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[Illustration: PLATE IX.--(_Frontispiece_--Vol. V.)
TRACERY FROM THE CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO AT FLORENCE.]
Illustrated Cabinet Edition
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Lectures on Architecture and Painting
The Study of Architecture
by John Ruskin
[Illustration]
Boston
Dana Estes & Company
Publishers
CONTENTS.
SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE.
PAGE
PREFACE 5
INTRODUCTION 9
CHAPTER I.
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE 15
CHAPTER II.
THE LAMP OF TRUTH 34
CHAPTER III.
THE LAMP OF POWER 69
CHAPTER IV.
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY 100
CHAPTER V.
THE LAMP OF LIFE 142
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAMP OF MEMORY 167
CHAPTER VII.
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE 188
NOTES 203
LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING
PREFACE 213
LECTURE I. 217
LECTURE II. 248
ADDENDA to Lectures I. and II. 270
LECTURE III. Turner and his Works 287
LECTURE IV. Pre-Raphaelitism 311
ADDENDA to Lecture IV. 334
THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE 339
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
PLATE PAGE
I. ORNAMENTS FROM ROUEN, ST. LO, AND VENICE 33
II. PART OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. LO, NORMANDY 55
III. TRACERIES FROM CAEN, BAYEUX, ROUEN AND BEAVAIS 60
IV. INTERSECTIONAL MOULDINGS 66
V. CAPITAL FROM THE LOWER ARCADE OF THE DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE 88
VI. ARCH FROM THE FACADE OF THE CHURCH OF SAN MICHELE AT LUCCA 90
VII. PIERCED ORNAMENTS FROM LISIEUX, BAYEUX, VERONA, AND PADUA 93
VIII. WINDOW FROM THE CA' FOSCARI, VENICE 95
IX. TRACERY FROM THE CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO,
AT FLORENCE. _Frontispiece._
X. TRACERIES AND MOULDINGS FROM ROUEN AND SALISBURY 122
XI. BALCONY IN THE CAMPO, ST. BENEDETTO, VENICE 131
XII. FRAGMENTS FROM ABBEVILLE, LUCCA, VENICE AND PISA 149
XIII. PORTIONS OF AN ARCADE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE
CATHEDRAL OF FERRARA 161
XIV. SCULPTURES FROM THE CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN 165
LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING
Plate I. FIGS. 1, 3 AND 5. ILLUSTRATIVE DIAGRAMS 219
" II. " 2. WINDOW IN OAKHAM CASTLE 221
" III. " 4 AND 6. SPRAY OF ASH-TREE, AND IMPROVEMENT
OF THE SAME ON GREEK PRINCIPLES 226
" IV. " 7. WINDOW IN DUMBLANE CATHEDRAL 231
" V. " 8. MEDIAEVAL TURRET 235
" VI. " 9 AND 10. LOMBARDIC TOWERS 238
" VII. " 11 AND 12. SPIRES AT CONTANCES AND ROUEN 240
" VIII. " 13 AND 14. ILLUSTRATIVE DIAGRAMS 253
" IX. " 15. SCULPTURE AT LYONS 254
" X. " 16. NICHE AT AMIENS 255
" XI. " 17 AND 18. TigER'S HEAD, AND IMPROVEMENT OF
THE SAME ON GREEK PRINCIPLES 258
" XII. " 19. GARRET WINDOW IN HOTEL DE BOURGTHEROUDE 265
" XIII. " 20 AND 21. TREES, AS DRAWN IN THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY 294
" XIV. " 22. ROCKS, AS DRAWN BY THE SCHOOL OF LEONARDO
DA VINCI 296
" XV. " 23. BOUGHS OF TREES, AFTER TITIAN 298
THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
PREFACE.
The memoranda which form the basis of the following Essay have been
thrown together during the preparation of one of the sections of the
third volume of "Modern Painters."[A] I once thought of giving them a
more expanded form; but their utility, such as it may be, would probably
be diminished by farther delay in their publication, more than it would
be increased by greater care in their arrangement. Obtained in every
case by personal observation, there may be among them some details
valuable even to the experienced architect; but with respect to the
opinions founded upon them I must be prepared to bear the charge of
impertinence which can hardly but attach to the writer who assumes a
dogmatical tone in speaking of an art he has never practised. There are,
however, cases in which men feel too keenly to be silent, and perhaps
too strongly to be wrong; I have been forced into this impertinence; and
have suffered too much from the destruction or neglect of the
architecture I best loved, and from the erection of that which I cannot
love, to reason cautiously respecting the modesty of my opposition to
the principles which have induced the scorn of the one, or directed the
design of the other. And I have been the less careful to modify the
confidence of my statements of principles, because in the midst of the
opposition and uncertainty of our architectural systems, it seems to me
that there is something grateful in any _positive_ opinion, though in
many points wrong, as even weeds are useful that grow on a bank of sand.
[A] The inordinate delay in the appearance of that supplementary
volume has, indeed, been chiefly owing to the necessity under which
the writer felt himself, of obtaining as many memoranda as possible
of mediaeval buildings in Italy and Normandy, now in process of
destruction, before that destruction should be consummated by the
Restorer or Revolutionist. His whole time has been lately occupied
in taking drawings from one side of buildings, of which masons were
knocking down the other; nor can he yet pledge himself to any time
for the publication of the conclusion of "Modern Painters;" he can
only promise that its delay shall not be owing to any indolence on
his part.
Every apology is, however, due to the reader, for the hasty and
imperfect execution of the plates. Having much more serious work in
hand, and desiring merely to render them illustrative of my meaning, I
have sometimes very completely failed even of that humble aim; and the
text, being generally written before the illustration was completed,
sometimes naively describes as sublime or beautiful, features which the
plate represents by a blot. I shall be grateful if the reader will in
such cases refer the expressions of praise to the Architecture, and not
to the illustration.
So far, however, as their coarseness and rudeness admit, the plates are
valuable; being either copies of memoranda made upon the spot, or
(Plates IX. and XI.) enlarged and adapted from Daguerreotypes, taken
under my own superintendence. Unfortunately, the great distance from the
ground of the window which is the subject of Plate IX. renders even the
Daguerreotype indistinct; and I cannot answer for the accuracy of any of
the mosaic details, more especially of those which surround the window,
and which I rather imagine, in the original, to be sculptured in relief.
The general proportions are, however, studiously preserved; the spirals
of the shafts are counted, and the effect of the whole is as near that
of the thing itself, as is necessary for the purposes of illustration
for which the plate is given. For the accuracy of the rest I can answer,
even to the cracks in the stones, and the number of them; and though the
looseness of the drawing, and the picturesque character which is
necessarily given by an endeavor to draw old buildings as they actually
appear, may perhaps diminish their credit for architectural veracity,
they will do so unjustly.
The system of lettering adopted in the few instances in which sections
have been given, appears somewhat obscure in the references, but it is
convenient upon the whole. The line which marks the direction of any
section is noted, if the section be symmetrical, by a single letter; and
the section itself by the same letter with a line over it, a.--[=a]. But
if the section be unsymmetrical, its direction is noted by two letters,
a. a. a_2 at its extremities; and the actual section by the same letters
with lines over them, [=a]. [=a]. [=a]_2, at the corresponding
extremities.
The reader will perhaps be surprised by the small number of buildings to
which reference has been made. But it is to be remembered that the
following chapters pretend only to be a statement of principles,
illustrated each by one or two examples, not an essay on European
architecture; and those examples I have generally taken either from the
buildings which I love best, or from the schools of architecture which,
it appeared to me, have been less carefully described than they
deserved. I could as fully, though not with the accuracy and certainty
derived from personal observation, have illustrated the principles
subsequently advanced, from the architecture of Egypt, India, or Spain,
as from that to which the reader will find his attention chiefly
directed, the Italian Romanesque and Gothic. But my affections, as well
as my experience, led me to that line of richly varied and magnificently
intellectual schools, which reaches, like a high watershed of Christian
architecture, from the Adriatic to the Northumbrian seas, bordered by
the impure schools of Spain on the one hand, and of Germany on the
other: and as culminating points and centres of this chain, I have
considered, first, the cities of the Val d'Arno, as representing the
Italian Romanesque and pure Italian Gothic; Venice and Verona as
representing the Italian Gothic colored by Byzantine elements; and
Rouen, with the associated Norman cities, Caen, Bayeux, and Coutances,
as representing the entire range of Northern architecture from the
Romanesque to Flamboyant.
I could have wished to have given more examples from our early English
Gothic; but I have always found it impossible to work in the cold
interiors of our cathedrals, while the daily services, lamps, and
fumigation of those upon the Continent, render them perfectly safe.
In the course of last summer I undertook a pilgrimage to the English
Shrines, and began with Salisbury, where the consequence of a few days'
work was a state of weakened health, which I may be permitted to name
among the causes of the slightness and imperfection of the present
Essay.
INTRODUCTORY.
Some years ago, in conversation with an artist whose works, perhaps,
alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing with resplendence
of color, the writer made some inquiry respecting the general means by
which this latter quality was most easily to be attained. The reply was
as concise as it was comprehensive--"Know what you have to do, and do
it"--comprehensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to which it
temporarily applied, but as expressing the great principle of success in
every direction of human effort; for I believe that failure is less
frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience
of labor, than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be
done; and therefore, while it is properly a subject of ridicule, and
sometimes of blame, that men propose to themselves a perfection of any
kind, which reason, temperately consulted, might have shown to be
impossible with the means at their command, it is a more dangerous error
to permit the consideration of means to interfere with our conception,
or, as is not impossible, even hinder our acknowledgment of goodness and
perfection in themselves. And this is the more cautiously to be
remembered; because, while a man's sense and conscience, aided by
Revelation, are always enough, if earnestly directed, to enable him to
discover what is right, neither his sense, nor conscience, nor feeling,
are ever enough, because they are not intended, to determine for him
what is possible. He knows neither his own strength nor that of his
fellows, neither the exact dependence to be placed on his allies nor
resistance to be expected from his opponents. These are questions
respecting which passion may warp his conclusions, and ignorance must
limit them; but it is his own fault if either interfere with the
apprehension of duty, or the acknowledgment of right. And, as far as I
have taken cognizance of the causes of the many failures to which the
efforts of intelligent men are liable, more especially in matters
political, they seem to me more largely to spring from this single error
than from all others, that the inquiry into the doubtful, and in some
sort inexplicable, relations of capability, chance, resistance, and
inconvenience, invariably precedes, even if it do not altogether
supersede, the determination of what is absolutely desirable and just.
Nor is it any wonder that sometimes the too cold calculation of our
powers should reconcile us too easily to our shortcomings, and even lead
us into the fatal error of supposing that our conjectural utmost is in
itself well, or, in other words, that the necessity of offences renders
them inoffensive.
What is true of human polity seems to me not less so of the
distinctively political art of Architecture. I have long felt convinced
of the necessity, in order to its progress, of some determined effort to
extricate from the confused mass of partial traditions and dogmata with
which it has become encumbered during imperfect or restricted practice,
those large principles of right which are applicable to every stage and
style of it. Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as
essentially as humanity does soul and body, it shows the same infirmly
balanced liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher,
to the interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity
of the reflective, element. This tendency, like every other form of
materialism, is increasing with the advance of the age; and the only
laws which resist it, based upon partial precedents, and already
regarded with disrespect as decrepit, if not with defiance as
tyrannical, are evidently inapplicable to the new forms and functions of
the art, which the necessities of the day demand. How many these
necessities may become, cannot be conjectured; they rise, strange and
impatient, out of every modern shadow of change. How far it may be
possible to meet them without a sacrifice of the essential characters of
architectural art, cannot be determined by specific calculation or
observance. There is no law, no principle, based on past practice,
which may not be overthrown in a moment, by the arising of a new
condition, or the invention of a new material; and the most rational, if
not the only, mode of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of all
that is systematic and consistent in our practice, or of ancient
authority in our judgment, is to cease for a little while, our endeavors
to deal with the multiplying host of particular abuses, restraints, or
requirements; and endeavor to determine, as the guides of every effort,
some constant, general, and irrefragable laws of right--laws, which
based upon man's nature, not upon his knowledge, may possess so far the
unchangeableness of the one, as that neither the increase nor
imperfection of the other may be able to assault or invalidate them.
There are, perhaps, no such laws peculiar to any one art. Their range
necessarily includes the entire horizon of man's action. But they have
modified forms and operations belonging to each of his pursuits, and the
extent of their authority cannot surely be considered as a diminution of
its weight. Those peculiar aspects of them which belong to the first of
the arts, I have endeavored to trace in the following pages; and since,
if truly stated, they must necessarily be, not only safeguards against
every form of error, but sources of every measure of success, I do not
think that I claim too much for them in calling them the Lamps of
Architecture, nor that it is indolence, in endeavoring to ascertain the
true nature and nobility of their fire, to refuse to enter into any
curious or special questioning of the innumerable hindrances by which
their light has been too often distorted or overpowered.
Had this farther examination been attempted, the work would have become
certainly more invidious, and perhaps less useful, as liable to errors
which are avoided by the present simplicity of its plan. Simple though
it be, its extent is too great to admit of any adequate accomplishment,
unless by a devotion of time which the writer did not feel justified in
withdrawing from branches of inquiry in which the prosecution of works
already undertaken has engaged him. Both arrangements and nomenclature
are those of convenience rather than of system; the one is arbitrary and
the other illogical: nor is it pretended that all, or even the greater
number of, the principles necessary to the well-being of the art, are
included in the inquiry. Many, however, of considerable importance will
be found to develope themselves incidentally from those more specially
brought forward.
Graver apology is necessary for an apparently graver fault. It has been
just said, that there is no branch of human work whose constant laws
have not close analogy with those which govern every other mode of man's
exertion. But, more than this, exactly as we reduce to greater
simplicity and surety any one group of these practical laws, we shall
find them passing the mere condition of connection or analogy, and
becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the
mighty laws which govern the moral world. However mean or inconsiderable
the act, there is something in the well doing of it, which has
fellowship with the noblest forms of manly virtue; and the truth,
decision, and temperance, which we reverently regard as honorable
conditions of the spiritual being, have a representative or derivative
influence over the works of the hand, the movements of the frame, and
the action of the intellect.
And as thus every action, down even to the drawing of a line or
utterance of a syllable, is capable of a peculiar dignity in the manner
of it, which we sometimes express by saying it is truly done (as a line
or tone is true), so also it is capable of dignity still higher in the
motive of it. For there is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may
be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore; nor is any purpose
so great but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to
help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing
of God. Hence George Herbert--
"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine."
Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or manner of
acting, we have choice of two separate lines of argument: one based on
representation of the expediency or inherent value of the work, which is
often small, and always disputable; the other based on proofs of its
relations to the higher orders of human virtue, and of its
acceptableness, so far as it goes, to Him who is the origin of virtue.
The former is commonly the more persuasive method, the latter assuredly
the more conclusive; only it is liable to give offence, as if there were
irreverence in adducing considerations so weighty in treating subjects
of small temporal importance. I believe, however, that no error is more
thoughtless than this. We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him
from our thoughts, not by referring to His will on slight occasions. His
is not the finite authority or intelligence which cannot be troubled
with small things. There is nothing so small but that we may honor God
by asking His guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own
hands; and what is true of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation.
We use it most reverently when most habitually: our insolence is in ever
acting without reference to it, our true honoring of it is in its
universal application. I have been blamed for the familiar introduction
of its sacred words. I am grieved to have given pain by so doing; but my
excuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of every
argument and the test of every action. We have them not often enough on
our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough in our
lives. The snow, the vapor, and the stormy wind fulfil His word. Are our
acts and thoughts lighter and wilder than these--that we should forget
it?
I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giving to some passages the
appearance of irreverence, to take the higher line of argument wherever
it appeared clearly traceable: and this, I would ask the reader
especially to observe, not merely because I think it the best mode of
reaching ultimate truth, still less because I think the subject of more
importance than many others; but because every subject should surely, at
a period like the present, be taken up in this spirit, or not at all.
The aspect of the years that approach us is as solemn as it is full of
mystery; and the weight of evil against which we have to contend, is
increasing like the letting out of water. It is no time for the idleness
of metaphysics, or the entertainment of the arts. The blasphemies of the
earth are sounding louder, and its miseries heaped heavier every day;
and if, in the midst of the exertion which every good man is called upon
to put forth for their repression or relief, it is lawful to ask for a
thought, for a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in any direction but
that of the immediate and overwhelming need, it is at least incumbent
upon us to approach the questions in which we would engage him, in the
spirit which has become the habit of his mind, and in the hope that
neither his zeal nor his usefulness may be checked by the withdrawal of
an hour which has shown him how even those things which seemed
mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend for their perfection
upon the acknowledgment of the sacred principles of faith, truth, and
obedience, for which it has become the occupation of his life to
contend.
THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE.
I. Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices
raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them contributes to
his mental health, power and pleasure.
It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to distinguish
carefully between Architecture and Building.
To build, literally to confirm, is by common understanding to put
together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a
considerable size. Thus we have church building, house building, ship
building, and coach building. That one edifice stands, another floats,
and another is suspended on iron springs, makes no difference in the
nature of the art, if so it may be called, of building or edification.
The persons who profess that art, are severally builders,
ecclesiastical, naval, or of whatever other name their work may justify;
but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of
what it erects; and it is no more architecture which raises a church, or
which fits it to receive and contain with comfort a required number of
persons occupied in certain religious offices, than it is architecture
which makes a carriage commodious or a ship swift. I do not, of course,
mean that the word is not often, or even may not be legitimately,
applied in such a sense (as we speak of naval architecture); but in that
sense architecture ceases to be one of the fine arts, and it is
therefore better not to run the risk, by loose nomenclature, of the
confusion which would arise, and has often arisen, from extending
principles which belong altogether to building, into the sphere of
architecture proper.
Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art which, taking up
and admitting, as conditions of its working, the necessities and common
uses of the building, impresses on its form certain characters venerable
or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary. Thus, I suppose, no one would
call the laws architectural which determine the height of a breastwork
or the position of a bastion. But if to the stone facing of that bastion
be added an unnecessary feature, as a cable moulding, _that_ is
Architecture. It would be similarly unreasonable to call battlements or
machicolations architectural features, so long as they consist only of
an advanced gallery supported on projecting masses, with open intervals
beneath for offence. But if these projecting masses be carved beneath
into rounded courses, which are useless, and if the headings of the
intervals be arched and trefoiled, which is useless, _that_ is
Architecture. It may not be always easy to draw the line so sharply and
simply, because there are few buildings which have not some pretence or
color of being architectural; neither can there be any architecture
which is not based on building, nor any good architecture which is not
based on good building; but it is perfectly easy and very necessary to
keep the ideas distinct, and to understand fully that Architecture
concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above
and beyond its common use. I say common; because a building raised to
the honor of God, or in memory of men, has surely a use to which its
architectural adornment fits it; but not a use which limits, by any
inevitable necessities, its plan or details.
II. Architecture proper, then, naturally arranges itself under five
heads:--
Devotional; including all buildings raised for God's service or honor.
Memorial; including both monuments and tombs.
Civil; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, for
purposes of common business or pleasure.
Military; including all private and public architecture of defence.
Domestic; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place.
Now, of the principles which I would endeavor to develope, while all
must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage and style of the art,
some, and especially those which are exciting rather than directing,
have necessarily fuller reference to one kind of building than another;
and among these I would place first that spirit which, having influence
in all, has nevertheless such especial reference to devotional and
memorial architecture--the spirit which offers for such work precious
things simply because they are precious; not as being necessary to the
building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of what is to
ourselves desirable. It seems to me, not only that this feeling is in
most cases wholly wanting in those who forward the devotional buildings
of the present day; but that it would even be regarded as an ignorant,
dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by many among us. I have not
space to enter into dispute of all the various objections which may be
urged against it--they are many and spacious; but I may, perhaps, ask
the reader's patience while I set down those simple reasons which cause
me to believe it a good and just feeling, and as well-pleasing to God
and honorable in men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the
production of any great work in the kind with which we are at present
concerned.
III. Now, first, to define this Lamp, or Spirit of Sacrifice, clearly. I
have said that it prompts us to the offering of precious things merely
because they are precious, not because they are useful or necessary. It
is a spirit, for instance, which of two marbles, equally beautiful,
applicable and durable, would choose the more costly because it was so,
and of two kinds of decoration, equally effective, would choose the more
elaborate because it was so, in order that it might in the same compass
present more cost and more thought. It is therefore most unreasoning and
enthusiastic, and perhaps best negatively defined, as the opposite of
the prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to produce the
largest results at the least cost.
Of this feeling, then, there are two distinct forms: the first, the wish
to exercise self-denial for the sake of self-discipline merely, a wish
acted upon in the abandonment of things loved or desired, there being no
direct call or purpose to be answered by so doing; and the second, the
desire to honor or please some one else by the costliness of the
sacrifice. The practice is, in the first case, either private or public;
but most frequently, and perhaps most properly, private; while, in the
latter case, the act is commonly, and with greatest advantage, public.
Now, it cannot but at first appear futile to assert the expediency of
self-denial for its own sake, when, for so many sakes, it is every day
necessary to a far greater degree than any of us practise it. But I
believe it is just because we do not enough acknowledge or contemplate
it as a good in itself, that we are apt to fail in its duties when they
become imperative, and to calculate, with some partiality, whether the
good proposed to others measures or warrants the amount of grievance to
ourselves, instead of accepting with gladness the opportunity of
sacrifice as a personal advantage. Be this as it may, it is not
necessary to insist upon the matter here; since there are always higher
and more useful channels of self-sacrifice, for those who choose to
practise it, than any connected with the arts.
While in its second branch, that which is especially concerned with the
arts, the justice of the feeling is still more doubtful; it depends on
our answer to the broad question, Can the Deity be indeed honored by the
presentation to Him of any material objects of value, or by any
direction of zeal or wisdom which is not immediately beneficial to men?
For, observe, it is not now the question whether the fairness and
majesty of a building may or may not answer any moral purpose; it is not
the _result_ of labor in any sort of which we are speaking, but the bare
and mere costliness--the substance and labor and time themselves: are
these, we ask, independently of their result, acceptable offerings to
God, and considered by Him as doing Him honor? So long as we refer this
question to the decision of feeling, or of conscience, or of reason
merely, it will be contradictorily or imperfectly answered; it admits of
entire answer only when we have met another and a far different
question, whether the Bible be indeed one book or two, and whether the
character of God revealed in the Old Testament be other than His
character revealed in the New.
IV. Now, it is a most secure truth, that, although the particular
ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at any given period
of man's history, may be by the same divine authority abrogated at
another, it is impossible that any character of God, appealed to or
described in any ordinance past or present, can ever be changed, or
understood as changed, by the abrogation of that ordinance. God is one
and the same, and is pleased or displeased by the same things for ever,
although one part of His pleasure may be expressed at one time rather
than another, and although the mode in which His pleasure is to be
consulted may be by Him graciously modified to the circumstances of men.
Thus, for instance, it was necessary that, in order to the understanding
by man of the scheme of Redemption, that scheme should be foreshown from
the beginning by the type of bloody sacrifice. But God had no more
pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of Moses than He has now; He
never accepted as a propitiation for sin any sacrifice but the single
one in prospective; and that we may not entertain any shadow of doubt on
this subject, the worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is
proclaimed at the very time when typical sacrifice was most imperatively
demanded. God was a spirit, and could be worshipped only in spirit and
in truth, as singly and exclusively when every day brought its claim of
typical and material service or offering, as now when He asks for none
but that of the heart.
So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure principle that, if in the
manner of performing any rite at any time, circumstances can be traced
which we are either told, or may legitimately conclude, _pleased_ God at
that time, those same circumstances will please Him at all times, in the
performance of all rites or offices to which they may be attached in
like manner; unless it has been afterwards revealed that, for some
special purpose, it is now His will that such circumstances should be
withdrawn. And this argument will have all the more force if it can be
shown that such conditions were not essential to the completeness of
the rite in its human uses and bearings, and only were added to it as
being in _themselves_ pleasing to God.
V. Now, was it necessary to the completeness, as a type, of the
Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as an explanation of divine
purposes, that it should cost anything to the person in whose behalf it
was offered? On the contrary, the sacrifice which it foreshowed was to
be God's free gift; and the cost of, or difficulty of obtaining, the
sacrificial type, could only render that type in a measure obscure, and
less expressive of the offering which God would in the end provide for
all men. Yet this costliness was _generally_ a condition of the
acceptableness of the sacrifice. "Neither will I offer unto the Lord my
God of that which doth cost me nothing."[B] That costliness, therefore,
must be an acceptable condition in all human offerings at all times; for
if it was pleasing to God once, it must please Him always, unless
directly forbidden by Him afterwards, which it has never been.
[B] 2 Sam. xxiv. 24. Deut. xvi. 16, 17.
Again, was it necessary to the typical perfection of the Levitical
offering, that it should be the best of the flock? Doubtless the
spotlessness of the sacrifice renders it more expressive to the
Christian mind; but was it because so expressive that it was actually,
and in so many words, demanded by God? Not at all. It was demanded by
Him expressly on the same grounds on which an earthly governor would
demand it, as a testimony of respect. "Offer it now unto thy
governor."[C] And the less valuable offering was rejected, not because
it did not image Christ, nor fulfil the purposes of sacrifice, but
because it indicated a feeling that would grudge the best of its
possessions to Him who gave them; and because it was a bold dishonoring
of God in the sight of man. Whence it may be infallibly concluded, that
in whatever offerings we may now see reason to present unto God (I say
not what these may be), a condition of their acceptableness will be now,
as it was then, that they should be the best of their kind.
[C] Mal. i. 8.
VI. But farther, was it necessary to the carrying out of the Mosaical
system, that there should be either art or splendor in the form or
services of the tabernacle or temple? Was it necessary to the
perfection of any one of their typical offices, that there should be
that hanging of blue, and purple, and scarlet? those taches of brass and
sockets of silver? that working in cedar and overlaying with gold? One
thing at least is evident: there was a deep and awful danger in it; a
danger that the God whom they so worshipped, might be associated in the
minds of the serfs of Egypt with the gods to whom they had seen similar
gifts offered and similar honors paid. The probability, in our times, of
fellowship with the feelings of the idolatrous Romanist is absolutely as
nothing compared with the danger to the Israelite of a sympathy with the
idolatrous Egyptian;[1] no speculative, no unproved danger; but proved
fatally by their fall during a month's abandonment to their own will; a
fall into the most servile idolatry; yet marked by such offerings to
their idol as their leader was, in the close sequel, instructed to bid
them offer to God. This danger was imminent, perpetual, and of the most
awful kind: it was the one against which God made provision, not only by
commandments, by threatenings, by promises, the most urgent, repeated,
and impressive; but by temporary ordinances of a severity so terrible as
almost to dim for a time, in the eyes of His people, His attribute of
mercy. The principal object of every instituted law of that Theocracy,
of every judgment sent forth in its vindication, was to mark to the
people His hatred of idolatry; a hatred written under their advancing
steps, in the blood of the Canaanite, and more sternly still in the
darkness of their own desolation, when the children and the sucklings
swooned in the streets of Jerusalem, and the lion tracked his prey in
the dust of Samaria.[D] Yet against this mortal danger provision was not
made in one way (to man's thoughts the simplest, the most natural, the
most effective), by withdrawing from the worship of the Divine Being
whatever could delight the sense, or shape the imagination, or limit the
idea of Deity to place. This one way God refused, demanding for Himself
such honors, and accepting for Himself such local dwelling, as had been
paid and dedicated to idol gods by heathen worshippers; and for what
reason? Was the glory of the tabernacle necessary to set forth or image
His divine glory to the minds of His people? What! purple or scarlet
necessary to the people who had seen the great river of Egypt run
scarlet to the sea, under His condemnation? What! golden lamp and cherub
necessary for those who had seen the fires of heaven falling like a
mantle on Mount Sinai, and its golden courts opened to receive their
mortal lawgiver? What! silver clasp and fillet necessary when they had
seen the silver waves of the Red Sea clasp in their arched hollows the
corpses of the horse and his rider? Nay--not so. There was but one
reason, and that an eternal one; that as the covenant that He made with
men was accompanied with some external sign of its continuance, and of
His remembrance of it, so the acceptance of that covenant might be
marked and signified by use, in some external sign of their love and
obedience, and surrender of themselves and theirs to His will; and that
their gratitude to Him, and continual remembrance of Him, might have at
once their expression and their enduring testimony in the presentation
to Him, not only of the firstlings of the herd and fold, not only of the
fruits of the earth and the tithe of time, but of all treasures of
wisdom and beauty; of the thought that invents, and the hand that
labors; of wealth of wood, and weight of stone; of the strength of iron,
and of the light of gold.
[D] Lam. ii. 11. 2 Kings xvii. 25.
And let us not now lose sight of this broad and unabrogated principle--I
might say, incapable of being abrogated, so long as men shall receive
earthly gifts from God. Of all that they have His tithe must be rendered
to Him, or in so far and in so much He is forgotten: of the skill and of
the treasure, of the strength and of the mind, of the time and of the
toil, offering must be made reverently; and if there be any difference
between the Levitical and the Christian offering, it is that the latter
may be just so much the wider in its range as it is less typical in its
meaning, as it is thankful instead of sacrificial. There can be no
excuse accepted because the Deity does not now visibly dwell in His
temple; if He is invisible it is only through our failing faith: nor any
excuse because other calls are more immediate or more sacred; this
ought to be done, and not the other left undone. Yet this objection, as
frequent as feeble, must be more specifically answered.
VII. It has been said--it ought always to be said, for it is true--that
a better and more honorable offering is made to our Master in ministry
to the poor, in extending the knowledge of His name, in the practice of
the virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material presents to
His temple. Assuredly it is so: woe to all who think that any other kind
or manner of offering may in any wise take the place of these! Do the
people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word? Then it is no
time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits; let us have enough first
of walls and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, and
bread from day to day? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not
architects. I insist on this, I plead for this; but let us examine
ourselves, and see if this be indeed the reason for our backwardness in
the lesser work. The question is not between God's house and His poor:
it is not between God's house and His Gospel. It is between God's house
and ours. Have we no tesselated colors on our floors? no frescoed
fancies on our roofs? no niched statuary in our corridors? no gilded
furniture in our chambers? no costly stones in our cabinets? Has even
the tithe of these been offered? They are, or they ought to be, the
signs that enough has been devoted to the great purposes of human
stewardship, and that there remains to us what we can spend in luxury;
but there is a greater and prouder luxury than this selfish one--that of
bringing a portion of such things as these into sacred service, and
presenting them for a memorial[E] that our pleasure as well as our toil
has been hallowed by the remembrance of Him who gave both the strength
and the reward. And until this has been done, I do not see how such
possessions can be retained in happiness. I do not understand the
feeling which would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, and
leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill; the feeling
which enriches our own chambers with all manner of costliness, and
endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. There is seldom
even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so much self-denial to be
exercised. There are isolated cases, in which men's happiness and mental
activity depend upon a certain degree of luxury in their houses; but
then this is true luxury, felt and tasted, and profited by. In the
plurality of instances nothing of the kind is attempted, nor can be
enjoyed; men's average resources cannot reach it; and that which they
_can_ reach, gives them no pleasure, and might be spared. It will be
seen, in the course of the following chapters, that I am no advocate for
meanness of private habitation. I would fain introduce into it all
magnificence, care, and beauty, where they are possible; but I would not
have that useless expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities;
cornicings of ceilings and graining of doors, and fringing of curtains,
and thousands such; things which have become foolishly and apathetically
habitual--things on whose common appliance hang whole trades, to which
there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray of real
pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most contemptible use--things
which cause half the expense of life, and destroy more than half its
comfort, manliness, respectability, freshness, and facility. I speak
from experience: I know what it is to live in a cottage with a deal
floor and roof, and a hearth of mica slate; and I know it to be in many
respects healthier and happier than living between a Turkey carpet and
gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. I do not say
that such things have not their place and propriety; but I say this,
emphatically, that the tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in
domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaninglessly lost in domestic
discomforts, and incumbrances, would, if collectively offered and wisely
employed, build a marble church for every town in England; such a church
as it should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our daily ways
and walks, and as it would bring the light into the eyes to see from
afar, lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of humble roofs.
[E] Num. xxxi. 54. Psa. lxxvi. 11.
VIII. I have said for every town: I do not want a marble church for
every village; nay, I do not want marble churches at all for their own
sake, but for the sake of the spirit that would build them. The church
has no need of any visible splendors; her power is independent of them,
her purity is in some degree opposed to them. The simplicity of a
pastoral sanctuary is lovelier than the majesty of an urban temple; and
it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has
ever been the source of any increase of effective piety; but to the
builders it has been, and must ever be. It is not the church we want,
but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of
adoration: not the gift, but the giving.[2] And see how much more
charity the full understanding of this might admit, among classes of men
of naturally opposite feelings; and how much more nobleness in the work.
There is no need to offend by importunate, self-proclaiming splendor.
Your gift may be given in an unpresuming way. Cut one or two shafts out
of a porphyry whose preciousness those only would know who would desire
it to be so used; add another month's labor to the undercutting of a few
capitals, whose delicacy will not be seen nor loved by one beholder of
ten thousand; see that the simplest masonry of the edifice be perfect
and substantial; and to those who regard such things, their witness will
be clear and impressive; to those who regard them not, all will at least
be inoffensive. But do not think the feeling itself a folly, or the act
itself useless. Of what use was that dearly-bought water of the well of
Bethlehem with which the King of Israel slaked the dust of Adullam?--yet
was not thus better than if he had drunk it? Of what use was that
passionate act of Christian sacrifice, against which, first uttered by
the false tongue, the very objection we would now conquer took a sullen
tone for ever?[F] So also let us not ask of what use our offering is to
the church: it is at least better for _us_ than if it had been retained
for ourselves. It may be better for others also: there is, at any rate,
a chance of this; though we must always fearfully and widely shun the
thought that the magnificence of the temple can materially add to the
efficiency of the worship or to the power of the ministry. Whatever we
do, or whatever we offer, let it not interfere with the simplicity of
the one, or abate, as if replacing, the zeal of the other. That is the
abuse and fallacy of Romanism, by which the true spirit of Christian
offering is directly contradicted. The treatment of the Papists' temple
is eminently exhibitory; it is surface work throughout; and the danger
and evil of their church decoration lie, not in its reality--not in the
true wealth and art of it, of which the lower people are never
cognizant--but in its tinsel and glitter, in the gilding of the shrine
and painting of the image, in embroidery of dingy robes and crowding of
imitated gems; all this being frequently thrust forward to the
concealment of what is really good or great in their buildings.[3] Of an
offering of gratitude which is neither to be exhibited nor rewarded,
which is neither to win praise nor purchase salvation, the Romanist (as
such) has no conception.
[F] John xii. 5.
IX. While, however, I would especially deprecate the imputation of any
other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift itself than that which it
receives from the spirit of its presentation, it may be well to observe,
that there is a lower advantage which never fails to accompany a dutiful
observance of any right abstract principle. While the first fruits of
his possessions were required from the Israelite as a testimony of
fidelity, the payment of those first fruits was nevertheless rewarded,
and that connectedly and specifically, by the increase of those
possessions. Wealth, and length of days, and peace, were the promised
and experienced rewards of his offering, though they were not to be the
objects of it. The tithe paid into the storehouse was the expressed
condition of the blessing which there should not be room enough to
receive. And it will be thus always: God never forgets any work or labor
of love; and whatever it may be of which the first and best proportions
or powers have been presented to Him, he will multiply and increase
sevenfold. Therefore, though it may not be necessarily the interest of
religion to admit the service of the arts, the arts will never flourish
until they have been primarily devoted to that service--devoted, both by
architect and employer; by the one in scrupulous, earnest, affectionate
design; by the other in expenditure at least more frank, at least less
calculating, than that which he would admit in the indulgence of his own
private feelings. Let this principle be but once fairly acknowledged
among us; and however it may be chilled and repressed in practice,
however feeble may be its real influence, however the sacredness of it
may be diminished by counter-workings of vanity and self-interest, yet
its mere acknowledgment would bring a reward; and with our present
accumulation of means and of intellect, there would be such an impulse
and vitality given to art as it has not felt since the thirteenth
century. And I do not assert this as other than a national consequence:
I should, indeed, expect a larger measure of every great and spiritual
faculty to be always given where those faculties had been wisely and
religiously employed; but the impulse to which I refer, would be,
humanly speaking, certain; and would naturally result from obedience to
the two great conditions enforced by the Spirit of Sacrifice, first,
that we should in everything do our best; and, secondly, that we should
consider increase of apparent labor as an increase of beauty in the
building. A few practical deductions from these two conditions, and I
have done.
X. For the first: it is alone enough to secure success, and it is for
want of observing it that we continually fail. We are none of us so good
architects as to be able to work habitually beneath our strength; and
yet there is not a building that I know of, lately raised, wherein it is
not sufficiently evident that neither architect nor builder has done his
best. It is the especial characteristic of modern work. All old work
nearly has been hard work. It may be the hard work of children, of
barbarians, of rustics; but it is always their utmost. Ours has as
constantly the look of money's worth, of a stopping short wherever and
whenever we can, of a lazy compliance with low conditions; never of a
fair putting forth of our strength. Let us have done with this kind of
work at once: cast off every temptation to it: do not let us degrade
ourselves voluntarily, and then mutter and mourn over our short comings;
let us confess our poverty or our parsimony, but not belie our human
intellect. It is not even a question of how _much_ we are to do, but of
how it is to be done; it is not a question of doing more, but of doing
better. Do not let us boss our roofs with wretched, half-worked,
blunt-edged rosettes; do not let us flank our gates with rigid
imitations of mediaeval statuary. Such things are mere insults to common
sense, and only unfit us for feeling the nobility of their prototypes.
We have so much, suppose, to be spent in decoration; let us go to the
Flaxman of his time, whoever he may be, and bid him carve for us a
single statue, frieze or capital, or as many as we can afford,
compelling upon him the one condition, that they shall be the best he
can do; place them where they will be of the most value, and be content.
Our other capitals may be mere blocks, and our other niches empty. No
matter: better our work unfinished than all bad. It may be that we do
not desire ornament of so high an order; choose, then, a less developed
style, also, if you will, rougher material; the law which we are
enforcing requires only that what we pretend to do and to give, shall
both be the best of their kind; choose, therefore, the Norman hatchet
work, instead of the Flaxman frieze and statue, but let it be the best
hatchet work; and if you cannot afford marble, use Caen stone, but from
the best bed; and if not stone, brick, but the best brick; preferring
always what is good of a lower order of work or material, to what is bad
of a higher; for this is not only the way to improve every kind of work,
and to put every kind of material to better use; but it is more honest
and unpretending, and is in harmony with other just, upright, and manly
principles, whose range we shall have presently to take into
consideration.
XI. The other condition which we had to notice, was the value of the
appearance of labor upon architecture. I have spoken of this before;[G]
and it is, indeed, one of the most frequent sources of pleasure which
belong to the art, always, however, within certain somewhat remarkable
limits. For it does not at first appear easily to be explained why
labor, as represented by materials of value, should, without sense of
wrong or error, bear being wasted; while the waste of actual
workmanship is always painful, so soon as it is apparent. But so it is,
that, while precious materials may, with a certain profusion and
negligence, be employed for the magnificence of what is seldom seen, the
work of man cannot be carelessly and idly bestowed, without an immediate
sense of wrong; as if the strength of the living creature were never
intended by its Maker to be sacrificed in vain, though it is well for us
sometimes to part with what we esteem precious of substance, as showing
that in such a service it becomes but dross and dust. And in the nice
balance between the straitening of effort or enthusiasm on the one hand,
and vainly casting it away upon the other, there are more questions than
can be met by any but very just and watchful feeling. In general it is
less the mere loss of labor that offends us, than the lack of judgment
implied by such loss; so that if men confessedly work for work's sake,
and it does not appear that they are ignorant where or how to make their
labor tell, we shall not be grossly offended. On the contrary, we shall
be pleased if the work be lost in carrying out a principle, or in
avoiding a deception. It, indeed, is a law properly belonging to another
part of our subject, but it may be allowably stated here, that,
whenever, by the construction of a building, some parts of it are hidden
from the eye which are the continuation of others bearing some
consistent ornament, it is not well that the ornament should cease in
the parts concealed; credit is given for it, and it should not be
deceptively withdrawn: as, for instance, in the sculpture of the backs
of the statues of a temple pediment; never, perhaps, to be seen, but yet
not lawfully to be left unfinished. And so in the working out of
ornaments in dark concealed places, in which it is best to err on the
side of completion; and in the carrying round of string courses, and
other such continuous work; not but that they may stop sometimes, on the
point of going into some palpably impenetrable recess, but then let them
stop boldly and markedly, on some distinct terminal ornament, and never
be supposed to exist where they do not. The arches of the towers which
flank the transepts of Rouen Cathedral have rosette ornaments on their
spandrils, on the three visible sides; none on the side towards the
roof. The right of this is rather a nice point for question.
[G] Mod. Painters, Part I. Sec. 1, Chap. 3.
XII. Visibility, however, we must remember, depends, not only on
situation, but on distance; and there is no way in which work is more
painfully and unwisely lost than in its over delicacy on parts distant
from the eye. Here, again, the principle of honesty must govern our
treatment: we must not work any kind of ornament which is, perhaps, to
cover the whole building (or at least to occur on all parts of it)
delicately where it is near the eye, and rudely where it is removed from
it. That is trickery and dishonesty. Consider, first, what kinds of
ornaments will tell in the distance and what near, and so distribute
them, keeping such as by their nature are delicate, down near the eye,
and throwing the bold and rough kinds of work to the top; and if there
be any kind which is to be both near and far off, take care that it be
as boldly and rudely wrought where it is well seen as where it is
distant, so that the spectator may know exactly what it is, and what it
is worth. Thus chequered patterns, and in general such ornaments as
common workmen can execute, may extend over the whole building; but
bas-reliefs, and fine niches and capitals, should be kept down, and the
common sense of this will always give a building dignity, even though
there be some abruptness or awkwardness, in the resulting arrangements.
Thus at San Zeno at Verona, the bas-reliefs, full of incident and
interest are confined to a parallelogram of the front, reaching to the
height of the capitals of the columns of the porch. Above these, we find
a simple though most lovely, little arcade; and above that, only blank
wall, with square face shafts. The whole effect is tenfold grander and
better than if the entire facade had been covered with bad work, and may
serve for an example of the way to place little where we cannot afford
much. So, again, the transept gates of Rouen[H] are covered with
delicate bas-reliefs (of which I shall speak at greater length
presently) up to about once and a half a man's height; and above that
come the usual and more visible statues and niches. So in the campanile
at Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its lowest story; above
that come its statues; and above them all its pattern mosaic, and
twisted columns, exquisitely finished, like all Italian work of the
time, but still, in the eye of the Florentine, rough and commonplace by
comparison with the bas-reliefs. So generally the most delicate niche
work and best mouldings of the French Gothic are in gates and low
windows well within sight; although, it being the very spirit of that
style to trust to its exuberance for effect, there is occasionally a
burst upwards and blossoming unrestrainably to the sky, as in the
pediment of the west front of Rouen, and in the recess of the rose
window behind it, where there are some most elaborate flower-mouldings,
all but invisible from below, and only adding a general enrichment to
the deep shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. It is
observable, however, that this very work is bad flamboyant, and has
corrupt renaissance characters in its detail as well as use; while in
the earlier and grander north and south gates, there is a very noble
proportioning of the work to the distance, the niches and statues which
crown the northern one, at a height of about one hundred feet from the
ground, being alike colossal and simple; visibly so from below, so as to
induce no deception, and yet honestly and well-finished above, and all
that they are expected to be; the features very beautiful, full of
expression, and as delicately wrought as any work of the period.
[H] Henceforward, for the sake of convenience, when I name any
cathedral town in this manner, let me be understood to speak of its
cathedral church.
XIII. It is to be remembered, however, that while the ornaments in every
fine ancient building, without exception so far as I am aware, are most
delicate at the base, they are often in greater effective _quantity_ on
the upper parts. In high towers this is perfectly natural and right, the
solidity of the foundation being as necessary as the division and
penetration of the superstructure; hence the lighter work and richly
pierced crowns of late Gothic towers. The campanile of Giotto at
Florence, already alluded to, is an exquisite instance of the union of
the two principles, delicate bas-reliefs adorning its massy foundation,
while the open tracery of the upper windows attracts the eye by its
slender intricacy, and a rich cornice crowns the whole. In such truly
fine cases of this disposition the upper work is effective by its
quantity and intricacy only, as the lower portions by delicacy; so also
in the Tour de Beurre at Rouen, where, however, the detail is massy
throughout, subdividing into rich meshes as it ascends. In the bodies of
buildings the principle is less safe, but its discussion is not
connected with our present subject.
XIV. Finally, work may be wasted by being too good for its material, or
too fine to bear exposure; and this, generally a characteristic of late,
especially of renaissance, work, is perhaps the worst fault of all. I do
not know anything more painful or pitiful than the kind of ivory carving
with which the Certosa of Pavia, and part of the Colleone sepulchral
chapel at Bergamo, and other such buildings, are incrusted, of which it
is not possible so much as to think without exhaustion; and a heavy
sense of the misery it would be, to be forced to look at it at all. And
this is not from the quantity of it, nor because it is bad work--much of
it is inventive and able; but because it looks as if it were only fit to
be put in inlaid cabinets and velveted caskets, and as if it could not
bear one drifting shower or gnawing frost. We are afraid for it, anxious
about it, and tormented by it; and we feel that a massy shaft and a bold
shadow would be worth it all. Nevertheless, even in cases like these,
much depends on the accomplishment of the great ends of decoration. If
the ornament does its duty--if it _is_ ornament, and its points of shade
and light tell in the general effect, we shall not be offended by
finding that the sculptor in his fulness of fancy has chosen to give
much more than these mere points of light, and has composed them of
groups of figures. But if the ornament does not answer its purpose, if
it have no distant, no truly decorative power; if generally seen it be a
mere incrustation and meaningless roughness, we shall only be chagrined
by finding when we look close, that the incrustation has cost years of
labor and has millions of figures and histories in it and would be
the better of being seen through a Stanhope lens. Hence the greatness of
the northern Gothic as contrasted with the latest Italian. It reaches
nearly the same extreme of detail; but it never loses sight of its
architectural purpose, never fails in its decorative power; not a
leaflet in it but speaks, and speaks far off, too; and so long as this
be the case, there is no limit to the luxuriance in which such work may
legitimately and nobly be bestowed.
[Illustration: PLATE I.--(Page 33--Vol. V)
ORNAMENTS FROM ROUEN, ST. LO, AND VENICE.]
XV. No limit: it is one of the affectations of architects to speak of
overcharged ornament. Ornament cannot be overcharged if it be good, and
is always overcharged when it is bad. I have given, on the opposite page
(fig. 1), one of the smallest niches of the central gate of Rouen. That
gate I suppose to be the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant work
existing; for though I have spoken of the upper portions, especially the
receding window, as degenerate, the gate itself is of a purer period,
and has hardly any renaissance taint. There are four strings of these
niches (each with two figures beneath it) round the porch, from the
ground to the top of the arch, with three intermediate rows of larger
niches, far more elaborate; besides the six principal canopies of each
outer pier. The total number of the subordinate niches alone, each
worked like that in the plate, and each with a different pattern of
traceries in each compartment, is one hundred and seventy-six.[4] Yet in
all this ornament there is not one cusp, one finial that is useless--not
a stroke of the chisel is in vain; the grace and luxuriance of it all
are visible--sensible rather--even to the uninquiring eye; and all its
minuteness does not diminish the majesty, while it increases the
mystery, of the noble and unbroken vault. It is not less the boast of
some styles that they can bear ornament, than of others that they can do
without it; but we do not often enough reflect that those very styles,
of so haughty simplicity, owe part of their pleasurableness to contrast,
and would be wearisome if universal. They are but the rests and
monotones of the art; it is to its far happier, far higher, exaltation
that we owe those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild
fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever
filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates, trellised with
close leaves; those window-labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry
light; those misty masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower;
the only witnesses, perhaps that remain to us of the faith and fear of
nations. All else for which the builders sacrificed, has passed
away--all their living interests, and aims, and achievements. We know
not for what they labored, and we see no evidence of their reward.
Victory, wealth, authority, happiness--all have departed, though bought
by many a bitter sacrifice. But of them, and their life, and their toil
upon the earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray
heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave
their powers, their honors, and their errors; but they have left us
their adoration.