ourselves masters of the architecture of our own country, and using it
as the groundwork of our revival, nevertheless to view the style _as a
whole_, and, while not forsaking our own provincial dialect, to make
ourselves masters of the _entire language_. We should not wish our
revived art to be indistinguishable from that of our forefathers. It
should certainly reflect some of the characteristics of our own age, one
of which is our enormously-increased habits of locomotion; and as we
visit all the districts where our style prevailed, nothing can be more
natural than that our revived art should show the effects of our more
extended sphere. Knowing, as we do, that France was the central
district--the very heart--of Mediæval art, should we not be insane not
to study well her glorious monuments, and, having studied them, to
enrich our own style by the many lessons we may learn from them? It has
been suggested that we should do this, with a special regard to those of
the provinces of France which were once subjected to the English kings.
I would not reject the historical interest which this connection
naturally gives rise to, and I doubt not that those provinces are rich
in instruction; but I would not on that account neglect the fact that it
is the _royal domain_ of France--the district of which Paris is the
centre--which was the special focus of our art. Look again at the
ancient cities of Germany--perfect storehouses of old architecture: let
us never be so suicidal as to reject the lessons they offer! “So far,”
some may, however, say, “is all very well; but, for goodness sake, do
not cross the Alps! Ruskin has driven you all mad about Venetian,
Veronese, and Florentine architecture: be more of men than to be led
astray by popular writing. You cannot but see that Italian Gothic is
very corrupt, though somehow or another very captivating. Listen not,
then, to the siren’s song; reject the enticing bait, nor pollute the
pure stream of Northern art with the corrupted waters of the South.”
I admit that there is some ground for such a caution:--there is a
mysterious fascination about Italy, which has led astray many who have
visited it before they had grounded themselves firmly upon a Northern
foundation; but is this a reason for rejecting all the lessons she
offers? Was not Italy the land of ancient art, of painting, of
sculpture, of mosaic-work? Is she not the land of marbles and
richly-coloured material, and the land of ancient municipal
institutions, and of the edifices to which they gave birth? Her
Romanesque architecture was the parent stock of our own; and if our
Gothic was in its turn the stem from which hers sprang, surely its
transplantation into so prolific a soil offers the greatest possible
_primâ facie_ grounds for expecting a rich variety to spring forth from
it--and such has been the result. It is for us to use it with judgment:
rejecting what is in its own nature defective; not bringing into the
North any features which are the result of a Southern climate, but
judiciously culling such suggestions as will with advantage unite
themselves to our English nucleus; and especially let us take advantage
of the lessons it affords us in the use of rich materials of mosaic and
fresco painting, and in any suggestions it offers for the perfecting of
our secular architecture. Only let us do so with judgment, never
forgetting that it is _in England_ that we are working, and that if we
borrow ideas from France, from Germany, or from more southern lands,
those ideas must be expressed _in English_--a language in art, as in
literature, of whose antecedents we find abundant cause to be proud.
Let us also remember that, though we must be ever learning, it is not by
this alone that an art is to be generated; that we must _act for
ourselves_, as well as learn from others; and that it is to our own
vigorous and manly exertions we must trust to make the art we are
reviving shape itself to the necessities and the spirit of the age we
live in.
LECTURE VI.
The Rationale of Gothic Architecture.
Contradictory opinions as to the character and origin of Gothic
Architecture--True causes of its origin--The arch--The Romans
eminently practical--Two defects in their architecture--Practical
improvements--Use of small materials--Arches in
rims--Sub-ordinating rims--Imposts--Pilaster capitals--Decorative
columns--Romanesque arch decorations--Labels--Clustered
columns--Weight of arches on columns--Doorways--Windows--Rejection
of ancient rules of proportion--Efforts to improve construction and
decoration in the twelfth century--Absolute demand for an arch of
less pressure and for an abutment of greater resistance--_Ribbed_
as distinguished from _arris_ vaulting--Reasons for adopting the
former--Pointed arch as effecting proportion.
In my former lectures I have endeavoured to trace out the history of
that course of transition by which the rude arcuated architecture which
prevailed in Western Christendom, during the dark ages between the fall
of the Roman empire and the rise of modern civilisation,--commonly known
as the “Romanesque” style,--first emancipated itself from its
semi-barbaric character, and became a consistent round-arched style, and
subsequently, by a perfectly logical series of changes, resulting from
the suggestions partly of scientific construction, and partly of
artistic refinement, developed itself into that new, original, and
beautiful style which has in more modern times received the very absurd,
but now unavoidable, name of _Gothic_ architecture.
Having traced this development up to what I consider to be its
culminating point--the form which it arrived at towards the end of the
thirteenth century--it had been my intention, before I proceeded farther
with the historical view of the subject, to have given a series of short
practical treatises on several of the more important elements of the
style whose history I have traced out; as, for instance, on the
principles of Gothic _vaulting_, on _tracery_, on the system of
_mouldings_ belonging to the style; on _roofing_; on architectural
_carving_ and _sculpture_, etc., etc. Circumstances, however, having
rendered it impracticable for me just now to devote to it the time which
would be necessary to do justice to these subjects, I purpose on the
present occasion to content myself--at the risk (I may say with the
_certainty_) of repeating what I have already stated--with an inquiry
into the _rationale_ of the style of architecture of which I have been
treating.
Such an inquiry is the more necessary from the extraordinary contrariety
of opinion which we find to exist as to the real character of the style,
as well as the external and internal causes of its development. Such
opinions assume the most contradictory forms. One class of them may be
denominated the _religious_ view of the question. Under this head one
party describes it as Christian, and another as Roman Catholic
architecture. One attributes to its various parts a deep symbolisation
of Christian truth; another discovers in them nothing but the mystic
arcana of Romanism; while another cuts the knot by protesting that it is
Mahometan architecture. A second class of opinions assumes an
_ethnological_ form. Under this head some have thought the style
especially English; some pre-eminently German; some, again, in the most
exclusive and straitened sense of the term, French; and others (in the
widest sense) Teutonic; while the entanglement is again cut through by
the champions of the _Saracenic_ claim.
Then comes a _political_ class of disputants. One declares the style to
be nothing more or less than the visible exponent of feudalism. If the
system of Durandus were applied to this view, we should perhaps have the
orders of the arch shown to represent the divisions of feudal
aristocracy.--The point of the arch to be the king; the outer voussoirs
the great, and the inner the lesser, vassals; the clustered pillars to
be the bishops surrounded by their clergy; the ashlar stones the
freemen; the rubble stones the villains and serfs; the mortar to be the
bond of union or of slavery by which the whole system was cemented
together; and the painted glass to be that clerical monopoly of learning
by which the pure light of knowledge was imparted through an
artificially-coloured medium. Others have, however, shown that the style
developed itself just when feudalism was giving way, and just among
those very communities who were most resolutely exerting themselves for
its overthrow; and that, in England especially, it synchronises with the
foundation of those institutions to which we owe our liberties and our
greatness; while our knot-cutting friends would contemptuously pooh-pooh
the whole question by saying that it had nothing to do either with
feudalism or Magna Charta, but was simply the natural result of the
Crusades.
Again, as to its more practical characteristics; one party claims for it
the most unbounded liberty, another denounces it as curbing the free
following of practical and artistic requirements. The very same party
sometimes describes it as excluding the light of day, and sometimes as
offering no protection against the glare of sunshine. In fact, without
going farther into these contrarieties, it may be sufficient to say that
among those who have not gone much into the subject no opinions are too
inconsistent either with one another or with facts to find ready
advocates.
My object in this and the succeeding lecture will be to show that the
style originated in no occult influences; that, if it can be called
either Christian, Teutonic, French, English, German, or Western
European, it is so only in a plain, straightforward, and historical, and
not in any hidden, exclusive, or mysterious, sense; but that it, in
fact, arose from the application of plain common sense to plain
practical requirements; that many of these requirements were not
peculiar to the period, but belong to all time; that many were not
limited to a race or climate, but are common, with certain
modifications, to different races and countries; and that the
application of the same class of common sense to altered requirements
would produce results by no means militating against those thus arrived
at, but, on the contrary, tending to enrich, to amplify, and to add new
life, variety, and harmony to the art which it had first suggested.
To judge of the practical reasonableness of a style of building, it is
not enough to prove that it answers its purpose; we may pre-suppose that
all civilised people would effect as much as that--indeed, that all
people would do so who can construct at all; for if uncivilised, their
aim would be more simple and more readily attained.
The question is, whether the purpose is provided for by means consistent
with common sense, with the laws of nature, with the properties of the
materials at hand, and without an expenditure of labour and material
disproportioned to the result. In this I do not restrict the question to
merely utilitarian results, but admit the artistic element in a degree
proportioned to the rank and purpose of the edifice. I would also wish
to guard myself against being understood to imply that the superior
reasonableness of a style of architecture proves a higher state of
civilisation among the people who use it. Inventions are often
accidental, and independent of high civilisation. Thus, though an arch
is a more rational means of spanning a wide opening than a single block
of marble, the early Romans who used the arch were probably much less
civilised than the early Greeks, who were ignorant of it.
The Egyptians and the Greeks used most nobly the means of spanning
openings with which they were best acquainted, and for which their
numerous quarries of granite and marble supplied them so liberally with
the materials; but such a mode of construction is manifestly costly,
dependent upon natural facilities of the most exceptional kind, and
extremely limited in its application. The use of the arch obviates all
these difficulties, and consequently a mode of construction which admits
the arch is more rational than one which does not. Roman architecture,
in short, than Greek.
The Romans were, in fact, eminently a practical race, and their
architecture is in its construction in a high degree practical and
rational; they by no means limited themselves to the use of costly and
bulky materials, but united in their structures the use of all the
materials of which their world-wide dominion gave them command, and were
equally successful in employing in them the most stupendous masses of
marble, as at Baalbec, the granite of Egypt, or the flint-nodules of
Kent; and never hesitated at spanning the widest structure with vaults
of domes of such solidity as almost to defy the ravages of the elements
and of time.
The two great defects in the _rationale_ of their architecture
were--first, that, as the conquerors of the world, the resources at
their command were so unlimited that economy of material seems to have
been almost dismissed from their consideration, and their principle of
statics seems to have been rather that of passive and inert resistance
than of equilibrium of forces; and, secondly, that, having adopted the
artistic features of Greek architecture, they attempted to unite them
with their own totally different system of construction, in a manner
which cannot always be said to be consistent with reason.
When the nations of modern Europe began to emerge from the chaos of
centuries, and to generate for themselves a new civilisation, their aim,
as regards architecture, seems rather to have been to recover that of
ancient Rome, than to generate a new style for themselves; but their
limited resources, and unfamiliarity with what is now denominated
“Classic” art, freed them from the tendency to follow their great
masters in the two defects which I have mentioned. True, they often
built with needless massiveness; but this was not the result of
profuseness, but of want of experience; and when they imitated or
re-used the details of Roman architecture they applied them with more
regard to practical utility then to Classic precedent.
At first the Romanesque builders were at a low level both as to
constructive and artistic skill; but all their efforts being directed to
practical improvement, they, in course of time, succeeded in generating
a very consistent round-arched style, in which every feature may be said
to have resulted, in a greater or less degree, from practical reasoning
on immediate requirements and on their experience of preceding defects.
The observations I have to offer on the developments thus reasoned out
are intended to apply mainly to those of the countries north of the
Alps, but may in many points be found to be of general application.
One of the first practical principles aimed at throughout the whole
range of Mediæval architecture was so to arrange their designs as to
facilitate the use of small materials, and to render themselves
independent of the accident of having quarries at command which would
supply vast blocks of stone. It happened that in the great seats of
early art this was of less consequence, for Egypt, Syria, Greece, and
Italy contain such quarries in tolerable abundance, though even the
Romans resorted to concealed arches for the security of their
architraves; but in Northern Europe, though building-stone in most parts
abounds, it is quite exceptional to find it at once in blocks of great
dimensions and of strength which would render it a trustworthy covering
to openings of any considerable bearing. With all our increased
facilities at the present day, we never find the trabeated system
carried out in its integrity when on a large scale; either the middle
stones of architraves are suspended by concealed arched joints, as is
the custom here, or are visibly arched-jointed, as in France, or the
entire architraves consist of brick arches plastered over, to mimic the
construction they affect but cannot follow. Even in our Gothic
buildings, where every facility exists for the use of moderate-sized
stone, it is often with much difficulty that blocks of a size suited to
all purposes can be obtained. Thus with the Houses of Parliament, after
the whole kingdom had been ransacked by a geological commission, not
only was the quarry they recommended summarily rejected as incapable of
furnishing stone of any reasonable size, but the second quarry, which
was adopted in its place, and which produced an admirable material, was,
after a time, abandoned, and a third selected, the productions of which
have, in other respects than size, proved so lamentably inferior. The
fact is that it is only here and there that we find quarries uniting
_quality_ and _size_ which suit even our moderate requirements; and if
such is the case now, with all our mechanical advantages and facilities
of transit, how much more must it have been felt in days when the
mechanical appliances of the ancients had been in a great measure lost,
and the Roman roads broken up, while the means which were to supply
these deficiencies were yet in their infancy.
While, then, _at all times_ and _everywhere_, it is a desideratum to a
rational system of construction that it should offer every facility for
the use of ordinary and easily-obtained material, such was the case in a
more than usual degree in those early ages of modern art.
Though the universal use of the arch by the Romanesque builders
obviously promoted this object, it would not of necessity lead to its
fullest attainment. Arches may be, and often are, constructed of
enormous blocks of stone; and it had to be studied how to make good
construction with small materials.
The most obvious means of doing this was by building the arches in
_rims_, as we do our brick arches--a deep arch, consisting of several
distinct arches laid one over the other, each forming the centre on
which the next is built (Fig. 136). By this mode of building an arch of
any degree of strength may be built of stones of the most moderate
dimensions. This system, consequently, became general in the Romanesque
buildings.
[Illustration: Fig. 136.]
[Illustration: Fig. 137.]
Now, a deep arch so constructed, and built square through the wall, has
a heavy clumsy appearance, and forms a dark and cavern-like recess. You
may ornament the voussoirs and vary their colour as you please, but
still it is heavy, wanting in play of light and shade, and obstructive
to the free passage of the rays of light. This was early felt and early
obviated.
In an arch built in several rims, it is not necessary that any but the
outer rim should be of the full width of the wall. This suggested the
system of _sub-ordinating_ the rims, or recessing them, one behind the
other, so as to divide the arch into what are called _orders_ (Fig.
137).
This gives us at once a new and beautiful mode of arching, economical,
and adapted to all varieties of material, giving great play of light and
shade, offering the greatest freedom for the admission of light, and
suggesting (as we shall see) a perfectly new system of decoration.
This division of the arch into receding orders necessitated a
corresponding form in the piers which supported it.
[Illustration: Fig. 138.]
[Illustration: Fig. 139.]
[Illustration: Fig. 140.]
The first means of relieving the plainness of this block form was the
introduction of an impost at the springing, defining the line which
separates the pier from the arch (Fig. 138). Afterwards the orders of
the jamb would receive pilaster capitals (Fig. 139), and finally
decorative columns would be inserted in their place (Fig. 140), thus
completing the general idea of the pier and arch as made use of during
the Romanesque period.
The arch itself was at the same time subjected to various systems of
decoration suited to its _normal_ construction.
It is clear that the extreme angles of the orders contribute but
slightly to their strength. These might, therefore, be rounded,
chamfered, or moulded at pleasure. It became common to form them into
large rolls between two hollows, and also to cut the order into various
mechanical or other forms, as zigzag, etc. etc., according to the fancy
of the architect, from which arose the whole system of Romanesque
arch-decoration; and as the junction of the arch with the wall above was
but slightly marked by the change in the direction of the joints, a
small projecting moulding was introduced between them, which we call the
dripstone or label, which not only drew the line more emphatically but
also served to prevent the water which ran down the face of the walls
from discolouring the arch-mouldings.
It will readily be seen that this logical and reasonable mode of
constructing arched openings would, when applied to arches carried on
pillars, lead to the clustered column.
If the wall was not thick, the arches might certainly continue to be of
one order, and the most natural mode of supporting them would then, as
heretofore, be single columns. Where, however, the wall was so thick as
to give it a clumsy look if the arch ran square through it, it would be
divided into two orders, and would assume at its springing a cruciform
plan. The impost must break round this figure; and though the column
might still remain (and often did remain) round (Figs. 141, 142), the
abacus only assuming the cross form, the most natural thing would be to
form a complex pillar composed of four shafts united in one, each
apparently supporting its own order of the arch (Fig. 143).
[Illustration: Fig. 141.]
[Illustration: Fig. 142.]
[Illustration: Fig. 143.]
If the arch were divided into three orders, a more complex form
suggested itself, containing eight shafts; and as the system was carried
out, many other combinations arose not necessary to enumerate.
Thus we see that the adoption of the arched system of construction,
unbiassed by any pre-existing laws of art, but aided only by the very
rational desire to utilise the materials most abundantly provided by
nature, led to two of the most important characteristics common to
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, viz., the sub-ordinated arch and the
clustered column, with the whole system of decoration derived from them;
than which no two features can be pointed out which have been more
richly fruitful of architectural forms the most original and beautiful.
Again, in the mode of bringing down the arch upon columns, the
Romanesque builders exercised a sound discretion. The Greeks and Romans
in their trabeated construction, reasonably enough, made their
architraves only as wide as the upper diameter of their columns, so that
whatever projection the capitals had beyond the shaft, they had the same
beyond the architrave also. When, however, you substitute two arches for
two architraves, you bring down the weight by two opposite forces; its
footing on the capital, therefore, requires as much steadiment as
possible.
The Romans, as many of their modern followers, were for a time so
inconsistent as not only to limit the arch, like the architrave, to the
thickness of the upper diameter of the column, but actually interposed,
without a shadow of use, a bit of entablature between the column and the
arch; thus, instead of doing all they could to give steadiness to the
spring of the arch, they made it as tottering in its construction as
possible. This was corrected by the Romans of the Lower Empire, and the
arch was placed by them, as reason would dictate, directly upon the
capital, or (still more sensibly) on a strong flat impost laid on the
capital; and for this most reasonable step they have in after ages been
pronounced barbarous! The Romanesque architects, taught by common sense
rather than by precedent, followed their example. If they imitated or
re-used the Corinthian capital, they laid upon its fragile abacus a more
trustworthy impost, and to give greater steadiment to the foot of the
arch they made it somewhat wider than the diameter of the column--a
practice which pervades Mediæval architecture, and contributes greatly
both to its good construction and its beauty.
The system of constructing _doorways_ is directly derived from what I
have already described--as many recesses being given to the jambs as the
arch has rims, and these decorated with columns if thought good. The
head is often filled in with a tympanum supported by corbels in the
jambs, both as a field for sculptured decoration, and to make the door
itself square instead of arch-formed. If this is not done, the inner
arches are made to spring from a higher level, to allow the doors to
open without catching against them.
The windows show the same regard to reason. The inside is nearly always
widely splayed, to spread the light equally in the room. The external
recess depended partly on the degree of architectural character aimed
at, and partly on the depth required for the arch. Where the openings
were but narrow, and the resources small, one arch-rim would suffice;
and this would often be chamfered at the edges, to prevent obstruction
to light.