Mediæval works is, in my opinion, necessary to the completeness of the
course I am suggesting. It should, however, be undertaken with much
caution, without which it is apt to lead astray. I have above
recommended you never to repress the generous impulses of enthusiasm; I
fear, however, I must here make an exception to my rule. On first
visiting Italy, the scenes are so new and so exciting, and the effects
of the climate and the beauty of the atmosphere so intoxicating to the
feelings, that we are apt to view everything through an exaggerating
medium. Without repressing noble and generous emotions, I would still
suggest that a rigorous watch should be kept over the undue effect of
merely external influences. “Put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man
given to appetite.” With proper safeguards, however, on this head,
southern Gothic is one of the most useful and delightful branches of the
studies which lie before you, and supplies many a _hiatus_ which would
otherwise exist.
I hope, however, on some future occasion, to say more on this subject.
For the present, I will close my remarks on the manner in which Gothic
architecture should be studied, by saying that it is not mere
architecture which you will have to attend to: painted decoration,
whether in its nobler or humbler branches, stained glass, illuminated
manuscripts, sculpture, metal-work, jewellery, enamelling, seals, carved
ivories, embroidery, and a hundred other subsidiary branches, possess an
almost equal claim upon your attention; and many of these must be
followed up in museums and public libraries, in collections of archives,
and in the sacristies and treasuries of monasteries and cathedrals,
where, for the most part, they lie hidden and unknown to the busy world
around. Nor would I leave you to suppose that the objects of your study
should be either exclusively, or even, perhaps, mainly, ecclesiastical.
You must search out with the utmost diligence the remnants of civil,
secular, and domestic buildings of the same ages: without this your
studies would be imperfect indeed! The caprice of individuals and the
love of living in new houses, have rendered these remains most imperfect
and fragmentary; yet the fragments are strewn on all sides of us, and
demand to be carefully collected, and not a village you pass will fail
to supply you with some contribution.
Finally. What are the special objects for which this course of study
should be undertaken? They are, I think, threefold.
_First._ For the mere sake of acquainting ourselves with one of the most
remarkable phases in the whole history of art, and that which belonged
to our own race, country, and religion. It is one of the most striking
characteristics of our day that in it alone, of all periods of the
world’s history, the arts of all preceding times are studied and their
history understood; and strange would it be if, while traversing every
land to glean vestiges of its bygone arts, we should neglect to acquaint
ourselves with that noble style which prevailed among our own
forefathers, and whose glorious monuments surround us on every side.
The _second_ object is one of a more practical nature. These noble
monuments, the pride and glory of our land, have, through the lapse of
time and the barbarous hand of modern Vandalism, become in many cases so
decayed and mutilated as to demand at our hands the most careful and
judicious reparations. This cannot safely be undertaken by any but those
who have as perfect knowledge as is possible of their architecture, and
who are able to trace out with precision the history and changes they
have undergone, and whose feelings are such as to lead them to deal
tenderly and lovingly with them. This alone is a sufficient object to
induce a careful study of our Mediæval architecture.
There remains, however, a _third_ object to lead us to this study, but
it is one on which so much difference of opinion exists, that I must
avoid on the present occasion doing more than naming it. I refer, of
course, to the revival of Pointed architecture now going on. The
promoters of this great movement do not desire to revive a departed art,
however glorious, exactly as they find it in its original remains. Such
may naturally be the character of their first essays, but it is not
their ultimate wish. Their view is rather this: that, feeling deeply the
fact that we have long since ceased to possess an architecture which can
be said to belong to our race or our age, and fully agreeing with those
who desire to see a new development of our art to meet these demands,
they feel that the most probable foundation for such a development is
the native architecture of our own race and country, and that the
thorough study of its principles may tend in time to promote the
formation of an architecture of the future, which will be more
thoroughly our own than that, however meritorious, which has been
founded upon traditions of the ancient world.
LECTURE II.
Sketch of the Rise of Mediæval Architecture.
Anomalous state of things in Western Europe after the destruction
of the Roman Empire--Art almost extinct--Saved by the Western
Church and the Eastern Empire--Architectural elements of the new
races--Charlemagne’s attempts to revive art--Primitive art in
England and the north of France--Dawn of better
things--Architecture of the tenth century--Schools of art and
science--Bishop Bernward’s works--Origin of early styles in France
and Germany--Early architecture of Rome--The arcuated and the
trabeated systems--Development of Romanesque--Its leading
characteristics--Romanesque and Pointed architecture not TWO
styles, but ONE--Barrel vaults--Groined vaults--Oblong bays--Main
arches of groined vaulting changed from the semicircle to the
pointed arch--Flying buttresses--Groin ribs--The pointed arch arose
from statical not geometrical or æsthetical motives--Wall ribs
remain round long after the wider arches become pointed--Two modes
adopted to avoid the difficulty of oblong groining over
naves--Sexpartite vaulting.
In the introductory lecture which I had the honour of reading before you
last year, I endeavoured to give an outline of the varied claims of the
architecture which was developed in our own and neighbouring countries
during the Middle Ages, upon the study both of architects and lovers of
art at the present day.
I will not recapitulate what I then said; but, presuming that by
honouring me with your presence this evening you admit the subject to be
well worthy of your attention, will crave your indulgence while I
endeavour, at the risk of appearing to be going over a trite and almost
exhausted subject, to give a brief outline of the rise and development
of the architecture whose claims upon your study I then attempted to
advocate.
My object is rather to trace out the re-awakening of art in the eleventh
and following centuries from the slumber in which it had so long lain,
than to chronicle its changes during the chaotic ages which followed the
final catastrophe of the ancient world. Like the contemporary fable of
the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, its changes during this dreamy interval
were but the turnings of the slumberer from the right side to the left,
and little need is there to investigate such sluggish and disconnected
movements. Our concern is rather with _living_ and _energetic_ art; and
if we stop at all to inquire into its semi-dormant condition, it is
rather for the sake of judging what were the elements of life which it
retained, than from any really practical interest which attaches to its
productions.
It is hardly possible to conceive of a state of things so utterly
anomalous and contrary to all historical precedent as that of Western
Europe after the deluge of Northern barbarism had annihilated the
mightiest empire the world ever saw, and almost swept from the face of
the earth the arts and literature which it had taken the whole period of
human history to generate. Like the giant-slayers of old romance, the
barbarous conquerors must have been filled with awe in contemplating the
stupendous proportions of their now lifeless victim; and while wandering
amidst the mighty monuments of the people they had overthrown, they
must have been inspired with deep veneration for their intellectual
power, and with ardent longings to inherit some portion of their
skill--aspirations which, if we may judge from some of the structures
erected by Theodoric, there can be little doubt would have been realised
had not every wave as it subsided been succeeded by a fresh torrent of
barbarism. The lamp of art was only saved from utter extinction by two
surviving institutions--the Western Church and the Eastern Empire; the
one seeming to absorb each succeeding wave of conquering barbarism, and
the other to supply to each those elements of civilisation by which its
fury was in its turn to be abated.
As might be expected from the circumstances of their position, the
architectural efforts of the new races were founded on the basis of the
Roman monuments, with whose vestiges they were on every hand surrounded,
aided by friendly and continuous importations of the still living art of
the Eastern Empire. Their elements were the Christianised Roman of the
Western Basilica, and the newly-developed architecture of the Byzantine
Church. Long, long, however, was it before any distinctive style was
developed out of these elements. The efforts of Theodoric must be
considered as rather Byzantine than _Gothic_; and for three centuries so
little, if any, was the progress, that we find Charlemagne, the
re-founder of the empire, actually despoiling the palace of the early
Gothic king to use its architectural fragments in his own structures!
There can be no doubt, however, that the efforts made by Charlemagne
for the revival of art would have soon produced some great results had
he been followed by successors in any degree worthy of him; but so far
from this, the nations he governed seem to have fallen back into almost
worse barbarism than before, while the incursion of Northmen, Huns, and
Saracens long repressed every effort after better things. We know little
of the actual state of architecture during this melancholy period. The
notion of Charlemagne having found a distinctive style of architecture
in Lombardy, and having transplanted it to the banks of the Rhine, seems
to be little more than a myth, though I think it not improbable that the
Lombards had already taken some steps towards the formation of a new
style.[2]
It is dubious whether a fragment of the structures erected by the
Lombard kings now exists from which we may ascertain their style;[3],
and though it is possible that the subsequent architecture may have been
influenced by them in some degree, it is certain that the models which
the Frankish emperor more especially followed were rather found in
Byzantine Ravenna than in barbarous Lombardy, and the few remains of his
architecture seem to be imitations of either Classic or Byzantine
structures.
In England the works of this period were a very rude and unintelligible
imitation of those of the same period at Rome, united with a strange
translation into stone of their own timber structures, and occasionally
enriched with that primitive kind of ornamentation which it is customary
to call Runic.[4]
In the north of France it would not appear that the humbler class of
churches were much better than those of which we find the remains in our
own country. The remnants of one of the churches erected at that period
on the site now occupied by Nôtre Dame at Paris, are debased Roman with
Corinthian capitals; but the few remains of smaller churches--such as
the old church at Beauvais--are not very unlike the Saxon structures in
England. Of the latter it is but fair to state that the fragments which
remain nearly all belong to merely rustic churches, and are hardly fair
specimens of their style; they afford, however, sufficient proof of the
rude state of art, though we have the witness of contemporary and
succeeding historians to the fact that they were supposed and intended
to be in the Roman style--meaning thereby, not that of ancient Rome, but
that which prevailed at the period, and which we usually designate as
the Basilican style.
The dawn of better things may be dated from the commencement of the
tenth century, and may be mainly attributed to the consolidation of the
German empire under the three first Othos (936-1002) and their immediate
successors, and more especially to the fact of these emperors having had
Lombardy equally with Germany, Switzerland, and portions of France under
their sway, and thus in some degree uniting in one that vast expanse of
country which extends from the banks of the Po to those of the Elbe.
Though Charlemagne had been the first to establish this mighty empire,
and that on a yet grander scale, and may claim the title of the founder
of modern civilisation, the seeds he had sown scarcely began to take
root till the days of his German successors of the tenth and eleventh
centuries. I say _German_ successors, because the kings of France were
his successors as _Frankish kings_, the others as _German emperors_; and
from this time forward we find a sort of contest or competition ever
going on, both in politics and arts, between those who represented him
in those two capacities.
From the commencement of the tenth century we find one style of
architecture for a time spreading over the plains of Lombardy, the
valleys of Switzerland, and that of the Rhine, and extending itself over
Saxony and all the civilised parts of Germany.
I do not say that the style was absolutely identical; but still it was
essentially the same. It was promoted by the same all-pervading
political influence; and there can be no doubt that the same
ecclesiastics, and even the same artists, were engaged in carrying it
out; and that even among those most remote from one another a constant
interchange of views as to taste and construction was ever going on,
while the differences which we observe would arise rather from those of
climate, material, and proximity to the relics of ancient art, than from
any essential or intended difference of style.
The force of the influence brought to bear at this period upon the
furtherance of art may be judged of from the accounts we have of the
schools of art and science established so far north as Hildesheim (in
the neighbourhood of Brunswick and Hanover), by Bernward, Bishop of
that see, at the close of the tenth and the commencement of the eleventh
century. Bernward was tutor, and afterwards chancellor, to Otho III.,
and there are extant portions of an elaborate treatise on geometry from
which he instructed that prince. He was himself skilled in many arts, as
wall-painting, the illumination of MSS., mosaics, working in metals,
cutting and setting precious stones, as well as in architecture itself;
and it is said that “whenever he found a youth with a feeling for art,
he took him into his laboratory, and instructed him with the greatest
kindness in giving the required forms to stubborn metals, hard stone,
wood, and ivory. The most artistic of these young men he always took
with him when he travelled, especially when he went to Italy, that their
taste might be improved by seeing masterly works of art, and hence be
enabled to execute similar works at home.” Bernward rebuilt his
cathedral and erected the church of St. Michael at Hildesheim (still
existing); and of his works in metal there remain the gates and the
spiral column (of which casts may be seen at the Crystal Palace), as
well as the great corona, in the cathedral. I have dwelt the longer on
these particulars because we happen to have more complete records of
Bernward than of most of his contemporaries in art, and because the
sphere of his operations was at a point so distant from the recognised
centres of art; and when it is recollected that he was cotemporary with
the erection of many of the great Romanesque cathedrals of Germany--as
Mayence, Spire, and Bamberg, and of multitudes of less important
churches (at the dedication of many of which he was present), and
further, that he lived earlier than the erection of the Cathedral of
Pisa, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, or St. Zeno at Verona--it will
be seen at once how early and energetic was the architectural movement
in Germany under those emperors who were also kings of Italy; and we
need not wonder at the immense hold which the architecture, thus
generated, had over the national mind of Germany.
It is probable that about the same period a style somewhat analogous to
the Lombardo-Rhenish, though more strongly tinctured with Classic
detail, was growing up in Provence and the other southern provinces of
France, spreading itself northward, and thus meeting the German variety
on the borders of Switzerland and in Burgundy. The dates, however, of
buildings in those districts seem too indefinite to be argued upon with
confidence, though it is certain that at a date somewhat later a very
noble and refined variety of Romanesque, but with a strong Classic
admixture, prevailed there.
About the same time the development of a distinctive style was promoted
in the North by an apparently adverse cause. The Northmen, under Rollo,
having ravaged and possessed themselves of an extensive province in the
north of France, and having soon afterwards joined the Christian Church,
set themselves vigorously about the task of repairing the sacrilege
which, in the days of their ignorance, they had committed: nearly every
ecclesiastical edifice in their new dominions had been destroyed, and
never, perhaps, had a new and vigorous people a more perfect _carte
blanche_ for generating a new phase of architecture. We accordingly
find that they soon covered their land with edifices; at first, it is
true, rude and simple,[5] but subsequently possessing elements of
dignity and massive grandeur of a very high order.
Of the central district of the Frankish monarchy at this period we have
few architectural relics. The weakness of the Carlovingian monarchs, and
the almost entire dismemberment of their dominions, left them, probably,
little able to carry out great works; yet it cannot be doubted that the
active genius of the race--surrounded as they were by the Romanesque
developments of Lombardy, Provence, Rhineland, and Normandy--could not
have failed to have produced works fully proportioned in merit to those
of their neighbours, though during the period of subsequent greatness
they were not deemed worthy to be retained.
We now arrive at the period at which the real subject of which I have
undertaken to treat commences; and it may here be well to give a few
moments’ consideration to the intrinsic nature of the art at this time
being generated.
The early architecture of Rome,--locally occupying a position between
the Greek colonies to the south and the Etruscan cities to the
north,--partook, as it would seem probable, of the characteristics of
both, and was more especially marked by the union of the Greek orders
and their trabeated structure with the arched construction shadowed
forth by the buildings of Etruria. The whole history of Roman
architecture seems to evince a competition ever going on between these
rival systems. It was at first an unequal contest, for the arcuated
system had never, when first taken up by the Romans, had the advantage
of being treated as the vehicle for architectural decoration--it was as
yet _mere construction_; while the trabeated system had passed through a
refining process of two thousand years’ duration, and had been brought
by the Greeks to the highest pitch of beauty and perfection. The Roman
structures display every step in this contest, some of their greatest
structures being purely arcuated and merely constructive, others as
purely trabeated--mere imitations of Grecian architecture; but the
majority uniting both in different proportions, the Grecian element
being very commonly little more than a decorative overlaying of the
arched reality. As time moved on, the arched construction steadily
gained ground: not only were openings arched over, but wide spaces
vaulted both with domes, continuous cylindrical vaults, and those of the
groined or intersecting form.
During the later ages of Pagan Rome, though architecture as a decorative
art was on the wane, the triumph of arched construction became more and
more complete. Columns hitherto used to support horizontal entablatures
were employed directly to carry arches, the architrave being bent into a
semicircle instead of lying horizontally upon the column; while spaces
of gigantic span were covered with groined vaulting, some reaching to a
width never since attempted.
In the Eastern empire the dome became subsequently the favourite form of
vault, though, in each division of the empire, the arching over entire
buildings in all its branches was practised with the greatest skill and
success.
During the dark interval which followed the Gothic invasions, though
constructive skill was immensely reduced, the preponderance of arcuated
over trabeated architecture became yet more complete. The Greek element
having during the later Roman period become merely decorative, and
therefore no more than an artificial adjunct, it was natural that the
overthrow of the ancient civilisation should at once sweep it away as a
useless luxury, and that the real and useful portions of architecture
should alone survive, though the actual skill in using them would be
reduced. We find, accordingly, that during this interval architecture
became purely arcuated, though in Western Europe the more difficult
forms of arcuation, such as the vaulting over of large spaces, were
usually avoided. This art, however, was never forgotten nor lost, but
simply disused from diminution of skill, and the grand characteristic of
the reawakening of architecture was the revival of these more difficult
systems of construction; so much so, indeed, that nearly every
structural change which we trace from the tenth to the thirteenth
century arose, more or less, from the endeavour first to revive and then
to carry on to higher and higher perfection the construction of arches
and vaulting, and to elevate it from _mere_ construction into the
highest place among the means of producing beauty of decoration and
sublimity of effect.
In the south of Italy the architecture continued all along to follow, in
the main, the character of the Roman Basilica; and for a long period, it
is probable, as I have before stated, that most of the Northern churches
were rude imitations of this type; but gradually, in the countries north
of the Po, a new form came over the architecture, which ever after
distinguished _Northern_ from _Southern_ buildings, and which may be
designated by the family name of GOTHIC, not only as being the
progenitor of the style which has generally received that title, but as
being actually in a great degree the style of the nations of Gothic
extraction as distinguished from those of Roman parentage. This style
has generally received the name of Romanesque, or Romane, to distinguish
it from the pointed-arched style which succeeded it, but is by Mr.
Fergusson more philosophically termed the _round_-arched _Gothic_, while
he transfers the term Romanesque to the Christianised Roman or Basilican
style. This is far more correct than the usual nomenclature; but as the
latter is established by custom I shall not depart from it, but shall,
for convenience, designate this round-arched Gothic style--as
distinguished from the Christian Roman and from the Pointed style--by
the customary name of _Romanesque_.
Of this style the following may be enumerated as the leading
characteristics:--
1. Subordination of the arches.
2. Subdivision of piers to meet the subordination of arches.
3. Introduction of systems of moulding and decoration proper to
subdivided arches.
4. The use of shafts or colonettes as means of decoration and
accentuation.