STUDENT AND SCHOLAR
Before attempting some sketch of Wren’s position in the world of
English Architecture, in which will be set down his own outlook on
his art, mainly in his own words, it seems reasonable to describe his
attitude towards the past and the views of others. The liveliness and
modernity of his mind did not blind him to the lessons of antiquity,
and his essays in the “restoration” of classical buildings show him to
have been an earnest antiquary. Criticism of his conclusions must carry
with it the remembrance that the _apparatus criticus_ was exceedingly
limited in his day, when the book was everything. The spade had not
yet revealed a superior authority and opened out a vast prospect of
boundless antiquity and tradition.
One of the most interesting features of the interleaved documents
in the heirloom _Parentalia_ is the sketch of Wren’s conjectural
restoration of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.[D] The last note of the
printed _Parentalia_ is headed, “Of the Sepulchre of Mausolus, King of
Caria.” It ends with the words, “The plate of the above is omitted, on
account of the drawing being imperfect.”
This imperfect drawing is pasted on the last page of the _Discourse_ in
the heirloom copy, and shows Wren to be less careful as an archæologist
than might have been anticipated. “The Sepulchre,” he writes, “is so
well described by Pliny that I have attempted to design it accordingly,
and also very open, conformable to the Description in Martial, _Aere
vacuo Pendentia Mausolea_, and yet it wanted not the solidity of the
Dorick order;” and he goes on to say, on very insufficient grounds, “I
conclude this work must be the exactest Form of the Dorick.”
The odd thing is that Wren had not noticed the statement of Vitruvius
that Pythios, the architect of the Mausoleum and the sculptor of the
chariot group, gave up the Doric order because of the incongruous
arrangements which arose in its use. Wren’s great blunder, however,
was in the misreading of one word in Pliny’s description, “Pteron.” He
says it is an unusual term. Russell Sturgis gives its meaning as “that
which forms a side or flank, as the row of columns along the side of a
temple, or the side wall itself.” It is the more odd that Wren boggled
over the word Pteron, seeing that he used the word Dipteron in his
description of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. At Ephesus there was no
question in his mind of an “Attick order rising above the cornice,” but
he takes the Pteron at Halicarnassus to have that meaning, and to be “a
word of Greek Authors of Architecture now lost.” Anyhow, it pleasantly
exemplifies on how insubstantial a foundation can rest a piece of
architectural criticism which is based on literary evidence alone.
His mistake naturally vitiates the whole restoration, apart from the
fact that the Mausoleum was of the Ionic order.
The consideration of Wren’s restoration will send the student to
Professor Lethaby’s illuminating monographs on “Greek Buildings
represented by fragments in the British Museum.” They must make him
realise again, and more sensitively, the importance of going to the
stones, and setting aside even Pliny (or, perhaps, especially Pliny) if
he does not confirm their evidence.
On the wall of the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum is a drawing
lettered “Design by Sir C. Wren from Pliny’s description of the Tomb of
Mausolus, copied from Wren’s book, the _Parentalia_,” and signed “J. E.
Goodchild, 1893.” Goodchild was a pupil of Cockerell, who also made a
restoration represented at the British Museum both by a drawing and a
model. In the MS. of the _Parentalia_ at the Royal Society is a sheet
with a rough sketch-plan, doubtless from Wren’s hand. From it and from
Wren’s description, Goodchild presumably made his drawing. The sketch
elevation in the heirloom copy gives an infinitely better-proportioned
and more reasonable building than Goodchild’s. There is the possibility
that the imperfect drawing referred to in the _Parentalia_ is the
sketch-plan bound up with the MS., but I feel sure the elevation
in the heirloom copy is indicated. Goodchild’s description on the
drawing suggests that he had merely copied from the _Parentalia_. It
would have been more correct had he said “based on indications in the
_Parentalia_.”
A word may be added about Wren’s description (printed in the
_Parentalia_) of the Artemision at Ephesus. There are bound, in the
ordinary copies of the book, engravings of a plan and elevation of the
Temple, and also a plan and elevation of Wren’s conjectural restoration
of the shrine of the goddess.
The odd feature of this restoration is again Wren’s reliance on Pliny’s
figures, which would have made what Professor Lethaby calls a temple
of “enormous and impossible size.” In order to fit in Pliny’s 127
columns, Wren has to make the fronts decastyle. To absorb the odd
number of columns he invents a quite enchanting shrine which has small
claim to credibility, and rather recalls the garden temples of the
eighteenth century. He again neglects the safer guidance of Vitruvius,
who states that the temple was octastyle. His observations on the
Temple of Peace built by Vespasian include some charming phrases:
“Each Deity had a peculiar Gesture, Face, and Dress hieroglyphically
proper to it; as then Stories were but Morals involved: and not only
their Altars and Sacrifices were mystical, but the very Forms of their
Temples. No Language, no Poetry can so describe Peace, and the Effects
of it in Men’s Minds, as the Design of the Temple naturally paints
it, without any affectation of the Allegory. It is easy of Access,
and open, carries an humble Front, but embraces wide, is luminous and
pleasant, and content with an internal Greatness, despises an invidious
Appearance of all that Heighth it might otherwise justly boast of, but
rather fortifying itself on every Side, rests secure on a Square and
ample Basis.”
But devotion to the antiquities of Greece did not hinder Wren from
digging deeply into the history of Roman Britain, and his conclusions
as to the London of the Romans are quoted with respect by the
archæologists of to-day.
Amongst the criticisms directed against Wren as an antiquary are
those which are concerned with his Gothic exercises. One otherwise
devout admirer says of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, St. Mary’s, Aldermary,
and St. Michael’s, Cornhill: “Whether Wren made these designs under
pressure, or merely as academical exercises for the entertainment
of his friends is unknown, but it is very evident that he had not
the least sympathy with Gothic architecture, or taken any trouble to
master its most rudimentary features.” Without going into the reasons
for these Gothic adventures beyond dismissing the idea that Wren made
such solid entertainment for his friends, it is at least safe to reply
that Wren understood the nature of Gothic very well. That is not to
say that he could reproduce it, but the informed student of any phase
of art is not necessarily the person to create it. In 1669 he made
a survey of Salisbury Cathedral for his old friend Bishop Seth Ward,
and wrote a report which shows a true critical appreciation of the
problems of the mediæval architect, of where he failed but also of
where he succeeded. There is none of the contemptuous violence used by
the virtuous Evelyn when he refers to Gothic, which led the way for
Ruskin’s later vehemence about the “foul torrent of the Renaissance.”
Wren merely remarks, “This Form of Churches has been rejected by modern
Architects abroad, who use the better and Roman Art of Architecture,”
and commends the proportions of the nave and aisles: “The Mouldings are
decently mixed with large Planes, without an Affectation of filling
every Corner with Ornaments, ... the Architect trusted to a stately and
rich plainness.” Wren’s criticisms are directed to the foundations, the
low level of the floor, the insufficient size of the pillars, and the
bracing of the walls with iron. He also objected, with some justice, to
the poise of the aisle vaulting, supported from without by buttresses
but not within save by the pillars themselves.
It happened that Wren had to concern himself intimately with other
“congestions of heavy dark melancholy and monkish piles, without any
just proportion, use or beauty” (the phrase is Evelyn’s), such as
Westminster Abbey. For twenty-five years he was Surveyor to the Abbey,
and wrote a Report on it in 1713. We may pass over his historical
paragraphs, which show shrewdness of observation, for his _obiter
dicta_ on Gothic methods. He disliked the “flutter of archbuttresses,”
as they “occasion the Ruin of Cathedrals, being so much exposed to
the Air and Weather,” but is tolerant of Henry VII.’s Chapel, “a nice
embroidered Work.”
We have learnt by dire experience the heavy burden of repairs incident
to the mediæval system of external supports by flying arches,
pinnacles, and buttresses in our climate. He goes on to specify
necessary repairs, some done, and others needed, and to plead for the
finishing of the West Front and the completion of the Central Tower
with the addition of a spire, which “will give a proper Grace to the
whole Fabrick, and the West End of the City, which seems to want it.”
Sir Charles Barry was later to be equally concerned with the idea of
completing the outline of the Abbey, as his last designs show.
Wren’s common sense and real respect for Gothic are alike shown by his
proposal for the spire: “I have made a Design, which will not be very
expensive but light, and still in the Gothic form, and of a Style with
the rest of the Structure, which I would strictly adhere to, throughout
the whole Intention: _to deviate from the old Form would be to run into
a disagreeable Mixture: which no Person of a good Taste could relish_.”
He went on to talk of the north window, then stopped with plaster to
prevent its total ruin, and said his models for the new work were
“such as I conceive may agree with the original scheme of the old
Architect, _without any modern mixtures to shew my own Inventions_.”
His North Transept Front was swept away by Pearson, not to everyone’s
satisfaction, and though the Gothic grammar of it was inevitably at
fault, because he was trying to do something against the current of
the times, the failure was not due to any lack of appreciation of
Gothic. The existing western towers were not built in Wren’s lifetime
and he need not be charged with the defects of their execution by the
introduction of definitely classical cornices and other details of a
type which Wren would not have used. So much for Wren as a student of
Gothic. I come now to an example of the use he made of other men’s
writings.
In the library of Shirburn Castle there is a copy of Wotton’s _Elements
of Architecture_, first edition, 1624, annotated by the hand of Sir
Christopher himself. It is worth while quoting from these notes in some
detail, because they show that Wren was a careful reader and that he
was quick to mark every kind of practical application of what he read.
The page references are to the first edition of the _Elements_.
Where Wotton says of staircases (on p. 58) that “the breadth of every
single step should never be less than one foot, nor more than eighteen
inches,” Wren adds “nor so much as eighteen inches at any time, for
if a step exceed twelve, those who have but short [legs] must tread
twice upon the same step, especially in descent, which, to women
especially, is troublesome, and dangerous to the hasty.” James Wyatt,
in the circular staircase of Devonshire House, erred in this way, with
exactly the effect that Wren describes. One bears in mind in this
connection that Wren himself was of short stature. On p. 55 Wotton
discourses of the advantage of luminous rooms: “Indeed, I must confess
that a frank light can misbecome no edifice whatsoever, temples only
excepted, which were anciently dark, as they are likewise at this day
in some proportion, devotion more requiring collected than defused
spirits,” on which Wren makes the comment that Christ Church in London
was practically nothing but window, and was fitter for a stage than for
a church, “although for the kind of building it is a thorough piece of
work.” On gardens and their treatment with aqueducts, walks, etc., Wren
makes the note, “And for disposing the current of a river to a mighty
length in a little space I invented the Serpentine, a form admirably
convoying the current in circular and yet contrary motions upon one and
the same level, with walks and retirements between to the advantage
of all purposes, either of gardenings, plantings, or banquetings ...
far beyond the bungarly [!] invention at Hatfield so much liked for
pleasure.” Up and down the book there are scattered all manner of other
interesting notes. There is a practical thought in Wren’s reference to
the very small chimneys in use in Spain, where charcoal was sold by
weight. He has evidently had difficulty with smoky chimneys, for to
Wotton’s observation, “Then there is a repulsion of the fume by some
higher hill or fabrique that shall overtop the chimney,” he makes the
significant comment, “As in our buildings here.”
In connection with terracing any story (by which Wotton seems to
have meant the making of loggias), Wren remarks: “Terracing is most
commended in hotter climates, and in our country must serve mostly for
summer rooms.” To Wotton’s general reflection that “various colours
on the out-walls of buildings have always in them more delight than
dignity,” Wren adds the criticism in Latin that in this particular the
noble building of Lord Exeter at Wimbledon also offends. He seems,
however, to have been friendly to the use of mosaic, for he says:
“Herein excels that excellent cave at Bodington wherein stands the
brazen hydra with seven springs out of seven heads.” With regard to the
art of the plasterer, Wotton had said: “Plastique is not only under
sculpture, but indeed very sculpture itself, with this difference that
the plasterer doth make his figures by addition, and the carver by
subtraction.” Wren makes short work of this with, “This proposition can
never hold true to the name of sculpture.”
At the end of the _Elements_ Wotton promises another work, “A
Philosophical Survey of Education, which is indeed a Second Building
or Repairing of Nature, and, as I may term it, a kind of moral
architecture.” Wren must have taken considerable pleasure from the
_Elements_, for in the margin he has written: “Oh that we might see
that, so long expected.”
There are bits of detailed criticism in his first _Tract_ which might
have been used in recent comments on a great London building: “Fronts
ought to be elevated in the Middle, not the Corners; because the Middle
is the place of greatest Dignity and first arrests the Eye; and rather
projecting forward in the Middle, than hollow. For these Reasons,
Pavilions at the Corners are naught; because they make both Faults,
a hollow and depressed Front.... No Roof can have Dignity enough to
appear above a Cornice, but the Circular: in private Buildings it is
excusable.”
We know little about the amount of Wren’s general reading, but he was
certainly a student of Elyot’s _Governour_. Some years ago I was the
means of placing in the R.I.B.A. Library the 1546 edition of this
once famous but now almost forgotten book. Its chief interest lies
in the fact that it bears the autographs on the title-page of Sir
Christopher’s father, Dean Christopher Wren, and of Sir Christopher
himself. The other writings scribbled on the margins are the work of
much earlier owners of the volume, which was nearly a century old when
the Dean acquired it. There is some little evidence that the architect
studied the book with care. Sir Thomas Elyot was concerned to set out
the whole behaviour of a knightly gentleman, and among other things
gives some warnings against the use of oaths. When Sir Christopher was
building St. Paul’s Cathedral he was distressed by the profanity of the
workmen, and posted up a notice directed against bad language. It is
possible that he consulted the _Governour_ before drafting this notice,
for the page references in the index under the heading “othes” has been
corrected from 170 to 160, and this was possibly done by Wren when he
sought for what Elyot had to say about oaths.