HOW TO JUDGE ARCHITECTURE
[Illustration: ST. PETER’S CHURCH, ROME, FROM THE HILLS NORTHWEST OF THE
CHURCH.]
How to Judge
Architecture
_A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE APPRECIATION
OF BUILDINGS_
By
RUSSELL STURGIS, A.M., Ph.D.
_Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Member of
The Architectural League of New York, The National
Sculpture Society, The National Society of Mural
Painters, etc., etc. Author of “Dictionary of
Architecture and Building,” “European
Architecture,” etc., etc._
NEW YORK: THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.
33-37 EAST SEVENTEENTH ST., UNION SQ., NORTH
Copyright, 1903, By THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.
_Published, September, 1903_
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY GREEK DESIGN 11
II. LATER GREEK AND ROMAN DESIGN 35
III. EARLY MEDIÆVAL DESIGN 66
IV. CENTRAL MEDIÆVAL DESIGN 93
V. LATE MEDIÆVAL DESIGN 114
VI. REVIVED CLASSIC DESIGN 131
VII. LATER REVIVED CLASSIC DESIGN 143
VIII. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN 159
IX. NINETEENTH CENTURY: IMITATIVE DESIGN 176
X. NINETEENTH CENTURY: ORIGINAL DESIGN 192
Illustrations
ST. PETER’S CHURCH, ROME _Frontispiece_
PLATE PAGE
I. Hexastyle Doric Temple, Pæstum,
Southern Italy Facing 14
II. Parthenon, Athens “ 15
Parthenon, Athens “ 15
III. Theseum (Theseion), Athens “ 24
Curvature of Stylobate of Parthenon “ 24
IV. Restored Model of the Parthenon “ 25
V. Erechtheum (Erechtheion) Athens “ 36
Erechtheum, Athens “ 36
VI. Erechtheum, Portico of Caryatides “ 37
VII. Erechtheum “ 38
Details of Entablature, Acropolis,
Athens “ 38
Corner Capital, Acropolis, Athens “ 38
VIII. Temple of Athene Polias, Priene “ 39
IX. Restored Model of Pantheon “ 48
The Pantheon, Rome “ 48
X. Ruins of Temple of Castor and
Pollux, Rome “ 49
Ruins of Temple of Mars Ultor,
Rome “ 49
XI. Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine,
Rome “ 54
XII. Sculptured Details of Temple of
Vespasian, Rome “ 55
Arch of Trajan, at Benevento,
Southern Italy “ 55
XIII. Jerash, Syria (Ruins of Gerasa) “ 60
Ancient City Gates of Gerasa “ 60
XIV. Part of the Bounding Wall of the
Forum of Nerva, Rome “ 61
XV. Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore,
Rome 72
XVI. Interior of the Church of San Miniato,
near Florence, Tuscany “ 73
XVII. Church of Sant’ Ambrogio, Milan “ 76
XVIII. Interior of Cathedral Tournai,
Belgium “ 77
Church of St. Martin (der Gross S.
Martin) at Cologne, Rhenish
Prussia “ 77
XIX. Church of the Holy Apostles, Cologne,
Rhenish Prussia “ 80
XX. Cathedral of St. Martin, Mainz
(Mayence) Hesse, Germany “ 81
XXI. Tower of Church of St. Radegonde,
Poitiers, (Vienne) France “ 84
XXII. Church of Notre Dame la Grande,
at Poitiers “ 85
XXIII. Interior of Church Hagia Sophia,
Constantinople “ 88
XXIV. Exterior of Church Hagia Sophia,
Constantinople “ 89
Church of S. Theodore, Athens “ 89
XXV. Monastery of Gelati near Kutais in
the Caucasus “ 90
XXVI. Chapel of Nancy, France “ 91
XXVII. Interior of Amiens Cathedral “ 98
XXVIII. Cathedral at Reims (Marne) France,
Choir Aisle “ 99
Cathedral at Reims (Marne) France,
Choir Aisle, Different View “ 99
XXIX. Cathedral at Amiens (Somme),
France. Exterior “ 102
XXX. Cathedral at Chartres (Eure et
Loir) “ 103
XXXI. Cathedral at Salisbury, Wilts,
England “ 108
XXXII. Bell Tower of Cathedral, Florence,
Tuscany “ 109
XXXIII. Cathedral at Gloucester, Gloucestershire,
England “ 120
XXXIV. Cathedral at Peterboro’, Northants,
England “ 121
XXXV. Westminster Abbey, London “ 122
XXXVI. Chapel of Henry VII. (Willis
drawing) “ 123
XXXVII. Church of Brou, at Bourg-en-Bresse
(Ain), France “ 124
XXXVIII. Church of Saint Wulfran, Abbeville
(Somme), France “ 125
XXXIX. Townhall of Audenarde, Belgium “ 126
XL. Outer Porch, Albi (Tarn), France “ 127
XLI. South Porch, Albi (Tarn), France “ 128
XLII. The Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence “ 129
XLIII. Chapel of the Pazzi, Church of
Santa Croce, Florence, Tuscany “ 134
XLIV. Palazzo Rucellai, Florence “ 135
XLV. Palazzo Strozzi, Florence,
Tuscany “ 138
Palazzo Riccardi, Florence “ 138
XLVI. Courtyard of the Palazzo della
Cancellaria, Rome “ 139
XLVII. Cloister, Santa Maria della Pace,
Rome “ 140
XLVIII. Courtyard of Palazzo di Venezia,
Rome “ 141
XLIX. Courtyard of Palazzo Borghese,
Rome “ 142
L. Château at Blois (Loir et Cher),
France “ 148
LI. Royal Château at Blois (Loir et
Cher), France “ 148
LII. Château of Écouen (Seine et Oise),
France “ 149
Wollaton Hall, Notts, England “ 149
LIII. Hall of Middle Temple, London “ 152
LIV. Church of the Theatiner Monks at
Munich, Bavaria “ 153
Ducal Palace, Genoa, Italy “ 153
LV. Palazzo Carignano, Turin, Piedmont,
Italy “ 172
Palazzo Madama, Turin, Italy “ 172
LVI. Exhibitions Building (Kunstausstellungs-Gebäude,)
Munich, Bavaria “ 173
Gateway Building (Propylæa),
Munich “ 173
LVII. Interior of St. George’s Church,
Doncaster, Yorks, England “ 190
Exterior of Church of St. George,
Doncaster “ 190
LVIII. Trinity Church, Boston, Mass “ 191
LIX. Cathedral at Truro, Cornwall,
England “ 196
LX. Apartment House, “St. Alban’s
Mansions,” London “ 197
LXI. West Ham Institute, Sussex,
England “ 204
LXII. House and Beer-shop (zum Spaten)
Berlin, Prussia “ 205
LXIII. Club-House, Cercle de la Librairie,
Paris “ 208
LXIV. Building of N. Y. Life Insurance
Co., St. Paul, Minn. “ 209
How to Judge Architecture
CHAPTER I
EARLY GREEK DESIGN
In trying to train the mind to judge of works of architecture, one can
never be too patient. It is very easy to hinder one’s growth in
knowledge by being too ready to decide. The student of art who is much
under the influence of one teacher, one writer, or one body of
fellow-students, is hampered by that influence just so far as it is
exclusive. And most teachers, most writers, most groups or classes of
students are exclusive, admiring one set of principles or the practice
of one epoch, to the partial exclusion of others.
The reader must feel assured that there are no authorities at all in the
matter of architectural appreciation: and that the only opinions, or
impressions, or comparative appreciations that are worth anything to
him are those which he will form gradually for himself. He will form
them slowly, if he be wise: indeed, if he have the gift of artistic
appreciation at all, he will soon learn to form them slowly. He will,
moreover, hold them lightly even when formed; remembering that in a
subject on which opinions differ so very widely at any one time, and
have differed so much more widely if one epoch be compared with another,
there can be no such thing as a final judgment.
The object of this book is to help the reader to acquire, little by
little, such an independent knowledge of the essential characteristics
of good buildings, and also such a sense of the possible differences of
opinion concerning inessentials, that he will always enjoy the sight,
the memory, or the study of a noble structure without undue anxiety as
to whether he is right or wrong. Rightness is relative: to have a
trained observation, knowledge of principles, and a sound judgment as to
proprieties of construction and design is to be able to form your
opinions for yourself; and to understand that you come nearer, month by
month, to a really complete knowledge of the subject, seeing clearly
what is good and the causes of its goodness, and also the not-so-good
which is there, inevitably there, as a part of the goodness itself.
It will be well, therefore, to take for our first study some buildings
of that class about which there is the smallest difference of opinion
among modern lovers of art, namely, the early Greek temples. There is no
serious dispute as to the standing of the Greek architecture previous to
the year 300 B. C., as the most perfect thing that decorative art[1] has
produced. It is extremely simple: a fact which makes it the more fit for
our present purpose: but this simplicity is to be taken as not having
led to bareness, lack of incident, lack of charm: it has merely served
to give the Greek artist such an easy control over the different details
and their organization into a complete whole, that the admiration of all
subsequent ages has been given to his productions.
It must be noted, however, that nothing of this complete beauty is now
to be seen above ground. Plate I shows the famous temple at Pæstum on
the west coast of Campania, southeast of Naples: the temple called that
of Poseidon, to which god (called by the Romans, Neptune) the ancient
town which stood on this site was dedicated. This is the most nearly
well preserved of the Doric[2] temples, with the single exception of the
small building in Athens called the Theseion, or Theseum, see Plate III,
and it is larger and more interesting than that. Plate II gives the
Parthenon at Athens from the northwest
[Illustration: HEXASTYLE DORIC TEMPLE, PAESTUM, SOUTHERN ITALY, CALLED
“TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE.”]
[Illustration: PLATE I.]
[Illustration: PARTHENON, ATHENS, FROM THE NORTHWEST.]
[Illustration: PARTHENON, ATHENS, FROM THE NORTHEAST.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.]
and from the northeast. This building by common agreement of modern
students was the most perfect in design and the most highly elaborated
in detail of all the Doric temples of early time. The Parthenon as we
see it now in its decay, dominating the town of Athens from the top of
its rock or looked at close at hand, lighted by the Grecian sun or by
the moon for those who are romantically inclined, is unquestionably a
most picturesque and charming ruin; it is imposing in its mass,
interesting still in its details, and invested, of course, with an
immeasurably great tradition, historical and poetic. That fact must not
be forgotten for a moment: but, on the other hand, it must not be
forgotten that this admiration, this enthusiasm, is not given to the
work of art. It is not at all to produce such a ruin as we now see that
the Grecian artist thought and toiled. Admire the ruin to your heart’s
content: but be careful that you do not allow too much of this romantic
association to enter into your love of the artistic entity, of the lost
Parthenon, which we have to create out of the air, as it were. And
beware of the admiration of ruins as you would of the “tone” given to a
picture by time: it is not that which the artist proposed to himself or
even thought of, and it is the artist’s purpose that you must ask for,
always. That is the first thing. Until you are sure you know that
purpose, fully, it will not do to find fault with the work of art, or
even to praise it too unreservedly.
On the other hand, it is extremely important to consider the probable
ancient surroundings of the building in question. The upper figure of
Plate III may show, not only the interesting building itself from a good
point of view and with its peculiarities strongly accentuated (as is
pointed out below), but also as showing how, except for its coloring,
the temple must have been seen by the Athenians in the days of Conon.
The modern houses are very like what the ancient houses must have been,
for, although the ancient houses had even less door and window-opening
upon the street and more upon a court or yard, yet we may imagine
ourselves in such a yard of antiquity, and the red-tiled roofs, the
homemade chimney, the humble and unkempt aspect of the whole may be
assumed to stand very well for the humbler quarters of Athens in
antiquity. This temple also is a ruin: but the fact that, as seen in
Plate III, there are still visible the sculptures of the metopes,[3] and
the fact that the roof of the pteroma[4] is still in place, so that
there is no sunshine coming down behind the columns where sunshine was
never meant to be--these conditions go far to give us a peep at the
building as it stood in those great days. No other photograph can give a
better idea of how the columns are set closer near the corner; nor a
better idea of the reasons for this peculiarity; for the sky is seen
between the columns at the right hand; and the dark wall of the naos[5]
in the same relative position on the left hand, and the chief cause for
the smaller intercolumniation at the corners is obvious enough, as shown
below in connection with the model Plate IV.
Look back at Plate I, and Plate III, upper figure, and note that these
buildings have six columns on the front instead of eight and, therefore,
according to the general proportions of Greek temples, should have a
greater height relatively to width than the Parthenon, Plate II. Note,
farther, that the columns are very much higher and more slender in the
octastyle[6] Parthenon than in the Italian hexastyle[7] building, and
the relative height of the entablature[8] greater, or as one to two and
a half in Pæstum, one to three in Athens. The Doric Order[9] is capable
of just about as much diversity in relative heights and other dimensions
as is shown here.
The comparatively short and thick columns of the Italian temple are
characteristic of an earlier and less developed style than that denoted
by the higher and more slender columns of the Parthenon. In like manner
the comparatively great thickness of the superstructure in the Pæstum
temple, giving a very broad architrave,[10] and a still broader
frieze[11] is also suggestive of an earlier date. Now it is agreed that
the more lofty and slender proportions of the Order of the Parthenon
must have given to the original building a charm beyond that given by
the stumpy proportions of the Pæstum temple: but it is also undeniable
that many lovers of architecture, of this as of other epochs and styles,
love especially the early work, that which is commonly known as archaic.
It is exactly like the great enthusiasm excited in many students of
Italian art by the earliest paintings, those of the _primitifs_: in each
case the very single-minded and diligent work of the early men has a
charm peculiarly its own.
Although the Parthenon is, as mentioned above, a ruin and nothing else,
there are still to be found in the shattered stones of that ruin a
certain part of that theoretical beauty, that imagined glory of the
destroyed work of art, which we are gradually building up in our
thoughts. Thus it is in the existing ruins that there have been
discovered those curious curves where straight lines had been supposed
to exist. If you stand at one end of the stylobate[12] and look along it
towards the other end, you will see that it curves upward in the middle
with a decided convex sweep. (See Plate III.) If you raise yourself on a
scaffolding and look along the underside of the architrave you will find
that that also rises in a curve, not exactly parallel or concentric to
that of the stylobate, but nearly so. Furthermore you will notice, if
you walk about the temple and examine it closely, that the two
outer-most columns of the front are much nearer together than the
others, as noted above in Plate III: or that, in other words, the three
columns which form the corner are grouped much more closely than are
the others. Furthermore, it has been discovered by minute measurements
that these columns slope inward a very little. Of course, it has always
been known that the very visible diminution of the shaft in thickness
from the bottom to the top is not according to straight lines (that is
to say, that the shafts are not conical) but is according to a very slow
and hardly perceptible curve which we call the entasis. Great folios of
carefully drawn plates have been devoted to the exact curvature of the
entasis and to the more recently discovered irregularities: and a minute
series of measurements have been made, by which the whole amount of the
irregularity in any one case is now easily ascertainable. This is one of
the many elements out of which we have to make up our general
appreciation of the building, our appreciation of the existence and the
character of these slopes, curves, risings, sinkings, slopings: all of
them, it is clear, planned in the most careful and elaborate way, and as
the result of many previous experiments. Their object is, of course, to
add to the charm of the building, to give it in one case the effect of
being very broad in the base and therefore very secure and permanent--in
another case, to prevent any possible appearance of sagging or
depression in the middle of the long horizontal lines; in another case
still, to substitute the subtile grace of a slight and almost
imperceptible curve for the harshness of a straight line. Still another
thing is traceable in these ruins: the unceasing care with which the
work was done, the way in which the separate drums or solid blocks, of
which the shafts of the columns are made up, were ground together, one
upon another, until they fitted with but the slightest visible or
tangible separation. The channeling or grooving of the shafts was
evidently done after the drums had been put into place, and it is highly
probable that the bells[13] of the capitals were also finished, or
received their final very delicate curvature, after the blocks out of
which they had been cut had been set, and indeed after the
superincumbent block, the abacus, had been lowered upon each one of
them.
Another feature in this remarkable design is to be traced in the ruins,
and was much more plainly discoverable at an earlier, though still
recorded and well-known, date: namely, the original painted adornment of
the building, in strong primary colors. In the temples built of soft and
rough stone, like that in Plate I, there is known to have been a thin
coat of fine plastering spread over the whole surface, and the final
delicacy of curve and sharpness of edge must have been wrought in that
plaster even more accurately than in the stone beneath. But in the
Parthenon, built entirely of fine-grained and hard marble, no such
coating was necessary, and the paint was applied directly to the
crystalline surface itself. This painting covered very large parts of
the exterior, nor is it probable that any single foot of the
[Illustration: THESEUM (THESEION) ATHENS.]
[Illustration: CURVATURE OF STYLOBATE OF PARTHENON.]
[Illustration: PLATE III.]
[Illustration: RESTORED MODEL OF THE PARTHENON, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF
ART, NEW YORK.]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.]
marble was left in its original whiteness. Where the solid coating of
red or blue paint was not applied, the marble seems to have been tinted
a dull yellow, as by the application of wax to the surface, which wax,
if melted on with hot irons, would act as a preservative for the marble.
It appears then that all modern dreams about the whiteness and purity
and abstract loveliness of the Grecian temples are mistaken. Browning’s
Artemis says that, always excepting Hera, she is the equal of any
goddess of them all--
“ ... surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.”
The Artemis of any Greek poet would have used a different phrase: to
her, the temples erected to the gods of Olympus would not have seemed
white objects--they would have been to her the properly sacrificial and
devotional embodiment of all that was splendid and gorgeous in the arts
of men at that time: sculptured marble and wrought metal indeed, but
also color and gold freely and even lavishly applied. Plate IV is a
photograph of the restored model of the Parthenon which belongs to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the restoration of which, and
the whole work, is due to Charles Chipiez, a well-known and very
competent archæologist in the direction of classical architecture. But
this restoration is extremely reserved and quiet; it assumes almost
nothing; it is restrained quite beyond what is to be expected of a
modern enthusiast in Greek art. If, instead of this, we were to study
the careful and conscientious drawings published by that French student
who has made a special study of the buildings in Epidauros (Alphonse de
Frasse) or in Olympia (Victor Laloux) we should find the decoration by
means of painting and by the application of golden shields or other
members in gilt metal, assumed as very much more elaborate and rich.
Thus the restored façade of the temple of Asclepios at Epidauros and
that of the temple of Zeus at Olympia are shown as having been painted
in the most elaborate way, with figure subjects of conventionalized form
and distribution on all the larger flat surfaces, and patterns of
leafage and scroll-work on the small ones. It is known that very rich
mosaic floors existed in many of these cases and known also that the
ceilings, such as those above the open galleries (pteroma) behind the
great colonnades, were adorned very richly, sometimes with painted and
gilded terra cotta.
There is still to be considered the sculptured ornament, painted,
indeed, in vivid colors, but also planned with care, and executed with
vast knowledge, minute skill, and what seems to us faultless good taste.
In the Doric temples there was no leaf-sculpture, no scroll-work, no
carved ornaments of any sort: we shall find a different condition of
things in the Ionic style, but even in the elaborate and very costly
Parthenon there were only the human and animal forms, expressed in
statues and reliefs made as perfect as was possible to the artist of the
time. Some temples had none of this: others had the metopes of the
frieze (see footnote, Entablature) carved with high reliefs: others had
reliefs in the great triangular panel of the pediment:[14] others again
had this panel filled with statues, standing and seated, forming a
group, and expressing some legend of Greek historical and religious
life. Finally, there are instances of long unbroken bands of sculpture
in very low relief. The Parthenon had all of these: a horizontal band
along the top of each wall of the naos filled with bas-reliefs; high
reliefs in the metopes, statues in both pediments.
If, then, our opinion of ancient Greek architecture is to be formed, and
a relative judgment of any two fine specimens of it is to be reached, we
have to study with some care what is known about their appearance and
character when intact. What statues did they have? What high reliefs in
square panels, or bas-reliefs in long and narrow strips? Of what value
were these sculptures to the general effect of the structure? What seem
to have been the proportions of the building? If we can call up an image
of it before the mind, is this an image of perfect proportion, or is it
clear that greater height or other change in dimension would have been
an advantage? It is true that we generally accept Greek buildings of the
best time as faultless: but it is also true that there were great
differences among them. The hexastyle temple is necessarily more high
and more narrow than the octastyle building. If we consider that the
temple with six columns at each end has only thirteen on each side (that
is, eleven without counting the corner columns which form part of the
two fronts) while the wider Parthenon has seventeen columns on each
side, we find that the comparative height of the temple of Poseidon at
Pæstum, or of Zeus at Olympia, or of Athena at Sunion, is very much
greater when seen from one corner, in perspective, than that of the
Athens temple. Suppose that we trace from Plate IV so much of the
colonnade as will leave out two of the end columns and four of those on
the flank, and then put a corresponding pediment and entablature, which
proportion shall we prefer? Which building is nearer to perfection? The
Parthenon, as the very flower and glory of Greece? If so, why was the
hexastyle form so very much more common? There are no other octastyle
Doric temples known to us: and, if it be said as an explanation, that
_of course_ the heights of column and entablature would be varied for
the change from the 8 × 17 peristyle to the 6 × 13 type, the question
still remains for us--was it practicable to make an octastyle temple as
perfect in proportion as were numerous hexastyle examples, large and
small, scattered over Greece, Southern Italy and Sicily? These doubts
are suggested in order that the reader may see in this commencement of
his studies what kind of unsettled and never to be settled questions
will come before him at every step of his inquiry. He will be equally
uncertain whether he is to prefer the east end of Reims cathedral or
that of Bourges, or that of Paris. As with the important Greek temples,
so the Gothic cathedrals just named are the very flower of their epoch
and represent in the highest perfection known to us their respective
styles. So much the student will be able to discover without too great a
mental effort: and once sure of this he will understand that no further
mental effort in this direction is even desirable, and that comparison
among works of very high excellence can never cease--can never be
brought to an end by any authority or any outside decision whatsoever,
and that here the student’s own preferences must be perforce his only
guide.
There is still one point of view from which the Greek temples must be
regarded. It is to many persons the most important consideration of all.
Those who are realists in architecture are always inclined to favor the
utilitarian plan and the logical structure and to hold these as of even
greater value than the abstract proportion or the beauty of detail. On
the other hand, writers like Ruskin never suggest the importance of the
destination of the edifice, nor its merit as a piece of intelligent
building: nor do the students of proportion, as in Neo-classic[15]
buildings, think much of this matter. In the case of the Greek temples
this practical consideration can be stated in a very few words. No large
roofed hall was ever desired; no interior effect, as of a great vaulted
room, was thought of; no room for a congregation or an audience within
the solid walls was ever proposed. The naos of the temple served only to
house the great image of the Divinity with other minor statues of the
same or of kindred significance together with the gifts presented to the
shrine. The people gathered in front of the great portico; public
sacrifices were performed there; the temple itself, like the choir[16]
of a Christian church long afterwards, was for the priests alone.
Moreover, the buildings of different character left us by the Greeks,
even in ruins, are so very few that we are unable to establish with
certainty their character; and those which, like the famous Meeting-hall
(Telesterion) at Eleusis, must have accommodated a number of persons
seated to listen to the words of speakers, were obviously of extreme
simplicity--involving no new principles of plan or of design. Next, as
to the construction: that as the photographs show, was of the simplest
possible character. Uprights of stone carried horizontal beams of stone,
and these again cross-beams to span the width of the portico, which
cross-beams might be of stone, or of wood encased perhaps with terra
cotta slabs. As for the interior of the naos, in the larger temples it
was divided into a wider middle hall and two narrower ones, like the
nave and aisles of Christian churches: and all roofed with timber, in
simple framing, which carried a roofing of tile: but whether the roof
was always complete and solid, or whether, as some persons think, a part
of this was often omitted so as to allow the light of day to enter from
above, is uncertain.
It appears then that, as suggested in the first page of this chapter,
the requirements and the structure of the Grecian religious building
were so very simple that no long examination into the matter is needed
to show the connection between the plan and the exterior effect, or
between the structure and the exterior effect. We have no Greek
interiors to study and the exteriors at once tell us how the whole
structure was brought into being, and also that it could not fail to
serve its daily uses in a very perfect manner.