pursuits, but it is not particularly conducive of good art. The German
professor, who knows the most about Phidian sculpture, is as far as
his youngest pupil from being able to produce anything Phidian, but,
of course, this is not a fair example. The German professor does not
profess to be a sculptor. Let us say then, that that sculptor now
alive who knows the most, theoretically and historically about Greek
art, is as far as his most ignorant contemporary and rival from having
Greek methods of work. This is a safe proposition. I do not know who
he is, nor can any one tell me. It is not a question of men, but of
principles. The study of the monuments of art is one thing, their
analysis, their criticism, their comparison, is one of the most
attractive, the most fascinating, the most stimulating, the most
absorbing of studies, one that I shall never cease commending in the
most earnest way to all those persons to whom scholarship is dear and
to whom it is a question of recommending a study which is worthy of
their most earnest and hearty devotion, but it is not the study of
practical art, that is another and a very different thing.
The way to make good sculpture is to let the youth thumb and punch and
dabble in wet clay, and see what he can make of it; and the way to
make a painter is to give the boy now a burnt stick, and at another
time a pin and a back of a looking-glass, and see what he can
delineate with such materials as these and with all other materials
with which a line can be drawn. To look at the world, and what it
contains, and to try and render what is suggested to him,--that is the
training for the artist, and it has more to do with our beloved study
of archæology than if they were not concerned with the same subject.
This, I say, has been proven. Sad experience, the waste of forty years
of work, disappointment and despair, have taught some of our artists
what others did not need to learn,--that the way to succeed was not
through study of the past. The artist has no primary need of
archæological knowledge; the archæologist has no need of any fact that
the artist can furnish him with.
Suggestions; yes! Each side can furnish the other with suggestions in
abundance, and suggestions which each can immediately profit by. An
able artist, if a fellow of modesty and frank speech, can hardly talk
without giving the student of the theory of art hints which the latter
should study over at home before he sleeps upon them; for the secret
of much that is vital and essential in his study is to be found in
these hints; and on the other hand, I imagine that an artist would be
better off, and have more play of mind, and readier and fresher
conceptions, if he would now and then listen to what the student of
old art has to tell him about what is to be observed in this or that
monument of the past. But beyond that there is no connection between
them. I will run two _ateliers_ side by side, one for archæologists,
and one for practical students of architecture and they need never
mix.
This will be more readily admitted, perhaps, in the case of the arts
of expression than in the case of arts of decoration and let us define
these terms. If you will allow me, I will quote from an address
delivered a year ago before the New York Architectural League. Any
work of art whose object is to explain and express the thing
represented, or to convey the artist's thought about the thing
represented, is art of representation, or, if you please, art of
expression, or if you please, expressional art. I offer these as
nearly synonymous terms. But if, on the other hand, the work of art
has for its object the adornment of a surface of any sort, as a
weapon, a utensil, an article of costume, and if the natural objects
represented or suggested are used only as suggestions to furnish
pretty lines and pleasant tints, which lines and tints might have been
after all represented apart from the object were man's mind more
creative than it is,--that is art of decoration.
Now, architecture, you see, is primarily an industrial affair, a
method of covering men in from the rain, and admitting light into
their protected interiors, and of warming those interiors, and in a
few rare cases of ventilating them, and in providing a variety of
apartments, communications, and the like for the varied requirements
of a complicated existence; and it need not put on any artistic
character at all. But as architecture becomes a fine art, it is
perforce one of the arts of decoration. It has nothing to do with the
arts of expression. Mr. Ruskin and all his life work to the contrary,
notwithstanding, the business of building is not to tell tales about
the world and its contents, not to set forth the truths of botany or
of zoology, or of humanity, or of theology. If zoological or botanical
or human objects are introduced, or representations of them, it is not
for the sake of information that can be given about these interesting
things, nor for the sake of expressing the artist's mind about them,
nor for the sake of saying anything whatever in regard to them. It is
for the sake of making the building beautiful. When the Oxford Museum
stood presenting to the street a flat-fronted wall, diversed with
pointed arches, and carvers were set to work bands of rich sculpture
around the windows; although Mr. Ruskin had a great deal to do with
that edifice, and architects of his own choosing were in charge of it,
and clever Irish workmen of his own approval were producing the
interesting carvings of those archivolts and tympanums, in spite of
all theories, the object aimed at and the object attained by that
outlay of time and money and skill was the beautifying of the
building, and this was achieved to an extent probably beyond what its
planners proposed to themselves, for the effect of well-applied
sculpture upon a building is beneficial to an extent that would never
be believed by one who has not often watched the changes that can be
wrought in this way. They who have said that the Gothic Cathedral is
nothing but a work of associated sculpture are not far wrong, and to
produce a lovely building, one would rather have the blankest
malt-house or brewery in New York, and some good carvers set to work
upon it, than to have the richest architectural achievement of our
time, devoid as it is and must be of decorative sculpture. For to get
decorative sculpture, you must have your sculptors; and they, you
know, are wanting. Where are the men who will model capitals and
panels in clay, with some sense of ornamental effect? We have the men
who can make a copy in relief of an architect's drawings: but then the
architect, even if he have the sense of ornamental effect, in the
first place can never draw out, full size and with care, all the work
required in a rich building, and, in second place, can never design
sculptured form aright by mere drawings on the flat. The architects of
New York and Brooklyn are employing today, I suppose, 3,000
draughtsmen, of which number two or three hundred at least are engaged
most of the time in making large scale and full-size drawings of
architectural detail, in which sculpture plays a large part. Well, we
need as many modellers, who, either in architects' offices, or in
stone-cutters' yards and terra-cotta works, shall be putting into
tangible form the dreams and thoughts of the designer's brain. "As
many," do I say? Once it is found that architectural sculpture can be
got promptly and cheaply, and conveniently, it is not 200 modellers
only that this big community around the big bridge will need; but
architects will engage three or four or a dozen at a time, as they now
engage draughtsmen when big jobs come in.
For so the relative success and power today of the arts of expression
seem to assure us. When we come to look into the subject, we find that
modern life, which finds its expression freely in prose and in verse,
and to a slight extent in music, finds some expression also in those
arts which deal with expression. It is perhaps not a great artistic
epoch that we are living in, although, if some one were to rise by and
by, and maintain that it was, I would not be sure that he was wrong.
It is certainly a kind of novel and in many ways admirable art in the
way of expression. Great thoughts have found expression almost worthy
of them in painting, in sculpture, in etching, in wood-engravings, in
color and in black-and-white; in the single costly work of art and in
the easily multiplied and cheap productions of the press. It is true
that in these the thoughts are not always worthy of the expression
they receive. This is partly because we have nearly lost the desire of
talking about our religious beliefs in line and color and modelled
form, and that no other subject of equal universal interest has taken
the place of the ancient, simple and popular theology.
Patriotism, as shown in scenes of battle and pictures of deeds of
gallantry and self-sacrifice; poetry, as seen in pictures which
suggest sweet thoughts of young love and of home affections and of
childish grace; the love of wild nature, as seen in our school of
landscape art, now nearly fifty years old and flourishing--none of
these nor all of them together have quite replaced the priestly
theology of the Middle Ages as a subject for art, for none are quite
so universal or appeal quite so readily to the untutored eye and mind.
And so the uniform is better painted than the soldier very often, and
the outside of nature than her inward spirit, and the flesh of the
baby or the golden hair of the girl better than the baby nature or the
girl nature in each instance. But this is to be stated merely as a
drawback from praise which would otherwise be too unmeasured and too
universal. The world contains a vast amount of good art of very recent
date, and every year adds to the amount. The worst thing that can be
said of the time is that it should be capable of producing so
incalculably great an amount of bad art at the same time; that the
walls of the Paris _Salon_ should be so hung with inferior work every
year that the important pictures are lost in chaos; and that, while
this is true of the _Salon_, it is true to an immeasurably greater
degree of the Royal Academy, of the New York Academy and every other
exhibition in the world, except where a selected few paintings hang on
reserved walls.
And as for sculpture, that is to say expressional sculpture, it is
even more true in this case that the poor works terribly outnumber the
good ones, though this is less noticed and makes less impression on
the public. Our English-speaking communities do not even think of
sculpture as a thing to look to for any refined enjoyment. How far the
labors of a dozen living men, all Frenchmen but two or three, may have
sufficed during the past score of years to change the public mind in
this matter, I am not ready to say; but, surely, it has not been the
general thought that sculpture is anything more than an expensive and
perfunctory way of doing one's duty to a great occasion or a great
man. This, however, is temporary. The good sculpture exists and will
be recognized. So much for expressional art.
But, as for the arts of decoration, once more, there is not so much to
be said. As yet the way to subdue technicalities and enthrone design
has not been discovered. The way to produce beautiful buildings is
known to none. The way to produce good interior decoration, good
furniture, good jewelry, beautiful stuffs, has only been seen by here
and there one, and his lead no one will follow. The fact of his having
done a fine thing, or of his doing fine things habitually, acts not as
an attraction to others, but as a warning to them to keep off. Every
artist strives to do, not as his neighbor has done, and better, but as
his neighbor has not done. The potteries work no better, because of
one pottery which turns out beautiful work. The wall-paper makers
still copy, slavishly from Europe and Japan, fortunately if they do
not spoil in copying, in spite of the occasional production of a
wall-paper which an artist has succeeded in. The carpet-weavers
caricature Oriental designs by taking out of them all movement and
spirit, while their best customers buy the original rugs. If some rich
man were to make a museum of modern decorative art, from which he
would carefully exclude all that which was not in some way fresh and
intelligent, and if not good, at least promising, a room like this one
would hold all his trophies, even though he should use his millions to
ransack Europe and America. It is nobody's fault, least of all is it
the architect's fault. For see what you expect of an architect. He
must know about digging deep holes; and about sheath-piling, that he
may retain the loose soil and keep it from smothering the workmen at
the bottom of his excavation; and he must know the best machines to
use for drilling rock and the best method for removing it; he must
know about all the stones in the country and the best way of making
concrete; he must be familiar with the thousand new inventions, and
discriminate carefully and rightly between this range and that, and
between this form of trap and the other, between a dozen different
steam-heaters and twenty systems of ventilation; he must be prepared
to give his owners exactly what they want in the way of windows and
chimney-corners, of cupboards, shelves in available corners, and
recesses to put away step-ladders and brooms. But observe that if he
fails in any one of these things, he will fail in that which his owner
really cares about; still more, if he fails in the economical
administration of the funds allowed for the building, will he fail in
that which the owner most cares about. Less beauty, less success in
producing a novel, an original, a thoughtful, a purposeful design will
hurt him but little, but insufficient care as to the circulation of
hot-water will ruin him.
Now, no man can do all that, and still produce delicate and thoughtful
designs. No man can be busy laying out work, superintending work,
explaining to contractors and reasoning with employers, and still be
producing delicate and thoughtful designs. An extraordinary fellow
here and there may surprise us by what he does under such
circumstances, but it will be but little and feeble in comparison with
what he might do. The community must see its way to paying some to
eschew plumbing and stick to design, if they mean to have any design.
This has been done, indeed, in the matter of monumental-glass, and to
a certain extent in wall-decoration by means of painting; but it must
be done in what is more vital yet--in architectural sculpture of all
sorts and all grades; of vegetable, animal and human subjects; in low
relief, in high relief and in the round; in detached work and
associated groups--or no architecture for us. I say, then, that as
things are constituted, the architects are not particularly to blame
for not having achieved much in the way of decorative art, either on
the exteriors of their great buildings or in the beauty of their
interiors. Not much to blame; but yet they are so far to blame as that
no one else is to do this work if they do not. The architects and the
artists who are associated with them in the work of supplying us with
what we call decorative arts of all sorts, form the only class of the
community to whom the rest of the community can look to for
advancement in this direction. It is probable, then, that what such an
associate has to do is two-fold; or rather it has two things to do:
One is to study the beautiful art of the past, and to study it
patiently and lovingly, feeling confident of this that the interests
of the pursuit grow more absorbing every day; and the other is to
watch the arts of the present, and to keep an open and perspective
mind with regard to them, feeling sure of this that they will grow
more complex and interesting every day, and that now and again some
chance of something good will appear, here and there, giving us great
opportunities to help, if we are clever enough to perceive them.
The study of the arts of the past is more entrancing every day because
we are so much better informed, because we are daily better informed
about them. Archæology, having gone through a long apprenticeship, is
doing wonders today; and, although ancient buildings are suffering
from the accursed restorer, they are also more thoroughly known, more
rightly judged, more sympathetically analyzed than ever before; while
monuments other than buildings, those, that is, that are not open to
the attacks of the restorer, are preserved in practical safety, and
they also are minutely and honestly studied in a way of which our
ancestors knew nothing. There is, therefore, more pleasure to be got
out of the study of ancient art today than ever before, and that
condition of things is a permanent one. Our children will have even
better opportunities than we.
And, as for the arts of the present, the arts that are being produced
around us, they are to be looked at as calmly and temperately; with,
on the other hand, as little as possible of that provincial which
makes cathedrals out of carpenters' Gothic churches, and, on the other
hand, without carping, but with good-natured patience, with a feeling
that if things are not very good, they can hardly be expected to be
better; that we, in this country at least, are only half-civilized in
the ways of cultivation, and we do uncommonly well for such babes as
we are in literature and art. With patience then, and with impatience
about nothing but this, that we deny ourselves the study of the great
works of art of Europe and Asia by thirty per cent and forty per cent
and sixty per cent duty, and deny to the author all proper
remuneration for his work by the lack of common honesty. No other
nation of European blood does these things. It is not a matter of
politics. No protectionists so ardent in the Bismarck ranks as to
propose to levy a tax on literature and science. No selfish grabber so
small, even among peoples whom we consider less honest than we, who
approves of stealing an author's books under color of the law. While
we send to Washington Congressmen who keep such laws on the
statute-books, our community is not "barbarous" so much as savage; for
such acts are the acts of savages; that is, of men who have no
reasonable motive for their acts, but act impulsively, like grown-up
children.
And now, after this evening, let us return from theory and general
principles, to practice and details, and see whether we can find out
how it is that Indians combine color, how Japanese use natural form
decoratively, how Chinamen make porcelain lovely and noble; how Greeks
of old time have sculptured and Frenchmen have created Gothic
architecture, and Italians have raised painting to the highest heaven
of achievement. There is happiness, if study can give it. And for
those to whom scholarship is less attractive than action and
production, there is sculpture in small and large, in stone, marble,
terra-cotta, wax, clay, plaster, bronze, iron, lead, gold and silver;
there is inlay of all material and styles, from square tiles to minute
glass tesseræ; there is painting with all known vehicles and of all
sorts; the whole to be devoted to the beautifying of buildings in
which we have to live and work and rest. There is a plenty to do for
those who know how to begin.
* * * * *
TO PROTECT PLATE-GLASS IN BUILDING.--Passing along Dearborn Street,
recently, I saw a crowd watching closely the placing in position of
some enormous panes of glass in a handsome new building. The glass was
the best French plate, and the workmen handled it as carefully as if
it were worth something more than a week's wages. The task of putting
it in place was no sooner completed than one of the workmen grabbed a
pot of whiting and with a big brush daubed a lot of meaningless marks
on it. I thought it about as silly a thing as a man could do, and with
the usual reportorial curiosity asked the foreman why he allowed it.
The answer was a crusher. "Why," said he, "we have to mark them in
that way or they'd be smashed in no time." My look of amazement
doubtless prompted him to further explanation, for he said: "You see,
the workmen around a new building get in the custom of shoving lumber,
etc., through the open sash before the glass is put in. They would
continue to do it even after the glass is in if we didn't do something
to attract their attention. That's the reason you always see new
windows daubed with glaring white marks. Even if a careless workman
does start to shove a stick of timber through a costly plate of glass
he will stop short when his eye catches the danger sign. That white
mark is just a signal which says, 'Look out; you'll break me if you
are not careful.'"--_Chicago Journal._
THE STRUCTURE OF SANDSTONE.[1]
AS AFFECTING ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING WORKS.
[Illustration]
The native stones we Liverpool architects have at command are all
sandstones belonging to the geological division called the Trias, or,
in older phraseology, the "New Red Sandstone," which lies above the
coal-measures. The term "New Red" was given to distinguish these rocks
from the "Old Red," which lies below the Mountain Limestone, the
lowest division of the carboniferous rocks. It is, perhaps, needless
to remark that the "New Red" is not always red; sometimes it is
yellow, at others, like some of the Storeton stone, white. These red
rocks occupy a large part of Lancashire and Cheshire, and especially
in the latter county give the characteristic scenery which
distinguishes it. The escarpment of the Peckforton Hills of which
Beeston Castle Hill is an outlier, and that at Malpas, farther south,
gives rise to some very beautiful scenery; and again at Grinshill and
Hawkstone, in Shropshire, we have a repetition of much the same kind
of landscape. It will be necessary for my purpose to say briefly that
these red rocks have been divided into the "Bunter" and "Keuper"; the
lower division, the Bunter, occupying most of the ground about
Liverpool; the upper, the Keuper, being more developed on the Cheshire
side. All these sandstones are not fit for building purposes, and
those that are so used differ considerably in their durability. It is
my object in this short Paper to show upon what the perfection or
imperfection of the various stones for building purposes depends--a
matter of great moment to an architect or engineer who is desirous
that his work should last.
Sandstones, or, in masons' language, "free-stones," from the freedom
with which most of them are worked when freshly taken from the quarry,
are plastic or sedimentary rocks. That is, they are composed of
separate particles which have once existed as sand, like that we see
on our own shores, or in the sand dunes of Hoylake or Crosby.
Sandstones are usually more or less laminated, and are stronger to
transverse stress at right angles to their natural bedding than in any
other direction, a fact recognized in every architect's specification,
which states "all stones must be laid on their natural bed," a
direction that unfortunately sometimes begins and ends in the
specification. The cause of the superior strength is not, however,
generally understood.
I have devoted some considerable time to an investigation of the
internal structure of sandstones, which I have communicated from time
to time to various scientific societies and publications, and will now
briefly explain it in a manner I judge will be most likely to interest
architects and engineers. The particles or grains of which the rock is
built up are of various forms and sizes, from a thoroughly rounded
grain, almost like small shot, to a broken and jagged structure, and
to others possessing crystalline faces. These grains, most of them
possessing a longer axis, have been rolled backwards and forwards by
the tides or by river-currents. The larger grains naturally lie on
their sides when freshly deposited, with their axes in the plane of
bedding; the smaller and more rounded particles naturally tend to
occupy the interstices between the others, and in this way rude
divisional planes or laminations are formed. Each layer forms a sort
of course like coursed-rubble in a wall, and by the necessities of
deposition a certain rude geometric arrangement results, by which the
particles of the future rock overlap each other, and thereby gain what
is known to architects as bond.