Perhaps the best way to illustrate the different phases of Free Classic
will be to group the reigns of William and Anne in one period of a
quarter of a century, half in the seventeenth and half in the
eighteenth, following the Stuart, or Jacobean, and preceding the
Georgian. At first sight there appears to be little promise of finding
any genuine art in English works of this period. The Mediaeval
Ecclesiastical style had died out nearly two hundred years before, and
during the interval the revival of classic architecture had steadily
advanced from small and rude beginnings to a respectable position, with
an academic system, so to speak, which, although it never attained in
England the appreciation which led to its luxurious development on the
Continent, found expression in many works of dignity and excellence.
During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. a domestic style for
manor-houses had sprung up, based upon Gothic traditions of the Tudor
type, with an admixture of the Renaissance of that day. This
transitional manner struggled through the Commonwealth comparatively
undisturbed, losing by degrees all traces of its mediaeval origin. It
maintained, however, partly perhaps by the intention of its designers,
but chiefly through accident, a character of picturesqueness and
homeliness.
The great fire of 1666 desolated two-thirds of London, destroying
thirteen thousand two hundred houses and eighty-nine churches, including
St. Paul's Cathedral. Down to this time the architecture of London had
been mostly of the timber, brick, and plaster type of the Tudors. The
houses were crowded closely together, covering every available piece of
ground, and overhanging story above story until in many cases the
daylight was almost excluded from the narrow courts and crooked alleys.
Many of these houses were built of slight materials, covered on the
exterior with painted planks and on the interior with plaster. During
the reign of James I. it was enacted that the fronts of city houses
should be of brick or stone. In many cases, however, a compromise was
made in favor of heavy timber fronts, which were often richly carved and
moulded, the panels filled with bricks and plastered, the sides away
from the street being still built of wood. In these houses we find
numerous instances of the picturesque oriels and windows adopted by the
designers of the modern Queen Anne school.
The fire wrought a complete change in building-construction and in the
health of the city. The plague, until then a constant visitor,
disappeared. The streets and courts were widened and much improved, and
an entirely new class of buildings arose above the ruins of ancient
London. Immediately after the fire a proclamation was issued by the
king, giving instructions for certain reforms in building-construction.
This may be called the birth of the movement which later on developed
into the Queen Anne or Free Classic style of the early eighteenth
century. In this proclamation the king commands as follows: "In the
first place, the woful experience in this late heavy visitation hath
sufficiently convinced all men of the pernicious consequences which have
attended the building with timber, and even with stone itself, and the
notable benefit of brick, which in so many places hath resisted and even
extinguished the fire; and we do hereby declare that no man whatsoever
shall presume to erect any house or building, great or small, but of
brick or stone; and if any man shall do the contrary, the next
magistrate shall forthwith cause it to be pulled down and such further
course taken for his punishment as he deserves; and we suppose that the
notable benefit many men have received from those cellars which have
been well and strongly arched will persuade most men who build good
houses to practise that good husbandry by arching all convenient
places." By an act of the Common Council, passed on the 29th of April,
1667, in furtherance of the king's proclamation, it is ordered, among
other details, that the purveyors "do encourage and give directions to
all builders, for ornament sake, that the ornaments and projections of
the front of buildings be of rubbed bricks, and that all the naked parts
of the walls be done of rough bricks neatly wrought, or all rubbed, at
the discretion of the builder." Permission was at the same time given
to enrich buildings by variety in the forms of roofs, balconies, etc.
The urgent demand for new edifices to replace those destroyed by fire,
and the necessity for observing strict economy in their erection,
precluded picturesque grouping and well-studied designs. The quaint but
dangerous architecture of 1666 was rapidly replaced by rows of plain,
monotonous brick buildings, devoid of artistic merit. In Cheapside and
some of the more important thoroughfares the houses erected during this
period were of a somewhat better character, taller, and more elegant in
design.
While improvement in the character of domestic architecture was thus
hampered by economic considerations and an intricate system of
land-tenures, public and ecclesiastical architecture was greatly
improved. The rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and fifty city churches
by Sir Christopher Wren marks an epoch in the history of the English
Church which should not be overlooked. For the first time since the
Reformation the planning and general features of church edifices were
made to conform to the exigencies of the Protestant faith and a
simplified ritual. Rarely has such an opportunity for distinction been
vouchsafed to any architect as that which fell to the lot of Wren; and
he proved himself equal to the task. Fergusson is my authority for the
statement that during the last forty years of the seventeenth century no
building of importance was erected of which he was not the architect.
Had his design for a complete rebuilding of the burnt district been
carried out, London would have risen from its ashes one of the most
convenient and beautiful cities in the world. The edifices erected by
Wren are models of their kind. A thorough constructor, he was not less
an artist in his feelings, and boldly adapted the systems of the
Renaissance to the requirements of the times, modifying his details to
meet the exigencies which arose. The "Free Classic" of Wren was
certainly very different in conception and execution from the stiff and
formal expression which we note in the works of his immediate
successors, several of whom were, however, men of marked ability. It
was, moreover, immeasurably superior to the classic attempts of the
architects of the middle Georgian period, who, carried away by the
enthusiasm awakened by the perusal of the newly-published "Antiquities"
of Stuart and Revett, attempted to adapt Doric porticos, hexastyle,
octostyle, etc., to modern domestic architecture.
With the accession of William and Mary, England and the Continent became
more closely united. French, Spanish, and Florentine styles of dress
became the fashion, and furniture designed in the Flemish and Dutch
workshops succeeded to the heavier examples of the preceding reigns. The
opening of the China trade and the importation of Delft porcelain
exerted a marked influence upon the tastes of society. An affected
admiration for Dutch topiary also became a fashion. It flourished for a
time, and reached its utmost limit of quaint absurdity in the reign of
Queen Anne.
Architecture also felt the influence of the Dutch school: brick was by
law and custom the vernacular building-material of London, as it was of
the Netherlands, and high-stepped gables with wavy lines became
frequent. Broken pediments with volute terminals were placed over doors
and windows; while a slight admixture of wrought and moulded bricks was
often added to give some degree of elegance and richness to the facades.
This use of moulded brick had played a prominent part in the old Tudor
works; but Parliament had placed heavy and almost prohibitory taxes upon
its manufacture and that of glass, thus vitiating the taste of the
designer by the necessity for studying strict economy in construction.
The manor-houses erected during the reigns of William and Anne are of a
different type: they are bold and massive, picturesque in outline, and
semi-classic in detail.
Through the Georgian reigns and that of William IV. the taste for Free
Classic continued, gradually becoming more debased, with a few feeble
attempts at a revival of mediaeval work, as shown by Walpole at
Strawberry Hill; while in the cities the schools of Nash and Wyatt were
stuccoing the honest brick-work of their street-fronts into bad
imitations of Roman palaces. This called forth such epigrams as,--
Augustus of old was for building renowned,--
For of marble he left what of brick he had found;
But is not our Nash a still greater master?
He found London brick, and will leave it plaster.
The earlier years of Victoria's reign were marked by aspirations for a
better state of things, and discussions between the rival schools of
Classicists and Mediaevalists. The latter carried the day, and, after an
heroic struggle and many failures, England awoke from her long lethargy,
to find herself the possessor of a noble architecture, a true exponent
of ecclesiastical art and tradition, although confessedly far from
perfect when applied to domestic buildings. For these latter edifices
the old manor-houses, with their many mullioned windows and Tudor
arcuation, formed the basis for design, and machicoli, turrets, and open
timber roofs became the fashion for country-houses; but the city
dwellings were erected in a style that was a compromise between the
Georgian and the semi-Gothic, the most difficult problem being to
reconcile the double hung sash with the pointed arches of mediaeval
precedent.
English architecture was in this uncertain and transitory state when, in
1870, Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act. This was an
opportunity long waited for, and the architects seized upon it with
avidity. The natural desire was to give to the school-buildings a
character distinctively their own, simple in plan and construction, with
but little architectural display, and built of the vernacular
constructive material of English cities,--red brick. Moulded brick could
now be procured in abundance, the tax having been removed by Parliament
in 1850. Such was the beginning of modern Queen Anne architecture. From
small beginnings it has developed into an harmonious and well-defined
system of domestic building, very different in its better phases from
the stiff and starched appearance of its prototypes, being marked by
breadth and freedom of treatment, and in many cases by great richness of
detail.
The architects of the United States soon caught the enthusiasm of their
English brethren, and the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 served to
intensify the feeling of patriotism. If Queen Anne architecture is dear
to Englishmen, it should be doubly so to us. In England the history of
building may be traced back for centuries, style following style in
regular sequence, one growing out of and interwoven with another. With
us the case is different. The early colonists landed in America when
Jacobean architecture was at its best, but they could give little
thought to style or detail. Protection from the elements and savage foes
was their first requirement. Later, when they could give more attention
to architecture as an art, Queen Anne ruled the popular taste, and our
colonial mansions were built and decorated under the influence which
surrounded the thought and literature of the time. Queen Anne or early
Georgian is, therefore, our starting-point in architectural history. It
is well to revive a taste for its quaint and home-like character, not
merely for its own sake, but as a stepping-stone to something better and
more enduring in the future.
Let us now briefly glance at the various constructive systems embraced
in what is to-day known as Queen Anne architecture.