Having thus followed Queen Anne architecture through the various phases
of its development, it remains only to refer to its claim to artistic
excellence, and answer, if possible, the question frequently asked: Is
Queen Anne "high art"?
As a basis for the discussion of so intricate a subject, I will first
endeavor to establish the underlying principles of good architecture,
using the word style in its broadest sense, expressive of elegance,
fitness, and artistic truth,--style proper and style as defined by the
antiquarian being two distinct things. It has been argued, and with some
show of reason, that the origin of all beauty is in utility; but in
architecture, which has other objects besides the gratification of the
eye, or even of the understanding, it must be conceded that art holds
the second place.
Two thousand years ago, Vitruvius laid down the basis of good
architecture: First, order, method, and regularity; second, fitness of
arrangement, general disposition, and contrivances adapted to locality
and other circumstances; third, uniformity; fourth, proportion,--being
the relation of parts or quantities by which harmony and grace are
obtained; fifth, character,--which dictates the special aspect of the
work according to its purpose; sixth, analogy,--consisting in those
resemblances and ideal significances which assimilate the works of man
to those of nature; seventh, economy,--not merely the vulgar economy of
the purse, but that which combines utility with beauty, admitting
nothing superfluous and allowing nothing to be overlooked. Sir Henry
Wotton tells us, in the quaint old English of his day, that in
architecture, as in all operative arts, "the end is to build well."
Other writers have alluded to architecture as the "politeness of
building," and as "the art of building with expression." The fundamental
law which should govern the preparation of an architectural design is
thus happily expressed by Roscoe: "Utility and beauty are bound together
in an indissoluble chain; and what the great Author of nature has
joined together let no man put asunder."
Will the "Free Classic" of the Queen Anne reformers bear the test of a
critical comparison with the "seven lamps" of Vitruvius or the dictum of
Roscoe? are such designs true exponents of "high art," and do they meet
the requirements of the complex and artificial life of to-day? I propose
to confine my investigations to the style of domestic buildings,
ecclesiastical and municipal edifices being usually and by general
consent designed in a broader and more masculine manner, their _motifs_
being deduced from mediaeval sources or from the rich and dignified
Renaissance of Continental Europe.
We have seen that America received her colonial methods of building
directly from England; but here the connection ceases, except in
sentiment; and a careful comparison of a number of English and American
designs for country-houses will, I think, sustain the assertion that in
reviving a taste for Queen Anne composition the architects of the two
centuries have adopted different ideals as to the logical present and
future development of their eclectic system. In short, the situation may
be summed up in the query, How "Free" may our Classic become and not
offend good taste and common sense?
The Englishman, naturally conservative, clings rigidly to the old
systems of domestic planning, and, although varied and often enriched in
detail, the exterior of his Queen Anne houses is, in the generality of
cases, simply a reflection of earlier works designed for the School
Board of London. The planning of these houses is irregular in the
extreme, symmetry and balance of parts are ignored, and the
communication between the various apartments is complicated and often
tortuous. Their long and narrow corridors, and the infrequent use of the
furnace or steam-coil as a means for procuring an equitable diffusion of
heat, necessitate the screening of doors by placing them in
out-of-the-way angles and around corners, to prevent draughts. The
humid climate of England renders the veranda objectionable, and the
windows, rarely fitted for blinds, are grouped together and divided by
light and graceful mullions,--a relic of Tudor practice.
The American architect starts upon his revival with less precedent and
conservatism either to assist or to hinder him. He can therefore adopt
any system he pleases, or, by combining several styles, compose a
thoroughly eclectic design; and he is apt to take full advantage of his
opportunities, for his "Free Classic" is free indeed.
No style of domestic architecture can be good or partake of "high-art"
qualities that cannot be claimed as a true exponent of the family and
social life of the period to which it owes its birth and development. A
whimsical fashion in dress, in equipages, or in the etiquette of society
may be tolerated without injury to the national advancement. Such
fashions are transitory, springing suddenly into notice and as rapidly
passing into oblivion. With architecture it is different: here follies
are wrought into durable form. We see an ultra Queen Anne house of
to-day, and its quaintness and odd conceits attract our fancy. We put up
with its manifest incongruities and inconveniences, and for a time all
goes well. But when we tire of four-by-four-inch fenestration, glazed
with rough cathedral-glass, the lines of the tower several inches off
the vertical and bulged in the centre to give the effect of age, the
rough and massive walls--of lath and plaster--glittering with broken
glass, the ceilings so low that we are unable to have chandeliers to
light our rooms, rendered gloomy by artificially-darkened walls and
panelling, what are we to do? If the house is well built, it should be
in better heart and condition one hundred years hence than the colonial
mansions erected prior to 1760 are to-day. These colonial mansions,
planned and built for the wealthy merchants of the seaboard towns, may
well command our admiration and careful study, but, as a rule, they are
entirely unsuited to the domestic life of to-day, and their construction
is faulty and badly conceived when viewed in the light of modern
practice. They should be respected and studied, because they are true
exponents of art-building, in that they show in every line and moulding
good common sense,--the use of materials according to the best ability
and knowledge possessed by the artisans who erected them, and a sturdy
manhood which wrought by main strength artistic works out of crude
materials with slender mechanical appliances. A study of these old
buildings seems to bring before us something of the mental strength of
the men who erected them,--men who were fully up to and even ahead of
their time, who aimed to do their best, and what they did was good. Such
being the case, are we to suppose that had the colonial architects and
builders continued in practice down to our own time they would have gone
on in the old way, or, rather, behind their own best period of
construction to the time when beams were hewn out with an axe and left
as large as possible, to reduce the labor to a minimum? No; they were
too advanced in sentiment for such weakness, and would no doubt ere this
have developed a sensible and correct national style of domestic
building, founded upon colonial precedent, but taking into consideration
all the advances in science and art and, above all, machinery, which,
although decried by the "high-art" amateur, has done much to improve the
art and science of American building.
The advanced Queen Anne designer takes a different view of the case. He
tells us in all seriousness and with much enthusiasm that the domestic
building of the colonists was far in advance of modern work, both in its
picturesque aspects and its home-like comfort. He points to the huge
beams and hanging knees which support the floors, their rudely-chamfered
edges dubbed into shape with an axe, as evidence of the thought and
skilful manipulation of the artificer, the sashes with muntins an inch
and a half in width, glazed with coarse and greenish glass, and the
mouldings, all hand-made, showing the wavy lines and irregular sections
inseparable from rude hand-work, and then triumphantly asks, "Can your
boasted machinery turn out such work as that?" I answer emphatically,
No, it cannot; and for this we should be thankful. The colonial
mechanics well understood the spirit of Sir Henry Wotton's apt saying,
"In architecture, as in all other operative arts, the end is to build
well." Would such men have spent their time in hewing out beams of oak
ten or twelve inches square by main strength and patience if they had
possessed the circular saw driven by steam-power? The weight of these
huge beams, of badly-proportioned section, forced to support an overplus
of width with comparatively small depth, wrought serious injury to their
buildings,--settling floors, irregularly hollowing roofs and
ridge-lines, and doing far more than time in rendering these old
mansions picturesque and quaint "suggestions" for a revival of "high
art." It seems probable that the workmen of the past would have been the
first to welcome the advent of machinery and make use of its wide
adaptations. At all events, they would never have stooped to the level
of the ultra Queen Anne revivalists, who, in striving after the
picturesque, have often set well-studied construction at defiance.
In this search after quaintness and picturesque effects roofs and
ridge-lines are hollowed out with great labor, walls are made to bulge
by nailing on furrings beneath the boarding, clear sheet-glass, easily
procured of any dimensions, is voted "so inartistic," and the green
crown glass and bull's-eyes are taken from some venerable farm-house,
where they fitly belonged, to fill the irregular fenestration of a
modern parlor.
What is the logical sequence of so anomalous a state of domestic
architecture? Shall we sand our floors, and design chairs with high
backs to break off the draughts from our rattling sashes, from which we
have removed the cords and weights? abandon the equable temperature
throughout our dwellings for individual fires unassisted by the furnace
or steam-coil? revert to the moderator or carcel lamp, casting a dim
light over a radius of a few feet and entirely below the level of the
eye, and place on our outer doors the old brass knockers to awaken the
denizens of a whole square with their noisy reverberations?
I think I may safely assert that such designs and architectural fashions
are not the exponent of "high art;" and, while they may please for a
time a people always alive to novelty, they will ultimately be set
aside, on the ground of their unworthiness when measured by the standard
of common sense. It has been said of common sense applied to building
that "when and wherever architecture has been practised as a living art,
as an outgrowth of the wants of the people who practise it, especially
in those periods which are generally reckoned by the educated as the
purest, this quality is everywhere recognized. From the rock-hewn cave
and rude hut to the stateliest edifice, this principle will be found to
exist; and, though a common-sense building may have no artistic beauty,
a building which sets common sense at defiance will fail to please the
intelligent observer."
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste,--'tis sense,
Good sense, which only is the gift of heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Critical writers, in reviewing architectural publications, have
frequently remarked that the authors of such works, particularly those
which profess to deal with the aesthetical side of the profession, while
severely censuring the prevailing taste for what they term "debased
art," and denouncing all methods adopted since the birth of the
Renaissance, rarely offer us any formulas by following which we may
advance the tone and sentiment of architecture. When they do offer any
advice, it is too often in vague terms, scarcely to be understood by the
general reader. Thus, one tells us that to follow taste alone is a
delusion, and that architecture, to be worthy of its name, should be a
logical development of the constructive sciences based upon man's
necessities and the requirements of social life. In short, instead of
offering a grammar of architecture suited to the wants of the general
and unprofessional reader, these authors offer theoretical reasoning of
an advanced order; instead of art-instruction, severe censures upon
existing forms. The system by which architectural students are educated
and prepared for the duties of professional life has much to do with
their lack of readiness in formulating in after-years practical theories
for the improvement of their art.
But the establishment of architectural schools at the Boston Institute
of Technology, at Columbia College, and at Champagne, Illinois, with
well-trained and enthusiastic professors at the head of each, and
carefully-selected corps of assistants, is already doing much toward an
improvement in students themselves, and in raising the standard of
American architecture as a profession in the eyes of society. This
student-system must in time create a body of men, well educated,
enthusiastic, and bound together by an _esprit de corps_ hitherto almost
unknown among the great body of practising architects. The dictum passed
by such a body upon the art and science of building will be received
with respect by the laymen who employ them, and American architecture,
in its better phases, will receive an impetus and a nervous strength in
construction and composition which at present we find exemplified only
in the scattered works of a few highly-trained practitioners. So far we
have had in this country no fixed standard by which the educated
architect may be tried and his professional position established. Unlike
the practice of law and medicine, the field is free to all, and previous
training is not required. In France, where the educational probation is
long and severe and the rewards of success certain, the graduates of the
schools are few in number compared with the lists of new names
constantly appearing in the columns of our city directories with the
designation of "architect." In America, young men, ambitious and anxious
to succeed, after a few months spent in study and in copying drawings
in some prominent office, set up for themselves. They naturally drift
into the ranks of the Queen Anne designers, for the reason that their
art is "free," and they can jumble together
A patchwork of Japan,
And queer bits of Queen Anne,
All mixed upon the plan
Of as you like or as you can.
One of the most zealous of the English Queen Anne revivalists has made
the candid confession of the real weakness under the apparent strength
of the movement, in stating that "it is a bad style for students to cut
their teeth upon." If it is a bad foundation for the education of
students, certainly it must be bad for the stability and beauty of their
future works.
Nothing that I have seen so cleverly portrays the young and "high art"
architectural aspirant as the delineation of a character in a novel
published in England under the title of "The Ambassador Extraordinary,"
and said to have been written by an eminent architect. With unsparing
pen the author sketches a character, Georgius Oldhausen by name, F.S.A.,
professor of architecture of a very advanced order. The work is well
executed, and we can almost see before us the architect who, disdaining
such insignificant matters as good planning, stability of construction,
and convenient disposition of parts, claims to be an artist pure and
simple, and, leaving practical matters entirely out of the question,
goes in heavily for the picturesque and pure mediaeval, Queen Anne, or
Jacobean, as the case may be. Let us follow him as he conducts a friend
over a church and conventual establishment in course of construction.
"Your rooms," says Monsignore, "seem to me to be made almost as
uncomfortable as they possibly can be."
"Why, of course!" exclaims the astonished artist, fixing his glass
somewhat indignantly in his eye. "What you call uncomfortable I call
quaint."
"Very possibly I should call it the same; but, my dear sir, _cui bono_?"
"_Cui bono!_" answers the architect contemptuously. "That's what all
modern people say; that's the horrible mistake of the whole modern
world. We shall never recover the tone of the old men till we get rid of
such jargon. Now, just for an instant, imagine the fathers of this abbey
of ours going in for wash-hand-basins!"
He drops his eye-glass in sheer dismay at such an idea. They next visit
the refectory. Master Georgius here excels himself. "I'm going in for
doing it inside in red brick, and vaulting it in red brick too, with
black diaper-patterns all over, you know."
"How pretty!"
"I hope not," (dropping his glass.) "The diapers will be quite
irregular, and full of what you would very likely call mistakes."
"A sort of intentional accidents, George."
"Yes; not a bad term. And then the joints will be all raked out roughly,
and the brick-work smeared, you know. I have quite a new idea about
that. I mean to go in for letting the workmen have the use of all the
rooms, with liberty to smudge them as much as they like; and so at the
end we shall have a sort of antique effect, you know."
"They will be dirty."
"You may call it dirt," says Georgius, refixing his eye-glass. "I call
it art. And there will be marks here and there where the fellows have
lighted fires, you know."
"And caricatures on the walls, I suppose."
"Of course. I shall go in for that very much. I shall offer a prize for
the quaintest. I'll have them done with a brush of paint, you know, or
scratch them with a screw-driver, and so on. I call that real art."
"So it is, George."
"And smudges of candle-smoke everywhere, and grease, and all that sort
of thing. Well, here's the dormitory; that's in yellow brick, with white
ones, and red ones, and so on, intermixed at random. Magnificent!"
The tower he proposes to treat in an equally artistic manner. "I shall
go in for building it quite rough on purpose, and have it washed over
with something--that's a matter of detail, you know--to produce fungus,
or moss, or lichens, or whatever you choose to call it; and I shall
plant things in the crevices as we go up,--wall-flowers, and houseleek,
and ferns, and couch-grass, and all that kind of thing, you know."
"But what is all that for?"
"What is it all for?" says Master Georgius, dropping his glass. "Why,
what could it be for? To give authenticity to the tower, of course."
With all this so-called aestheticism and crude speculation upon the
proper development of architecture as a fine art, I believe the
reformers of the Queen Anne school have honestly attempted to improve
and elevate the standard of our domestic buildings. At all events, they
have brought into the ranks of the profession life and nerve, elements
absolutely necessary to an honest development of art-methods. The
sentiment for art pure and simple will gradually expand into a greater
veneration for the scientific elements of their professional career, and
the necessity of clearly demonstrating to the uneducated comprehension
of mechanics the practicability of their designs will induce those
habits of thought and investigation which, if honestly pursued, will
elevate the standard of professional attainments. As a natural result,
their designs when executed will give us edifices artistic in conception
and detail, well planned, and built by the best-known methods of
construction.
The Queen Anne revival, viewed apart from the incongruities which have
been engrafted upon it, is a movement of great interest to the
architectural fraternity. Although a worn-out and debased art was the
foundation of this renaissance, the movement has given to us, in the
works of its best masters, much that is beautiful and honest in theory
and in real domestic comfort. It may be said to be the picturesque art
of a hitherto unpicturesque time and people. Let us, then, cultivate the
principles of Free-Classicism honestly and logically, striving to
secure the best results from our studies and the works of our
predecessors; but do not let us be carried away by our love for
archaeology and attempt to make our Queen Anne houses of to-day simply a
reflex of those of the early eighteenth century. If we attempt such
purism we must fail signally as constructors and as artists.
Architecture, to be a living art, must press forward and keep pace with
the advance of civilization, combining and utilizing all the varied
resources at its command, and aiming to meet all the public and domestic
requirements of a complex and artificial state of civilization. To
Americans, Queen Anne or early Georgian is the starting-point of
architectural history. Let us, then, take it as our standard, the Alpha
of our profession, and aim to emulate the old masters in their endeavors
to do their best with the small means at their command. Let us so design
our modern buildings as to obtain the best results from diversified
industries, almost human machinery, and the refined taste and superior
cultivation of our clients, and we shall be carrying out the Queen Anne
revival more logically and with more common sense than by aiming simply
to attain the quaint and picturesque aspects of earlier work, forgetting
the necessities which compelled the builders of the eighteenth century
to stop short in their aspirations for a better and truer art. Let us
build strongly, honestly, and conveniently,--eclectically if we
will,--and our modified and beautified Queen Anne will become the
logical expression of American domestic architecture. It contains the
germ of greatness and artistic truth: let us endeavor to secure that
germ, and our dwellings, enriched and beautified, will realize the idea
of Skelton, who tells us of the early masters who, centuries before the
advent of Queen Anne or Free Classic architecture, were
Building royally
Their mansions curiously,
With turrets and with toures,
With halls and with boures,
Stretching to the starres;
With glass windows and barres;
Hanging about the walls,
Clothes of golde and palles,
Arras of rich arraye,
Freshe as flowers in Maye.