RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE AND NORTH EUROPE.
CHRONOLOGICAL SKETCH.
The revived classic architecture came direct from Italy, and did not
reach France till it had been well established in the land of its
origin. It was not however received with the same welcome which hailed
its appearance in Italy. Gothic architecture had a strong hold on
France, and accordingly, instead of a sudden change, we meet with a
period of transition, during which buildings were erected with
features partly Gothic and partly Renaissance, and on varied
principles of design.
French Renaissance underwent great fluctuations, and it is less easy
to divide it into broad periods than to refer, as most French writers
prefer to do, to the work of each prominent monarch's reign
separately.
Francis the First (1515-1547) made the architecture of Italy
fashionable in his kingdom, and his name is borne by the beautiful
transitional style of his day. This in most cases retains some Gothic
forms, and the principles of composition are in the main Gothic, but
the features are mostly of Italian origin, though handled with a
fineness of detail and a smallness of scale that is not often met
with, even in early Italian Renaissance. There are few buildings more
charming in the architecture of any age or country than the best
specimens of the style of Francis the First, and none that can bear so
much decoration and yet remain so little overladen by the ornaments
they carry. The finest example is the Chateau of Chambord, a large
building, nearly square on plan, with round corner towers, capped by
simple and very steep roofs, at the angles; and having as its central
feature, a large and lofty mass of towers, windows and arcades,
surmounted by steep roofs, ending in a kind of huge lantern. The
windows have mullions and transoms like Gothic windows, but pilasters
of elegant Renaissance design ornament the walls. The main cornice is
a kind of compromise between an Italian and a Gothic treatment. Dormer
windows, high and sharply pointed, but with little pilasters and
pediments as their ornaments, occur constantly; and the chimneys,
which are of immense mass and great height, are panelled profusely,
and almost ostentatiously displayed, especially on the central
portion. In the interior of the central building is a famous
staircase; but the main attractions are the bright and animated
appearance of the whole exterior, and the richness and gracefulness of
the details.
The same architecture is to be well seen in the north side of the
famous Chateau of Blois--a building parts of which were executed in
three different periods of French architecture. The exterior of the
_Francois premier_ part of Blois is irregular, and portions of the
design are wildly picturesque; on the side which fronts towards the
quadrangle, the architecture is more symmetrically designed, and
beauty rather than picturesque effect has been aimed at. An open
staircase is the part of the quadrangle upon which most care has been
lavished. Throughout the whole block of buildings the character of
each individual feature and of every combination of features is
graceful and _piquant_. The elegance and delicacy of some of the
carved decoration in the interior is unsurpassed.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--WINDOW FROM A HOUSE AT ORLEANS. (EARLY
16TH CENTURY.)]
In the valley of the Loire there exist many noblemen's chateaux of
this date, corresponding in general character with Chambord and Blois,
though on a smaller scale. Of these Chenonceaux, fortunate alike in
its design and its situation, is the most elegant and the best known:
yet many others exist which approach it closely, such, for example, as
the Chateau de Gaillon--a fragment of which forms part of the Ecole
des Beaux Arts at Paris--the Hotel de Ville of Beaugency, the Chateaux
of Chateaudun, Azay-le-Rideau, La Cote, and Usse; the Hotel d'Anjou at
Angers, and the house of Agnes Sorel at Orleans.
In the streets of Orleans houses of this date (Fig. 71) are to be
found, showing the style cleverly adapted to the requirements of town
dwellings and shops. Several of them also possess courtyards with
arcades or other architectural features treated with great freedom and
beauty, for instance, the arcades in the house of _Francois Premier_
(Fig. 72). An arcade in the courtyard of the Gothic Hotel de
Bourgtherould at Rouen, is one of the best known examples of the style
remaining, and instances of it may be met with as far apart as at Caen
(east end of church of St. Pierre) and Toulouse (parts of St. Sernin).
One Paris church, that of St. Eustache, belonging to this transitional
period claims mention, since for boldness and completeness it is one
of the best of any date in that city. St. Eustache is a five-aisled
church with an apse, transept, and lateral chapels outside the outer
aisle. It is vaulted throughout, and its plan and structure are those
of a Gothic church in all respects. Its details are however all
Renaissance, but not so good as those to be found at Blois, nor so
appropriately used, yet notwithstanding this it has a singularly
impressive interior.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--CAPITAL FROM THE HOUSE OF FRANCIS I.,
ORLEANS. (1540.)]
Meantime, and alongside the buildings resulting from this fusion of
styles, others which were almost direct importations from Italy were
rising; in some cases, if not in all, under the direction of Italian
architects. Thus on Fontainebleau, which Francis I. erected, three or
four Italian architects, one of whom was Vignola, were engaged. It may
or may not have been this connection of the great architect with this
work which gave him influence in France, but certainly almost the
whole of the later French Renaissance, or at any rate its good time,
was marked by a conformity to the practice of Vignola, in whose
designs we usually find one order of columns or pilasters for each
storey, rather than to that of Palladio, whose use of tall columns
equalling in height two or more floors of the building has been
already noticed.
Designs for the Louvre, the rebuilding of which was commenced in the
reign of Francis the First (about A.D. 1544), were made by Serlio, an
Italian; and though Pierre Lescot was the architect of the portion
built in that reign, it is probable that the design obtained from
Serlio was in the main followed. The part then finished, which, to a
certain extent gave the keynote to the whole of this vast building,
was unquestionably a happy effort, and may be taken to mark the
establishment of a French version of matured Renaissance architecture.
The main building has two orders of pilasters with cornices, &c., and
above them a low attic storey, with short piers: at the angles a
taller pavilion was introduced, and next the quadrangle arcades are
introduced between the pilasters. The sculpture, some of it at least,
is from the chisel of Jean Goujon; it is good and well placed, and the
whole has an air of dignity and richness. The _Pavillon Richelieu_,
shewn in our engraving (Fig. 73), was not built till the next century.
The colossal figures are by Barye.
A little later in date than the early part of the Louvre was the Hotel
de Ville, built from the designs of Pietro da Cortona, an Italian, and
said to have been begun in 1549. The building had been greatly
extended before its recent total destruction by fire, but the central
part, which was the original portion, was a fine vigorous composition,
having two lofty pavilions, with high roofs at the extremities, and
a remarkably rich stone lantern of great height for a central feature.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--PAVILLON RICHELIEU OF THE LOUVRE, PARIS.]
In the reign of Charles IX. the Palace of the Tuileries was commenced
(1564) for Catherine de Medicis, from the designs of Philibert
Delorme. Of this building, that part only which fronted the garden was
erected at the time. Our illustration (Fig. 74) shows the
architectural character of a portion of it, and it is easy to detect
that considerable alterations have by this time been introduced into
the treatment of the features of Renaissance architecture. The bands
of rustication passing round the pilasters as well as the walls, the
broken pediments on the upper storey, surmounted by figures, and
supported by long carved pilasters, and the shape of the dormer
windows are all of them quite foreign to Renaissance architecture as
practised in Italy, and may be looked upon as essentially French
features. Similar details were employed in the work executed at about
the same period, by the same and other architects, in other buildings,
as may be seen by our illustration (Fig. 75) of a portion of Delorme's
work at the Louvre. In these features, which may be found in the
Chateau d'Anet and other works of the same time, and in the style to
which they belong, may be seen the direct result of Michelangelo's
Medici Chapel at Florence, a work which had much more effect on French
than on Italian architecture. The full development of the architecture
of Michelangelo (or rather the ornamental portions of it) is to be
found in French Renaissance, rather than in the works of his own
successors in Italy.
Much of the late sixteenth century architecture of France was very
inferior, and the parts of the Louvre and Tuileries which date from
the reign of Henry IV. are the least satisfactory portions of those
vast piles.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--PART OF THE TUILERIES, PARIS. (BEGUN 1564.)]
Dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, we have the
Palais Royal built for Richelieu, and the Palace of the Luxembourg, a
building perhaps more correct and quiet than original or beautiful,
but against which the reproach of extravagant ornament cannot
certainly be brought.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--CAPITAL FROM DELORME'S WORK AT THE LOUVRE.
(MIDDLE OF 16TH CENTURY.)]
With Louis the Fourteenth (1643 to 1715) came in a great building
period, of which the most striking memorial is the vast and
uninteresting Palace of Versailles. The architect was the younger
Mansard (1647 to 1768), and the vastness of the scale upon which he
worked only makes his failure to rise to his grand opportunity the
more conspicuous. The absence of features to diversify the sky-line is
one of the greatest defects of this building, a defect the less
excusable as the high-pitched roof of Gothic origin had never been
abandoned in France. This roof has been employed with great success in
many buildings of the French Renaissance. Apart from this fault, the
architectural features of Versailles are so monotonous, weak, and
uninteresting that the building, though its size may astonish the
spectator, seldom rouses admiration.
Far better is the eastern block of the Louvre (the portion facing the
Place du Louvre), though here also we find the absence of high roofs,
and the consequent monotony of the sky-line--a defect attaching to
hardly any other portion of the building. Bernini was invited from
Italy for this work, and there is a curious story in one of Sir
Christopher Wren's published letters of an interview he had with
Bernini while the latter was in Paris on this business, and of the
glimpse which he was allowed to enjoy of the design the Italian had
made. The building was, however, after all, designed and carried out
by Perrault, and, though somewhat severe, possesses great beauty and
much of that dignity in which Versailles is wanting.
The best French work of this epoch to be found in or out of Paris is
probably the Hotel des Invalides (Fig. 76), with its fine central
feature. This is crowned by the most striking dome in Paris, one which
takes rank as second only in Europe to our own St. Paul's, for beauty
of form and appropriateness of treatment. The two domes are indeed
somewhat alike in general outline.
The reign of Louis XIV. witnessed a large amount of building
throughout France, as well as in the metropolis, and to the same
period we must refer an enormous amount of lavish decoration in the
interior of buildings, the taste of which is to our eyes painfully
extravagant. Purer taste on the whole prevailed, if not in the reign
of Louis XV. certainly in that of Louis XVI., to which period much
really good decorative work, and some successful architecture belongs.
The chief building of the latter part of the eighteenth century is the
Pantheon (Ste. Genevieve), the best domed church in France, and one
which must always take a high rank among Renaissance buildings of any
age or country. The architect was Soufflot, and his ambition, like
that of the old Gothic masons, was not only to produce a work of art,
but a feat of skill; his design accordingly provided a smaller area of
walls and piers compared with the total floor space than any other
Renaissance church, or indeed than any great church, except a few of
the very best specimens of late Gothic construction, such for example
as King's College Chapel. The result has been that the fabric has not
been quite stout enough to bear the weight of the dome, and that it
has required to be tied and propped and strengthened in various ways
from time to time. The plan of the Pantheon is a Greek cross, with a
short vestibule, and a noble portico at the west, and a choir
corresponding to the vestibule on the east. It has a fine central
dome, which is excellently seen from many points of view externally,
and forms the principal feature of the very effective interior. Each
arm of the building is covered by a flat domical vault; a single order
of pilasters and columns runs quite round the interior of the church
occupying the entire height of the walls; and the light is admitted in
a most successful manner by large semicircular windows at the upper
part of the church, starting above the cornice of the order.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--L'EGLISE DES INVALIDES, PARIS. BY J. H.
MANSARD. (BEGUN A.D. 1645.)]
One other work of the eighteenth century challenges the admiration
of every visitor to Paris and must not be overlooked, because it is at
once a specimen of architecture and of that skilful if formal
arrangement of streets and public places in combination with buildings
which the French have carried so far in the present century. We allude
to the two blocks of buildings, occupied as government offices, which
front to the Place de la Concorde and stand at the corner of the Rue
Royale. They are the work of Gabriel (1710-1782), and are justly
admired as dignified if a little heavy and uninteresting. As specimens
of architecture these buildings, with the Pantheon, are enough to
establish a high character for French art at a time when in most other
European countries the standard of taste had fallen to a very low
level.
The hotels (_i.e._ town mansions) and chateaux of the French nobility
furnish a series of examples, showing the successive styles of almost
every part of the Renaissance period. The phases of the style,
subsequent to that of Francis the First, can however, be so well
illustrated by public buildings in Paris, that it will be hardly
necessary to go through a list of private residences however
commanding; but the Chateau of Maisons, and the Royal Chateau of
Fontainebleau, may be named as specimens of a class of building which
shows the capacity of the Renaissance style when freely treated.
Renaissance buildings in France are distinguished by their large
extent and the ample space which has been in many instances secured in
connection with them. They are rarely of great height or imposing mass
like the early Italian palaces. For the most part they are a good deal
broken up, the surface of the walls is much covered by architectural
features, not usually on a large scale, so that the impression of
extent which really belongs to them is intensified by the treatment
which their architects have adopted.
Orders are frequently introduced and usually correspond with the
storeys of the building. However this may be the storeys are always
well marked. The sky-line also is generally picturesque and telling,
though Versailles and the work of Lescot at the Louvre form an
exception. Rustication is not much employed, and the vast but simple
crowning cornices of the Italian palaces are never made use of. Narrow
fronts like those at Venice, and open arcades or loggias like those of
Genoa, do not form features of French Renaissance buildings; but on
the other hand, much richness, and many varieties of treatment which
the Italians never attempted, were tried, and as a rule successfully,
in France.
Much good sculpture is employed in external enrichments, and a
cultivated if often luxuriant taste is always shown. Many of the
interiors are rich with carving, gilding, and mirrors, but harmonious
coloured decoration is rare, and the fine and costly mosaics of Italy
are almost unknown.
BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS.
These countries afford but few examples of Renaissance. The Town Hall
at Antwerp, an interesting building of the sixteenth century, and the
Church of St. Anne at Bruges, are the most conspicuous buildings; and
there are other churches in the style which are characteristic, and
parts of which are really fine. The interiors of some of the town
halls display fittings of Renaissance character, often rich and
fanciful in the extreme, and bearing a general resemblance to French
work of the same period.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--WINDOW FROM COLMAR. (1575.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--ZEUGHAUS, DANTZIC. (1605.)]
GERMANY AND NORTHERN EUROPE.
Buildings of pure Renaissance architecture, anterior to the nineteenth
century, are scarce in Germany, or indeed in North-east Europe; but a
transitional style, resembling our own Elizabethan, grew up and long
held its ground, so that many picturesque buildings can be met with,
of which the design indicates a fusion of the ideas and features of
Gothic with those of classic art. This architectural style took so
strong a hold that examples of it may be found throughout the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in almost every northern town.
That part of the Castle of Heidelberg, which was built at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, may be cited as belonging to
this German transitional style. The front in this case is regularly
divided by pilasters of the classic orders, but very irregular in
their proportions and position. The windows are strongly marked, and
with carved mullions. Large dormer windows break into the high roof;
ornaments abound, and the whole presents a curiously blended mixture
of the regular and the picturesque. Rather earlier in date, and
perhaps rather more Gothic in their general treatment, are such
buildings as the great Council Hall at Rothenberg (1572), that at
Leipzig (1556), the Castle of Stuttgart (1553), with its picturesque
arcaded quadrangle, or the lofty and elaborate Cloth Hall at
Brunswick.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--COUNCIL-HOUSE AT LEYDEN. (1599.)]
Examples of similar character abound in the old inns of Germany and
Switzerland, and many charming features, such as the window from
Colmar (Fig. 77), dated 1575, which forms one of our illustrations
could be brought forward. Another development of the same mixed style
may be illustrated by the Zeug House at Dantzic (1605), of which we
give the rear elevation (Fig. 78). Not altogether dissimilar from
these in character is the finely-designed Castle of Fredericksberg at
Copenhagen, testifying to the wide spread of the phase of architecture
to which we are calling attention. The date of this building is 1610.
A richer example, but one little if at all nearer to Italian feeling,
is the Council House at Leyden, a portion of which we illustrate (Fig.
79). This building dates from 1599, and bears more resemblance to
English Elizabethan in its ornaments, than to the architecture of any
other country.
Simultaneously with these, some buildings made their appearance in
Germany, which, though still picturesque, showed the dawn of a wish to
adopt the features of pure Renaissance. The quadrangle of the Castle
of Schalaburg (Fig. 80), may be taken as a specimen of the adoption of
Renaissance ideas as well as forms. It is in effect an Italian
cortile, though more ornate than Italian architects would have made
it. It was built in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and
seems to point to a wish to make use of the new style with but little
admixture of northern ornament or treatment.
When architecture had quite passed through the transition period,
which fortunately lasted long, the buildings, not only of Germany, but
of the north generally, became uninteresting and tame; in fact, they
present so few distinguishing features, that it is not necessary to
describe or illustrate them. Russia, it is true, contains a few
striking buildings belonging to the eighteenth century, but most of
those which we might desire to refer to, were built subsequent to the
close of that century.
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--QUADRANGLE OF THE CASTLE OF SCHALABURG.
(LATE 16TH CENTURY.)]
[Illustration: {ORNAMENTAL FOLIAGE PATTERN.}]