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ARCHITECTURE
BY MRS. ARTHUR BELL
AUTHOR OF "THE ELEMENTARY HISTORY OF ART," "MASTERPIECES OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS," "REPRESENTATIVE PAINTERS OF
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," ETC.
[Illustration: logo]
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION: WHAT ARCHITECTURE IS--MATERIALS
EMPLOYED--DEFINITION OF DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF
THE TWO MAIN STYLES, TRABEATED AND ARCUATED v
I. EGYPTIAN, ASIATIC, AND EARLY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE 7
II. GREEK ARCHITECTURE 13
III. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE 22
IV. EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 31
V. BYZANTINE AND SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE 36
VI. ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE 45
VII. ANGLO-SAXON AND ANGLO-NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 52
VIII. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE 60
IX. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN 72
X. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE 83
XI. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN 88
INDEX 93
INTRODUCTION
WHAT ARCHITECTURE IS--MATERIALS EMPLOYED--DEFINITION OF DISTINCTIVE
FEATURES OF THE TWO MAIN STYLES, TRABEATED AND ARCUATED
It is only when a building entirely fulfils the purpose for which it is
intended and bears the impress of a genuine style that it takes rank as
a work of architecture. This definition, exclusive though it at first
sight appears, brings within the province of the art every structure
which combines with practical utility beauty of design and execution,
from the humblest cottage to the most dignified temple or palace.
Suitability of material and harmony with its surroundings are among the
minor factors that give to a building vitality of character and
contribute to its enduring value, a value enhanced by its reflection of
the needs and aspirations of those by whom and for whom it was erected.
Wood appears to have been the earliest material used for the building of
a home when out-of-door dwellings took the place of the caves that were
the first shelters of primitive man. At Joigny in France there still
exist examples of what are supposed to be the most ancient of all such
dwellings, namely circular holes, locally known as _buvards_, in which
the trunk of a tree had been fixed, the branches plastered over with
clay forming the roof of a simple but rain-proof refuge. Huts of wattle
and hurdle work dating from prehistoric times have also been preserved,
some rising from the ground, others from platforms resting on piles sunk
in the beds of lakes. These were in their time superseded by stronger
structures, with walls made of squared beams piled up horizontally and
fastened together at the corners with wooden pegs; the roof being formed
of roughly sawn planks. Out of such primeval houses as these were
evolved in the course of centuries the picturesque half-timbered
cottages of mediaeval Europe and the quaint wooden churches of Norway
such as the characteristic one at Hitterdal.
Limestone, granite, and sandstone were used for building at a very
remote period in much the same way as wood, large blocks, fresh from the
quarry, of all manner of different shapes, being piled up horizontally
or stood on edge, no cement being employed, though in certain cases
crushed stone was used to fill up the spaces between the blocks. To
walls or buildings of which courses of undressed stone were the only
materials, the name of Cyclopean has been given because of the erroneous
belief that it was originated by the Cyclopes, an imaginary race of
giants, supposed to have lived in Thrace, a province of ancient Greece.
Bricks, that is to say, dried blocks of clay, were used at a very early
date as a supplement to or substitute for wood and stone for building
purposes. The most ancient bricks were not subjected to artificial heat
but were simply exposed to the sun, and even when kiln-baked bricks were
introduced they were often employed merely to face the older variety.
Spacious and lofty buildings consisting entirely of bricks were erected
at a very early date in Assyria, Persia, and elsewhere, and some of the
most noteworthy architectural survivals of the Roman Empire are of the
same material.
The main features of a building are determined by the shape of the walls
or the mode of arrangement of the pillars that take the place of walls,
the way in which the roof is constructed, and that in which the openings
of the doors and windows are spanned. The earliest roofs were flat, and
the most ancient mode of linking together the supports of doors and
windows was to place a plank of wood or slab of stone known as a
_lintel_ across them at the top. To this style of roofing and spanning,
which reached its most perfect development in the temples of Greece, the
name of the _trabeated_ was given, derived in the first instance from
the so-called _trabea_, a toga adorned with horizontal stripes.
It was only by very gradual degrees that the trabeated mode of roofing
and spanning was succeeded by what is known as the _arcuated_, or that
in which the arch takes the place of the horizontal beam. In early Roman
temples and palaces the Greek style was long carefully copied, but in
utilitarian works such as bridges, viaducts, and drains the arch was
employed at a very remote period. An arch whether circular or pointed
consists of two series of stones cut into the form of wedges known as
_voussoirs_, a central one at the apex or highest point called the
_keystone_ locking the two series together. This beautiful contrivance,
the inventor of which is unknown, gradually revolutionised the science
of architecture. It was used at first, tentatively as it were, in
combination with the horizontal beam or slab of stone, but in the end
became in its rounded form the distinctive peculiarity of the Romanesque
and in its pointed shape of the Gothic style.
ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
EGYPTIAN, ASIATIC, AND EARLY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
The most ancient existing examples of Egyptian architecture are the
royal tombs of the Memphite kingdom known as the Pyramids, of which the
oldest is that of King Seneferu (about 3000 B.C.) at Medum, and the
largest, which rises to a height of 481 feet from a base 764 feet
square, that called the Great Pyramid of King Cheops (3788-3666) at
Ghizeh, near Cairo, on which 100,000 men are said to have been
continuously employed for thirty years. The latter is not only a marvel
of constructive skill, but is by many authorities considered to be a
most accurately designed astronomical observatory.
[Illustration: Section of King's Chamber, and of Passage in Great
Pyramid]
The Pyramids consist of masses of admirably squared and polished stones,
in certain cases supplemented with bricks piled up in the form of a
rectangle around a sepulchral chamber, the entrance to which was most
carefully concealed. When the body of the monarch had been placed in it
the tapering mound above it was finished off with huge facing blocks,
that were skilfully worked into the angle required and finally levelled
to a smooth surface.
Near the Pyramids of the kings are the tombs, known as Mastabas, of
their wives and children and of the great officers of state. They are
constructed of stone, are square or oblong in form, and their walls are
adorned with paintings of scenes from contemporary life, the whole
reminiscent of earlier timber structures. Later tombs are those hewn out
of the living rock at Beni Hassan and elsewhere, dating from about 2500
B.C., with porticoes upheld by columns resembling those of Greek
temples and flat or curved roofs, the latter suggestive of the principle
of the arch having been known to those who excavated them.
[Illustration: Section of Hall at Karnak]
It was between 1600 B.C. and 1110 B.C. that the Egyptians reached their
highest point of civilisation, and it was during that period that were
erected the magnificent Theban temples, of which those at Karnak and
Luxor, which were connected by an avenue of colossal sphinxes, are the
finest still remaining. The plan of all Egyptian temples of whatever
size was the same: a horizontal gateway flanked on either side by masses
of masonry of considerably greater height than it, known as pylons,
their surfaces enriched with symbolic carvings, giving access to a
square space open to the sky, and partly surrounded with cloisters,
leading into a noble hall of huge dimensions, its flat roof upheld by
columns, some with capitals resembling lotus buds, others representing
the head of the goddess Isis. Beyond this hall were a number of small
dark rooms, the use of which has never been ascertained, enclosing
within them the nucleus of the whole, the low narrow mysterious cell or
sanctuary in which was enshrined the image of the god to whom the temple
was dedicated. Outside these noble buildings were ranged obelisks, or
four-sided tapering-pillars of great height, covered with hieroglyphics
commemorating the triumphs of the kings, and colossal figures, few of
which remain _in situ_, which added greatly to the dignity of the
appearance of the whole.
To the same period as the temples of Thebes belong those of very similar
general design hewn out of the sides of the mountains of Nubia, of which
the best example is the larger of the two at Ipsambul, specially
noteworthy for the huge seated figure of the monarch for whom it was
built, the great Rameses II, guarding the entrance to it. The tombs of
the Theban rulers, like the Nubian temples, were hewn out of the living
rock, and are many of them, notably those known as the Tombs of the
Kings and the Tombs of the Queens in the plains watered by the Nile, of
vast extent, labyrinths of passages, alternating with large rooms,
leading to the actual sepulchral chamber.
[Illustration: Tomb at Beni Hassan]
Of considerably later date than any of the buildings referred to above
are the temples of Denderah, Edfou, and Philae, erected after the
conquest of Egypt by the Greeks, but they all resemble those of the
Theban dynasty in general style, whilst that at Esneh is a good example
of the results of Roman influence.
Very great is the contrast to Egyptian architecture presented by the
Asiatic buildings that have been preserved to the present day. In the
former stone was the usual material employed, and the mode of
construction was as a general rule that known as the post and lintel,
whilst in the latter brick was almost exclusively used, and the arch was
a distinctive feature. The so-called Babylonian or Chaldean, Assyrian,
and Persian styles resemble each other so greatly that they may justly
be said to belong to one type, evolved by the inhabitants of the
extensive region watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, who like the
Egyptians attained to a very advanced civilisation at a remote period.
Of the temples not a single one has been preserved, but the remains have
recently been excavated, in the mounds on the site of Babylon, of four
that consisted of numerous chambers enclosing a large court with towered
gateways, whilst at Assur another has been uncovered of a somewhat
similar design. To atone for the lack of temples many Asiatic palaces
have been to some extent reconstructed, the most remarkable being those
unearthed near the villages of Nimrod, Khorsabad, and Koyunjik, all
supposed to be relics of Nineveh. They originally consisted of lofty
many-roomed structures raised on high platforms, and entered from arched
gateways flanked by colossal winged bulls of stone. The brick walls were
encased in alabaster slabs carved with figure subjects in low relief,
some of which are in the British Museum, and galleries, rising from
columns with capitals that foreshadowed Greek forms, admitted air and
light freely. The Palace of Nebuchadnezzar has also recently been
identified, and must when uninjured have been an immense castle-like
pile with a vast number of courts and halls to which a paved way led up.
[Illustration: Terrace Wall at Khorsabad]
Tombs and palaces are the chief relics of Persian architecture. Many of
the former, notably that near Murghab, supposed to have been the
sepulchre of Cyrus, resemble Greek temples in general style, whilst
others are rock-cut and recall the Mastabas of Egypt. Of the palaces
those at Persepolis were the most remarkable, for in them Persian
architecture reached its fullest development. Their ruins, that rise
from a platform some forty feet high hewn out of the surface of the
living rock, to which long flights of steps led up, consist of vast
columned halls entered from detached porticoes known as propylaea. When
intact the largest of these halls, named after Xerxes, must have
exceeded in size the cathedrals of Canterbury or Winchester.
Other noteworthy relics of early Asiatic architecture are the tombs of
Lycia, Phrygia, and Lydia. The first named--of which the so-called tomb
of the Harpies now in the British Museum is a typical example--are all
either cut in the living rock or carved out of detached masses of stone,
in either case recalling in their general appearance the log-huts of
prehistoric times. More ornate than those of Lycia, the Phrygian
sepulchral monuments, of which the grave of Midas at Doganlu is the
finest, are also rock hewn, but their shape and decoration are more
suggestive of the tent than the wooden dwelling, whilst those in Lydia
are comparatively primitive, being in some cases, notably in the Tumulus
of Tantalus on the Gulf of Smyrna, mere masses of stone heaped up above
a huge mound.
[Illustration: Restored Section of Hall of Xerxes]
[Illustration: Capital of Lat]
The most ancient examples of Indian architecture are the Stambhas or
Lats, the earliest dating from the time of Asoka (272-236 B.C.), that
are pillars bearing inscriptions and surmounted by a symbolic animal
such as an elephant or a lion, of which there is a good specimen at
Allahabad, and the Stupas or Topes, mounds encased in masonry, crowned
by a reliquary containing memorials of Buddha or of his chief disciples,
and enclosed within a stone railing elaborately carved with scenes from
the life of the founder of Buddhism, with an even more ornate gateway at
each of the four corners, of which the finest is the larger of two at
Sanchi in Central India. Even more interesting than the Lats and Stupas
are the Viharas or Buddhist monasteries, of which there is a specially
good example at Nigope near Behar, and the Chaityas or temples, of which
those at Karli, Ellora, Ajunta, and Elephanta are amongst the finest.
All alike hewn out of the living rock, the former consist of a square
central hall with or without columns, surrounded by cells for the
monks, whilst the latter, of more complicated design, resemble in
general plan a Roman basilica. A wide nave with rows of massive pillars
upholding a slightly domed roof is flanked by lateral aisles, and at the
eastern end rises a semicircular sanctuary containing a seated figure of
Buddha.
[Illustration: Section of Cave at Karli]
Out of the Buddhist religion grew that known as the Jaina, and many fine
temples, of which the most remarkable are that at Sadri and the Dilwana
Temple on Mount Abu, remain that were erected for the use of its
professors. It was usual to group a number on some hill-top, and the
plan of each was generally that of a Greek cross, a columned portico
giving access to a complex collection of shrines, each approached by
avenues of pillars and roofed in with a separate dome, whilst the
exterior was adorned with rounded towers finished off with pointed
finials suggestive of a spire, the whole both inside and out being
richly decorated with carvings.
[Illustration: View of Temple at Sadri]
Hindu architecture, or that of those who hold the Brahmanic faith,
differs very greatly from Buddhist, its chief characteristic being a
lofty pyramidal tower of several stories, as a general rule covered with
ornament, that reached its fullest development in the so-called pagodas,
of which there are fine specimens at Jaggernaut, Mahavellipore, and
Palitana. In different parts of India various modifications of this
general style occur to which distinctive names have been given, but the
same spirit may be said to pervade them all, from the great Temples of
Bhuvaneswar, Tanjore, Bundaban, and elsewhere, to the humbler shrines
scattered throughout the length and breadth of the vast continent and of
its island dependencies.
There is nothing very distinctive about the architecture of China or
Japan. The Buddhist temples in both countries recall those of India, but
the pagodas, most of which are of wood faced with porcelain tiles,
differ slightly in having a curved roof to each story. The palaces of
China are impressive on account of their vast extent and the use of
copper in their construction, but the domestic buildings of Japan are
all of comparatively small size.
In America as in Asia are many deeply interesting architectural relics
of the civilisation of the early inhabitants, of which the most
remarkable are the ruins of Cyclopean buildings on the shores of Lake
Tatiaca, the remains of the ancient city of Cuzco, all in Peru, and the
Teocallis or temples and Palaces of the kings in Mexico, Yucatan, and
Guatemala, none of which however call for description here as they did
not influence the architecture of the future in their own or any other
country.