degree to preclude its being followed in a strictly _systematic_ manner.
We are obliged to study buildings, of whatever date, as they may come in
our way; and every building we visit is likely to be of many periods and
to have undergone alterations more or less radical; so that we are
almost forbidden to systematise our studies on any principle,
chronological or otherwise. We must, in fact, take our examples pretty
much as we happen to find them; and the best method when we set out on a
sketching tour is, probably, to devote our attention to a particular
district, and to follow it up, town by town and village by village, as
convenience or previous information may suggest, visiting and thoroughly
studying _all_ objects worthy of it which come in our way.
Nothing can be more delightful than these excursions. If you know
beforehand what you are likely to meet with, the very anticipation of
what each day will bring before you will add zest to your appetite for
architectural enjoyment; while if you do not know what objects of
interest may lie in your course, the very speculation will give relish
to the search.
Here, perhaps, you come to the site of some famous monastery, less happy
in its days of ruin and desertion than some which have become the
favourite haunts of the artist. It has, perhaps, been for ages the
stone-quarry of the district, and now only some one gable-end with its
lofty lancets shows the noble scale of the ancient church. Here, it may
be, nothing stands aboveground but the bases of the pillars; farther on
the wall rises to the height of the window-jambs, and shows the arcading
of the walls; and there the aisle wall retains the doorways leading
through into the cloister--now a farm-yard--on the eastern side of which
you find the three beautiful arches, the central one of which formed the
approach to the chapter-house, and round this cloister you still trace
the plan of the refectory and other monastic buildings. But, scanty and
now humble as are the ruins, you find the details to be of the highest
order of artistic refinement. The bases of the lost columns are profiled
with the most studied delicacy, the few remaining doorways are perfect
models of rich though unostentatious detail, the archways, perhaps, of
the chapter-house entrances are of the most elegant and studied beauty.
On tracing out and measuring the plan, you find its arrangement and
proportions to be of the most perfect kind; and, though so little
comparatively stands _in situ_, the ground is strewn here and there with
masses from the superstructure, from which you may trace out the design
of much which has fallen down, while the fences and agricultural
buildings around are perfect storehouses of mouldings, capitals, and
fragments of tracery or of groining, from which you can study the detail
almost as profitably as from a perfect building.
In the next village you find, perhaps, a church of the humblest
dimensions and of the most unambitious architecture, yet you trace in
its simple details the proofs of its having been erected by the monks of
the neighbouring convent, and you feel that, plain and unpretending as
they are, they were designed by as masterly a hand as the abbey church
itself, and deserve to be as carefully studied and as minutely sketched
and measured. Again, farther on, you find a church of noble scale, in
which you trace the work of many periods. The internal pillars and
arcades show a period just emerging from the Romanesque, though its
rudeness has been quite cast aside, and its mouldings are, on the
contrary, of the greatest refinement. The chancel, perhaps, is of more
advanced Early Pointed, the aisles, the clerestory, and the tower of
later periods; and the screens and the few remaining old seats are
specimens of the oak-work of the fifteenth century. Here and there in
corners you find encaustic tiles, in some of which you recognise
patterns you had observed in the site of the ruined abbey. In the upper
parts of the window-lights and scattered among the plain glazing you
find fragments of glass which would do honour to any age, and such as
our glass painters would do well to study, instead of turning them out
with scorn to make way for a memorial to some recently departed
squire.[65] The _sedilia_ in the chancel, and the _piscinæ_ both there
and in the aisles, are any of them alone objects worthy of the most
careful study, and every doorway and every window possesses more or less
claim upon your attention.
In another place you find less, perhaps, to interest you in the church,
for it has passed through the hands of some architect famed in the
county for his successful destructiveness, but you find other objects of
interest. There is an old manor-house which, though mostly of Jacobean
date, retains traces of early and scarce periods of domestic
architecture. Nor are its later portions unworthy of your study: its
brick chimneys have a beauty about them which modern architects have
striven in vain to emulate; the half-timber gable fronts are models of
timber construction; within there are remnants of oak panelled ceilings,
of wall linings, of doors perhaps with moulded oak door-cases, of simple
but well-designed chimney-piers, and all sorts of little odds and ends,
all worthy of being carefully and minutely noted, whatever may be their
age; for our old house architecture is often most valuably suggestive,
even down to very late periods. The cottages around, too, seem to do
homage to the more dignified residence, by showing here a good timbered
gable-end, there a well proportioned brick chimney; indeed, I would
advise the architectural tourist never to despise the cottage
architecture of our villages, but to note as they pass every fragment
which has escaped the hand of time, for they are most useful and
instructive, and, you may depend upon it, they will not much longer
exist.[66]
In another village you will, perhaps, find that the church has been the
burial-place of some famous family of olden times. Under low arches in
the aisles, and now almost hidden by the high pewing, you find the
cross-legged effigies of the earlier members of the house, perhaps of
oak, and hollowed out beneath, to prevent their warping out of shape;
and if you examine these effigies, you will find them far from being the
rude specimens of sculpture which our modern critics may suppose. You
find in their attitude a dignity and stern nobility which our sculptors
would find it not so very easy to emulate, while the chain armour, with
its rigid lines, and the linen surcoat, with its more delicate foldings,
are executed with a truthfulness and feeling which show that the man who
worked them possessed both the soul and the hand of an artist. These are
worthy of being carefully drawn, though to do this _well_ demands much
time. I have heard of Stoddart giving a week to one such figure! There
are, perhaps, in the same church, one or two female effigies whose
drapery and pose remind you of that of Queen Eleanor at Westminster, and
one or two brasses well worthy of being _copied_, rather than rubbed
off; for the object of these tours is not only to obtain possession of
representations of the objects of art which you meet with, but to
practise and tutor your hand and eye by practically studying from them.
Then, again, as you pass through the county, you find other objects
equally worthy of note; as, for instance, the old bridges which here and
there the county magistrates have permitted to remain, and which
travellers but rarely see because they pass _over_ them. The village or
churchyard cross, the lych-gate, sometimes even the dovecote--all have
claims upon your attention; and where a church is generally humble, and
perhaps denuded by the mutilations of older ignorance or of modern
conceit, there may yet remain a doorway, a pillar, a window or two
worthy of attention. In one place it will be the tower which most
excites your interest; in another the timber roofs; in a third you may
luxuriate in carved screen-work, in chancel stalls, and rich nave
seating; and in a fourth the great attraction may be the painted glass.
In one tour you may take a homely series of churches like those of
Essex, which, under an unpretending exterior often contain some of the
most useful and valuable work; or going on farther in the eastern
counties, you may visit the fine churches of Suffolk and Norfolk, with
their noble timber roofs, their beautiful seating, and in many cases
their richly and artistically coloured and embossed screens; or, taking
another direction, you may follow the noble course of churches of
Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with their charming towers and
spires. Indeed, in whatever direction you go, some new and differing
characteristics will reward your labour; and in every one I would urge
upon you to sketch everything which strikes you as worthy of notice,
whether in the church, the castle, or the cottage, not omitting the
humble brick chimney-shaft, or the brick or stone or timber gable, or
even the stamped plaster of the eastern counties.
In all this course of study you will be much facilitated by the
remembrance of your practical office work. You will remember puzzling
questions which have occurred to you while making working details, and
watch to find them solved in original work. How is the gable of an aisle
connected with the eaves? and how with the parapet? How are timber
overhanging eaves brought in contact with a stone gable? and how is the
same done with stone eaves, or where the eaves are wood, and the roof
timbers show through the gable?[67] All sorts of little questions such
as these will have occurred to you in practice, and rested as doubtful
points on your minds, but may be solved in many natural and pleasant
ways while travelling among old examples--except, indeed, where the
modern “restorer,” innocent as a babe of all such doubts, has levelled
everything to his own office tariff. In such tours, be most careful
accurately to sketch all the _scarcer_ classes of examples you meet
with, such as remnants of thirteenth and fourteenth century roofs and
other wood-work, fragments of painted glass, specimens of iron-work,
early screens and stalls, choice specimens of carved foliage or figure
sculpture, traces of wall decorations, illuminations of screens, etc.,
and colouring on roofs. The unsparing hand of the so-called restorer has
devastated and is still eagerly devastating whole districts, and
clearing them of these invaluable records of ancient art; and this
alone, independently of their high intrinsic value, renders it doubly
important that the few remaining relics should be carefully represented.
And be it ever remembered that such representations, to be really
valuable, should not be mere hasty memoranda, but, if possible, careful
measured drawings.
I have hitherto supposed your sketching expedition to be one of a purely
rural kind, and the examples from which you study to be mainly on the
scale which we find in villages. I will now transfer the imaginary
tourist to the opposite extreme, and suppose him to be devoting himself
to one of our greatest cathedrals, as, for example, _Lincoln_. Here the
case is greatly changed, for he will get no great good unless he seats
himself down, determinedly and long, and goes through a lengthened
course of careful and minute study, not necessarily of the entire
cathedral, but at least of the parts selected for special attention. It
is best at once, on your arrival, to take lodgings near at hand, and to
enter into some arrangement with the verger for your admission at all
reasonable hours, obtaining, if needful, a _carte blanche_ from the
authorities to go where you like, and at proper times to do what you
like.
Should you set yourselves the task of tracing out and studying, step by
step, the course of architectural change from the Norman Conquest to the
close of the Mediæval periods, there are few places more suited than
Lincoln for the purpose: indeed, I only remember a single link up to the
middle of the fourteenth century which is missing from the chain, and
that not wholly so.
In the towers of two churches in the lower city you have specimens of
what may be fairly called _Saxon_, though of the date of the Conqueror;
for when he drove out the old inhabitants from the upper city, to make
way for his cathedral and castle, they erected for themselves churches
in their own old architecture below the hill, while his people were at
work in “the new manner of building” above. Of that “new manner” you
will find specimens looking anything but new (excepting for the
endeavours of the present chapter to impart that look to them[68]) in
the west front; and if their surface shakes your faith in their
authenticity, you will find _within_ some parts, once external, but for
six centuries enclosed in an early English appendage, which you will not
doubt to be the work of old Remigius.
In the central doorway you have Norman of later date, and in the side
ones truly exquisite specimens of the latest and most refined period of
Romanesque, just before its transition into the Pointed style; and you
will find the same work extending upward through the lower stages of the
towers.
Here occurs, so far as I recollect, the only _hiâtus_. I do not remember
any of that early variety of the Early Pointed of which the special
characteristic is the square abacus, and on which I have dwelt so much
at length in former lectures, such as that which prevails in Byland
Abbey, and is seen in such high perfection in the entrance to the
chapter-house of St. Mary’s Abbey at York.[69] The two late Norman
doorways I have just mentioned tread close upon it, and the work which I
shall next mention follows so closely after it as to differ only in the
shape of the abacus, but the exact style is absent, its place being
supplied by an almost unique variety of Early Pointed, which I would
advise you specially to study. I refer to the work of Bishop Hugh, which
forms the staple of the eastern transept with its appendages, the choir,
and half of the east side of the great transept. At first sight this
work looks like the fully-developed Early Pointed, and its date, which
closes in 1200, seems an anachronism; but on closer inspection it will
be found that this antedate quality is limited to the abaci of the
shafts, which are nearly all circular. In every other particular the
details agree with their date, and belong clearly to the early variety
of the style. The mouldings are of that peculiarly beautiful and studied
profile which we find at no other period, and are worthy of your most
careful study; indeed, I know of no work which will better repay the
laborious and accurately measured drawing of its details.
I had intended to have gone carefully into a description of the varied
beauties of Lincoln. I recollect, however, that in one of my early
lectures I dwelt long on this cathedral, and I must not repeat myself;
but having spent lately nearly a week in the careful study of its
details, I wish, from personal and recent experience, to urge its claims
upon you. As I said in the lecture referred to, you will find in the
nave one of the finest examples we have of the fully developed and
typical Early English, and in its eastern parts perhaps the very finest
of its latest form. The Easter Sepulchre is a fine specimen of Early
decorated of about the period of the Eleanor Crosses, and the sleeping
soldiers beneath it are charming pieces of sculpture; the choir screen
is an excellent specimen of later Decorated, and the stall-work of fine
early Perpendicular work.
In studying these various authorities, each among the highest of its
class, I would suggest that they, particularly the productions of the
three great periods
[Illustration: Fig. 174.--Easter Sepulchre, Lincoln Cathedral.]
of Early Pointed architecture, should be followed out systematically and
relatively; comparing them part by part, by means of drawings not only
carefully measured, but plotted down accurately on the spot. Thus, I
would compare bay with bay of each period both within and without, and
then follow up this more general comparison by comparing the details,
as, for example, pillar with pillar, base with base, capital with
capital, string-course with string-course, and so on through the
arch-moulds, the triforium, the windows, the vaulting, the wall
arcading, and other features. By such a comparison you would obtain a
very accurate knowledge of the whole course of thirteenth century
architecture, as exemplified by one of the finest series of works that
this or any other country can boast.
[Illustration: Fig. 175.--Capitals, north side of Choir Lincoln
Cathedral.]
You must not, however, rest here: you must draw artistically and
carefully from the more decorative portions of the several works. There
is a perfect study of carved foliage in each of the divisions of the
work. There are noble portals,[70] one of which, in particular, is
itself worthy of a special visit to Lincoln, and of the devotion to it
of a considerable amount of time. There is also a great amount of very
fine figure sculpture, not only in the triforium of the “angel choir,”
but in the portal just mentioned, and on a few of the buttresses around
it. These merit your most careful drawing, as they are some of the
finest examples in this country. There is also a good deal of beautiful
figure carving of a rather later date in the wooden bosses in the
cloister, and some of a still later age in the stall work of the choir.
I have already mentioned the sleeping soldiers under the Easter
Sepulchre.
There are also a few remains of early wall painting. The largest amount
is to be found in a chapel at the south-western angle of the nave, where
a wall, the result of an alteration almost contemporary with the Early
English chapel, has been richly decorated with bands of foliage, etc.
These are now oddly intermixed with some decorations of the seventeenth
century, but are readily distinguishable, and are a very useful series.
Traces of decoration may also be found in the vaulting of the church
itself and elsewhere. The stained glass in the circular window of the
north transept is very fine, and merits close study, as also do the
remains of that which once filled windows of the eastern part of the
church, as well as remnants in other parts. All these, and a hundred
other features, should be most carefully and studiously drawn from;
indeed, there are few cities in Europe from which so vast an amount of
information and instruction can be drawn--lessons not limited to the
cathedral, but extending throughout the town, and consisting of domestic
as well as ecclesiastical buildings.
I have only taken Lincoln as a specimen. The same course applies
_cæteris paribus_, to all of our cathedrals. Look, for instance, at
Canterbury.[71] What a magnificent and instructive series of objects of
study does it offer! The Early Norman of Lanfranc and his immediate
successors; the gorgeous later Norman of Conrad, including, probably,
the beautifully ornamented shafts in the north-eastern part of the older
crypt, and in the cloister-like building lying to the north of the same;
the work of William of Sens (without studying which no one can
thoroughly understand the English transition), and that of his English
successor and pupil, which carries on the change a little farther. The
charming developed Early English in the walls of the cloister; the early
Decorated of Peckham’s tomb and the later Decorated of the lower stage
of the chapter-house, of the enclosure of the choir and of St. Anselm’s
Chapel; followed up as they are by fine works of later styles and
accompanied by collateral work of the greatest value, both around the
cathedral itself, in the remains of St. Augustine’s Abbey, and in other
buildings in the city; form of themselves the groundwork for a course of
study which would, if earnestly pursued, give the student a complete
foundation on which all his future knowledge might well be based.
A comparison of William the Englishman’s work with that in the Castle
Chapel and Castle Church at Dover would be interesting, as probably
showing the works of the same hand; and a comparison of these, on
another occasion, with the more thoroughly English work of the same
period at St. Cross, and other buildings in which the English and French
transition seem to work hand in hand, as Glastonbury and the rather
later work at Chichester, followed up, again, by a study of the Northern
transitional examples, would give a pretty perfect knowledge of this
most instructive, perhaps, of all periods of English architecture.
I will not, however, weary you with barren bills of fare and outline
tours, but will content myself with saying that the same course of close
all-gathering study must be followed up wherever you go, whether making
a tour of village churches or of the great northern abbeys, or seating
yourselves down before a majestic cathedral.
Architecture properly so called, wood-work, metal-work, decorations,
stained glass, and every form of art and workmanship, must be studied as
if you had to perform like work for yourselves; and you must make
yourselves perfect masters of it in every way; and, moreover, you must
study the _object_ and _meaning_ of everything so as in every way
perfectly to understand its motive, whether ritual, constructive,
iconographic, artistic, or simply utilitarian.
I will make one other suggestion as to your English studies. You cannot
be always making tours, but you need to be always studying. Do not,
then, neglect those objects which surround you while at home. You have
at your doors, if you live in London, abundant objects to occupy such
incidental hours as you may have at your command.
To begin with, you have Westminster Abbey, the study of which may supply
your leisure moments for life. What an inexhaustible fund of material of
all kinds we have here! Of the earlier periods we have objects which--if
not _artistically_ important--possess at least a deep _antiquarian_
interest; for we retain extensive remnants of that work of Edward the
Confessor which a contemporary writer tells us was the very first
erected in England in the “new manner of building;” meaning the Norman
Romanesque as distinguished from the Saxon, which latter, curiously
enough, had been viewed by those who practised it as being _Roman_.
Then, we have the Late Norman of St. Catherine’s or the Infirmary
Chapel. These are but incidental objects of interest, but how different
is the case with the abbey church itself!
We have there the foremost work of its period in this country--a work
distinctly intended to surpass all others, and in which the most
advanced developments of its period were introduced. True, the exterior
has been pared down and renewed in the last century till little is left
but its mass and proportions which invites your study; but what an
interior! I know of none more beautiful. Its uniformity may at first
sight make it seem unprolific in variety of detail; but I would only
say, _try it_, by commencing a systematic series of sketches, carefully
measuring every part, making accurate sections of the mouldings and
studied drawings from the foliage and the remains of the figure
sculpture; and you will soon find that it is a _mine_ of the most
valuable examples of every kind of detail. Its workmanship, too, is of a
very superior kind, and suggests lessons to those who carefully examine
into it of the utmost importance. The chapter-house is as valuable an
example as the church and its vestibule, and the early portions of the
cloisters offer studies of the utmost value always open to the student.
The comparison between the works of Henry III. and of Edward I. form an
interesting study, as showing the one step onward in the second stage of
the work.
Of the age of this second work, you have several gorgeous specimens in
the monuments of Queen Eleanor, of Crouchback, and of his Countess
Aveline. The two latter are invaluable studies of coloured decoration in
its most sumptuous form, and I specially commend them to your attention.
[Illustration: Fig. 176.--Westminster Abbey.]
[Illustration: Fig. 177.--Westminster Abbey.]