THE ANCIENT RÉGIME AND--ANDREW JACKSON
Veneration for ancestors, and for what ancestors knew, has not been
regarded as an American virtue. Yet there was a time entirely beyond the
memory of this generation when traditions were religiously handed down
and respected in America. It is heresy to suppose that the Colonial
builders were _au fait_ in the science of æsthetics. They were not.
There was more excuse for ignorance upon their part than there is for
ignorance upon ours; but architecture as a fine art was as little
understood by the farmer at large in pre-revolutionary times as is
evidenced by the modern farmer whose concrete ideas upon the subject are
so charmingly set forth in the curiosity I have been fortunate to secure
for this chapter (Plate XVIII). Only, no Colonial farmer would have
dared to perpetuate such originality, even though he dreamed it in his
PLATE XIII.
[Illustration: MANTELPIECE, AMERICAN RENAISSANCE. EPOCH 1806.]
[Illustration: BOTH NAME AND IDENTITY OF ITS DESIGNER HAVE IN ALL
PROBABILITY BEEN IRRETRIEVABLY MISLAID IN OBLIVION, BUT HE WAS AN
ARCHITECT.
Orne-Ropes’ House, Salem.]
dreams, which is the only way he could possibly have conceived it. The
unalienable right of the American citizen to build whatever he pleases
has precedents running backward only to the 4th of March, 1829, when
that popular hero, General Andrew Jackson, was inaugurated. This appears
to have been the red-flag signal of license for all the vast output of
American Jacobin architecture, which, of course, is not to be confused
with the _Jacobean_ of England, the seemingly innocent contraction of
the suffix having the effect of a disenchanter’s wand.
Previous to this advent of rabid democracy there lingered a vestige of a
certain code of social restrictions which once regulated architecture
almost as absolutely as it did the private affairs of every family in
the land. Once upon a time the house-builder would have no more thought
of departing from what I shall call “the straight and narrow path” of
precedent in architecture than he would have been guilty of a religious
defection such as wilfully absenting himself from meeting, or an ethical
defection such as purposely remaining single. This abrogation of
personal liberty bore rather roughly, perhaps, upon the individual; but
it was the very salvation of architecture, being the censorship to which
we are indebted for whatever true inspiration we are enabled to draw out
of the Colonial exemplars. “Precept” was the word upon which the
American Renaissance was founded. The Colonial builders builded as they
were taught to build, not as they may have wished to experiment. And let
us see, for a moment, who their masters were, that we may be in a
position to understand something of the reason for their success.
While, in olden times, the architect and the builder were often united
in the same person, it must have been a very differently equipped
individual from the one who awaits his customers behind the pretentious
signboard thus lettered which nowadays adorns the front of many a
contractor’s place of business; because this legend has come to mean
extreme mediocrity in both callings. Nor does the word “architect” alone
signify everything it should in a great commercial era such as ours. I
have heard the head draughtsman of a noted modern architectural office
in New York City distinguish one of his principals from the other
partners
PLATE XIV.
[Illustration: DOORWAY, MEANS’ HOUSE, AMHERST, N. H.]
of the firm by a very significant expression, viz.: “Mr. ---- is an
_architect_.” And I am constrained to discriminate with equal severity
when I see the illustration or the usual “modern American house,” so
called, placed in “deadly parallel column” beside a Colonial exemplar
erected a century ago. Nobody, as a rule, can inform us who made the
drawings of our fascinating prototype. Both name and identity of its
designer have, in all probability, been irretrievably mislaid in
oblivion; but he was an _architect_! (See Plate XIII).
In some recent and necessary researches for this and other work I have
run across the names of a few of these architects. Their biographies are
not to be found in libraries, though they merit shelf-room beside those
of our greatest heroes, statesmen and authors. Samuel McIntyre of Salem,
Massachusetts, and Russell Warren of Bristol, Rhode Island,
respectively, are _two_ I could mention in particular that should be
done up in full levant with notes and comments upon their work and
times, edited by Mr. Russell Sturgis or some one else equally competent
to do so. And then the fun of it was that many a most refined and
skilful artificer of the ancient _régime_ never considered the propriety
of adding the word “Architect” to his subscription. I suppose he fancied
he lacked his diploma or the requisite reputation afforded by some
stupendous public work. Yet, Fouquet with his celebrated _Vaux le
Vicomte_, or Louis XIV at Versailles had no better architectural advice
than had the colonists of America. The greatest architects of the world
really directed the planning of the Colonial houses. Unseen, the
master_hands_ and _minds_ were working through the agency of deferential
and obedient apprentices.
These apprentices essayed no--what boys denominate--“stunts” (see Plate
XV), and their masters, to whom they frequently served life-long
apprenticeships, affected no “stunts” either. Sir Christopher Wren,
himself, and Inigo Jones never tried “_stunts_” nor did Palladio in
Italy, before them, nor even the great Michelangelo. Now, if there ever
was an architect justified in exploiting “_stunts_” it was Michelangelo,
to whom marble or pigments, chisels or brushes were as subservient as to
magic. But what did this
PLATE XV.
[Illustration: THESE APPRENTICES ESSAYED NO STUNTS.
Munro-French House, Bristol, R. I. A. D. 1800.]
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT FARMHOUSE AT DURHAM, CONN.]
architectural giant do when summoned to Rome to look after the
construction of St. Peter’s? In the eyes of American commercialism, he
made a goose of himself, he simply missed the chance of his life. He
waived jealousy, he waived ambition, patronage and emolument because he
preferred the serving of God and of his art to the serving of self.
Fancy such a thing in our day! Michelangelo requested that all the plans
of his illustrious predecessor, Bramante, the original designer of the
cathedral, be brought to him: and fully appreciating the responsibility
of the complex work that had descended to him by the rightful heirship
of true art, Michelangelo emphatically declared he conceived it to be
his duty to carry forward Bramante’s design, and, moreover, that
wherever the intercedent tinkers had departed from this design, just so
much had they erred. How strange this policy sounds placed in contrast
to the ethics of American expediency! No doubt, the mighty Renaissance
fabric at Rome has lost inestimably because this remarkable man could
not live to complete it. In our day, we have changed all that. The main
chance is not now _art--it is money_. We are still the America of
Martin Chuzzlewit plus population. Our greatest architect is our
greatest “stunt-master” and bears to American commercialism the same
relationship that a certain society leader bears to his equally noted
patroness. And it does not require the perspicacity of a Voodoo woman
either, to see how ephemeral, in comparison to the ages of good
architectural development, is this modern American extravaganza, which,
not unlike the airy creatures who enjoyed existence in the dream of the
White-King in Lewis Carroll’s classic, “Through the Looking Glass,” is
liable to go out of vogue _bang!_ at any moment, upon his majesty’s--or
rather upon _true art’s_--awakening.
In Plate XV there is presented a type of American farm-house of the
early eighteenth century. Engraved upon a tablet let into the front wall
of the chimneystack appears the impressive date 1727. This house is
still standing in an admirable state of preservation nearby a quaint old
village called Durham, in Connecticut. It was erected by a man named
Miles Merwin, and a lineal descendant of its builder still occupies it.
When he visited this house last summer the interior
PLATE XVI.
[Illustration: SO FAR AS TEACHING ARCHITECTURAL ART IS CONCERNED, IT
MUST BE ADMITTED OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN A DEAD FAILURE.]
[Illustration: TYPE OF FARMHOUSE, EPOCH END OF 18TH CENTURY.]
impressed the writer fully as much as the exterior. It seemed to me that
the same influence came back again that rushed over my senses when first
I beheld the worn steps to the royal tombs at Westminster. It was so
very old and replete with atmosphere! It had so much history to tell
that one’s most natural inclination was to sit down quickly upon the
roughly hewn doorsteps bedabbled by streaks of sunlight filtering
through the foliage, and just listen. Ah, how ridiculous it would be to
imagine that the wonderfully satisfying lines of the roof, the delicious
overhang of the gable, the relationship of the stone chimney and the
proportions generally were evolved by Miles Merwin himself, out of a
printed book upon the æsthetics of design! For neither Miles Merwin nor
his master-builder may be said to have originated the house they
erected. I do not fancy, for one moment, that they ever contemplated
such an ill-advised departure from precedent. They had been taught how
to construct three or four different kinds of roofs, and they simply
selected the one most suitable to the needs of this case. It was the
influence and teaching of more than one great architect that designed
the ancient farm-house at Durham. And now you need no longer conjecture
why Colonial architecture is so good and remains in fashion. You know.
Select, if you please, the detail of the hooded entrance. A modern
house-builder requested to supply some unique shelter for the doorway
would understand you to mean that you wished him to invent something
which, by the way, is a task infinitely agreeable to the modern
practitioner. It is safe to aver that the adviser of Miles Merwin,
whoever he was, had never invented anything in his life. He would not
have dared to try the experiment in architecture, at any rate, more than
had he been the indentured apprentice of a Florentine architect.
Although I can, very easily, imagine him quoting his grandsire that this
particular kind of hood he was recommending to his principal, with its
deep cornice, was an exceptionally rigid and durable one. The truth of
which observation time has sufficiently demonstrated. It was “Old
Hickory” who issued the emancipation proclamation to young America
absolving him from the time-honored and universal fealty to Art. But
young America was deceived; it was a
PLATE XVII.
[Illustration: PERISTYLE TO A HOUSE IN WYOMING, N. J., 1897.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, 1899.]
campaign lie. Young America was not emancipated at all. Another master
was set over him, and that master was unrelenting expediency, who
forthwith usurped the throne of deposed art. Perhaps we are just
beginning to suspect the ruse after seventy-five years of license and
anarchy in art matters. What we did was simply to exchange a legitimate
sovereign for a coarse, unlettered and brutal demagogue, of whom every
American, young and old, by this time, should be heartily ashamed.
And I think the present generation is somewhat ashamed notwithstanding
the fact that our modern system of public instruction, liberal as it
purports to be, is painfully lame in the department of the arts. They
are like so many sealed books to the scholars who are expected to shape
our history. The policy of Donna Inez in Byron’s great epic was to
withold natural history only from her son’s course of studies. Our
policy is to disseminate all the natural history available. The mixed
class in physiology recites its lessons unblushingly. We encourage the
sciences. The farmer builds his house, to-day, with the best of sanitary
arrangements; they are nearly perfect, he installs hot-water heaters
and electric lights, he keeps in touch with the moving procession upon
all points save one.--What does he know about Art and American
Renaissance?
The example of modern farm-house (Plate XVI) herewith respectfully
submitted indicates the modern farmer’s limitations. So far as teaching
architectural art is concerned, it must be admitted that our public
schools have been a dead failure.
But let us not look upon these things too gloomily, and lest the reader,
by this time, discover some sinister intention upon my part to slur the
memory of the hero of New Orleans, I wish to state that, personally, I
have only the greatest respect and admiration for a man who positively
refused to be frightened. Like Napoleon, Jackson was unquestionably the
man for the hour--the times, and devilishly bad times they must have
been by 1837 to have grown inimical to the very commercial interests
that had let them loose. By their aid, however, are we not permitted to
see ourselves somewhat as others see us, so at last, we shall have
discovered the true mission of these times in the economy of art?
PLATE XVIII.
[Illustration: DETAIL, PRINCESSGATE. 1896.]
[Illustration:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not, the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again.]
PLATE XIX.
[Illustration: WYCK, GERMANTOWN. EPOCH, A. D. 1700.
“The charm that is not deducible by mathematics.”--MISS POLLY FAIRFAX.]