatry
;
yet
marked by
such offerings to their idol as their leader was, in the close sequel, instnicted to bid them offer to God. This danger was imminent, perpetual, and of the most awful kind it was the one against which God made provision, not only by commandments, by threatenings, by promises, the most urgent, repeated, and impressive but by temporary ordinances of a :
;
severity so terrible as almost to
dim
for a time, in the eyes of
His people. His attribute of mercy. The principal object of every instituted law of that Theocracy, of every judgment sent forth in its vindication, was to mark to the people His hatred of idolatry a hatred written under their advancing steps, in the blood of the Canaanite, and more sternly still in the darkness of their own desolation, when the children and the sucklings swooned in the streets of Jerusalem, and the lion tracked his prey in the dust of Samaria.* Yet against this ;
*
Lam.
ii.
11.
2 Kings xvii.
2~^.
THE LAMP OF SACKIFICE.
14
made
mortal danger provision was not
in one
way
(to
man's
thonglits the simplest, the most natural, the most effective),
bj withdrawing from the worship of the Divine Being whatever could delight the sense, or shape the imagination, or limit the This one way God refused, demanding
idea of Deity to place.
for Himself such honors, and accepting for Himself such local
dwelling, as'had been paid and dedicated to idol gods
then worshippers
;
and for what reason
Was
?
by hea-
the glory of
the tabernacle necessary to set forth or image His divine
glory to the minds of His people necessary to the people
run
scarlet to the sea,
who had
What
?
!
purple or scarlet
Egypt
seen the great river of
under His condemnation
What
?
!
gold-
en lamp and chenib necessary for those who had seen the fires of heaven falling like a mantle oti Mount Sinai, and its golden courts opened
What
!
silver clasp
receive
to
and
fillet
their
necessary
mortal
lawgiver
when they had
?
seen the
waves of the Red Sea clasp in their arched hollows the !N"ay not so. There was ? but one reason, and that an eternal one that as the covenant that He made with men was accompanied "with some external sign of "Its continuance, and of His remembrance of it, so the acceptance of that covenant might be marked and signified by use, in some external sign of their love and obedience, and surrender of themselves and theirs to His will and that their gratitude to Him, and continual remembrance of Him, might have at once their expression and their enduring testimony in silver
—
corpses of the horse ajid his rider
;
;
the presentation to
and
fold, not
Him,
not only of the firstlings of the herd
only of the fruits of the earth and the tithe of
of the time, but of all treasures of wisdom and beauty thought that invents, and the hand that labors of wealth of wood, and weight of stone of the strength of iron, and of the ;
;
;
light of gold.
And let principle as
men
us not
now
— I might
lose sight of this broad
say, incapable of
shall receive earthly gifts
have His
much He
tithe is
must be rendered
forgotten
:
from God. to
and unabrogated
being abrogated, so long
Him,
Of
all
that they
or in so far and in so
of the skill and of the treasure, of the
I
;
THE LAMP OF SACKIFICE.
15
strength and of the mind, of the time and of the
toil,
offering
must be made reverently and if there be any difference between the Levitical and the Christian offering, it is that the latter may be just so much the wider in its range as it is less typical in its meaning, as it is thankful instead of sacriThei'e can be no excuse accepted because the Deity ficial. does not now visibly dwell in His temple; if He is invisinor any excuse ble it is only through our failing faith because other calls are more immediate or more sacred this ought to be done, and not the other left undone. Yet this objection, as frequent as feeble, must be more specifi;
:
;
cally answered.
— ought always to be — that a better and more honorable offering
VII. It has been said true
it
said, for it is
is
made
to our
Master in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge of
His name, in the practice of the virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so woe to all who think that any other kind or manner of offering may in any wise take the place of these Do the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word ? Then it :
!
is no time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits let us have enough first of walls and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, and bread from day to day ? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not architects. I insist on but let us examine ourselves, and see if this, I plead for this this be indeed the reason for our backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not between God's house and His poor It is between it is not between God's house and His Gospel. God's house and ours. Have we no tesselated colors on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors ? no gilded furniture in our chambers ? no costly ;
;
:
stones in offered
?
our cabinets?
They
are, or
Has even the
has been devoted to the great pui-poses of
and that there remains to us what but there
is
tithe of these
been
they ought to be, the signs that enough
we
human
stewardship,
can spend in luxury
a greater and prouder luxury than this selfish one
—that of bringing a portion of such things as these into sacred
;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
16
and presenting them for a memorial* that our pleasure been hallowed by the remembrance of Him who gave both the strength and the reward. And until this has been done, I do not see how such possessions can be I do not understand the feeling which retained in happiness. would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, and leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill the feeling which enriches our own chambers with all manner of costliness, and endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. There is seldom even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so much self-denial to be exercised. There are isolated cases, in which men's happiness and mental activity depend service,
as well as our toil has
;
upon a is
certain degree of luxury in their houses
true luxury, felt and tasted, and profited by.
nothing of the kind
;
but then this In the plural-
attempted, nor
can be enjoyed men's average resources cannot reach it and that which they can reach, gives them no pleasure, and might be ity of instances
is
;
;
spared.
It will
I
be seen, in the course of the following chapadvocate for meanness of private habitation.
am no
ters, that I
would fain introduce
into
whei'e they are possible
;
it all
magnificence, care, and beauty,
but I would not ha^'e that useless
expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities
;
cornicings of
ceil-
ings and graining of doors, and fringing of curtains, and thou-
sands such
;
things which have become foolishly and apatheti-
—
things on whose common appliance hang whole which there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray of real pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most contemptible use things which cause half the exjjense of life, and destroy more than half its comfort, manliness, respectabilI know ity, freshness, and facility. I speak from experience and roof, and a what it is to live in a cottage vdth a deal floor hearth of mica slate and I know it to be in many respects healthier and happier than living between a Turkey carpet and I do gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. not say that such things have not their place and propriety cally habitual
trades, to
—
:
;
*
Num.
xxxi. 54.
Psa. Ixxvi. 11.
;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. but I say
which
this,
emphatically, that the tenth part of the expense
domestic vanities,
sacrificed in
is
17
if
not absolutely and
meaninglessly lost in domestic discomforts and incumbrances,
and wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light into the eyes to see from afar, lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of would,
collectively offered
if
;
humble
roofs.
VIII. I have said for every town I do not want a marble church for every village nay, I do not want marble churches :
;
at all for their
own
sake, but for the sake of the spirit that
would build them. The church has no need of any visible splendors her power is independent of them, her purity is in some degree opposed to them. The simplicity of a pastoral sanctuary is lovelier than the majesty of an urban temple and it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever been the source of any increase of effecbut to the builders it has been, and must ever be. tive piety not the emoIt is not the church we want, but the sacrifice ;
;
;
tion of admiration, but the act of adoration
And
;
not the gift, but
how much more charity the full understanding of this might admit, among classes of men of naturally opposite feelings and how much more nobleness in
the giving.^
see
;
There
the work.
is
proclaiming splendor.
suming way.
no need to offend by importunate,
Your
gift
Cut one or two
preciousness those only would so used
few
;
may
self-
be given in an unpre-
shafts out of a
porphyry whose desire it to be
know who would
add another month's labor to the undercutting of a whose delicacy will not be seen nor loved by one
capitals,
beholder of ten thousand; see that the simplest masonry of the and to those who regard edifice be perfect and substantial ;
such things, their w^itness will be clear and impressive those
who
regard them not,
all
will at least be inoffensive.
;
to
But
do not think the feeling itself a folly, or the act itself useless. Of what use was that dearly-bought water of the well of Bethlehem with which the King of Israel slaked the dust of
;;
'HE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
18
Adiillum
Of what
?
—yet was not thus better
against which, tion
than
he had drunk
if
use was that passionate act of Christian tirst
it ?
sacrilice,
uttered by the false tongue, the very objeca sullen tone for ever ? * So
we woukl now conquer took
what use our offering is to the church it had been retained for it is also for others there is, at any It may be better ourselves. though we must always fearfully and rate, a chance of this widely shun the thought that the magnificence of the temple can materially add to the efficiency of the worship or to the power of the ministry. Whatever we do, or whatever we also let us not ask of
:•
at least better for us than if
:
;
offer, let
it
not interfere with the simplicity of the one, or
abate, as if replacing, the zeal of the other.
That
is
the abuse
Romanism, by which tlie true spirit of Christian offei'ing is directly contradicted. The treatment of the Papists' temple is eminently exhibitor}^ it is surface work throughout
and
fallacy of
;
and the danger and
evil of
their church decoration
—not in the true wealth and lower people are never cognizant — but in
art of
its reality
it,
lie,
not in
of which the
its tinsel
and
glitter,
in the gilding of the shrine and painting of the image, in
embroidery of dingy robes and crowding of imitated gems all this being frequently thrust forward to the concealment of what is really good or great in their buildings.' Of an offering
which is neither to be exhibited nor rewarded, which is neither to win praise nor purchase salvation, the Romanist (as such) has no conception. IX. "While, however, I would especially deprecate the imputation of any other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift itself than that which it receives from the spirit of its presenof gratitude
it may be well to observe, that there is a lower advanwhich never fails to accompany a dutiful observance of any tage While the first fruits of his possesright abstract principle. Israelite as a testimony of fidelity, the sions were required from fniits was nevertheless i-ewarded, the payment of those first and that connectedly and specifically, by the increase of those
tation,
* .John
xii. 5.
:
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
19
"Wealtli, and length of days, and peace, were the promised and experienced rewards of his offering, though they were not to be the objects of it. The tithe paid into the store-
possessions.
house was the expressed condition of
tlie
blessing which there
And
should not be room enough to receive.
God never forgets any work or whatever it may be of which the first and always
:
powers have been presented
to
Him, he
Therefore, though
crease sevenfold.
it
it
be thus
will
labor of love
;
and
best pi-oportions or
and
will multiply
may
in-
not be necessarily
the interest of religion to admit the service of the
the arts
arts,
will never flourish until they
that service
—
have been primarily devoted to devoted, both by architect and employer by the ;
one in scrupulous, earnest, affectionate design by the other in expenditure at least more frank, at least less calculating, thim that which he would admit in the indulgence of his own pn;
Let
vate feelings.
be but once
this principle
fairly
acknowl-
and however it may be chilled and repressed in practice, however feeble may be its real influence, however the sacredness of it may be diminished by counter-workings of vanity and self-interest, yet its mere acknowledgment would bring a reward and with our present accumulation of means and of intellect, there would be such an impulse and vitality edged among us
;
;
given to art as
And
I
do not
it
has not
felt since
assert this as other
the thirteenth century.
than a national consequence
I should, indeed, expect a larger
measure of every great and
be always given where those faculties had
spiritual faculty to
been wisely and religiously employed
;
but the impulse to
would be, humanly speaking, certain and would naturally result from obedience to the two great conditions enforced by the Spirit of Sacrifice, first, that we should in everywhich I
refer,
thing do our best increase of
;
;
and, secondly, that
apparent labor as an
A
we
should
consider
increase of beauty in the
few practical deductions from these two condiand I have done. X. For the first it is alone enough to secure success, and it is for want of observing it that we continually fail. We are none of us so good architects as to be able to work habitubuilding.
tions,
:
:
THE LAMP OF
20 ally
SACKlFICE.
beneath our strength and yet there is not a building that wherein it is not sufficiently evident ;
I knoM^ of, lately raised,
done his best. It is the modern work. All old work nearly
that neither architect nor builder has especial characteristic of
has been hard work.
may
It
of barbarians, of rustics
;
but
be the hard woi-k of children, always their utmost.
it is
Ours
has as constantly the look of money's worth, of a stopping
whenever we
short wherever and
can, of a lazy compliance
with low conditions; never of a fair putting forth of our strength. Let us have done with this kind of work at once it do not let us degrade ourselves and then mutter and mourn over our short comings let us confess our poverty or our parsimony, but not belie our human intellect. It is not even a question of how much we are to do, but of how it is to be done it is not a question of doing more, but of doing better. Do not let us boss our roofs with wretched, half-worked, blunt-edged rosettes do not let us flank our gates with rigid imitations of mediaeval statuary. Such things are mere insults to common sense, and only unfit We have so us for feeling the nobility of their prototypes. much, suppose, to be spent in decoration let us go to the Flaxman of his time, whoever he may be, and bid him carve for us
cast off
every temptation to
:
voluntarily, ;
;
;
;
a single statue, frieze or capital, or as
many
as
we
can afford,
compelling upon him the one condition, that they shall be the best he can do place them where they will be of the most value, and be content. Our other capitals may be mere blocks, and our Xo matter better our work unfinished other niches empty. than all bad. It may be that we do not desire ornament of so high an order; choose, then, a less developed style, also, if you the law which we are enforcing requires will, rougher material only that what we pretend to do and to give, shall both l)e the ;
:
;
best of
their
kind
;
choose, therefore, the
Norman
hatchet
work, instead of .the Flaxman frieze and statue, but let it be the best hatchet work and if you cannot afford marble, use ;
but from the best bed and if not stone, brick, but preferring always what is good of a lower the best brick order of work or material, to what is bad of a higher ; for this
Caen
stone,
;
;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
way
!^)
improve every kind of work, and to put but it is more honest and unpretending, and is in harmony with other just, upright, and manly principles, whose range we shall have presently to take not only the
is
to
every kind of material to better use
;
into consideration.
XI. The other condition which we had to
notice,
was the
value of the appearance of lalwr upon architecture. I have spoken of this before ; * and it is, indeed, one of the most
frequent sources of pleasure which belong to the
however, within certain somewhat remarkable it
does not at
first
art,
always,
limits.
For
why
labor,
appear easily to be explained
by materials of value, should, without sense of wrong or error, bear being wasted while the waste of actual workmanship is always painful, so soon as it is apparent. But so it is, that, while precious materials may, with a certain profusion and negligence, be employed for the magnificence of what is seldom seen, the work of man cannot be carelessly and idly bestowed, without an immediate sense of wrong; as if the strength of the living creature were never intended by its Maker to be sacrificed in vain, though it is well for us sometimes to part with what we esteem precious of substance, as as represented
;
showing that in such a service it becomes but dross and dust. And in the nice balance between the straitening: of effort or enthusiasm on the one hand, and vainly casting it away upon the other, there are
more questions than can be met by any
but very just and watchful feeling.
mere
loss of labor that oifends us,
implied by such loss;
work's sake, and
where or how be
lost in
It,
indeed,
subje;'t,
to
On
offended.
it
so that
if
In general it is less the than the lack of judgment
men
work
confessedly
for
does not appear that they are ignorant
make
their labor
the contrary,
we
tell,
shall
we
be grossly
shall not
be pleased
if
the
work
carrying out a principle, or in avoiding a deception. is
but
a law properly belonging to another part of our it
may
be allowably stated here,
by the construction of
a building,
* Mod. Painters, Part
I.
that,
some parts of Sec.
1,
Chap.
3.
it
whenever, are hidden
;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
22
from the eye which are the continuation of others bearing some consistent ornament, it is not well that the ornament should cease in the parts concealed it
;
credit
should not be deceptively withdrawn
:
as,
is
given for
it,
and
for instance, in the
sculpture of the backs of the statues of a temple pediment never, perhaps, to be seen, but yet not lawfully to be left unfin-
And
ished.
working out of ornaments in dark conit is best to err on the side of complethe carrying round of string courses, and other
so in the
cealed places, in which tion
and
;
in
not but that they may stop sometimes, on the point of going into some palpably impenetrable recess, but then let them stop boldly and markedly, on some distinct terminal ornament, and never be supposed to exist where they
such continuous work
do of
;
The arches of the towers which flank the Rouen Cathedral have rosette ornaments on their
not.
on the three
The
visible sides
right of this
is
;
transepts spaudrils,
none on the side towards the
roof.
rather a nice point for question,
XII, Yisibility, however, we must I'cmember, depends, not and there is no way in which
only on situation, but on distance
work
;
more painfully and unwisely lost than in its over delicacy on parts distant from the eye. Here, again, the principle of honesty must govern our treatment we must not work any kind of ornament which is, perhaps, to cover the is
:
whole building (or at least to occur on all parts of it) delicately where it is near the eye, and rudely whei^e it is removed from it. That is ti'ickery and dishonesty. Consider, first, what kinds of ornaments will tell in the distance and what near, and so distribute them, keeping such as by their nature are delicate, down near the eye, and throwing the bold and rough kinds of work and if there be any kind which is to be both near to the top and far off, take care that it be as boldly and rudely wrought where it is well seen as where it is distant, so that the spectator may know exactly what it is, and what it is worth. Thus chequered patterns, and in general such ornaments as common workmen can execute, may extend over the whole building; but bas-reliefs, and fine niches and capitals, should l)e kejDt down, and the common sense of this will always give a building ;
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
23
even though there be some abruptness or awkwardThus at San Zeno at the resulting arrangements. Verona, the bas-reliefs, full of incident and interest, are con-
dignity, ness, in
fined to a parallelogram of the front, reaching to the height of
Above
the capitals of the columns of the porch.
though most
find a simple, that,
lovely, little arcade
only blank wall, with square face shafts.
these,
we
and above The whole
;
grander and better than if the entire facade had been covered with bad work, and may serve for an example So, of the way to place little where we cannot afford much. again, the transept gates of Rouen * are covered with delicate bas-reliefs (of which I shall speak at greater length presently) up to about once and a half a man's height and above that come the usual and more visible statues and niches. So in the campanile at Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its lowest story above that come its statues and above them all its pattern mosaic, and twisted columns, exquisitely finished, effect is tenfold
;
;
like all Italian
;
work
of the time, but
still,
in the
eye of the
commonphice by comparison with the bas-reliefs. So generally the most delicate niche work and best mouldings of the French Gothic are in gates and low windows Florentine, rough and
well M^ithin sight
although,
;
style to trust to its
it
being the very
exuberance for
effect,
there
spirit of that
occasionally a
is
burst upwards and blossoming unrestrainably to the sky, as in
the pediment of the west front of Rouen, and in the recess of
window behind
where there are some most elabofrom below, and only adding a general enrichment to the deep shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. It is observable, however, that this vei-y work is bad flamboyant, and has corrupt the rose
it,
rate flower-mouldings, all but invisible
renaissance characters in earlier
proportioning of statues
its
detail as well as use
and grander north and south gates, there the
work
which crown the northern one,
in this
manner,
let
me
while in the a very noble
to the distance, the niches at
and
a heio-ht of about
* Henceforward, for the sake of convenience, "when I
town
;
is
be understood to speak of
name any cathedral
its
cathedral church.
THE LAMP OF SACBIFICB.
24
one hundred feet from the ground, being ahke colossal and simple visibly so from below, so as to induce no deception, ;
and yet honestly and well finished above, and expected to be
and
;
as delicately
XIII.
all
that they are
the features very beautiful, full of expression,
wrought as any work of the period. be remembered, however, that while the
It is to
ornaments in every fine ancient building, without exception so far as I am aware, are most delicate at the base, they are often In high in greater effective quantity on the upper parts. and right, the solidity of the towers this is perfectly natural and penetration foundation being as necessary as the division of the superstructure
crowns of
late
;
hence the lighter work and richly pierced
The campanile
Gothic towers.
Florence, already alluded
of Giotto at
an exquisite instance of the
to, is
union of the two principles, delicate bas-reliefs adorning its massy foundation, while the open tracery of the upper windows eye by its slender intricacy, and a rich cornice crowns the whole. In such tnily fine cases of this disj)Osition the upper work is effective by its quantity and intricacy only, so also in the Tour de Beurre as the lower portions by delicacy at Kouen, where, however, the detail is massy throughout, subIn the bodies of builddividing into rich meshes as it ascends. attracts the
;
ings the principle
is less safe,
but
its
discussion
is
not connected
with our present subject.
XIY. its
Finally,
work may be wasted by being
material, or too fine to bear exposure
;
and
too good for
this,
generally a
characteristic of late, especially of renaissance, work, is perhaps
the worst fault of
all.
I
do not know anything more painful
or pitiful than the kind of ivory carving with which the Cer-
and part of the Colleone sepulchral chapel at Bergamo, and other such buildings, are incrusted, of which it and a is not possible so much as to think without exhaustion heavy sense of the misery it would be, to be forced to look at And this is not from the quantity of it, nor because it at all. much of it is inventive and able but because it is bad work it looks as if it were only fit to be put in inlaid cabinets and velveted caskets, and as if it could not bear one drifting shower tosa of Pavia,
;
—
;
Plate
I
:k-
h*
i'5i
?^
r;^^i
re ¥>
JLKdal
^
THE LAMP OF SACKIFICE.
25
We are afraid for it, anxious about it, and and we feel that a massy shaft and a bold IS'evertheless, even in cases shadow would be worth it all. like these, much depends on the accomplishment of the great ends of decoration. If the ornament does its duty if it h ornament, and its points of shade and light tell in the general effect, we shall not be offended by finding that the sculptor in or
gnawing
frost.
tormented by
it
;
—
much more than these mere points of light, and has composed them of groups of But if the ornament does not answer its purpose, if it figures. have no distant, no truly decorative power if generally seen it be a mere incrustation and meaningless roughness, we shall only be chagrined by finding when we look close, that the inhis fulness of fancy has chosen to give
;
and has millions of figures and would be the better of being seen
crustation has cost years of labor,
and
histories in
it,
through a Stanhope
Hence
lens.
the greatness of the northern
Gothic as contrasted with the latest Italian. the same extreme of detail
;
but
it
It reaches nearly
never loses sight of
its archi-
power
tectural purpose, never fails in its decorative
not a
;
and so long as this be the case, there is no limit to the luxuriance in which such work may legitimately and nobly be bestowed. XY. Ko limit it is one of the affectations of architects to Ornament cannot be overspeak of overcharged ornament.
leaflet in it
but speaks, and speaks far
:
charged
if
it
too
;
,
be good, and
I have given, on
bad.
off,
tlie
is
always overcharged
opposite page
smallest niches of the central gate of
when
it
is
one of the That ffate I
(fig. 1),
Eouen.
suppose to be the most exquisite piece of pure fiamboj^ant
work
existing; for though I have spoken of the
especially the receding
window,
upper portions,
as degenerate, the gate itself is
of a purer period, and has hardly any renaissance taint.
There
two figm-es beneath round the porch, from the ground to the top of the arch, with three intermediate rows of larger niches, far more elaboare four strings of these niches (each with it)
rate
;
total
besides the six principal canopies of each outer pier.
number
of the subordinate niches alone, each
worked
The like
that in the plate, and eacli with a different pattern of traceries
THE LAMP OF SACKIFICE.
26
one hundred and seventy-six/ Yet in all this ornament there is not one cnsp, one finial that is useless not a stroke of the chisel is in vain the grace and luxuriance
in each compartment,
— of
is
;
it all
are visible
—sensible
rather
— even to the
uninquiring
mmuteness does not diminish the majesty, while it increases the mystery, of the noble and unbroken vault. It is not less the boast of some styles that they can bear
eye; and
all
its
ornament, than of others that they can do without it but we do not often enough reflect that those very styles, of so haughty sim;
plicity,
owe
part of their pleasurableness to contrast, and
be weai-isome
tones of the art
we owe
that
universal.
if ;
it is
They
would
are but the rests and mono-
to its far haj)pier, far higher, exaltation
those fair fronts
of variegated mosaic, charged
with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves those window;
labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light
;
those misty
masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear ;
of
All else for which the builders sacrificed, has
nations.
passed away
—
We
ments.
all
their living interests,
know
evidence of their reward. ness
—
rifice.
earth,
and aims, and achievewe see no
not for what they labored, and
Victoiy, wealth, authority, happi-
have departed, though bought by many a bitter sacBut of them, and their life, and their toil upon the
all
one reward, one evidence,
is
left to
us in those gray
They have taken with them
to heaps of deep wrought stone. but they their errors and ; the grave their powers, their honors^
have
left
us their adoration.
CHAPTEE
II.
THE LAMP OF TKUTH. between the virtues of man and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits the same I.
There
is
a
marked
likeness
—
diminishing gradation in vigor np to the limits of their domains, the same essential separation from their contraries the
—
meeting of the two a something wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night, that strange twilight of the virtues that dusky debateable land, wherein zeal becomes impatience, and temperance becomes severity, and justice becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all
same twilight
at the
:
;
vanish into gloom.
number of them, though we may mark the moment of
Nevertheless, with the greater their dimness increases gradually, their sunset
and, happily,
;
way by which
turn the shadow back by the
may
had gone do"svn but for one, the line of the and this, too, the very horizon is irregular and undefined equator and girdle of them all Truth that only one of which there are no degrees, but breaks and rents continually that that golden and narrow pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillar line, which the very powers and virtues that lean upon it bend, which policy and prudence conceal, which kindness and courit
:
;
—
;
;
;
modify, which courage overshadows with his shield, imagination covers with her wings, and charity dims with her How dithcult must the maintenance of that authority tears. tesy
be, which, while
principles of
—which
is
it
has to restrain
man, has
tlie hostility
of
all
the worst
also to restrain the disorders of his best
continually assaulted
by the one and betrayed by
the other, and which regards with the same severity the lightest
and the boldest \aolations of
its
law
!
There are some faults
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
28
the sight of love, some errors shght in the estimate of wisdom; but truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain. We do not enough consider this nor enough dread the
sliglit in
;
and continual occasions of offence against her.
slight
much
too
We
are
in the habit of looking at falsehood in its darkest
associations,
and through the color of
indignation which
we
profess
its
to feel
We
indeed only at deceit malicious.
That
worst purposes. deceit
at
absolute,
is
resent calumny, hypocrisy
and treachery, because they harm us, not because they are Take the detraction and the mischief from the ununtrue. turn it into praise, and truth, and we are little offended by it we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny nor treachei-y that does the largest sum of mischief in the world they are continually crushed, and are felt only in being conBut it is the glistening and softly spoken lie the quered. ;
;
amiable fallacy lie
the patriotic
;
lie
of the historian, the provident
of the politician, the zealous lie of the partizan, the merci-
and the careless lie of each man to himblack mystery over humanity, through who pierces, we thank as we would thank one
ful lie of the friend, self,
that
cast that
-which any
man
who dug
a well in a desert
truth
still
remains with
the fountains of It
ns,
happy
that the thirst
for
even when we have wilfully
left
;
in
it.
would be well
if moralists less
greatness of a sin with
its
frequently confused the
The two
unpardonableness.
ters are altogether distinct.
The
charac-
greatness of a fault depends
partly on the nature of the person against
whom
it
is
com-
upon the extent of its consequences. Its pardonableness depencls, Immanly speaking, on the degree of tempta-
mitted, partly
tion to
it.
One
class of
circumstances determines the weight
of the attaching punishment
mission of punishment
:
;
the other, the claim to
and since
it
is
not easy for
to estimate the relative weight, nor possible for them to the relative consequences, of crime, it is usually wise in
re-
men know them
to quit the care of such nice measurements, and to look to the other and clearer condition of culpability ; esteeming those faults worst
which are committed under
least temptation.
I
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
29
do not mean to diminish the blame of the injurious and malicious sin, of the selfish and deliberate falsity jet it seems to me, that the shortest way to check the darker forms of ;
watch more scrupulous against those which have and unchastised, with the current of our life. Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended. Cast them all aside they may be light and accidental but deceit
to set
is
mino'led, unreg-arded
;
:
that they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the them, of and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean
for
pit,
without over care as to which
is
11
Speaking
largest or blackest.
and comes only by practice it is less and I doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a habit. To speak and act truth mth constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty and it is a strange thought how many men there are, as I trust, who would hold to it at the cost of fortune or life, for one who would hold to it at the cost
truth
is
like writing fair,
;
a matter of will than of habit,
;
of a little daily trouble.
And
seeing that of
all
sin there
is,
perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty, no one more " wantino; the scood of virtue and of beino;," than this of lying,
it is
surely a strange insolence to fall into the foulness
on no temptation, and surely becoming an honorable to resolve that, whatever semblances or fallacies the necessary course of his life may compel him to bear or to believe, none shall disturb the serenity of his voluntary actions,
of
it
on
light or
man
nor diminish the reality of his chosen delights. II. it
If this be just
and wise for
truth's sake,
much more
is
necessary for the sake of the delights over which she has in-
fluence.
For, as I advocated the expression of the Spirit of
Sacrifice in the acts
and pleasures of men, not
as if
thereby
those ac:s could further the cause of religion, but because
most assuredly they might therein be infinitely ennobled themselves, so I would have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear in the hearts of our artists and handicraftsmen, not as if the truthful practice of handicrafts could far advance the cause of
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
30
but becaiTse I would fain see the handicrafts themselves urged by the spurs of chivalry and it is, indeed, marvellous to tiTitli,
:
what power and universality there is in this single principle, and how in the consulting or forgetting of it hes half the dignity or decline of every art and act of man. I have before endeavored to show its range and power in painting and I believe a volume, instead of a chapter, might be written on its authority over all that is great in architecture. But I must be content with the force of instances few and familiar, believing that the occasions of its manifestation may be more easily discovered by a desire to be true, than embraced by an analysis see
;
of truth.
Only it is veiy necessary in the outset to mark clearly wherein consists the essence of fallacy as distinguished from supposition. III.
dom
For
it
might be at first thought that the whole kingwas one of deception also. Not so the
of imagination
:
action of the imagination
is
a voluntary
summoning
conceptions of things absent or impossible
of the
and the jDleasure and nobility of the imagination partly consist in its knowledge and contemplation of them as such, i.e. in the knowledge of their actual absence or impossibility at the
becomes madness.
fesses its o^vn ideality
insanity.
;
when
in there being oio deception.
behold what
long as
It is a noble faculty so
All the difference
spiritual creatures, that
moment
we
of their
"When the imagination deceives
apparent presence or reality. it
;
it
lies in
It
it
ceases to confess this,
is
conit
is
the fact of the confession, necessary to our rank as
should be able to invent and to
and to our rank as moral creatures, that confess at the same time that it is not. lY. Again, it might be thought, and has been thought, that the whole art of painting is nothing else than an endeavor to deceive. ISTot so it is, on the contrary, a statement of certain facts, in the clearest possible way. For instance I desire to give an account of a mountain or of a rock I begin by telling its shaj)e. But words will not do this distinctly, and I draw its shape, and say, " This was its shape." Next I would fain
we
should
is
not
;
know and
:
:
;
:
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
31
its color but words will not do this either, and I dye the paper, and say, " This was its color." Such a process may be carried on until the scene appears to exist, and a high pleasure may be taken in its apparent existence. This is a
represent
;
communicated sist
act of imagination, but
only in an assertion of
its
made, implied, or believed), or
instant
no
loss,
grading a thing ance of
it,
is
on
is
can con-
made and
believed to
observe, also, that so de-
which even reaches the mark of apI have enough
degraded in so doing.
this point in
Y. The
lie
never for one
deception in even the approach and appear-
that all painting
parent realization, insisted
And
continually).
is
else in false statements
of forms and colors (which are, indeed,
our great
The
lie.
existence (which
another place.
violations of
which dishonor poetry and
truth,
painting, are thus for the most part confined to the ti-eatment
But in architecture another and a less subtle, more contemptible, violation of truth is possible a direct of their subjects.
;
falsity of
respecting the nature of material, or the
assertion
And
quantity of labor.
wrong
it
;
is
this
is,
in the full sense of the word,
as truly deserving of reprobation
as
any other
unworthy alike of architects and of nations and it has been a sign, wherever it has widely and with toleration existed, of a singular debasement of the arts; that it is not a sign of worse than this, of a general want of severe probity, can be accounted for only by our knowledge of the strange separation w^hich has for some centuries existed between the arts and all other subjects of human intellect, as moral delinquency
;
it
is
;
matters of conscience.
from among the
This withdrawal of conscientiousness
faculties
concerned with
art,
while
it
has
destroyed the arts themselves, has also rendered in a measure nugatory the evidence which otherwise they might have presented respecting the character of the respective nations
whom
they have been cultivated
more than strange
;
otherwise,
it
among
might appear
that a nation so distinguished for
its
general
uprightness and faith as the English, should admit in their architecture
more of pretence, concealment, and
any other of
this or of past time.
deceit,
than
— THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
32
They upon tlie
are fidmitted in tlionghtlessness, but with fatal effect in
art
which they are practised. If there were no which of late have marked every
othei- causes for the faihires
great occasion for architectural exertion, these petty dishones-
would be enough to account for all. It is the first step and not the least, towards greatness to do away with these the We may first, because so evidently and easily in our power. ties
;
command good, or beautiful, or inventive we can command an honest architecture the poverty may be pardoned, the sternness of utility
not be able to architecture
but
;
meagreness of respected
;
deception
:
but what
there but scorn for the meanness of
is
?
YI. Architectural Deceits are brjadly under three heads
to
be considered
:
The
1st,
suggestion of
other than the true one
a
;
mode
as
of
structure or support,
pendants
in
of
Gothic
late
roofs.
The painting
2d.
of
surfaces
to
rej)resent
some other
material than that of which they actually consist (as in the
marbling of wood), or the deceptive representation of sculptured ornament upon them.
The use
3d.
of cast or
machine-made ornaments of any
kind.
Now,
it
may be
broadly stated, that architecture will be
noble exactly in the degree in which are avoided.
all
these false expedients
Nevertheless, there are certain degrees of them,
which, owing to their frequent usage, or to other causes, have so far lost the nature of deceit as to be admissible
instance, gilding, is
which
is
in architecture
therein not understood for gold
deceit, because
it is
So that there
be reprehended. strict
rules of
science
;
which
so understood,
right, let
many
;
no
;
as,
for
deceit, because
while in jewellery
it
is
it
a
and therefore altogether to
arise, in
the application of the
exceptions and niceties of con-
us as briefly as possible examine.
VII. 1st. Structural Deceits. I have limited these to the determined and purposed suggestion of a mode of support other than the true one. The architect is not hound to exhibit
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
33
nor are we to complain of him for concealing it, any more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy nevertheless, that building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent stnictnre
;
;
eye discovers the great secrets of
form
does, although
from
its
structure, as an animal
a careless observer they
may
no deceit
be con-
throw and make the intermediate vault a mere shell. Such a structure would be presumed by intelhgent observer, the first time he saw such a roof and an the beauty of its traceries would be enhanced to him if they confessed and followed the lines of its main strength. If, however, the intermediate shell were made of wood instead of this would, of stone, and whitewashed to look like the rest, course, be direct deceit, and altogether unpardonable. There is, however, a certain deception necessarily occurring in Gothic architecture, which relates, not to the points, but to The resemblance in its shafts and the manner, of supjiort. ribs to the external relations of stems and branches, which has cealed.
In the vaulting of a Gothic roof
the strength into the ribs of
it is
to
it,
;
—
been the ground of so induces in the
mind
much
foolish speculation, necessarily
of the spectator a sense or belief of a cor-
respondent internal structure
;
that
is
to say, of a fibrous
and
continuous strength from the root into the Hmbs, and an elasticity
communicated upwards, mified portions.
The
sufiicient for the
support of the ra-
idea of the real conditions, of a great
weight of ceiling thrown upon certain narrow, jointed lines, which have a tendency partly to be crushed, and partly to separate and be pushed outwards, is with difficulty received and the more so when the pillars would be, if unassisted, too slight for the weight, and are supported by external fiying buttresses, as in the apse of Beauvais, and other such achievements of the bolder Gothic. Now, there is a nice question of conscience in this, which we shall hardly settle but by considering that, when the mind is informed beyond the possibility of
mistake as to the true nature of things, the affecting contrary impression, however distinct, the contrary, a legitimate appeal
to
it
with a
no dishonesty, but on the imagination. For
is
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
34
which we have in from the impression of their having massive, luminous, warm, and mountain-like surfaces and our delight in the sky frequently depends upon our considering it as a blue vault. But we know the contrary, in both
instance, the greater part of the happiness
contem])]ating
instances
snow
;
clouds, results
we know
the cloud to be a
and the sky
damp
fog, or a drift of
There is, no dishonesty, while there is much delight, in the irresistibly contrary impression. In the same way, so long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the flakes
;
to
be a
lightless abyss.
therefore,
points of support in any piece of architecture,
feel as if there
Nor
is
were
fibre in its shafts
we may
rather
which compel us
praise than regret the dextrous artilices
and
life in its
to
branches.
even the concealment of the support of the external
buttress reprehensible, so long as the pillars are not sensibly
inadequate to their duty.
For the weight of a roof
cumstance of which the spectator generally has no the provisions for
it,
is
a cir-
idea,
and
consequently, circumstances whose neces-
he could not understand. It is no deceit, the weight to be l)orne is necessarily unknown, the means of bearing it, leaving only to be per-
sity or adaptation
therefore,
when
to conceal also
ceived so
much
of the support as
is
indeed adequate to the
For the shafts do, indeed, bear as much as they are ever imagined to bear, and the system of added support is no more, as a matter of conscience, to be exhibited, than, in the human or any other fonn, mechanical provisions for those functions which are themselves unperceived. But the moment that the conditions of weight are compreweight supposed.
hended, both truth and feeling require that the conditions of Nothing can be worse, support should he also comprehended. either as judged
by the
inadequate supports
taste or the conscience,
—suspensions
in air,
than affectedly
and other such
tricks
and vanities. Mr. Hope wisely reprehends, for this reason, the arrangement of the main piers of St. Sophia at Constantinople. King's College Chapel, Cambridge, is a piece of architectural juggling, if possible still more to be condemned, because less sublime.
:
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
35
YIII. Witli deceptive concealments of structure are to be though still more blameable, deceptive assumptions of
classed, it
— the introduction of members which should have, or profess
to have, a duty,
One of the most general inform of the flying buttress in the found be
and have none.
stances of this will in late Gothic.
The use
vey support from one pier to building renders
member is, of course, another when the plan
of that
to con-
of the
necessary or desirable that the supporting
it
masses should be divided into groups, the most frequent neces-
kind arising from the intermediate range of chapels
sity of this
or aisles between the nave or choir walls and their supporting
The
and beautiful arrangement is that by an arch with its spandril carried farthest down on the lowest side, and dying piers.
natural, healthy,
of a steeply sloping bar of stone, sustained
into the vertical of the outer pier
;
that pier being, of course,
not square, but rather a piece of wall set at right angles to the if need be, crowned by The whole arrangement
supported walls, and, it
greater weight.
a pinnacle to give is
exquisitely car-
In later Gothic the pinnacle
ried out in the choir of Beauvais.
became gradually a decorative member, and was used in all places merely for the sake of its beauty. There is no objection to this a
it is
;
tower
just as lawful to build a pinnacle for its beauty a&
but also the buttress became a decoi-ative
;
member
and was used, first, where it was not wanted, and, secondly, in forms in which it could be of no use, becoming a mere tie, not between the pier and wall, but between the wall and the top of the decorative pinnacle, thus attaching itself to the very
point where
The most (though
it
its
thrust, if
it
made
any, could not be resisted.
flagrant instance of this barbarism that I
prevails partially in
all
remember
the spires of the Nether-
the lantern of St. Ouen at Rouen, where the pierced having an ogee curve, looks about as much calculated and the pinnacles, huge to bear a thrust as a switch of willow and richly decorated, have evidently no work to do whatsoever,
lands),
is
buttress,
;
but stand I'ound the central tower, like four idle servants, as
they are
—heraldic supporters, that central tower being merely
a hollow crown,
which needs no more
butti'essing
than u
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
36
In
basket does.
unwise than
tlie
fact, I
do not know anything more strange or upon this lantern it is one of
praise lavislied
;
the basest pieces of Gothic in Europe
;
its
flamboyant traceries
of the last and most degraded forms f and its entire plan and decoration resembling, and deserving little more credit than,
There and serene constructions of the early Gothic which have not, in the course of time, been gradually thinned and pared away into these skeletons, which sometimes indeed, when their lines truly follow the structure of the original masses, have an interest like that of the fibrous framework of leaves from which the substance has been dissolved, but which are usually distorted as well as emaciated, and remain but the sickly phantoms and mockeries of things that were they are to true architecture what the Greek ghost was and the very winds that whisto the armed and living frame the burnt sugar ornaments of elaborate confectionery. are hardly any of the magnificent
;
;
through the threads of them, are to the diapasoned echoes of the ancient walls, as to the voice of the man was the pining
tle
of the spectre.®
IX. Perhaps the most fruitful source of these kinds of corwe have to guard against in recent times, is one which, nevertheless, comes in a " questionable shape," and of which it is not easy to determine the proper laws and limits
ruption which
;
I
mean
the use of iron.
The
definition of the art of architec-
independent of its materials nevertheless, that art having been, up to the beginning of the present century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, or wood, it has resulted that the sense of proportion and the laws ture,
given in the
first
chapter,
is
:
of structure have been based, the one altogether, the other in
the necessities consequent on the employment
great part, on
and that the entire or principal employframework would, therefore, be generally felt Abstractas a departure from the first principles of the art. edly there appears no reason why iron should not be used as
of those materials
ment
well as
tem to
;
of metallic
wood
;
and the time
is
probably near
when
a
new
sys-
of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely
metallic construction.
But
I believe that the tendency of
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. present sympathy and association
all
architecture to non-metallic
work
For architecture
its
elements in
it is
beins; in
necessarily the
37 to limit the idea of
is
and that not without reason.
;
perfection the earliest, as in
its
of arts, will always precede,
first,
any barbarous nation, the possession of the science necessary
management
either for the obtaining or the
existence and
its earliest
of iron.
Its first
laws must, therefore, depend upon the
use of materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface of the earth it
;
that
is
to say, clay,
cannot but be generally
architecture
historical use
is its
dependent on consistency of
may
as far as
be,
wood, or stone
felt that
:
and since the
;
and
as
I
think
one of the chief dignities of be
style, it will
latter is partly
felt right to retain
even in periods of more advanced science, the
materials and principles of earlier ages.
X. But whether
this
every idea respecting tion,
on which
we
me
be granted
size,
or not, the fact
is,
that
proportion, decoration, or construc-
are at present in the habit of acting or judg-
depends on presupposition of such materials and as I both feel myself unable to escape the influence of these prejudices, and believe that my readers will be equally so, it may be ing,
:
perhaps permitted to
me
to
assume that true architecture does material,"^ and that such works
not admit iron as a constructive as
the cast-iron central spire of
Kouen
Cathedral, or the iron
some of our
roofs and pillars of our railway stations, and of
churches, are not architecture at
all.
Yet
it
evident that
is
metals may, and sometimes must, enter into the construction to a certain extent, as nails in as legitimately rivets
wooden
architecture,
and solderings in stone
well deny to the Gothic architect the
and therefore
neither can
we
power of supporting
by iron bars and if we grant do not see how we can help allowing Brunelleschi his
statues, pinnacles, or traceries this, I
;
iron chain around the
dome
;
of Florence, or the builders of Sa-
lisbury their elaborate iron binding of the central tower .^
we would not fall into the and the heap, we must find
however, of corn
us to stop 'somewhere.
be used
as a
This rule
cement but not
is,
If,
old sophistry of the grains a rule
which may enable
I think, that metals
as a sujp^ort.
For
as
may
cements of
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
38
other kinds are often so strong that the stones may easier be broken than separated, and the wall becomes a solid mass without for that reason losing the character of architecture, there
is
no reason why, when a nation has obtained the knowledge and practice of iron work, metal rods or rivets should not be used in
the place of cement, and establish the same or a greater strength and adherence, without in any wise inducing departure from
nor the types and system of architecture before established sightliness, whether as to except difference does it make any ;
the metal bands or rods so employed, be in the body of the wall or on its exterior, or set as stays and cross-bands; so
only that the use of them be always and distinctly one which might be superseded by mere strength of cement as for in;
stance
band,
if it
a pinnacle or mullion be propped or tied by an iron is evident that the iron only prevents the separation of
the stones by lateral force, which the cement would have done, had it been strong enough. But the moment that the iron in
the least degree takes the place of the stone, and acts by its resistance to crushing, and bears superincumbent weight, or if it acts
by
its
own weight
as a counterpoise,
and so supersedes the
use of pinnacles or buttresses in resisting a lateral thrust, or
form beams would have done
of a rod or girder,
in the
as
it is
well,
if,
used to do what wooden
that instant the
building
ceases, so far as such applications of metal extend, to be true
architecture.
XI. The one, and
it is
limit,
however, thus detenn'ned,
well in
all
things to be cautious
the utmost limit of lawfulness
ment
;
is
an ultimate
how we approach
so that, although the
employ-
of metal within this limit cannot be considered as de-
stroying the very being and nature of architecture,
it will, if
ex-
travagant and frequent, derogate from the dignity of the work, is especially to our present point) from its For although the spectator is not informed as to the quantity or strength of the cement employed, he will generally conceive the stones of the building to be separable and his es-
as well as
(which
honesty.
;
timate of the
skill
of the architect will be based in a great
measure on his supposition of
this condition,
and of the
diffi-
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. culties attendant
and
it
upon
it
:
so that
it is
39
always more honoi-able,
has a tendency to render the style of architecture both
more masculine and more
scientilic, to employ stone and morand to do as much as possible with the weight of the one and the strength of the other, and rather sometimes to forego a grace, or to confess a weakness, than at tain the one, or conceal the other, by means verging upon dis-
simply
tar
as such,
honesty.
where the design is of such delicacy and some parts of very fair and finished edifices, it is desirable that it should be and where both its completion and security are in a measure dependent on the use of metal, let not such use be reprehended so only that as mucli is done as may be, by good mortar and good masonry and no slovenly workmanship admitted through confidence in the iron helps Nevertheless,
slightness as, in
;
;
;
for
it is
man may
in this license as in that of wine, a
use
it
for
his infirmities, but not for his nourishment.
XII. And, in order to avoid an over use of this liberty, it would be well to consider what application may be conveniently made of the dovetailing and various adjusting of stones for when any artifice is necessary to help the mortar, certainly this ought to come before the use of metal, for it is both safer and more honest. I cannot see that any objection can be made to the fitting of the stones in any shapes the architect pleases for although it would not be desirable to see buildings put together like Chinese puzzles, there must always be a check upon such ;
:
an abuse of the practice in that
it
its difficulty
should be always exhibited, so that
nor
;
it l>e
the spectator as an admitted help, and that
is
it
no principal stones
are introduced in positions apparently impossible for retain,
necessary
understood by
them
to
although a riddle here and there, in imimjjortant fea-
may sometimes serve to draw the eye to the masonry, and make it interesting, as well as to give a delightful sense of There is a a kind of necromantic power in the architect. pretty one in the lintel of the lateral door of the cathedral of Prato (Plate lY. fig. 4.) where the maintenance of the visibly separate stones, alternate marble and serpentine, cannot be tures,
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
40
understood until their cross-cutting is,
of course, of the
foi-ni
given in
is
seen below.
Each block
lig. 5.
XIII. Lastly, before leaving the subject of structural de-
would i-euiind the architect who thinks that I am un and narrowly limiting his resom-ces or his art, that the highest greatness and the highest wisdom are shown, the first by a noble submission to, the second by a. thoughtful Noj^rovidence for, certain voluntarily admitted restraints. thing is more evident than this, in that supreme government ceits, I
necessarily
which is the example, as it is the centre, of all others. The Divine Wisdom is, and can be, shown to us only in its meeting and contending with the difficulties which are voluntarily, and for the sake of that contest^ admitted by the Divine Omnipoand these difficulties, observe, occur in the form of tence natural laws or ordinances, which might, at many times and in :
countless ways, be
apparent advantage, but
infringed with
.which are never infringed, whatever costly arrangements or adaptations their observance may necessitate for the accom-
plishment of given purposes.
our present subject
is
The example most
apposite to
the structure of the bones of animals.
1^0 reason can be given, I believe, Avhy the system of the
higher animals should not have been made capable, as that of the Infusoria is, of secreting flint, instead of phosphate of lime, or
adamant pai't
more
naturally
still,
carbon
;
so
framing the bones of
The elephant or rhinoceros, had the earthy bones been made of diamond, might have been
at once.
of their
and light as grasshoppers, and other animals might have been framed far more magnificently colossal than any In other worlds we may, perhaps, see that walk the earth. for every element, and elements increation such creations a of animals here, is appointed bj architecture finite. But the God to be a marble architecture, not a fiint nor adamant archias agile
;
and all manner of expedients are adopted to attain the utmost degree of strength and size possible under that The jaw of the ichthyosaurus is pieced and great limitation. riveted, the leg of the megatherium is a foot thick, and the head of the myodon has a double skull; we, in our wisdom. tecture
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
41
should, doubtless, have given the lizard a steel jaw, and the
mjodon
a east-iron headpiece,
which
ple to
all
and forgotten the great
But God shows us
are nobler things than power.
strange as
may
it
princi-
creation bears witness, that order and system in
HimseK,
seem, not only authoritative perfection, but
—
even the perfection of Obedience an obedience to His own laws and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of His creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of :
sweareth to his
XIV.
human
uprightness in the
that attribute of
own
"that
creature
hurt and changeth not."
These may be generally defined
2d. Surface Deceits.
inducing the supposition of some form or material which
as the
does not actually exist
;
as
commonly
in the painting of
wood
ornaments
decep-
to represent marble, or in the painting of tive relief, &c.
them
evil of
and that
it is
But we must be
careful to observe, that the
consists always in definitely
a matter of
in
some nicety
to
attempted deception,
mark the point where
dece])tion begins or ends. Tluis, for instance, the roof of
covered with elaborate fan enable
it,
in its
This
observer.
much
Milan Cathedral
ti-acery, forcibly
is
seemingly
enough painted
to
dark and removed position, to deceive a careless is,
of
course, gross degradation
;
it
destroys
of the dignity even of the rest of the building, and
is
in
the very strongest terms to be repreliended.
The
roof of the Sistine Chapel has
much
sign in grissaille mingled with the figures of
the effect
is
In v/hat
architectural deits
frescoes
;
and
increase of dignity. lies
the distinctive character
?
—
First. That the architecture is In two points, principally so closely associated with the figures, and has so grand fellowship with them in its forms and cast shadows, that both are at once felt to be of a piece and as the figures must necessarily be painted, the architecture is known to be so too. There is :
;
thus no deception.
Second. That so great a painter as Michael Angelo would
always stop short in such minor parts of his design, of the degree of vulgar force which would be necessary to induce the
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
42
of their reality
Bn]')position
;
and, strangely as
may
it
sound,
wonld never paint badly enough to deceive. Bnt though right and wrong are thus found broadly opposed in works severally so mean and so mighty as the roof of Milan :ind that of the Sistine, there ai-e works neither so gieat nor so mean, in which the limits of right are vaguely defined, and will need some care to determine care only, however, to apply accurately the broad principle with which we set out, that no ;
form nor material
XV. ception
is
to be deceptively represented.
Evidently, then, painting, confessedly such, it
:
be on wood or on stone, plaster, does
makes
nor can
;
specting the ground of which
it
it
material,
on good painting
ever be said to deceive
as
it
and
as desirable a
seen dej)rived of
more than
mode of
is,
there-
decoration
Verona and Venice
constant in the great periods.
it is
now
;
re-
To
gives us no information.
cover brick with plaster, and this plaster with fresco, fore, perfectly legitimate
de-
naturally be supposed,
Whatever the
more precious
it
or, as will
not matter.
no
is
Whether it
does not assert any material whatever.
are
half their former splendor
dejiended far more on their frescoes than their marbles.
The
be considered as the gesso ground on But to cover brick with cement, and to di^^de
plaster, in this case, is to
panel or canvas. this
cement with
falsehood is
;
and
joints that it
is
may
look like stone,
is
to tell a
just as contemptible a procedure as the other
noble.
being lawful to paint then,
It
is it
lawful to paint every-
—yes
but if, even and the thing in the slightest degree, the sense of it be lost, Let us take a few instances. painted be supposed. real no. In the Campo Santo at Pisa, each fresco is surrounded with a border composed of flat colored patterns of great elegance no thing
?
So long
as the painting is
confessed
;
—
—
part of
it
in
attempted
relief.
The
certainty of
flat
surface
life, do not and the artist thenceforward is at liberty to put forth his whole power, and to lead us through fields and groves, and depths of pleasant landscape, and to soothe us with the sweet clearness of far off sky, and yet never lose the severity of his
being thus secured, the figures, though the size of deceive,
primal purpose of architectural decoration.
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTFr. In the Camera
43
Correggio of San Lodovico
di
vine shadow the walls, as
at
Panna, the
with an actual arbor and the troops of children, peeping through the oval openings, luscious in color and faint in light, may well be expected every trellises of
instant
to break through,
or hide
if
behind the covert.
The
grace of their attitudes, and the evident greatness of the whole
work, mark that
it is
charge of falsehood to take a jjlace
;
painting,
and barely redeem
but even so saved,
among noble
it is
it
utterly
from the unworthy
or legitimate architectural decora-
tion.
In the cupola of the duomo of Parma the same painter has represented the Assumption Math so much deceptive power,
made a dome
that he has
of
some
thirty feet diameter look like
a cloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded with a
rushing sea of angels.
Is this
wrong ?
Not
so
:
for the sub-
We might have taken the vines for a veritable pergoda, and the children for its haunting ragazzi but we know the stayed clouds and moveless angels must be man's work let him put his utmost ject at once precludes the possibility of deception.
;
;
strength to
it
and welcome, he can enchant
us,
but cannot
betray.
We
may
thus apply the rule to the highest, as well as the
art of daily occurrence,
always remembering that more
is
to
be
forgiven to the great painter than to the mere decorative work-
man
;
and
this especially, because the former,
even in decep-
we have just seen would have made the thing
tive portions, will not trick us so grossly
;
as
where a worse painter once. There is, however, in room, villa, or garden decoration, some fitting admission of trickeries of this
in Correggio,
look like
life at
kind, as of pictured landscapes at the extremities of alleys and
and ceilings like skies, or painted with pi-olungations upwards of the architecture of the walls, which things have sometimes a certain luxury and pleasureableness in places meant for idleness, and are innocent enough as long as they are regarded as mere toys. XYI. Touching the false representation of material, the question is infinitely more simple, and the law more sweeping; all such imitations are uttcrlv base and iiiadmissible. It is arcades,
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
44
lost in marbling and of the waste of our resources in absolute vanities, in things about which no mortal cares, by which no eye is ever arrested, unless painfully, and whicli do not add one whit to comfort, or cleanliness, or even conspicuousness. to that great object of commercial art But
melancliolj to tliink of
the shop fronts of
tlie
London
time and expense
alone,
—
in architecture of a higher rank,
condemned to
blame
specifically
my
I express
made
I have
?
;
how much more
is it
a rule in the present
it
to be
work not
but I may, perhaps, be permitted, while
sincere admiration of the very noble entrance and
general architecture of the British
Museum,
to express also
my
regret that the noble granite foundation of the staircase should
be mocked
at its
landing by an imitation, the more blameable
because tolerably successful.
upon the
suspicion ite
The only
effect of it is to cast a
tnie stones below, and upon every bit of gran-
afterwards encountered.
honesty of Memnon himself. to the noble architecture
One
feels a doubt, after
it,
of the
But even this, however derogatory
around
it, is
of feeling with which, in our cheap
less jjainful
than the want
modern churches, we
suffer
the wall decorator to erect about the altar frameworks and
and to dye in the same may emerge above the pews this is not merely bad taste it is no unimportant or excusable error which brings even these shadows of vanity and falsehood into the house of prayer. The first condition which just feeling requii-es in church furniture is, that it should be simple and unaffected, not fictitious nor tawdry. It ma)' be in our power to make it beautiful, but let it at least be pure and if we cannot permit much to the architect, do not let us permit anything to the upholsterer if we keep to solid stone and solid wood, whitewashed, if we like, for cleanliness' sake (for whitewash has so often been used as the dress of noble things that it has thence received a kind of pediments daubed with mottled
color,
fashions such skeletons or caricatures of columns as :
;
;
;
must be a bad design indeed, which is grossly no instance of a want of sacred character, or of any marked and painful ugliness, in the simplest or the most awkwardly built village church, where stone and wood nobility itself), offensive.
it
I recollect
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
46
were roughly and nakedly used, and tlie windows latticed with white glass. But the smoothly stuccoed walls, the flat roofs with ventilator ornaments, the barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead gi-ound square panes, the gilded or bronzed w^ood, the painted iron, the wretched upholstery of curtains
and cushions, and pew heads and altar railings, and Birmingham metal candlesticks, and, above all, the green and yellow sickness of the false marble disguises all, observe falsehoods
all
—who
—
are they
defend them ? who do them ? like them, though to
who did
who
like
;
these
things?
who
I have never spoken to
any one
many who thought them
matters
Perhaps not to religion (though I cannot but believe that there are many to whom, as to myself, such things are serious obstacles to the repose of mind and temper of no consequence.
which should i^recede devotional exercises) but to the general tone of our judgment and feeling yes; for assuredly we shall regard, with tolerance, if not with affection, whatever forms of material things we have been in the habit of associating with our worship, and be little prepared to detect or blame hypocrisy, meanness, and disguise in other kinds of decoration when we suffer objects belonging to the most solemn of ail ;
—
services to be tricked out in a fashion so fictitious and unseemly.
Painting, however, is not the only mode in which may be concealed, or rather simulated for merely to Whitewash, for inis, as we have seen, no wrong.
XYII. material conceal
;
though often (by no means always) to be regretted as a It shows is not to be blamed as a falsity. itself for what it is, and asserts nothing of what is beneath it. Gilding has become, from its frequent use, equally innocent. It is understood for what it is, a film merely, I do not say and is, therefore, allowable to any extent. means of magit is one of the most abused expedient nificence we possess, and I much doubt whether any use we ever make of it, balances that loss of jjleasure, which, from the frequent sight and perpetual suspicion of it, we suffer in I think the contemplation of anything that is verily of gold. gold was meant to be seldom seen and to be admired as a prestance,
concealment,
:
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
46
and
sometimes wish that truth shonld so far should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should glitter that was not gold. Nevercious thing
;
I
literally prevail as that all
theless,
nature herself does not dispense with such semblance,
and I have too great a love for old and nimbus only it should be used with respect, and to express magnificence, or sacredness, and not in lavish vanity, or in sign painting. Of its expedience, however, any more than of that of color, it is not here the place to speak we are endeavoring to determine what is lawful, not what is desirable. Of other and less but uses light for
it
;
saintly art to part with its burnished field, or radiant
;
common modes lazuli,
speak.
tended,
of disguising
of
surface, as
powder of
lapis
or mosaic imitations of colored stones, I need hardly
The is
rule will apply to
wi'ong
;
all alike,
commonly enforced
that whatever
also
is
pre-
by the exceeding
ugliness and insufficient appearance of such methods, as lately
by which half the houses in Venice have been defaced, the brick covered first with stucco, and this But there painted with zigzag veins in imitation of alabaster. is one more form of architectural fiction, which is so constant I mean in the great ]3eriods that it needs respectful judgment. precious stone. the facing of brick with in the style of renovation
XYIII.
It is well
being built of marble
known, that what is,
is
meant
in nearly all cases,
b}' a
church's
only that a veneer-
ing of marble has been fastened on the rough brick wall, built
with certain projections to receive it and that what appear to 1)0 massy stones, are nothing more than external slabs. ;
]!Tow,
it is
evident, that, in
tliis
case, the question of right
on the same ground as in that of gilding. If it be clearly understood that a marble facing does not pretend or imply a marble wall, there is no harm in it and as it is also e\adent that, when very precious stones are used, as jaspers and sei-pentines, it must become, not only an extravagant and vain increase of expense, but sometimes an actual impossibility, to obtain mass of them enough to build with, there is no resource is
;
is there anything to be alleged on the head of durability, such work having been by
but this of veneering; nor against
it
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. experience found to
last as long,
and in
47
as perfect condition, as
any kind of masonry. It is, therefore, to be considered as simply an art of mosaic on a large scale, the ground being and when lovely stones are to of brick, or any other material ;
be obtained,
it is
a
manner which should be thorouglily under-
and often practised. Nevertheless, as we esteem the column more highly for its being of a single block, we do not regret the loss of substance and value which
stood,
shaft of a
and
as
there
is
in things
of solid gold,
I think that walls themselves
agate, or
silver,
ivory; so
may be regarded with a more known to be all of noble sub-
complacency if they are and that rightly weighing the demands of the two principles of which we have hitherto spoken Sacrifice and Truth, we should sometimes rather spare external ornament than diminish the unseen value and consistency of what we just
stance
;
—
manner of design, and a more abundant decoration would follow, upon the consciousness of thoroughness in the substance. And, indeed, this is to be remembered, with respect to all the points we have examined that while we have traced the limits of license, we have not fixed those of that high rectitude which refuses license. It is thus true that there is no falsity, and much beauty in the use of external color, and that it is lawful to paint either pictures or patterns on whatever surfaces may seem to need enrichment. But it is not less true, that such do
;
and
I believe that a better
careful and studious,
if less
;
practices are essentially unarchitectural that there
is
;
and while we cannot say
actual danger in an over use of them, seeing that
they have been always used most lavishly in the times of most noble art, yet they divide the work into two ]3arts and kinds,
one of
less durability
than the other, which dies away from
it
and leaves it, unless it have noble qualities of its own, naked and bare. That enduring noblesse I should, therefore, call truly architectural and it is not until this has been secured that the accessory power of painting may be called in, for the delight of the immediate time nor this, as I think, until every resource of a more stable kind has been exhausted. in process of ages,
;
;
Tlie true colors of architecture are those of natural stone, and
;
THE LAMP OF TEUTH.
48
full. Every pale yellow to purple, from passing through variety of hue, orange, red, and brown, is entirely at our command nearly every kind of green and gray is also attainable and with tliese, and pure white, what harmonies might we not achieve ? Of stained and variegated stone, the quantity is unlimited, the kinds innumerable where brighter colors are required, let a kind of glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in mosaic work as durable as the solid stone, and incapable of losing its and let the painter's work be reserved for the lustre by time shadowed loggia and inner chamber. This is the true and where this cannot be, the device of faithful way of building external coloring may, indeed, be employed without dishonor but it must be with the warning reflection, that a time will come when such aids must pass away, and when the building
I would fain see these taken advantage of to the
;
:
;
—
—
;
be judged in
will
lifelessness,
its
Better the less bright,
dolphin.
dying the death of the
more enduring
fabric.
The
transparent alabasters of San Miniato, and the mosaics of St.
warmly filled, and more brightly touched, by morning and evening rays while the hues of our cathedrals have died like the iris out of the cloud and the temples whose azure and purple once flamed above the Grecian promontories, stand in their faded whiteness, like snows which
Mark's, are more everj^ return of
;
;
the sunset has left cold.
XIX. The last form of fallacy which it will be remembered we had to deprecate, was the substitution of cast or machine work
for that of the hand, generally expressible as Operative
Deceit.
There are two reasons, both weighty, against one, that all cast and machine that
dishonest.
it is
place, that
when
my
Of
its
is
is
bad, as
this practice
work
;
the other,
badness, I shall speak in another
being evidently no
other cannot be had.
mind,
work
eflicient reason
Its dishonesty,
of the grossest kind,
is,
against its use however, which, to
I think, a sufiicient reason
and unconditional rejection of it. Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two entirely
to determine absolute
dl'^tinet
sources of agreeableness
:
one, that
of
the
abstract
Plate
II
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. beauty of
its
forms, which, for the present,
49
we
will suppose to
be the same wliether they come from the hand or the machine
human
the other, the sense of
How
great this latter influence
considering that there
upon
labor and care spent
we may perhaps
;
it.
judge, by
not a cluster of weeds growing in any
is
cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in
all
respects nearly
immeasurably superior, to that of the mosx, elaborate sculpture of its stones and that all our interest in th» carved work, our sense of its richness, though it is tenfold less equal, and, in some,
:
rich than the knots of grass beside it is
a thousandfold less delicate
a millionfold less admirable its
;
;
it
of
;
its
of
its
delicacy,
though
admirableness, though
from our consciousness of
results
being the work of poor, clumsy, toilsome man.
delightfulness depends on our discovering in
it
Its true
the record of
—
and heart-breakings of reall this ca7i be traced by a practised eye but, granting it even obscure, it is presumed or understood and in that is the worth of the thing, just as much as the worth of anything else we call precious. The worth of a diamond is simply the understanding of the time it must take to look for it before it can be cut. It has an intrinsic value besides, which the diamond has not (for a diamond has no more real beauty than a piece of glass) but I do not speak of that at present I place the two on the same ground and I suppose that hand-wrought ornament can no more be generally known from machine M'ork, than a diamond can be known from paste nay, that the latter may deceive, for a moment, the mason's, as the other the jeweller's eye and that it can be detected only by the closest examination. Yet exactly as a woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a builder of honor disdain false ornaments. The usinij of them is just as downright and inexcusable a lie. You use that which pretends to a worth which it has not which pi-etends to have cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not it is an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. Down with it to the ground, grind it to powder, leave its ragged place upon the wall, rather you have not paid for it, ycju have thoughts, and intents, and
trials,
coveries and joy fulnesses of success
:
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
50
no business with
it,
you do not want
it.
Nobody wants
inents in this world, but everybody wants integrity.
orna-
All the
ever were fancied, are not worth a lie. Leave your walls as bare as a planed board, or build them of baked mud and chopped straw, if need be but do not rough-cast fair devices that
;
them with
falsehood.
This, then, being our general laM% and I hold
imperative one than any other I have asserted
;
it
of dishonesty the meanest, as the least necessary
ment
is
an extravagant and inessential thing
fallacious, utterly base
—
this, I say,
are, nevertheless, certain
;
for a
and ;
this
more kind
for orna-
and, therefore,
if
being our general law, there
exceptions respecting particular sub-
stances and their uses.
XX. Thus
in the use of brick
;
since that
is
known
to be
no reason why it should not be moulded into diverse forms. It will never be supjjosed to have been cut, and, therefore, will cause no deception it will have only the credit it deserves. In flat countries, far from any quarry of stone, cast brick may be legitimately, and most successfully, used in decoration, and that elaborate, and even refined. The brick mouldings of the Palazzo Pepoli at Bologna, and those which run round the market-place of Yercelli, are among the richest in Italy. So also, tile and porcelain work, of which the former is grotesquely, but successfully, employed in the domestic architecture of France, colored tiles being inserted in the diamond spaces between the crossing timbers and the latter admirably in Tuscany, in external basreliefs, by the Robbia family, in which works, while we cannot but sometimes regret the useless and ill-arranged colors, we would by no means blame the employment of a material which, whatever its defects, excels every other in permanence, and, perhaps, requires even greater skill in its management than For it is not the material, but the absence of the marble. human labor, which makes the thing worthless and a piece of terra cotta, or of plaster of Paris, which has been wrought by human hand, is worth all the stone in Carrara, cut by machi It is, indeed, possible, and even usual, for men to sink nerj. originally moulded, there
is
;
;
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
61
hand-work has all the mechanism of tlie difference between living and dead hand- work I shall speak presently all that I ask at present is, what it is always in our power to secure the confession of what we have done, and what we have given so that when into machines themselves, so that even
characters of
;
;
— ;
we
stone at
lise
all,
since
all
stone
is
naturally supposed to be
we must not carve it by machinery neither must we use any artificial stone cast into shape, nor any stucco ornaments of the color of stone, or which might in anywise be mistaken for it, as the stucco mouldings in the cortile of the Palazzo Yecchio at Florence, which cast a shame and suspicion But for ductile and fusible over every part of the building. materials, as clay, iron, and bronze, since these will usually be supposed to have been cast or stamped, it is at our pleasure to employ them as we will remembering that they become precious, or otherwise, just in proportion to the hand-work upon them, or to the clearness of their reception of the hand-work carved by hand,
;
;
of their mould.
But
I believe
no cause to have been more active
in the
degradation of our natural feeling for beauty, than the constant use of cast iron ornaments.
The common
iron
work of the
middle ages was as simple as it was effective, composed of leafage cut flat out of sheet iron, and twisted at the workman's will. Xo ornaments, on the contrary, are so cold, clumsy, and vulgar, so essentially incapable of a fine line, or shadow, as
and while, on the score of truth, we can hardly allege anything against them, since they are always distinguishable, at a glance, from wrought and hammered work, and stand only for what they are, yet I feel very strongly that there is no hope of the progress of the arts of any nation which those of cast iron
;
indulges in these vulgar and cheap substitutes for real decoration.
Their inefficiency and paltriness I shall endeavor to in another place, enforcing only, at
show more conclusively
present, the general conclusion that, if even honest or allowable,
they are things in which
we
can never take just pride or
and must never be employed in any place wherein they might either themselves obtain the credit of being other pleasure,
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
52
and better than they are, or be associated with the downright to which _it would be a disgrace to be found in their com-
work
pany.
Such are, I believe, the three principal kinds of fallacy by which architecture is liable to be cornipted there are, however, other and more subtle forms of it, against which it is less easy to guard by definite law, than by the watchfulness of a manly and unaffected spirit. For, as it has been abov^e noticed, there are certain kinds of deception which extend to impressions and ideas only of which some are, indeed, of a noble use, as that above referred to, the arborescent look of lofty Gothic aisles but of which the most part have so much of legerdemain and trickery about them, that they will lowfer any style in which they considerably prevail; and they are likely to prevail when once they are admitted, being apt to catch the fancy alike of uninventive architects and feelingless spectators just as mean and shallow minds are, in other matters, delighted ;
;
;
with the sense of over-reaching, or tickled with the conceit of detecting the intention to over-reach
and when
;
subtleties of
kind are accompanied by the display of such dextrous stone-cutting, or architectural sleight of hand, as may become, this
even by
itself,
the pursuit of
a subject of admiration,
it
is
a great chance if
them do not gradually draw us away from
regard and care for the nobler character of the its total
And
paralysis or extinction.
guarding, but
by
art,
all
and end in
against this there
no and
is
stern disdain of all display of dexterity
ingenious device, and by putting the whole force of our fancy into the arrangement of masses
and forms, caring no more how
these masses and forms are wrought out, than a great painter
which way his pencil strikes. It would be easy to give instances of the danger of these tricks and vanities but I shall confijie myself to the examination of one which has, as I tiiink, been the cause of the fall of Gothic architecture
cares
many
throughout Europe.
;
I
mean the system
mouldings, which, on account of
its
of intersectional
great importance, and for
the sake of the general reader, I may, perhaps, be pardoned for
explaining elementarily.
Plata HI
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
XXI.
53
I must, in the first place, however, refer to Profes-
sor Wilhs's account of tlie origin of tracery, given in the sixth
chapter of his Architecture of the Middle Ages; since the publication of
which
I
have been not a
little
amazed
to hear of
any attempts made to resuscitate the inexcusably absurd theory of its derivation from imitated vegetable form inexcusably, 1
—
say, because the smallest acquaintance
tecture
would have informed
tlie
with early Gothic archi-
supporters of that theory of
the simple fact, that, exactly in proportion to the antiquity of the work, the imitation of such organic forms
is less, and in the There cannot be the shadow of a question, in the mind of a person familiarised with any single series of consecutive examples, that tracery arose from the gradual enlargement of the penetrations of the shield of stone which, usually supported by a central pillar, occupied the head of early windows. Professor Willis, perhaps, confines his observations somewhat too absolutely to the double subarch. I have given, in Plate VII. fig. 2, an interesting case of rude penetration of a high and simply trefoiled shield, from the church of the Eremitani at Padua. But the more frequent and typical form is that of the double sub-arch, decorated with
earliest
examples does not exist
at
all.
various piercings of the space between
with a simple
under a round
ti-efoil
it
and the superior arch
arch, in the
;
Abbaye aux
Hommes, Caen^ (Plate III. fig. 1); with a very beautifully proportioned quatrefoil in the trifoi'ium of Eu, and that of the choir of Lisieux with quatrefoils, sixfoils, and septfoils, in the ;
Eouen (Plate III. fig. 2); with a trefoil awkwardly, and very small quatrefoil above, at Coutances, (Plate III. fig. 3) then, with multiplications of the same fig-
transept towers of
;
ures, pointed or round, giving very
clumsy shapes of the interfrom one of the nave chapels of Eouen, from one of the nave chapels of Bayeaux), and finally,
mediate stone fig.
5,
(fig. 4,
by thinning out the stony ribs, reaching conditions like that of the glorious typical form of the clerestory of the apse of Beauvais
(fig. 6).
XXII. this process,
Now,
it
will be noticed that,
the attention
is
during the whole of kept fixed on the forms of the
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
54 penetrations, that
is
to say, of the lights as seen
rior,
not of the intermediate stone.
dow
is
in the outline of its light
traceries as seen
from within,
;
and I have drawn
in order to
light thus treated, at first in far off
show the
and separate
gradually enlarging, approaching, until they
over
us, as it
And
it is
from the
inte-
All the grace of the winall
these
effect of the
stars,
and then
come and stand
were, filling the whole space with their effulgence.
in this pause of the star, that
and perfect form of French Gothic
;
it
we have was
the great, pure,
at the instant
when
the rudeness of the intermediate space had been finally conquered,
not
when
the light had expanded to
lost its radiant unity, principality,
its fullest,
and
and yet had
visible first causing
we have the most exquisite feeling and most judgments in the management alike of the ti'acery and decorations. I have given, in Plate X., an exquisite example of it, from a panel decoration of the buttresses of the north door of Rouen and in order that the reader may understand what truly fine Gothic work is, and how nobly it unites fantasy and law, as well as for our immediate j3urpose, it will be well that he should examine its sections and mouldings in detail (they are described in the fourth Chapter, § xxvii.), and of the whole, that
faultless
;
that the
more
carefully, because this design belongs to a period
in which the most important change took place in the spirit of
Gothic architecture, which, perhaps, ever resulted from the That tracery marks a pause natural progress of any art.
between the laying aside of one great ruling principle, and the taking up of another a pause as marked, as clear, as conspicuous to the distant view of after times, as to the distant glance of the traveller is the culminating ridge of the mountain chain It was the great watershed of over which he has passed. Gothic art. Before it, all had been ascent after it, all was decline; both, indeed, by winding paths and varied slopes; both interrupted, like the gradual rise and fall of the passes of the Alps, by great mountain outliers, isolated or branching from ;
;
the central chain, and by retrograde or parallel directions of the valleys of access.
But the track of the human mind
is
—
—
:
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. traceable
up
55
and
to that glorious ridge, in a continuous line,
thence downwards.
Like a silver zone
"Flung about
carelessly', it
shines afar,
Catching the eye in many a broken link, In many a turn and traverse, as it glides. And oft above, and oft below, appears * * * * to him who journeys up As though it were another."
And
at that point,
and that
instant, reaching the place that
was
nearest heaven, the builders looked back, for the last time, to
way bj which thej had come, and the scenes through which their early course had passed. They turned away from them and their morning light, and descended towards a new horizon, for a time in the warmth of western sun, but plunging the
with every forward step into more cold and melancholy shade. XXIII. The change of which I speak, is inexpressible in
few words, but one more important, more radically influential, could not be. It was the substitution of the line for the mass, as the
element of decoration.
We have seen the mode in which the openings or penetration of the
window expanded,
until
what were,
at first,
awkward
forms of intermediate stone, became delicate lines of tracery and I have been careful in pointing out the peculiar attention
bestowed on the proportion and decoration of the mouldings of window at Eouen, in Plate X,, as compared with earlier
the
mouldings, because that beauty and care are singularly cant.
They mark
that the traceries
Up to that time, up to
architect.
had caught
the very
signifi-
the eye of the
last instant in
which
the reduction and thinning of the intervening stone was con-
summated, of light.
his eye
He
had been on the openings only, on the
did not care about the
stone,
a
stars
rude border
of moulding was
all he needed, it was the penetrating shape which he was watching. But when that shape had received its last possible expansion, and when the stone-work became an arrangement of graceful and parallel lines, that arrangement, like some form in a picture, unseen and accidentally developed, struck suddenly, inevitably, on the sight. It had literally not
Jeen seen be^'^re.
It flashed out
in
an instant
as
an indepen-
THE LAMP OF TKUTH.
56
dent form. took
it
It
became
The
a feature of the work.
under his care, thought over
we see. Now, the great pause was
it,
architect
and distributed
its
mem-
bers as
at the
moment when
the space
and the dividing stone-work were both equally considered. It The forms of the tracery were seized did not last lifty years. with a childish delight in the novel source of beauty and the intervening space was cast aside, as an element of decoration, ;
for ever.
I have confined
myseK,
in following this change, to
the window, as the feature in which transition
the same in every
is
member
clearest.
it is
of architecture
importance can hardly be understood, unless to trace
it
we
But the and its
;
take the pains
which illustrations, irrelevant be found in the third Chapter. I
in the universality, of
to our present purpose, will
pursue here the question of truth, relating to the treatment of the mouldings.
XXIV.
The reader
will observe that,
up
to the last
expan
sion of the penetrations, the stone-work was necessarily consi-
and unyielding. It was so, also, during the pause of which I have spoken, when the forms of the tracery were still severe and pure; delicate indeed, but
dered, as
actually
it
is, stiff,
perfectly firm.
At
the close of the period of pause, the
first
sign of serious
change was like a low breeze, passing through the emaciated It began to undulate like the tracery, and making it tremble. It lost its essence as threads of a cobweb lifted by the vrind. Reduced to the slenderness of threads, a structure of stone. it
began
to be considered as possessing also their flexibility.
was pleased vnth this his new fancy, and set himout and in a little time, the bars of tracery wei-e to the eye as if they had been woven together appear caused to This was a change which sacrificed a great principU like a net.
The
architect
self to carry
of truth;
it
it
;
sacrificed the expression of the qualities of the mate-
however delightful its results in their first developments, it was ultimately ruinous. For, observe the difference between the supposition of ductilitv. and that of elastic structure noticed above in the resem-
rial
;
and,
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
57
That resemblance was not sought, but from the natural conditions of strength trunk, and slenderness in the ribs or branches,
blauce to tree form. necessary
;
in the pier
while
resulted
it
many
oi*
of the other suggested conditions of resemblance
were perfectly flexible, is
A
true.
not ductile
;
though in a certain sense own form as the rib yield up to certain limits, both of
tree branch,
it is
as firm
in its
both of them will them breaking when those limits are exceeded while the tree trunk will bend no more than the stone pillar. But when the tracery is assumed to be as yielding as a silken cord when the whole fragility, elasticity, and weight of the material are to of stone
;
;
;
the eye, chitect
if
is
and the
not in terms, denied
applied to disprove the first
;
when
first
all
the art of the ar-
conditions of his working,
attributes of his materials
this
;
is
a deliberate
redeemed from the charge of direct falsehood by the visibility of the stone surface, and degrading all the
treachery, only
traceries
it
affects exactly in the
degree of
its
presence.
XXY.
But the declining and morbid taste of the later architects, was not satisfied with thus much deception. They were delighted with the subtle charm they had created, and thought only of increasing its power. The next step was to consider and represent the tracery, as not only ductile, but penetrable and when tAvo mouldings met each other, to man;
age their intersection, so that one should appear to pass through the other, retaining
its
independence
;
or
when two ran
parallel
to each other, to rej^resent the one as partly contained within
the other, and partly apparent above
it.
This foi-m of
falsity
was that which crushed the art. The flexible traceries were often beautiful, though they were ignoble but the penetrated traceries, rendered, as they finally were, merely the means of ;
exhibiting the dexterity of the stone-cutter, annihilated both
the beauty and dignity of the Gothic types.
mentous
in its
A system so
mo-
consequences deserves some detailed examination,
XXYI. In the drawing of the shafts of the door at Lisieux, under the spandril, in Plate VII., the reader will see the mode of
managing the
intersection of similar mouldings,
universal in the great periods.
They melted
which \\m
into each other.
THE LAMP OF TKUTH.
58
and became one at tlie point of crossing, or of contact and even the suggestion of so sharp intersection as tliis of Lisieux ;
is
usually avoided (this design being, of course, only a pointed
form of the earlier !N^orman arcade, in which the arches are interlaced, and lie each over the preceding, and under the following, one, as in Anselm's tower at Canterbury), since, in the plurality of designs, when mouldings meet each other, they coincide through some considerable portion of their curves, meeting by contact, rather than by intersection and at the point of coincidence the section of each separate moulding becomes common to the two thus melted into each other. ;
Thus, in the junction of the circles of the window of the Palazzo Foscari, Plate YIII., given accurately in lY., the section across the line across
s^ is
Plate
fig. 8,
exactly the same as that
any break of the separated moulding above,
as
i.
It
sometimes, liowever, happens, that two different mouldings
meet each
This was seldom permitted in the great pe-
other.
riods, and,
when
it
took place, was most awkwardly managed.
Fig. 1, Plate lY. gives the junction of the mouldings of the
gable and vertical, in the
That of the gable
is
window
of the spire of Salisbury.
composed of a
single,
and that of the
vertical of a double cavetto, decorated with ball-flowers
the larger single moulding swallows
up one
;
and
of the double ones,
and pushes forward among the smaller balls with the most In comparing the sections
blundering and clumsy simplicity. it
is
to be observed that, in tlie
upper one, the
sents an actual vertical in the plane of the
the lower one, the line e
d
a h repre-
line
window
;
while, in
represents the horizontal, in the
plane of the window, indicated by the perspective line
XXYIT. The
d
e.
very awkwardness with which such occur-
met by the earlier builder, marks his and unwillingness to attract the eye to such arrangements. There is another very clumsy one, in the junction of the upper and sub-arches of the triforium of Salisbury but it is kept in the shade, and all the prominent junctions are of mouldings like each other, and managed with perfect simplicity. But so soon as the attention o-f <^»'=5b\ivlders rences of difficulty are dislike of the system,
;
Plate
IV.
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
we have
59
upon the
lines of mouldings began to preserve an independent existence wherever they met and different mouldings were studiously associated, in order to obtain variety of We must, however, do the late builders intersectional hne. that, in one case, the habit grew out of a justice note the to more refined than that of earlier workfeeling of proportion,
became,
as
just seen, fixed
instead of the enclosed spaces, those lines
;
men.
It
shows
itself first in
the bases of divided
pillars,
or
arch mouldings, whose smaller shafts had originally bases formed by the continued base of the central, or other larger, columns with which they were grouped but it being felt, when the eye of the architect became fastidious, that the dimension of moulding which was right for the base of a large shaft, was wrong for that of a small one, each shaft had an independent base at first, those of the smaller died simply down on that of the larger but when the vertical sections of both became complicated, the bases of the smaller shafts were considered to exist within those of the larger, and the places of their emergence, on this supposition, were calculated with the utmost so that an elaborate nicety, and cut with singular precision ;
;
;
;
late base of a
divided column,
as,
for instance, of those in the
nave of Abbeville, looks exactly as if its smaller shafts had all been finished to the ground first, each with its complete and
and then the comprehending base of the central moulded over them in clay, leaving their points and angles sticking out here and there, like the edges of sharp
intricate base,
pier had been
crystals out of a
dexterity in
nodule of earth.
work
of this kind
is
The
exhibition of technical
often marvellous, the strangest
possible shapes of sections being calculated to a hair's-breadth,
and the occurrence of the under and emergent forms being rendered, even in places where they are so slight that they can hardly be detected but by the touch. a very elaborate fifty
example of
measured sections
;
but
this
kind
fig. 6,
It is impossible to
intelligible,
Plate lY.
is
a very interest-
ing and simple one, ivoni the west gate of Rouen. of the base of one of the narrow piers between niches.
The square column
k,
render
without some
its
It
is
part
principal
having a base with the
profile
THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
CO
p
supposed to contain within
r, is
set diagonally,
and
lifted so far
another similar one,
itself
above the inclosing one, as that
behind the projecting upper portion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper inclosing shaft 4, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two vertical cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines the whole way the recessed part of
profile
its
The
part of the outer one.
up the
Two
shaft.
p
r shall fall
angle of
its
small pilasters are run,
fastening
like
through the junction on the front of the shafts. The sections k n taken respectively at the levels Jc, n, will explain
stitches,
the hypothetical construction of the whole. or joint
rather (for passages
Fig. 7
is
a base,-
of this form occur again and
on the shafts of flamboyant work), of one of the smallest which supported the lost statues of the porch its section below would be the same as n, and its construction, after what has been said of the other base, will be at again,
piers of the pedestals ;
once perceived.
XXYIII. There was, however, in this kind of involution, much to be admired as well as reprehended, the proportions of and, quantities were always as beautiful as they were intricate though the lines of intersection were harsh, they were exquisitely opposed to the flower-work of the interposing mouldings. But the fancy did not stop here it rose from the bases and there, not finding room enough for its into the arches exhibition, it withdrew the capitals from the heads even of cylindrical shafts, (we cannot but admire, while we regret, the boldness of the men who could defy the authority and custom of all the nations of the earth for a space of some three thousand years,) in order that the arch mouldings might appear to emerge from the pillar, as at its base they had been lost in it, and Hot to terminate on the abacus of the capital then they ran the mouldings across and through each other, at the point and finally, not finding their natural directions of the arch ;
;
;
;
;
.enough to furnish as wished, bent short,
many
occasions of intersection as they
them hither and
thither,
when they had passed the
Plate lY.
is
and cut
ofl[
their ends
point of intersection.
part of a flying buttress
Fig. 2,
from the apse of
St.
;
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. Gerv^ais at Falaise, in
61
which the moulding whose section
is
rudely given above at/, (taken vertically through the point/,) is
carried thrice through itself, in the cross-bar and
and the for the
flat fillet is
two arches
;
cut off sharp at the end of the cross-bar,
mere pleasure of the
truncation.
Fig. 3
half of the
is
head of a door in the Stadthaus of Sursee, in which the shaded part of the section of the joint g g^ is that of the arch-moulding, which is three times reduplicated, and six times intersected
by
itself,
able.
the ends being cut off
Tliis style
is,
when they become unmanage-
indeed, earlier exaggerated in Switzerland
and Germany, owing to the imitation in stone of the dovetailing of wood, particularly of the intersecting of beams at the angles of chalets but it only furnishes the more plain instance of the danger of the fallacious system which, from the beginning, repressed the German, and, in the end, ruined the French Gothic. It would be too painful a task to follow further the caricatures of form, and eccentricities of treatment, which ;
—
grew out of this singular abuse the flattened arch, the shrunken pillar, the lifeless ornament, the liny moulding, the distorted and exti'avagant foliation, until the time came when, over these wrecks and remnants, deprived of ciple, rose
all
unity and prin-
the foul torrent of the renaissance, and swept them
So fell the great dynasty of mediaeval architecture. was because it had lost its own strength, and disobeyed its own laws because its order, and consistency, and organization, had been broken thi-ough that it could oppose no resistance all
away.
It
—
—
overwhelming innovation. And this, observe, all because it had sacrificed a single truth. From that one surrender of its integrity, from that one endeavor to assume the semblance of what it was not, arose the multitudinous forms of disease and decrepitude, which rotted away the pillars of its supremacy. It was not because its time was come it was not because it was scorned by the classical Romanist, or dreaded by the faithful Protestant. That scorn and that fear it might have survived, and lived it would have stood forth in stem
to the rush of
;
;
com])arison with the enervated sensuality of the renaissance it
would have
risen in
renewed and purified honor, and with a
— THE LAMP OF TRUTH.
62
the ashes into which it sank, giving up its glory, had received it, for the honor of God but its own truth was gone, and it sank forever. There was no wisdom nor strength left in it, to raise it from the dust and the error of zeal, and the softness of luxury smote it down and dissolved it
new soul, from as
—
it
;
away.
It is
good for us
the bare ground of
its
to
remember
this, as
we
tread
foundations, and stumble over
upon
its scat-
Those rent skeletons of pierced wall, through which our sea-winds moan and murmur, strewing them joint by joint, and bone by bone, along the bleak promontories on which the Pharos lights came once from houses of prayer those grey arches and quiet isles under which the sheep of our valleys feed and rest on the turf that has buried their altars those shapeless heaps, that are not of the Earth, which lift our fields into strange and sudden banks of flowers, and stay our mountain streams with stones that are not their own, have other thoughts to ask from us than those of mourning for the It was not rage tliat despoiled, or the fear that forsook them.
tered stones.
the robber, not the fanatic, not the blasphemer, destruction that they had wrought
;
who
sealed the
the war, the wrath, the
might have worked their worst, and the strong walls would have risen, and the slight pillars would have started But they could again, from under the hand of the destroyer.
terror,
not rise out of the ruins of their
own
\dolated truth.
CHAPTER
III.
THE LAMP OF POWER. In recalling the impressions we have received from the works of man, after a lapse of time long enough to involve in obscurity all but the most vivid, it often happens that we find a strange pre-eminence and durability in many upon whose strength we had little calculated, and that points of character which had escaped the detection of the judgment, become deI.
veloped under the waste of memory as veins of harder rock, whose places could not at first have been discovered by the eye, The are left salient under the action of frosts and streams. ;
traveller
who
necessitated
desires to correct the errors of
by
inequalities
his
judgment,
of temper, infelicities of circum-
and accidents of association, has no other resource than calm verdict of interposing years and to watch for the new arrangements of eminence and shape in the images which remain latest in his memory as in the ebbing of a stance,
to wait for the
;
;
mountain
he would watch the varying outlines of its successive shore, and trace, in the form of its departing waters, the lake,
true direction of the forces which had cleft, or the currents
which had excavated, the deepest recesses of its primal bed. In thus reverting to the memories of those works of architecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it the will generally happen that they fall into two broad classes one characterized by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to which we recur with a sense of affectionate admiration and :
;
by a severe, and, in many cases, mysterious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished awe, like that felt at the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power. From about these two groups, more or less harmonised by in* the other
;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
64
termediate examples, but always distinctively marked by feat nres of beauty or of power, there will be swept away, in miilti tudes, the
memories of buildings, perhaps,
in their first addresC
owang
to our minds, of no inferior pretension, but
their im-
pressiveness to characters of less enduring nobility— to value
of material, accumulation of ornament, or ingenuity of me-
Especial interest may, indeed, have construction. been awakened by such circumstances, and the memory may have been, consequently, rendered tenacious of particular parts or eifects of the structure but it will recall even these only by an active effort, and then without emotion while in passive chanical
;
;
moments, and with thrilling influence, the image of purer beauty, and of more spiritual power, will return in a fair and solemn company and while the pride of many a stately palace, and the wealth of many a jewelled shrine, perish from our thoughts in a dust of gold, there will rise, through their dimness, the white image of some secluded marble chapel, by river or forest side, with the fretted flower-work shrinking under its arches, as if under vaults of late-fallen snow or the vast weariness of some shadowy wall whose separate stones are Kke moun;
;
tain foundations, II.
ing
is
Xow,
and yet numberless.
the difference between these two orders of build-
not merely that which there
beautiful and sublime. is
It
is,
also,
is
derivative and original in man's
architecture fair or beautiful,
is
in nature
between things
the difference between what
work
;
for whatever
imitated from
is
in
natural forms
and what is not so derived, but depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human mind, becomes the expression of the power of that mind, and receives a sublimity
high in proportion to the power expressed. All man either as gathering or govern-
building, therefore, shows
ing
:
and the secrets of
how
his
success are his
knowing what
to
These are the two great intellectual Lamps of Architecture the one consisting in a just and humble veneration for the works of God upon the earth, and the other in an understanding of the dominion over those works
gather, and
to rule. ;
which has been vested
in
man.
;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
Besides this expression of living authority and power,
III.
there
05
is,
however, a sympatliv in the forms of noble
1)nilding,
most sublime in natural things and it is the governing Power directed by this sympathy, whose operation I shall at present endeavor to trace, abandoning all inquiry into with what
is
;
the more abstract fields of invention
:
for this latter faculty,
and the questions of proportion and arrangement connected with its discussion, can only be rightly examined in a general view of all the arts but its sympathy, in architecture, with the vast controlling powers of Xature herself, is special, and may shortly be considered and that with the more advantage, that I have it has, of late, been little felt or regarded by architects. seen, in recent efforts, much contest between two schools, one many attempts at affecting originality, and the other legality ;
;
beauty of design
— — many ingenious adaptations of construction
;
but I have never seen any aim at the expression of abstract
power
never any appearance of a consciousness
;
room
that, in this
marking of his relations with the mightiest, as well as the fairest, works of God and that those works themselves have been permitted, by their Master and his, to receive an added glory from their association
primal art of man, there
with earnest
efforts of
is
human
for the
thought.
In the
edifices of
Man
there should be found reverent worship and following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the forest, and arches
polish to the shell,
—
—
which gives veining to the leaf, and and grace to every pulse that agitates anibut of that also which reproves the pillars
the vault of the avenue
mal organization, of the earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky; for these, and other glories
more than
these, refuse not to connect themselves, in his
work of his own hand the grey cliff loses when it reminds us of some Cyclopean waste
thoughts, with the
not
its
nobleness
of mural stone
;
;
the pinnacles of the rocky promontory arrange
themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress
towers
;
and even the awful cone of the
melancholy mixed with that of
its
own
far-off
mountain has a which is cast
solitude,
THE LAMP OF POWER.
66
from
images of nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the 1 leaps of reedj clay, into which chambered cities melt in tlie
their mortality.
TV. Let us, then, see what is this power and majesty, which Nature herself does not disdain to accept fi-om the works of man and what that sublimity in the masses built up by his coralline-like energy, which is honorable, even when transferred by association to the dateless hills, which it needed earthquakes to lift, and deluges to mould. And, first of mere size It might not be thought possible to emulate the sublimity of natural objects in this respect nor would it be, if the architect contended with them in pitched battle. It would not be well to build pyramids in the valley and St. Peter's, among its many other errors, of Chamouni ;
:
;
;
counts for not the least injurious
its
But imagine
position on the slope of an
placed on the plain of Marengo, or, like the Superga of Turin, or like La Salute at Yenice The fact is, that the apprehension of the size of inconsiderable
hill.
it
!
natural objects, as well as of architecture, depends
more on
fortunate excitement of the imagination than on measurements
by the eye
and the architect has a peculiar advantage in being upon the sight, sucli magnitude as he can command. There are few rocks, even among the Alps, that have a clear vertical fall as high as the choir of Beauvais and if we secure a good precipice of wall, or a sheer and unbroken flank of tower, and place them whei'e there are no enormous natural features to oppose them, we shall feel in them no want ;
able to press close
;
of sublimity of size.
oftener
And
though one
in this repect,
man
it
may be matter
of encouragement
also of regret, to observe
how much
destroys natural sublimity, than nature crushes
human power.
need much to humiliate a mounsometimes do it I never look up to the Col de Balme from Chamouni, without a violent feeling of provo-
tain.
A hut
cation against
walls
form
It does not
will
its
;
hospitable
little
whose bright white on the green ridge, and
cabin,
a visibly four-square spot
entirely destroy all idea of its elevation.
often
mar
a
whole landscape, and
A
dethi'one' a
single villa will
dynasty of
hills,
THE LAMP OF POWER.
67
and the Acropolis of Athens, Parthenon and all, has, I believe, been dwarfed into a model by the palace lately built beneath it. The fact is, that hills are not so high as we fancy them, to the actual impression of no mean comparatiye added the sense of the toil of manly hand and thought, a sublimity is reached, which nothing but gross error in arrangement of its parts can destroy. Y. While, therefore, it is not to be supposed that mere size will ennoble a mean design, yet eyery increase of magnitude will bestow upon it a certain degree of nobleness so that it is well to determine at first, whether the building is to be marlcedly beautiand if the latter, not to be withheld by ful or markedly sublime respect to smaller parts from reaching largeness of scale proyid-
and,
when
size, is
:
;
;
ed only, that it be eyidently in the architect's power to reach at least that degree of magnitude which is the lowest at which sublimity begins, rudely definable as that which will liying figure look less than life beside
of most of our
modern buildings them and
uniyersal excellence in
;
it.
It is the
we would
that
make
a
misfortune
fain haye an
so part of the funds
must go
in painting, part in gilding, part in fitting up, part in painted
windows, part in small steeples, part in ornaments here and there and neither the windows, nor the steeple, nor the ornaments, are worth their materials. For there is a crust about the impressible part of men's minds, which must be pierced ;
through before they can be touched to the quick and though we may prick at it and scratch it in a thousand separate places, ;
haye let it alone if we do not come through somewhere with a deep thrast and if we can gi^-e such a thrust anywhere, there is no need of another it need not be eyen so " wide as a church ,door," so that it be enough. And mere weight will do this it is a clumsy way of doing it, but an ef-
we might
as well
:
;
;
and the apathy which cannot be pierced through by a small steeple, nor shone through by a small window, can be broken through in a moment by the mere weight fectual
one, too
of a great wall.
;
Let, therefore, the architect
resources, choose his point of attack size, let
him abandon
decoration
;
for,
first,
who
has not large
and,
if
he choose
unless they are concen-
THE LAMP OF
68
POTVEP,.
and numerous euongli to make their concentration con spicuous, all his ornaments together would not be worth one huge stone. And the choice must be a decided one, without compromise. It must be no question whether his capitals would not look better with a little carving let him leave them huge as blocks or whether his arches should not have richer architraves let him throw them a foot higher, if he can a yard more across the nave mil be worth more to him than a and another fathom of outer \vall, than tesselated pavement an army of pinnacles. The limitation of size must be only in the uses of the building, or in the ground at his disposal. YI. That limitation, however, being by such circumstances determined, by what means, it is to be next asked, may the actrated,
—
;
—
;
;
tual
magnitude be best displayed
since
;
it
seldom, perhaps
is
never, that a building of any pretension to size looks so large as it
is.
The appearance
of a ligure in any distant,
pecially in any upper, parts of
we have
es-
under-estimated the magnitude of those parts.
It has often its
more
will almost always prove that
it
been observed that a building, in order to show
magnitude, must be seen
all at
once.
It
would, perhaps, be
must be bounded as much as possible by continuous lines, and that its extreme jjoints should be seen all at once or we may state, in simpler terms still, that it must have one visible bounding line from top to bottom, and from end to This bounding line from top to bottom may either be end. inclined inwards, and the mass, therefore, pyramidical or veror inclined outwards, tical, and the mass form one grand cliff better to say,
;
;
;
as in the
advancing fronts of old houses, and, in a
sort, in
the
heavy cornices or heads. Now, in all these cases, if the bounding line be violently bro ken if the cornice project, or the upper portion of the pyra-
Greek temple, and
in all buildings with
;
mid
recede, too violently, majesty will be lost
building cannot be seen cornice no part of
continuity of
its
line, therefore,
more
fatal
it is
all at
once,
necessarily concealed
terminal line
is
;
not because the
—for in the case of a heavy —but
because the
broken, and the length of that But the error is, of course,
cannot be estimated.
when much
of the building
is
also concealed
;
as in
!
THE LAMP OF POWEK. the well
known
case of the recession of the
and, from the greater
number
69
dome
of St. Peter's,
of points of view, in churches
whose highest portions, whether dome or tower, are over their cross. Thus there is only one point from which the size of the Cathedral of Florence is felt and that is from the corner of the Via de' Balestrieri, opposite the south-east angle, where it happens that the dome is seen rising instantly above the apse and transepts. In all cases in which the tower is over the cross, the grandeur and height of the tower itself are lost, because there is but one line down which the eye can trace the whole height, and that is in the inner angle of the cross, not easily discerned. Hence, while, in symmetry and feeling, such designs may often have pre-eminence, yet, where the height of the tower itseK is to be made apparent, it must be at the west end, or, better still, detached as a campanile. Imagine the loss to the Lombard churches if their campaniles were carried only ;
to their present height over their crosses of Eouen,
place of
if
its
the
;
or to the Cathedral
Tour de Beurre were made
central, in the
present debased spire
we have to do with tower or must be one bounding line from base to coping;
VII. Whether, therefore, wall, there
and
I
am much
inclined, myself, to love the true vertical, or
the vertical, with a solemn frown of projection (not a scowl),
Yecchio of Florence. This character is alby the poets with slight foundation indeed, real rocks being little given to overhanging but with excellent judgment for the sense of threatening conveyed by this form is a nobler character than that of mere size. And, as in the Palazzo
ways given
to rocks
;
—
;
in buildings, this threatening should be into their mass.
A mere
whole wall must, Jupiter
somewhat
projecting shelf like,
nod
is
carried
down
not enough, the
as well as frown.
Hence,
J
think the propped machicolations of the Palazzo Yecchio and
Duoino of Florence far grander headings than any form oi Greek cornice. Sometimes the projection may be throwi* lower, as in the Doge's palace of Yenice, where the chief appearance of it is above the second arcade or it may become a grand swell from the ground, as the head of a ship of the line ;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
70 rises
from
This
tlie sea.
is
very nobly attained by the projecTour de Beurre at
tion of the niches in the third story of the
Rouen. YITI. in height,
What is
is
needful in the setting forth of magnitude
gathered well together.
how mistakenly
it
—
let it
be
be noted with
re-
and other mighty buildings of
its
in area
it
It is especially to
spect to the Palazzo Vecchio order,
marking
right also in the
has been stated that
dimension, in
order to become impressive, should be expanded either in height or length, but not equally whereas, rather it will be found that those buildings seem on the whole the vastest which have been gathered up into a mighty square, and which look as if they had been measured by the angel's rod, " the length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal," and herein something is to be taken notice of, which I believe not to be :
among our
sufficiently, if at all, considered
Of
the
many broad
divisions
me more
be considered, none appear to into buildings interest
is
whose
interest
architects.
under which architecture in their walls,
is
in the lines dividing their walls.
temple the wall
is
as
nothing
;
may
significant than that
and those whose In the Greek
the entire interest
is
in the de-
tached columns and the frieze they bear in French Flamboyant, and in our detestable Perpendicular, the object is to get rid of the wall surface, and keep the eye altogether on tracery of line in Eomanesque work and Egyptian, the wall is a confessed and honored member, and the light is often allowed to ;
;
on large areas of it, variously decorated. Kow, both these principles are admitted by Nature, the one in her woods and but the thickets, the other in her plains, and cliffs, and waters latter is pre-eminently the principle of power, and, in some For, whatever infinity of fair form there sense, of beauty also. fall
;
may be
in the
maze of the
forest, there is a fairer, as I think,
and I hardly know that assowhich I would exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some smooth, broad, human-hke in the surface of the quiet lake
;
ciation of shaft or tracery, for
Nevertheless, if breadth is to be beautiful, its substance must in some sort be beautiful; and we must not
front of marble.
THE LAMP OF POWER. hastily
condemn the
71
exclusive resting of the northern architects
in divided lines, until at least
we have remembered
the differ-
ence between a blank surface of Caen stone, and one mixed
from Genoa and Carrara, of serpentine with snow but as regards abstract power and awfulness, there is no question without breadth of surface it is in vain to seek them, and it matters little, so that the surface be wide, bold and unbroken, whether the light of heaven upon it, and the it be of brick or of jasper weight of earth in it, are all we need for it is singular how forgetful the mind may become both of material and workmanship, if only it have space enough over which to range, and to remind it, however feebly, of the joy that it has in contemplating the flatness and sweep of great plains and broad And it is a noble thing for men to do this with their cut seas. stone or moulded clay, and to make the face of a wall look inor even if finite, and its edge against the sky like an horizon :
;
;
:
:
less
than this be reached,
it is still
delightful to
mark the play
its broad surface, and to see by how many and gradations of tinting and shadow, time and storm will set their wild signatures upon it and how in the rising or declining of the day the unbroken twilight rests long and luridly on its high lineless forehead, and fades away untraceably down its tiers of confused and countless stone. IX. This, then, being, as I think, one of the peculiar elements of sublime architecture, it may be easily seen how necessarily consequent upon the love of it will be the choice of a form approaching to the square for the main outline. For, in whatever direction the building is contracted, in and that direction the eye will be drawn to its terminal lines
of passing light on artifices
;
;
the sense of surface will only be at
its fullest
when
those lines
Thus the
are removed, in every direction, as far as j^ossible.
square and circle are pre-eminently the areas of power those bounded
by purely
with their relative
solids,
among
and these, the cube and sphere, and relative
straight or curved lines
;
solids of progression (as in the investigation of the laws of pro-
portion I shall call those masses which are generated
by the
progression of an area of given form along a line in a given
;;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
72
direction), the square
of utmost
power
and cylindrical column, are the elements
in all architectural arrangements.
On
the
other hand, grace and perfect proportion require an elongation in
some one
direction
:
and a sense of jDower
may
be communi-
cated to this form of magnitude by a continuoiis series of any
marked
features, sucli as the
while yet
we
feel,
city, that it is
us,
from
eye
may
be unable to number
their boldness, decision,
not any confusion or indistinctness of form.
ent of continued aisles,
of
all
and simpli-
indeed their multitude which has embarrassed series
This expedi-
forms the sublimity of arcades and
ranges of columns, and, on a smaller
altogether to weary.
possible
architect has choice of
ated with
its
own kind
two
Kow,
tyj)es of
it
is
is
evident" that
of interest or decoration
;
in all
imthe
form, each properly associ-
when
or greatest area, to be chosen especially
be the subject of thought
those
scale, of
Greek mouldings, of which, repeated as they now are the meanest and most familiar forms of our furniture, it
:
the square,
the surface
and the elongated
area,
is
to
when the
divisions of the surface are to be the subjects of thought.
Both these orders of form, as I think nearly every other source of power and beauty, are marvellously united in that building which I fear to weary the reader by bringing forward too frethe Doge's palace at quently, as a model of all perfection square its principal hollow Venice its general arrangement, a facade, an oblong, elongated to the eye by a range of thirtyfour small arches, and thirty-five columns, while it is separated by a richly canopied window in the centre, into two massive divisions, whose height and length are nearly as four to five the arcades which give it length being confined to the lower
—
:
;
stories, and the upper, between its broad windows, left a mighty surface of smooth mai-ble, chequered with blocks of It would be impossible, I bealternate rose-color and white. lieve, to invent a more magnificent an-angement of all that is in building most dignified and most fair. X. In the Lombard Eomanesque, tlie two principles are more fused into each other, as most characteristically in the cathedral of Pisa length of proportion, exhibited by an aiT-ade :
;
THE LA51P OF POWER. of twenty-one arches above,
the nave
and
73
fifteen below, at the side of
bold square proportion in the front
;
that front
;
divided into arcades, placed one above the other, the lowest its pillars engaged, of seven arches, the four uppermost thrown out boldlj from the receding wall, and casting deep shadows the first, above the basement, of nineteen arches the second of twenty-one the third and fourth of eight each
with
;
;
sixty-three arches in
al]
;
circular headed,
all
;
with
all
cylin-.
and the lowest with square panellings, set diagonally under their semicircles, an universal ornament in this the apse, a semicircle, with a semistyle (Plate XII. fig. 7) dome for its roof, and thiee ranges of circular arches for its in the interior of the nave, a range of exterior ornament circular arches below a circular-arched triforium, and a vast flat surface, observe, of wall decorated with striped marble above drical shafts,
;
;
;
the whole arrangement (not a peculiar one, but characteristic of
every church of the period majestic
;
not perhaps the
form which the mind
of
;
man
my
and, to
fairest,
feeling, the
most
but the mightiest type of
has ever conceived) based exclu-
on associations of the circle and the square. am now, however, trenching upon ground which
sively I
to reserve for
more
other aesthetic cpiestions give*n will justify
my
:
but I believe the examples I have
vindication of the square form from the
reprobation which has been lightly throwTi upon this
be done for
it
I desire
careful examination, in connection with
it
nor might
;
only as a niling outline, but as occurring
constantly in the best mosaics, and in a thousand forms of
minor decoration, which I cannot now examine assertion of
its
majesty being always as
it
is
;
my
chief
an exponent of
space and surface, and therefore to be chosen, either to rule in their outlines, or to adorn
by masses of
portions of buildings in which surface
is
light to
and shade those
be rendered precious
or honorable.
XI. Thus
far, then, of
general forms, and of the modes in
whicli the scale of architecture
is
best to be exhibited.
Let us
next consider the manifestations of power which belong to details
and
lesser divisions,
its
;;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
74
The
first
concealed so
;
division
we have
but I think
it
unwise
for this reason, that there
;
to regard,
is
(as
is
the inevitable one
may, by great
It is true that this division
of niasonrv.
art,
be
well as dishonest) to do
a very noble character always
to be obtained by the opposition of large stones to divided masonry, as by shafts and columns of one piece, or massy
and architraves, to wall work of bricks or smaller stones and there is a certain organization in the management of such parts, like that of the continuous bones of the skeleton, opposed lintels
to the vertebrae,
which
it
is
not well to suiTender.
I hold,
and other reasons, the masonry of a and also that, with certain rare exbuilding is to be shown ceptions (as in the cases of chapels and shrines of most finished workmanship), the smaller the building, the more necessary it For if a is that its masonry should be bold, and vice versa. building be under the mark of average magnitude, it is not in our power to increase its apparent size (too easily measurable) by any proportionate diminution in the scale of its masonry. But it may be often in our power to give it a certain nobility by building it of massy stones, or, at all events, introducing such into its make. Thus it is impossible that there should therefore, that, for this
:
evei'
but there is a be majesty in a cottage built of brick in the rude and irregular piling ;
marked element of sublimity
Cumberand Scotland. Their size is not one whit diminished, though four or five stones reach at their angles from the ground to the eaves, or though a native rock happen to project conOn veniently, and to be built into the framework of the wall. of the rocky walls of the mountain cottages of Wales, land,
the other hand, after a building has once reached the majestic its
size,
it
matters, indeed, comparatively
masonry be large or
small, but if
it
little
mark
of
whether
be altogether large,
it
sometimes duninish the magnitude for want of a measure altogether small, it will suggest ideas of poverty in material,
will if
or deficiency in mechanical resource, besides interfering in
many
cases with the lines of the design,
workmanship.
A
and delicacy of the
very unhappy instance of such interference
exists in the facade of the
church of
St.
Madeleine
at Paris,
THE LAMP OF POWEK. where the cohimns, being equal
size,
with visible
75
built of veiy small stones of nearly
joints,
look as
if
they were covered with
a close trellis. So, then, that masonry will be generally the most magniticent which, without the use of materials systematically small or large, acconnnodates itself, naturally to the conditions
and structure of
its
and frankly,
work, and displays alike
power of dealing with the
vastest masses, and of accompurpose with the smallest, sometimes heaping rock upon rock with Titanic commandment, and anon binding the its
plishing
its
dusty remnants and edgy splinters into springing vaults and
And if the nobility of this confessed and masonry were more commonly felt, we should not lose the dignity of it by smoothing surfaces and fitting joints. The sums which we waste in chiselling and polishing stones which would have l)een better left as they came from the quarry would often raise a building a story higher. Only in this swelling domes.
natural
there
to be a certain respect for material also
is
build in marble, or in any limestone, the
workmanship
will
make
its
known
absence seem slovenly
:
for if
we
ease of the ;
well to take advantage of the stone's softness, and to
will
be
make
the
it
design delicate and dependent upon smoothness of chiselled surfaces
most
:
but
if
cases, to cast
make
we
build in granite or lava,
away the labor necessary
to
it
is
a folly, in
smooth
it
;
it is
and to leave the blocks radely squared. I do not deny a certain splendor and sense of power in the smoothing of granite, and in the entire subduing of its iron resistance to the human supremacy. But, in most cases, I believe, the labor and time necessary to do this would be better spent in another way and that to raise a building to a height of a hundred feet with rough blocks, is better than to raise it to seventy with smooth ones. There is also a magnihcence in the natural cleavage of the stone to which the art must indeed be great that pretends to be equivalent and a stern expression of bi'otherhood with the mountain heart from which it has been rent, ill-exchanged for a glistering obedience to the rule and measure of men. His eye must be dehcate indeed, who would desire to see thePitti palace polished. wiser to
the design granitic
itself,
;
;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
76
XIL Next
the divisions of the design sarily, eithei' into
lines
;
which
we have
to those of tlie masoniy, itself.
masses of light and shade, or else by traced
latter
must
some
lights, cast a certain
breadth of shade, but which may, nevertheless,
be always true
produced by
be, indeed, themselves
incisions or projections which, in
cut,
to consider
Tliose divisions are, neces-
lines, in distant effect.
if
finely
enough
I call, for instance,
such panelling as that of Henry the Seventh's chapel, pure linear division.
Now,
it
does not seem to
wall surface
is
me
sufficiently recollected, that a
to an architect simply
what a white canvas
is
to A painter, with this only difference, that the wall has already a sublimity in
considered, on
its
height, substance, and other characters already
which
it is
more dangerous to break than to And, for my own part,
touch with shade the canvas surface.
I think a smooth, broad, freshly laid surface of gesso a fairer
thing than most pictures I see painted on
it
;
much more,
a
noble surface of stone than most architectural features which But however this may be, the canvas it is caused to assume. and wall are supposed to be given, and it is our craft to divide
them.
And
the principles on which this division
as regards relation of quantities, the
same
is
to
be made, are
in architecture as in
painting, or indeed, in any other art whatsoever, only the painter is
by
his varied subject partly permitted, partly compelled, to
symmetry of architectural light and shade, and to adopt arrangements apparently free and accidental. So that in modes of grouping there is much difference (though no opposition) between the two arts; but in rules of quantity, both are alike, so far forth as their commands of means are alike. For the architect, not being able to secure always the same depth or decision of shadow, nor to add to its sadness by color (because even when color is employed, it cannot follow the moving shade), is compelled to make many allowances, and avail himself of many contrivances, which the painter needs neither dispense with the
consider nor employ.
XIII. Of these limitations the
first
consequence
is,
that
;
THE LAMP OF positive shade
a
is
POTVTER.
77
more necessary and more sublime thing in For the latter being light with an under tone throughout, and to
an architect's hands than in a painter's.
temper
able to
make
his
delightful with sweet color, or awful with lurid color,
it
and to represent distance, and air, and sun, by the depth of it, and fill its whole space with expression, can deal with an enormous, nay, almost with an universal extent of it, and the best painters most delight in such extent but as light, with the ar;
always liable to become
chitect, is nearly
full
sunshine seen upon solid surface, his only
means of sublimity, are weight, the
Power
definite shades.
of architecture
and untempered
rests,
So
may be
and his chief
and depend on
that, after size
said to
the quantity (whether measured in space or intenseness) of
shadow
and
;
seems to me, that the reality of
it
the use and influence they have in the daily
opposed
works of
to those
art
great as there
is
life
its
works, and of
men
(as
with which we have nothing to do
but in times of rest or of pleasure) require of express a kind of
its
it
that
it
should
human sympathy, by a measure of darkness as in human life and that as the great poem and :
great fiction generally affect us most
by the majesty of their masses of shade, and cannot take hold upon us if they affect a continuance of lyric sprightliness, but must be serious often, and sometimes melancholy, of this wild world of ours cently
human
else
;
they do not express the truth
of architecture,
art
must be, in this magnifisome equivalent expression
so there
and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery can only give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by
for the trouble
and
this
it
:
upon its front, and the shadow of its recess. So that Rembrandtism is a noble manner in architecture, though a false one in painting and I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface. And among the first habits that a young architect should learn, is that of thinking in the frown
;
shadow, not looking
at a design in
but conceiving
it
dusk leaves
when the
it
;
it
as
its
miserable liny skeleton
;
when the dawn lights it, and the stones vnW be hot and its crannies cool
will be
when its
lizards will bask
on the one, and the birds build
in
THE LAMP OF POWEE.
78
Let hiui design with the sense of cold and heat
the other.
upon him
;
let
him
cnt out the shadows, as
men
dig wells in nn-
and lead along the lights, as a founder does his hot metal let him keep the full command of both, and see His paper that he knows how they fall, and where they fade. lines and proportions are of no value all that he has to do must be done by spaces of light and darkness and his business is to see that the one is broad and bold enough not to be swallowed up by twilight, and the other deep enough not to be dried like watered plains
;
;
:
;
a shallow pool
And ties
by a noon-day sun.
that this
may
be, the first necessity
of shade or light, whatever they
may
is
that the quanti-
be, shall
be thrown
into masses, either of something like equal weight, or else large
masses of the one relieved with small of the other
;
but masses
of one or other kind there must be. JSTo design that is divided at all, and is not divided into masses, can ever be of the small-
law respecting breadth, precisely the same and painting, is so important, that the examination of its two principal applications will include most of the conditions of majestic design on which I would at present insist. est value
:
this great
in architecture
XIY.
Painters are in the habit of speaking loosely of masses
of light and shade,
meaning thereby any
large spaces of either.
Nevertheless, it is convenient sometimes to restrict the term " mass " to the portions to which proper f onn belongs, and to call
the
field
on which such forms are traced,
in foliage with light,
projecting boughs or stems,
with intervals of shade
;
interval.
Thus.
we have masses
of
and, in light skies with dark
clouds upon them, masses of shade, with intervals of light.
more necessary for there are two marked styles dependent upon it one in which the forms are drawn ^vith light upon darkness, as in Greek sculpture and pillars the other in which they are drawn with darkness upon light, as in early Gothic foliation. Now, it is not in the designer's power determinately to vary degrees and places of darkness, but it is altogether in his power to vaiy in This distinction
is,
in architecture,
still
;
:
;
determined directions his degrees of light. H ence, the use of the dark mass characterises, generally, a trenchant style of design,
;
THE LAMP OF POWER. in
which
darks and lights are both
tlie
sharp edges
;
flat,
79
and terminated bj is in the same
while the use of the light mass
way associated with a softened and full manner of design, in which the darks are much warmed by reflected lights, and the lights are rounded and melt into them. The term applied by Milton to Doric bas-relief " bossy," is, as is generally the case with Milton's epithets, the most comprehensive and expressive of this manner, which the English language contains; while the term which specifically describes the chief member of early Gothic decoration, feiiille, foil or leaf, is equally significative of
—
a
flat
space of shade.
We shall shortly consider the actual modes in which two kinds of mass have been treated. And, first, of the light, or rounded, mass. The modes in which relief was secured for the more projecting forms of bas-relief, by the Greeks, have been too well described by Mr. Eastlake * to need recapitulation the conclusion which forces itself upon us from the facts he has remarked, being one on which I shall have occasion farther to insist presently, that the Greek workman cared for shadow only as a dark field wherefrom his light figure or design might be intelligibly detached his attention was concentrated on the one aim at readableness, and clearness of accent and all composition, all harmony, nay, the very vitality and XV.
these
;
:
energy of separate groups were, when necessary, sacrificed to plain speaking. Nor was there any predilection for one kind
form rather than another. Rounded forms were, in the columns and principal decorative members, adopted, not for of
their own sake, but as characteristic of the things represented. They were beautifully rounded, because the Greek habitually
did well what he had more than squareness
;
with the curved ones
to do, not because he
in
the cornice and triglyph, and the mass
of the pillar was divided
destroyed
much
of
loved roundness
severely rectilinear forms were associated
its
by
a fluting, which, in distant eifect,
What power
breadth.
of light these
was diminished in successive ]-efinements and additions of ornament and continued to diminish
primal ari-angements
left,
;
* Literature of the Fine Arts.
— Essay on Bas-relief.
THE LAMP or POIVER.
80 througli
Roman
work, until the confinnation of tlie circular Its lovely and simple line taught
arch as a decorative feature.
the eye to ask for a similar boundary of solid form
;
the
dome
followed, and necessarily the decorative masses were thence-
forward managed with reference
to,
the chief feature of the building.
Byzantine
architects, a
and in sympathy with,
Hence
arose,
among
the
system of ornament, entirely restrained
within the supei-fices of curvilinear masses, on which the light
unbroken gradation as on a dome or column, while the illumined surface was nevertheless cut into details of sinSomething is, of course, gular and most ingenious intricacy. fell
with
as
to be allowed for the less dexterity of the easier to cut
down
workmen
;
it
being
into a solid block, than to arrange the pro-
Greek capital: such leafy capiby the Byzantines with skill preference of the massive form was
jecting portions of leaf on the tals
are nevertheless executed
enough to show that their by no means compulsory, nor can
I think
it
unwise.
contrary, while the arrangements of line are far
On
more
the
artful
Greek capital, the Byzantine light and shade are as inmore grand and masculine, based on that quality of pure gradation, which nearly all natural objects j^ossess, and the attainment of which is, in fact, the first and most palpable
in the
contestably
purpose in natural arrangements of grand form. The rolling heap of the thunder-cloud, divided by rents, and multiplied by wreaths, yet gathering
them
all
into
its
broad, torrid, and tow-
midnight darkness oj)posite the scarcely less majestic heave of the mountain side, all torn and traversed by depth of defile and ridge of rock, yet never losing the unity of its illumined swell and shadowy decline and the head of every mighty tree, rich with tracery of leaf and bough, yet terminated against the sky by a tnie line, and rounded by a ering zone, and
its
;
;
green horizon, which, multiplied in the distant forest, makes it all these mark, for a great and honored
look bossy from above
;
which the Byzantine ornaments were designed and show us that those builders had truer sympathy with what God made majestic, than the self-contempla-
law, that diffusion of light for ;
ting and self-contented Greek.
I
know that they are barbaric
in
Plate
SKioL
V
BhBia R^pjijitji
THE LAMP OF POTTER.
81
but there is a power in their barbarism of sterner power not sophistic nor penetrative, but embracing and mysterious a power faithful more than thoughtful, which conceived and felt more than it created a power that neither comprehended nor ruled itself, but worked and wandered as it and which could not listed, like mountain streams and winds coiiiparison
;
tone, a
;
;
;
rest in the expression or seizure of finite
form.
It could not
bury itself in acanthus leaves. Its imagery was taken from the shadows of the storms and hills, and had fellowship with the night and day of the earth itself. XVI. I have endeavored to give some idea of one of the hollow balls of stone which, surrounded by flowing leafage, occur in varied succession on the architrave of the central gate of St. Mark's at Venice, in Plate singularly beautiful in
its
It
I. tig. 2.
seems to
me
unity of lightness, and delicacy of
with breadth of
light. It looks as if its leaves had been and had risen and shut themselves into a bud at some sudden touch, and would presently fall back again into their wild flow. The cornices of San Michele of Lucca, seen above and below the arch, in Plate VI., show the effect of heavy leafage and thick stems arranged on a surface whose curve is a simple quadrant, the light dying from off them as it turns. It would be difficult, as I think, to invent anything more noble and I insist on the broad character of their arrange-
detail,
sensitive,
;
ment the more greater skill in
richest pieces of
v.,
is
earnestly, because,
its
management,
Gothic design.
it
afterwards modified by
became
The
characteristic of the
capital,
given in Plate
of the noblest period of the Venetian Gothic
;
and
it is
interesting to see the play of leafage so luxuriant, absolutely
subordinated to the breadth of two masses of light and shade. is done by the Venetian architect, with a power as irre-
What
sistible as that of
the waves of his surrounding sea,
the masters of the Cis- Alpine Gothic,
more
is
done by
timidly, and with
manner somewhat cramped and cold, but not less expressing same great law. The ice spiculre of the North, and its broken sunshine, seem to have image in, and
a
their assent to the
influence on the work.; and the leaves which, under the Ital-
THE LAMP OF POWER.
82
and bow down over their black of noon-day heat, are, in the North, crisped and frost-bitten, wrinkled on the edges, and But the rounding of the i-uling sparkling as if with dew.
ian's
hand,
and
roll,
flow,
shadows, as in the weariness
form
is
not
sought and
less
felt.
In the lower part of Plate
I.
from the is the finial similar in feeling to the Byexactly It is cathedral of St. Lo. zantine capital, being rounded under the abacus by four branches of thistle leaves, whose stems, springing from the angles, bend outwards and fall back to the head, throwing their jaggy spines down upon the full light, forming two sharp I could not get near enough to this finial to see quatrefoils. but I ^nth what degree of delicacy the spines were cut have sketched a natural group of thistle-leaves beside it, that the reader may compare the types, and see with what mastery they are subjected to the broad form of the whole. The small capital from Coutances, Plate XIII. fig. 4, which is of earlier date, is of simpler elements, and exhibits the principle still more clearly but the St. Lo finial is only one of a thousand instances which might be gathered even from the fully deof the pediment given in Plate
II.,
;
;
veloped flamboyant, the feeling of breadth being retained in minor ornaments long after it had been lost in the main de-
and sometimes capriciously renewing itself throughout, as in the cylindrical niches and pedestals which enrich the porches of Caudebec and Kouen. Fig. 1, Plate I. is the sim-
sign,
plest of those of
Rouen
;
in the
more
elaborate there are four
projecting sides, divided by buttresses into eight rounded com-
even the whole bulk of the outer pier is same feeling and though composed partly of concave recesses, partly of square shafts, partly of statues and tabernacle work, aiTanges itself as a whole into one richly partments of tracery
;
treated with the
;
rounded tower.
XYII.
I cannot here enter into the curious questions con-
nected with the
management
of larger curved surfaces
;
into
the causes of the difference in proportion necessary to be ob-
nor into the reasons ornamented, while surface
served between round and square towers
whv
a
column
or ball
mav be
riclilv
;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
83
decorations would be inexpedient on masses like the Castle of St.
Augelo, the tomb of Cecilia Metella, or the dome of St. Bnt what has been above said of the desireableness of
Peter's.
more forcibly to those remembered that we are, at serenity and power may be carried
serenity in plane surfaces, applies
which are curved
and
;
it is
how this how
present, considering
minor lower form may, upon
divisions, not
into
still
to be
the ornamental character of the
occasion, be permitted to fret the calm-
Nor, though the instances we have examined are of globular or cylindrical masses chiefly, is it to be thought that breadth can only be secured by such alone many of the noblest forms are of subdued curvature, someness of the higher.
:
times hardly visible
;
but curvature of some degree there must
any measure of grandeur in a small mass marked distinctions between one artist and another, in the point of skill, will be found in their the fall relative delicacy of perception of rounded surface power of expressing the perspective, foreshortening and vabe, in order to secure
of
One
liffht.
of the most
;
rious undulation of such surface diflicult is,
is,
perhaps, the last and most
perhaps, no tree which has baffled
more than the common black spruce see any representation of
ceived as a set of is
For instance
attainment of the hand and eye.
if it
grew
it
fir.
It
is
there
rare that
other than caricature.
in one plane, or as a section of a tree, with
boughs symmetrically dependent on opposite sides. It would be
grew
as it is
drawn.
But the power
that chandelier-like section.
of leafage, which
them
we
It is con-
thought formal, unmanageable, and ugly.
if it
:
the landscape painter
it
holds
It
is
of the tree
in the dark,
out on
its
flat,
is
It so,
not in
solid tables
strong arms, curved
and spreading towards the extremity like a hand. It is vain to endeavor to paint the sharp, grassy, intricate leafage, until this ruling form has been secured; and in the boughs that approach the spectator, the foreshortening of it is like that of a wide hill country, ridge and the fingerjust rising over ridge in successive distances slightly over
like shields,
;
like extremities, foreshortened to absolute bluntness, require a
delicacy in the rendering of
them
like that of the
drawing of
;
THE LAMP OF POWER.
^4
the band of the Magdalene upon the vase in Mr. Hogers's Ti-
Get but the back of that
tian.
but 1 cannot name the
artist
foliage,
who
and you have the tree
has thoroughly felt
it.
So, in
drawing and sculpture, it is the power of rounding, softly and perfectly, every inferior mass which preserves the serenity, afi it follows the truth, of Nature, and which demands the A noble deliighes't knowledge and skill from the workman. sign may always be told by the back of a single leaf, and it all
was the sacrifice of this breath and refinement of surface for sharp edges and extravagant undercutting, which destroyed the Gothic mouldings, as the substitution of the line for the light destroyed the Gothic tracery. This change, however, we shall better tion'?
comprehend
after
we have
glanced at the chief condi-
of arrangement of the second kind of mass
;
that
which
and of shadow only. XVIII. We have noted above how the wall surface, composed of rich materials, and covered with costly work, in modes which we shall examine in the next Chapter, became a Its subject of pecuhar interest to the Christian architects. broad flat lights could only be made valuable by points or masses of energetic shadow, which were obtained by the Rois flat,
manesque architect by means of ranges of recessed arcade, in the management of which, however, though all the effect depends upon the shadow so obtained, the eye is still, as in classical architecture, caused to dwell upon the projecting columns, capitals, and wall, as in Plate VI. But with the enlargement of the window, which, in the Lombard and Eomanesque churches, is usually little more than an arched slit, came the conception of the simpler mode of decoration, by penetrations which, seen from within, are forms of light, and, from without, forms of shade. In Italian traceries the eye is exclusively upon the dark forms of the penetrations, and the whole proportion and power of the design are caused to depend upon them. The intermediate spaces are, indeed, in the most perare
fixed
fect early examples, filled with elaborate
ornament was so subdued
as
ornament
;
but this
never to disturb the simplicity
and force of the dark masses
;
and in many instances
is
en-
Pl.it(
VT
THE LAMP OF POWEK. wanting.
tirelj
The composition
of the whole depends on the
proportioning and shaping of the dai'ks that anything can be
more
85
;
and
it
is
impossible
exquisite than their placing in the
head window of the Giotto campanile, Plate IX., or the chm-ch of
Or San
tliem, that
Michele. it is
So entirely does the effect depend upon draw Italian tracery in outline
quite useless to
;
any intention of rendering its effect, it is better to mark Of course, when it is the black spots, and let the rest alone. desired to obtain an accurate rendering of the design, its lines and mouldings are enough but it often happens that works on architecture are of little use, because they afford the reader no means of judging of the effective intention of the arrangeif witli
;
ments which they state. ]^o person, looking at an architectudrawing of the richly foliaged cusps and intervals of Or San Michele, would understand that all this sculpture was extraneous, was a mere added grace, and had nothing to do with tlie real anatomy of the work, and that by a few bold cuttings throuo-li a slab of stone he migiit reach the main effect of it all ral
I have, tlierefore, in
at once.
the plate of the design of Gi-
endeavored especially to mark these -points oi j>urj)ose tliere, as in every other instance, black shadows of a graceful •
otto,
form lying on the white surface of the stone, like dark leaves laid upon snow. Hence, as before observed, the universal
name
of foil applied to such ornaments.
XIX. In order to the obtaining their full effect, it is evident that much caution is necessary in the management of the glass. In the
finest instances, the traceries are
open
lights, either in
towers, as in this design of Giotto's, or in external arcades like that of
the
Campo
Venice
and
it is
;
Santo
at
Pisa or the Doge's palace at
thus only that their full beauty
is
shown.
In
domestic buildings, or in windows of churches necessarily glazed, the glass was usually withdrawn entirely behind the traceries.
Those of the Cathedral of Florence stand quite clear of it, casting their shadows in well detached lines, so as in most lights to give the appearance of a double tracery. In those few instances in which the glass was set in the tracery itseK, as in Or San Michele, the effect of the latter is half destroyed:
;
THE LAMP OF POWEK.
86
perhaps the especial attention paid by Orgagna to his surface
ornament, was connected with the intention of so glazing them.
which
It is singular to see, in late architecture, the glass,
tor-
mented the bolder architects, considered as a valuable means of making the lines of tracery more slender as in the smallest intervals of the windows of Merton College, Oxford, where the glass is advanced about two inches from the centre of the ;
tracery bar (that in the larger spaces being in the middle, as usual), in order to
prevent the depth of shadow from farther
Much
diminishing the apparent interval. the effect of the traceries tant
arrangement.
traceries
;
to this
of the lightness of
seemingly unimpor-
But, generally speaking, glass spoils
much to be wished that it should be them, when it cannot be dispensed with, and
and
well within
owing
is
it is
all
kejjt
that
the most careful and beautiful designs should be reserved for
would be needed. by shadow was, as far as we have hitherto traced it, common to the northern and southern Gothic. But in the carrying out of the system they inHaving marble at his command, and classical stantly diverged. decoration in his sight, the southern architect was able to carve situations
where no
glass
XX. The method
of decoration
the intermediate spaces with exquisite leafage, or to vary his wall surface with inlaid stones.
knew
The northern architect neither
the ancient work, nor possessed the delicate material
and he had no resource but to cover his walls with holes, cut into foiled shapes like those of the windows. This he did, often with great clumsiness, but always with a vigorous sense of composition, and always, observe, depending on the shadows for effect.
Where
the wall was thick and could not be cut
through, and the foilings were large, those shadows did not the entire space
;
fill
but the form was, nevertheless, drawn on the
eye by means of them, and
when
it
was possible, they were cut on
clear through, as in raised screens of pediment, like those
the west front of secure, in all
Bayeux
;
cut so deep in every case, as to
but a direct low front
light, great
breadth of
shadow.
The
spandril, given at
the top of Plate
YIL,
is
from the
— THE LAMP OF POWER.
87
south-western entrance of the Cathedral of Lisieux the most quaint and interesting doors in
soon to be
lost for
;
one of
Normandy, probably
by the continuance of the masonic
ever,
operations which have already destroyed the northern tower. Its
work
is
altogether rude, but full of spirit
spandrils have different,
;
the opposite
though balanced, ornaments very
in-
accurately adjusted, each rosette or star (as the five-rayed figure,
now
quite defaced, in the upper portion appears to liave been)
cut on
its
own
block of stone and fitted in with small nicety,
especially illustrating the point I have above insisted
upon
the architect's utter neglect of the forms of intermediate stone, at this early period.
The the
left,
arcade, of
which a single arch and shaft are given on
forms the flank of the door
;
three outer shafts bearing
three orders within the spandril which I have drawn, and each
of these shafts carried over an inner arcade, decorated above
wdth quatre-foils, cut concave and
filled
disposition exquisitely picturesque
and
w4th leaves, the whole full
of strange play of
and shade. For some time the penetrative ornaments, if so they may be for convenience called, maintained their bold and independlight
ent character.
Then they multiplied and
shallower as they did so
enlarged,
becoming
then they began to run together, one swallowing up, or hanging on to, another, like bubbles in ex;
—
piring foam fig. 4, from a spandril at Bayeux, looks as if it had been blown from a pipe finally, they lost their individual character altogether, and the eye was made to rest on the separating lines of tracery, as we saw before in the window and then came the great change and the fall of the Gothic power. XXI. Figs. 2 and 3, the one a quadrant of the star window ;
;
of the
little chapel close to St. Anastasia at Yerona, and the other a very singular example from the church of the Eremitani
Padua, compared with
one of the ornaments of the closely correspondent conditions of the early Northern and Southern Gothic." But, as we have said, the Italian architects, not being embarrassed for at
transept towers of Eouen,
fig. 5,
show the
decoration of wall surface, and
not
being obliged, like the
;
THE LAMP OF POWER-
88
Nortlimen, to multiply their penetrations, held to the system for some time longer and while they increased the refinement ;
of the ornament, kept the purity of the plan.
That
refine-
ment of ornament was their weak point, however, and opened They fell, like the old the way for the renaissance attack. Bomans, by their luxury, except in the separate instance of the That architecture began with it founded itself on the Byzantine mosaic and fretwork and laying aside its ornaments, one by one, while it fixed its forms by laws more and more severe, stood forth, at last, a model of domestic Gothic, so grand, so complete, so nobly systematised, that, to my mind, there never existed an architecture with so stern a claim to our I do not except even the Greek Doric the Doric reverence. had cast nothing away the fourteenth century Venetian had
magnificent school of Venice. the luxuriance in which
all
others expired
:
;
;
;
away, one by one, for a succession of centuries, every splendor that art and wealth could give it. It had laid down cast
crown and its jewels, its gold and its color, like a king disit had resigned its exertion, like an athlete reposing once capricious and fantastic, it had bound itself by laws invioIt retained nothing lable and serene as those of nature herself but its beauty and its power both the highest, but both reThe Doric flutings were of irregular number the strained. Venetian mouldings were unchangeable. The Doric manner its
robing
;
.
;
—
of ornament admitted
anchorite all
no temptation,
it
was the fasting of an
—the Venetian ornament embraced, while
vegetable and animal forms;
it
it
governed,
was the temperance of a
man, the command of Adam over creation. I do not know so magnificent a marking of human authority as the iron grasp of the Venetian over his own exuberance of imagination the calm and solemn restraint with which, his mind filled with thoughts of flowing leafage and fiery life, he gives those thoughts expression for an instant, and then withdraws within ;
those massy bars and levelled cusps of stone." And his power to do this depended altogether on his
re-
Far from cartaining the forms of the shadows in his sight. rying the eye to the ornaments, upon the stone, he abandoned
Plate
Vm
THE LAMP OF POWEE.
89
and while his mouldings received the most shapely order and symmetry, closely correspondent with that of the Eouen tracery, compare Plates III. and VIII., he
these latter one
by one
;
kept the cusps within them perfectly
with
flat,
traceable
decorated,
if at all,
(Doge's Palace) just
a trefoil (Palazzo Foscari), or fillet
and no more, so that the quatrefoil, cut as sharply as if it had been struck out by a stamp, told
through them
upon the
eye, with all its four black leaves, miles away.
No
knots of flowerwork, no ornaments of any kind, were suffered to interfere with the purity of its
quite sharp
;
form
:
the cusp
is
usually
but slightly truncated in the Palazzo Foscari, and
and the glass ball in that of the Doge window, where there was any, was, as we have seen, thrown back behind the stone-work, that no flashes of light might interfere with its depth. Corrupted f onns, like those of the Casa d'Oro and Palazzo Pisani, and several others, only serve to show the majesty of the common design, XXII. Such are the principal circumstances traceable in the treatment of the two kinds of masses of light and darkness, in the hands of the earlier architects gradation in the one, flatness in the other, and breadth in both, being the qualities sought and exhibited by every possible expedient, up to the period when, as we have before stated, the line was substituted for the mass, as the means of division of surface. Enough has been said to illustrate this, as regards tracery but a word or two is still necessary respecting the mouldings. Those of the earlier times were, in the plurality of instances, composed of alternate square and cylindrical shafts, variously associated and proportioned. Where concave cuttings occur, as in the beautiful west doors of Bayeux, they are between cylindrical shafts, which they throw out into broad light. Tlie eye in all cases dwells on broad surfaces, and commonly upon In course of time, a low ridgy process is seen emerging few. along the outer edge of the cylindrical shaft, forming a line of light upon it and destroying its gradation. Hardly traceable at first (as on the alternate rolls of the north door of Rouen), it grows and pushes out as gradually as a stag's horns: sharp at charged with a simple
;
of the
;
;
THE LAMP OP POWER.
90
on the edge but, becoming prominent, it receives a trunand becomes a definite fillet on the face of the roll. Not yet to be checked, it pushes forward until the roll itself becomes subordinate to it, and is finally lost in a slight swell upon its sides, while the concavities have all the time been deepening and enlarging behind it, until, from a succession of square or cylindrical masses, the whole moulding has become a series of concavities edged by delicate fillets, upon which (sharp lines of first
;
cation,
light, observe) the
eye exclusively
taking place, a similar, though
While
rests.
less
total,
been
this has
change has affected
In Plate I. fig. 2 {a), I have given two Rouen. It will be observed how absolutely the eye rests on the forms of the leaves, and on the three berries in the angle, being in light exactly what the trefoil is in These mouldings nearly adhere to the stone and darkness. In process of time, are very slightly, though sharply, undercut. the attention of the architect, instead of resting on the leaves, These latter were elongated (5, from the went to the stalltS. south door of St. Lo) and to exhibit them better, the deep concavity was cut behind, so as to throw them out in lines of light. The system was carried out into continually increasing intricacy, until, in the transepts of Beauvais, we'have brackets and flamboyant traceries, composed of twigs without any leaves This, however, is a partial, though a sufficiently characat all. teristic, caprice, the leaf being never generally banished, and in the mouldings round those same doors, beautifully managed, but itself rendered liny by bold marking of its ribs and veins, and by turning up, and crisping its edges, large intermediate spaces being always left to be occupied by intertwining stems The trefoil of light formed by berries or (<7, from Caudebec). acorns, though diminished in value, was never lost up to the the flowerwofk
itself.
from the transepts
of
;
;
last
period of living Gothic.
XXIII. tions,
It is interesting to
its
the influence of the corrupting principle
seen enough of
—
follow into
it
a conclusion a
many
I'amifica-
but
we have
;
to enable us to draw^ our practical conclusion
thousand times
felt
and reiterated
perience and advice of every practised
artist,
in the ex-
but never often
THE LAMP OF POWEE.
91
enough repeated, never profoundly enough felt. Of composition and invention much has been written, it seems to me vainly, for men cannot be taught to compose or to invent of ;
these, the highest elements of
therefore, speak
;
Power
in architecture, I do not,
nor, here, of that peculiar restraint in the
imitation of natural forms, which constitutes the dignity of
Of
even the most luxuriant work of the great periods. restraint I sliall say a woi'd or
ing
now
two
Chapter
in the next
only the conclusion, as practically useful as
tain, that
it
this
press-
;
is cer-
the relative majesty of buildings depends more on
the weight and vigor of their masses than on any other
attri-
mass of everything, of bulk, of light, of darkness, of color, not mere sum of any of these, but breadth of them not broken light, nor scattered darkness, nor divided weight, but solid stone, broad sunshine, starless shade. Time would fail me altogether, if I attempted to follow out the range of the principle there is not a feature, however apparently trifling, to which it cannot give power. The wooden fillings of belfry lights, necessary to protect their interiors from rain, bute of their design
:
;
;
England usually divided into a number of neatly execross-bars, like those of Venetian blinds, which, of course, become as conspicuous in their sharpness as they are are in
cuted
uninteresting in their precise carpentry, multiplying, more-
which directly contradict those of met by three or four do"\Amright penthouse roofs, reaching each from within instead of the window to the outside shafts of its mouldings the horrible row of ruled lines, the space is thus divided into four or five grand masses of shadow, with grey sloj)es of roof above, bent or yielding into all kinds of delicious swells and curves, and covered with warm tones of moss and lichen. Very often the thing is more delightful than the stone-work itself, and all because it is broad, dark, and simple. It matters not how clumsy, how common, the means are, that get weight and shadow sloping roof, jutting porch, projecting balcony, hollow niche, massy gargoyle, frowning parapet get but gloom and -simplicity, and all good things will follow in their place over, the horizontal lines
the architecture.
Abi'oad, such necessities are
;
—
;
THE LAMP OF POWEE.
02
and time
do but design with the owl's eyes
;
and you will
first,
gain the falcon's afterwards.
XXIY. so simple
:
out pardon
I it
am
grieved to have to insist upon what seems
looks trite and
me
commonplace when
it is
written,
anything but an accepted or understood principle in practice, and the less excusably forgotten, because
it is,
this
of
all
for
:
it is
the great and true laws of
The executive
art,
the easiest
complying with its demands cannot be too earnestly, too frankly asserted. There are not nve men in the kingdom who could compose, not twenty who could cut, the foliage with which the windows of Or San IVlichele are adorned but there is many a village clergyman who could invent and dispose its black openings, and not a village mason who could not cut them. Lay a few clover or wood-roof leaves on white paper, and a little alteration in their positions will suggest figui'es which, cut boldly through a slab of marble, would be worth more window traceries than an architect could draw in a summer's day. There are few men in the world who could design a Greek capital there are few who could not produce some vigor of effect with leaf designs on 10 obey.
facility of
;
;
Byzantine block
:
few who could design
iiamboyant pediment
;
like the Strozzi palace.
a Palladian front, or a
many who could build a square mass But I know not how it is, unless that
our English hearts have more oak than stone in them, and have more filial sympathy with acorns than Alps but all that we do is small and mean, if not worse thin, and wasted, and unsubstantial. It is not modern work only we have built like frogs and mice since the thirteenth century (except only in our castles). What a contrast between the pitiful little pigeon holes which stand for doors in the east front of Salisbury, looking like the entrances to a beehive or a wasp's nest, and the soaring arches and kingly crowning of the gates of Abbeville, ;
—
;
Konen, and Rheims, or the rock-hewn piers of Chartres, or the dark and vaulted porches and 'writhed pillars of Verona Of domestic architecture what need is there to speak? How small, how cramped, how poor, how miserable in its petty neatness is our best how beneath the mark of attack, and the !
!
; ;
THE LAMP OF POWER. level of contempt, that
which
is
93
common with
us
!
What
a
strange sense of formalised deformity, of shrivelled precision, of starved accuracy, of minute misanthropy have we, as leave even
Kent
!
tlie
we
rude streets of Picardy for the market towns of
Until that street architecture of ours
is
bettered, until
and boldness, until we give our windows recess, and our walls thickness, I know not how we can blame our architects for their feebleness in more imjjortant work their eyes are inured to narrowness and slightness can we expect them at a word to conceive and deal with breadth and solidity ? They ought not to live in our cities there is that in their miserable walls which bricks up to death men's imagi-
we
give
some
it
size
:
;
nations, as surely as ever perished forsworn nun.
should live as
little
in cities as a painter.
An
architect
Send him
to our
him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome. There was something in the old power of architecture, which it had from the recluse more than from the citizen. The buildings of which I have spoken hills,
and
let
with chief
war of the piazza, and Heaven forbid that
praise, rose, indeed, out of the
and above the fury of the populace for such cause
we should ever have
:
to lay a larger stone, or
But we have other sources of power, in the imagery of our iron coasts and azure hills of power more pure, nor less serene, than that of the hermit spirit which once lighted with white lines of cloisters the rivet a firmer bar, in our
England
!
glades of the Alpine pine, and raised into ordered spires the
wild rocks of the ISTorman sea
which gave to the temple gate and darkness of Elijah's Horeb cave and lifted, out of the populous city, grey cliffs of lonely stone, into the midst of sailing birds and silent ailthe depth
;
;
;
CHAPTER THE I.
lY.
OF BEAUTY.
LAjyiP
It was stated, in the outset of the preceding chapter,
that the value of architecture depended on
two distinct charfrom human power the other, the image it bears of the natural creation. I have endeavored to show in what manner its majesty was attributable to a sympathy with the effort and trouble of human life (a sympathy as distinctly perceived in thef gloom and mystery of form, as it is in the melancholy tones of sounds). I desire acters
now
:
the one, the impression
it
receives
to trace that happier element of its excellence, consisting
in a noble rendering of
images of Beauty, derived chiefly from
the external appearances of organic nature. It is irrelevant to
our present purpose to enter into any
in-
quiry respecting the essential causes of impressions of beauty. I have partly expressed
my
thoughts on this matter in a pre-
vious work, and I hope to develope them hereafter. all
But
since
such inquiries can only be founded on the ordinary under-
is meant by the term Beauty, and since they presume that the feeling of mankind on this subject is universal and instinctive, I shall base ray present investigation on and only asserting that to be beautiful which this assumption I believe will be granted me to be so without dispute, I would endeavor shortly to trace the manner in which this element of delight is to be best engrafted u]3on architectural design, what are the purest sources from which it is to be derived, and what
standing of what
;
the errors to be avoided in II. It will
its
pursuit.
be thought that I have somewhat rashly limited
the elements of architectural beauty to imitative forms.
not
mean
to assert that every aiTangement of line
is
I do
directly
Plate
il!M!V(i.''V,ti
IX
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. suggested by a natural object
;
adaptations of those which are ation
;
but that
95 beautiful lines are
all
commonest
in the external cre-
that in proportion to the richness of their association,
the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, must be
more closely attempted, and more clearly seen and that yond a certain point, and that a very low one, man cannot ;
bead-
vance in the invention of beauty, without directly imitating
Thus, in the Doric temple, the triglyph and cor-
natural form.
nice are unimitative
No
wood.
;
or imitative only of artificial cuttings of
one would
call
these
members
Their
beautiful.
and simplicity. The fluting of the column, which I doubt not was the Greek symbol of the bark of the tree, was imitative in its origin_, and feebly resembled many caniculated organic structures. Beauty is instantly felt in it, but of a low order. The decoration proper was sought in the true forms of organic life, and those Again the Doric capital was unimitative chiefly human. but all the beauty it had was dependent on the precision of its ovolo, a natural curve of the most fi-equent occurrence. The Ionic capital (to my mind, as an architectural invention, exceedingly base) nevertheless depended for all the beauty that it had on its adoption of a spiral Kne, perhaps the commonest of all over us
influence
is
in their severity
:
that characterise the inferior orders of animal organism and
Farther progress could not be made without a
habitation.
di-
rect imitation of the acanthus leaf.
Again Its
line.
:
the
type
Eomanesque arch is
is
of heaven, and horizon of the earth.
always beautiful, for tree that tiful
;
it is
it is
beautiful as an abstract
always before us in that of the apparent vault
God
The
cylindrical pillar is
has so moulded the stem of every
pleasant to the eyes.
The pointed
arch
the termination of every leaf that shakes in
is
beau-
summer
wind, and its most fortunate associations are directly borrowed from the trefoiled grass of the field, or from the stars of its
Further than
man's invention could not reach His next step was to gather the flowers themselves, and wreathe them in his capitals. III. Kow, I would insist especially on the fact, of which I
flowers.
this,
without frank imitation.
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
96
doubt not that further
mind
illustrations will occur to the
of
most lovely forms and thoughts are because I would fain be directly taken from natural objects allowed to assume also the converse of this, namely, that forms which are not taken from natural objects 7nust be ugly. I know this is a bold assumption but as I have not space to reason out the jDoints wherein essential beauty of form consists, that being far too serious a work to be undertaken in a every reader, that
all
;
;
have no other resource than to use this accidental mark or test of beauty, of whose truth the considerations which I hope hereafter to lay before the reader may assure him. I say an accidental mark, since forms are not beautiful
bye way,
I
hecause they are copied from nature
power of man
the reader will grant
advanced
only
;
it
me
me
it is
granted
also to his acceptance of the conclusions
from
will follow
I believe
even from the examples above
this,
the degree of confidence with which
;
must attach
out of the
is
to conceive beauty without her aid.
it
but
;
if
it
be granted frankly,
which it
will
determine a matter of very essential imporFor there are tance, namely, what is or is not ornament. enable
to
many forms
of so called decoration in architecture, habitual,
and received, therefore, with approval, or at all events without any venture at expression or dislike, which I have no hesitation in asserting to be not ornament at all, but to be ugly things, the expense of which ought in truth to be set down I bein the architect's contract, as " For Monstrification." lieve that we regard these customary deformities with a savage complacency, as an Indian does his flesh patterns and paint I be(all nations being in certain degrees and senses savage). lieve that T can prove them to be monstrous, and I hope but, meantime, I can allege in hereafter to do so conclusively ;
defence of
my
persuasion nothing but this fact of their being
unnatural, to which the reader must attach such weight as he
thinks
it
There
deserves.
using this proof tinently, that
supposes to
;
it
nothing
exist.
is,
however, a pecuhar
difficulty in
requires the writer to assume, very imper-
I
is
natural but what he has seen or
would not do
this
;
for I suppose there
is
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
97
no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of But I think I it may be found. san justified in considering those forms to be most natural which are most frequent or, rather, that on the shapes which in the every-day world are familiar to the eyes of men, God lias stamped those characters of beauty which He has made while in certain exceptional forms t man's nature to love the universe an example of
;
;
lie has
shown
adoption of the
that the
others
m^itter of necessity, but part of the adjusted
I believe that thus
ation,
we may
was not a
harmony
of cre-
reason from Frequency
knowing a thing
to be freand assume that I mean, of whicla is most frequent to be most beautiful for the forms of things which are course, visibly frequent hidden in caverns of the earth, or in the anatomy of animal
to Beauty,
quent,
and vice versa
we may assume
; that
it
to be beautiful
;
:
;
frames, are evidently not the habitual gaze of man. that limited all
and
perfection
;
intended by their Maker to bear
And,
by frequency I mean which is characteristic of
again,
isolated frequency
not mere multitude
as a rose is a
:
many
flower, but yet there are not so
roses
In this respect Nature and lavish of her less, beauty but I
there are leaves. highest,
is
;
as frequent as the leaf, because,
each in
common
on the tree
as
sparing of her call
the flower
its allotted
quantity,
where the one is, there will ordinarily be the other. TV. The first so-called ornament, then, which I would attack is that Greek fret, now, I believe, usually known by the Italian name Guilloche, which is exactly a case in point. It so happens ihat in crystals of bismuth, formed by the unagitated cooling of the melted metal, there occurs a natural
bismuth but their form is, as far as I know, unique among minerals ; and not only unique, but only attainable by an artificial process, I do not remember the metal itself never being found pure. presents a resemwhich arrangement any other substance or that I may trust think and I ornament blance to this Greek which arrangements the of most my remembrance as including
resemblance of
not only are of
it
almost perfect.
unusual
But
crystals of
in
every-day
occurrence
;
life,
— THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
98
occur in the outward forms of
common and
familiar things.
On this ground, then, I allege that ornament to be ugly or, different from in the literal sense of the word, monstrous and I anything which it is the nature of man to admire think an uncarved fillet or plinth infinitely preferable to one covered with this vile concatenation of straight lines unless indeed it be employed as a foil to a true ornament, which it or excessively may, perhaps, sometimes with advantage small, as it occurs on coins, the harshness of its arrangement ;
;
:
:
;
being
less perceived.
V. Often in association with this horrible design we find, in Greek works, one which is as beautiful as this is painful that egg and dart moulding, whose perfection in its place and way, has never been surpassed. And why is this ? Simply because the form of which it is chiefly composed is one not only familiar to us in the soft housing of the bird's nest, but
happens to be that of nearly every pebble that rolls and murmurs under the surf of the sea, on all its endless shore. And with that a peculiar accuracy for the mass which bears the light in this moulding is not in good Greek work, as in the It frieze of the Erechtheum, merely of the shape of an egg. ;
\Q
flattened on the upper surface, with a delicacy and keen
sense of variety in the curve which
it
is
impossible too highly
to praise, attaining exactly that flattened, imperfect oval, which,
form of the pebble lifted random from the rolled beach. Leave out this flatness, and the moulding is vulgar instantly. It is singular also that the insertion of this rounded form in the hollow recess has a fainted type in the plumage of the Argus pheasant, the eyes in nine cases out of ten, will be the at
whose feathers are so shaded as exactly to represent an oval form placed in a hollow, YI. It will evidently follow, upon our application of this of
test of natural all
resemblance, that
we
shall at
once conclude
must be composed of curves hardly any common natural foi-m in which it is
perfectly beautiful forms
there
is
ble to discover a straight
;
line,
Kevei'tiieless,
having necessarily to deal Mnth straight
tliat
since possi-
Architecture,
lines essential to its
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. purposes in
many
instances and to
tlie
99
expression of
must frequently be content with
its
power
measure of beauty wliich is consistent with such jirimal fonns and we may presume that utmost measui'e of beauty to liave been attained when the arrangements of such lines are consistent with the most frequent natural groupings of them we can disin others,
tliat
;
cover, although, to find right lines in nature at
be compelled to do violence
to
all,
we may
her finished work, break
through the sculptured and colored surfaces of her crags, and examine the processes of their crystallisation. yil. I have just convicted the Greek
fret of ugliness, be-
cause it has no j^recedent to allege for its arrangement except an artificial form of a rare metal. Let us bring into court an ornament of Lombard architects, Plate XIL fig. 7, as exclusively composed of right lines as the other, only, observe, with This ornament, taken the noble element of shadow added. from the front of the Cathedral of Pisa, is universal throughout the Lombard churches of Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Florence and it will be a grave stain upon them if it cannot be defended. Its first apology for itself, made in a huny, sounds marvellously like the Greek one, and highly dubious. It says that its terminal contour is the very image of a care;
fully prepared artificial ciystal of
common
salt.
Salt being,
however, a substance considerably more familiar to us than bismuth, the chances are somewhat in favor of the accused
Lombard ornament already. But it has more to say for itself, and more to the purpose namely, that its main outline is one not only of natural crystallisation, but among the very first and commonest of crystalline forms, being the primal condition of ;
the occurrence of the oxides of iron, copper, and sulphurets of iron and lead, of fluor spar, &c. projecting forms in
which
its
surface represent
;
tin,
of the
and that those
the conditions of
change into another relative and equally common crystalline form, the cube. This is quite enough. We may rest assured it is as good a combination of such simple right lines as can be put together, and gracefully fitted for every place in which such lines are necessary stnicture
effect the
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
100
YIII. The next ornament whose cause I would try is that Tudor work, the portcuHis. JReticulation is common enough in natural form, and very beautiful but it is either of of our
;
the most delicate and gauzy texture, or of variously sized
meshes and undulating lines. There is no family relation between portcullis and cobwebs or beetles' wings something like it, perhaps, may be found in some kinds of crocodile armor and on the backs of the Northern divers, but always beautifully There is a dignity in the thing itself, varied in size of mesh. if its size were exhibited, and the shade given through its bars but even these merits are taken away in the Tudor ;
;
diminution of
it,
set
on a
solid surface.
syllable, I believe, to say in its defence. ster,
absolutely and unmitigatedly frightful.
ing on of
It
It
Henry
has not a single is
another mon-
All that carv-
the Seventh's Chapel simply deforms the stones
it.
In the same clause with the
portcullis,
heraldic decoration, so far as beauty
is its
we may condemn all object.
Its pride
and
their proper place, fitly occurring in promi-
significance have
nent parts of the building, as over its gates and allowably in places where its legendary may be plainly read, as in painted windows, bosses of ceilings, &c. And sometimes, of course, ;
the forms which
it
presents
may
be beautiful, as of animals, or
simple symbols like the fleur-de-lis
;
but, for the
most
part,
heraldic similitudes and arrangements are so professedly and it would be diflicult to invent anyand the use of them as a repeated decoration will utterly destroy both the power and beauty of any buildCommon sense and courtesy also forbid their repetition. ing. It is right to tell those who enter your doors that you are such a one, and of such a rank but to tell it to them again and again, wherever they turn, becomes soon impertinence, and at Let, therefore, the entire bearings occur in few last folly. places, and these not considered as an ornament, but as an inscription and for frequent appliance, let any single and fair
pointedly unnatural, that
thing uglier
;
;
;
symbol be chosen out of them. Thus we may multiply as much as we choose the French fleur-de-lis, or the Florentine
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. giglio bianco, or the English rose a
but
;
101
we must
not multiply
King's arms.
IX. It will also follow, from these considerations, that if any one part of heraldic decoration be worse than another, it is the motto since, of all things unlike nature, the forms of letters are, perhaps, the most so. Even graphic tellurium and ;
felspar look, at their clearest, anything but legiljle. are, therefore, to
endured only upon occasion the sense of the inscription nal ornament.
All letters
be considered as frightful things, and to be that
;
of
is
is
to say, in places
more importance than
where exter-
Inscriptions in churches, in rooms, and on pic-
but they are not to be considered as ornaments they are, on the contrary,
tures, are often desirable,
architectural or pictorial
:
obstinate offences to the eye, not to be suffered except their intellectual office introduces them.
when
Piace them, there-
fore, where they will be read, and there only and let them be plainly written, and not turned upside down, nor wrong ;
end
first.
It is
an
ill
sacrifice to
beauty to make that
illegi-
whose only merit is in its sense. "Write it as you would speak it, simply and do not draw the eye to it when it would fain rest elsewhere, nor recommend your sentence by ble
;
anything but a
little openness of place and architectural silence Write the Commandments on the church walls where they may be plainly seen, but do not put a dash and a tail to every letter and remember that you are an architect, not
about
it.
;
a wi'iting master.
X. Inscriptions appear sometimes
to be introduced for the
sake of the scroll on which they are written
modern painted are flourished
glass, as well
as in
;
and
in late
and turned hither and thither
as if
ornamental. Ribands occur frequently in arabesques, of a high order, too,
among
—tying up
the fixed forms.
they were
—
flowers, or flitting in
Is there
and
architecture, these scrolls
in
some
and out
anything like ribands
in na-
might be thought that grass and sea-weed afforded apologetic types. They do not. There is a wide difference between their structure and that of a riband. They have a skeleton, an anatomy, a central rib, or fibre, or framework of ture
?
It
;;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
102
some kind or another, which lias a beginning and an end, a root and head, and whose make and strength effects every di-
The
every line of. their form.
rection of their motion, and
loosest weed that drifts and waves under the heaving of the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown and slippery shore, has a
marked
strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of substance
extremities are
its
tre than its root
and proportioned has
its
:
every wave of
it
What is
is
its its
ramification
;
there like this in a riband
i
place,
measured
is
languid lines
and function
and
;
iinely fibred than its centre, its cen-
every fork of
;
allotted size,
creature.
ture
:
more
love.
is
It has
a succession of cut threads all alike
;
It
a specific
is
it
no
struc-
has no skel-
it
no make, no form, no size, no will of its own. You cut and crush it into what you will. It has no strength, no
eton, it
languor.
It cai^not fall into a single graceful
form.
It
cannot
wave, in the true sense, but only flutter it cannot bend, in the It is a vile thing true sense, but only turn and be wrinkled. :
it
spoils all that
Never use
it.
is
near
wi'etched film of an existence.
its
Let the flowers come loose
together without being tied
;
if
they cannot keep
leave the sentence unwritten
if
you cannot write it on a tablet or book, or plain roll of paper. I remember the I know what authority there is against me. scrolls of Perugino's angels, and the ribands of Raphael's arabesques, and of Ghiberti's glorious bronze flowers no matter they are every one of them vices and uglinesses. Raphael usually felt this, and used an honest and rational tablet, as in the Madonna di Fuligno. I do not say there is any type of such tab:
lets in nature,
but
all
the difference
tablet is not considered as
The
lies
in the fact that the
an ornament, and the riband, or
fly-
Adam
and Eve, is introduced for the sake of the writing, understood and allowed as an ugly but necessary interruption. The scroll is extended as an ornamental form, which it is not, nor ever can ing
scroll,
is.
tablet, as in
Albert Durer's
be.
XL
But it will be said that all this want of organisation and form might be affirmed of drapery also, and that this latter is a
noble subject of sculptui-e.
By no
means.
When
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
103
was drapery a subject of sculpture by itself, except in the form of a handkerchief on urns in the seventeenth century and Drapery, as in some of the baser scenic Italian decorations ? 6uch, is always ignoble it becomes a subject of interest only by the colors it bears, and the impressions which it receives from some foreign form or force. All noble draperies, either in painting or sculpture (color and texture being at present out of our consideration), have, so far as they are anything more ;
than
necessities,
one of two great functions
ponents of motion and of gravitation.
;
they are the ex-
They
are the most val-
uable means of expressing past as well as present motion in the figure,
and they are almost the only means of indicating
eye the force of gravity which
resists
Greeks used drapery in sculpture for the most part necessity, but availed themselves of
it
gladly in
all
as
to the
The
such motion.
an ugly
representa-
it which exand follow gesture in the per-
tion of action, exaggerating the arrangements of
press lightness in the material,
The
son.
Christian sculptors, caring
little
for the body, or
and depending exclusively on the countenance, received drapery at first contentedly as a veil, but soon perceived a capacity of expression in it which the Greek had not seen or had despised. The princij^al element of this expression was disliking
it,
the entire removal of agitation from what was so pre-eminently It fell from their human forms capable of being agitated. plumb down, sweeping the ground heavily, and concealing the feet while the Greek drapery was often blown away from the thigh. The thick and coarse stuffs of the monkish dresses, so absolutely opposed to the thin and gauzy web of antique ma;
suggested simplicity of division as well as weight of There was no crushing nor subdividing them. And thus
terial, fall.
the drapery gradually it
came
to represent the spirit of repose as
The wind none upon the
before had of motion, repose saintly and severe.
had no power upon the garment, as the passion and the motion of the figure only bent into a softer line the stillness of the fallino; veil, followed bv it like a slow cloud
soul
;
by drooping rain only in links of lighter undulation lowed the dances of the angels. :
it fol-
THE LAMP OF BEAXJTY.
104
Thus
treated, drapery is indeed noble
As
nent of other and higher things.
;
but
as
it is
an expo-
that of gravitation,
has especial majesty, being literally the only means
it
we have
of fully representing this mysterious natural force of earth (for falling water
is
again, in sails solid
its
own
Caraccis,
is
is
and
less
defined in
beautiful because
it
hnes).
its
—
is
But drapery trusted sake,
— drapery
to its
So,
receives the forms of
curved surface, and expresses the force of another
ble element.
for
less passive
it
invisi-
own merits, and given Dolci and the
like that of Carlo
always base.
XII. Closely connected with the abuse of scrolls and bands, that of garlands and festoons of flowers as an architectural
decoration, for unnatural arrangements are just as ugly as un-
and architecture, in borrowing the objects of to place them, as far as may be in her power, She in such associations as may befit and express their origin. she is not is not to imitate directly the natural arrangement to carve irregular stems of ivy up her columns to account for the leaves at the top, but she is nevertheless to place her most exuberant vegetable ornament just where Kature would have placed it, and to give some indication of that radical and connected structure which Nature would have given it. Thus the Corinthian capital is beautiful, because it expands under the abacus just as !N^ature would have expanded it and because it natural forms;
nature,
is
bound
;
;
looks as
And
if
the leaves had one root, though that root
is
unseen.
the flamboyant leaf mouldings are beautiful, because they
and run up the hollows, and fill the angles, and clasp the shafts which natural leaves would have delighted to fill and to clasp. The}" are no mere cast of natural leav^es they are counted, orderly, and architectural but they are naturally, and therefore beautifully, placed. XIII. Xow I do not mean to say that Nature never uses festoons she loves them, and uses them lavishly and though she does so only in those j)laces of excessive luxuriance wherein it seems to me that architectural types should seldom be sought, yet a falling tendril or pendent bough might, if managed with
nestle
:
:
:
;
freedom and grace, be well introduced into luxuriant decora-
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
105
it is not tlieir want of beauty, but of architecwhich incapacitates them for such uses). But what resemblance to such example can we trace in a mass of all manner of fruit and flowers, tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall ? For it is strange that the wildest and most fanciful
tlon (or if not,
tural fitness,
of the builders of truly luxuriant architecture never ventured,
know, even a pendent tendril while the severest masters of the revived Greek permitted this extraordinary piece of luscious ugliness to be fastened in the middle of their blank surfaces. So surely as this arrangement is adopted, the whole value of the flower work is lost. Who among the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to admire the flower work of It is as careful and as rich as it can be, yet it adds St. Paul's? no delightfulness to the edifice. It is no part of it. It is an so far as I
;
We
ugly excrescence.
and should be happier its
presence.
It
always conceive the building without if
makes the
rest of the architecture look pov-
erty-stricken, instead of sublime itself.
Had
it
it,
our conception were not disturbed by
;
been put, where
and yet it
it
is
never enjoyed
ought, into the capitals,
would have been beheld with never-ceasing
delight.
it
I do not
mean
that it could have been so in the present building, for such kind of architecture has no business with rich ornament in
any place
;
but that
if
those groups of flowers had been put
into natural places in an edifice of another style, their value
would have been
felt as vividly as
now their uselessness. What
more sternly true of garlands. A garland is meant to be seen upon a head. There it is beautiful, because we suppose it newly gathered and joyfully worn. But it is not meant to be hung upon a wall. If you want a circular applies to festoons
is
still
ornament, put a flat circle of colored marble, as in the Casa Dario and other such palaces at Venice or put a^tar, or a me;
dallion, or if
you want
a ring, jjut a solid one, but
the images of garlands, looking as
if
do not carve
they had been used in the
and been hung up to dry, and serve next time not also carve pegs, and hats upon them ? XIY. One of the worst enemies of modern Gothic archi-
last procession,
withered.
Why
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
106
though seemingly an unimportant feature^ is an excresbj its poverty as the garland by its pi'ofusion,
tecture,
cence, as offensive
the dripstone in the shape of the handle of a chest of drawers,
which
is
used over the square-headed windows of what
Elizabethan buildings.
In the
last
Chapter,
it
will be
we
call
remem-
bered that the square form was shown to be that of pre-eminent Power, and to be properly adapted and limited to the exhibition of space or surface. Hence, when the window is to be an exponent of power, as for instance in those by M. Angelo in the lower story of the Palazzo Ricardi at Florence, the square
head
is
the most noble form they can assume
their space
must be unbroken, and
;
but then either
their associated mouldings
the most severe, or else the square must be used as a finial out-
and is chiefly to be associated with forms of tracery, in which the relative form of power, the circle, is predominant, as in Venetian, and Florentine, and Pisan Gothic. But if you break uj^on your terminal square, or if you cut its lines off at the top and turn them outwards, you have lost its unity and space. It is an including form no longer, but an added, isolated line, and the ugliest possible. Look abroad into the landscape and see if you can discover any one so bent and fragmentary line,
as that of this strange windlass-looking dripstone.
It is a monster.
It unites
You cannot.
every element of ugliness,
its
line
and unconnected with every other it has no harmony either with stnicture or decoration, it has no architectural support, it looks glued to the wall, and the only is
harshly broken in
pleasant pro])erty of
its
dropping
it
itself,
has, is the
appearance of some likelihood
off.
I might proceed, but the task is a weary one, and I think I have named those false forms of decoration which are most dangerous in our modern architecture as being legal and acThe barbarisms of individual fancy are as countless cepted. they neither admit attack nor are as they are contemptible worth it but these above named are countenanced, some by the practice of antiquity, all by high authority they have de;
;
:
pressed the proudest, and contaminated the purest schools, and are so establislied in recent practice that I write rather for the
THE LAMP OF BEAUTT.
107
barren satisfaction of bearing witness against them, than with
hope of inducing any serious convictions to their prejudice. XV. Thus far of what is not ornament. What ornament is, will without difficulty be determined by the application of the same test. It must consist of such studious arrangements of form as are imitative or suggestive of those which are com-
monest among natural existences, tliat being of course the noblest ornament which represents the highest orders of existence. Imitated flowers are nobler than imitated stones, imitated animals, than flowers imitated human form of all animal forms ;
But
the noblest.
all
are
combined
in the richest ornamental
and the rock, the fountain, the flowing river with its pebbled bed, the sea, the clouds of Heaven, the herb of the
work
;
field,
the fruit-tree l^earing fruit, the creeping thing, the bird,
the beast, the man, and the angel, mingle their fair forms on the bronze of Ghiberti.
Every thing being then ornamental that is imitative, I would ask the reader's attention to a few general considerations, all
that can here be offered relating to so vast a subject
may be
;
which,
under the three heads of inquiry What is the right place for architectural ornament ? What is the peculiar treatment of ornament which renders it
for convenience sake, :
classed
—
architectural
%
and what
is
the right use of color as associated
with architectural imitative form
XYI. What
is
?
the place for ornament?
Consider
first
that
the characters of natural objects which the architect can repre-
few and abstract. The greater part of those delights by which Nature recommends herself to man at all times, canHe cannot not be conveyed by him into his imitative work. make his grass green and cool and good to rest upon, which sent are
in nature is its chief use to man nor can he make his flowers tender and full of color and of scent, which in nature are their ;
chief powers of giving joy.
Those
qualities
which alone he
can secure are certain severe characters of form, such as men only see in nature on deliberate examination, and by the full
and set appliance of sight and thought a man must lie down on the bank of grass on his bi-east and set himself to watch :
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
108
and penetrate the intertwining of it, before lie finds that which is good to be gathered by the architect. So then while Nature is at all times pleasant to us, and while the sight and sense of her work may mingle happily with all our thoughts, and labors, and times of existence, that image of her which the architect carries away represents what we can only perceive in her by dii*ect intellectual exertion, and demands from us, wherever it appears, an intellectual exertion of a similar kind It is the written or in order to understand it and feel it. sealed impression of a thing sought out, it is the shaped result of inquiry and bodily expression of thought. XVII. Now let us consider for an instant what would be the effect of continually repeating an expression of a beautiful
thought to any other of the senses at times when the mind Supcould not address that sense to the understanding of it. pose that in time of serious occupation, of stern business, a
companion should repeat
in our ears continually
some
favorite
day long. "We should not only soon be utterly sick and weary of the sound of it, but that sound would at the end of the day have so sunk passage of jDoetry, over and over again
into the habit of the ear that the entire
sage would be dead to us, and
it
all
meaning of the
pas-
would ever thenceforward
require some effort to fix and recover
The music
it.
of
it
would not meanwhile have aided the business in hand, while its own delightfulness would thenceforward be in a measure destroyed. It is the same with every other form of definite thought. If you violently present its expression to the senses, at
times
when
the
mind
is
otherwise engaged, that expression
have
will be ineffective at the time,
and
clearness destroyed for ever.
Much more
the or
mind if
at
times
when
it is
will
if
its
sharpness and
you present
it
to
painfully affected or disturbed,
associate the expression of pleasant thought with
you
incongruous circumstances, you will
affect
that
expression
thenceforward with a painful color for ever. XYIII. Apply this to expressions of thought received by the eye. Eemember that the eye is at your mercy more than the ear.
"
The eye
it
cannot choose but see."
Its
nerve
is
THE LAMP OF BEATJTT. not SO easily
numbed
as that of the ear,
and
109 it
is
often busied
and watching forms when the ear is at rest. Now if you present lovely forms to it when it cannot call the mind to help it in its M'ork, and among objects of ^nilgar use and unhappy position, you will neither please tlie eye nor elevate the vulgar object. But you will fill and weary the eye with the beautiful form, and you will infect that form itself with in traeina:
the vulgarity of the thing to which you have violently attached
much
never be of
It ^\all
it.
killed or defiled
it
will
have to pass
you
will cleanse
its
;
it it,
use to you any more
;
you have
You
freshness and purity are gone.
through the fire of much thought before and warm it with much love before it will
revive.
XIX. Hence
then a general law, of singular importance in
the present day, a law of simple
common
sense,
—not
to deco-
and occupied life. Wherever you can rest, there decorate where rest is forbidden, so is beauty. You must not mix ornament with busiWork first, and then ness, any more than you may mix play. Work first and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughrest. rate things belonging to purposes of active ;
shares,
tured
nor bind ledgers in enamel.
flails
:
nor put
bas-reliefs
Do
not thrash with sculp-
on millstones.
What
!
it
will
be asked, are we in the habit of doing so ? Even so ; always and everywhere. The most familiar position of Gieek mouldis in these days on shop fronts. There is not a tradesman's sign nor shelf nor counter in all the streets of all our cities, which has not upon it ornaments which were invented
ings
and beautify kings' palaces. There is not them where they are. Absolutely valueless utterly without the power of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and \Tilgarise their own forms. Many of these are in themselves thoroughly good copies of fine things, which things themselves we shall never, in consequence, enjoy any more. Many a prett}' beading and graceful bracket there to adorn temples
the smallest advantage in
—
is
in
and
wood
or stucco above our grocers' and cheese-mongers'
hosiers' shops
stand that custom
:
how is
it is
to be
that the tradesmen cannot under-
had only by
selling
good tea and
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
110
cheese and cloth, and that people
come
to
them
for their hon-
and their readiness, and their right wares, and not because they have Greek cornices over their windows, or their names in large gilt letters on their house fronts ? how pleasurable it would be to have the power of going through the streets of London, pulling down those brackets and friezes and large names, restoring to the tradesmen the capital they had spent in architecture, and putting them on honest and equal esty,
terms, each with his
name
in black letters over his door, not
shouted
down
a plain
wooden shop casement, with small panes
the street
from the upper
stories,
and each with in
it
that
people would not think of breaking in order to be sent to How much better for them would it be how mucii prison!
—
happier,
how much
wiser, to put their trust
upon
their
own
truth and industry, and not on the idiocy of their customers.
and it says little for our national probity on th« one hand, or prudence on the other, to see the whole system of our street decoration based on the idea that people must bfj It is curious,
baited to a shop as moths are to a candle.
XX. But
it
will
be said that
much
of the best
oration of the middle ages was in shop fronts.
wooden
No
;
it
dec-
was in
house fronts, of which the shop was a part, and received its natural and consistent portion of the ornament. In those days
men
and intended to live hy their shops, and over them., They were contented with them and happy in all their days. them they were their palaces and castles. They gave them therefore such decoration as made themselves happy in their own habitation, and they gave it for their own sake. The upper stories were always the richest, and tlie shop was decorated chiefly about the door, which belonged to the house more And when our tradesmen settle to their shops in than to it. the same way, and form no plans respecting future villa architecture, let their whole houses be decorated, and their shops too, but with a national and domestic decoration (I shall speak more of this point in the sixth chapter). However, our cities are for the most part too large to admit of contented dwelling and I do not say there is harm in in them throughout life lived,
:
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. our
system of separating
jJi'eseiit
house
;
tlie
shop from the dwelling-
only where they are so separated,
the only reason for shop decoration
Ill
is
let
us
remember
that
removed, and see that
the decoration be removed also.
XXI. Another present day if
is
of the strange and evil tendencies of the
Now,
to the decoration of the railroad station,
there be any place in the ^vorld in which people are de-
prived of that portion of temper and discretion which are necessary to the contemplation of beauty,
it
is
there.
It is
the very temple of discomfort, and the only charity that the builder can extend to us soonest to escape from elling
is
is
it.
show us, plainly The whole system
to
as
may
be,
how
of railroad trav-
addressed to people who, being in a hurry, are there-
No
one would travel in time to go leisurely tunnels and and instead of througli over liills between hedges, between banks at least those who would, have no sense of fore, for the
that
time being, miserable.
manner who could help
it
—who had
:
beauty so acute as that railroad
is
we need
be got through as soon
it
at the station.
The
with the nobler characteristics
power
It transmutes a man from For the time he has parted of his humanity for the sake of
as possible.
a traveller into a living parcel.
a planetary
consult
in all its relations a matter of earnest business, to
of locomotion.
You might
Do
not ask him to admire
Carry him wind. him soon he will thank you for nothing else. All attempts to please him in any other way are mere mockery, anything.
safely, dismiss
the
well ask
as
:
and insults to the things by which you endeavor to do so. There never was more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything concerned with railroads or near them. Keep them out of the way, take them through the ugliest country you can find, confess them the miserable things tliey are, and spend nothing upon them but for safety and speed. Give large salaries to efficient servants, large prices to good manufacturers, large wages to able workmen let the iron be tough, and the brickwork solid, and the ;
carriages strong. first iiecossities
The time
may not be
is
perhaps not distant
easily
met
:
and
when
these
to increase expense
:
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
112
Better burj gold in tlie is madness. embankments, than put it in ornaments on the stations. Will a single traveller be willing to pay an increased fare on the South Western, because the columns of the terminus are covered with patterns from IS^ineveh ? He will only care less or on the for the Ninevite ivories in the British Museum North Western, because there are old English-looking spandrils to the roof of the station at Crewe ? He will only have less pleasure in their prototypes at Crewe House. Railroad architecture has or would have a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work. You would not put rings on the fingers in any other direction
:
of a smith at his anvil.
XXII.
It
is
not however only in these marked situations
that the abuse of which I speak takes place.
some
There
an application of ornamental work, which
at present,
sort liable to
blame of the same kind.
We
ciated with such necessities.
is,
that to which I have alluded before
the ventilators in the
flat
all
their grace
and
— the roses
roofs of our chapels.
roses are of very beautiful design,
but their general form
is
elaborate
Many
when they
instance,
of those
fine
works
are so placed,
afterwards associated with the ugly
buildings in which they constantly occur roses of the early
by some
which conceal
borrowed from
finish are invisible
not in
in all other places, asso-
name only one
I will
hardly,
is
have a bad
habit of trying to disguise disagreeable necessities
form of sudden decoration, which
is
and all the beautiful French and English Gothic, especially such
ones as those of the
;
triforium of
Coutances, are
in consequence deprived of their pleasurable influence
:
and
without our having accomplished the smallest good by
this
the use
we have made
gle person
in
the
of the dishonored form.
Isot a sin-
ever receives
one ray of
congregation
pleasure from those roof roses
;
they are regarded with mere
indifference, or lost in the general impression of harsh emptiness.
XXIII. Must not for in
Yes,
if
will be asked, be sought with our every-day life ? we associate and consistently, in places where it can be
beauty, then,
the forms which
you do
it
it
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
113
but not if you use the beautiful form only as a mask and covering of the proper conditions and uses of things, nor if you thrust it into the places set apart for toih Put it in the drawing-room, not into the workshop put it upon doAll men have mestic furniture, not upon tools of handicraft. sense of what is right in this manner, if they would only use and apply that sense every man knows where and how beauty gives him pleasure, if he would only ask for it when it does so, and not allow it to be forced upon liim when he does not want it. Ask any one of the passengers over London Bridge calmlj seen
;
;
;
whether he cares about the forms of the bronze tell you, Xo. Modify these forms of leaves to a less scale, and put them on his milk-jug at breakfast, and ask him whether he likes them, and he will teh you. Yes. People have no need of teaching if they could only think and speak truth, and ask for what they like and want, and for nothing else nor can a right disposition of beauty be ever arrived at except by this common sense, and allowance for the circumstances of tlie time and place. It does not follow, because bronze leafage is in bad taste on the lamps of London Bridge, that it would be so on those of the Ponte della Trinita nor, because it would be a folly to decorate the house fronts of Gracechurch Street, that it would be equally so to adorn those of some quiet provincial town. The question of at this instant
leaves on
its
lamps, and he will
:
;
on the was a wise feeling which
greatest external or internal decoration dej^ends entirely
conditions of probable repose.
made
It
the streets of .Venice so rich in external ornament, for
no couch of rest Hke the gondola. So, again, there is no subject of street ornament so wisely chosen as the fountain, where it is a fountain of use for it is just there that perhaps
there
is
;
the happiest pause takes place in the labor of the day, rested on the edge of
when
and the breath of the beare. is drawn deeply, and the hair swept from the forehead, and the uprightness of the form declined against the marble ledge, and the sound of the kind word or light laugh mixes with the trickle of the falling water, heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher fills. "What pause is so sweet as that so full the pitcher
is
it,
—
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
114
of the depth of ancient days, so softened with the calm of pastoral solitude
XXIV. were next
?
II.
Thus
far, then, of
the place for beauty.
to inquire into the characters
liarly for architectural appliance,
which
We
fitted it pecu-
and into the principles of
choice and of arrangement which best regulate the imitation of natural forms in which
The
consists.
it
full
answering of
would be a treatise on the art of design I intend only to say a few words respecting the two conditions of that Proportion and Abart which are essentially architectural, I^either of these qualities is necessary, to the same straction. these questions
:
—
The
extent, in other fields of design.
sense of proportion
is,
by the landscape painter, frequently sacrificed to character and accident the power of abstraction to tliat of complete i-ealisation. The flowers of his foreground must often be unmeasured in their quantity, loose in tlieir an-angement what is calculated, either in quantity or disposition, must be artfully concealed. That calculation is by the architect to be prominently exhibited. So the abstraction of few characteristics out of many is shown only in the painter's sketch in his finished work it is concealed Ai'chitecture, on the contrary, delights or lost in comjiletion. Proportion in Abstraction and fears to complete her forms. and Abstraction, then, are the two especial marks of architecSculpture must tural design as distinguished from all other. have them in inferior degrees leaning, on the one hand, to an architectural manner, when it is usually greatest (becoming, ;
:
;
;
indeed, a part of Architecture), and, on the other, to a pictorial
manner, when
it is
apt to lose
its
dignity,
and sink into mere
in-
genious carving.
XX Y.
Kow,
of Proportion so
much
has been written, that
use have been overwhelmed and kept out of sight by vain accumulations of particular instances and estimates. Proportions are as infinite I believe the only facts
(and that in
all
shades, lights, just as rational
which are of
j)ractical
kinds of things, as severally in colors,
and forms)
as possible airs in
music
:
and
an attempt to teach a young architect
proportion truly and well by calculating
foi*
him the
lines, it
is
how
to
joropor-
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. tions of fine works, as
melodies by
would be
it
115
to teach
him
to
compose
calculating the mathematical relations of the notes
The man
in Beethoven's
Adelaide or Mozart's Requiem.
who
intellect will invent beautiful proportions,
has eye and
how
and
do it than cannot help it but he can no more tell us Scott than sonnet, or Wordsworth could tell us how to write a are there could have told us how to plan a romance. But ;
one or two general laws which can be told
to
they are of no use,
:
indeed, except as preventives of gross mistake, but they are so far
worth
telling
and remembering
and the more so because,
;
in the discussion of the subtle laws of proportion (which will
never be either numbered or known), architects are perpetually forgetting and transgressing the very simplest of
its necessities.
XXVI. Of
which the first is, that wherever Proportion exists at all, one member of the composition must be eitlier There is larger than, or in some way supreme over, the rest. no proportion between equal things. They can have symmetry only, and symmetry without proportion is not composition. It is its
necessary to jjerfect beauty, but elements, nor of course
Any
it.
pose
is
is
is
it
the least necessary of
there any difficulty in obtaining
succession of equal things
is
agreeable
to arrange unequal things, and the
;
first
but to comthing to be
done in beginning a composition is to determine which is I believe that all that has been to be the principal thing. written and taught about proportion, put together, is not to the architect
worth the single
rule, well enforced, "
Have one large
thing and several smaller things, or one principal thing and several inferior things,
there in
and bind them well together."
good designs for houses
train, as in
ment
Sometimes
may be a regular gradation, as between the heights of stories the spire with
;
its
sometimes a monarch with a lowly pinnacles
are infinite, but the law
above the
rest, either
by
size,
or
is
:
the varieties of arrange-
universal
office,
—have
or interest.
one thing Don't put
"What a host of ugly church with pinnacles at the comers, and many buildings like King's College
the pinnacles without the spire,
towers have
we
in England,
How none in the middle Chapel at Cambridge, looking !
like tables upside do%vn,
with
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
116
their four legs in the air
beasts four legs
head between them. a pair of horns
:
I
What
I
it
will
he
said,
have not
Yes, but legs of different shapes, and with a
?
So thej have a pair of
bnt not at both ends.
ears
:
and perhaps
Knock down
a conple
of pinnacles at either end in King's College Chapel, and you
have a kind of proportion instantly. So in a cathedral you may have one tower in the centre, and two at the west end or two at the west end only, though a worse arrangement but you must not have two at the west and two at the east end, unless you have some central member to connect them and even then, buildings are generally bad which have large balancing features at the extremities, and small connecting ones in will
;
:
;
it is not easy then to make the centre domiThe bird or moth may indeed have wide wings, because the of the wing does not give supremacy to the wing. The
the centre, because nant. size
head and
life are
the mighty things, and the plumes, however
In fine west fronts with a pediment and two towers, the centre is always the principal mass, both in bulk and interest (as having the main gateway), and the towers are subordinated to it, as an animal's horns are to its head. The moment the towers rise so high as to overpower the bod}' and centre, and become themselves the principal masses, they will destroy the proportion, unless they are made unequal, and one of them the leading feature of the cathedral, as at Antwerp and Strasburg. But the purer method is to keep them down in due relation to the centre, and to throw up wide, are subordinate.
the j)ediment into a steep connecting mass, drawing the eye to
This is nobly done in St. Wulfran of Abbeand attempted partly at Rouen, though that west front is made up of so many unfinished and supervening designs that it is impossible to guess the real intention of any one of its it
by
rich tracery.
ville,
builders.
XXVII.
This rule of supremacy applies to the smallest as
well as to the leading features
:
it
is
interestingly seen in the
arrangement of all good mouldings. I have given one, on the opposite page, from Rouen cathedral that of the ti-acery before distinguished as a type of the nol)lest manner of Northern ;
Plate X.
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
117
Gothic (Chap. II. § XXII.). It is a tracery of three orders, of which the lirst is divided into a leaf moulding, fig. 4, and h in the section, and a plain
seen in
roll, also
fig.
the sec-
4, c in
two divisions surround the entire window or panand are carried by two-face shafts of corresponding sections. The second and third orders are plain rolls following the line of the tracery four divisions of moulding in all of tion
these
;
elling,
:
;
these four, the leaf moulding
the largest
;
next to
is,
the outer roll
it
lost in
;
then,
by an
Each
its
own
in order that
(
shaft and capital
upon the
owing
eye,
larger, lifted a
little
to the retirement of the inner-
to bring
wall in the trefoiled lights
is
but in the quatrefoil
it
it
and the two smaller, which
;
most, are nearly equal, have smaller capitals
full
al-
the recess and the intermediate {d), the smallest.
in effect
;
exquisite
not be
has
tion
much
sections,
may
ternation, the innermost roll
roll
as seen in the
them
to the
than the two
same
The
level.
curved, as from e to fin the secis
flat,
depth of the recess below so
only thrown back to the
as to get a sharp
stead of a soft one, tlie hiouldings falling a vertical curve behind the roll
back to
shadow it
in-
in nearly
This could not, however,
e.
be managed with the simpler mouldings of the smaller quatrefoil above,
whose half
section
is
given from ^ to
^^
but
I
the architect was evidently fretted by the heavy look of circular foils as
low
:
so
its
opposed to the light spring of the arches be-
he threw
its
cusps obliquely clear from the wall, as
it w-here they meet the circle, pushed out from the natural level (A, in the section) to that of the first order {g^ and supported by stone props behind, as seen in the profile fig. 2, which I got from the correspondent panel on the buttress face (fig. 1 being on its side), and of which the lower cusps, being broken away, show the remnant of one of their props projecting
seen in
fig.
2,
but wath their
from the file is
wall.
attached to
finials
The
oblique curve thus obtained in the pro-
of singular grace.
Take
it
all
in
all,
I have never
met
with a more exquisite piece of varied, yet severe, proportioned
and general arrangement (though all the windows of tlie period are fine, and especially delightful in the subordinate
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
118
proportioning of
The only
fault
central shafts
it
the smaller
has
is
capitals to the smaller shafts).
the inevitable misarrangement of the
for the enlargement of the inner
;
roll,
though
beautiful in the group of four divisions at the side, causes, in the triple central shaft, the
members which .has demned. In the windows teral
period, this difficulty fillet
is
very awkwardness of heavy
been
which only follows the
foliation,
in
while the three outer-
most are nearly in arithmetical progression of tral triple shaft
la-
most instances conof the choir, and in most of the avoided by making the fourth order a just
has of course the largest
size,
i-oll
and the cen-
The
in front.
moulding of the Palazzo Foscari (Plate YIIL, and Plate lY. fig. 8) is, for so simple a group, the grandest in elfect I have ever seen it is composed of a large roll with two subor:
dinates.
XXYIII.
It is of course impossible to. enter into details of
instances belonging to so intricate division of our subject, in
the compass of a general essay.
I can but rapidly
name
the
Another of these is the connection of Symmetry with horizontal, and of Proportion with vertical, division. Evidently there is in symmetry a sense not merely of equality, but of balance now a thing cannot be balanced by another on the top of it, though it may by one at the side of it. Hence, while it is not only allowable, but often necessary, chief conditions of right.
:
to divide buildings, or parts of them, horizontally into halves, thirds, or other equal parts, all vertical divisions of this
kind
wrong; worst into half, next worst in the regular numbers which more l)etray the equality. I should have thought this almost the first principle of proportion which a young architect was taught and yet I remember an important building, recently erected in England, in which the columns are cut in half by the projecting architraves of the central windows and it is quite usual to see the spires of modern Gothic churches divided by a band of ornament half way up. In all fine spires there are two bands and three parts, as at Salisbury. The ornamented portion of the tower is there cut in half, and allowably, because the spire forms the third mass to are utterly
:
;
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
119
which the other two are subordinate two stories are also equal in Giotto's campanile, but dominant over smaller divi:
and subordinated to the noble third above. Even arrangement is difficult to treat and it is usually safer to
sions below, this
;
increase or diminish the height of the divisions regularly as
they
rise, as
in the Doge's Palace,
a bold geometrical progression
:
whose three
or, in towers, to
divisions are in
get an alternate
proportion between the body, the belfry, and the crown, as in But, at all events, get rid of the campanile of St. Mark's. equality
leave that to children and their card houses
;
of nature and the reason of
man
are alike against
it,
:
the laws
in arts, as
There is but one thoroughly ugly tower in Italy of, and that is so because it is divided into vertical the tower of Pisa.*'^ equal parts XXIX. One more principle of Proportion I have to name, equally simple, equally neglected. Proportion is between three terms at least. Hence, as the pinnacles are not enough without in politics.
that I
know :
the spire, so neither the spire without the pinnacles.
All
men
and usually express their feeling by saying that the pinnaThis is one reacles conceal the junction of the spire and tower. son but a more influential one is, that the pinnacles furnish the So that it is not enough, third term to the spire and tower. feel this
;
in order to secure proportion, to divide a building unequally it
nnist be divided into at least three parts
more (and three
is
in details with advantage), but
;
may be
it
on a large
into
scale I find
about the best number of parts in elevation, and five with freedom of increase to five in the one
in horizontal extent,
case
and seven
in the other'; but not to
sion (in architecture, that
is
to say
the numbers cannot be limited).
works which are this subject,
;
more without confu-
for in organic structure
I purpose, in the course of
in preparation, to give copious illustrations of
but I will take at present only one instance of ver from the flower stem of the common water
tical projjortion,
plantain,
AJisma Plantago.
Fig. 5, Plate XII. is a reduced one side of a plant gathered at random it is seen to have five masts, of which, however, the uppermost is a mere shoot, and we can consider only their relations up to the profile of
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
120
Their lengths are measured on the Vine
fourth.
the actual length of the lowest mass aJ,
and
A
E=
A B,
AC=Jc,
which
is
AD=(?a^,
If the reader will take the trouble to measure
e.
these lengths and compare them, he will find that, within half
a line, the ujjpermost
A C=^of A B;
A E=|
of
A D, A D=|
of
A
each of the joints spring each between each
;
tla*ee
major and three minor branches, at any joint, are
placed over the minor branches at the joint below,
;
fig.
6
left light, of
—the stem
shows the section of any
darkened triangle
is
and
From
but the major bi'anches,
curious arrangement of the joint itself
angular
C,
a most subtle diminishing proportion.
the upper stem
;
tri-
The outer
joint.
the section of the lower stem
by the
bluntly
is
;
the inner,
and the three main branches
spring from the ledges left by the recession.
Thus the stems The
diminish in diameter just as they diminish in height.
main branches (falsely placed in the profile over each other to show their relations) have respectively seven, six, five, four, and three arm-bones, like the masts of the stem
being proportioned in the same subtle manner. of these,
it
seems to be the j^lan of the plant
;
these divisions
From the tliat
joints
three major
and three minor branches should again spring, bearing the flowers but, in these infinitely complicated members, vegetative nature admits much variety in the plant from which these measures were taken the full complement appeared only at one :
;
of the secondary joints.
The
leaf of this plant has five ribs
on each
side, as its
flower
generally five masts, arranged with the most exquisite grace of
curve
but of lateral proportion I shall rather take illustrations
;
from architecture of the
Duomo
§§XIV. tions,
— XVL
at
:
the reader will find several in the accounts
Pisa and St. Mark's at Venice, in Chap. Y, I give these arrangements merely as illustra*
not as precedents
:
all
beautiful proportions are unique,
they are not general formulae.
XXX. The other condition of architectural treatment which we proposed to notice was the abstraction of imitated form. But there is a peculiar difliculty in touching within these na7'no'v limits on such a subject as this, because the abstraction of
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. which we find examples in existing and
a matter of
it is
to be purposed.
vidual mind, the
and incomplete.
much
it begins In the progress of national as well as of indi-
first
attempts at imitation are always abstract
Greater completion marks the progress of
pletion of imitative it is
partly involuntary;
nicety to determine M'liere
absolute completion usually
But
art, is
121
form
is
decline;
its
often supposed to be in itself wrong.
not wrong always, only dangerous.
briefly to ascertain
art,
whence absolute com-
wherein
its
danger
consists,
Let us endeavor
and wherein
its
dignity.
XXXI. that
is
I have said that
to say,
it
all art is
abstract in its beginnings
expresses only a small
number
;
of the qualities
Curved and complex lines are repand simple ones interior markings of forms are few, and much is symbolical and conventional. There is a resemblance between the work of a great nation, in this phase, and the work of childhood and ignorance, which, in the mind of a careless observer, might attach something like ridicule to it. The form of a tree on the Xinevite sculptures is much like that which, some twenty years ago, was famiharupon samplers; and the types of the face and figure in early Italian art are susceptible of easy caricature. On the signs which separate the infancy of magnificent manhood from every other, I do not pause to insist (they consist entirely in the choice of the symbol and of of the thing represented.
resented
by
straight
;
the features abstracted)
;
but I pass to the next stnge of
a
art,
condition of strength in which the abstraction which was begun in incapal)ility
is
continued in free
ever, in pure sculpture
will.
and painting,
This
is
the case, how-
as well as in architecture
and we have nothing to do but with that greater severity of manner which fits either to be associated with the more realist art. I believe it properly consists only in a due expression of their subordination, an expression varying according to their place and office. The question is first to be clearly determined whether the architecture is a frame for the sculpture, or the If the latter, then sculpture an ornament of the architecture. the
first office
imitates, but
of that sculpture to gather
out of
is
not to i-epresent the things
them those arrangements
it
of
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
123
form which shall be pleasing to the eye in their intended places. So soon as agreeable lines and jDoints of shade have been added to the mouldings which were meagre, or to the lights which were unrelieved, the architectural work of the imitation is accomplished and how far it shall be wrought towards comjileteness or not, will depend upon its place, and upon other various ;
circumstances.
If, in its
metrically arranged, there architectural
may
Leaves
subjection.
particular use or position, is,
it
is
sym-
of course, an instant indication of
But symmetry
is
not abstraction.
be carved in the most regular order, and yet be
meanly imitative or, on the other hand, the^" may be thrown wild and loose, and yet be highly architectural in their separate Nothing can be less symmetrical than the group of treatment. leaves which join the two columns in Plate XIII.; yet, since nothing of the leaf character is given but what is necessary for the bare suggestion of its image and the attainment of the It shows that lines desired, their treatment is highly abstract. the workman only wanted so much of the leaf as he supjjosed good for his architecture, and would allow no more and how much is to be supposed good, depends, as I have said, much more on place and circumstance than on general laws. I know that this is not usually thought, and that many good architects would insist on abstraction in all cases the question is so wide and so difficult that I express my opinion upon it most diffi;
;
:
dently
;
my own
but
like that of
our
feeling
earliest
is,
that a purely abstract manner,
English work, does not afford room for
the perfection of beautiful form, and that
its
severity
is
weari-
been long accustomed to it. I have not done justice to the Salisbury dog-tooth moulding, of which the effect is sketched in fig. 5, Plate X., but I have done more justice to it nevertheless than to the beautiful French one above it ; and I do not think that any candid reader would deny that, piquant and spirited as is that from Salisbury, the Rouen mould-
some
ing
after the eye has
is,
in every respect, nobler.
symmetiy
It will
be obsei-ved that
Its
more complicated, the leafage being divided into double groups of two lobes each, each lobe of different struc-
ture.
is
With
exquisite feeling, one of these double groups
is
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
123
on tlie other side of the moulding (not seen occupying the cavetto of the section), thus giving a playful lightness to the whole and if the reader will allow for a beauty in the flow of the curved outlines (especially on the angle), of wliich he cainiot in tlie least judge from my alternately omitted in the Flute, but
;
rude drawing, he will not, I think, expect easily to find a nobler instance of decoration adapted to the severest mouldings.
Now it
will be observed, that there
is
in its treatment a high
degree of abstraction, though not so conventional as that of Salisbury
that
:
is
to say, the leaves
have
little
more than
their
flow and outline represented; they are hardly undercut, but their edges are connected
with the stone behind rib or
;
by a gentle and most studied curve
they have no serrations, no veinings, no
on the angle, only an incision gracefully made
stalk
towards their extremities, indicative of the central rib and de-
The whole
style of the abstraction shows that the he had chosen, have carried the imitation much farther, but stayed at this point of his own free will and what he has done is also so perfect in its kind, that I feel dis-
pression.
architect could, if
;
posed to accept his authority without question, so far as I can gather it from his works, on the whole subject of abstraction.
XXXII. Happily
his opinion is frankly expressed.
This
and on a level with the top of the north gate it cannot therefore be closely seen except from the wooden stairs of the belfry it is not intended to be moulding
is
on the
lateral buttress,
;
;
so seen, but calculated for a distance of, at least, forty to fifty
feet
from the
In the vault of the gate itself, half as near rows of mouldings, as I think, by the same events part of the same plan. One of them is
eye.
again, there are three
designer, at
all
given in Plate is
fruit,
and
2 a.
I. fig.
here infinitely less
;
It will
be seen that the abstraction
the ivy leaves have stalks and associated
a rib for each lobe,
and are so far undercut
tach their forms from the stone
;
as to de-
while in the vine-leaf mould-
ing above, of the same period, from the south gate, serration appears added to other purely imitative characters.
Finally, in
the animals which form the ornaments of the portion of the
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
124 gate which
is
close to the eye, abstraction nearly vanishes into
perfect scnlpture.
XXXIII, Nearness to the eye, however, is not the only circumstance which influences architectural abstraction. These very animals are not merely better cut because close to the eye are put close to the eye that they
may, without
;
they
indiscretion, be
on the noble principle, first, I think, clearly enunby Mr. Eastlake, that the closest imitation shall be of tlie noblest object. Farther, since the wildness and manner of growth of vegetation render a bona fide imitation of it impossible in sculpture since its members must be reduced in number, ordered in direction, and cut away from their roots, even under tlie most earnestly imitative ti-eatment, it becomes a point, as I think, of good judgment, to proportion the better cut, ciated
—
—
completeness of execution of parts to the formality of the
whole
and since
must stand for a tree, to let But since the animal generally admits of perfect outline since its form is detached, and may be fully represented, its sculpture may be more complete and faithful in all its parts. And this principle will be actually found, I believe, to guide the old workmen. If the animal form be in a gargoyle, incomplete, and coming out of a block of stone, or if a head only, as for a boss or other such partial use, its sculpture will be highly abstract. But if it ;
five or six leaves
also five or six touches stand for a leaf.
—
be an entire animal, as a
among
lizard, or a bird,
leafage, its sculpture will
I think, if small, near the eye,
may
or a squirrel, peeping
be much
farther carried, and
and worked in a
fine material,
rightly be carried to the utmost possible
Surely
we
cannot wish a
less
finish
completion.
bestowed on those which
animate the mouldings of the south door of the cathedral of Florence; nor desire that the birds in the capitals of the
Doge's palace should be stripped of a single plume.
XXXiy. fect sculpture
Under
these limitations, then, I think that per-
may be made
a part of the severest architecture
;
but this perfection was said in the outset to be dangerous. It is so in the highest degree; for the moment the architect allows himself to dwell on the imitated portions, there
is
a
Plato
^'B.MbL
XL
-i
iti.ij^
tiim^jjiA
THE LAilP OF BEAUTY.
125
chance of his loshig sight of the duty of his ornament, of business as a part of the composition, and sacrificing
its
its
points
of shade and effect to the deUght of delicate carving.
And
then he
work all
His architecture has become
is lost.
mere framewliich had better be
for the setting of delicate sculpture,
down and put into cabinets. joung architect should be taught
taken
that the
ornament
extreme
as of the
a
It is well, therefore,
to think of imitative
of grace in language
;
not to be
first, not to be obtained at the cost of purpose, meaning, force, or conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection the one least of all perfections, and yet the crowning one of all
regarded at
wldcli
by
— —
and regarded
itself,
coxcombry, but
is
and power when
in
itself,
is
an architectural
yet the sign of the most highly-trained
it is
associated with others.
It is a safe
mind man-
ner, as I think, to design all things at first in severe abstrac-
and to be prepared, if need were, to carry them out in form then to mark the parts where high finish would be admissible, to complete these always with stem reference to their general effect, and then connect them by a graduated
tion,
that
;
And there is one safeguard which I would finally insist. Never imitate anything but natural forms, and those the
scale of abstraction
with the
rest.
against danger in this process on
noblest, in the
completed
parts.
The
degradation of the cinque
cento manner of decoration was not owing to its
faithfulness of imitation, but to
its
its
naturalism, to
imitation of ugly,
i.e.
un-
So long as it restrained itself to sculpture of animals and flowers, it remained noble. The balcony, on the opposite page, from a house in the Campo St. Benedetto at Venice, shows one of the earliest occurrences of the cinque cento arabesque, and a fragment of the pattern is given in Plate XII. fig. 8. It is but the arresting upon the stone work of a stem or two of the living flowers, which are rarely wanting in the window above (and which, by the by, the French
natural things.
and Italian peasantry often trellis with exquisite taste about This arabesque, relieved as it is in darkness their casements).
from the white stone by the stain of time, is surely both beautiful and pure and as long as the renaissance ornament re;
:
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
126
mained
in
siicli
forms
it
may
be beheld with undeserved ad-
But the moment that unnatural objects were associated with these, and armor, and musical instruments, and wild meaningless scrolls and curled shields, and other such fancies, became principal in its subjects, its doom was sealed, and miration.
with
it
that of the architecture of the world.
XXXV.
III.
Our
was
final inquiry
to be into the use of
color as associated with architectural ornament. I do not feel able to speak with
any confidence respecting I would only note one point, that sculpture is the representation of an idea, while architecture is itself a real thing. The idea may, as I think, be left colorless, and colored by the beholder's mind but a reality ought to have reality in all its attributes its color the touching of sculpture with color.
:
should be as fixed as
its
form.
I cannot, therefore, consider
architecture as in any wise perfect without color.
Farther, as
I have above noticed, I think the colors of architecture should
be those of natural stones
partly because more durable, but more jjerfect and graceful. For to conquer the liarshness and deadness of tones laid upon stone or on gesso, needs the management and discretion cf a true painter and on this co-operation we must not calculate in laying down ;
also because
;
rules for general practice.
If Tintoret or Giorgione are at hand, and ask us for a wall to paint, we will alter our whole design for their sake, and become their servants but we must, ;
as architects, expect the aid of the
common workman
the laying of color by a mechanical hand, and
its
only
;
and
toning under a
vulgar eye, are far more offensive than rudeness in cutting the stone.
The
latter is imj^erfection only; the
or discordance.
At
the best, such color
is
former deadness
so inferior to the
lovely and
mellow hues of the natural stone, that it is wise to sacrifice some of the intricacy of design, if by so doing we may employ the nobler material. And if, as we looked to Nature for instruction respecting form, we look to her also to learn the
management
this sacrifice of intricacy
XXXYI.
First,
of color, is
we
shall,
perhaps,
find
that
for other causes expedient.
then, I think that in
making
this refer-
— THE LAMP OF BEAUTT. ence
we
1?7
are to consider our building as a kind of organized
creature; in coloring wliicli
we must
look to the single and
separately organized creatures of Kature, not to her landscape
Our
combinations. thing,
and
is
building,
to be colored as
if it is well composed, is one Nature would color one thing
a shell, a flower, or an animal
;
not as she colors groups of
things.
And
the
first
broad conclusion
we
shall
deduce from obit never
seiTance of natural color in such cases will be, that
arranged on an entirely separate system. What mysterious connection there may be between the shape of the spots on an animal's skin and its anatomical system, I follows form, but
is
do not know, nor even if such a connection has in any wise been traced but to the eye the systems are entirely separate, and in many cases that of color is accidentally variable. The stripes of a zebra do not follow the lines of its body or limbs, In the plumage of birds, still less the spots of a leopard. each feather bears a part of the pattern which is arbitrarily carried over the body, having indeed certain graceful harmo:
nies with the form, diminishing or enlarging in directions which sometimes follow, but also not unfrequently oppose, the "Whatever harmonies there directions of its muscular lines. may be, are distinctly like those of two separate musical parts, coinciding here and there only never discordant, but essen-
—
tially different.
I hold this, then, for the first great principle
be visibly independent of form. Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always cross it." of architectural color.
Never give
Let
it
separate mouldings separate colors (I
know
this is
from any conclusions, however conwhich I am led by observance of and in sculptured ornaments I do not
heresy, but I never shrink trary to
human
authority, to
natural principles)
;
paint the leaves or figures (I cannot help the Elgin frieze) of
one color and their ground of another, but vary both the ground and the figures with the same harmony. Notice how Nature does it in a variegated flower not one leaf red and another white, but a point of red and a zone of white, or whatever it may be, to each. In certain places you may run your ;
:
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
128
two systems
closer,
and here and
tliere let tliem
be parallel for
a note or two, but see that the colors and the forms coincide
only as two orders of monldings do
but each holding
its
own
;
the same for an instant,
So
course.
single
members may
as a bird's head is sometimes sometimes have single colors of one color and its shoulders another, you may make your but in general capital of one color and your shaft another not on the points surfaces, is on broad color for place the best on its breast and mottled animal is An in form. of interest :
;
paws or about its eyes so put your variegation boldly on the flat w\all and broad shaft, but be shy of it in the capital and moulding in all cases it is a safe rule to and I think simplify color when form is rich, and vice versa it would be well in general to carve all capitals and graceful back, rarely on
its
;
;
;
ornaments in white marble, and so leave them. XXXVII. Independence then being first secured, what kind of limiting outlines shall we adopt for the system of color itself
?
am
I
any person familiar with natural ob^ never be surprised at any appearance of care or finish
quite sure that
jects will
That is the condition of the universe. But there is for surprise and inquiry whenever we see anything both cause that is not a common condilike carelessness or incompletion in them.
:
I tion it must be one appointed for some singular purpose. who, any one felt forcibly by will be believe that such surprise ;
after studying carefully the lines of
some variegated organic
form, will set himself to copy with similar diligence those of The boundaries of the forms he will assuredly, its colors.
whatever the object, have found drawn with a delicacy and Those of its precision which no human hand can follow. colors he will find in many cases, though governed always by a certain rude spnmetry, yet irregular, blotched, imperfect, liable to all kinds of accidents
tracery of the lines on a
awkwardly there
is
its
and awkwardnesses. Look at the shell, and see how oddly and
camp
tents are pitched.
It is
not indeed always so
occasionally, as in the eye of the peacock's plume, an
apparent precision, but
still
a precision far inferior to that of
THE LAMP OF BTiAUTY. drawing of
t]ie
tlie
filaments which bear
129
tliat
lovely stain
'
and
the plurality of cases a degree of looseness and variation,
ill
and,
still
ment,
is
more
singularly, of harshness
and violence
in arrange-
admitted in color which would be monstrous in fonn.
Observe the difference in the precision of a
fish's scales
and of
the spots on them.
XXXVIII. Now, why it should be that color is best seen under these circumstances I will not here endeavor to determine nor whether the lesson we are to learn from it be that it is God's will that all manner of delights should never be combined in one thing. But the fact is certain, that color is always by Ilim arranged in these simple or rade forms, and as ;
must be best seen
and that Experience teaches us the same thing. Infinite nonsense has been written about the union of perfect color with perfect form. They never will, never can be united. Color, to be perfect, must have a soft outline or a simple one it cannot have a refined one and you will never produce a good painted window with good figure-drawing in it. You will lose perfection of color as you give perfection of line. Try to put in order and form the colors of a piece of opal. certain that, therefore,
we
shall
never
it
mend by
refining
its
in them,
arrangements.
:
;
XXXIX. for
its
own
I conclude, then, that all arrangements of color,
sake, in graceful forms, are barbarous
to paint a color pattern with the lovely lines of a
moulding,
is
an utterly savage procedure.
thing in natural color like this it
in all natural
form
architectural color
we
is
—never
:
it is
and that, Greek leaf
;
I cannot find any-
not in the bond.
in natural color.
to be beautiful as its
If,
I find
then, our
form was, by being
—
to simple masses rainbow and the zebra cloudings and flamings, as in marble shells and plumage, or spots of various shapes and dimensions. All these conditions are susceptible imitative,
of
it,
are limited to these conditions
to zones, as in the
;
of various degrees of sharpness and delicacy, and of complica-
The zone may become a delicate line, and arrange itself in chequers and zig-zags. The flaming may be more or less defined, as on a tulip leaf, and may at last be tion in arrangement.
;
THE LJLMP OF BEAUTY.
130
represented by a triangle of color, and arrange or other shapes
may
the spot
;
itself in star&
be also graduated into a
or defined into a square or circle.
The most
stain,
exquisite harmo-
nies may be comj^osed of these simple elements some soft and full, of flushed and melting spaces of color others piquant and sparkling, or deep and rich, formed of close grouj)s of the fiery fragments perfect and lovely proportion may be ex:
;
:
hibited in the relation of their quantities, infinite invention in their disposition
but, in all cases, their shape will be effective
:
determines their quantity, and regulates their operaon each other points or edges of one being introduced between breadths of others, and so on. Triangular and barred forms are therefore convenient, or othei-s the simplest possible only as
it
tion
;
leaving the pleasure of the spectator to be taken in the color,
and in that only. Curved outlines, especially if refined, deaden the color, and confuse the mind. Even in figure painting the greatest colorists have either melted their outline away, as often Correggio and Rubens or purposely made ;
their masses of
ungainly shape, as Titian
brightest hues in costume, terns, as
;
or placed their
where they could get quaint
pat-
Yeronese, and especially Angelico, with whom, how-
ever, the absolute virtue of color is secondary to grace of line.
Hence, he never uses the blended hues of Correggio, like those on the wing of the little Cupid, in the " Venus and Mercury," but always the severest type the peacock plume. Any of these men would have looked with infinite disgust upon the leafage and scroll-work which fonn the ground of color in our modern painted windows, and yet all whom I
—
have named were
much
infected with the love of renaissance
"We must also allow for the freedom of the painter's and looseness of his associated lines a pattern being severe in a picture, which is over luxurious ujjon a building. I believe, therefore, that it is impossil:)le to be over quaint or angular in architectural coloring and thus many dispositions which I have had occasion to reprobate in form, are, in color, I have always, for instance, the best that can l)e invented. spoken with contempt of the Tudor style, for this reason, tliat, designs. subject,
;
;
— THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
pretence to spaciousness and breadth,
having surrendered
all
liaving divided
surfaces
its
131
bj an
infinite
jet sacrifices the only characters which can ful
;
sacrifices all
number of lines, it make lines beauti-
the variety and grace which long atoned for
the caprice of the Flamboyant, and adopts, for feature,
an entanglement of cross bars and
about as tion of
would
much
invention or
leading
its
showing
verticals,
of design as the reticula-
skill
Yet this very reticulation be highly beautiful and all the heraldry, and
the bricklayer's sieve.
in color
;
may be delightthemes of color (so long as there are no fluttering or over-twisted lines in them) and this observe, because, when colored, they take the place of a mere pattern, and the resemblance to nature, which could not be found in their sculptured forms, is found in their piquant variegation of other surfaces. There is a beautiful and bright bit of wall painting behind the Duomo of Yerona, composed of coats of arms, whose bearother features which, in form, are monstrous, ful as
;
ings are balls of gold set in bars of green (altered blue white, with cardinal's hats in alternate squares. course, however,
fit
only for domestic work.
the Doge's palace at Venice
model that
I
can
name
to public buildings.
white
is
but the wall surface
and
The
front of
the purest and most chaste
(but one) of the
The
?)
Tliis is of
fit
apjjlication of color
sculpture and mouldings are
all
chequered with marble blocks of pale rose, the chequers being in no wise harmonized, or fitted to the forms of the windows but looking as if the sur' face had been completed first, and the windows cut out of it. ;
is
;
In Plate XII. fig. 12 the reader will see two of the patterns used in green and white, on the columns of San Michele of Lucca, every column having a different design. Both are
upper one certainly the best. Tet in sculpwould have been perfectly barbarous, and those even of the lower not enough refined. beautiful, but the
ture
its
lines
XL. Restraining
ourselves, therefore, to the use of such
simple patterns, so far forth as our color
is
subordinate either
to architectural stiTicture, or sculptural form,
more manner of ornamentation
we have
to add to our general
yet one
means of
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
132 effect,
monochrome
design, the intermediate condition between
coloring and carving.
The
architectural decoration
may then be
1.
Organic form dominant.
relations of the entire system of
thus expressed.
True, independent sculpture, and
and mouldings to be elaborate and either to be left in pure white marble, or most cautiously touched with color in points and borders only, in a system not concuralto-relievo
;
rich capitals,
;
in completion of form, not abstract,
rent with their forms. 2.
Organic form sub-dominant.
To
Basso-i'elievo or intaglio.
be more abstract in proportion to the reduction of depth
;
more rigid and simple in contour to be touched with color more boldly and in an increased degree, exactly to be also
;
in proportion to the reduced depth
but 3.
still
Organic form abstracted to outline. still
and fulness of form,
in a system non-concurrent with their forms.
Monochrome
design,
farther reduced to simplicity of contour, and there-
fore admitting: for the
first
rent with
that
its
outlines
;
time the color to be concuris
to say, as its
name
im.ports,
the entire figure to be detached in one color from a
ground of another. 4.
Orgaiuc forms entirely
On
fit
Geometrical patterns or
vari-
color.
the opposite side of this scale, ascending from the color
pattern, I
may
lost.
most vivid
able cloudings in the
would place the various
foi-ms of painting
be associated with architecture
:
which
primarily, and as most
for such purpose, the mosaic, highly abstract in treatment,
and introducing
brilliant
color in masses; the
Madonna
of
Torcello being, as I think, the noblest tj^pe of the manner, and
the Baptistery of
Parma
the richest
tive fresco, like that of the
becoming
:
next, the purely decora-
Arena Chapel
principal, as in the Vatican
and
;
finally,
Sistine.
the fresco
But I
can-
with any safety, follow the principles of abstraction in since the noblest examples of it this pictorial ornament not,
;
appear to
me
to
owe
their architectural applicability to their
;
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
manner
133
abstraction and admiramedia of the most splendid coloring, cannot be recovered by a voluntary condescension. The Byzantines themselves would not, I think, if they could have drawn the figure better, have used it for a color decoration and that use, as peculiar to a condition of childhood, however noble and full of promise, cannot be included amonc: those modes of adornment which are now legitimate or even possible. There is a difficulty in the management of the painted window for the same reason, which has not yet been met, and we must conquer that first, before we can venture to Picconsider the wall as a painted window on a large scale. torial subject, without such abstraction, becomes necessarily
archaic
and
;
I
think that
ble simplicity which render
tlie
them
fit
;
principal, or, at all events, ceases to be the architect's concern its
plan must be left to the painter after the completion of the
building, as in the works of Veronese and Giorgione on the palaces of
Yen ice.
XLT. Pure
architectural decoration, then,
may be
ered as limited to the four kinds above specified
Elgin frieze
is
monochrome
a
of w^hicli
;
each glides almost imperceptibly into the other.
Thus, the
in a state of transition to sculp-
ture, retaining, as I think, the half -cast skin too long.
monochrome,
I have given an
consid-
example
noble front of St. Michele of Lucca.
in Plate YI.,
Of pure from the
It contains forty
such
arches, all covered with equally elaborate ornaments, entirely
drawn by cutting out
their
in the flat white marble,
green serpentine
;
ground to about the depth of an inch and filling the spaces with pieces of
mode
a most elaborate
of sculpture, requiring
excessive care and precision in the fitting of the edges, and of
course double work, the same line needing to be cut both in
the marble and serpentine.
forms will be
at
The
once perceived
excessive simplicity of the ;
the eyes of the figures of
animals, for instance, being indicated
formed by
only by a round dot,
a little inlet circle of serpentine, about half an inch
though simple, they admit often much grace of curvature, as in the neck of the bird seen above the right hand pillar.'* The pieces of serpentine have fallen out in many over
:
but,
THE LAMP OF BKAUTY.
134
under the horseman's and in the semi-circular line round the It would have illustrated arch, once filled with some pattern. my point better to have restored the lost portions, but I always draw a thing exactly as it is, hating restoration of any kind and I would especially direct the reader's attention to the completion of the forms in the sculptured ornament of the marble cornices, as opposed to the abstraction of the monochrome figures, of the ball and cross patterns between the arches, and of the triangular ornament round the arch on the left. XLII. I have an intense love for these monochrome figures, owing to their wonderful life and spirit in all the works on which I found them nevertheless, I believe that the excessive degree of abstraction which they imply necessitates our placing them in the rank of a progressive or imperfect art, and that a perfect building should rather be composed of the highest sculpture (organic form dominant and sub-dominant), associated with pattern colors on the flat or broad surfaces. And we find, in fact, that the cathedral of Pisa, which is a higher type than places, giving the black shadows, as seen
arm and
bird's neck,
,•
;
that of Lucca, exactly follows this condition, the color being
put in geometrical patterns on
and lovely leafage used
And when
its surfaces,
and animal forms
the sculptured cornices and
I think that the grace of the carved forms it
is
it
is
is
pillars.
best seen
thus boldly opposed to severe traceries of color,
while the color
when
in
itself
is,
as
we have
seen, always
most piquant
put into sharp angular arramj-ements.
Thus the
approved and set off by the color, and the color seen to the best advantage in its opposition both to the whiteness and the grace of the carved marble. XLIII. In the course of this and the preceding chapters, I have now separately enumerated most of the conditions of Power and Beauty, which in the outset I stated to be the grounds sculpture
is
of the deepest impressions with whicli architecture could affect
human mind
would ask permission to recapitulate any building which I may offer as an example of the unison, in such manner as is possible, of them all. Glancing back, then, to the beginning of the third
the
them
;
but
I
in order to see if there be
135
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
and introducing in their place tlie conditions incidentdetermined in the two previous sections, we shall have the
oliapter,
ally
following
list
of noble characters
:
exhibited by simple terminal lines (Chap. Breadth of flat Projection towards the top (§ 7).
Considerable III. § 6).
size,
Square compartments of that surface (§ 9). masonry (§ 11). Vigorous depth of shadow Varied and especially by pierced traceries (§ 18). Varied (^ 13), exhibited
surface
(§
8).
visible
proportion in ascent (Chap. IV. § 28). Lateral symmetry (§ 28). Sculpture most delicate at tlie base (Chap. I. § 12). Enriched
Sculpture abstract in quantity of ornament at the top (§ IB). (Chap. IV. § 31), complete inferior ornaments and mouldings in animal
forms
(§ 33).
Both
to be executed in white
marble
Vivid color introduced in flat geometrical patterns
(§ 40).
(§ 39),
and obtained by the use of naturally colored stone (§ 35). These characteristics occur more or less in different buildBut all together, and ings, some in one and some in another. all
in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far
as I
in one building in the world, the
know, only
of Giotto at Florence.
The drawing
Campanile
of the tracery of
its
upper story, which heads this chapter, rude as it is, will nevertheless give the reader some better conception of that tovrcr's magnificence than the thin outlines in which it is usually portrayed.
In
its first
thing unpleasing
;
appeal to the stranger's eye there
a mingling, as
it
is
some-
seems to him, of over severity
But let him give it time, as he should I remember well how, wlien a to all other consummate art. boy, I used to despise that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows b}^ sunlight and with over minuteness.
moonlight, and I shall not soon forget
gloomy appeared
when
to
me
how profound and
the savageness of the Northern Gothic,
I afterwards stood, for the first time,
The
beneath the front
if it could be between the rising of those grey walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough-grained shafts, and
of Salisbury.
quickly
felt,
contrast
is
indeed strange,
— THE LAMP OF BEAUTY.
136
ornament than the marand that bright, smooth, tins' nests in the height of them, sunny surface of glowing jasper, tliose spiral shafts and fairy
triple lights, without tracery or other
tracenes, so white, so faint, so crystalHne, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the Eastern sky,
mountain alabaster, colored like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea shell. And if this be, as 1 believe it, the model and mirror of perfect architecture, is there that serene height of
not something to be learned by looking back to the early of
him who
raised it?
life
Power of human mind much more must the love
I said that the
had its growth in the Wilderness and the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work, and an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by planting there the fir tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far away fields of her lilies, was the child trained who was to raise that headstone of Beauty above the towers of watch and war. Remember all that he became count the saask cred thoughts with which he filled the heart of Italy those who followed him what they learned at his feet and when you have numbered his labors, and received their testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this His servant no common nor restrained portion of His Spirit, and that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon his crown was that of David's " I took thee from the sheepcote, and from following the sheep.'' ;
;
;
;
:
CHAPTER THE LAMP OF
Among
I,
tlie
relations of the tion,
Y. LIFE.
countless analogies
human
by which the nature and
soul are illustrated in the material crea-
none are more striking than the impressions inseparably
connected with the active and dormant states of matter.
I
have elsewhere endeavored to show, that no inconsiderable part of the essential charactei's of Beauty depended on the expression of vital energy in organic things, or on the subjection to such energy, of things naturally passive and powerless. I need not here repeat, of what was then advanced, more than the statement which I believe will meet with general acceptance, that things in other respects alike, as in their substance, or
outward forms, are noble or ignoble in proportion to life which either they themselves enjoy, or of whose action they bear the evidence, as sea sands are made beautiful by their bearing the seal of the motion of the waters. uses, or
the fulness of the
And
this
is
especially true of all objects
which bear upon them
the impress of the highest order of creative
tion
bly
life,
that
is
to say,
mind of man they become noble or ignoble in proporto the amount of the energy of that mind which has visibeen employed upon them. But most peculiarly and
of the
:
imperatively does the rule hold with respect to the creations of Architecture, which being properl}^ capable of
no other
life
and being not essentially composed of things pleasant in themselves, as music of sweet sounds, or painting of fair colors, but of inert substance, depend, for their dignity and pleasurableness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid expression of the intellectual life which has been concerned in their prothan
this,
—
duction.
—
THE LAMP OF
138
l^ow
II.
mind,
LIFE.
in all other kind of energies except that of man's
tliere is
no question
as to
what
is
and what
life,
is
not.
Vital sensibility, whether vegetable or animal, may, indeed, be
reduced to so great feebleness, as to render matter of question, but
when
it is
evident at
its
existence a
all, it
evident
is
no mistaking any imitation or pretence of it for the life itself no mechanism nor galvanism can take its place nor is any resemblance of it so striking as to involve even hesitation in the judgment although many occur which as
such
there
:
is
;
;
;
the
human
imagination takes pleasure in exalting, without for
an instant losing sight of the real nature of the dead things animates
;
but rejoicing rather in
its
own
excessive
life,
it
which
puts gesture into clouds, and joy into waves, and voices into rocks. III.
of man,
But when we begin
we
to be concerned with the energies
find ourselves instantly dealing with a double crea-
Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious counwhich it is at his peril if he do not cast off and deny. Thus he has a true and false (otherwise called a living and dead, or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a
ture.
terpart,
and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a His true life is like that of lower organic beings, the independent force by which he moulds and governs external things it is a force of assimilation which converts everyand which, tliing around him into food, or into instruments however humblj' or obediently it may listen to or follow the false hope, a true false life.
;
;
guidance of
superior
intelligence,
never
forfeits
its
own
authority as a judging principle, as a will capable either of
obeying or rebelling.
His
false life
conditions of death or stupor, but
is,
indeed, but one of the
it acts,
even when
it
cannot
is not always easily known from the custom and accident in which many of us pass much of our time in the world that life in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is
be said to animate, and tnie.
It is that life of
;
;
moulded by them, instead of assimilating them
;
that,
which
THE LAilP OF
139
LIFE.
instead of growing and blossoming under any is
crystallised over
the trae
with
it,
as
with hoar
wliat an arboreseence
life
is
frost,
wholesome dew, and becomes to
to a tree, a candied
agglomeration of thoughts and habits foreign to
brittle,
it,
and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but must be crushed and broken to bits, if it stand in our way. All men are liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this sort all are partly encumbered and crusted over with idle matter only, if they have real life in them, they are always breaking this bark away in noble rents, until it becomes, like the black strips obstinate,
;
;
upon the birch
much
own inward men make,
only a witness of their
tree,
But, with
strength.
all
the efforts that the best
of their being passes in a kind of dream, in which they
indeed move, and play their parts their fellow-dreamers, but have
no
sufficiently, to the
eyes of
what around them, or within them blind to the one, insensible to the other, rooOpoi. I would not press the definition into its darker application to the dull heart and heavy ear I have to do M'itli it only as it refers to the too frequent condition of is
clear consciousness of
;
;
natural existence, whether of nations or individuals, settling
commonly upon them a nation
and
is
fierce,
in proportion to their age.
then languid and covered,
the tumbling over and over of last
The
life
of
usually, like the flow of a lava stream, first bright
condition
marked most
is
its
at last
advancing only by
frozen blocks.
a sad one to look upon.
And
that
All the steps are
and in Architecture more than being especially dependent, as we have
clearly in the arts,
in any other; for
it,
on the warmth of the true life, is also peculiarly hemlock cold of the false and I do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind is once awakened to just said,
sensible of the
its characteristics,
;
than the aspect of a dead architectui-e.
feebleness of childhood
is
full of
knowledge impotence and
struggle of imperfect tinuity,
— but
to see
promise and of
form of the developed
man
;
full
interest,
The
—
^the
of enei'gy and con-
rigidity settling ujion the
to see the types
which once had flat by over
the die of thought struck fresh upon them, worn use; to see the shell of the living creature in
its
adult form.
THE LAMP OF
140
when
its
colors are faded,
and
its
inhabitant perished,
a sight
more
of
knowledge, and the retnrn
all
liuniiliating,
more
LIFE.
—
this is
melanelioly, than the vanishing
and helpless
to confessed
infancy.
Nay, it is to be wished that such return were always possiThere would be hope if we could change palsy into but I know not how far we can become children puerility The stirring which has taken again, and renew our lost life. place in our architectural aims and interests wdthin these few years, is thought by many to be full of promise I trust it is, I cannot tell whether it be but it has a sickly look to me. indeed a springing of seed or a shaking among bones and I do not think the time will be lost which I ask the reader to spend in the inquiry, how far all that we have hitherto ascertained or conjectured to be the best in principle, may be formally practised without the spirit or the vitality which alone ble.
;
:
;
could give
it
influence, value, or delightfulness.
—
IV. Now, in the first place and this is rather an important point it is no sign of deadness in a present art that it borrows or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or The art of a great nation, which if it imitates without choice. is developed without any acquaintance with nobler examples than its own early efforts furnish, exhibits always the most consistent and comprehensible growth, and perhaps is regarded
—
usually as
there
is
peculiarly venerable in
something to
its
self-origination.
my mind more majestic
But
yet in the life of
an architecture like that of the Lombards, rude and infantine in
itself,
it
is
and surrounded by fragments of a nobler
strong in
its
own new
instincts that
arranges every fragment that
with
art of
which
quick in admiration and ready in imitation, and yet so
its
own
thoughts,
it
it
re-constructs and re-
copies or borrows into
— a harmony
at first disjointed
harmony and awk-
ward, but completed in the end, and fused into perfect organisation
own more
;
all
the borrowed elements being subordinated to
primal, unchanged
life.
I do not
know any
its
sensation
exquisite than the discovering of the evidence of this
magnificent struggle into independent existence
;
the detection
THE LAMP OF
141
LIFE.
of tlie liorrowed thoughts, naj, the finding of the actual blocks
and stones eaivcd by other hands and in other ages, wrought into the new walls, with a new expression and purpose given to them, like the blocks of unsubdued rocks (to go back to our former simile) which we find
in the heart of the lava current,
power which has fused all but those calits homogeneous fire. be asked, IIow is imitation to be rendered
great witnesses to the
cined fragments into the mass of
y.
It
will
healthy and vital the signs of life
;
Unhappily, while
?
life, it is
and while every
is
it
easy to enumerate
impossible to define or to communicate intelligent writer
on Art has
insisted
on
the difference between the copying found in an advancing or
recedent period, none have been able to communicate, in the slightest degree, the force of vitality to the copyist over
they might have influence. not profitable, to note that of
vital
imitation
are,
its
whom
Yet it is at least interesting, if two very distinguishing characters Frankness and
Frankness is especially singular
;
there
conceal the degree of the sources of
its
is
Audacity
its
never any
borrowing.
;
its
eifort to
Eaffaelle
carries off a whole figure from Masaccio, or borrows an entire
much
and simand the plicity of innocence as a young Spartan pickpocket architect of a Eomanesque basilica gathered his columns and capitals where he could find them, as an ant picks up sticks. composition from Perugino, with as
tranquillity ;
There
is
at least a
ance, that there
is
when we find this frank acceptmind of power capable of
presumption,
a sense within the
transforming and renewing whatever
it
adopts
;
and too con-
scious, too exalted, to fear the accusation of plagiarism,
certain that
it
can prove, and has proved,
its
—too
independence, to
its homage to what it admires in the most open and indubitable way and the necessary consequence of this sense of power is the other sign I have named the
be afraid of expressing
;
—
Audacity of treatment when it finds treatment necessary, the unhesitating and sweeping sacrifice of precedent where precedent becomes inconvenient. For instance, in the characteristic forms of Italian Romanesque, in which the hypaethral portion of the heathen temple was replaced by the towering nave,
THE LAMP OF
142
LIFE.
and where, in consequence, tlie pediment of the west front became divided into tljree portions, of which the central one, like the apex of a ridge of sloping strata lifted by a sudden fault, was broken away from and raised above the wings there remained at the extremities of the aisles two triangular fragments of pediment, which could not now be filled by any of the modes of decoration adapted for the unbi'oken space and the difficulty became greater, when the central portion of the front was occupied by columnar ranges, which could not, with;
;
out painful abruptness, terminate short of the extremities of the wings.
I
know
not what expedient would have been
adopted by architects who had much respect for precedent, under such circumstances, but it certainly would not have been that of the Pisan, to continue the range of columns into the
—
pedimental space, shortening them to shaft of the last
only
its
column vanished
capital resting in the angle on
no question
at present
otherwise
I allege
;
without a stood in
it
whether
this
extremity until the
its
and there remained
basic plinth.
I raise
arrangement be graceful or
only as an instance of boldness almost
every received principle that
parallel, casting aside
its
its
altogether,
way, and struggling through every discordance and
difliculty to the fulfilment of its
own
instincts.
YI. Frankness, however, is in itself no excuse for repetition, nor Audacity for innovation, when the one is indolent and the other unwise. Kobler and surer signs of vitality must be sought, signs independent alike of the decorative or original character of the style, and constant in every style that
—
is
determinedly progressive.
Of
these,
one of the most important I believe to be a
tain neglect or
contempt of refinement in execution,
events, a visible
commonly is
cer-
or, at all
subordination of execution to conception,
involuntary, but not unfrequently intentional.
This
a point, however, on which, while I speak confidently, I
must
at
the same time reservedly and carefully, as there would
otherwise be stood.
much chance
It has ])een truly
of
my
being dangerously misunder-
observed and well stated by Lord
Lindsay, that the best designers of Italy were also the most
;
THE LAMP OF careful in their workmansliip of their masonry, mosaic,
143
LIFE.
and that the
;
or other
stability
and
finish
work whatsoever, were
always perfect in proportion to the apparent improbability of the great designers condescending to the care of details among us so despised.
most
Not only do
delicate finish in
its
I fully
would
important fact, but I
But on the other hand,
ing.
art,
re-assert this
upon perfect and most
right place, as a characteristic of
highest schools of architecture, as
perfected
admit and
insist
much
as
it is
all
the
those of paint-
as perfect finish belongs to the
a progressive finish belongs to progressive art
and I do not think that any more fatal sign of a stupor or numbness settling upon that undeveloped art could possibly be detected, than that it had been taken aback by its own execution, and that the workmanship had gone ahead of the design
;
my
while, even in
admission of absolute finish in the
right place, as an attribute of the perfected school, I
must
reserve to myself the right of answering in
my own way
two very important questions, what
?
is finish
and what
the
is its
right place?
YII. But in illustrating either of these points, that
thought
in existent examples, interfered with
is,
the
tion of the designs of an
a rude one.
by the adop-
advanced penod by the workmen of
All the beginnings of Christian architecture are
of this kind, and the necessary consequence increase of the visible interval tion
we must
correspondence of workmanship with
remember
and the beauty of the
almost savage in
its
idea.
is
of course an
between the power of realisaTTe have at first an imitation,
rudeness, of a classical design
;
as the art
modified by a mixture of Gothic grotesqueness, and the execution more complete, until a harmony advances, the design
is
to
is
established between the two, in
new
perfection.
Now
which balance they advance during the whole period in which
the ground is being recovered, there will be found in the living architecture marks not to be mistaken, of intense impaa struggle towards something unattained, which causes minor points of handling to be neglected and a restless disdain of all qualities which appear either to confess content-
tience all
;
;
THE LAMP OF
1^4
ment
LIFE.
or to require a time and care wliicli niiglit be better
And, exactly
spent.
good and earnest student
as a
of drawing
not lose time in ruling lines or finishing backgrounds
will
about studies which, while they have answered his immediate purpose, he knows to be imperfect and inferior to what will
do hereafter,
—so the vigor of a true school of early
lie
archi-
tecture, which is either working under the influence of high example or which is itself in a state of rapid developemeut, is very curiously traceable, among other signs, in the contempt of exact symmetry and measurement, which in dead architecture are the most painful necessities. YIII. In Plate XII. fig. 1 I have given a most singular instance both of rude execution and defied symmetry, in the little pillar and spandril from a pannel decoration under the The imperfection (not merely pulpit of St. Mark's at Venice. simplicity, but actual rudeness and ugliness) of the leaf ornament will strike the eye at once this is general in works of the time, but it is not so common to find a capital which has been so carelessly cut its imperfect volutes being pushed up one side far higher than on the other, and contracted on that :
;
side,
an additional
besides this, the
drill
hole being put in to
member
a, of
the mouldings,
fill
is
the space
;
a roll where
a / the one being slurred and flnally stopj^ed short altogether at the other side by the most uncourteous and remorseand in spite of all less interference of the outer moulding this, the grace, proportion, and feeling of the whole arrangeit
follows the arch, and a
flat flllet at
into the other at the angle
J,
:
ment
are so great, that, in its place,
desired
beat
all
;
In
it.
the science and fig.
4
it
symmetry
leaves nothing to be
in the
I have endeavored to give
execution of the subordinate portions of a
world could not
some
much
idea of the
higher work,
the pulpit of St. Andrea at Pistoja, by Xieolo Pisano.
It is
covered witli figure sculptures, executed with great care and delicac}' biit when the sculptor came to the simple arch ;
mouldings, he did not choose to draw the eye to them by over The section precision of work or over sharpness of shadow.
Tlate
Xn
— THE LAMP OF adopted, k, m, its
LIFE.
145
is
peculiarly simple, and so slight and obtuse in
recessions as
never to produce a sharp line; and it is at first appears slovenliness, but it is in fact
worked
witli
what
slvtchuig
sculptural
•
correspondent
exactly
to
a
painter's
background tlie lines appear and disappear again, are sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, sometimes quite broken off and the recession of the cusp joins that of tlie external arch at }i, in the most fearless defiance of all light execution of a
:
;
mathematical laws of curvilinear contact.
IX. There
is
something very delightful in
this bold expres-
mind of the great master. I do not say that it the " perfect work" of jjatience, but I think that impatience sion of the
a glorious character in an advancing school
;
and
I
is is
love the
Romanesque and early Gothic especially, because they afford accidental carelessness of measurement so much room for it ;
or of execution being mingled undistinguishably with the pur-
posed departures from symmetrical regulai'ity, and the riousness of perpetually variable fancy, characteristic of both styles.
liixu-
which are eminently
How great, how
frequent they
and how brightly the severity of architectural law is relieved by their grace and suddenness, has not, I think, been enough observed still less, the unequal measurements of even are,
;
important
am
featui-es professing to
be absolutely symmetrical.
I
not so familiar with modern practice as to speak with con-
fidence respecting
its
ordinary precision
;
but I imagine that
the following measures of the western front of the cathedral
would be looked upon by present architects as very That front is divided into seven arched compartments, of which the second, fourth or central, and sixth contain doors the seven are in a most subtle alterof Pisa,
blundering approximations.
;
nating proportion
;
the central being the largest, next to
second and sixth, then the
and
fifth.
By
this
first
and seventh,
it
the
lastly the third
arrangement, of course, these three pairs
and they are so to the eye, but I found their actual measures to be the following, taken from pillar to pillar, in Italian bi'accia, palmi (four inches each), and inches
should be equal
;
:
THE LAMP OF
146
LIFE,
Braccia. 1.
Central door
2.
Northern door Southern door
3.
5.
6. 7.
There
Inches.
8 >
6
3
i'
6
4
1^ 3
)
5
5
3i
\
6
1
0|
)
5
2
1
f
5
2
H
Extreme northern space Extreme southern space Northern intervals between the doors Southern intervals between the doors
4.
Palmi.
thus a difference, severally, between
is
2,
'inches*
= = = = = = =
193 157^
163 143|-
148|-
129
129^
3 and 4,
5,
of five inches and a half in the one case, and five inches in the other.
X. This, however, may perhaps be partly attributable to some accommodation of the accidental distortions which e\adently took place in the walls of the cathedral during their building, as
much
those of the
Duomo
are far the
do not believe that a single vertical
To my mind, most wondei'ful of the two I
as in those of the campanile.
the pavement rises and
:
:
pillar of its walls is absolutely falls to
rather the plinth of the walls sinks into
different heights, or it
continually to dif-
ferent depths, the whole west front literally overhangs (I have
not plumbed
by bringing
it
it
;
but the inclination
may be
seen by the eye,
into \4sual contact with the upright pilasters of
Campo Santo) and a most extraordinary distortion in the masonry of the southern wall shows that this inclination had begun when the first story was built. The cornice above the
the
:
first
arcade of that wall touches the tops of eleven out of
fifteen arches
westernmost
;
;
but
it
the arches nodding westward and sinking into the
ground, while the cornice rises (or seems to
any
rate,
its
suddenly leaves the tops of the four
whether by the
rise of the
rise),
one or the
leaving at fall
of the
top of
more than two feet between it and the the western arch, filled by added courses of masonry.
There
is
an(jther very curious evidence of this struggle of the
architect
with his yielding wall in the columns of the main (These notices are perhaps somewhat irrelevant to
other, an interval of
entrance.
our immediate subject, but they appear to me highly interestand they, at all events, prove one of the points on which
ing
;
THE LAMP OF I
would
insist,
—liow
147
LIFE.
ranch of imperfection and variety
in
things professing to be symmetrical the eyes of those eager builders could endure
:
they looked to loveliness in
detail, to
Those columns of the principal entrance are among the loveliest in Italy cylindrical, and decorated with a rich arabesque of sculptured foliage, which at the base extends nearly all round nobility in the whole, never to petty measurements.)
;
them, up to tlie black pilaster in which they are lightly engaged but the shield of foliage, bounded by a severe line, narrows to their tops, where it covers their frontal segment :
only
;
thus giving,
when
laterally seen, a terminal line sloping
boldly outwards, which, as I think, was meant to conceal the accidental leaning of the western walls, and, inclination in the
seeming XI. There
into a
same
direction, to
by
its
exaggerated
throw them by comparisoji
vertical.
another very curious instance of distortion
is
above the central door of the west front.
All the intervals
between the seven arches are filled with black marble, each containing in its centre a white parallelogram filled with animal mosaics, and the whole surmounted by a broad white band, which, generally, does not touch the parallelogram below.
But the parallelogram on the north of the central arch has been forced into an oblique .position, and touches the white band; and, as
if
the architect was determined to show that he
did not care whether
it
did or not, the white baud suddenly
gets thicker at that place, arches.
And
and remains
two next more curious because most fini;^lied and masterly, so over the
these differences are the
the workmanship of
them
and the distorted stones are
all
is
fitted
they tallied to a hairs Ijreadth. or blundering about
it
;
it is all
with as much neatness as if There is no look of slurring
coolly filled in, as if tbe builder
had no sense of anything lieing wrong or extraordinary I only wish we had a little of his impudence. XII. Still, the reader will say that all these variations are probably dependent more on the bad foundatioTi than on the :
architect's feeling. in the proportions
Not so the exquisite delicacies of change and dimensions of the npparently symmotri-
THE LAMP OF
148
LIFE.
cal arcades of the
said the its tiers
west front. It will be remembered that 1 tower of Pisa was tlie onlj iiglj tower in Italy, because were equal, or nearly so, in height a fault this, so ;
contrary to the spirit of the builders of the time, that
it
can be
considered only as an unlucky caprice.
Perhaps the general aspect of the west front of the cathedral may then have occurred to the reader's mind, as seemingly another contradiction of the rule I had advanced. It would not have been so, however, even had its four upper arcades been actually equal as ;
they are subordinated to the great seven-arched lower story, in
manner before noticed respecting the
the
and
as is actually the case in the
But the Pisan front
of Pistoja,
Not one
ed.
The
Duomo
highest
of
is
its
four arcades
is
is
far
spire of Salisbury,
Tower more subtly proportionof Lucca and
of like height with another.
the third, counting upwards
;
in nearly arithmetical proportion alternately 1st,
The
2nd, 4th.
markable
they
:
a grace about
observation,
;
in the order 3rd,
inequalities in their arches are not less re-
at first strike
the eye as
all
equal
but there
;
is
them which equality never obtained on closer is perceived that in the first row of nineteen :
it
arches, eighteen are equal, rest
and they diminish ;
and the central one larger than the
in the second arcade, the nine central arches stand over
the nine below, having, like them, the ninth central one largest.
But on
their flanks,
where
is
the slope of the shoulder-like
pediment, the arches vanish, and a wedge-shaped frieze takes
columns and here,
their place, tapering outwards, in order to allow the to
be carried to the extremity of the pediment
where the heights of the set thicker
;
;
shafts are so far shortened, they are
five shafts, or rather four
and a
capital, above, to
four of the arcade below, giving twenty-one intervals instead of nineteen. is
the highest,
In the next or third arcade,
—eight
—which, remember,
arches, all equal, are given in the space
of the nine below, so that there
is
now
a central shaft instead
of a central arch, and the span of the arches
proportion to their increased height.
most arcade, which
number
as those
is
the lowest of
all,
is
increased in
Finally, in the upper-
the arches, the same in
below, are narrower than any of the fa^-ade;
THE LAMP OF
149
LIFE.
the wliole eight going very nearly above the six below them, while the terminal arches of the lower arcade are surmounted by flanking masses of decorated wall with projecting figures. There is XIII. Now I call that Living Architecture. sensation in every inch of it, and an accommodation to every architectural necessity, with a determined variation in arrange-
ment, which
exactly like the related proportions and
is
visions in the structure of organic form.
examine the
still
j)ro-
I have not space to
lovelier proportioning of the external shafts
I prefer, lest the
of the apse of this marvellous building.
reader should think
it
a peculiar example, to state the structure
of another church, the most graceful and grand piece of Ro-
manesque work,
as a fragment,
in north Italy, that of
Giovanni Evangelista at Pistoja. The side of that church has three
San
stories of arcade, dimin-
ishing in height in bold geometrical pi-oportion, while the
most
arches, for the
part, increase in
number
in arithmetical,
and three in the third, to one in arrangement should be too formal, of the fourteen arches in the lowest series, that which contains the door is made larger than the rest, and is not in the middle, but the sixth from the West, leaving five on one Farther this lowest arcade is side and eight on the other. terminated by broad flat pilasters, about half the width of its arches but the arcade above is continuous only the two extreme arches at the west end are made larger than all the rest, and instead of coming, as they should, into the space of the lower extreme arch, take in both it and its broad pilaster. Even this, however, was not out of order enough to satisfy the architect's eye for there were still two arches above to each single one below so at the east end, where there are more arches, and the eye might be more easily cheated, what does he do but narroio the two extreme lower arches by half a braccio while he at the same time slightly enlarged the upper ones, so as to get only seventeen upper to nine lower, instead of eighteen to nine. The eye is thus thoroughly confused, and the whole building thrown into one mass, by the curious variations i. e.
two
the
first.
in the second arcade,
Lest, however,
this
:
;
;
;
:
;
;
-
THE LAMP OF
150 in
LIFE.
the adjustments of the superimposed shafts, not one of
Arhich
either exactly in nor positively out of its place
is
to get this
managed the more cunningly, there
is
and,
;
from an inch
an inch and a half of gradual gain in the space of the four Their eastern arches, besides tlie confessed half braccio. to
measures, counting from the
east, I
found
as follows
Braccia.
—
Inches.
1st
3
2nd
3
3rd
3
3
2
4tb
3
3
3^
The upper arcade looks at
first as if
but there
am
Palmi.
:
1
2
managed on the same
is
principle;
it
there were three arches to each under pair
are, in reality,
only thirty-eight (or thirty-seven, I
not quite certain of this number) to the twenty-seven be-
and the columns get into all manner of relative positions. Even then, the builder was not satisfied, but must needs carry the irregularity into the spring of the arches, and actually,
low
;
while the general effect
is
of a symmetrical arcade, there
is
not
one of the arches the same in height as another ; their tops all along the wall like waves along a harbor quay,
undulate
some nearly touching the string course above, and others falling^ from it as much as five or six inches. XIY. Let us next examine the plan of the west front of St. Mark's at Yenice, which, though in many respects imperfect, is in its proportions, and as a piece of rich and fantastic It color, as lovely a dream as ever filled human imagination. may, perhaps, however, interest the reader to hear one opposite opinion njion this subject, and after what has been urged in the preceding pages respecting proportion in general, more especially respecting the wrongness of balanced cathedral towers and other regular designs, together with my frequent references to the Doge's palace, and campanile of St. Mark's, as models of perfection, and my praise of the former especially as projecting
above
from the journal of
its
second arcade, the following extracts
Wood
the architect, written on his arrival
THE LAMP OF at
may have
Venice,
show
151
LIFE.
a pleasing freshness in them,
and may
that I have not been stating principles altogether trite or
accepted.
"The
strange looking chm-eh, and the great ugly campanile,
The
could not be mistaken.
you by "
The Ducal Palace
previously mentioned. alteration to set
exterior of this church surprises
extreme ugliness, more than by anything
its
make
it
else."
even more ugly than anything I have Considered in detail, I can imagine no
is
tolerable
;
but
hack hehind the two stories of
if
had been would have
this lofty wall
arches,
little
it
been a very noble production." After more observations on " a certain justness of proportion," and on the appearance of riches and power in the church, to
which he ascribes a pleasing
effect,
sons are of opinion that irregularity excellence.
I
am
he goes on is
:
"
Some
per-
a necessary part of its
decidedly of a contrary opinion, and
am con-
vinced that a regular design of the same sort would be far superior.
Let an oblong of good architecture, but not very showy,
conduct to a fine cathedral, which should appear between two lofty towers and have two obelisks in front, and
on each side
of this cathedral let other squares partially open into the
and one of these extend down to
would have
a scene
a
first,
harbor or sea shore, and you
which might challenge any thing
in ex-
istence."
Why
Mr. AVood was unable to enjoy the color of
St.
Mark's,
or perceive the majesty of the Ducal Palace, the reader will see
two following extracts regai'ding the Caracci and Michael Angelo. after reading the
"
The
pictures here (Bologna) are to
my taste
far preferable
Venetian school surpass in coloring, and, perha]3s, in composition, the Bolognese is decidedly superior in drawing and expression, and the Caraccis shine here to those of Venice, for if the
like
Godsr
"TTliat
is it
that
is
so
much admired
in this artist
(M. An-
Some contend for a grandeur of composition in the lines ? and disposition of the figures this, I confess, I do not comprehend vet, M'hile I acknowledo-e the beauty of certain forms
gelo)
;
;
THE LAMP OF
152
and proportions similar merits
in arcliitectiire, I
may
LIFJ;..
cannot consistently deny that
though
exist in painting,
I
am unfortunately
unable to appreciate them." I
think these passages very valuable, as showing the effect
of a contracted knowledge and false taste in painting architect's
understanding of his
own
art
;
upon an and especially with
what curious notions, or lack of notions, about proportion, that art has been sometimes practised. For Mr. Wood is by no means unintelligent in his observations generally, and his criticisms on classical art are often most valuable. But those who love Titian better than the Caracci, and who see something to admire in Michael Angelo, will, perliaps, be willing to proceed with
me
to a charitable
examination of
For, although the
Mark's.
St.
present course of European events affords us some chance of
seeing the changes proposed by Mr.
Wood
carried into execu-
we may still esteem ourselves fortunate in having first known how it was left by the builders of the eleventh century. XY. The entire front is composed of an upper and lower tion,
with mosaic,
series of arches, enclosing spaces of wall decorated
and supported on ranges of shafts of which, in the lower series of arches, there is an upper range superimposed on a lower. Thus we have live vertical divisions of the fagade i. e. two tiers of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, below one tier of shafts, and the arched wall they bear above. In oi*der, however, to bind the two main divisions together, the central lower arch (the main entrance) rises above the level of the gallery and balustrade which cro^^m the lateral arches. The proportioning of the columns and walls of the lower story is so lovely and so varied, that it would need pages of description before it could be fully understood but it may be ;
;
;
generally stated thus shafts,
a h
'.
is
c
::
:
The height
of the lower shafts, upper
and wall, being severally expressed by «, J, and then \h {a being the highest) and the diameter of shaft
c
;
generally to the diameter of shaft a as height h
a, or
something
less,
ishes the apparent height of. the theii"
is
to height
allowing for the large plinth which dimin-
upper shaft
:
and when
this is
proportion of width, one shaft above is put above one below,
THE LAMP OF
with sometimes another upper shaft interposed
treme
ai'ches a single
as truly as the
:
but in the ex-
under shaft bears two upper, proportioned
boughs of
upper=f
each
153
LIFE.
a tree
;
that
is
to say, the diameter of
There being thus the three terms of
of lower.
proportion gained in the lower story, the upper, while
it is
only
divided into two main members, in order that the whole height
not be divided into an even number, has the third term
may
added in
pinnacles.
its
story
;
more
So
The
far of the vei-tical division.
There are seven arches in the lower and, calling the central arch a^ and counting to the ex-
lateral is still
subtle.
tremity, they diminish in the alternate order «,
c, J,
d.
The
and two added pinnacles and these diminish in regular order, the central being the largest, and the outermost the least. Hence, while one proportion ascends, another descends, like parts in music and yet the pyramidal form is secured for the whole, and, which was another great point of attention, none of the shafts of the upper arches stand over
upper story has
five arches,
;
;
those of the lower.
XVI,
It might have been thought that, by this plan, enough had been secured, but the builder was not satisfied even thus for and this is the point bearing on the present part of our subject always calling the central arch a, and the lateral ones h and c in succession, the northern h and c are considerably wider than the southern h and c, but the southern d is as much wider than the northern d, and lower beneath its cornice besides and, more than this, I hardly believe that one of the effectively symmetrical members of the fagade is actually symI regret that I cannot state the actual metrical with any other. taking them upon the spot, owing to gave up the measures. I their excessive complexity, and the embarrassment caused by the yielding and subsidence of the arches. "rariety
— —
:
;
Do
it be supposed that I imagine the Byzantine have had these various principles in their minds as they built. I believe they built altogether from feeling, and that it was because they did so, that there is this marvellous life, changefulness, and subtlety running through their every ar-
not
workmen
let
to
rangement
;
and that
we
reason upon the lovely building as
we
THE LAMP OF
154
upon some
sliould
fair
LIFE.
growth of the
trees of the earth, that
know not their own beauty. XVII. Perhaps, however, a stranger instance than any I have yet given, of the daring variation of pretended symmetry,
found
five arches
and they appear,
;
regular proportion from
of
lateral doors are
tlieir
lowest
is
It consists of
with steep pediments, the outermost filled, the three
central with doors
two
Bayeux.
in the front of the Cathedral of
tlie
at first, to
diminish in
The The tympana
principal one in the centre.
very curiously managed.
arches are filled with bas-reliefs, in four tiers
tier there is in
each a
little
the principal figure (in that on the right,
This
witli Lucifer).
little
temple
in tlie
;
temple or gate containing it is
the gate of
Hades by
carried, like a ca^^ital,
is
an isolated shaft which divides the whole breadth, the larger portion outmost
the inner entrance door.
;
arcli at about f of its and in that larger por-
This exact correspondence, in
tion
is
tlie
treatment of Ijoth gates, might lead us to expect a corre-
spondence in dimension.
INTot at all.
The
small inner northern
entrance measures, in English feet and inches, 4
jamb
to jamb,
in five feet
is
and the southern
a considerable variation.
porch measures, from face shaft to face the southern, 14
There are
ft.
6
in.;
ft.
five feet exactly.
Tlie outer northern shaft, 13 ft.
giving a difEerence of 7
also variations in the
from
7 in.
Five inches in., and on 14| ft.
11
in.
pediment decorations not
less
extraordinary.
XVIII.
imagine I have given instances enough, though I could multiply them indefinitely, to prove that these variations are not mere blunders, nor carelessnesses, but the result of a fixed scorn, if not dislike, of accuracy in measurements and, I
;
work out those of Ma-
in most cases, I believe, of a determined resolution to
an effective symmetry by variations as subtle as ture. To what lengths this principle was sometimes carried,
we
shall see
Abbeville.
by the very singular management of the towers I do not say
it is
right, still less that
it
is
of
wrong,
wonderful proof of the fearlessness of a living archisay what we will of it, that Flamboyant of France, however morbid, was as vivid and intense in its animation a* but
it is
tecture
;
a
for,
THE LAMP OF ever any phase of mortal niiiid
now,
had not taken to
if it
two equal
into
member. in which lights
telling lies.
would have lived till I have before noticed lateral division,
when
be some third reconciling more examples of tiie modes
parts, unless there
I shall give, hereafter, this reconciliation
is
effected in towers with double
the Abbeville architect put his sword to the knot per-
:
Vexed by
haps rather too sharply. his
it
managing even
the general difficulty of it is
and
;
155
LIFE.
two windows he
the want of unity between
literally laid their
heads together, and so
distorted their ogee curves, as to leave only one of the trefoiled
panels above, on the inner side, and three on the outer side of
The arrangement
each arch.
given in Plate XII.
is
fig. 3.
Associated w^ith the various undulation of flamboyant curves below,
in the real
it is
tower hardly observed, while it binds it Granting it, however, to be
into one mass in general effect.
ugly and wrong, I like sins of the kind, for the sake of the courage
recpiires to
it
commit them.
small chapel attached to the
West
meaning.
its
own
If there be
there
is
is
a
from the same
architecture,
principles for the sake of a peculiar
any one feature which the flamboyant it was what it was the niche
—
architect loved to decorate richly,
the capital
II. (part of
front of the Cathedral of St.
Lo), the reader will see an instance,
of a violation of
In plate
to the Corinthian order; yet in the case before us
an ugly beehive put in the place of the principal niche
of the arch.
I
am
not sure
if
I
am
right in
my
interpretation
doubt that two figures below, now broken away, once represented an Annunciation and on
of
its
meaning, but I have
little
;
another part of the same cathedral, I find the descent of the Spirit, encompassed by rays of light, represented very nearly in the form of the niche in question
;
which appears, therefore,
to
be intended for a representation of this effulgence, while at the
was made a canopy for the delicate figures below. was its meaning or not, it is remarkable as a daring departure from the common hal)its of the time. XIX. Far more splendid is a license taken with the
same time
Whether
it
this
niche decoration of the portal of St. Maclou at Rouen. subject of the
tympanum
bas-relief is the Last
Judgment,
The juid
THE LAMP OF
156
the sculpture of the inferno side
power whose
is
LIFE.
carried out with a degree of
fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as a
mingling of the minds of Orcagna and Hogarth. The demons are perhaps even more awful than Orcagna's and, in some oi the expressions of debased humanity in its utmost despair, tlie ;
English jDainter
is at least
Not
equalled.
less
wild
is
the ima-
gination which gives fury and fear even to the placing of the
An
figures.
demned
on the wing, drives the con-
evil angel, poised
Judgment
troops from before the
hand he drags behind him a winding-sheet over them
a cloud, all
;
seat
which he
is
;
with his
left
spi-eading like
but they are urged by him so
furiously, that they are driven not merely to the extreme limit
of that scene, which the sculptor confined elsewhere within
the
tympanum, but out
of the
tympanum and
into the niches
while the flames that follow them-, bent by the
of the arch
;
blast, as it
seems, of the angel's wings, rush into the niches
and burst up through their tracery^ the three lowermost niches being represented as all on fire, while, instead of their usual vaulted and ribbed ceiling, there is a demon in the roof of each, with his wings folded over it, grinning down out of also,
the black shadow.
XX. shown
in
I have, however, given
enough instances of
mere daring, whether
wise, as surely in this last
instance, or
inexpedient; but, as a single example
vitality
of the
which turns to its pur. material that is submitted to it, I would refer the the extraordinary columns of the arcade on the south
Vitality of Assimilation, the faculty
poses
all
reader to
side of the Cathedral of Ferrara.
in Plate XIII. on the
right.
A
single arch of
it is
given,
Four such arches forming
a
group, there are interposed two pairs of columns, as seen on the left of
the same plate
It is a
long arcade
perhaps of
;
and then come another four arches. suppose, not less than forty arches, and in the grace and simplicity of its
of, I
many more
;
Byzantine curves I hardly know its equal. Its like, in fancy of column, I certainly do not know there being hardly stilted
;
two correspondent, and the
architect having
been ready,
as
it
seems, to adopt ideas and resenil)lances from any sources what-
THE LAMP OF
The
soever.
of
up the two columns
is fine,
the distorted pillars beside it suggest
images
vegetation growing
though bizarre
;
agreeable
less
157
LIFE.
character;
the
serpentine
arrangements
founded on the usual Byzantine double knot are generally graceful but I was puzzled to account for the excessively ugly type of the pillar, fig. 3, one of a group of four. It so happened, fortunately for me, that there had been a fair in Ferand, when I had finished my sketch of the pillar, I had rara ;
;
way of some merchants of miscellaneous who were removing their stall. It had been shaded by
to get out of the
wares,
an awning supported by poles, which, in order that the covering might be raised or lowered according to the height of the sun, were composed of two separate pieces, fitted to each other by a rack^ in which I beheld the prototype of
my
ugly
pillar.
It
be thought, after what I have above said of the inexpedience of imitating anything but natural form, that I advance this architect's practice as altogether exemplary yet the will not
;
which condescended to such sources for motives of thought, the boldness, which could depart so far fi'om all estal)lished types of form, and the life and feeling, which out of an assemblage of such quaint and uncouth materials, could produce an harmonious piece of ecclesiastical humility
is
instructive,
architecture.
XXI. I have dwelt, however, perhaps, too long upon that form of vitality which is known almost as much by its errors as by its atonements for them. We must briefly note the operation of it, which is always right, and always necessary, upon those lesser details, where it can neither be superseded by precedents, nor repressed by proprieties. I said, early in this essay, that hand-work might always be known from machine-work observing, however, at the same time, that it was possible for men to turn themselves into ma^ chines, and to reduce their labor to the machine level but so long as men work as men, putting their heart into what they do, and doing theii- best, it matters not how bad workmen they ;
;
may price
be, there will be that in the handling :
it
will
which is above be plainly seen that some places have been
all
de-
— THE LAMP OF
158
LIFE.
— that there has
more tlian others them and then
lighted in
a care about
;
been a pause, and careless bits, and
come
tliere ^dll
and here the chisel will have struck hard, and there and if the man's mind as well as lightly, and anon timidly work, all this will be in the right his went with his heart other and the effect of ^vill off the set places, and each jjart same design cut by a machine the whole, as compared with the or a lifeless hand, will be like that of poetry well read and There deejjly felt to that of the same verses jangled by rote. fast bits
;
;
;
many who
are
whom
to
the difference
love poetry
those
it
is
is
everything
imperceptible
but to
;
—they
had rather not those who love Ar-
and to it ill read and accent of the hand are everything. They had rather not have ornament at all, than see it ill cut hear
it
at
all,
than hear
;
chitecture, the life
deadly cut, that cutting, is
it is
is.
I cannot too often repeat,
not blunt cutting, that
cold cutting
— the
is
of a plough in a level iield.
show
and tire
itself
as
in finished
they complete
be vested in polish, and
we may
as well give the
right finish
is
not coarse ;
but
look of equal trouble everywhere
smooth, diffused tranquillity of heartless pains to
it is
necessarily bad
:
it
—the
—the regularity —
The chill is more likely, indeed, work than in any other men cool and
completeness
if
is
thought to
by help of sand paper, engine-lathe at ojice. But the
to be attainable
work
simply the
to
full
rendering of the intended im-
and high finish is the rendering of a well intended and vivid impression and it is ofteiier got by rough than fine handling. I am not sure whether it is frequently enough observed that sculjDture is not the mere cutting of iheform of anything in stone it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least The sculptor must paint with his chisel half his like itself. touches are not to realize, l)ut to put power into the form they pression
;
;
;
:
:
are touches of light and
shadow
;
and
raise
a ridge, or sink a
hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a
In a coarse way, this kind very marked in old French woodwoi'k the of the eves of its chimeric monsters being cut boldlv in-
line of light, or a spot of darkness.
of
execution
irises
is
;
s-'^-v^:^!
THE LAMP OF to holes, wliicli, variously placed,
159
LIFE.
and always dark, give
all
kinds of strange and startling expressions, averted and askance, Perhaps the highest examples to the fantastic countenances. of this kind of sculpture-painting are the works of
Fiesole
their best eiiects being reached
;
Mino da
by strange angular,
and seemingly rude, touches of the chisel. The lips of one of the children on the tombs in the church of the Badia, appear only half finished is fartlier
when they
carried and
more
are seen close
inelfable,
;
yet the expression
than in any piece of mar-
have ever seen, especially considering its delicacy, and the In a sterner kind, that of the statues in the sacristy of St. Lorenzo equals it, and there again by incompletion. I know no example of work in which the forms are absolutely true and complete where such a result is ble I
softness of the child-features.
attained
;
XXII.
Greek sculptures
in
It
is
not even attempted.
is
evident that, for architectural appliances,
must be to retain would be injured by time, must always be the most expedient and as it is impossible, even were it desirable that the highest finish should be given to the quantity of work which covers a large building, it will be understood how precious the intelligence must become, which renders incompletion itself a means of addiand how great must be the difference, M'hen tional expression the touches are rude and few, between those of a careless and such its
masculine
handling,
when
effectiveness
likely as
higher
it
finish
;
.
;
those of a regardful mind. of their character in a copy
It is
not easy to retain anything
yet the reader will find one or two illustrative points in the examples, given in Plate XIY., from the bas-reliefs of the north of Rouen Cathedral. There are three square pedestals under the three maiii niches on each side of it, and one in the centre each of these being on two sides decorated with five quatrefoiled panels. There are thus seventy quatrefoils in the lower ornament of the gate alone, without counting those of the outer course round it, and of ;
;
the pedestals outside
:
each quatrefoil
is filled
with a
bas-relief,
the whole reaching to something above a man's height.
modern
architect
would, of course, have
made
all
A
the fivG
— THE LAMP OF
160
LIFE.
quatrefoils of each pedestal-side equal
The general form being apparently
:
not so the Mediae val.
composed of on the sides of a sqnare, it will be found on examination that none of the arcs are semicircles, and none of the The latter are rhomboids, having their basic figures squares. acute or obtuse angles uppermost according to their larger or and the arcs upon their sides slide into such smaller size a qiiatrefoil
semicircles
;
'places as
they can get in the angles of the enclosing parallelo-
gram, leaving intervals, shapes,
which
at
each of the four angles, of various by an animal. The size of the
are filled each
whole panel being thus varied, the two lowest of the five ai-e tall, the next two short, and the uppermost a little higher than the lowest while in the course of bas-reliefs which surrounds the gate, calling either of the two lowest (which are equal), a, and either of the next two h, and the fifth and sixth and d, then d (the largest) -.cwcawa'.h. It is wonderful how much of the grace of the whole depends on these variations. XXIII. Each of the angles, it was said, is filled by an animal. There are thus 70 X -1=280 animals, all different, in the mere fillings of the intervals of tlie bas-reliefs. Three of these intervals, with tJieir beasts, actual size, the curves being traced upon the stone, I have given in Plate XIY. ;
I say nothing of their general design, or of the lines of the
wings and
scales,
which are
central dragon, not
j)erhaps, unless in those of the
much above
good ornamental work
;
the usual commonplaces of
but there
is
an evidence in the fea-
which is not common, at creature on the left is biting upper The least now-a-days. hardly traceable in the defaced something, the fonn of which is cannot but recognise stone hwi biting he is; and the reader in the peculiarly reverted eye the expression which is never seen, as I think, but in the eye of a dog gnawing something the meaning of in jest, and preparing to start away with it the glance, so far as it can be marked by the mere incision of the chisel, will be felt by comparing it with the eye of the couchant figure on the right, in its gloomy and angry broodThe plan of this head, and the nod of the cap over its ing. tures of thoughtfulness and fancy
:
;
THE LAMP OF brow, are fine
but there
;
is
161
LIFE.
a little touch
above the hand
es-
meant: the fellow is vexed and puzzled in his malice and his hand is pressed hard on his cheek bone, and the flesh of the cheek is ivrinkled under the eye by the pressure. The whole, indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, when it is seen on a scale in whicli it is naturally compared with delicate but considering it as a mere filling of an figure etchings interstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and as one of
pecially well ;
;
more than three hundred the outer pedestals),
it
my estimate
(for in
I did not include
proves very noble vitality in the art of
the time.
XXIV.
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all
—
done with enjoyment was the carver happy while he was about it ? It may be the hardest work possible, and the harder because so much pleasure was taken in it but it must have been happy too, or it will not be living. How nmcli of the stone mason's toil this conornament,
is
simply this
:
AYas
it
;
dition
would exclude
condition
is
absolute.
I hardly venture to consider, but the
There
is
a Gothic church lately built
near Eouen, vile enough, indeed, in
but excessively rich in detail
with
taste,
and
work
closely.
there
is
all
But
;
evidently it
is
all
its
general composition,
many of the details are designed by a man who has studied old as
dead
December
as leaves in
not one tender touch, not one
warm
stroke, on
the
whole facade. The men who did it hated it, and were thankAnd so long as they do so they are ful when it was done. with shapes of clay the garlands walls merely loading your Chaise are more cheerful ornaments. of everlastings in Pere la money M-ill not paying for it You cannot get the feeling by buy life. I am not sure even that you can get it by watching or waiting for it. It is true that here and there a workman may be found who has it in him, but he does not rest contented in the inferior woi'k he struggles forward into an :
—
—
Academician and from the mass of available handicraftsmen the power is gone how recoverable I know not this onl}^ I know, that all expense devoted to sculptural ornament, in the present condition of that power, comes literally under the ;
—
:
;
THE LAMP OF
1()2
LIFE. I believe
liead of Sacrifice for the sacrifice's sake, or worse.
ornament that is open to ns is the geometrical color-mosaic, and that much might result from our tlie
only manner of
strenuously taking
ricli
up
this
mode
But, at
of design.
all
events,
—
one thing we have in our poM'er the doing without machine ornament and cast-iron work. All the stamped metals, and artificial stones, and imitation woods and bronzes, over the invention of which we hear daily exultation all the short, and
—
cheap, and easy ways of doing that whose difficulty
—are just
is its
honor
many new obstacles in our already encumbered They will not make one of us happier or wiser they
•
road.
so
—
will extend neither the pride of judgment nor the privilege of
enjoyment.
They
will only
make us
shallower in our under-
standings, colder in our hearts, and feebler in our wits.
And
For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we cannot put our hearts. "We have certain work to do for our biead, and that is to be done strenuously other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done hearneither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will tily and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than most
justly.
;
:
an exercise of the heart and of the but, at
all
events, the little use
it
will,
has
and
may
is
useless in itself
well be spared
if it
not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It does not become our immortality to take an ease inconsistent with is
which it can and he dispense, to other any mind by his own of creations who would form the give might, if he also, hand, would, instrament than his own music easier. their make grinding organs to Heaven's angels, to There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality enough in human existence without our turning the few and since our life fflowins: moments of it into mechanism its
authority, nor to suffer any instruments with
come between
it
and the things
it
rules
:
:
must at the best be but a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the l)last of the Furnace, and rolling of the "Wheel.
CHAPTEK YI. THE LAMP OF MEMORY. I.
Among
the hovirs of his life to whicli
tlie
writer looks
been marked by more than ordinary fulness of joy or clearness of teaching, is one passed, now some years ago, near time of sunset, among the broken masses of pine forest which skirt the course of the Ain, above the village of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a spot which has all the solemnity, with none of the savageness, where there is a sense of a great power beginof the Alps ning to be manifested in the earth, and of a deep and majestic concord in the rise of the long low lines of piny hills the first utterance of those mighty mountain symphonies, soon to be more loudly lifted and wildly broken along the battlements But their strength is as yet restrained and the of the Alps. far-reaching ridges of pastoral mountain succeed each other, like the long and sighing swell which moves over quiet waters from some far-off stormy sea. And there is a deep tenderness pervading that vast monotony. The destnictive forces and the stern expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn, No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered paths of ancient glacier fret the soft Jura pastures no splintered heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forests no pale, defiled, or furious rivers rend their rude and changeful ways among her rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wind along their well-known beds and under the dark quietness of the undisturbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company of back with
j)eciiliar
gratitude, as having
;
;
;
;
;
;
joyful flowers as I ings of the earth.
know It
ing forth in clusters
not the like of
among
all
the bless-
was Spring time, too and all were comcrowded for very love there was room ;
;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
1G4 enougli for
all,
but they crushed their leaves into
all
manner
There was the wood anemone, star after star, closing every now and then and there was the oxalis, troop by troop like into nebulse virginal processions of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical clefts in the limestone choked up with them as with heavy snow, and touched with ivy on the edges ivy as hght and lovely as the vine and, ever and anon, a bhie gush of violets, and cowslip bells in sunny places and in the more open ground, the vetch, and comfrey, and mezereon, and the small sapphire buds of the Polygala Alpina, and the wild strawberry, just a blossom or two, all showered amidst the golden softness I came out presently on of deep, warm, amber-colored moss. the edge of the ravine the solemn murmur of its waters rose suddenly from beneath, mixed with the singing of the thnishes among the pine boughs and, on tlie opposite side of the valley, walled all along as it was by grey cliffs of limestone, there was a hawk sailing slowly off their brow, touching them nearly with his wings, and with the shadows of the pines but with a fall of a flickering upon his plumage from aljove hundred fathoms under his breast, and the curling pools of the green river gliding and glittering dizzily beneath him, their foam globes moving with him as he flew. It would be diflicult to conceive a scene less dependent upon any other interest than that of its own secluded and serious beauty but the writer well remembers the sudden blankness and chill which were cast upon it when he endeavored, in order more strictly to arrive at the sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for a moment, a scene in some aboriginal forest of the New Conof strange shapes only to be nearer each other.
:
—
;
;
:
;
;
;
The
tinent.
music' ^
;
flowers in an instant lost their light, the river
the hills became oppressively desolate
;
its
a hca\nness
boughs of the darkened forest showed how much of their former power had been dependent upon a life which was in the
not theirs,
how much
of the glory of the imperishable, or con-
is reflected from things more prememories than it, in its renewing. Those ever springing flowers and ever flowing streams had been dyed by
tinually renewed, creation
cious in their
;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. the deep colors of
human
165
endurance, valor, and virtue
and
;
the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky
received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell eastward over the h'on wall of Joux and the four-square keep of
Granson. II. It is as
the centralisation and protectress of this sacred
influence, that Architecture
is
to
be regarded by us with the her, and worship
We may live without
most serious thought.
without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncornipted marble bears!
how many
we not often spare, The ambition of the
pages of doubtful record might
few stones
for a
left
one upon another
!
old Babel builders was well directed for this world
there are
:
but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and
is
mightier in
its
reality
;
it
is
well to have, not
men have
thought and felt, but M'hat their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, The age of Homer is surrounded with all the days of their life. only what
darkness, his very personality with
doubt.
Not
so
that
of
coming when we shall confess, that we have learned more of Greece out of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture than even from her sweet singers or soldier hisAnd if indeed there be any profit in our knowledge torians. of the past, or any joy in the thought of being remembered Pericles
:
and the day
is
which can give strength
hereafter,
to
present
exertion, or
patience to present endurance, there are two duties respecting national architecture rate
the
;
first,
whose importance
it is
impossible to over-
to render the architecture of the
day
historical
and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritances, that of past ages. III. It
may
in the first of these
truly be said to be the Sixth
two
directions that
Lamp
Memory
of Architecture
;
for
becoming memorial or monumental that a true perfecby civil and domestic buildings and this partly they are, with such a view, built in a more stable manner,
it is
in
tion
is
as
is
attained
;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
166
and partly
as their decorations are
consequently animated by a
metaphorical or historical meaning.
As
regards domestic buildings, there must always be a cer-
tain limitation to views of this kind in the power, as well as in
the hearts, of a people
men
when
;
still
I cannot
but think
it
an
evil sign of
their houses are built to last for one generation
There is a sanctity in a good man's house which cannot be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins and I believe that good men would generally feel this and that having spent their lives happily and honorably, they would be grieved only.
:
;
at the close of
them
to think that the place of their earthly
abode, which had seen, and seemed almost to sympathise in their honor, their gladness, or their suffering,
—that
this,
all
with
all tlie record it bare of them, and all of material things that they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon was to be swept away, as soon as there was room made for them in the grave that no respect was to be shown to it, no affection felt for it, no good to be drawn from it by their children that though there was a monument in the church, there was no warm monument in the heart and house to them
—
;
;
;
that
all
that they ever treasured -was despised, and the places that
and comforted them were dragged down to the good man would fear this; and that, far more, a good son, a noble descendant, would fear doing it to his
liad sheltered
dust.
I say that a
father's house.
I say that
houses would be temples
if
men
men indeed, their which we should hardly
lived like
—temples
it would make us holy to be permitand there must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankf ulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness that we have been un-
dare to injure, and in which ted to live
;
faithful to our fathers' honor, or that our
own
lives are not
such
would make our dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to himself, and build for the little revoAnd I look upon those pitiful concrelution of his own life only. tions of lime and clay which spi-ing up in mildewed forwardness upon those thin, totout of the kneaded fields about our capital as
—
tering, foundationless shells of
splintered
wood and
imitated
;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. stone
— upon
tliose
167
gloomy rows of formalised minuteness,
alike
without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar
—
^not merely with the careless disgust of an offended eye, not merely with sori'ow for a desecrated landscape, but with a pain-
ful foreboding that the roots of our national greatness
deeply cankered tive
ground
;
when they
must be
are thus loosely struck in their na-
that those comfortless and
unhonored dwellings
are the signs of a great and spreading spirit of popular discontent that they mark the time when every man's aim is to be in some more elevated sphere than his natural one, and every man's past life is his habitual scorn when men build in the hope of ;
lea^ang the places they have built, and live in the hope of for-
getting the years that they have lived
home have
;
when
the comfort, the
and the crowded tenements of a struggling and restless population differ only from the tents of the Arab or the Gi2)sy by their less healthy openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice of peace, the religion of
their spot of earth
;
by
ceased to be felt
;
their sacrifice of liberty without the
and of stability without the luxury of change. lY. This is no slight, no consequenceless evil it is ominous, infectious, and fecund of other fault and misfortund. When men do not love their hearths, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonored l)oth, and that they have never acknowledged the true universality of that Christian worship which was indeed to supersede the idolatry, but not gain of
rest,
:
Our God
the piety, of the pagan. as a let
heavenly one
men
ashes.
look to It
is
;
it
He
is
a household
God,
as well
has an altar in every man's dwelling
when they rend
it
lightly and
pom- out
not a question of ..mere ocular delight,
it
is
;
its
no
question of intellectual pride, or of cultivated and critical fancy,
how, and with what aspect of durability and of completeness, the domestic buildings of a nation shall be raised.
It is
one of
more impunity to be neglected them depends on a finely toned and
those moral duties, not with
because the perception of
balanced conscientiousness, to build our dwellings with care, and patience, and fondness, and diligent comjjietion, and with a
view to their duration
at least for
such a period
as,
in the ordi-
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
168
nary course of national revolutions, might be supposed likely to extend to the entire alteration of the direction of local interests. This
at the
instance,
least
men
but
;
it
built their
would be better
own
if,
in every possible
houses on a scale commensurate
rather with their condition at the
commencement, than
attainments at the termination, of their worldly career
their ;
and
them to stand as long as humain work at its strongest can be hoped to stand recording to their children what they have built
;
been, and from what,
had been permitted them, they had we may have that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all other, which does not disdain to treat with respect and thoughtfulness the small habitation as well as the large, and which invests with the dignity of contented manhood the narrowness of worldly circumstance. risen.
And when
Y. I look to
if
so
it
houses are thus built,
this spirit of honorable, proud, peaceful self-
possession, this abiding
wisdom of contented
life, as
probably
one of the chief sources of great intellectual power in all ages, and beyond dispute as the very primal source of the great archiTo this day, the interest of tecture of old Italy and France. their fairest cities depends, not on the isolated richness of palaces, but on the cherished and exquisite decoration of even the
proud periods. The most elaboVenice is a small house at the head of the Grand Canal, consisting of a ground floor with two stories above, three windows in the first, and two in the second. Many of the most exquisite buildings are on the narrower canals, and One of the most interesting pieces of of no larger dimensions. fifteenth century architecture in North Italy, is a small house in a back street, behind the market-place of Vicenza; it bears smallest tenements of their rate piece of architecture in
date 1481, and the motto,
//. n''est. rose. sans.
only aground floor and two
stories,
Spins
;
it
has also
with three windows in each,
separated by rich flower-work, and with balconies, supported,
the central one by an eagle with open wings, the
latei'al
ones by
winged grifiins standing on cornucopije. The must be large in order to be well built, is altogether of modei-n growth, and is parallel with the idea, that no picture can be his-
idea that a house
torical,
except of a size admitting figures larger than
life.
— THE LAMP OF MEMOET. VI. I would have, then, our and built to be lovely ness as may be, within and without built to last,
;
169
ordinary dwelling-houses as rich ;
and
full of pleasant-
with what degree of
like-
ness to each other in style and manner, I will say presently,
under another head but, at all events, with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history. This right over the house, I conceive, belongs to its first builder, and is to be respected by his children and it would be well that blank stones should be left in places, to be inscribed with a sunmiary of his life and of its experience, raising thus the habitation into a kind of monument, ;
;
and developing, into more systematic instructiveness, that good custom which was of old universal, and which still remains among some of the Swiss and Germans, of acknowledging the grace of God's permission to build and possess a quiet resting-j)lace, in such sweet words as may well close our speaking of these things, I have taken them from the front of a cottage lately built among the green pastures which descend from the village of Grindelwald to the lower glacier: "Mit herzlichem Vertrauen Hat Johannes Mooter und Maria Rubi Dieses Haus bauen lassen. Der liebe Gott woll uns bewahren Vor allem Unglilck und Gefahren,
Und
es in
Segen lassen stehn
Auf der Reise durch diese Jammerzeit Nach dem liimmlischen Paradiese,
Wo alle Frommen
wohnen,
Da
wird Gott sie belohnen Mit der Friedenskrone Zu aUe Ewigkeit."
VII. In public buildings the historical purpose should be more definite. It is one of the advantages of Gothic arch-
still
itecture, as
—
I use the
word Gothic
broadly opposed to
classical,
in the
— that
it
most extended sense
admits of a richness of
sculptural decorations afford
Its minute and multitudinous means of expressing, either sym-
bolically or literally, all that
need be known of national feeling
record altogether unlimited.
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
170
More
or achievement.
decoration will, indeed, be ngiially re-
quired than can take so elevated a character in the
most thoughtful periods, has been
of fancy, or suffered to consist of national bearing or symbol.
It
is,
mere
;
and much, even the freedom
left to
repetitions of
some
however, generally unwise,
even in mere surface ornament, to surrender the power and privilege of variety which the spirit of Gothic architecture admits
;
—
much more
or bosses, reliefs.
in important features and string-courses, as of course
Better the rudest
work
capitals of
in all
cohimns
confessed bas-
that tells a story or records a
There should not be ornament put upon great civic buildings, without some Actual representation of history has in intellectual intention. modern times been checked by a difficulty, mean indeed, but steadfast: that of unmanageable costume; nevertheless, by a sufficiently bold imaginative treatment, and frank use of symnot perhaps in the bols, all such obstacles may be vanquished degree necessary to produce sculpture in itself satisfactory, but at all events so as to enable it to become a grand and expressive element of architectural composition. Take, for example, fact,
than the richest without meaning.
a single
;
the
management
of the capitals of the ducal palace at Venice.
History, as such, was indeed entrusted to the painters of interior,
but every capital of
The large
to the
symbolisation of Abstract Justice; above
a sculpture of the
a beautifnl subjection in
The
its
arcades was filled with meaning.
one, the corner stone of the whole, next the eiitrance,
was devoted it is
its
Judgment its
of Solomon, remarkable for
treatment to
its
decorative purpose.
figures, the subject had been entirely composed of them, would have awkwardly interrupted the line of the angle, and diminished its apparent strength and therefore in the midst of them, entirely without relation to them, and indeed actually between the executioner and interceding mother, there rises the ribbed trunk of a massy tree, which supports and continues the shaft of the angle, and whose leaves above overshadow and enrich the whole. The capital below bears among its leafif
;
age a throned figure of Justice, Trajan doing justice to the
widow, Aristotle " che die legge," and one or two other sub-
THE LAMP OF MEMORY, lects
now
unintelligible
from decay.
171
The
capitals
next in
order represent the virtues and vices in succession, as preserv-
and power, concluding with Faith, with the inscription " Fides optima in Deo est." ative or destructive of national peace
A
figure
is
seen on the opposite side of the capital, worship-
After these, one or two capitals are fancifully
ping the sun.
decorated with birds (Plate Y.), and then come a series representing,
first
the various fruits, then the national costumes,
and then the animals of the various countries subject
to
Yene-
tian rule.
YIII. Kow, not to speak of any more important public own India House adorned in this
building, let us imagine our Ivay,
the
by
first
historical or symbolical sculpture
place
;
:
massively built in
then chased with bas-reliefs of our Indian bat-
and fretted with carvings of Oriental foliage, or inlaid with Oriental stones and tlie more important members of its decoration composed of groups of Indian life and landscape, and pi'ominently expressing the phantasms of Hindoo worship in tles,
;
Would
their subjection to the Cross. l)etter
than a thousand 'histories
?
If,
not one such
the invention necessary for such efforts, or
one of the most noble excuses such matters, we have
less
we
work be
however, we have not if,
which
is
probably
can offer for our deficiency in
pleasure in talking about ourselves,
even in marble, than the Continental nations,
at least
we have no
excuse for any want of care in the points which insure the building's endurance. its
And
as this question is
relations to the choice of various
one of great interest in
modes
of decoration,
it
will
some length. IX. The benevolent regards and purposes of men in masses seldom can be supposed to extend beyond their own generation. They may look to posterity as an audience, may hope for its attention, and labor for its praise they may trust to its recognition of unacknowledged merit, and demand its justice for contemporary wi'ong. But all this is mere selfishness, and does not be necessary to enter into
it
at
:
involve the slightest regard
to,
or consideration of, the interest
whose numbers we would fain swell the circle of our flatterers, and b}" whose authority we would gladly support
of those by
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
172
The
our presently disputed claims.
idea of self-denial for the
sake of posteritv, of practising present
economy
for the sake
of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendants
may
live
under their shade, or of raising
cities
for future
among
nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place
publicly recognised motives of exertion. less
our duties
;
nor
is
our part
fitly
Yet
these are not the
sustained
upon the
earth,
unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness in-
clude not only the companions, but the successors, of our
grimage.
God
has lent us the earth for our life
;
it is
pil-
a great
It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the entail.
;
more, because of
men
it is
one of the appointed conditions of the labor
that, in j^roportion to the
and the harvest,
is
time bet\veen the seed-sowing and that generally,
the fulness of the fruit
therefore, the farther off
we
;
place our aim, and the less
we
desire
what we have labored for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success. Men canto be ourselves the witnesses of
not benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those
who come after them voice
is
;
and of
ever sent forth, there
all is
the pulpits from which human none from which it reaches so
from the grave. X. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss, in such respect, for futurity. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all
far as
true magnificence, by is
its
regard to things that are to come.
the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above
It all
man from man, and near him to his and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, other attributes, separate
Maker
;
;
that a time
is
to
come when those
stones will be held sacred
because our hands have touched them, and that
men will
say as
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. tliey look
this
173
upon the labor and wrouglit substance of them,
For, indeed, the greatest glorj of
our fathers did for ns."
a bnilding
not in
is
its
" See!
Its glory
stones, or in its gold.
is
in its
Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. against
men,
It
is
in
their
lasting witness
in their quiet contrast with the transitional char-
acter of all things, in the strength which,
through the lapse of
seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and
the changing of the face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea,
maintains
its
sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, con-
nects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes
nations
;
the identity, as
it is
the sympathy, of
concentrates
it
in that golden stain of time, that
we
are to look
and preciousness of architecture and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its for the real light,
and
pillars rise out of the
lasting as
it
is
color,
;
shadows of death, that
its
existence,
more
than that of the natural objects of the world
around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life. XI. For that period, then, we must build; not, indeed, refusing to ourselves the delight of present completion, nor hesitating to follow sucli portions of character as
may depend upon
delicacy of execution to the highest perfection of are capable, even although
we may know
years such details must perish of this
kind we
sacrifice
;
that in the course of
but taking care that for work
no enduring
building shall not depend for
which they
its
quality,
and that the
impressiveness upon anything
is perishable. This would, indeed, be the law of good composition under any circumstances, the ai-rangement of the larger masses being always a matter of greater importance than
that
the treatment of the smaller in that
;
very treatment which
but in architecture there is
is
much
skilful or otherwise in propor-
tion to its just regard to the probable effects of time
:
and
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
174
more
(wlilrli is still
to
be considered) there
is
a beauty in those
which nothing else can replace, and ^vhich For though, hitherit is our wisdom to consult and to desire. to, we have been speaking of the sentiment of age onlj, there is an actual beauty in the marks of it, such and so great as to have become not unfrequently the subject of especial choice among certain schools of art, and to have impressed upon those schools the character usually and loosely expressed by the term "picturesque." It is of some importance to our present purpose to determine the true meaning of this expression, as it is effects themselves,
now
generally used
;
for there
from that use which, while
much
that
is
it
is
a principle to be developed
has occultly been the ground of
judgment of art, has never become definitely serviceable.
true and just in our
been so far understood
as to
Probably no word in the language (exclusive of theological expressions), has been the subject of so frequent or so prolonged dispute jet none remained more vague in their acceptance, and it seems to me to be a matter of no small interest to investigate the essence of that idea which all feel, and (to appear;
ance) with respect to similar things, and yet which every
tempt
at-
ended either in mere enumeraand objects to which the term has been
to define has, as I believe,
tion of the effects
attached, or else
in
attempts at abstraction more palpably
nugatory than any which have disgraced metaphysical investirecent critic on Art, for instance, gation on other subjects.
A
has gravely advanced the theory that the essence of the picturIt esque consists in the expression of "universal decay." would be curious to see the result of an attempt to illustrate this idea of the picturesque, in a painting of
decayed
fruit,
and equally curious
dead flowers and
to trace the
step of any
reasoning which, on such a theory, should account for the picturesqueness of an ass colt as opposed to a horse foal.
But
much
excuse for even the most utter failure in reasonings of this kind, since the subject is, indeed, one of the most obscure of all that may legitimately be submitted to human there
is
and the idea is itself so varied in the minds of different men, according to their subjects of study, that no definition
reason
;
;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
175
can be expected to embrace more than a certain
number
of
its
infinitely multiplied forms.
XII. That peculiar character, however, which separates the picturesque from the characters of subject belonging to the higher walks of art (and this
is all
may be
present purpose to deline),
that
Picturesqueuess, in this sense,
pressed.
Of
limity.
course
all
is
sublimity, as well as
subject of a picture
peculiar sense as
;
and
all
which I am endeavoring
opposed to beauty
;
that
is
Parasitical Sub-
all
simple etymological sense, picturesque, that
come the
necessary for our
it is
shortly and decisively ex-
is
beauty,
is,
to say,
fit
to be-
even
in the
sublimity
is,
in the
to develope, picturesque,
is more picturesqueAngelo than of Penigino, in
to say, there
ness in the subject of Michael
proportion to the prevalence of the sublime element over the beautiful.
But that
character, of
which the extreme pursuit
generally admitted to be degrading to limity
;
i. 6.,
a sublimity dependent
least essential characters, of the
art, is
is
parasitical sub-
on the accidents, or on the which it belongs
objects to
and the picturesque is developed distificlively exactly in proportion to the distance from the centre of thought of those points of character in which the sidjliimty is found. Two ideas, therefore, are essential to picturesqueuess,
of sublimity (for pure beauty
becomes
is
—the
first,
not picturesque at
so only as the sublime element
mixes with
it),
that
and and the all,
second, the subordinate or parasitical position of that sublimity. Of course, therefore, whatever characters of line or shade or
expression are productive of sublimity, will become productive of picturesqueuess ; what these characters are I shall endeavor
show at length but, among those which are genacknowledged, I may name angular and broken lines,
hereafter to erally
;
vigorous oppositions of light and shadow, and grave, deep, or boldly contrasted color and all these are in a still higher degree effective, when, by resemblance or association, they remind us of objects on which a time and essential sublimity ;
of rocks or mountains, or stormy clouds or waves. these characters, or any others of a higher and more abstract sublimity, be found in the very heart and substance of
exists, as
Now
if
;:
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
176
what we contemplate,
as the sublimity of
Michael Angelo de-
pends on the expression of mental character in his figures far more than even on the noble lines of their arrangement, the ai-t which represents such characters cannot be properly called picturesque
:
but, if they be
found in the accidental or external
qualities, the distinctive picturesque will be the result.
XIII. Thus, in the treatment of the features of the human face by Francia or Angelico, the shadows are employed only to
make
the contours of the features thoroughly felt
those features themselves the
mind
of the observer
and to
;
is
exclu-
to say, to the essential characters of the
sively directed (that
is
thing represented).
All power and
all
sublimity rest on these
On
the shadows are used only for the sake of the features.
by Eembrandt, Salvator, or Caravaggio, the features are used for the saT^e of the shadoios j and the attention is directed, and the power of the painter addressed to
the
contrary,
characters of accidental light and shade cast across or around
those features.
In the case of Eembrandt there
and expression in the light and shade
is
often an
essential sublimity in invention
besides,
always a high degree of
itself
is
most part
for the
it
;
and
but
it
parasitical or engrafted sublimity as regards
the subject of the painting, and, just so far, picturesque.
XI Y.
Again, in the management of the sculptures of the is frequently employed as a dark field on
Parthenon, shadow
which the forms are drawn. This is visibly the case in the metopes, and must have been nearly as much so in the pediment. But the use of that shadow is entirely to show the confines of the figures and it is to their Ihies, and not to the shapes of the shadows behind them, that the art and the eye ;
are addressed.
The
figures themselves are conceived as
as possible in full light, aided
by bright
reflections
;
much
they are
drawn exactly as, on vases, white figures on a dark ground and the sculptors have disj^ensed with, or even struggled to avoid, all shadows which were not absolutely necessary to the explaining of the form.
On
the contrary, in Gothic sculpture,
the shadow becomes itself a suljject of thouglit. sidered
as a
dark color, to be arranged in certain
It is
con-
agreeable
;:
THE LAMP OF MEilORY. masses
;
made even subordinate and their costume is enriched
the figures are very frequently
to the placing of its divisions at the
177
:
expense of the forms underneath, in order to increase
the complexity and variety of the points of shade.
There are and painting, two, in some sort, opposite schools, of which the one follows for its subject the essential fonns of things, and the other the accidental lights and shades upon them. There are various degrees of their contrariety middle steps, as in the works of Correggio, and all degrees of nobility and of degradation in the several manners but the one is always recognised as the pure, and the other as thus, both in sculpture
:
Portions of picturesque treatment will be found in Greek work, and of pure and unpicturesque in Gothic; and in both there are countless instances, as preeminently in the works of Michael Angelo, in whicli shadows become valuable as media of expression, and therefore take the picturesque school.
rank among essential characteristics.
Into these multitudinous
and exceptions I cannot now enter, desiring only to prove the broad applicability of the general definition. XY. Again, the distinction will be found to exist, not only between forms and shades as subjects of choice, but between distinctions
One of the chief distinctions essential and inessential forms. between the dramatic and picturesque schools of sculpture is found in the treatment of the hair. By the artists of the time of Pericles it was considered as an excrescence,'" indicated by few and rude lines, and subordinated in every particular to the principality of the features and person. How completely this was an artistical, not a national idea, it is unnecessary to prove. We need but remember the employment of the Lacedaemonians, reported by the Persian spy on the evening before the battle of Thermopylffi, or glance at any Homeric description of ideal form, to see hoM' purely s(yul][>ti',resqiie ^ras the law which reduced the markings of the advantages of
matei'ial,
haii, lest,
they should
ness of the personal forms.
xmder the necessary
iiirerfere
vnth the distinct-
On the contrary, in
later sculpture,
the hair receives almost the principal care of the
and while
tlie
dis-
workman
features and limbs are clumsily and' bluntly exe-
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
178
is curled and twisted, cut into bold and shadowy arranged in masses elaborately ornamental; and projections, there is true sublimity in the lines and the chiaroscuro of these
cuted, the hair
masses, but
as regards the creature represented, parasitical,
it is,
and therefore picturesque.
In the same sense we
stand the application of the term to
may
modern animal
under-
painting,
it has been by peculiar attention to the colors, and texture of skin nor is it in art alone that the definiIn animals themselv^es, when their sublimity tion will hold. depends upon their muscular forms or motions, or necessary and
distinguished as
lustre,
;
principal attributes, as perhaps
we do
not
liarly fit to
them
call
more than
all
others in the horse,
picturesque, but consider
them
be associated with pure historical subject.
as pecu-
Exactly
in proportion as their character of sublimity passes into excres-
cences
;
—into mane and beard
as in the lion, into
horns as in the
stag, into shaggy hide as in the instance above given of the ass colt, into
variegation as in the zebra, or into plumage,
become picturesque, and the prominence of these excrescential
—they
are so in art exactly in proportion to chai'acters.
It
may often
be most expedient that they should be prominent often there is in them the highest degree of majesty, as in those of the ;
leopard and boar
;
and in the hands of
men
like Tintoret
and
Rubens, such attributes become means of deepening the very But the picturesque direchighest and most ideal impressions. tion of their thoughts is always distinctly recognizable, as clinging to the surface, to the less essential character, and as developing out of this a sublimity different from that of the creature itself
;
a sublimity
which
is,
the objects of creation, and the same in
in a sort, its
common
to all
constituent elements,
whether it be sought in the clefts and folds of shaggy hair, or chasms and rents of rocks, or in the hanging of thickets or hill sides, or in the alternations of gaiety and gloom in the variegation of the shell, the plume, or the cloud. XYI. Now, to return to our immediate subject, it so happens that, in architecture, the superinduced and accidental beauty is most commonly inconsistent with the preservation of original char&ctcr, and the picturesque is therefore sought in in the
THE LAMP OP MEMORY. rain,
and supposed to consist
ITQ
when
"Whereas, even
in decay,
mere sublimity of the rents, or fractures, or stains, or vegetation, which assimilate the architecture with the work of Nature, and bestow upon it those circumstances of color and form which are universally beloved by the eye of man. So far as this is done, to the extinction of the true characters of the architecture, it is j)icturesque, and so sought,
the artist
consists in the
it
who
of the pillar,
looks to the stem of the ivy instead of the shaft is
carrying out in more daring freedom the de-
based sculptor's choice of the hair instead of the countenance.
But
so far as
can be rendered consistent with the inherent
it
character, the picturesque or extraneous sublimity of architec-
ture has just this of nobler function in
than that of any other
it
an exponent of age, of that in
object whatsoever, that
it
which, as has been
the greatest glory of a building con-
sists;
said,
is
and, therefore, the external signs of this glory, having
power and purpose greater than any belonging sensible beauty,
and
may be
essential characters
a building cannot
mere
among pure mind, that I think
considered as taking rank so essential to
;
my
be considered as in its prime until four or five and that the entire choice and it
centuries have passed over
arrangement of
to their
its
details
;
should have reference to their ap-
pearance after that period, so that none should be admitted
which would ing, or the
suffer material injury either
by the
weather-stain-
mechanical degradation which the lapse of such a
period would necessitate. It is not my purpose to enter into any of the queswhich the application of this principle involves. They are of too great interest and complexity to be even touched
XYII.
tions
upon within
my present
limits,
but this
that those styles of architecture
is
broadly to be noticed,
which are picturesque
sense above explained with respect to sculpture, that
is
in the to say,
wliose decoration depends on the arrangement of
points of
shade rather than on purity of outline, do not
but com-
monly gain woiTi away
in richness of effect ;
hence such
styles,
when
suffer,
their details are partly
pre-eminently that of French
Gothic, should always be adopted
when
the materials to be em-
THE LAMP OF MEMORY,
180
ployed are limestone line, as
liable to degradation, as brick, sandstone, or soft
and
;
any degree dependent on purity of
styles in
the Italian Gothic, must be practised altogether in hard
and nndecom])osing materials, granite serpentine, or crystalline There can be no doubt that the nature of the accesand it sible materials influenced the formation of both styles should still more authoritatively determine our choice of either. marbles.
;
XYIII. at
It does not
belong to
my
present plan to consider
length the second head of duty of
spoken
M'hich I have above
the preservation of the architecture
;
we
possess
:
but a
few words may be forgiven, as especially necessary in modern times. Neither by the j)ublic, nor by those who have the care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word restoration understood. It means the most total destniction which a building can suffer a destruction out of which no remnants :
can be gathered
a destruction accompanied with false descrip-
;
Do
tion of the thing destroyed.
not
let
us deceive ourselves
in this important matter
;
raise the dead, to restore
anything that has ever been great or
beautiful in architecture.
is
it
impossible, as impossible as to
That which I have above
upoTi as the life of the whole, that spirit which
is
insisted
given only by
An-
the hand and eye of the workman, never can be recalled.
other spirit
building
moned
;
may be given by
but the
up, and
thoughts. impossible.
spirit of
another time, and
the dead
commanded
it is
then a
new
workman cannot be sum-
to direct other hands, and other
And as for direct and simple copying, it is palpably What copying can there be of surfaces that have
been worn half an inch
down ?
The whole
gone
finish of the
work
you attempt to restore that finish, you do it eon jecturally if you copy what is left, granting fidelity to be possible (and what care, or watchfulness, was
in the half
inch that
is
;
if
;
or cost can secure
it ?),
how
is
the
new work
better than the old
?
There was yet in the old some life, some mysterious suggestion of what it had been, and of what it had lost some sweetness in the gentle lines which rain and sun had wrought. There can be none in the brute hardness of the new carving. Look at the animals which I have o-iven in Plate 14, as an instance ;
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. of living
hair once
181
work, and suppose the markings of the scales and worn away, or the wrinkles of the brows, and wlio
them ? The first step to restoration (I have and that again and again, seen it on the Baptistery of seen it on the Casa d' Oro at Venice, seen it on the Cathe-
shall ever restore
seen Pisa,
it,
dral of Lisieux), is to dash the old work to pieces the second is usually to put up the cheapest and basest imitation which can escape detection, but in all cases, however careful, and however labored, an imitation still, a cold model of such parts as can be modelled, with conjectural supplements and ;
;
my
me
experience has as yet furnished
with only one instance,
Rouen, in which even this, the which is possible, has been attained
that of the Palais de Justice at
utmost degree of
fidelity
or even attempted.
XIX. Do
not
let
us talk then of restoration.
The thing
is
from beginning to end. You may make a model of a building as you may of a corpse, and your model may ha\'e the shell of the old walls witliin it as your cast might have the skeleton, with what advantage I neither see nor care but the old building is destroyed, and that more totally and mercilessly than if it had sunk into a heap of dust, or melted into a mass of clay: more has been gleaned out of desolated Nineveh than a Lie
;
But,
ever will be out of re-built Milan.
come
a necessity for restoration
sity full
iji
ing down, throw
its
up
you
a Lie in their place. it
Accept
it
on
it
its
comes, and you
will
;
And may
there
Look the
own
terms.
may
necesIt is
as such, pull the build-
stones into neglected corners,
of them, or mortar, if
before
it is said,
Granted.
the face, and understand
a necessity for destruction.
set
!
but do
it
make
ballast
honestly, and do not
look that necessity in the face
prevent
it.
The
principle of
I
'modern times (a principle which I believe, at least in France, to be systematicalhj acted on hy the masons, in order to find themselves work, as the abbey of St. Ouen was pulled down by the magistrates of the town by way of giving work to some vagrants,) is to neglect buildings first, and restore them afterM'ards. Take proper care of your monuments, and you will not need to restore them. A few sheets of lead put in time upon
; ;
THE LAMP OP MEHOKY.
182
the roof, a few dead leaves and sticks swept in time out of
a
from ruin. "Watch an old building with an anxious care guard it as best jou may, and at any cost from every influence of dilapidation. Count set watches about its stones as you would jewels of a crown
water-course, will save both roof and walls ;
;
it
as if at the gates of a besieged city
iron
where
it
loosens
;
stay
it
;
bind
it
together with
with timber where
declines
it
do not care about the unsightliness of the aid better a crutch than a lost limb and do this tenderly, and reverently, and continually, and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow. Its evil day must come at last but let it come declaredly and openly, and let no dishonoring and false ;
;
;
it of the funeral othces of memory. wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak XX. Of more my words will not reach those who commit them, and yet, be it heard or not, I must not leave the tnith unstated, that it is again no question of exj^ediency or feeling whether we shall We have no rhjld preserve the buildings of past times or not. whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong
substitute deprive
who built them, and pai*tly to all the generamankind M'ho are to follow us. The dead have still right in them that which they labored for, the praise of
partly to those tions of their
:
achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or whatsoever else it might be which in those buildings they intended to be permanent, we have no right to obliterate. What we have ourselves built,
men gave
we
throw down but what other and wealth, and life to accomplish,
are at liberty to
their strength,
;
away with what they have
their right over does not pass is
the right to the use of
It
belongs to
all
their successors.
It
their death left
;
still less
vested in us only.
may hereafter be a subject we have con-
of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, that
by casting down such buildings That sorrow, that loss we have no right to inflict. Did the cathedral of Avranches belong to the mob who destroyed it, any more than it did to us, who walk in sorrow to and fro over its foundation ? Neither does sulted our present convenience as
we
choose to dispense with.
any building whatever belong to those mol)s who do violence
THE LAMP OF MEMORY.
183
it. For a mob it is, and must be always; it matters not whether enraged, or in deUberate folly whether countless, or sitting in committees the people who destroy anything causeis always destroyed causeArchitecture lessly are a mob, and lessly, A fair building is necessarily worth the ground it stands upon, and will be so until central Africa and America shall have become as populous as Middlesex nor is any__cause whatever valid as a ground for its destruction. If ever valid, certainly not now when the place both of the past and future is too much usurped in our minds by the restless and discontented present. The very quietness of nature is gi'adually withdrawn from us thousands who once in their necessarily prolonged travel were subjected to an influence, from the silent sky and slumbering fields, more effectual than known or confessed, now bear with them even there the ceaseless fever of their life and along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertions, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is jDaseed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds upon the city gates. The only influence which can in any wise there take the place of that of the woods and fields, is the power of ancient Architecture. Do
to
;
;
;
;
;
not part with
it
for the sake of the formal square, or of the
fenced and planted walk, nor of the goodly street nor opened
The pride of a city is not in these. Leave them to the but remember that there will surely be some within the circuit of the disquieted walls who would ask for some other spots than these wherein to walk for some other forms to meet their sight familiarly hke him who sat so often where the sun
quay.
crowd
;
;
:
struck from the west, to watch the lines of the
dome
of Flor-
ence drawn on the deep sky, or like those, his Hosts, who could bear daily to l>ehold, fron:i their palace chambers, the places
where
their fathers lay at rest, at the
of Yerona.
meeting of the dark streets
CHAPTEE
YII.
THE LAMP OF OBEDIEXCE. I.
It
my
been
lias
endeavor to sliow in
pages liow every form of noble arcliitecture
tlie is
in
preceding
some
sort
the eml)odiment of the Polity, Life, History, and Religions
Once or twice in doing this, I have named I would now assign a definite place among which those direct that embodiment the last place, not only as that to which its own humility would incline, but rather as Faith of nations.
which
a principle to
;
belonging to rest
Life
its
ance,
crowning grace of all the which Polity owes its stal)ility.
in the aspect of the
happiness, Faith
its
acceptance, Creation
continu-
its
— Obedience.
Nor faction first
it
that principle, I mean, to
:
is it
the least
which
I
among
the sources of more serious
is
at
appeared to bear but slightly on the grave interests of man-
kind, that the conditions of material perfection which
me
satis-
have found in the pursuit of a subject that
in conclusion to consider, furnish a strange proof
the conception,
how
leads
it
how
false
frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous
phantom which men call Liberty most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was imThere is no such thing in the universe. There can possible. :
;
The
never be. has
it
not
;
stars
and we
have
it
men have
not
;
the earth has
it
not
;
the sea
the mockery and semblance of
it
only for our heaviest punishment.
In one of the noblest poems" for
its
imagery and
its
music
belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer has sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression of that Liberty which, having
once loved, he had seen
among
;
THE LAMP OF
men
in its true dyes
of darkness.
fallacy of interpretation
!
185
OBEDIEJS^CE.
But with what strange
since in one noble line of his invo-
cation he has contradicted the assumptions of the rest, and acknowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not less severe because eternal ? How could he otherwise ? since if there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every
atom, of the visible creation, that principle
is
not Liberty, but
Law. II.
the
The
Law
enthusiast would reply that
by Liberty he meant
Then why use the single and misunderby liberty you mean chastisement of the pas-
of Liberty,
stood word
?
If
sions, discij)line of the intellect, subjection of
mean
the will
the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing, a
if you wrong
;
you mean respect for all who are in authority, and consideraall who are in dependence veneration for the good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak if you mean watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, and perseverance in all toils if you mean, in a word, that Service which is defined in the litui'gy of the English church to be perfect Freedom, why do you name this by the same word by which the luxurious mean license, and the reckless mean change by which the rogue means rapine, and the fool, equality, by which the proud mean anarchy, and the malignant mean violence ? Call it by any name rather than this, but its 01)edience is, indeed, founded best and truest is, Obedience. on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect and thus, while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their Reif
tion for
;
;
;
;
;
Compare a river that has burst its banks with one bound by them, and the clouds that are scattered over the face of the whole heaven with those that are marshalled So that though restraint, into ranks and orders by its winds. cornel}', this is not because utter and unrelaxing, can never be straint.
that
it is
is
in itself an evil, but only because,
when
too great,
it ovei"-
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
186
powers the nature of the thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of which that nature is itself composed. And the balance wherein consists the fairness of creation is between the laws of life and being in the things governed and the laws of general sway to which they are subjected and the suspension or infringement of either kind of law, or, literally, disor;
while the to, and synonymous ^dth, disease habitually on the is side of honor and beauty increase of both der,
is
equivalent
;
restraint (or the action of superior law) rather than of character (or the action of inherent law).
The
noblest
word
in the cata-
logue of social virtue is " Loyalty," and the sweetest which men have learned in the pastures of the wilderness is " Fold." III.
Nor
is
this all
;
but
we may
observe, that exactly in
proportion to the majesty of things in the scale of being,
is
the completeness of their obedience to the laws that are set
over them.
by
Gravitation
is
less quietly, less
instantly
obeyed
by the sun and moon and the under ioflueuces which the lake and river
a grain of dust than
it is
;
falls and flows do not recognize. So also in estimating the dignity of any action or occupation of men, there is perhaps no better test than the question " are its laws strait ?" For their severity will probably be commensurate with the gi'eatness of the numbers whose labor it concentrates or whose interest it concerns. This severity must be singular, therefore, in the case of
ocean
whose productions are the most vast and the most common which requires for its practice the cooperation of bodies of men, and for its perfection the persever-
that art, above
all
others, ;
ance of successive generations.
what we have before
And
taking into account also
so often observed of Architecture, her
life, and her which are in comparison but the picturing of stories and of dreams, we might beforehand expect that we should find her healthy state and action dependent on far more severe laws than theirs that the license which they extend to the workings of individual mind would be withdrawn by lier; and that, in assertion of the relations which she holds with all that is universally important to
continual influence over the emotions of daily realism, as opposed to the
two
sister arts
:
;
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
187
man, slie would set forth, by lier own majestic subjection, some likeness of that on which man's social happiness and power depend. We might, therefore, without the light of experience, conclude, that Architecture never could flourish
when it was subjected to a national law as strict and as minutely authoritative as the laws which regulate religion,
except
policy,
and
social relations
;
nay, even
more
authoritative than
these, because
both capable of more enforcement, as over more
passive matter
;
and needing more enforcement,
type not of one law nor of another, but of the thority of
But
all.
in this matter
as the purest
common
au-
experience speaks more
If there be any one condition which, in watching the progress of architecture, we see distinct and
loudly than reason.
general;
if,
amidst the counter evidence of success attending
opposite accidents of character and circumstance, any one conclusion
may be
constantly and indisputably drawn,
this
it is
when it is as and when provinuniversal and as established as its language cial differences of style are nothing more than so many diathat the architecture of a nation
is
great only ;
Other necessities are matters of doubt nations have been alike successful in their architecture in times of poverty and of wealth in times of war and of peace in times of barbarism and of refinement under governments the most liberal lects.
:
;
;
;
or the most arbitrary stant, this
that the
;
but this one condition has been con-
one requirement clear in
work
shall
all
places
and
at all timesj
be that of a school, that no individual
ca-
price shall dispense with, or materially vary, accepted types
and customary decorations and that from the cottage to the palace, and from the chapel to the basilica, and from the garden fence to the fortress wall, every member and feature of ;
the architecture of the nation shall be as
frankly accepted, as
IV.
its
A day never
architects called
upon
language or
commonly
current, as
its coin.
passes without our hearing our English to be original,
and to invent a new
style
about as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask of a
:
man
who has never had rags enough on his back to keep out cold, to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole coat first,
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
.188
and
let liiin
We
want no new
concern
liiinself
abont
tlie
fashion of
it
afterwards.
Who
wants a new style of painting or sculpture ? But we want some style. It is of marvellously little importance, if we have a code of laws and they be good laws, whether they be new or old, foreign or native, is
Eoman
style of architecture.
or Saxon, or
Norman or we
of considerable importance that
English laws.
But
it
should have a code of
laws of one kind or another, and that code accej^ted and enforced from one side of the island to another, and not one law
made ground of judgment at York and another in Exeter. And in like manner it does not matter one marble splinter whether we have an old or new architecture, but it matters
we have an architecture truly so called or whether an architecture whose laws might be taught at our schools fi-om Cornwall to jSTorthumberland, as we teach English spelling and English grammar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every time we build a workhouse or a parish school. There seems to me to be a wonderful misunderstanding among the majority of architects at the present day as to the very nature and meaning of Originality, and of all wherein it consists. Originality in expression does not depend on invention of new M'ords nor originality in poetry on invention of new measures nor, in painting, on everything whether
not
;
that
is,
;
;
new colors, or new modes of using them. The chords of music, the harmonies of color, the general principles of the arrangement of sculptural m:'SS3S, have been determined invention of
long ago, and, in
all
probability, cannot be
than they can be altered.
additions or alterations are nnicli
Yan Eyck, who
will
be
known
be,
such
of time and
We
inventors.
any more
to
may
more the work
of multitudes than of individual •one
added
Granting that they
may have new
as the introducer of a
style once in ten centuries, but he himself will trace his invention to some accidental bye-play or pursuit and the use of that invention will depend altogether on the popular necessi;
ties or instincts of
ing of the kind.
the period.
A man
who
Originality depends on noth-
has the
style thnt is going, the stylo of his day,
gift, will
and
take
up any
will woi'k in that,
THE LAMP OF OBEDIEKCE. and be great in look as fresh as
that,
if
189
and make everything that he does in it it had just come down from
every tliouglit of
do not say
not take liberties with his do not say that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his efforts, or his fancies, in But those changes will be instructive, natural, facile, both. though sometimes marvellous they will never be sought after and as things necessary to his dignity or to his independence heaven.
I
tliat lie will
materials, or with his rules: I
;
;
those liberties will be like the liberties that a great speaker takes with the language, not a defiance of
sake of singularity
rules for the
its
but inevitable, uncalculated, and brilliant
;
consequences of an effort to express what the language, without such infraction, could not.
There may be times when,
I have above descril^ed, the life of an art
changes, and in
its
is
manifested in
refusal of ancient limitations
in the life of an insect
;
and there
is
so there are
:
great interest in the state
of both the art and the insect at those periods when,
natural progress and constitutional power, such
about to be wrought.
But
as that
as its
by their
changes are
would be both an uncom-
fortable and foolish caterpillar which, instead of being con-
tented with a caterpillar's life and feeding on caterpillars food,
was always striving to turn itself into a chrysalis and as that would be an unhappy chrysalis which should lie awake at night and roll restlessly in its cocoon, in efforts to turn itself prematurely into a moth; so will that art be unhappy and unprosperous which, instead of supporting itself on the food, and contenting itself with the customs which have been enough for the support and guidance of other arts before it and like it, is struggling and fretting under the natural limitations of its existence, and striving to become something other than it is. And though it is the nobility of the highest creatures to look forward to, and partly to understand the changes which are appointed for them, preparing for them beforeand if, as is usual with appointed changes, they be into liand a higher state, even desiring them, and rejoicing in the hope ;
;
of them, yet
it is
the strength of every creature, be
it
change-
ful or not, to rest for the time being, contented with the con-
;
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
190
and striving only to bring about the
ditions of its existence,
changes which duties for
it
which
desires,
its
by
fulfilling to the
present state
is
uttermost the
appointed and continued.
Y. Neither originality, therefore, nor change, good though may be, and this is commonly a most merciful and enthusiastic supposition with respect to either, are ever to be sought in themselves, or can ever be healthily obtained by any "We want neither struggle or rebellion against common laws. The forms of architecture already the one nor the other. known are good enough for us, and for far better than any of us and it will be time enough to think of changing them for
both
:
when we can use them as they are. But there are some things which we not only want, but cannot do without
better
and which all the struggling and raving in the world, nay more, which all the real talent and resolution in England, will never enable us to do without and these are Obedience, Unity, Fellowship, and Order. And all our schools of design, and committees of tastes; all our academies and lectures, and journalisms, and essays all the sacrifices which we are beginning to make, all the truth which there is in our English nature, all the power of our English will, and the life of our :
;
Eno-lish intellect, will in this matter be as useless as efforts
and emotions in a dream, unless we are contented to submit architecture and all art, like other things, to English law. YI. I say architecture and all art; for I believe architecture must be the beginning of arts, and that the others must follow her in their time and order and I think the prosperity of our schools of painting and sculpture, in which no one will deny the life, though many the heaUh, depends upon ;
that of our architecture.
I think that
all
will languish until
that takes the lead, and (this I do not tfiink, but I proclaim, as confidently as I
would
assert the necessity, for the safety of
an understood and strongly administered legal government) our architecture vnll languish, and that in the very dust, until the first principle of common sense be manfully obeyed, and an universal system of form and workmanship be everywhere adopted and enforced. It may be said that this is
society, of
THE LAMP OF
191
OBEDIE]S"CE.
—
I fear it is so I have nothing to It may be so do with the possibility or impossibility of it I simply know and assert the necessity of it. If it be impossible, English art Give it np at once. You are wasting time, is impossible. and money, and energy upon it, and though you exhaust centuries and treasuries, and break hearts for it, you will never Think not of it. It raise it above the merest dilettanteism. is a dangerous vanity, a mere gulph in which genius after
impossible.
:
;
genius will be swallowed up, and
it
will not close.
And
so
it
and broad step be taken at the beginning. "We shall not manufacture art out of pottery and printed stuffs we shall not reason out art by our philosophy we shall not stumble upon art by our experiments, nor create it by our fancies I do not say that we can even will continue to be, unless the one bold
;
;
:
build
it
these,
out of brick and stone
and there
is
none
else
a chance for us in
;
but there
;
and that chance
is
bare possibility of obtaining the consent,
rests
on the
both of architects
and of the public, to choose a style, and to use it universally. VII. How surely its principles ought at firet to be limited, we may easily determine by the consideration of the necessary modes of teaching any other branch of general knowledge.
When we
begin to teach children writing,
we
force
them
to
absolute copyism, and require absolute accuracy in the formation of the letters
modes
;
as they obtain
we
of literal expression,
command
of the received
cannot prevent their falHng
into such variations as are consistent with their feeling, their
circumstances, or their characters.
taught to write Latin, an authority
So, is
when
a
boy
required of
is
him
first
for
he becomes master of the language he may take a license, and feel his right to do so without any authority, and yet write better Latin than when he borrowed every separate expression. In the same way our every expression he uses
;
as
have to be taught to write the accepted style. We must first determine what buildings are to be considered Augustan in their authority their modes of construction and architects v/ould
;
laws of proportion are to be studied with the most penetrating care
;
then the different forms and uses of their decorations
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
192
German grammariar and under this absolute, begin to work admitting
are to be classed and catalogued, as a classes the
powers of prepositions
irrefragable authority,
not so
much
we
are to
;
as an alteration in the
;
depth of a cavetto, or the
Then, when our sight is once accustomed to the grammatical forms and arrangements, and our thoughts familiar with the expression of them all when we can speak this dead language naturally, and apply it to whatever ideas we have to render, that is to say, to every practical purpose of breadth of a
tillet.
;
life
;
then, and not
till
then, a license might be permitted
;
and
individual authority allowed to change or to add to the re-
ceived forms, always within certain limits
;
the decorations,
might be made subjects of variable fancy, and enriched with ideas either original or taken from other schools. And thus in process of time and by a great national movement, it might come to pass, that a new style should arise, as language itself changes we might perhaps come to speak especially,
;
Italian instead of Latin, or to speak
English
;
modern instead of
old
but this would be a matter of entire indifference,
and a matter,
no determination or desire could That alone which it is in our power to obtain, and which it is our duty to desire, is an unanimous style of some kind, and such comprehension and practice of it as would enable us to adapt its features to the peculiar characbesides, M^hicli
either hasten or prevent.
ter of every several building, large or small, domestic, civil,
I have said that it was immaterial what style was adopted, so far as regards the room for originality which its development would admit it is not so, however, when we take into consideration the far more imjiortant questions of the facility of adaj^tation to general purposes, and of the sympathy with which this or that style would be popularly re-
or ecclesiastical.
:
garded.
The
choice of Classical or Gothic, again using the
term in its broadest sense, may be questionable when it regards some single and considerable public building; but I
latter
cannot conceive
it
questionable, for an instant, Avhen
modern
uses in general
enough
to project the vulgarization
:
it
regards
I cannot conceive any architect insane
of
Greek
architecture.
;
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. Neither can
were chosen,
be rationally questionable whether
it
aaopt earlj or
193
late, original or deriv'ative
must be
it
dation, like our
either
own Tudor,
Gothic
:
we
if
should
the latter
some impotent and ugly degra-
or else a style whose grammatical
it would be nearly impossible to limit or arrange, like the French Flamboyant. We are equally precluded from adopting styles essentially infantine or barbarous, however Hercu-
laws
lean their infancy, or majestic their outlawry, such as our
own
Lombard Romanesque. The choice would lie I think between four styles 1. The Pisan Romanesque 2. The early Gothic of the Western Italian Republics, advanced Norman,
or the
:
and
as far
Giotto 4.
;
3.
as fast as
—
;
our art would enable us to the Gothic of
The Venetian Gothic
The English
earliest decorated.
the safest choice, would be of the
by some mingling
quisite decorated
its
purest developement
The most last,
natural, perhaps
well fenced from chance
the perpendicular
of again stiffening into
riched
in
;
and perhaps enfrom the ex-
of decorative elements
Gothic of France, of which, in such
cases, it
would be needful to accept some well known examples, as the North door of Rouen and the church of St. Urbain at Troyes, for final and limiting authorities on the side of decoration. YIII. It
is
almost impossible for us to conceive, in our
present state of doubt and ignorance, the sudden
dawn
ligence and fancy, the rapidly increasing sense of facility,
and, in
its j^^ojjer sense,
would
of intel-
power and
of Freedom, which such whole-
tlie whole Freed from the agitation and embarrasscircle of the ment of that liberty of choice which is the cause of half the discomforts of the world freed from the accompanying necesand sity of studying all past, present, or even possible styles enabled, by concentration of individual, and co-operation of
some
restraint
instantly cause throughout
arts.
;
;
multitudinous energy, to penetrate into the uttermost secrets of the adojjted style, the architect
would find
his
whole under-
standing enlarged, his practical knowledge certain and ready
and his imagination playful and vigorous, as a child's would be within a walled garden, who would sit down and shudder if he were left free in a fenceless plain. How many to hand,
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
194
and how bright would be the
results in every direction
of
interest, not to the arts merely, but to national happiness and
virtue,
it
would be
as difficult to preconceive as
extravagant to state
:
but the
iirst,
it
would seem them
perhajDs the least, of
would be an increased sense of fellowship among ourselves, a cementing of every patriotic l)ond of union, a proud and happy recognition of our affection for and sympathy with each other, and our willingness in all things to submit ourselves to every law that would advance the interest of the connnunity a ;
barrier, also, the best conceivable, to the
the upper and middle lishments
;
unhappy
classes, in houses, furniture,
and even a check to much of what
is
rivalry of
and
estab-
as vain as
it is
painful in the oppositions of religious parties respecting matters
These, I say, would be the
of ritual.
Economy practice
;
first
consequences.
would be by the simplicity of domestic comforts uninterfered with by the caprice increased tenfold, as
it
and mistakes of architects ignorant of the capacities of the styles they use, and all the symmetry and sightliness of our harmonized streets and public buildings, are things of slighter account in the catalogue of benefits. But it would be mere enthusiasm to endeavor to trace them farther, I have snftei'ed myself too long to indulge in the speculative statement of requirements which perhaps we have more immediate and more serious work than to supply,
and of feelings which
contingently in our power to recover.
thought unaware of the
it
may be only
I should be unjustly,
what I have proposed, or compared with our interests and fixed upon
difficulty of
of the unimportance of the whole subject as
many which
are brought
our consideration
But of
difficulty
l)y
home
to
the wild course of the present century.
and of importance
it
is
for others to judge.
I have limited myself to the simple statement of what, if
we
have architecture, we must primarily endeavor to feel then it m.ay not be desirable for us to have archibut and do all. There are many who feel it to be so ; many tecture at who sacrifice much to that end and I am sorry to see theii I have energies wasted and their lives disquieted in vain. is attainable, which that end stated, therefore, the only ways in desire to :
;
THE LAMP OF
OBEDIEIS'CE.
195
without venturing even to express an opinion as to its real de1 have an opinion, and tlie zeal with which I have sirableness.
may sometimes have betrayed it, but I hold to it with no confidence. I know too well the undue importance which the study that every man follows must assume in his own eyes, spoken
my own
to trust
tecture
;
garding ment.
and yet it
I
impressions of the dignity of that of ArchiI think I cannot
be utterly mistaken in
as at least useful in the sense of a
am
among
re-
National employ-
confirmed in this impression by what I see
Europe at this instant. All the and tumult which oppress the foreign nations, are traceable, among the other secondary causes through wliich God is working out His will upon them, to the simple one of their not ha\nng enough to do. I am not blind to the distress among their operatives nor do I deny the nearer and visibly passing
the states of
horror, distress,
;
active causes of the
movement
:
the recklessness of villany in
the leaders of revolt, the absence of connnon moral principle in the
upper
classes,
and of
common
courage and honesty in
But these causes themselves
the heads of governments.
ultimately traceable to a deeper and simpler one ness of the demagogue, the
:
are
the reckless-
immorahty of the middle
class,
the effeminacy and treachery of the noble, are traceable in
and all
commonest and most fruitful cause of calamity in households idleness. "We think too much in our benevolent efforts, more nmltiplied and more vain day by day, of bettering men by giving them advice and instruction. There are few who will take either the chief thing they need is occupation. I do not mean work in the sense of bread,— I mean work in the sense of mental interest for those who either are
these nations to the
—
:
;
placed above the necessity of labor for their bread, or who ^viU not work although they should. There is a vast quantity of
energy among European nations at this time, which ought go into handicrafts there are multitudes of idle semi-gentlemen who ought to be shoemakers and carpenters but since idle
to
;
;
they will not be these so long as they can help it, the business of the pliilanthi-opist is to find them some other employment
than disturbing governments.
It is of
no use to
tell
them they
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
196
are fools, and that tliev
Avill
only
make themselves
miserable
end as well as others if they have nothing else to do, they will do mischief and the man who will not work, and who has no means of intellectual pleasure, is as sure to become .'in instrument of evil as if he had sold himself bodily to Satan. 1 have myself seen enough of the daily life of the young educated men of France and Italy, to account for, as it deserves, and though, die deepest national suffering and degradation and our natural habits of infor the most part, oar commerce dustry preserve us from a similar paralysis, yet it would be wise to consider whether the forms of employment which we chiefly ad(^pt or promote, are as well calculated as they might be to improve and elevate us. We have just spent, for instance, a hundred and fifty millions, with which we have paid men for digging ground from AVe have formed a one place and depositing it in another. in the
:
;
;
large class of
men, the railway navvies, especially reckless, unWe have maintained besides (let
manageable, and dangerous.
us state the benefits as fairly as possible) a
number
founders in an unhealthy and painful employment
;
of iron
we have
good) a very large amount of meand we have, in fine, attained the power Meantime we have of going fast from one place to another. in the operations ourselves or concern mental interest had no the usual vanities left to have been we have set on foot, but other hand, that and cares of our existence. Suppose, on the
developed
(this is at least
chanical ingenuity
;
we had employed
the same sums in building beautiful houses and churches. We should have maintained the same number of men, not in driving wheelbarrows, but in a distinctly technical, if not intellectual, employment, and those who were more intelligent among them would have been especially happy in that em])loyment, as having room in it for the developement of their fancy, and being directed by it to that observation of beauty which, associated with the pursuit of natural science, at
present forms the enjoyment of many of the more intelligent manufacturing operatives. Of mechanical ingenuity, there is, I imagine, at least as
much
required to build a cathedral as to
THE LAMP OF OBEDIEiXCE.
197
we
should, therefore,
cut a tunnel or contrive a locomotive
:
have developed as much science, while the artistical element of intellect would have been added to the gain. Meantime we Bhould ourselves have been made happier and wiser by the interest we should have taken in the work with which we were personally concerned and when all was done, instead of the very doubtful advantage of the power of going fast from place to place, we should have had the certain advantage of increased ;
pleasure in stopping at home.
IX. There are many other stant,
less capacious,
but more con-
channels of expenditure, quite as disputable in their
beneficial tendency
and we
;
are,
perhaps, hardly enough in
the habit of inquiring, with respect to any particular form of
luxury or any customary appliance of of
employment
it
life,
whether the kind
gives to the operative or the dependant be
as we might otherwise enough to find men absolute subsistence; we should think of the manner of life which our demands necessitate and endeavor, as far as may be, to make all our needs such as may, in the sujDply of them, raise, as well as feed, the poor. It is far better to give work which is above the men, than to educate the men to be above their work. It may be doubted, for instance, whether the habits of luxury, which necessitate a large train of men servants, be a wholesome form of expenditure and more, whether the pursuits which have a tendency to enlarge the class of the jockey and the groom be a philanthropic form of mental occupation. So again, consider the large number of men whose lives are employed by civilized nations in cutting facets upon jewels. There is much dexterity of hand, ]3atience, and ingenuity thus bestowed, which are simply burned out in the blaze of the tiara, without, so far as I see, bestowing any pleasure upon
as healthy
and
fitting
provide for him.
an employment
It is not
;
;
wear or who l)ehold, at all compensatory for the and mental power which are involved in the employment of the workman. He would be far more healthily and happily sustained by being set to carve stone certain qualities of his mind, for which there is no room in his present those
v\'ho
loss of life
;
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE.
198
occupation, would develope themselves in the nobler believe that most
women would, in
;
and I
the end, prefer the pleasure
of having built a church, or contributed to the
adornment of a
cathedral, to the pride of bearing a certain quantity of ada-
mant on
their foreheads.
X. I could pursue strange notions about
this subject willinglj,
it
which
it is
but I have some
perhaps wiser not loosely to
I content myself with finallj'' reasserting, what has set down. been throughout the burden of the preceding pages, that whatever rank, or whatever importance, may be attributed or
some value which its pursuit has presented us, and some instruction in the frequent reference of its commonest necessities to the mighty laws, in the sense and scope of which all men are Builders, whom every hour sees laying the stubble attached to their immediate subject, there
is at least
in the analogies with
or the stone. I
have paused, not once nor twice,
checked
tlie
as I wrote,
and often have
course of what might otherwise have been impor-
tunate 2:)ersuasion, as the thought has crossed me,
Architecture hands.
may be
There
is
vain, except that
which
how
not
is
soon
all
made with
something ominous in the light which has
enabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages among
whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile when I hear the hopeful exultation of many, at the new reach of worldly science, and vigor of worldly effort as if we were again at the beginning of days. There is thunder on the horizon as well as dawn. The sun was risen upon the earth when ;
Lot entered into Zoar.
NOTES. Page
1.
bility is
13.
^^
With
the idolatrous Egyptian^
indeed slight in comparison, but
it
is
— The proba-
a probability never-
and one which is daily on the increase. I trust that I be thought to underrate the danger of such sympathy, though I speak lightly of the chance of it. I have confidence in the central religious body of the English and Scottish people, as being not only untainted with Romanism, but immoveably adverse to it and, however strangely and swiftly the heresy of the Protestant and victory of the Papist may seem to be theless,
may not
:
extendina: amono; us, I feel assured that there are barriers in the living faith of this nation
Yet
which neither can overpass.
this confidence is only in the ultimate faithfulness of a few, not
from the sin and the punishment Both have, indeed, in some sort, been
in the security of the nation
of partial apostasy.
committed and suifered already
;
and, in expressing
my
belief
of the close connection of the distress and burden which the
mass of the people
at
present sustain, Avith the encouragement
which, in various directions, has been given to the Papist, do not
let
me
be called superstitious or
ever more inclined than
I,
l^o
irrational,
man was
both by natural disposition and by
many
ties of early association, to a sympathy with the princiand forms of the Romanist Church and there is much in its discipline which conscientiously, as well as sympathetically, I could love and advocate. But, in confessing tliis strength of
ples
;
affectionate prejudice, surely I vindicate
more
respect for
my
firmly expressed belief, that the entire doctrine and system of that
Church
is
in the fullest sense anti-Christian
and idolatrous Power
is
;
that
its
lying
the darkest plague that ever held com-
200
NOTES.
mission to hurt the Earth
;
that
all
tliose
yearnings for unity
and fellowship, and common obedience, wliich have been the root of onr late heresies, are as false in their grounds as fatal in their termination that we never can have the remotest fellowship with the utterers of that fearful Falsehood, and live that we have nothing to look to from them but treacherous hostility and that, exactly in proportion to the sternness of our separation from them, will be not only the spiritual but the temporal blessings granted by God to this country. How close has been the correspondence hitherto between the degree of resistance to Romanism marked in our national acts, and the honor with which those acts have been crowned, has been sufficiently proved in a short essay by a writer whose investigations into the influence of Religion upon the fate of Nations have been singularly earnest and successful a writer with whom I faithfully and firmly believe that England will never be pi'osperous again, and that the honor of her arms will be tarnished, and her commerce blighted, and her national character degraded, until the Romanist is expelled from the place which has impiously been conceded ;
;
;
—
to
him amonff her
to
whom
people to
error
is
whom
les-islators.
'•
Whatever be the
an inheritance, woe be to the
it
is
an adoption.
"svith
those
If England, free above
the all
which have covered burning and slaughter, and en-
other nations, sustained amidst the
Europe, before her eyes,
lot of
man and
trials
lightened by the fullest knoM^ledge of divine truth, shall refuse
the compact by which those matchless privileges have been given, her condemnation will not linger. She has already made one step full of danger. She has committed the capital error of mistaking that for a purely political question which was a purely religious one. Her foot already hangs over the edge of the precipice. It must be retracted, or the empire is but a name. In the clouds and darkness which seem to be deepening on all human policy in the gathering tumults of EurojDC, and the feverish discontents at home it may be even fidelity to
—
difficult to discern
where the power yet
But there arc mighty no miracle was ever wrought for
majesty of the constitution once more.
means
in sinceritj^
;
and
if
—
lives to erect the fallen
P 201
NOTES.
the faithless and despairing, the country that wall help itself
Heaven" (Historical by the Rev. Dr. Croly, 184:2). The first of these es"England the Fortress of Christianity," I most earnestly
will nerer be left destitute of the help of
Essays, says,
to the meditation of those who doubt that a special punishment is inflicted by the Deity upon all national crime, and perhaps, of all such crime, most instantly upon the betrayal on the part of England of the truth and faith with which she
recommend
has been entrusted.
—
" Not the gift, hut the giving Much attention been directed to the subject of religious art, and we in possession of all kinds of interpretations and classifi-
2. p. 17.
has lately are
now
cations of
it,
and of the leading
greatest question of
answered,
What good
did
it
do to
subject into whicli I should so
artistical
remains entirely un-
it
real religion
much
and conscientious inquiry instituted undertaken in
But the
facts of its history.
connected \dth
all
?
There
is
no
rejoice to see a serious
as this
;
an inquiry neither
enthusiasm nor in monkish sympathy,
but dogged, merciless, and fearless.
I love the religious art
of Italy as well as most men, but there
is
a
wide difference
between loving it as a manifestation of individual feeling, and looking to it as an instrument of popular benefit. I have not knowledge enough to form even the shadow of an opinion on this latter point, and I should be most grateful to any one who would put it in my powei' to do so. There are, as it seems to me, three distinct questions to be considered the first, What has been the effect of external splendor on the genuineness and earnestness of Cliristian worship ? the second, What the use of pictorial or sculptural representation in the communication of Christian historical knowledge, or excitement of :
affectionate imagination
?
the third.
What
the influence of the
practice of religious art on the life of the artist
?
In answering these inquiries, we should have to consider separately every collateral influence and circumstance and, by ;
a most subtle analysis, to eliminate the real effect of art from thp effects of the abuses with which
it
was
associated.
This
NOTES.
202
could be done only by a Christian in
love
;
not a
man who wonld
with a sweet color or sweet expression, but
would look for true
faith
and consistent
life as
fail
who
the object of
all. It never has been done yet, and the question remains a subject of vain and endless contention between parties of op-
and temperaments.
posite prejudices "
To the concealment of what is really good or have often been surprised at the supposition that
3. p. 18. great.''"'
—I
Romanism,
in
present condition, could either patronise art
its
The noble painted windows of St. Maclou at Rouen, and many other churches in France, are entirely blocked up behind the altars by the erection of huge gilded wooden sunbeams, with interspersed cherubs. or profit by
4. p. 26.
it.
"
—
of traceries in each^ examined the seven hundred and four each niche) so as to be sure that none are
With
different j^ttern
I have certainly not traceries (four to
alike
;
but they have the aspect of continual variation, and
even the roses of the pendants of the small groined niche roofs are
all
of different patterns.
'^Itsflamhoyant traceries of the last and most degraded forms.'''' They are noticed by Mr. Whewell as forming 5. p. 36.
—
the figure of the
always a mark,
fleur-de-lis,
when
in tracery
It occurs in the central
most debased flamboyant. tower of Bayeux, very richly in the buttresses of St. Gervais at Falaise, and in the small niches of some of the domestic Nor is it only the tower of St. Ouen buildings at Rouen.
bars, of the
which is overrated.
Its
nave
is
a base imitation, in the flamboy-
ant period, of an early Gothic arrangement piers are barbarisms
;
there
is
a
huge square
;
the niches on
its
shaft run through
the ceiling of the aisles to support the nave piers, the ugliest excrescence I ever saw on a Gothic building ; the traceries of the nave are the most insipid and faded flamboyant
;
those of
the transept clerestory present a singularly distorted condition of perpendicular even the elnl)orate door of the south transept ;
:
203
NOTES. is,
for
but
period, extraAagaut
its iine
foliation
and pendants. There
the choir,
circle of
liglit
tlie
is
and almost grotesque
in its
nothing trnly iine in the church
triforium, and
tall
clerestory, the
Eastern chapels, the details of sculpture, and the gen-
eral lightness of proportion
these merits being seen to the
;
utmost advantage by the freedom of the body of the church
from
all
6. p.
incumbrance.
36.
Compare
Iliad
2.
1.
219 with Odyssey n.
1.
5
—10. 7. p. 37.
riair
" Does not admit iron as a constructive mate-
—Except
in Chaucer's noble temple of Mars.
"And dounward
from an hill under a bent, Ther stood the temple of Mars, armipotent. Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see. And thereout came a rage and swiche a vise. That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone, For window on the wall ne was ther none, Thurgh which men mighten any light disceme The dore was all of athamant eterne, Tclenched overthwart and ende long With yren tough, and for to make it strong, Every piler the temple to sustene Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene." The Knighte's
There
is,
by the bye, an exquisite piece of
Tale.
architectural
Golor just before "
And
northward, in a turret on the wall
Of alabaster
An
ichite,
and
red corall.
oratorie riche for to see,
In worship of Diane of Chastitee."
8. p. 37.
''The Builders of SaUshurrj:'—" This
way
of
tying walls together with iron, instead of making them of that substance and form, that they shall naturally poise themselves 4
204
N^OTES.
upon
their buttment, is against the rules of
not only because iron
good architecture,
corruptible by rust, but because
is
is
it
having unequal veins in the metal, some places of the same bar being three times stronger than others, and yet all sound to appearance." Survey of Salisbury Cathedral in 1668,
fallacious,
by Sir C. Wren. For my own part, I think it better work to bind a tower with iron, than to support a false dome by a brick pyramid.
9.
p.
In
53. Plate 3.
glazed windows, but
fig.
2
this plate, figures 4, 5, is
and figures 1 and 3 are in triforia, the filled, on the central tower of Coutances.
10. p. 87.
'•''Ornaments
— The reader cannot but
and
6,
are
the open light of a belfry tower, latter also occurring
of the transept towers of Rouen^
observe agreeableness, as a mere
ar-
rangement of shade, which especially belongs to the " sacred trefoil." I do not think that the element of foliation has been enough insisted upon in its intimate relations with the power If I were asked what was the most distincof Gothic work. tive feature of its perfect style, I should say the Trefoil.
It
and I think the loveliest Gothic is always formed upon simple and bold tracings of it, taking place between the blank lancet arch on the one hand, and the overcharged cinquefoiled arch on the other. is
the very soul of
11. p. 88.
"
it
;
And
—
of stone.'''' The plate repwindows of the third story of the was drawn from the opposite side of the levelled cusps
resents one of the lateral
Palazzo Foscari.
It
Canal, and the lines of
Grand
its
traceries are therefore given
shows only segments of the characteristic quatrefoils of the central windows. I found by measurement their construction exceedingly simple. as they
Four
Two
appear in somewhat
circles are
drawn
distant
in contact
tangential lines are then
drawn
closing the four circles in a hollow
effect.
It
within the large
circle.
to each opposite pair, encross.
An
inner circle
205
XOTES.
struck tliroiigh the intersections of the circles by the tangents, truncates the cusps.
''Into vertical equal parts.
12. p. 119.
There are variations
''''
—Xot absohitelj
j^artly accidental (or at least
so.
compelled by
the architect's effort to recover the vertical), between the sides of the stories; and the upper and lower story are taller than
the
There
rest.
is,
however, an apparent equality between
five out of the eight tiers.
paint a column with vertical linesP any pattern which gives opponent lines in its parts, may be arranged on lines Thus, rows of diamonds, parallel with the main structure. like spots on a snake's back, or the bones on a sturgeon, are The exquisitely applied both to vertical and spiral cohimns. are the that I know, loveliest instances of such decoration 13. p. 127.
—
It
'''Never
should be observed, however, that
pillars of the cloister of St.
by Mr. Digby Wyatt,
in his
John Lateran,
lately illustrated
most valuable and faithful work
on antique mosaic.
On
14. p. 133.
the cover of this volume the reader will
same period and character, San Miniato at Florence. I have to thank its designer, Mr. W. Harry Kogers, for his intelligent arrangement of them, and graceful adaptation of the connecting (Stamp on cloth cover of London edition.) arabesque. find
some
from the
figure outlines of the
floor of
15. p. 161:. music.''^
—Yet
''The flowers
not
all
pare Modern Painters, vol 16. p. 177.
lost their lights the
river
their light, nor all their music. ii.
sec. 1.
chap.
iv. § 8.
"^2/ ^^^ artists of the time of PeridesP
remarked to me by found knowledge of Greek art will not,
subordination was
first
its
Com-
a friend, I tnist,
—This
whose pro-
be reserved
always for the advantage of his friends only: Mr. C. Xewton, of the British
Museum.
—
"
306
XOTES. "
17. p. 184.
Ode
to France
In one of
the nohlest jpoeinsP
— Coleridge
:
" Te Clouds!
tliat far
above
me
float
and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control Ye Ocean- Waves! that wheresoe'er ye roll,
I
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made Where,
like a
a solemn music of the wind!
man
beloved of God,
Through glooms, which never woodman
How
trod,
pursuing fancies holy. My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared! Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Skyl Yea, everything that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wliercsoe'er ye be. With what deep worship I have still adored
The
Noble
oft,
spirit of divinest Liberty."
verse, but erring tliought
" Slight those
Thou
livest
who by
:
contrast
George Herbert '—
say amidst their sickly healths,
What
rule.
doth not so but
man?
and Commonwealths. Entice the trusty sun, if that you can, From his ecliptic line beckon the sky. Who lives by rule then, keeps good company.
Houses are
built
by
rule
;
"
Who
keeps no guard upon himself
is
slack.
And rots to nothing at the next great thaw; Man is a shop of rules: a well-truss'd pack Whose every parcel underwrites a law. Lose not thyself, nor give thy humors way; God gave them to thee under lock and key.
s
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN VOLUME
II
MODERN PAINTERS VOLUME
1
MODERN
PAINTERS. BY
A GRADUATE OF OXFORD. VOL. PART
I.
I
-.11.
TO
THE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS OF ENGLAND Cbts
IS
5Morfe
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRER,
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The work now tion at the shallow
laid before the public originated in indigna-
and
false criticism of the periodicals of the
day on the works of the great living artist to wliom it princiIt was intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobatpally refers. ing the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on art, to
which
I
was obhged to give the more consistency and com-
pleteness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary
connoisseur, will sound heretical.
I
now
scarcely
know whether
should announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its frequent reference to the works of a particular master or, announcing it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred, is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of pretension and affectation. But when puhlic taste seems plunging deeper and deeper into degradation day by day, and when the press universally exerts such power as it j)ossesses to direct the feeling of the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and false in art while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age has ever witnessed, it becomes the imperative duty of all who have any perception or I
;
;
X
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIOK.
knowledge of what is really great in art, and any desire for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward, regardless of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by the knowledge of what is good and right, to declare and demonstrate, wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the Beautiful and the True. Whatever may seem invidious or partial in the execution of my task is dependent not so much on the tenor of the work, as on its incompleteness. I have not entered into systematic criticism of all the painters of the present day but I have illustrated each particular excellence and truth of art by the works in which it exists in the highest degree, resting satisfied that if it be once rightly felt and enjoyed in these, it will be discovered and appreciated wherever it exists in others. And although I have never suppressed any conviction of the superiority of one artist over another, which I believed to be grounded on truth, and necessary to the understanding of truth, I have been cautious never to undermine positive rank, while I disputed relative rank. My uniform desire and aim have been, not that the present favorite should be admired less, but that the neglected master should be admired more. And I know that an increased perception and sense of truth and beauty, though it may interfere with our estimate of the comparative rank of painters, will ;
invariably tend to increase our admiration of
all
who
are really
and he who now places Stanfield and Callcott above Turner, will admire Stanfield and Callcott more than he does now, when he has learned to place Turner far above them both. great
;
I spoken in direct depreciation and these are all cases in which
In three instances only have of the works of living artists,
the reputation is so firm and extended, as to suffer little injury from the opinion of an individual, and where the blame has been warranted and deserved by the desecration of the highest powers.
Of the old masters I have spoken with far greater freedom but let it be remembered that only a portion of the work is now presented to the public, and it must not be supposed, because in that particular portion, and with reference to particular excellencies, I have spoken in constant depreciation, that I have no feeling of other excellencies of which cognizance can only be taken in future parts of the work. Let me not be understood to mean more than I have said, nor be made responsible for con;
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
XI
when I have only stated facts. I have said that the old if the reader chooses, masters did not give the truth of Nature thence, to infer that they were not masters at all, it is his conclusion, not mine. Whatever I have asserted throughout the work, I have endeavored to ground altogether on demonstrations which must elusions
;
fall by their own strength, and which ought to involve no more reference to authority or character than a demonstration Yet it is proper for the public to know, that the in Euclid. writer is no mere theorist, but has been devoted from his youtli
stand or
to the laborious study of practical art.
Whatever has been generally affirmed of the old schools of is founded on familiar acquaintance with But it every important work of art, from Antwerp to Naples. would be useless, where close and immediate comparison with works in our own Academy is desirable, to refer to the details and it would be impossible to of pictures at Eome or Munich speak at once with just feeling, as regarded the possessor, and landscape-painting
;
just freedom, as regarded the public, of pictures in private gal-
Whatever particular references have been made for illushave been therefore confined, as far as was in my power, to works in the National and Dulwich Galleries. Finally, I have to apologize for the imperfection of a work which I could have wished not to have executed, but with years
leries.
tration,
It is owing to my sense of the necesonly a portion of the work is now presented to the public ; but that portion is both complete in itseK, and is more peculiarly directed against the crying evil which Whether I ever completely fulfil my called for instant remedy. intention, will partly depend upon the spirit in which the presIf it be attributed to an invidious ent volume is received. spirit, or a desire for the advancement of individual interests, I
of reflection sity of
such
and
revisal.
revisal, that
good by farther effort. If, on the and intention be understood, I shall shrink from no labor in the execution of a task which may tend, liowever feebly, to the advancement of the cause of real art in England, and to the honor of those great living Masters whom we now neglect or malign, to pour our flattery into the ear of Death, and exalt, with vain acclamation, the names of those who
could hope to effect contrary,
neither
its
little
real feeling
demand our
praise,
nor regard our gratitude.
The Author.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
allowed by the most able writers on naval and military although the attack by successive divisions absohitely requires in the attacking party such an inherent superiority in quality of force, and such consciousness of that superiority, as may enable his front columns, or his leading ships, to support themselves for a considerable period against overwhelmit yet insures, if maintained with constancy, the ing numbers most total ruin of the opposing force. Convinced of the truth, and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident that the strength of the cause must give weight to tlie strokes of even the weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to a somewhat hasty and hot-headed desire of being, at whatever risk, in the thick of the fire, and began the contest with a part, and that the weakest and least considerable part, of the forces And I now find the volume thus boldly laid at my disposal. before the public in a position much resembling that of the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, receiving, unsupported, the broadsides of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen circumstances have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent, my I lieavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. watched the first moments of the struggle with some anxiety for the solitary vessel, an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel, for the flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have lost their position, and exposed themselves in defenceless disorder to the attack of the following colIt
is
tactics, that
;
—
—
ums. If, however, I have had no reason to regret my hasty advance, as far as regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have yet found it to occasion much misconception of the character.
XIV
PREFACE TO THE SECOND
EDITIONS'.
and some diminution of tlie influence, of the present essay. For tliough tlie work has been received as only in sanguine moments I had ventured to hope, though I have had the pleasure of knowing that in many instances its principles have carried with them a strength of conviction amounting to a demonstration of their truth, and that, even where it has had no other influence, it has excited interest, suggested inquiry, and prompted to a just and frank comparison of Art with Nature ; yet this effect would have been greater still, had not the work been supposed, as it seems to have been by many readers, a completed treatise, containing a systematized statement of the whole of my views on the subject of modern art. Considered as such, it surprises me that the book should have received the slightest attention. For what respect could be due to a writer who pretended to criticise and classify the works of the great painters of landscape, without develojDing, or even alluding to, one single principle of the beautiful or sublime ? So far from being a completed essay, it is little more than the introduction to the mass of evidence and illustration which I have yet to bring forward it treats of nothing but the initiatory steps of art, states nothing but the elementary rules of criticism, touches only on merits attainable by accuracy of eye and fidelity of hand, and leaves for ;
future consideration every one of the eclectic qualities of pictures, all of good that is prompted by feeling, and of great that is guided by judgment ; and its function and scope should the
have been mistaken, because I have not only most carefully arranged the subject in its commencement, but have given frequent references throughout to the essays by which it is intended to be succeeded, in which I shall endeavor to point out the signification and the value of those phenomena of external nature which I have been hitherto compelled to describe without reference either to their inherent beauty, or to the lessons which may be derived from them. Yet, to prevent such misconception in future, I may perhaps be excused for occupying the reader's time with a fuller statement of the feelings with which the work was undertaken, of its general plan, and of the conclusions and positions which I hop© to be able finally to deduce and maintain. Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of folly, ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to dimin-
less
>eh the
honor of those to
whom
tke assent of
many
generations
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XT
has assigned a throne for the truly great of later times have, almost without exception, fostered in others the veneration of departed power which they felt themselves, satisfied in all humility to take their seat at the feet of those whose honor is brightened by the hoariness of time, and to wait for the period when the lustre of many departed days may accumulate on their own heads, in the radiance which culminates as it recedes. The envious and incompetent have usually been the leaders of attack, content if, like the foulness of the earth, they may attract to themselves notice by their noisomeness, or, like its insects, exalt themselves by virulence into visibility. While, however, the envy of the vicious, and the insolence of the ignorant, are occasionally shown in their nakedness hj futile efforts to degrade the dead, it is worthy of consideration whether they may not more frequently escaj)e detection in successful efforts to degrade the living, whether the very same malice may not be gratified, the very same incompetence demonstrated in the unjust lowering of present greatness, and the unjust exaltation of a perished power, as, if exerted and manifested in a less safe direction, would have classed the critic with Nero and Caligula, with Zoilus and Perrault. Be it remembered, that the spirit of detraction is detected only when unsuccessful, and receives least punishment where it effects the greatest injury ; and it cannot but be felt that there is as much danger that the rising of new stars should be concealed by the mists which are unseen, as that those throned in heaven should be darkened by the clouds which are ;
—
visible.
There
is,
I fear, so
much
malice in the hearts of most men,
that they are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the
and are then most liberal of eulogium when it can no longer be enjoyed. They grudge not the whiteness of the sepulchre, because by no honor they can bestow upon it can the senseless corpse be rendered an object of envy but they are niggardly of the reputation which contributes to happiness, or advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain credit for generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of praise, and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing greatest pleasure,
;
homage
to a living rival. They are rejoiced to set up a standard of imaginary excellence, which may enable them, by insisting on the inferiority of a contemporary work to the things that have been, to withdraw the attention from its superiority to the
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XVI
things that are.
The same undercurrent
in our reception of animadversion.
Men
of jealousy operates
have commonly more
pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the grave. And thus well says the good and deep- minded Richard Hooker "To the best and wisest, while they live, the world is and a curious observer of their continually a f reward opposite defects and imperfections, their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this cause, many times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find favor, if 'they which propose it were not content to profess themselves therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world will not endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went before." Book V. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain the cause of contemporary excellence against that of elder time, must have almost every class of men arrayed against him. The generous, because they would not find matter of accusation :
;
—
against established dignities ; the envious, because they like not the sound of a living man's praise the wise, because they prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days and the foolish, ;
;
because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their own. Obloquy so universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few who make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in favor of their own works, deserve the contempt which is their only reward. Nor is this to be regretted, in its influence on the progress and preservation of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its ends. It increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages, might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, be swept away by the rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty ; and the knowledge which it had taken centuries to accumulate, the principles which mighty minds had arrived at only in dying, ;
might be overthrown by the frenzy in the insolence of an hour. Neither, in
its
of a faction,
general application,
is
and abandoned
the persuasion of the
PREFACE TO THE SECOKD EDITIOK. superiority of former works less just than useful.
number
of
them
are,
and must
any of the
XVll
The
greater
immeasurably nobler than because that which is best of
be,
results of present effort, the productions of four thousand years must necessarily be in its accumulation, beyond all rivalry from the works of any given generation ; but it. should always be remembered that it is im-
probable that many, and impossible that all, of such works, though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract perfection that there is certamly something left for us to carry farther, or complete that any given generation has just the same chance of producing some individual mind of first-rate calibre, as any of its predecessors and that if such a mind ;
;
;
should arise, the chances are, that with the assistance of experience and example, it would, in its particular and chosen path, do greater things than had been before done. We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of the real use of what has been left us by antiquity, nor to take that for a model of perfection which is, in many cases, only a guide to it. The picture which is looked to for an interpretation of nature is invaluable, but the picture which is taken as a substitute for nature, had better be burned and the young artist, while he should shrink with horror from the iconoclast who would tear from him every landmark and light which has been bequeathed him by the ancients, and leave him in a liberated childhood, may be equally certain of being betrayed by those who would give him the power and the knowledge of past time, and then fetter his strength from all advance, and bend his eyes backward on a beaten path who would thrust canvas between him and the sky, and tradition between him and God. And such conventional teaching is the more to be dreaded, because all that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative, is formed and created by every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated or imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as by their difference from it and while we advise him, in his first trials of strength, to set certain models before him with respect to inferior points, one for versification, another for arrangement, another for treatment, we yet admit not his greatness until he has broken away from all his models, and struck forth versification, arrangement, and treatment of his own. ;
—
;
—
—
XVm
PREFACE TO THE SECOKD
Three points, therefore,
I
EDITION".
would especially
insist
upon
as
necessary to be kept in mind in all criticism of modern art. First, that there are few, very few of even the best productions of antiquity, which are not visibly and palpably imperfect in
some kind or
way, and conceivably improvable by farther that every nation, perhaps every generation, has in all probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of study
;
mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something in some sort better than what has been before done and that therefore, unless art be a trick, or a manufacture, of which ;
the secrets are lost, the greatest minds of existing nations, if exerted with the same industry, passion, and honest aim as those of past time, have a chance in their particular walk of
doing something as great, or, taking the advantage of former example into account, even greater and better. It is difl&cult to conceive by what laws of logic some of the reviewers of the following Essay have construed its first sentence into a denial of this principle, tional
and shallow
—a
own convenmodern works invariably im-
denial such as their
criticism of
have said that " nothing has been for centuries conadmiration without possessing in a high degree some species of sterling excellence." Does it thence follow that it possesses in the highest degree every species of sterling excellence? "Yet thus," says the sapient reviewer, ''he admits the fact against which he mainly argues, namely, the superiority of these time-honored productions." As if the possession of an abstract excellence of some kind necessarily implied the possession of an incomparable excellence of every kind There are few works of man so perfect as to admit of no conception of their being excelled,* there are thousands which have been for centuries, and will be for centuries more, consecrated by public admiration, which are yet imperfect in many respects, and have been excelled, and may be excelled again. Do my opponents mean to assert that nothing good can ever be bettered, and that what is best of past time is necessarily best of all time ? Perugino, I suppose, possessed some species of sterI
plies,
secrated by public
—
!
—
* One or two fragments of Greek sculpture, the works of Michael Angelo, considered with reference to their general conception and power, and the Madonna di St. Sisto, are all that I should myself put into such a category, not that even these are without defect, but their defects are such as mortality could never hope to rectify.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XIX
ling excellence, but Perugino was excelled by Raffaelle ; and so Claude possesses some species of sterling excellence, but it fol-
lows not that he may not be excelled by Turner. The second point on which I would insist is that if a mind were to arise of such power as to be capable of equalling or excelling some of the greatest works of past ages, the productions of such a mind would, in all probability, be totally different in manner and matter from all former productions ; for the more powerful the intellect, the less will its works resemble those of Instead of other men, whether predecessors or contemporaries. reasoning, therefore, as we commonly do, in matters of art, that because such and such a work does not resemble that which has it must be inferior and wrong us rather admit that there is in its very dissimilarity an increased chance of its being itself a new, and perIf any production of modern art can be haps, a higher canon.
hitherto been a canon, therefore in principle
;
let
shown to have the authority of nature on its side, and to be based on eternal truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so much farther proof of its power, that it is totally different from all that have been before seen.* The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a mind were to arise, it would necessarily divide the world of the one, necessarily the largest and criticism into two factions loudest, composed of men incapable of judging except by precedent, ignorant of general truth, and acquainted only with such particular truths as may have been illustrated or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons ;
* This principle is dangerous, but not the less true, and necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for it, or because a pretence to Neverit may be made, by presumption, a cloak for its incompetence. otherwise it will theless, originality is never to be sought for its own sake be mere aberration it should arise naturally out of hard, independent study
—
—
of nature and it should be remembered that in many things technical, it is impossible to alter without being inferior, for therein, as says Spencer, " Truth is one, and right is ever one ;" but wrongs are various and multi"Vice," says Byron, in Marino Faliero, "must have variety; tudinous. ;
but Virtue stands like the sun, and her aspect."
all
which
rolls
around drinks
life
from
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XX of right,
—thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judg-
the other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of men of general knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who would recognize in the work of the daring innovator a record
ment
;
illustration of facts before unseized, who would justly and candidly estimate the value of the truths so rendered, and would increase in fervor of admiration as the master strode farther and deeper, and more daringly into dominions before unsearched or unknown yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in enthusiasm for by how much their leader became more im-
and
;
:
patient in his step
—more impetuous
in his success
— more exalt-
ed in his research, by so much must the number capable of following him become narrower, until at last, supposing him never to pause in his advance, he might be left in the very culminating moment of his consummate achievement, with but a faithful few by his side, his former disciples fallen away, his former enemies doubled in numbers and virulence, and the evidence of his supremacy only to be wrought out by the devotion of men's lives to the earnest study of the new truths he had discovered
and recorded. Such a mind has arisen in our
It has gone on from days. strength to strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to itself. It has occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism as was beforehand to be expected, and it is now at the zenith of its power, and, consequently, in the last phase of declining pop-
ularity.
This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was ever yet convinced of any momentous truth without feeling in himself the power, as well as the desire of communicating it. In asserting and demonstrating the supremacy of this great master, I shall both do immediate service to the cause of right art, and shall be able to illustrate many principles of landscape painting which are of general application, and have hitherto been unacknowledged. For anything like immediate effect on the public mind, I do " We mistake men's diseases," says Eichard Baxter, not hope. '' when we think there needeth nothing to cure them of their Alaa there are many distemerrors but the evidence of truth. pers of mind to be removed before they receive that evidence." Nevertheless, when it is fully laid before them, my duty will be done. Conviction will follow in due time. !
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
xxi
I do not consider myself as in any way addressing, or having do with, the ordinary critics of the press. Their writings are not the guide, but the expression, of public opinion. A writer for a newspaper naturally and necessarily endeavors to meet, as nearly as he can, the feelings of the majority of his readers his bread depends on his doing so. Precluded by the nature of his occupations from gaining any knowledge of art, he is sure that he can gain credit for it by expressing the opinions of his read-
to
;
ers.
He mocks
the picture which the public pass, and bespat-
with praise the canvas which a crowd concealed from him. Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Magazine * deserve more resj)ect the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility. There is something exalted in the innocence of their feeblemindedness one cannot suspect them of partiality, for it implies feeling nor of prejudice, for it implies some previous acquaintance with their subject. I do not know that even in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a more barefaced instance of imposture on the simplicity of the public, than the inters
—
:
;
sertion of these pieces of criticism in a respectable periodical.
We
on music from persons ignorant of its notes nor with treatises on philology by persons unacquainted with the aljjhabet but here is page after page of criticism, which one may read from end to end, looking for something which the writer knows, and finding nothing. Not his own language, for he has to look in his dictionary, by his own confession, for a word f occurring in one of the most important are not insulted with opinions ;
;
chapters the *
of
his
schools,
for
It is
Bible not he does not ;
with regret
cisms, which, after
that, in a
all,
work
the
commonest
of
called
of this nature, I take notice of criti-
are merely intended to
and be forgotten as soon as read
traditions
know why Poussin was
amuse the
careless reader,
but I do so in compliance with wishes expressed to me since the publication of this work, by persons who have the interests of art deeply at heart, and who, I find, attach more importance to the matter than I should have been disposed to do. I have, therefore, marked two or three passages which may enable the public to judge for themselves of the quality of these critiques and this I think a matter of justice to those who might otherwise have been led astray by them more than this I cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts with bell and bauble to back him. t Chrysoprase, (Vide No. for October, 1842, p. 503.) ;
;
—
—
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXli
" learned
;" * not the
Lee to Grainsborough * Every school-boy sion to
tlie
profound
;
most simple canons of art, for he prefers f not the most ordinary facts of nature,
knows
was given to Poussin in alluknowledge of the painter. The reviewer,
that this epithet
classical
however, (September, 1841,) informs us that the expression refers to his skill in " Composition." "He" (Mr. Lee) " often reminds t Critique on Royal Academy, 1842. us of Gainsborough's best manner but he is superior to him always in subdeep-thoughted, Shade of Gainsborough ject, composition, and variety." solemn Gainsborough, forgive us for re-writing this sentence we do so to and leave him swinging in the winds of the gibbet its perpetrator forever, Fool's Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they are well ;
—
— —
!
—
;
intentioned, simple, free from affectation or UBitation, and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration which he deserves that there will bo
—
many
unsophisticated and honest minds always read}' to follow his guidand therefore, that I need not ance, and answer his efforts with delight fear to point out in him the want of those technical qualities which are more especially the object of an artist's admiration. Gainsborough's power ;
(it is mentioned by Sir Jo.shua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens he is the purest colorist Sir Joshua himof the whole English school with him, in fact, the art self not excepted Evidence of painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe. enough will be seen in the following pages of my devoted admiration of Turner but I hesitate not to say, that in management and quality of single and particular tint, in the purely technical part of painting. Turner is a Now, Mr. Lee never aims at color he does not child of Gainsborough. make it his object in the slightest degree the spring green of vegetation is
of color
—
;
—
;
;
;
—
and it would be about as rational to compare his works that he desires with studied pieces of coloring, as the modulation of the Calabrian pipe to Gainsborough's hand is as light as the the harmony of a full orchestra. sweep of a cloud as swift as the flash of a sunbeam Lee's execution is Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division feeble and spotty. Lee's (perhaps necessarily, considering in heaven of light from darkness the effects of flickering sunlight at which he aims) are as fragmentary as Gainsborough's forms are grand, simple, and his leaves, and as numerous. Lee's are small, confused, and unselected. Gainsborough never \deal Lee is but too apt to be shackled by 'OSes sight of his picture as a whole In a word, Gainsborough is an immortal painter and Lee, its parts. though on the right road, is yet in the early stages of his art and the man who could imagine any resemblance or point of comparison between them, He is not only a novice in art, but has not capacity ever to be anything more. may be pardoned for not comprehending Turner, for long preparation and discipline are necessary before the abstract and profound philosophy of that artist can be met but Gainsborough's excellence is based on principles of and I art long acknowledged. <\nd facts of nature universally apparent insist more particuleJtiy on the reviewer's want of feeling for his works,
all
;
—
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
PREFACE TO THE SECOJfD EDITION.
we
for
find
him puzzled by
the epithet
'*
— evidently never
XXlll
silver," as applied to
having seen anything silvery about an orange in his life, except a spoon. Nay, he leaves us not to conjecture his calibre from internal evidence he candidly tells us (Oct. 1842) that he has been studying trees only for the last week, and bases his critical remarks chiefly on his practical experience of birch. More disinterested than our friend Sancho, he would disenchant the public from the magic of Turner by virtue of his own flagellation Xanthias-like, he would rob his master of immortality by his own powers of endurance. AVhat is Christopher Xortli about ? Does he receive his oritiques from Eaton or Harrow based on the experience of a vveek's birds'-nesting and its consequences ? How low must art the orange blossom,
;
;
—
md
interests sink,
its
when the public mind
ietection of this effrontery of incapacity
Maga, we warn her,
that,
!
inadequate to the In all kindness to
is
though the nature of
this
work
a
pre-
may come
cludes us from devoting space to the exposure, there
time when the public shall be themselves able to distinguish
from reasoning, and may require some better and higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon. It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of those whom writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am devoting years of labor to the devel-
ribaldry
on which the great productions of have a higher end in view one which may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of my own time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an investigation far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded by mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the
opment
of the principles
recent art are based.
I
—
spirit of a particular age.
It is a question
which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
proves a truth of which the public ought especially to be assured lavish abuse on the great men of modern times, are equally incapable of perceiving the real excellence of established canons, are igno-
because
it
that those
who
commonest and most acknowledged principia of the art, blind to the most palpable and comprehensible of its beauties, incapable of distinguishing, if left to themselves, a master's work from the vilest school copy, and founding their applause of those great works which they praise rant of the
either in pure hypocrisy, or in admiration of their defects.
PBEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXIV
me to admit of considerawhether art has ever, except in its earliest and rudest possessed anything like efficient moral influence on manBetter the state of Eome when " magnorum artificum
called the Sister of Poetry, appears to ble doubt, stages,
kind. frangebat pocula miles, ut phaleris gauderet equus," than when her walls flashed with the marble and the gold, " nee cessabat luxuria id agere, ut quam plurimum inceudiis perdat." Better the state of religion in Italy, before Giotto had broken on one barbarism of the Byzantine schools, than when the painter of the Last Judgment, and the sculptor of the Perseus, sat revelIt appears to me that a rude symbol is oftener ling side by side. more efficient than a refined one in touching the heart, and that as pictures rise in rank as works of art, they are regarded with less devotion and more curiosity. But, however this may be, and whatever influence we may be disposed to admit in the great works of sacred art, no doubt can, I think, be reasonably entertained as to the utter inutility of all that has been hitherto accomplished by the painters of landscape. No moral end has been answered, no permanent good effected, by any of their works. They may have amused the intellect, or exercised the ingenuity, but they never have sTooken to the heart. Landscape art has never taught us one
;
;
tures.
If we stand for a little time before any of the more celebrated works of landscape, listening to the comments of the passers-by, we shall hear numberless expressions relating to the skill of the artist, but very few relating to the perfection of na-
Hundreds will be voluble in admiration, for one who will be silefit in delight. Multitudes will laud the composition, and depart with the praise of Claude on their lips, not one will feel
ture.
—
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. as if it
3CXV
were wo composition, and depart with the praise of God
in his heart.
These are the signs of a debased, mistaken, and false school The skill of the artist, and the perfection of his art, are never proved until both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself, the art is imperfect which is visible, the feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer, and not his skill, his passion, not his We see as he sees, but we power, on which our minds are fixed. see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold with him but we think of him as little as of ourselves. Do we think of jEschylus Avhile we wait on the silence of Casof painting.
—
—
—
;
sandra,* or of Shakspeare, while we listen to the wailing of Lear ? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their It is commensurate with the degree in which self-annihilation. they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which is past his finding out. And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for otherwise it Her subjects have been regarded as mere themes has ever been. on which the artist's power is to be displayed ; and that power, be it of imitation, composition, idealization, or of whatever It other kind, is the chief object of the spectator's observation. is
man and
inventions,
man and
his fancies,
—poor, paltry,
his trickeries,
weak, self-sighted
man and
man,
—which
his
the
connoisseur forever seeks and worships. Among potsherds and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered beldames, through every scene of debauchery and degradation, we follow * There
a fine touch in the Fiogs in Aristophanes, alluding probably " 'Eyu 6' ExaLpoi> ry oiutt^ koi fie tovt' the Agamemnon. irepnev ovk tjttov fj vvv 6c TiaXovvreg." The same remark might be well
to
is
this part of
applied to the seemingly vacant or incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of ^schylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one thing in common unpopularity. 'O dT/fzoc ave^oa Kpiaiv TToieiv. HA. 6 Tuv navohpycjv Al. vq AJ, ovpdviov y' oaov, HA. /ler' Alax^^ov d
—
;
OVK ijaav irepoi avfi/xaxoi
;
Al, dXiyov rb xPVOTdv iariv.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXVI
the erring artist, not to receive one wholesome lesson, not to be pity, nor moved with indignation, but to watch
touched with
the dexterity of the pencil, and gloat over the glittering of the hue.
—
I speak not only of the works of the Flemish School I wage no war with their admirers they may be left in peace to count the spiculse of haystacks and the hairs of donkeys it is also of works of real mind that I sjDcak, works in which there are evidences of genius and workings of poAver, Avorks which have been held up as containing all of the beautiful that art can ;
—
—
—
And I assert with sorrow, that all reach or man conceive. hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly conceived its masters, has never prompted one holy thought in the minds of nations. It has begun and ended in exhibiting the dexterities of individuals,
and conventionalities
of systems.
Filling the
world with the honor of Claude and Salvator, it has never once tended to the honor of God. Does the reader start in reading these last words, as if they were those of wild enthusiasm, as if I were lowering the dignity of religion by supposing that its cause could be advanced by such means ? His surprise proves my position. It does sound like wild, like absurd enthusiasm, to expect any definite moral agency in the painters of landscape but ought it so to sound ? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory of the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective, that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity, or the engagement of idleness ? Must it not be
—
;
owing
to gross neglect or misapplication of the
command, that
means
at his
words and tones (means of representing nature surely less powerful than lines and colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter can only hope to entertain by his efforts at expression, and must remain forever brooding over his incommunicable thoughts ? v/hile
The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in the sysit consists, in a word, in the tem of ancient landscape art painter's taking upon him to modify God's works at his pleasure, casting the shadow of himself on all he sees, constituting himself arbiter where it is honor to be a disciple, and exhibiting ;
by the attainment of combinations whose highest We shall not pass through a single gallery of old art, without hearing this topic of praise his ingenuity
praise
is
that they are impossible.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. confidently advanced.
The
XXVU
sense of artificialness, the absence
of all appearance of reality, the clumsiness of combination
bj which the meddling of man is made evident, and the feebleness of his hand branded on the inorganization of his monstrous creature, is advanced as a proof of inventive power, as an evi-
—
dence of abstracted conception ; nay, the violation of specific form, the utter abandonment of all organic and individual character of object, (numberless examples of which from the works of the old masters are given in the following pages,) is constantly held up by the unthinking critic as the foundation of the grand or historical style, and the first step to the attainment of a pure ideal. Now, there is but one grand style, in the treatment of all subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the perfect knowledge, and consists in the simple, unencumbered rendering, of the specific characters of the given object, be it man, beast, or flower. Every change, caricature, or abandonment of such specific character, is as destructive of grandeur as it is of truth, of beauty as of propriety. Every alteration of the features of nature has its origin either in powerless indolence or blind audacity, in the folly which forgets, or the insolence which desecrates, works which it is the pride of angels to know, and their privilege to love.
We
sometimes hear such infringement of universal laws on the plea, that the frequent introduction of mythological abstractions into ancient landscape requires an imaginary character of form in the material objects with which they Something of this kind is hinted in Eeynolds's are associated. 14th Discourse but nothing can be more false than such reasoning. If there be any truth or beauty in the original conception of the spiritual being so introduced, there must be a true and real connection between that abstract idea * and the fea-
justified
;
know any passage in ancient literature in which this connecmore exquisitely illustrated than in the lines, burlesque though they
* I do not tion
is
approach of the chorus in the Clouds of Aristophanes, by the way, who, I believe, knew and felt more of the noble landscape character of his country than anj' whose works have come down to us except Homer. The individuality and distinctness of conception the visible cloud character which every word of this particular passage brings out into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refreshing as the real breathing of mountain winds. The line " 6ia tuu koHdv koI tuv daaeuv, nXdyiai," could have been written by none but an ardent lover of hill scenery one who had watched, hour after hour, the peculiar oblique, sidebe, descriptive of the
—a writer,
—
—
PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Xivni
and is. The woods and waters which were peopled by the Greek with typical life were not different from those which now wave and murmur by the ruins of his With their visible and actual forms was his imaginashrines. tion filled, and the beauty of its incarnate creatures can only be understood among the pure realities which originally modelled If divinity be stamped upon the features, or their conception. apparent in the form of the spiritual creature, the mind will not be shocked by its appearing to ride upon the whirlwind, and trample on the storm but if mortality, no violation of the characters of the earth will forge one single link to bind it to tares of nature as she was
;
the heaven. Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal character of landscape ? Undoubtedly ; and Sir Joshua, with the great master of this character, Xicolo Poussin, present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived at more true conclusions respecting its essence than, as we shall presently see, are deducible from his works. The true ideal of landscape is precisely the same as that of the human form ; it is the expression of the specific not the individual, but the specific characters of every object, in their perfection there is an ideal form of every herb, flower, and tree it is that form to which every individual of the species has a tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of accident or disease. Every landscape painter should know the specific characters of every object he has to represent, rock, flower, or cloud ; and in his highest ideal works, all their distinctions will be perfectly expressed, broadly or delicately, slightly or completely, according to the nature of the subject, and the degree of attention which is to be drawn to the particular object by the part it plays in the composition. Where the sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indicated with severe simplicity, as the muscular markings in a colossal statue ; where beauty is the object, they must be expressed with the utmost refinement of which the hand is capable. This may sound like a contradiction of principles advanced by the highest authorities but it is only a contradiction of a Much evil particular and most mistaken application of them.
—
—
;
:
;
long action of descending clouds, as they form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no lumpish solidities no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting, drifting, evanescent, full of air, and light, and dew.
—
—
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXiX
has been done to art by the remarks of historical painters on Accustomed themselves to treat their backgrounds
landscape. slightly
and
and feeling (though,
boldly,
as I shall presently
show, only in consequence of their own deficient powers) that any approach to completeness of detail therein, injures their picture by interfering with its principal subject, they naturally lose sight of the peculiar
to
them
and
intrinsic beauties of things
which
Hence the frequent neglect specific form in
are injurious, unless subordinate.
advice given by Reynolds and others, to its materials in large masses, aiming only at general truths, the flexibility of foliage, but not its kind ; the landscape, and treat
—
rigidity of rock,
more
but not
especially bearing
of Sir J. Reynolds),
we
its
on
mineral character.
In the passage
this subject (in the eleventh lecture
are told that
" the landscape painter
works not for the virtuoso or the naturalist, but for the general observer of life and nature." This is true, in precisely the same sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not, for this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression of anatomical detail and the more refined that expression can be rendered, the more perfect is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is the end, is, to the sculptor, the means. The former desires details, for their own sake the latter, that by means of them, he may kindle his work with life, and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape botanical or geological details are not to be given as matter of curiosity or subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species of expression and order of loveliness. In his observations on the foreground of the St. Pietro Martire, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of praise, that the plants are discriminated "'just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more." Had this foreground been occupied by a group of animals, we should have been surprised to be told that the lion, the serpent, and the dove, or whatever other creatures might have been introduced, were distinguished from each other just as much as was necessary for variety, and no more. Yet is it to be supposed that the distinctions of the vegetable world are less complete, less essential, or less divine in origin, than those of the animal ? If the distinctive forms of animal life are meant ;
—
;
;
for our reverent observance,
are
made merely
to be
is it
—
likely that those of vegetable life
swept away
?
The
latter are
indeed
less
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXX
obvious and less obtrusive for which very reason there is less excuse for omitting them, because there is less danger of their disturbing the attention or engaging the fancy. But Sir Joshua is as inaccurate in fact, as false in principle, lie himself furnishes a most singular instance of the very error the seeing what he expects ; or, of which he accuses Yaseni, rather, in the present case, not seeing what he does not expect. ;
—
The great masters of Italy, almost without exception, and Titian i3erhaps more than any, (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape,) are in the constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious botanical fidelity
witness the " Bacchus and Ariadne," in which the
:
foreground
is
occupied by the
common
blue
iris,
the aquilegia,
every stamen of which latter is given, while the blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to The draw) have been studied with the most exquisite accuracy.
and the
Avild rose
;
—
'' The Miraculous foregrounds of Eaffaelle's two cartoons, Draught of Fishes" and " The Charge to Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea colewort, {crambe maritima,) of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the patience of any other artist but have appeared worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labor to the great mind of
—
;
Eaffaelle.
It appears then, not only from natural principles, but from the highest of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the lowest details is necessary and full expression of them right, even in the highest class of historical painting that it will not take away from, nor interfere with, the interest of the figures but, rightly managed, must add to and elucidate it ; and, if further proof be wanting, I would desire the reader to compare ;
;
the background of Sir Joshua's " Holy Family," in the National Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's " Nursing of Jupi-
The
ter," in the
Dulwich
neglect of
botanical detail, has lost every
acter,
all
and reminds us
flower garden effect.
;
Gallery.
first,
of nothing but
owing to the utter atom of ideal char-
an English fashionable
—the formal pedestal adding
Poussin's, in Avhich every vine leaf
considerably to the drawn with con-
is
summate skill and untiring diligence, produces not only a tree group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but one which, in its pure and simple truth, belongs to every age of nature, and If, then, such entire adapts itself to the history of all time.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXXi
rendering of specific character be necessary to the historical cases where these lower details are entirely subordinate to his human subject, how much more must it be necessary in landscape, where they themselves constitute the subject, and where the undivided attention is to be drawn to painter, in
them.
There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly In many arts and attainments, be said to be father of the man. the first and last stages of progress the infancy and the consummation have many features in common while the inter-
—
—
;
mediate stages are wholly unlike either, and are farthest from the right.
We see
Thus
it
is
in the progress of a painter's handling.
—
the absolute beginner, using of necesbroken, imperfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances, becomes gradually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he bethe perfect child,
sity a
comes a perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be exchanged for a light and careless stroke, which in many points will far more resemble that of his childhood than of his middle age differing from it only by the consummate effect wrought out by the apparently inadequate means. So it is in many matters of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on different grounds it is the middle stage which is farthest from the truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the opinion we form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants in judgment, we look for specific character, and complete finish we delight in the faitlifnl plumage of the well-known
—
;
—
— —in the
finely drawn leafage of the discriminated flower. As we advance in judgment, we scorn such detail altogether we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of effect. But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to our early feelings, and thank Raffaelle for the shells upon his
bird
;
sacred beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside his inspired St. Catherine.*
Of those who take
interest in art, nay, even of artists them-
* Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what is marks either the infancy or decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind necessitates not deception of the
called deception in painting
eye.
— XXXn
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
an hundred in the middle stage of judgment, and this not because they are destitute of the power to discover, or the sensibility to enjoy the truth, but because the truth bears so much semblance of error that every feeling the last stage of the journey to the first, which guides to it is checked in its origin. The rapid and powerful artist necessarily looks with such contempt on those who seek minutiae of detail rathe?- than grandeur of impression, that selves, there are
for one
who
is
in the last
;
—
almost impossible for him to conceive of the great last step which both become compatible. He has so often to dash the delicacy out of the pupil's work, and to blot the details from his encumbered canvas ; so frequently to lament the loss of breadth and unity, and so seldom to reprehend the imperfection of minutiae, that he necessarily looks upon complete parts Thus, freas the very sign of error, weakness, and ignorance. quently to the latest period of his life, he separates, like Sir Joshua, as chief enemies, the details and the whole, which an and because details artist cannot be great unless he reconciles alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign of a tyro's work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details perfect in unity, and, contributing to a final purpose, are the sign of the it is
in art, by
;
production of a consummate master. It is not, therefore, detail sought for calculable bricks of the hairs art,
its
own
sake,
—not the
Dutch house-painters, nor the numbered
and mapped wrinkles of Denner, which constitute great but it is the lowest and most contemptible art
—they are
detail referred to a great end,
;
—sought for the sake of the
inesti-
mable beauty which exists in the slightest and least of God's works, and treated in a manly, broad, and impressive manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, as much nobility of
manner in a master's treatment his management of the most vast
of the smallest features, as in ;
and
this greatness of
manner
chiefly consists in seizing the specific character of the object, all the great qualities of beauty which it has in with higher orders of existence,* while he utterly
together with
common
meaner beauties which are accidentally peculiar to the and yet not specifically characteristic of it. I cannot give
rejects the
object,
* I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are principles common to all the creatures of God and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form becomes nobler or meaner of universal beauty
than another.
;
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXXlll
a better instance than the painting of the flowers in Titian's "While every stamen of the rose is. picture above mentioned. given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and while
the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss, bloom, moisture, or any other accident no dew-drops, nor flies, nor trickeries of any kind ; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the flowers, even those hues themselves be-
—
—
The varieties of aquilegia ing simplified and broadly rendered. and, I have, in reality, a grayish and uncertain tone of color believe, never attain the intense purity of blue with whioh ;
But the master does not aim at Titian has gifted his flower. the particular color of individual blossoms ; he seizes the type of all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which color
is
capable.
These laws being observed, it will not only be in the power, of the landscape the imperative duty, it will be the duty, painter, to descend to the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every herb and flower of the field has its specific, dispeculiar habitation, exit has its tinct, and perfect beauty The highest art is that which seizes pression, and function. this specific character, which develops and illustrates it, which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which Nor is it of herbs and flowthe picture is intended to convey. Every ers alone that such scientific representation is required. class of rock, every kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry, and rendered with equal precision. And thus we find ourselves unavoidably led to a conclusion directly opposed to that constantly enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must be " general-
—
—
;
—
ized," a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for As if it were possible to generalize Generalized incapacity. Of such common cant of criticism things generically different. I extract a characteristic passage from one of the reviews of this " He work, that in this year's Athenseum for February 10th (the author) would have geological landscape painters, dendrologic, meteorologic, and doubtless entomologic, iclithyologic, every kind of physiologic painter united in the same person !
:
;
PREFACE TO THE SECOND
XXXIV
EDITIOIT.
among all these learned Thebans landscape painting must not be reduced to mere portraiture of inanimate substances, Denner-like portraiture of the Ancient landscapists took a earth's face. broader, deeper, higher view of their art they neglected particular traits, and gave only general features. Thus they attained mass and force, harmonious union and simple effect, the elements of grandeur and beauty." To all such criticism as this (and I notice it only because it expresses the feelings into which many sensible and thoughtful minds have been fashioned by infection) the answer is simple and straightforward. It is just as impossible to generalize granAn aniite and slate, as it is to generalize a man and a cow. mal must be either one animal or another animal ; it cannot be a general animal, or it is no animal ; and so a rock must be either one rock or another rock ; it cannot be a general rock, or it is no rock. If there were a creature in the foreground of a picture, of which he could not decide whether it were a pony or a pig, the Athenaeum critic would perhaps affirm it to be a generalization of pony and pig, and consequently a high example of " harmonious union and simple effect." But / should call it simjile bad drawing. And so when there are things in the foreground of Salvator of which I cannot pronounce whether they be granite or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in them neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but simple monstrosity. There is no grandeur, no beauty of any sort or kind ; nothing but destruction, disorganization, and ruin, to be obtained by the violation of natural distinctions. The elements of brutes can only mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic nature only in annihilation. We may, if we choose, put together centaur monsters but they must still be half man, half horse they cannot be both man and horse, nor either man or And so, if landscape painters choose, they may give us horse. rocks which shall be half granite and half slate ; but they cannot give us rocks which shall be either granite or slate, nor which shall be both granite and slate. Every attempt to produce that Avhich shall be any rock, ends in the production of that which is no rock. It is true that the distinctions of rocks and plants and clouds are less conspicuous, and less constantly subjects of observation than those of the animal creation ; but the difficulty of observ yet, alas, for true poetic art
No
'.
;
*****
;
;
;
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITIOX.
XXXV
ing them proves not the merit of overlooking thenJ. It only accounts for the singular fact, that the world has never yet seen anything like a perfect school of landscape. For just as the highest historical painting is based on perfect knowledge of the workings of the human form, and human mind, so must the highest landscape painting be based on perfect cognizance of the form, functions, and system of every organic or definitely structured existence which it has to represent. This i^roposition is self-evident to every thinking mind and every principle which appears to contradict it is either misstated or misunderstood. For instance, the Athenaeum critic calls the right statement of generic difference '^ Denner-like portraiture." If he can find anything like Denner in what I have advanced as the utmost perfection of landscape art the recent works of Turner he is welcome to his discovery and his theory. No ; Dennerlike portraiture would be the endeavor to paint the separate crystals of quartz and felspar in the granite, and the separate flakes of mica in the mica slate, an attempt just as far removed from what I assert to be great art, (the bold rendering of the generic characters of form in both rocks,) as modern sculpture Martin of lace and button-holes is from the Elgin marbles. has attempted this Denner-like portraiture of sea-foam with the with what success, I believe the assistance of an acre of canvas critics of his last year's Canute had, for once, sense enough to ;
—
—
—
—
decide.
Again, it does not follow that because such accurate knowledge is necessary to the painter that it should constitute the painter, nor that such knowledge is valuable in itself, and without reference to high ends, ^very kind of knowledge may be sought from ignoble motives, and for ignoble ends ; and in while the very those who so possess it, it is ignoble knowledge same knowledge is in another mind an attainment of the highest This is the differdignity, and conveying the greatest blessing. ence between the mere botanist's knowledge of plants, and the The one notes great poet's or painter's knowledge of them. their distinctions for the sake of swelling his herbarium, the other, that he may render them vehicles of expression and emotion. The one counts the stamens, and affixes a name, and is content the other observes every character of the plant's color and form considering each of its attributes as an element of expression, he seizes on its lines of grace or energy, rigidity or ;
;
;
XXXVl repose
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
notes the feebleness or the vigor, the serenity or tremuits hues ; observes its local habits, its love or fear of peculiar places, its nourishment or destruction by particular influences ; he associates it in his mind with all the features of the situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies necessary to its support. Thenceforward the flower is to him a living ;
lousness of
creature, with histories written on its leaves, and passions breathing in its motion. Its occurrence in his picture is no mere point of color, no meaningless spark of light. It is a voice rising from the earth, a new chord of the mind's music, a necessary note in the harmony of his picture, contributing alike to its tenderness and its dignity, nor less to its loveliness than its truth.
—
—
The
and Shelley most frequent examples of the exalted use of these inferior details. It is true that the painter has not the same power of expressing the thoughts with which his symbols are connected he is dependent in some degree on the knowledge and feeling of the spectator but, by the destruction of such details, his foreground is not rendered more Intelligible to the particularization of flowers by Shakspeare
affords us the
;
;
ignorant, although It is
no excuse for
it
ceases to have interest for the informed.
illegible writing that there are persons
could not have read
it
had
it
I repeat then, generalization, as the
derstood,
who
been plain.
word
is
commonly un-
the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth ; in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid matter ; in all trees, nothing but similar accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought. The is
more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, and there is no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and in distinguishing connects them. Each becomes different from its fellow, but in differing from, assumes a relation to its fellow they are no more each the repetition of the other, they are parts of a system, and each implies aud is connected with the existence of the rest. That generalzation then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, false, and con;
—
;
PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. temptible, which
XXXVll
based on ignorance of the one, and disturbIt is indeed no generalization, but confusion and chaos ; it is the generalization of a defeated army into indistinguishable impotence the generalization of the ele-
ance
of the
is
other.
—
ments of a dead carcass into dust. Let us, then, without farther notice of the dogmata of the schools of art, follow forth those conclusions to which we are led by observance of the laws of nature. I have just said that every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy.* Nor is this merely for the sake of obtaining the character of these minor features themselves, but more especially for the sake of reaching that simple, earnest, and consistent character which is visible in the lohole effect of every natural landscape. Every geological formation has features entirely definite lines of fracture, giving rise to fixed peculiar to itself resultant forms of rock and earth ; peculiar vegetable products, among which still farther distinctions are wrought out by varia;
tions of climate
and
From such modifying
elevation.
circum-
stances arise the infinite varieties of the orders of landscape, of which each one shows perfect harmony among its several fea-
and possesses an ideal beauty of its own ; a beauty not distinguished merely by such peculiarities as are wrought on the human form by change of climate, but by generic differences the most marked and essential ; so that its classes cannot be generalized or amalgamated by any expedients whatsoever. The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the rounded swells and short pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs and cloven dells of the lower limestone, the soaring peaks and ridgy precipices of the primaries, having nothing in common tures,
among them * Is not
—nothing which —
may
is
not distinctive and incommuni-
—
demanding more from him than life can Nothing more than knowledge of external characteristics is absolutely required and even if, which were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude sketches, or finishing their unintelligent embryos of the study, would render them masters of every science that modern investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been passed in working on the seashore, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the sea, upon men's hearts forever. this
accomplish?
it
Not one
be asked
whit.
;
— PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
XXXVlll
—
Their very atmospheres are different their clouds are their humors of storm and sunshine are different By each ordei their flowers, animals and forests are different. of landscape and its orders, I repeat, are infinite in number, corresponding not only to the several species of rock, but to the particular circumstances of the rocks' deposition or after treatment, and to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect, and human interference by each order of landscape, I say, peculiar lessons are intended to be taught, and distinct pleasures to be conveyed and it is as utterly futile to talk of generalizing their impressions into an ideal landscape, as to talk of amalgamating all nourishment into one ideal food, gathering all music into one ideal movement, or confounding all thought into one cable.
different
—
—
:
—
;
ideal idea.
There
is,
however, such a thing as composition of different
orders of landscape, though there can be no generalization of
Nature herself perpetually brings together elements of expression. Her barren rocks stoop through wooded promontories to the plain and the wreaths of the vine show through their green shadows the wan light of unperishing snow. The painter, therefore, has tlie choice of either working out the isolated character of some one distinct class of scene, or of bringing together a multitude of different elements, which may adorn each other by contrast. I believe that the simple and uncombined landscape, if wrought out with due attention to the ideal beauty of the features it includes, will always be the most powerful in its appeal
them.
various
;
Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it it adds to its attractiveness, but dimin; ishes its power. On this subject I shall have much to say liereafter at present I merely wish to suggest the possibility, that the single-minded painter, who is working out on broad and simple principles, a piece of unbroken, harmonious landscape character, may be reaching an end in art quite as high as the more ambitious student who is always " within five minutes' walk of everywhere," making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial guazzetto * and the certainty, that unless the
to the heart.
disturbs
its
influence
;
;
* "
A green field is a sight which makes us pardou The absence of that more sublime constraction Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices, Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges,
and
ices."
PREFACE TO THE 8EC0KD EDITION.
XXXIS
composition of the latter be regulated by severe judgment, and its members connected by natural links, it must become more contemptible in its motley, than an honest study of road-side weeds.
Let me, at the risk of tediously repeating what
known,
refer to the
tion, in order that I
common may show
is
universally
principles of historical compositheir application to that of land-
knows that every figure which is unnecessary to his picture, is an encumbrance to it, and that every figure which does not sympathize with the action, interHe that gathereth not with me, scattereth, is, or rupts it. ought to be, the ruling principle of his plan and the power and grandeur of his result will be exactly proportioned to the unity of feeling manifested in its several parts, and to the propriety and simplicity of the relations in which they stand to each other. All this is equally applicable to the materials of inanimate Impressiveness is destroyed by a multitude of contranature. dictory facts, and the accumulation, which is not harmonious, He who endeavors to unite simplicity with magis discordant. nificence, to guide from solitude to festivity, and to contrast melancholy with mirth, must end by the production of confused There is a peculiar spirit possessed by every kind of inanity. scene and although a point of contrast may sometimes enhance and exhibit this particular feeling more intensely, it must be Every introduction only a point, not an equalized opposition. of new and different feeling weakens the force of what has already been impressed, and the mingling of all emotions must conclude in apathy, as the mingling of all colors in white. Let us test by these simple rules one of the " ideal" landscape compositions of Claude, that known to the Italians as " II
The merest
scape.
tyro in art
—
:
;
Mulino." The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest quite enough scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brookside subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and On the other side of the brook, however, we complete picture. have a piece of pastoral life, a main with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle. ;
;
xl
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military a number :
Roman
on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair, and close beside it, built of
against
soldiers riding in
very walls, a neat water-mill in full work. By the all across it. The weir has
its
mill flows a large river, with a weir
not been made for the mill, (for that receives its water from the hills by a trough carried over the temple,) but it is particularly ugly and monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river resemble in contour the later geological formations around London, constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge ; beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts beyond the Campagna, the chain of the Alps on ;
;
the
left,
the cascades of Tivoli.
This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an " ideal landscape," i.e., a group of the artist's studies from nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as
may
and united with
insure their neutralizing each other's effect,
sufl&cient unnaturalness
and violence
of associa-
tion to insure their producing a general sensation of the impos-
Let us analyze the separate subjects a
sible.
work
little in this ideal
of Claude's.
Perhaps there
no more impressive scene on earth than the Campagna of Eome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men,* The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly is
solitary extent of the
* lavas,
The
vegetable
and under
of bones.
it
soil lies
of the Campagna is chiefly formed by decomposed a bed of white pumice, exactly resembling remnants
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
xll
along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlighi. Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep scattered blocks of black stone, four-square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull pur;
poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests The blue ridge of the Alban like dying fire on defiled altars. mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the sky. promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, ple,
spectral wrecks of
passing from a nation's grave. Let us, with Claude, make a few " ideal" alterations in this First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices landscape. Secondly, we will reof the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. move the Alban mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the foreground we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and ;
a picnic party. It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had
The descending slopes of the city of Rome, ready to his hand. towai'ds the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their buildings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of the water-mill, and inexplicaThe glide of ble by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through the Campagna, is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Xlii
be
so,
when we
disturb their stillness of motion by a weir, adoiL handsome bridge, and cover their
their neglected flow with a
and fishermen. be expected, that landscapes like this should have any effect on the human heart, except to harden or to lead it from the love of what is simple, earnest to degrade it and pure, to what is as sophisticated and corrupt in arrangement, as erring and imperfect in detail. So long as such works are held up for imitation, landscape painting must be a manufacture, its productions must be toys, and its patrons must be solitary surface with punts, nets, It cannot, I think,
;
children.
My
purpose then, in the present work,
is
to
demonstrate the
and principles the imperfection of material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are based and to insist on the necessity, as well as the utter falseness both of the facts
;
;
dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is,
rejecting with abhorrence
modify
her.
And
all
that
man
has done to alter and first portion of the
the praise which, in this
is given to many English artists, would be justifiable on ground only, that although frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have yet, in an honest and good heart, received the word of God from clouds, and leaves, and waves, and kept it,* and endeavored in humility to render to the world
work,
this
" The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be almost a model for the yonng student, were it not that they err a little on the othei side, nnd are perhaps in need of chastening and guiding from the works of
We should use pictures not
his fe]k)w-men.
on nature, just as we use divines, not as
comments comments on the
as authorities, hut as
authorities, but as
Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-worship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont, on
the contrar}^ furnishes, in the anecdotes given of
him
in
Constable's
life,
a
melancholy instance of the degradation into which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable, that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery, a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous extremes to be shimned, forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn of the divineslavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other. The mean is nearly as
—
a
PREFACE TO THE
SECOJSTD EDITION.
xliii
that purity of impression which can alone render the result of an instrument of good, or its labor deserving of gratitude.
art
have frequent occasion to insist on the and unqualified submission to, the teaching of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern school.* Their lightness and deIf,
however,
I shall
necessity of this heartfelt love of,
determine or keep in art as in religion, but the great danger is on the side of superstition. He who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect while he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater, and the degradadifficult to
;
tion of a slave.
* I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches,, than one purchaser for a hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise above manufacture any struggle to something like completed conception was left by the public to be its own reward. In the water-color exhibition of last year there was a noble work of David Cox's, ideal in the right sense forest hollow with a few sheep crushing down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening sky above its dark masses of distance. It was worth all his little bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the little bits blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn all that was clever and petite and the real picture the full development of the artist's mind was left on his hands. How can I, or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures, which, I believe, never paid him he now prostitutes his fine talent to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his ;
—
—
—
— —
—
—
;
—
way
to
emolument and
oblivion.
There
is
commonly, however,
fault
on
both sides in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank tricks i>f the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished touches of perfect nature and in the public, for taking less real pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer. ;
;
PEEFACE TO THE SECOXD EDITION.
xliV
Bultoriness of intention, their meaningless multiplication of unstudied composition, and their want of definiteness and loftiness of aim, bring discredit on their whole system of study, and encourage in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the field and the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery and the
Not every
idea caaght from the flight of a a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of harvest light, nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given to the world as it came, unconsidered, incomgarret.
shower or the
casual
fall of
and forgotten by the artist as soon as it has left his easel. That only should be considered a picture, in which the spirit,
plete,
(not the materials, observe,) but the animating emotion of
many
concentrated, and exhibited by the aid of longstudied, painfully-chosen forms idealized in the right sense of the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading
such studies
is
;
calls his " imagination," but by perfect knowledge of every part and character and function of the object, and in which the details are completed to the last line compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which concentrates profusion into point, and transforms accumulation into structure neither must this labor be bestowed on every subject which appears to afford a capability of good, but on chosen subjects in which nature has prepared to the artist's hand the purest sources of the impression he would convey. These may be humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind. There is a perfection of the hedgerow and cottage, as well as of the forest and the palace, and more ideality in a great artist's selection and treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles, than in all the struggling caricature of the meaner mind which heaps its foreground with colossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions of one another, but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally distinct train of thought so that the work of the artist's life should form a consistent series of essays, rising through the scale of creation from the humblest scenery to the most exalted each picture being a necessary link in the chain, based on what preceded, introducing to what is to follow, and all, in their lovely system, exhibiting and drawing closer the bonds of nature
God's works which
man
assertion of entire
;
;
;
to the
human heart
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
xlv
Since, then, I shall have to reprobate the absence of study in the moderns nearly as much as its false direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide itself into three portions. In the nrst, I shall
endeavor to investigate and arrange the facts of na-
ture with scientific accuracy
;
showing as I proceed, by what and groundwork of their art
total neglect of the very first base
among the old masters are produced. This foundation once securely laid, I shall proceed, in the second portion of the work, to analyze and demonstrate the nature of the emotions of the Beautiful and Sublime to examine the particular characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring to light, as far as may be in my power, that faultless, ceaseless, inconceivable, inexhaustible loveliness, which God has stamped upon all things, if man will only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall endeavor to trace the operation of all this on the hearts and minds of men to exhibit the moral function and end of art, to prove the share which it ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us to attach to the idealities of some
;
;
;
the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand. It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which
have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer. Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the great masters of the Italian school may not be I think looked upon as mere modes of con's entional expression. there is enough in the following pages to prove that I am not is all tliat I
;
away by the celebrity of a name and therewhich I profess for the works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally allowed to be the masters of masters and the public, so long as my teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the likely to be carried
;
fore that the devoted love
;
— Xlvi
PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
works of Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Oagliari, may surely concede to me without fear, the right of striking such blows as
I
may deem
necessary to the establishment of
my
principles, at Gasper Poussin, or Vandevelde.
Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day, for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as there is for support of Turner against For, though the names the conventionalities of the ancients. of the fathers of sacred art are on all our lips, our faith in them
—
much like that of the great world in its religion nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the is
number of gewgaws he can crowd into his canvas. And I could with as much zeal exert myself against the modern system of English historical art, as I have in favor of our school of land Bcape, but that it is an ungrateful and painful task to attack the works of living painters, struggling with adverse circumstances of every kind, and especially with the false taste of a nation which regards matters of art either with the ticklishness of an Megatherium. have been accused, in the execution of this first portion of my work, of irreverent and scurrile expression towards the works which I have depreciated. Possibly I may have been in some degree infected by reading those criticisms of our periodibut I believe in general that cals, which consist of nothing else my words will be found to have sufficient truth in them to excuse their familiarity ; and that no other weapons could have been used to pierce the superstitious prejudice with which the works of certain painters are shielded from the attacks of reason. My answer is that given long ago to a similar complaint, uttered under the same circumstances by the foiled sophist {" fls 6 e'ffTiv o avOpcoTto? cos anaidevro'i ri'i, o? ovioo cpavXa ovof-iara ovof^ia^eiv To\)xa iv tjSfxvcS) Trpay/uari.) ToiovToz TiZ, a) Imiia, ov6ev aXXo cppovri^cov 7} to aXrfOe'S." It is with more surprise that I have heard myself accused of thoughtless severity with respect to the works of contemporary {)ainters, for I fully believe that whenever I attack them, I give myself far more pain than I can possibly inflict ; and, in many infant, or the stolidity of a I
;
:
,•
PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
xivil
instances, I have withheld reprobation which I considered necessary to the full understanding of my work, in the fear of grieving or injuring men of whose feelings and circumstances I was ignorant. Indeed, the apparently false and exaggerated bias
of the whole book in favor of modern art, is in great degree dependent on my withholding the animadversions which would have given it balance, and keeping silence where I cannot praise. But I had rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes, than reach them by trampling on men's hearts and hearths and I liave permitted myself to express unfavorable opinions only where the popularity and favor of the artist are so great as to render the opinion of an individual a matter of indifference to him. And now but one word more. For many a year we have heard nothing with respect to the Avorks of Turner but accusations of their want of trutli. To every observation on their power, sublimity, or beauty, there has been but one reply They are not like nature. I therefore took my opponents on their own ground, and demonstrated, by thorough investigation of actual facts, that Turner is like nature, and paints more of nature than any man who ever lived. I expected this proposition (the foundation of all my future efforts) would have been disputed with desperate struggles, and that I should have had to fight my way to my position inch by inch. Not at all. My opponents yield' me the field at once. One (the writer for the Athenanmi) has no other resource than the assertion, that " he ;
—
:
If people want to see disapproves the natural style in painting. them go and look at herself. Why should they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,) still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more " It is not," he says, '' what things remarkable line of defence. in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the
nature, let
mind
into
what they
are not, that
we have
to consider."
(Occhoose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to consider how things are convertible by the mind into what they are not, or whether, with me, he will undergo the harder, but perhaps on the whole more useful, labor of ascertaining What they are. tober, 1843, p. 4:85.)
I
leave
therefore
the
reader to
—
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
It is with nmch regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular circumstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction of more fitting But as it may be long before I am able to do this, character. and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some limited and partial service, I have suffered it £0 reappear, trusting to the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.
Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I have cut it out ; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be dangeroiisly misunderstood something I have added, not under the idea of rendering the :
work
in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance to passages of mere declamation.
Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of the main result and though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed, yet the point and bearmaterials or
;
ing of the book, its determined depreciation of Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Canaletto, and its equally determined support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
1
recent works as his finest, are good and right ; and if the prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not
been either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of our present schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest artist, and the diminution, equally necessary as I think to the prosperity of our schools, of the unadvised admiration of the
For I believe it to be landscape of the seventeenth century. almost impossible to state in terms sufficiently serious and severe the depth and extent of the evil which has resulted (and that not in art alone, but in all other matters with which the contemplative faculties are concerned) from the works of those elder men. On the continent all landscape art has been utterly annihilated by them, and with it all sense of the power of nature. We in England have only done better because our artists have had strength of mind enough to form a school withdrawn from their influence.
These j)oints are somewhat farther developed in the general sketch of ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to Some important additions the first section of the second part. have also been made to the chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though something is withdrawn, little is changed ; and the reader may rest assured that if I
were
which
it
now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful revision much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to alter
tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusi asm partisanship on the other.
its
PREFACE TO KEW EDITION
I
HAVE been
lately so often
(1873).
asked by friends on whose judg-
ment I can rely, to permit the publication of another edition of '' Modern Painters " in its original form, that I have at last for many yielded, though with some violence to my own feelings parts of the first and second volumes are written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their metaphysical and religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground of its absolute honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I indeed mean eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest, for the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elab;
nor have I any serious grounds for refusing book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains I have little to retrench, and orate illustrations
:
to allow the
nothing to retract. This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for some of the more delicate plaies are already worn, that of the Mill Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire Side very injuriously while that of the Shores of Wharfe had to be retouched by an engraver after the removal of the mezzotint for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's, Mr. Cousen's, and Mr. Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state, and my own etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer ilieir ;
purpose.
.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. PART
I.
OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
SECTION
I.
OF THE KATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.
Chapter
I.
— Introductory. PAOB
§
1.
Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of time
1
when once formed
2.
And
therefore obstinate
^
3.
The
author's reasons for opposing'
§ §
4.
But only on points capable of demonstration The author's partiality to modern works excusable
§
5.
Chapter §
1.
1
it
4
in particular instances.
.
5 5 6
— Definition of Greatness in Art.
II.
Distinction between the painter's nical
intellectual
power and
tech-
knowledge
6 8
% § §
4.
§
5.
nothing more than language " Painter," a term corresponding to " versifier" Example in a painting of E. Landseer's Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and
§ § §
6.
Distinction between decorative and expressive language
10
7.
Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools
10
8.
Yet there are certain ideas belonging
§
9.
The
2. 3.
Painting, as such,
is
thought
Chapter
9
f'
to language itself
11
12
definition
III.
9
— Of Ideas of Power.
§
1.
What
§
2.
Ideas of power vary
§
3.
But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The meaning of the word "excellence"
classes of ideas are conveyable
much
by
art
in relative dignity
13 13
14
CONTENTS.
/IV
§
4.
What
%
5,
The
Chapter
is
necessary to the distinguishing of excellence
pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties
IV.
is
15 16
right
— Of Ideas of Imitation.
§ §
1.
False use of the tenn " imitation" by
2.
Real meaning of the term
18
§
3.
What
18
§
4.
iThe pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible
§
5.
Imitation
is
only of contemptible subjects
19
§
6.
Imitation
is
contemptible because
20
^
7.
Recapitulation
is
many
writers on art.
requisite to the sense of imitation
from
that can be derived
Chapter V.— Of
it is
easy
20
Ideas of Truth.
word " truth"
1.
Meaning
§
2.
First difference
§
8.
§ § §
4.
Second difference Third difference
5.
No
G.
Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation
of the
as applied to art
between truth and imitation
21
22 22
1.
Definition of the term " beautiful"
§ § § § §
2.
Definition of the term
3.
Distinction between taste and judgment
4.
How
5.
The high rank and
far beauty
26
' '
taste'
may become
26
'
27
27
intellectual
function of ideas of beauty Meaning of the term " ideal beauty"
Chapter
24
— Of Ideas of Beauty.
§
6.
21 21
accurate truths necessary' to imitation
VI.
17
18
art
§
Chapter
....
VII.
28 28
— Of Ideas of Relation.
§
1.
General meaning of the term
§
2.
What
§
3.
The exceeding
§
4.
Why no subdivision of
ideas are to be
20
comprehended under
29
it
nobility of these ideas
so extensive a class
SECTION
30 is
necessary
31
II.
OF POAVER.
—
Chapter I. General Principles respecting Ideas of Power. § 1. No necessity for detailed study of ideas of imitation §
2.
Nor
§
3.
Except under one particular form
for separate study of ideas of
power
32 32 33
.
CONTENTS.
IV
PAGH
§
4.
There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
§
5.
First reason of the inconsistency
§ §
6. 7.
Second reason for the inconsistency The sensation of power ought not to be sought in imperfect
§ §
8.
Instances in pictures of
38
inconsistent
9.
33
34 art
modern artists Connection between ideas of power and modes of execution.
Chapter
II.
— Of
Ideas
Power, as they are
of
84 35
..
35
dependent
upon Execution. Meaning of the term " execution" The first quality of execution is truth
36
36
§
1.
§ § §
2.
§
5.
§ § §
6.
The The The The
7.
Strangeness an illegitimate source of pleasure in execution.
8.
Yet even the legitimate sources of pleasure
§
9.
And
^ §
10.
Therefore perilous
40
11.
Recapitulation
40
3.
4.
36
second, simplicity
mystery fourth, inadequacy
37
third,
;
and the
fifth,
37
decision
37
sixth, velocity ..
inconsistent with each other
88
fondness for ideas of power leads to the adoption of the 89
lowest
Chapter
37
in execution are
III.
— Of the Sublime.
§
1.
§
2.
is the effect upon the mind of anything above it. Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime incorrect, and
§
8.
Danger
§
4.
The
highest beauty
^
5.
And
generally whatever elevates the
§
6.
The former
Sublimity
.
why
41
41 is
sublime, but not the fear of is
it
42 42
sublime
division of the subject
is
mind therefore sufficient
42 43
PART II. OF TRUTH.
SECTION
I.
general principles respecting ideas of truth. Chapter I. — Of Ideas of Truth in their connection with those of Beauty and Relation. §
1.
The two
great ends of landscape painting are the representa-
tion of facts
and thoughts
44
—
...
CONTENTS.
fVl
2.
§ ^
3.
They induce a The firsl mode
PAGE 45
different choice of material subjects
of selection apt to produce sameness
and repe45
tition
g
4.
The second
g § § g
5.
Yet the
§
9.
§
10.
6. 7.
8.
45
necessitating variety
first is
delightful to
40
all
46
The second only to a few The first necessary to the second The exceeding importance of truth
47
48
Coldness or want of beauty no sign of truth How truth may be considered a just criterion of
Chapter IL
—That
the Truth of Nature
is
48 all
48
art
not to be
dis-
cerned by the Uneducated Senses. §
1.
The common
self-deception of
power of discerning
men
with respect to their 50
truth
of
what
2.
^len usually see
3.
But more or less in proportion what is beautiful
g
4.
§
5.
§ §
6.
Connected with a perfect state of moral feeling And of the intellectual powers How sight depends upon previous knowledge
7.
The
§
8.
little
is
51
before their ej-es
g §
to their natural sensibility to
52 52 53
54
by the variety of truths in nature. We recognize objects by their least important attributes. Compare Part I. Sect. I. Chap. 4
Chaptee
diflaculty increased
III.
— Of
the Relative
First, that Particular
.
55 55
Importance of Truths Truths are more important :
than General Ones. §
1.
I
2.
Necessity of determining the relative importance of truths. Misapplication of the aphorism " General truths are more
§ §
3.
Falseness of this maxim, taken without explanation
4.
Generality important in the subject, particularity in the predi-
§
5.
The importance
§ § §
6.
All truths valuable as they are characteristic
7.
61
8.
Otherwise truths of species are valuable, because beautiful. And many truths, valuable if separate, may be objectionable in connection with others
§
9.
Recapitulation
63
.
58
:
important than particular ones"
58 59 59
cate
of truths of species
is
not owing to their 60
generality
61 .
62
CONTENTS.
Chapter IV.— Of
lyii
the Eelative Importance of Truths
Secondly, that
Rare Truths are more tant than Frequent Ones.
:—
imporPAGK
1.
No
§
2.
But the cases
§ § §
3.
Which
accidental violation of nature's principles should be represented in
which those
exemplified
gg
are comparatively rare
4.
All repetition
5.
The duty
64
principles have been strikingly
is
65
blamable
of the painter
is
65 the same as that of a preacher
66
Chapter V.— Of
the Eelative Importance of Truths :— Thirdly, that Truths of Color are the least important of all Truths.
§
1.
§ §
2. 3.
Difference between primary and secondary qualities in bodies. The first are fully characteristic, the second imperfectly so..
Color
67
67
a secondary quality, therefore less important than
is
fo'"'"
68
§ § §
4.
Color no distinction between objects of the same species
5.
And
6.
It is not certain
§
7.
§
8.
§
9.
68
different in association
from what it is alone whether any two people see the same colors
in things
69
go
Form, considered as an element of landscape, includes and shade
light
Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies, and unimportance of color Recapitulation
go
70 n-^
Chapter VI.— Recapitulation. § §
1.
The importance
2.
Form,
Tone, §
3.
And
of historical truths
as explained light,
and
by
light
72
and shade, the
color, are
first
of
all truths.
secondary
deceptive chiaroscuro the lowest of
Chapter VII.— General Application
72 all
73
of the Foregoing Prin-
ciples.
§
1.
The
different selection of facts consequent
on the several aims
at imitation or at truth
The
old masters, as a body,
§ §
3.
What
§
4.
The
I
5.
2.
74
aim only
at imitation
truths they gave
principles of selection adopted by modern artists General feeling of Claude, Salvator, and G. Poussin. contrasted with the freedom and vastness of nature
74 75 76 77
CONTENTS.
Iviii
PAGB
§ § § §
6.
Inadequacj' of the landscape of Titian and Tintoret
78
7.
8.
want of influence on subsequent schools The value of inferior works of art, how to be estimated
80
9.
Religious landscape of Italy.
Causes of
,
79
its
The admirableness
of
its
com-
pletion
81
§
10.
Finish, and the
§
11.
The open tain
how right— and how wrong Mounthe religious schools, how valuable.
want of
skies of
it,
drawing of Masaccio.
Landscape of the
and
Bellinis
Giorgione
§ § § § § §
12. 13.
14. 15.
16. 17.
84
Landscape of Titian and Tintoret Schools of Florence, Milan, and Bologna Claude, Salvator, and the Poussins German and Flemish landscape The lower Dutch schools English school, Wilson and Gainsborough
86 88 89
90 92
92 94
§ 18. Constable, Callcott 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape
95
§
§ 20. G. Robson, D. Cox.
False use of the term " style"
95
§ 21. Copley Fielding. Phenomena of distant color § 22. Beauty of mountain foreground
97 99
§ 23. De Wint § 24. Influence of Engraving. J. D. Harding § 25. Samuel Prout. Early painting of architecture, how deficient § 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable §27. Effects of light, how necessary to the understanding of detail § 28. Architectural painting of Gentile Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio § 29.
And
83
101 101
103 104
106 107 109
of the Venetians generally
110 § 30. Fresco painting of the Venetian exteriors. Canaletto § 31. Expression of the effects of age on Architecture by S. Prout 112 § 32. His excellent composition and color § 33. Modern architectural painting generally. § 34.
The
evil in
114 G. Cattermole. ... 115
an archaeological point of view of misapplied
in-
117
vention, in architectural subject
§ 35.
Works
of
David Roberts
§ 36. Clarkson Stanfield § 37. J. M. W. Turner.
:
their fidelity
and grace
118 121
Force of national feeling in
all
great
123
painters
§ 38. Influence of this feeling on the choice of Landscape subject. 125 125 § 39. Its peculiar manifestation in Turner 127 § 40. The domestic subjects of the Liber Studiorum.. § 41. Turner's painting of French and Swiss landscape. The lat129
ter deficient
§
42.
His rendering of Italian character laxge compositions
how
failing
still
less successful.
His 130
CONTENTS.
Ill
PASB
§
43.
His views of Italy destroyed by brilliancy and redundan^ 132
quantity § 44. Changes introduced by him in the received system of art. §45. Difficulties of his later manner. Resultant deficiencies
.
.
.
134
§ 46. Reflection of his very recent works § 47. Difficulty of demonstration in such subjects
SECTION
133 137 139
11.
OF GENERAL TRUTHS.
Chapter I.— Of Truth
of Tone.
—
§
1.
§
2.
§
3.
Meanings of the word " tone :" First, the right relation of 140 objects in shadow to the principal light Secondly, the quality of color by which it is felt to owe part 140 of its brightness to the hue of light upon it Difference between tone in its first sense and aerial perspec-
§
4.
The
§
5.
And
141
tive
pictures of the old masters perfect in relation of middle
141
tints to light
consequently totally false in relation of middle tints to
darkness § 6. General falsehood of such a system § 7. The principle of Turner in this respect " § 8. Comparison of N. Poussin's Phocion" " Mercury and Argus" Turner's With 9. § Datur Hora Quieti" § 10, And with the " tone" § 11. The second sense of the word § 12. Remarkable difference in this respect between the paintings and drawings of Turner § 13. Not owing to want of power over the material § 14. The two distinct qualities of light to be considered § 15. Falsehoods by which Titian attains the appearance of quality '
'
§ 17.
§ §
The second quality of light The perfection of Cuyp in
16.
18. 19.
143
143
144 145 145 146 146
146
147 148
in light
Turner will not use such means But gains in essential truth by the
§
141
148 148
sacrifice
148 this respect interfered
with by
numerous solecisms
150
—
§ 20. Turner is not so perfect in parts far more so in the whole. § 21. The power in Turner of uniting a number of tones § 22. Recapitulation
.
151
152 153
CONTENTS.
Ix
Chapter II.— Of Truth
of Color.
La
PAGH 155
Riccia
§
3.
Observations on the color of G. Poussin's As compared with the actual scene
§
3.
Turner himself
§
4.
Impossible colors of Salvator, Titian
157
§
5.
Poussin, and Claude
158
§ §
6.
Turner's translation of colors
160
§
8.
§
1
7.
155
157
inferior in brilliancy to nature
is
Notice of effects in which no brilliancy of art can even ap161 proach that of reality Reasons for the usual incredulity of the observer with respect .
.
162
to their representation
163 Color of the Napoleon § § 10. Necessary discrepancy between the attainable brilliancy of 164 color and light 9.
§ § § § ^
11.
This discrepancy
12.
Its great extent in
§
16.
less in
Turner than
165
in other colorists
165
14.
a landscape attributed to Rubens Turner scarcely ever uses pure or vivid color The basis of gray, under all his vivid hues
15.
The
and fulness even of his most simple tones Following the infinite and unapproachable variety of nature. His dislike of purple, and fondness for the opposition of yellow and black. The principles of nature in this respect. His early works are false in color His drawings invariably perfect
163
13.
§ 17.
166 16?
variety
.
§
18.
§
19.
§ 30. The subjection of his system of color
Dhapter
III.
to that of chiaroscuro.
.
.
168
16!)
170 171 171
— Of Truth of Chiaroscuro.
§
1.
We
§
3.
And
§
3.
175 of expressing vividness of light Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian 175 school
§ § §
4
And
partial absence in the
5.
perfection of Turner's
§
7.
The The The
§
8.
6.
§ 9. § 10.
are not at present to
examine particular effects of light. 174 shadows is the chief means .
therefore the distinctness of
176 Dutch 177 works in this respect 178 effect of his shadows upon the light distinction holds good between almost all the works of 179 the ancient and modern schools
Second great principle of chiaroscuro. Both high light and deep shadow are used in equal quantity, .nnd only in points. 180 180 Neglect or contradiction of this principle by writers on art .
.
181
And
§
11.
§ S
12.
consequent misguiding of the student The great value of a simple chiaroscuro The sharp separation of nature's lights from her middle
13.
The
truth of Turner
183 tint.
182 188
CONTENTS.
Chaptek IV.— Of Truth
hi
of Space :— Fh-st, as
Dependent on
the Focus of the Eye. PAGE
Space is more clearly indicated by the drawing of objects than by their hue 185 It is impossible to see objects at unequal distances distinctly at one moment 186 Especially such as are both comparatively near 186
I
1.
§
2.
§
3.
§
4.
§
5.
In painting, therefore, either the foreground or distance must be partially sacrificed 187 Which not being done by the old masters, they could not ex-
§
6.
But modern
§
7.
Especially of Turner
§
8.
Justification of the
press space
187
artists
have succeeded in fully carrying out
this
principle
Chaptek V.
1.
want
of drawing in Turner's figxu-es
189
— Of Truth of Space —Secondly, as
The
its Appeardependent on the Power of the Eye. :
ance §
188 189
is
peculiar indistinctness dependent on the retirement of
objects f I'om the eye
191
§ §
2.
Causes confusion, but not annihilation of details
191
3.
Instances in various objects
193
§
4.
Two
great resultant truths
;
that nature
is
never
distinct,
and
never vacant
193
§
5.
Complete violation of both these principles by the old mas-
§ § § §
6.
Instances from Nicholas Poussin
7.
Fi-om Claude
194
8.
And
195
9.
The imperative
ters.
§
10.
§ § § § §
11.
15.
§
16.
§ §
17.
§
19.
13. 13. 14.
They
are either distinct or vacant
G. Poussin
193 194
necessity, in landscape painting, of fulness
and finish Breadth is not vacancy. The fulness and mystery of Turner's distances Farther illustrations in architectural drawing In near objects as well as distances Vacancy and falsehood of Canaletto Still greater fulness and finish in landscape foregrounds .... Space and size are destroyed alike by distinctness and by vacancy
196 197 198 199 199
200 200
202 Swift execution best secures perfection of details 202 18. Finish is far more necessary in landscape than in historical subjects
Recapitulation of the section
202 203
C02STENTS.
lili
SECTION
III.
OF TRUTH OF SKIES.
Chapter
I.
— Of the Open Sky. FAGK
§
1.
§ § § §
2.
The
peculiar adaptation of the sky to the pleasing
ing of
and teach
man
204
3.
The carelessness with which its lessons are received The most essential of these lessons are the gentlest
4.
Many
5.
Nature, and essential qualities of the open blue
§
6.
Its
connection with clouds
207
§ g § §
7.
Its
exceeding depth
207
8. d.
10.
of oui- ideas of sky altogether conventional
205
205 ...
206
These qualities are especially given by modern masters. .... 207 208 And by Claude
them
Total absence of
in Poussin.
Physical errors in his
general treatment of open sky
Cuyp
§
11.
Errors of
§
12.
The exceeding value of Dutch schools. Their
208 209
in graduation of color
the skies of the early Italian and qualities are unattainable
m modern 210
times
§ §
13. 14.
§ 15. p 16.
Phenomena of visible sunbeams. Their nature and cause .. 211 They are only illuminated mist, and cannot appear when the 211 sky is free from vapor, nor when it is without clouds Erroneous tendency in the representation of such phenomena 213 by the old masters The ray which appears in the dazzled eye should not be rep.
213
resented 17.
The
? 18.
The
§
206
practice of Turner.
His keen perception of the more
213 phenomena of rays absence of any evidence of such perception in the .... 213 works of the old masters 214 Truth of the skies of modern drawings delicate
§
19.
total
§ 20. Recapitulation. ity,
Chapter
II.
The
best skies of the ancients are, in qual-
inimitable, but in rendering of various truth, childish. 215
— Of Truth of Clouds — :
First, of the
Region of
the Cirrus. §
1.
Difficulty of ascertaining wherein the truth of clouds consists. 216
§
2.
Variation of
their
three regions to
§
3.
The character at different elevations. which they may conveniently be consid-
ered as belonging Extent of the upper region
216 217
CONTENTS.
§ § § §
4.
§
8.
§
9.
§
10.
§
11.
§
12.
§
13.
§ §
5. 6. 7.
The symmetrical arrangement
of
Ixill
its
PAGK 217
clouds
218
Their exceeding delicacy Their number Causes of their pecuUarly delicate coloring
218 219
219 Their variety of form Total absence of even the sUghtest effort at their representation, in ancient
220
landscape
and constant study of them by Turner His vignette, Simrise on the Sea
221
223
14.
His use of the cirrus in expressing mist His consistency in every minor feature The color of the upper clouds
15.
Recapitulation
225
The
Chapter
intense
—
Of Truth of Clouds Cloud Eegion.
III.
tral
:
224 224
— Secondly, of the Cen-
§
1.
Extent and
§
2.
Its characteristic clouds, requiring
tjrpical
222
character of the central cloud region
for their representation, are
226
no attention nor thought
therefore favorite subjects
with the old masters
226
of Salvator and Poussin
§
3.
The clouds
§
4.
§
5.
Their essential characters Their angular forms and general decision of outline
§
6.
The composition
§
7.
§
8.
§
9.
§ § § §
10.
§
14. Total
227 227
228
of their minor curves 229 Their characters, as given by S. Rosa 230 Monotony and falsehood of the clouds of the Italian school
generally
11. 12. 13.
239
Vast size of congregated masses of cloud Demonstrable by comparison with mountain ranges And consequent divisions and varieties of feature Not lightly to be omitted Imperfect conceptions of this size and extent in ancient landscape
want of transparency and evanescence
ancient landscape
§ 15. § 16. § 17. § 18. § 19. § 20.
231
231
232
232 233
in the clouds of
234
•.
Farther proof of their deficiency in space
235
Instance of perfect truth in the sky of Turner's Babylon
236
And
in his Pools of Solomon 237 Truths of outline and character in his Como 237 Association of the cirrostratus with the cumulus 238 The deep-based knowledge of the Alps in Turner's Lake of
Geneva § 21. Farther principles of cloud form exemplified in his Amalfi.
238 .,
239
V
CONTENTS.
1X1
PAGb
§
22.
Reasons for insisting on the infinity of Turner's works. finity is almost an unerring test of all truth
§ §
23.
Instances of the total want of
24.
And
in the
it
of the universal presence of
it
In-
239
works of Salvator.
.
.
.
240
The
in those of Turner.
240 conclusions which may be arrived at from it § 25. The multiplication of objects, or increase of theii; size, will not give the impression of infinity, but is the resource of novices
241
=
§ 26. Farther instances of infinity in the gray skies of Turner § 27. The excellence of the cloud-drawing of Stanfield § 28. The average standing of the English school
Chapter IV.— Of Truth
of Clouds
:— Thirdly,
of the
242 242
243
Region
of the Rain-Cloud. §
1.
The apparent
difference in character between the lower
central clouds
§ § § § §
is
and
dependent chiefly on proximity
2.
Their marked differences
3.
And
4.
They
5.
Value, to the painter, of the rain-cloud
6.
The
in definiteness of
244
244 245
in color
form
are subject to precisely the
same great laws
245 246
old masters have not left a single instance of the paint-
ing of the rain-cloud, and very few efforts at
Caspar
it.
247
Poussin's storms
§
7.
The
§ § §
8.
Works
9.
10.
great
power of the moderns
248
in this respect
248
of Copley Fielding
His peculiar truth His weakness, and
its
248 249
probable cause
§ 11. Impossibility of reasoning on the rain-clouds of Turner from 250 engravings § 12. His rendering of Fielding's particular moment in the Jumi-
250 eges § 13. Illustration of the nature of clouds in the opposed forms of 250 smoke and steam § 14.
§
15.
§ § § § §
16.
Moment of retiring rain in the Llanthony And of commencing, chosen with peculiar meaning
251 for
253
Coriskin
17.
18. 19.
20.
Loch
The drawing of transparent vapor in the Land's End The individual character of its parts
253
253
254 Deep-studied form of swift rain-cloud in the Coventry 254 Compared with forms given by Salvator Entire expression of tempest by minute touches and circum255 stances in the Coventry'
§ 21. Especially
by contrast with a passage of extreme repose
255
CONTENTS.
Ixv PAOB
§
The
22.
truth of this particular passage.
Perfectly pure blue
sky only seen after rain, and how seen § 23. Absence of this effect in the woriis of the old masters § 24. Success of our water-color artists in its rendering. 'Tse of
256 256 it
by Turner
357
and other
§
25.
Expression of near rain-cloud
§
26.
Contrasted with Caspar Poussin's rain-cloud in the Dido and
in the Gosport,
works
257
^neas 258 258 § 27. Turner's power of rendering mist § 28. His effects of mist so perfect, that if not at once understood, they can no more be explained or reasoned on than nature herself 259 259 § 29. Various instances § 30. Turner's more violent effects of tempest are never rendered by engravers 260 260 § 31. General system of landscape engraving 260§ 32. The storm in the Stonehenge §
33.
General character of such effects as given by Turner. expression of falling rain
§ §
34.
Recapitulation of the section
35.
§ § §
36.
Sketch of a few of the skies of nature, taken as a whole, compared with the works of Turner and of the old masters. Morning on the plains Noon with gathering storms Sunset in tempest. Serene midnight And sunrise on the Alps
37.
38.
Chapter V. §
1.
His 261 261
262 263 264
264
—Effects of Light rendered by Modern Art.
Reasons for merely,
at present,
naming, without examining by Turner 266
the particular effects of light rendered
§
2.
Hopes of the author of them
for assistance in the future investigation
SECTION
266
•
IV.
OF TRUTH OF EARTH.
Chapter §
1.
I.
— Of General Structure.
First laws of the organization of the earth,
and
their im-
portance in art §
2.
The
270
slight attention ordinarily paid to them.
study by modern
artists
Their careful 271
CONTEifTS.
IXTi
PASB
The
§
3.
General structure of the earth.
§
4.
Mountains come out from underneath the
§
5.
Structure of
§
6
Illustrated
§
7.
General divisions of formation resulting from this arrange-
plains
hills are its action, the
371
its rest
plains,
and are
their support
when
II.
plains
themselves.
Their perfect
level,
deposited by quiet water
ment.
Chapter
272
the
273
by Turner's Marengo
273
Plan of investigation
274
— Of the Central Mountains.
1.
Similar character of the central peaks in
§
2.
world Their arrangements in pyramids or wedges, divided by
§
3.
§
4.
cal fissures 275 Causing groups of rock resembling an artichoke or rose 276 The faithful statement of these facts by Turner in his Alps
§
5.
Vignette of the Andes and others
§
6.
§
7.
277 Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect ou all such mountains 377 Total want of any rendering of their phenomena in ancient
§
8.
Character of the representations of Alps in the distances of
§ § §
9.
magnitude and And violation of specific form Even in his best works
§
at
all
parts of the
275 verti-
Daybreak
276
278
art
Claude 10. 11.
Their
total
278
want
of
§ 12. Farther illustration of chains
280 280
the distant character of mountain
281
§ 13. Their excessive appearance of transparency § 14. Illustrated from the works of Turner and Stanfleld.
§
15.
§ 16.
279
aerial distance
281
The
Borromean Islands of the latter 282 Turner's Arona 283 Extreme distance of large objects always characterized by very sharp outline
§
17.
§
18.
283
"Want of this decision in Claude The perpetual rendering of it by Turner Effects of snow, how imperfectly studied
§ 19. § 20. General principles of
its
285
forms on the Alps
§ 21. Average paintings of Switzerland. yet been caught
284 285
Its real spirit
287 has scarcely 289
COHTEKTS.
Chai'ter
III.
Ixvii
— Of the Inferior Mountains. PAGB
§
1.
Tlie inferior mountains are distinguished
§
2.
Farther division of these beds by joints And by lines of lamination
by being divided §
3.
§
4.
§ § § § § § § § §
5.
from the
central,
into beds
290 290
6.
291 Variety and seeming uncertainty under which these laws are manifested 291 The perfect expression of them in Turner's Loch Coriskin. .. 292 Glencoe and other works 293
7.
Especially the
8.
Mount Lebanon Compared with the work of Salvator
9.
And
293 294
of Poussin
295
Effects of external influence
296
11.
on mountain form The gentle convexity caused by aqueous erosion
12.
And
297
13.
The exceeding
10.
297
the effect of the action of torrents
simplicity of contour caused
by these
influ-
ences
§ § § § §
14.
And
298
multiplicity of feature
299
15.
Both utterly neglected
16.
The
17.
And in the Avalanche and Inundation The rarity among secondary hills of steep
18.
fidelity of
in ancient art
299
treatment in Turner's
Daphne and Leucippus. 300 300 slopes or high pre-
cipices
§ 19.
And
301
consequent expression of horizontal distance in their
ascent 302 § 20. Full statement of all these facts in various works of Turner. Caudebec, etc 302 § 21. The use of considering geological truths 303 § 22. Expression of retiring surface by Turner contrasted with the work of Claude 304 § 23. The same moderation of slope in the contours of his higher
—
hills
§ 24.
The
304
peculiar difficulty of investigating the
more
essential
truths of hill outline 305 305 § 25. Works of other modern artists. Clarkson Stanfield § 26. Importance of particular and individual truth in hill drawing. 306 307 § 27. Work.-^ of Copley Fielding. His high feeling 308 § 28. Works of J. D. Harding and others
—
Chapter IV. §
1.
— Of the Foreground.
What
rocks were the chief components of ancient landscape
foreground §
2.
Salvator's limestones. fractures,
309
The
real characters of the rock.
and obtuseness of angles
Its .^.09
CONTENTS.
Ixviii *
PAGB
by the meeting
§
3.
Salvator's acute angles caused
§
4.
Peculiar distinctness of light and shade in the rocks of nature. 311
§
5.
Peculiar confusion of both in the rocks of Salvator
§ § §
6.
And
§
9.
§ § § § § §
concave
of
curves
§ § §
want of any expression of hardness or
311
brittleness.
.
311
Instances in particular pictures Compared with the works of Stanfield
312 313
10.
Their absolute opposition in every particular The rocks of J. D. Harding
11.
Characters of loose earth and
314
7. 8.
312 313
soil
exceeding grace and fulness of feature of Teniers
31.">
12.
Its
13.
The ground
14. 15.
31G Importance of these minor parts and points The observance of them is the real distinction between the 316 master and the novice
16.
Ground
17.
And
18.
The entire weakness and childishness Compared with the work of Turner
§ 19.
§ § § § §
total
310
20. 21. 22.
of
315
Cuyp
317
of Claude
317 318
of the latter
318
General features of Turner's foreground Geological structure of his rocks in the Fall of the Tees
319
Their convex surfaces and fractured edges perfect unity
320
23.
And
24.
Various parts whose history
is
told us
319
319
by the
details of the
drawing
321
§ 25. Beautiful instance of an exception to general rules in the
Llanthony
321
§ 26. Turner's drawing of detached blocks of weathered stone § 27. And of complicated foreground
§
28.
And
§
29.
The unison
322 323 323
of loose soil
of
all
in the ideal
foregrounds of the
Academy 324
pictures
And
§ 30.
the great lesson to be received from
SECTION
324
all
V.
OF TRriH OF WATER.
Chapter
I.
— Of Water, as Painted by the Ancients.
§
1.
§
2.
Sketch of the functions and infinite agency of water The ease with which a common representation of it given. The impossibility of a faithful one
%
8.
Difficulty of properly dividing the subject
§
4.
Inaccuracy of study of water-effect among
^
5.
Difficulty of treating this part of the subject
325
may
be 325 326
all
painters
320
328
CONTENTS.
1X12 PAGK
General laws which regulate the phenomena of water. The imperfection of its reflective surface
§
6.
§
7.
§ § § § § § § § §
8.
inherent hue of water modifies dark reflections, and does not affect right ones 330 Water takes no shadow 331
9.
Modification of dark reflections by shadow
332
333
14.
Examples on the waters of the Rhone Effect of ripple on distant water Elongation of reflections by moving water Effect of rippled water on horizontal and inclined images To what extent reflection is visible from above
15.
Deflection of images on agitated water
337
16.
Necessity of watchfulness as well as of science. how taken by great men
§
17.
Various licenses or errors in water painting of Claude, Cuyp,
§ ^
18.
And
19.
Why unpardonable
343
The Dutch
343
10.
11.
12. 13.
First,
329
The
335 335 336 336
Licenses,
337
Vandevelde
§ 20.
339
Canaletto
34I
painters of sea
§ 21. Ruysdael, Claude, and Salvator § 22. Nicolo Poussin
344
Venetians and Florentines.
346
§
23.
Chapter II.— Of Water, §
1.
§
2.
§ §
3. 4.
§
5.
§
6.
§ § § § § §
7.
8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
as
345
Conclusion
Painted by the Moderns.
General power of the moderns in painting quiet water. lakes of Fielding
The
The calm rivers of Dc Wint, J. Holland, &c The character of bright and violent falling water As given by Nesfield The admirable water-drawing of J. D. Harding and painting of sea The sea of Copley Ficldmg. Its exceeding grace and Its high aim at character But deficiency in the requisite quality of grays His color
Varietj'^
Works
348 348 349
349 350 350
;
rapidity. 351
35I
352
of the grays of nature
352
His perfect knowledge and power 353 But want of feeling. General sum of truth presented by modern art 353 of Stanfield.
Chapter III.— Of
AVater, as Painted
by Turner.
§
1.
The
§
2.
Is
§
3.
which the reflected rays are perceived Morbid clearness occasioned in painting of water by
§
4.
How
difficulty of giving surface to
smooth water 355 dependent on the structure of the eye, and the focus by
ness of reflections
avoided by Turner
355 distinctjj,5g
35-
CONTENTS.
IXJC
PAGE
-
357
§ § §
5.
All reflections on distant water are distinct
6.
The
7.
Difference in arrangement of parts between the reflected ob-
§ § § § §
8.
Illustrated
10.
859
its image from the works of Turner The boldness and judgment shown in the observance of it. The texture of surface in Tm-ner's painting of calm water.
ject
9.
358
error of Vandevelde
11. Its
and
359 .
.
360
.
.
361 361
united quahties
12.
Relation of various circimistances of past agitation, &c., by
§ § § §
13. 14.
In scenes on the Loire and Seine Expression of contrary waves caused by recoil from shore..
15.
Various other instances
16.
Turner's painting of distant expanses of water.
§ § § §
17.
And
18.
366 His drawing of distant rivers 367 And of surface associated with mist His drawing of falling water, with peculiar expression of
the most trifling incidents, as in the
Cowes
363 363
364
.
364
— Calm,
inter-
365
rupted by ripple
19.
20.
rippled, crossed
365
by sunshine
367
weight § 21.
The abandonment and plunge by
How
given
continuous and
when
of great cataracts.
Mm
368
§ 22. Difference in the action of water, interrupted.
The
when
interrupted stream
fills
bed But the continuous stream takes the shape of Its exquisite curved lines
the hollows of
369
its
§ 23. § 24.
its
bed
370 370
370 § 25. Turner's careful choice of the historical truth § 26. His exquisite drawing of the continuous torrent in the Llan371 thony Abbey
§ §
27.
And
28.
Various cases
of the interrupted torrent in the
Mercury and Argus
Impossibility of truly representing foam § 29. Sea painting. § 30. Character of shore -breakers, also inexpressible § 31. Their effect how injured when seen from the shore
.
.
.
372 372 373 374
375 376 § 32. Turner's expression of heavy rolling sea 376 § 33. With peculiar expression of weight 377 § 34. Peculiar action of recoiling waves 377 § 35. And of the stroke of a breaker on the shore § 36. General character of sea on a rocky coast given by Turner in 378 the Land's End 379 § 37. Open seas of Turner's earlier time 380 § 38. Effect of sea after prolonged storm § 39. Turner's noblest work, the painting of the deep open sea in the Slave Ship 382 § 40. Its united excellences ^pd P£rfection as a whole 883
IXXi
CONTENTS.
SECTION
VI.
OF TKUTH OF VEGETATION.
Chapter
I.
— CONCLUSION.
— Of Truth of Vegetation.' PAfJK
§
1.
Frequent occurrence of foliage in the worlis of
§
2.
Laws common
§ § §
3.
Appearance of tapering caused by frequent buds
4.
And
5.
The degree
§ §
6.
The
trees of
7.
And
of the Italian school generally, defy this law
§ §
8.
The
truth, as
9.
Boughs, in consequence of
tlie oltl
mas-
ters
;584
to all forest trees.
Their branches do not
taper, but only divide
38.")
385
386
care of nature to conceal the parallelism of tapering
which may be represented
as con-
386
tinuous
386
Gaspar Poussin it is
given by
J.
this
387
387 D. Harding law, must diminish where they
§
10.
§ §
11. 13.
388 Those of the old masters often do not Boughs must multiply as thej^ diminish. Those of the old 389 masters do not 390 Bough-drawing of Salvator All these errors especially shown in Claude's sketches, and
§
13.
Impossibility of the angles of boughs being taken out of
divide.
concentrated in a
work
391
of G. Poussin 's
them
by wind § 14. Bough-drawing of Titian
§ 15. Bough-drawing of Turner § 16. Leafage. Its variety and symmetry § 17. Perfect regularity of Poussin § 18. Exceeding intricacy of nature's foliage § 19. How contradicted by the tree-patterns of G. Poussin § 20. How followed by Creswick § 21. Perfect unity in nature's foliage § 22. Total want of it in Both and Hobbima § 28. How rendered by Turner § 24. The near leafage of Claude. His middle distances are good.. § 25. Universal termination of trees in symmetrical curves § 26. Altogether imobserved by tie old masters. Always given by
Turner § 27. Foliage painting on the Continent § 28. FoUage of J. D. Harding. Its deficiencies § 29. His brilliancy of execution too manifest § 30. His bough-drawing, and choice of form
392 392 394
394 395
396 396
397 398 398 399 399 400 401 401
402 403
404
CONTENTS.
Ixxii
PAOB
§ 81. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with 404 what advantage § 32. Opposition between great manner and great knowledge.... 406 406 § 33. Foliage of Cox, Fielding, and Cattermole § 34. Hunt and Creswick. Green, how to be rendered expressive 407 of light, and offensive if otherwise 407 § 35. Conclusion. Works of J. Linnel and S. Palmer
Chapter
II.
—General
remarks respecting the Truth
of
Turner. §
1.
No
§
2.
Extreme
necessity of entering into discussion of architectural truth. 409 difficulty of illustrating or explaining the highest
410
truth
§
3.
§
4.
§
5.
§
6.
§
7.
§
8.
rank of Turner is in no degree shown in the foregoing pages, but only his relative rank The exceeding refinement of his truth There is nothing in his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge And nothing which knowledge will not enable us to enjoy... His former rank and progress Standing of his present works. Their mystery is the consequence of their fulness
The
Chapter
positive
III.
— Conchision. —Modern
Art
and
410 411 411
412 412 413
Modern
Criticism. §
1.
The
prominence hitherto given to the works of one caused only by our not being abie to take cognizance
entire
artist
of character
414
§
2.
The
§
3.
But the
§
4.
Especially because they are equally manifested in the treat-
§ § §
5.
No man draws
§
8.
§ § § § §
9.
feelings of different artists are incapable of full compari-
son
415 fidelity
and truth of each are capable of
real
compari-
son
415
ment
of all subjects
415
one thing well, if he can draw nothing else. General conclusions to be derived from our past investigation. Truth, a standard of all excellence Modern criticism. Changefulness of public taste Yet associated with a certain degree of judgment
416
10.
Duty
418
11.
Qualifications necessary for discharging
12.
General incapability of modern
13.
And
6. 7.
of the press
critics
inconsistency with themselves
it
417 417
418 418
418 419 419
CONTENTS.
Ixxill
§ 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art § 15. Morbid fondness at the present day tor unfinished works § 16 By which the public defraud themselves § 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves § 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly § 19. Sketclies not sufficiently encouraged § 20. Brilliancy of execution or efforts at invention not to be § 21.
tolerated in young artists The duty and after privileges of all students Necessity among our greater artists of more singleness of
§ 22. § 23. What should be their general aim § 24. Duty of the press with respect to the works of
PA6£ 420
420 421 421 421 422 422 423
aim. 423
425
Tamer
427
LIST OF PLATES TO
VOLUME L Page.
Casa Contarini Fasan, V'enice
From
.
a drawing
.
.
Castle
.
i
.
.
136
......
From Port Ruysdael
,
by Ruskin.
The Dogana, and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice From a painting by Turner. Okehampton
.
From
a painting
lo
.
258
by Turner. .
.
a painting by Turner.
.
-376
MODERN
PAINTERS.
PART
I.
OF GEIS"EEAL PRmOIPLES.
SEOTionsr
i.
OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEA.S CONVEYABLE BY ART.
CHAPTER
I.
INTEODUOTOEY, If
it
be
true,
and
it
can scarcely be disputed, that nothing
has been for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a high degree
some kind of
sterling excellence,
it
and feeling of Loc^iter\on''o?i°x- the majority of the public are competent in any after long periods way to distinguish what is really excellent, but ^ of time. because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and so that while the fancies all ungrounded opinion transitory and feelings which deny deserved honor and award what is undue have neither root nor strength sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute authority, even where the grounds and reasons for them cannot On this gradual victory of what is consistent be understood. is not because the average intellect
....
''
;
INTRODUCTOKT.
2 over what
[PABT L
depends the reputation of all that is For it is an insult to what is really great in either, to suppose that it in any way addresses It is a matter of the itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated His inferior may over-estimate but by his equal or superior. him in enthusiasm or, as is more commonly tlie case, degrade him, in ignorance but he cannot form a grounded and just Without proving this, however which it would take estimate. more space to do than I can spare it is sufficiently evident that there is no process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their multitude.* If I stand by a picture in the Academy, and hear twenty persons in succession admiring some paltry piece of mechanism or is
vacillating,
highest in art and literature.
;
;
—
—
imitation in the lining of a cloak, or the satin of a slipper,
absurd to
tell
me
it is
that they reprobate collectively what they ad-
or, if they pass with apathy by a piece of the most noble conception or most perfect truth, because it has in it no tricks of the brush nor grimace of expression, it is absurd to tell me that they collectively respect what they separately scorn, or that the feelings and knowledge of such judges, by any length of time or comparison of ideas, could come to any right conclusion with respect to what is really high in art. The question is not decided by them, but for them decided at first by few by fewer in proportion as the merits of the work are of a higher order. From these few the decision is communicated to the number next below them in rank of mind, and by these again to a wider and lower circle each rank being so far cog-
mire individually
:
;
—
:
;
nizant of the superiority of that above
it,
as to receive its deci-
and concommunicated to all, and held by all as a matthe more positively in proportion as the grounds of
sion with respect
;
until, in process of time, the right
sistent opinion is
ter of faith, it
are less i^erceived.f
* The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more probable with each individual that he should be right than that he should be wrong, as in Where it is more probable, with respect to each indi the case of a jury. vidual, that he should be
the true one. f
There
Thus
are,
it is
wrong than
right, the opinion of the minority
is
in art.
however, a thousand modifying circumstances which ren
— BEC.
CH.
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I.]
3
But when this process has taken place, and the work has become sanctified by time in the minds of men, it is impossible
—
sometimes rapid and certain — sometimes impossible. It is unnecessary in rlietoric and tlie drama, because tlie multitude is the only proper judge of those arts whose end is to move the multitude (though more is necessary to a fine play than is essentially dramatic, and it is only of the dramatic part that the multitude are cognizant). It is unnecessar3% when, united with the higher qualities of a work, der this process sometimes unnecessary,
there are appeals to universal passion, to are general in
man
as an animal.
well grounded,
—
is
it
all
the faculties and feelings
The popularity
which
then as sudden as it is hearty and honest in every mind, but it is based in is
every mind on a different species of excellence.
Such will often be the case Take Don Quixote for example. The lowest mind would find in it perpetual and brutal amusement in the misfortimes of the knight, and perpetual pleasure in sympathy with the squire. A mind of average feeling would perceive the satirical meaning and force of the book, would appreciate its wit, its elegance, and its truth. But only elevated and peculiar minds discover, in addition to all this, the full moral beauty of the love and truth which are the constant associates of all that is even most weak and erring in the character of its hero, with the noblest works of hterature.
and pass over the rude adventure and
scurrile jest in haste
—perhaps
in
pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corselet,
and catch from the wandering glance the evidence and expression of fortitude, self-devotion, and universal love. So, again, with the works of Scott and Byron popularity was as instant as it was deserved, because there is in them an appeal to those passions which are universal in all men, as well as an expression of such thoughts as can be received only by the few. But they are admired by the ;
majority of their advocates for the weakest parts of their works, as a popupreacher by the majority of his congregation for the worst part of his
lar
sermon.
The
process
is
rapid and certain, when, though there
catch the multitude at once, there attention
is
ordinary
is
be
little
to
it.
they can enjoy when their So rests the reputation of Shak-
mind can comprehend wherein
ority consists, but there
may
much which
authoritatively directed to
No
speare.
is
yet quite as
much
his undisputed superi-
to amuse, thrill, or excite,
much
of what is, in the strict sense of the word, dramatic, in his any one else's. They were received, therefore, when first written, with average approval, as works of common merit but when the high decision was made, and the circle spread, the pubhc took up the hue and cry conscientiously enough. Let them have daggers, ghosts, clowns, and kings, and with such real and definite sources of enjoyment, they will take quite as
works
as in
:
the additional trouble to learn half a dozen quotations, without understand-
ing them, and admit the superiority of Shakspeare without further demur. Nothing, perhaps, can more completely demonstrate the total ignorance
INTRODUCTOEv
i that any
with
it,
new work
L^AKT
of equal merit can be impartially
L
compared
except by minds not only educated and generally capable
enough to shake weight of prejudice and association, which
of appreciating merit, but strong obstinate
off the
when
invariably incline is
much
them
to the older favorite.
easier, says Barry, to repeat the character
It
recorded of
And when, much knowledge of what is
Phidias, than to investigate the merits of Agasias. as peculiarly in the case of painting,
technical
and practical
is
necessary to a right judgment, so that
those alone are competent to pronounce a true verdict
themselves the persons to be judged, and
may
give no opinion, centuries
can be made between two
who
who
are
therefore can
elapse before fair comjmrison of different ages
artists
;
while the
patriarchal excellence exercises during the interval a tyrannical
—perhaps, even a and
blighting, influence over the minds, both
understood, it In no city of Europe where art is a subject of attention, are its prospects so hopeless, or its pursuits so resultless, as in Rome ; because there, among all students, the authority of their jjredecessors in art is supreme and without appeal, and the mindless copyist studies of the public
of those to Avliora, properly
should serve for a guide and example.
It thus becomes the Eaffaelle, but not what Eaffaelle studied. duty of every one capable of demonstrating any definite points
of the public of sal
all
that is great or valuable in Shakspeare than their univer-
admiration of Maclise's Hamlet.
when
is in the work nothing to attract mind. Neither their intrinsic excellence, nor the authority of those who can judge of it, will ever make the poems of Wordsworth or George Herbert popular, in the sense in which Scott and Byron are popular, because it is to the vulgar a labor instead of a pleasure to read them and there are parts in them which to such judges
The
process
and something
is
impossible
there
to disgust the vulgar
;
— —
Most works of the highest art, those M. Angelo, or Da Vinci, stand as Shakspeare does, that which is commonplace and feeble in their excellence being taken for its essence by the uneducated, imagination assisting the impression, (for we
cannot but be vapid or ridiculous.
—
of Raffaelle,
readily fancy that
we
feel,
when
feeling
is
a matter of pride or conscience,)
and affectation and pretension increasing the noise of the rapture, if not its degree. Giotto, Orgagna, Angelico, Perugino, stand, like George Herbert, only with the few. Wilkie becomes popular, like Scott, because he touches passions which all feel, and expresses truths which all can recognize.
BBO.
I.
CH.
INTRODUCTORY.
1.1
modern
of superiority in
art,
and who
5
is
in a position in which
his doing so will not be ungraceful, to encounter Avithout hesitaS 3.
The
author's
pcfslng^it^in pa?I ticaiar instances,
sition
^^^n whatever
opprobrium may
fail
upon him from
^^® necessary prejudice even of the most candid
mindg^
of those
and from the
who have no
lioj^e
far
more virulent oppo-
of maintaining their
own
reputation for discernment but in the supj^ort of that kind of consecrated merit
which may be applauded without an
convenient necessity for reasons.
my
It is
believing that there are certain points of superiority in artists,
and
in-
purpose, therefore,
modern
two of their number, which understood, except by those who are
especially in one or
have not yet been fully
scarcely in a position admitting the declaration of their convic-
comparison between the great works of
tion, to institute a close
ancient and
modern landscape
art, to raise, as far as possible,
the deceptive veil of imaginary light through which we are ac-
customed to gaze upon the patriarchal work, and to show the real relations, whether favorable or otherwise, subsisting between it and our own. I am fully aware that this is not to be done lightly or rashly that it is the part of every one proposing to undertake such a task strictly to examine, with prolonged doubt and severe trial, every opinion in any way contrary to the sacred verdict of time, and to advance nothing which does not, at least in his own conviction, rest on surer ground than mere feeling or taste. I have accordino-ly advanced noth° ^, ", $4 But only on n points capable of ing in the loUowmg i)ages but with accompanying *= aemonstration. , / , j j t. demonstration, winch may indeed be ^true or ifalse complete or conditional, but which can only be met on its own grounds, and can in no way be borne down or affected by mere authority of great names. Yet even thus I should scarcely have ventured to speak so decidedly as I have, but for my full conviction that we ought not to class the historical painters of the fifteenth, and landscape painters of the seventeenth, centuries, together, under the general title of " old masters," as if ;
.
.
j.
,
.
,
i
•
,
•
i
—
they possessed anything like corresponding rank in their respective walks of art. I feel assured that the principles on
which they worked are totally opposed, and that the landscape honored only because they exhibited in mechanical and technical qualities some semblance of the
painters have been
INTRODUCTORY.
6
[PART
I.
of the nobler historical painters, whose principles of The conception and composition they entirely reversed. course of study which has led me reverently to the feet of Michael Angelo and Da Vinci, has alienated me gradually from
manner
— —
Claude and Gaspar I cannot at the same time do homage to power and j^ettiness to the truth of consummate science, and And let it be the mannerism of undisciplined imagination. understood that whenever hereafter 1 speak depreciatingly of the old masters as a body, I refer to none of the historical painters, for whom I entertain a veneration, which though I hope reasonable in
its
grounds,
almost
is
superstitious
in degree.
Neither, unless he be particularly mentioned, do I intend to in-
clude Nicholas Poussin, whose landscapes have a separate and elevated character, which renders it necessary to consider them apart from
Speaking generally of the older masters,
all others.
I refer only to Claude, Caspar Poussin, Salvator Eosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Kuysdael, Hobbima, Teniers, (in his landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van somethings,
and Back somethings, more
who have
especially
and malignantly those
libelled the sea.
be necessary for me in the commencement work to state briefly those principles on which I conceive These introducright judgment of art must be founded. It will of course
of the all
tory chapters I should wish to be read carefully, because all criticism
must be
useless
any degree ambiguous
when
the terms or grounds of
;
and the ordinary language
seurs and critics, granting that they understand is
it
it
are in
of connois-
themselves,
usually mere jargon to others, from their custom of using
technical terms,
by which everything
is
meant, and nothing
is
expressed. 6 5
-^^^
The author's
e^wksesra^Ba-
^^ ^^^^ application of these principles, in
^^'
^P^^^ ^^
^7
eudeavor to render
it
impartial, the
and fondness which I have for some works of modern art escape me sometimes where it should not, let it be pardoned as little more than a fair counterbalance to that peculiar veneration with which the work of the older master,
b^«-
feeling
associated as
whatever reader.
is
I
it
has ever been in our ears with the expression of
great or perfect, must be usually regarded by the
do not say that this veneration
is
wrong, nor that we
BEC.
I.
IlfTRODUCTORY.
CH, I.]
should be
7
the repeated words of time but let honor be for the dead, gratitude can only
less attentive to
us not forget, that
if
be for the living.
He who
:
has once stood beside the grave, to
companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the look back upon
the
hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt But to the heart, which can only be discharged to the dust. the lesson which men receive as individuals, they do not learn Again and again they have seen their noblest deas nations. scend into the grave, and have thought it enough to garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the honor to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life, to listen for the feAv voices, and watch for the few lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that they may not learn tneir sweetness by their silence, nor their light by their decay.
CHAPTER
II.
DEFINITION OF GEEATNESS IN AET.
In the 15th Lecture
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, incidental notaken of the distinction between those excellences in the painter which belong to him as such, and those which belong to tice is
§
Distinction
1.
^^^
i^
common
with
all
men
of intellect, the gen-
^^^ cxaltcd powcrs of which art is the evipaiTtlr^s '^fntei^^"^^ ^^^ cxprcssion, uot the subject. But the lechlScarknowi^<^s^distinction is not there dwelt upon as it should be, for it is owing to the slight attention ordinarily paid to it, that criticism is open to every form of coxcombry, and liable tp every phase of error. It is a distinction on which depend all sound judgment of the rank of the artist, and all just apprecia^^'^^
tion of the dignity of art. §2.
Painting, or
Painting, as
more
^^^-
'than'^'ia"^
^^^
art
generally, as such, with
technicalities, difficulties,
all
and particular ends,
nothing but a noble and expressive language, vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed. He has done just as much toAvards being that which we ought to respect as a great painter, as a man who has learned how to express himself grammatically and meladiously has towards being a great poet. The language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one case than in the other, and possesses more power of is
invaluable as the
delighting the sense, while nevertheless, nothing
it
speaks to the intellect, but
more than language, and
all
it is,
those excel-
lences which are peculiar to the painter as such, are merely
what rhythm, melody, precision and force are in the words of tlie orator and the poet, necessary to their greatness, but not tho
BEC,
DEFIKITION OF GREATNESS IN ART.
CH. U.]
I.
tests of their greatness.
and
saying, but by
It is
what
not by the
mode
9
of representing
represented and said, that the re-
is
spective greatness either of the painter or the writer finally
Speaking with §3. "Painter." a term corresponding to' -versifier."
and
lines,
to be
is
determined.
n* man
,
/i should
Call a
strict propriety, •
n celled in precision i
•
therefore,
,
,
we
.
i
a great painter only as he ext
•
m •
j.
and force
xi
i
the language of<
a great versifier, as he excelled in precision or force
A great poet would then be a term and in precisely the same sense applicable to both, if warranted by the character of the images or thoughts which language of words.
in the
strictly,
each in their respective languages convey.
Take, for instance, one of the most perfect /t xi. j x pocms or pictures (i use the words as SYnonvmous) ^ " which modern times have seen the Old ShepHere the exquisite execution of the herd's Ch ief -mourner. " glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of §4. Example in a pamting of E. Landseer's.
•
i
•
.
•
i
n
i
:
/
.-
—
—
the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total
powerlessness of the head
the fixed and tearful
folds,
laid, close
and motionless, upon
the eye in
fall of
its
its
utter hopeless-
ness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the cofiin-lid, the qn.ietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last
indicating
closed,
how
lonely
anwatched the departure of him who sleep
;
—these are
all
thoughts
has is
been the
now
—thoughts
life
—how
laid solitary in his
by which the picture
separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, is
and stamps
its
author, not as the neat imitator of the texture
of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the It is not, Difficulty of
Xing an t5.
exact
language and thought.
Man
of Mind.
however, always easy, either in paint'
•{
.
n
,
i
lug or literature, to determine where the influence of language stops, and where that of thousrht be.
gins.
nr
,1 ^ Many thoughts 1
J
-,
,
are so dependent
upon
,,
the
DEFINITION OP GREATNESS IN ART.
10
language in which they are clothed, that
But
their beauty if otherwise expressed.
which are
tliey tlie
[PART
would
I
lose half
highest thoughts
dependent on language, and the digand jn-aise to which it is entitled, are in exact proportion to its independency of language or expression. A composition is indeed usually most perfect, when to such intrinsic dignity is added all that expression can do to attract and adorn but in every case of supreme excellence this all becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the simplest lines or words which can suggest the idea in its own naked beauty, than by the robe or the gem which conceal while they decorate we are better pleased to feel by their absence how little they could bestow, than by their presence how much they can destroy. There is therefore a distinction to be made Distinction §6. uve^and expres- t)etween wliat is Ornamental in language ana what sive language. jg expressivc. That part of it which is necessary to the embodying and conveying the thought is wortUy of respect and attention as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the intrinsic excellence of the picture than are those
least
nity of any composition
;
;
the frame or the varnishing of it. And this caution in distinguishing between the ornamental and the expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting for in the language of words it is ;
nearly impossible for that which ful,
is
not expressive to be beauti-
except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which
is
immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty of mere language in painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator, but requires for its attainment no small exertion of art,
mind and devotion
men have
of time
by the
artist.
Hence, in
frequently fancied that they were becoming rheto-
and poets Avhen they were only learning to sj)eak meloand the judge has over and over again advanced to the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental ricians
diously,
writing-masters. § 7.
Instance iu
^^^ ^riy'^iteiian schools.
Most picturcs of the Dutch
Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of the arpower of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useand senseless words while the eurlv efforts of Cimabue and
tist's
less
school, for instance,
excepting always those of Kubens, Vandyke, and
:
SEC.
I.
CH. n.J
DEFINITION" OF GREATNESS IN ART.
11
Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stammering lips of infants. It is not by r
