the nave of the basilica, but made it narrower, and used but two rows of
columns. They introduced the transepts, or cross-enclosures, making them
to project north and south of the nave, in the space separated from the
apsis; and the apsis was expanded into the choir, filled with priests
and choristers. The building now assumes the form of a cross. The choir
is elevated several steps above the nave, and beneath it is the crypt,
where the bishops and abbots and saints are buried. At the intersection
of choir, nave, and transept,--an open, square place,--rises a square
tower, at each corner of which is a massive pier supporting four arches.
The windows are narrow, with semicircular arches. At the western
entrance, at the end opposite the apse, is a small porch, where the
consecrated water is placed, in an urn or basin, and this is inclosed
between two towers. The old Roman atrium, or fore-court, entirely
disappears. In its place is a grander façade; and the pillars--which are
all internal, like those of an Egyptian temple, not external, as in the
Greek temple--have no longer Grecian capitals, but new combinations of
every variety, and the pillars are even more heavy and massive than the
Doric. The flat wooden ceiling of the nave disappears, on account of
frequent fires, and the eye rests on arches supporting a stone roof. All
the arches are semicircular, like those of the Coliseum and of the Roman
aqueducts and baths. They are built of small stones united by cement.
The building is low and heavy, and its external beauty is in the west
front or façade, with its square towers and circular window and
ornamented portal. The internal beauty is from the pillars supporting
the roof, and the tower which intersects the nave, choir, and transepts.
Sometimes, instead of a tower there is a dome, reminding us of Byzantine
workmanship.
But this Romanesque church is also connected with monastic institutions,
whose extensive buildings join the church at the north or south. The
church is wedded to monasticism; one supports the other, and both make a
unity exceedingly efficient in the Middle Ages. The communication
between the church and the convent is effected by a cloister,--a vaulted
gallery surrounding a square, open space, where the brothers walk and
meditate, but do not talk, except in undertone or whisper; for all the
precincts are sacred, made for contemplation and silence,--a retreat
from the noisy, barbaric world. Connected with the cloisters is a court
opening into the refectory, where the brothers dine on herbs and eggs
and a little meat,--also in silence, and, where the rule is strict, in
gloom,--an ascetic, dreary discipline. The whole range of buildings is
enclosed with walls, like a fortress. You see in this architecture the
gloom and desolation which overspread the world. Churches are heavy and
sombre; they are places for dreary meditation on the end of the world,
on the failure of civilization, on the degradation of humanity,--and yet
the only places where man may be brought in contact with the Deity who
presides over a fallen world, exalting human hopes to heaven, where
miseries end, and worship begins.
This style of architecture prevailed till the twelfth century, and was
seen in its greatest perfection in Germany under the Saxon emperors,
especially in the Rhenish provinces, as in the cathedrals of Spires,
Mentz, Worms, and Nuremberg. Its general effect was gloomy and heavy; a
separation from the outward world,--a world disgraced by feudal wars and
peasants' wrongs and general ignorance, which made men sad, morose,
inhuman. It flourished in ages when the poor had no redress, and were
trodden under the feet of hard feudal masters; when there was no law but
of brute force; when luxuries were few and comforts rare,--an age of
hardship, privation, poverty, suffering; an age of isolations and
sorrows, when men were forced to look beyond the grave for peace and
hope, when immortality through a Redeemer was the highest inspiration of
life. Everybody was agitated by fears. The clergy made use of this
universal feeling by presenting the terrors of the law,--the penalty of
sin,--everlasting physical burnings, from which the tortured soul could
be extricated only by penance and self-expiation, offerings to the
Church, and entire subserviency to the will of the priest, who held the
keys of heaven and hell. The men who lived when the Romanesque churches
dotted every part in Europe looked upon society and saw nothing but
grief,--heavy burdens, injustices, oppressions, cruel wrongs; and they
hid their faces and wept, and said: "Let us retreat from this miserable
world which discord ravages; let us hide ourselves in contemplation; let
us prepare to meet God in judgment; let us bring to Him our offering;
let us propitiate Him; let us build Him a house, where we may chant our
mournful songs." So the church arises,--in Germany, in France, in
England,--solemn, mystical, massive, a type of sorrow, in the form of a
cross, with "a sepulchral crypt like the man in the tomb, before the
lofty spire pointed to the man who had risen to Heaven." The church is
still struggling, and is not jubilant, except in Gregorian chants, and
is not therefore lofty or ornamental. It is a vault. It is more like a
catacomb than a basilica, for the world is buried deep in sorrows and
fears. Look to any of the Saxon churches of the period when the
Romanesque prevailed, and they are low, gloomy, and damp, though massive
and solemn. The church as an edifice ever represents the Church as an
institution or a power, ever typifies prevailing sentiments and ideas.
Perhaps the finest of the old Romanesque churches was that of Cluny, in
Burgundy, destroyed during the French Revolution. It had five aisles,
and was five hundred and twenty feet in length. It had a stately tower
at the intersection of the transepts, and six other towers. It was early
Norman, and loftier than the Saxon churches, although heavy and massive
like them.
But the Romanesque church, with all its varieties, is still gloomy,
dark, sepulchral, reminding us of the sorrows of the Middle Ages, and
the dreary character of prevailing religious sentiments,--fervent,
sincere, profound, but sad,--the sentiments of an age of ignorance
and faith.
The Crusades came. A new era burst upon the world. The old ideas became
modified; society became more cheerful, because more chivalric,
adventurous, poetic. The world opened towards the East, and was larger
than was before supposed. Liberality of mind began to dawn on the
darkened ages; no longer were priests supreme. The gay Provençals began
to sing; the universities began to teach and to question. The Scholastic
philosophy sent forth such daring thinkers as Erigena and Abélard.
Orthodoxy was still supreme before such mighty intellects as Anselm,
Bernard, and Thomas Aquinas, but it was assailed. Abélard put forth his
puzzling questions. The Schoolmen began to think for themselves, and the
iron weight of Feudalism was less oppressive. Free cities and commerce
began to enrich the people. Kings were becoming more powerful; grim
spiritual despotism was less arrogant. The end of the world, it was
found, had not come. A glorious future began to shed forth the beams of
its coming day. It was the dawn of a new civilization.
So a lighter, more cheerful, and grander architecture, with symbolic
beauties, appeared with changing ideas and sentiments. The Church, no
longer a gloomy power, struggling with Saracens and barbarism, but
dominant, triumphant, issues forth from darksome crypts and soars
upward,--elevates her vaulted roofs. "The Oriental ogive appears.... The
architects heap arcade on arcade, ogive on ogive, pyramid on pyramid,
and give to all geometrical symmetry and artistic grace.... The Greek
column is there, but dilated to colossal proportions, and exfoliated in
a variegated capital." The old Roman arch disappears, and the pointed
arch is substituted,--graceful and elevated. The old Egyptian obelisk
appears in the spire reaching to heaven, full of aspiration. The window
becomes larger and encroaches on the naked wall, and radiates in mystic
roses. The arches widen and the piers become more lofty. Stained glass
appears and diffuses religious light. Every part of the church becomes
decorated and symbolical and harmonious, though infinitely variegated.
The altars have pictures over them. Shrines and monuments appear in the
niches. The dresses of the priests are more gorgeous. The music of the
choir peals forth hallelujahs. Christ is risen from the tomb. "The
purple of his blood colors the windows." The roof, like pinnacles and
spires, seems to reach the skies. The pressure of the walls is downwards
rather than lateral. The vertical lines of Cologne are as marked as the
old horizontal lines of the Parthenon. The walls too are not so heavy,
and are supported by buttresses, which give increased beauty to the
exterior,--greater light and shade. "Every part of the church seems to
press forward and strive for greater freedom, for outward
manifestation." Even the broad and expansive window presses to the outer
surface of the walls, now broken by buttresses and pinnacles. The
window--the eye of the edifice--is more cheerful and intelligent. More
calm is the imposing façade, with its mighty towers and lofty spires,
tapering like a pyramid, with its round oriel window rich in beautiful
tracery, and its wide portal with sculptured saints and martyrs. And in
all the churches you see geometrical proportions. "Even the cross of the
church is deduced from the figure by which Euclid constructed the
equilateral triangle," The columns present the proportions of the Doric,
as to diameter and height. The love of the true and beautiful meet. The
natural and supernatural both appear. All parts symbolize the passion of
Christ. If the crypt speaks of death, the lofty and vaulted roof and the
beautiful pointed arches, and the cheerful window, and the jubilant
chants speak of life. "The old church reminds one of the Christ that lay
in the tomb; the new, of the Christ who arose the third day." The old
fosters meditation and silence; the new kindles the imagination, by its
variety of perspective arrangement and mystic representation,--still
reverential, still expressive of consecrated sentiments, yet more
cheerful. The foliated shaft, the rich tracery of the window, the
graceful pinnacle, the Arabian gorgeousness of the interior,--as if the
crusaders had learned something from the East,--the innumerable shrines
and pictures, the variegated marbles of the altar, with its vessels of
silver and gold, the splendid dresses of the priests, the imposing
character of the ritualism, the treasures lavished everywhere, all
speak greater independence, wealth, and power. The church takes the
place of all amusements. Its various attractions draw together the
people from their farms and shops. They are gaily dressed, as if they
were attending a festival. Their condition is so improved that they have
time for holidays. And these the Church multiplies; for perpetual toil
is the grave of intellect. The people must have rest, amusement,
excitement. All these things the Catholic Church gives, and consecrates.
Crusader, baron, knight, priest, peasant, all resort to the church for
benedictions. Women too are there, and in greater numbers; and they
linger for the confessional. When the time comes that women stay away
from church, like busy, preoccupied, sceptical men, then let us be on
the watch for some great catastrophe, since practical paganism will then
be restored, and the angels of light will have left the earth.
Paris and its neighborhood was the cradle of this new development of
architecture which we wrongly call the Gothic, even as Paris was the
centre of the new-born intelligence of the era. The word "Gothic"
suggests destructive barbarism: the English, French, and Germans
descended chiefly from Normans, Saxons, and Burgundians. This form of
church architecture rapidly spreads to Germany, England, and Spain. The
famous Suger, the minister of a powerful king, built the abbey of St.
Denis. The churches of Rheims, Paris, and Bourges arose in all their
grandeur. The façade of Rheims is the most significant example of the
wonderful architecture of the thirteenth century. In the church of
Amiens you see the perfection of the so-called Gothic,--so graceful are
its details, so dazzling is its height. The central aisle is one hundred
and thirty-two feet in altitude,--only surpassed by that of Beauvais,
which is fourteen feet higher. It was then that the cathedral of Rouen
was built, with its elegant lightness,--a marvel to modern travellers.
Soon after, the cathedral of Cologne appears, more grand than
either,--but left unfinished,--with its central aisle forty-four feet in
width, rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with its colossal
towers, intended to support the slender openwork spires, five hundred
and twenty feet in height. The whole church is five hundred and
thirty-two feet in length. I confess this church made a greater
impression on my mind than did any Gothic church in Europe,--more, even,
than Milan, with its unnumbered pinnacles and statues and its marble
roof. I could not rest while surveying its ten thousand wonders,--so
much lightness combined with strength; so grand, and yet so cheerful; so
exquisitely proportioned, so complicated in details, and yet a grand
unity; a glorious and fit temple for the reverential worship of the
Deity. Oh, how grand are those monuments which were designed to last
through ages, and which are consecrated, not to traffic, not to
pleasure, not to material wealth, but to the worship of that Almighty
God to whom every human being is personally responsible!
I cannot enumerate the churches of Mediaeval Europe,--built possibly by
the Freemasons, certainly by men familiar with all that is practical in
their art, with all that is hallowed and poetical. I glance at the
English cathedrals, built during this epoch,--the period of the Crusades
and the revival of learning.
And here I allude to the man who furnishes me with a text to my
discourse,--William of Wykeham, chancellor and prime minister of Edward
III., the contemporary of Chaucer and Wyclif,--who flourished in the
fourteenth century, and who built Winchester Cathedral; a great and
benevolent prelate, who also founded other colleges and schools. But I
merely allude to him, since my subject is the art to which he gave an
impulse, rather than any single individual. No one man represents church
architecture any more appropriately than any one man represents the
Feudal system, or Monasticism, or the Crusades, or the French
Revolution.
I do not think the English cathedrals are equal to those of Cologne,
Rheims, Amiens, and Rouen; but they are full of interest, and they have
varied excellences. That of Salisbury is the only one which is of
uniform style. Its glory is in its spire, as that of Lincoln is in its
west front, and that of Westminster is in its nave. Gloucester is
celebrated for its choir, and York for its tower. In all are beautiful
vistas of pillars and arches. But they lack the inspiration of the
Catholic Church. They are indeed hoary monuments, petrified mysteries, a
"passion of stone," as Michelet speaks of the marble histories which
will survive his rhapsodies. They alike show the pilgrimage of humanity
through gloomy centuries. If their great wooden screens were removed,
which separate the choir from the nave, the cathedrals doubtless would
appear to more advantage, and especially if they were filled with altars
and shrines and pictures, and lighted candles on the altars,--filled
also with crowds of worshippers, reverent before the gorgeously attired
ministers of Divine Omnipotence, and excited by transporting chants, and
the various appeals to sense and imagination. The reason must be
assisted by the imagination, before the mind can revel in the glories of
Gothic architecture. Imagination intensifies all our pleasures, even
those of sense; and without imagination--yea, a memory stored with the
pious deeds of saints and martyrs in bygone ages--a Gothic cathedral is
as much a sealed book as Wordsworth is to Taine. The Protestant tourist
from Michigan or Pennsylvania can "do" any cathedral in two hours, and
wonder why they make such a fuss about a church not half so large as
the New York Central Railroad station. The wonders of cathedrals must be
studied, like the glories of a landscape, with an eye to the beautiful
and the grand, cultured and practised by the contemplation of ideal
excellence, when the mind summons the imagination to its aid, with all
the poetry and all the history which have been learned in a life of
leisure and study. How different the emotions of a Ruskin or a Tennyson,
in surveying those costly piles, from those of a man fresh from a
distillery or from a warehouse of cotton fabrics, or even from those of
many fashionable women, whose only aesthetic accomplishment is to play
languidly and mechanically on an instrument, and whose only intellectual
achievement is to have devoured a dozen silly novels in the course of a
summer spent in alternate sleep and dalliance! Nor does familiarity
always give a zest to the pleasure which arises from the creations of
art or the glories of nature. The Roman beggar passes the Coliseum or
St. Peter's without notice or enjoyment, as a peasant sees unmoved the
snow-capped mountains of Switzerland or the beautiful lakes of
Killarney. Said sorrowfully my guide up the Rhigi, "I wish I lived in
Holland, for there are men there." Yet there are those whom the ascent
of Rhigi and the ruined monuments of ancient Rome would haunt for a
lifetime, in whose memory they would be perpetually fresh, never to pass
away, any more than the looks and the vows of early love from the mind
of a sentimental woman.
The glorious old architecture whose peculiarity was the pointed arch,
flourished only about three hundred years in its purity and matchless
beauty. Then another change took place. The ideal became lost in
meaningless ornaments. The human figure peoples the naked walls. "Man
places his own image everywhere.... The tomb rises like a mausoleum in
side chapels. Man is enthroned, not God." The corruption of the art
keeps pace with the corruption of the Papacy and the discords of
society. In the fourteenth century the Mediaeval has lost its charm
and faith.
And then sets in the new era, which begins with Michael Angelo. It is
marked by the revival of Greek art and Greek literature. At Florence
reign the Medici. On the throne of Saint Peter sits an Alexander VI. or
a Julius II. Genoa is a city of merchant-palaces. Museums are collected
of the excavated remains of Roman antiquity. Everybody kindles with the
contemplation of the long-buried glories of a classic age; everybody
reads the classic authors: Cicero is a greater oracle than Saint
Augustine. Scholars flock to Italy. The popes encourage the growing
taste for Pagan philosophy. Ancient art regains her long-abdicated
throne, and wields her sceptre over the worshippers of the Parthenon and
the admirers of Aeschylus and Thucydides. With the revived statues of
Greece appear the most beautiful pictures ever produced by the hand of
man; and with pictures and statues architecture receives a new
development. It is the blending of the old Greek and Roman with the
Gothic, and is called the Renaissance. Michael Angelo erects St.
Peter's, the heathen Pantheon, on the intersection of Gothic nave and
choir and transept; a glorious dome, more beautiful than any Gothic
spire or tower, rising four hundred and fifty feet into the air. And in
the interior are classic circular arches and pillars, so vast that one
is impressed as with great feats of engineering skill. All that is
variegated in marbles adorns the altars; all that is bewitching in
paintings is transferred to mosaics. And this new style of Italy spreads
into France and England. Sir Christopher Wren builds St. Paul's,--more
Grecian than Gothic,--and fills London with new churches, not one of
which is Gothic, and all different. The brain is bewildered in
attempting to classify the new and ever-shifting forms of the revived
Italian. And so for three hundred years the architects mingle the Gothic
with the classical, until now a mongrel architecture is the disgrace of
Europe; varied but not expressive, resting on no settled principles,
neither on vertical nor on horizontal lines,--blended together,
sometimes Grecian porticos on Elizabethan structures, spires resting not
on towers but roofs, Byzantine domes on Grecian temples, Greek columns
with Lombard arches, flamboyant panelling, pendant pillars from the
roof, all styles mixed up together, Corinthian pilasters acting as
Gothic buttresses, and pointed arches with Doric friezes,--a heap of
diverse forms, alien alike from the principles of Wykeham and Vitruvius.
And this varied mongrel style of architecture corresponds with the
confused civilization of the period,--neither Greek nor Gothic, but a
mixture of both; intolerant priests wrangling with pagan sceptics and
infidels,--Aquaviva with Pascal, the hierarchy of the French Church with
Voltaire and Rousseau, Protestant divines with the Catholic clergy;
Geneva and Rome compromising at Oxford, the authority of the Fathers
made antagonistic to the authority of popes, new vernacular tongues
supplanting Latin in the universities; everywhere war on the Middle
Ages, without full emancipation from their dogmas, ancient paganism made
to uphold the Church, an unbounded activity of intellect casting off all
established rules, the revival of the old Greek republics, democracy
asserting its claim against absolute power; nothing settled, nothing at
rest, but motion in every direction,--science combating faith, faith
spurning reason, humanity arrogating divinity, the confusion of races,
Babel towers of vanity and pride in the new projected enterprises,
Christian nations embroiled in constant wars, gold and silver set up as
idols, the rise of new powers in the shapes of new industries and new
inventions, commerce filling the world with wealth, armies contending
for rights as well as for the aggrandizement of monarchies: was there
ever such a simmering and boiling and fermenting period of activities
since the world began? In such a wild and tumultuous agitation of
passions and interests and ideas, how could Art reappear either in the
classic severity of Greek temples or the hoary grandeur of Mediaeval
cathedrals? In this jumble we look for new creations, but no creations
in art appear, only fantastic imitations. There is no creation except in
a new field, that of science and mechanical inventions,--where there is
the most extraordinary and astonishing development of human genius ever
seen on earth, but "of the earth earthy," aiming at material good.
Architecture itself is turned into great feats of engineering. It does
not span the apsis of a church; it spans rivers and valleys. The church,
indeed, passes out of mind, if not out of sight, in the new material
age, in the multiplication of bridges and gigantic reservoirs,--old Rome
brought back again in its luxuries.