_THE USE AND ABUSE OF DECORATIVE CONVENTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE_
It is always more or less futile to quarrel with the vernacular.
Otherwise we should take exception to the word _design_ in the sense of
invention. The latter is the more expressive term. In the language of
those nations from which modern art is derived, _dessiner_, _disegnare_
mean to draw. Italian authors of the Renaissance, in estimating an
artist's achievement, invariably weighed his inventive faculties. Thus
Vasari, in summarizing Raphael's qualities, extols his "_disegno,
colorito ed invenzione_"—his drawing, color, and invention. An
illustrator "invents" and "draws;" for instance, "Giovanni Albertelli
_inv. e dis._" Emphasis is here laid on the word invention, and on its
vogue in other lands, both because it is very forceful, and because it
seems to imply something more than "design." A plagiarist might venture
to risk the term "design" when he would balk at "invention."
If we enter one of our patrician homes—palaces, palazzi, or private
hotels, they would be called elsewhere—what do we find to exalt the
decorative artist, where the work has been the sole product of the
architect, and it may be added of the patrician himself? Much splendor
there is, assuredly, and gold, and rich carving, and sumptuous
marble, and opulent stuffs; even expatriated mantles and whole rooms,
kidnapped from the harmonious surroundings where they were a perpetual
joy—imported to discord with our modern alien habitats. Sometimes
we happen on an Italian Renaissance room without a spark of the
easy invention and graceful free-hand work that was the charm of the
original; but more frequently we meet with debased Louis XV. and Louis
XVI., debased in the inspirationless copy. The originals of these things
are very beautiful indeed, and will ever be the immortal models for
decorative artists. But it must not for a moment be supposed by the
laity that in mechanically reproducing these things we are inventing
or adding an iota to the art product of the world. Perhaps this lack
of invention can better be appreciated when the bald statement is made
that a well-equipped decorator would not think it worth his while to
enter our buildings for the purpose of studying fresh ideas; always
excepting those instances where the services of a capable artist have
been engaged, and the few exceptions to every rule.
Archæology has taught its lesson of accuracy in the arts. As we have
already observed, the tendency is to copy rather than to assimilate.
The reproductive processes have overwhelmed the practitioner with an
excess of material, far more than can be digested. We have acquired
the photograph habit. Could half the time be devoted to invention that
is given to the excavation from portfolios of the desired prototypes,
and to the formation of collections, it would be better for art. We
have repeatedly anathematized the vast aggregation of photographs so
cheaply and easily obtained. Were they to perish from the earth, design
would take a great leap forward—for their abuse is almost inevitable.
The mere power of limning is compromised by an over-reliance on them.
Constant reference, even to an original study from nature, clogs the
creative faculty, and hampers the impatient hand, much more so, an
alien reproduction. Once a distinguished artist lost all his preliminary
studies for a picture when his house was ransacked by the Prussians. "I
am glad of it," he said, "for now I feel emancipated and can work with
greater freedom." It must always be borne in mind that the best designs
were made before the invention of the reproductive processes, and the
exactions of precise archæology. It is safe here to use the word "best,"
because the constant copying of them is an admission of their primacy.
It must not be supposed that the Renaissance man was more virtuous than
we are. Probably he was less so. He stole things wherever he could lay
his hands on them. Fortunately, there was less to steal in quality
and quantity. Nor had he acquired the lesson of accuracy. Even the
engraver, when he tried to counterfeit, let us say an "Albert Dürer,"
did it rather clumsily. If an artist wished to reproduce another's work
for self-instruction, he rendered it very freely, infusing a good deal
of his own personality into the copy, unconsciously, without doubt.
From our point of view this copy was pitiable as an imitation. For his
purpose, it was just as good as the closer reproduction, even better.
Giuliano Sangallo's drawing from the antique would make schoolboys
merry, while both they and their preceptors admire the creations which
these somewhat clumsy sketches evoked. One of the fragments of the lost
"Battle of Anghiari," by Leonardo, comes to us through the exuberant
handling of Rubens, the freest sort of a translation, as were all his
Italian notes. Raphael, painter-architect, makes a pen and ink from the
"Three Graces at Sienna," after graduating from the school of Perugino
(we follow Müntz). From the photographic standpoint the humblest in a
well-conducted antique class could do better. But these men, and hosts
of others, _invented_—some painters, some sculptors, some architects,
perhaps the two or three in one. Take, for instance, that much used and
very popular member, the capital, a magnificent vehicle for decorative
expression. Observe Sangallo's in the Palazzo Gondi, Stagio-Stagi's at
Pisa, or those in the Palazzo dei Pazzi. But why specify these, when
beautiful examples swarm in Bologna, Ferrara, Urbino, and all over
northern Italy, full of lovely ideas and graceful in contour, capitals
evolved from the antique in a general way, and quite equal to them for
pure beauty, and surpassing them in fancy? We are prone to denounce the
"barocco" work. Eliminating for the nonce the question of taste, let us
glance at it from the inventive point of view. We have seen compositions
by the much abused painter-architect, Vasari, evidently turned out with
perfect facility, that would tax the creative faculty of a modern almost
to despair. The Zuccari Brothers, Poccetti, and men of that generation,
at times did things in shocking taste, but at times they composed very
beautifully and were always interesting, flinging broadcast fresh ideas.
We may not like a frame, or an arm-chair by a barocco Brustolon, yet
we must admire his fluent design. Thanks to passionless imitations,
the uninitiated are prone to associate nothing but dry formality with
such names as Vignola or Palladio. Let them see the villas by these
architects in the neighborhood of Rome or Vicenza, and they will soon
be disabused of any such impressions.
It is high time that the architect should declare himself an artist
by a display of the artistic qualities, an important one being the
invention of ornamental motives. He should differentiate himself from
the engineer. But as matters now stand, finding himself unable to
evolve fresh decorative forms either from lack of time or faculty, he
has recourse to his library, and cribs or re-distributes decorative
conventions, more or less trite, according to the date of the print or
photograph, with the well known result. These aids are also within the
reach of the engineer, or even the "builder," pure and simple. With a
very little study, either might learn to handle them adroitly. So that
if the architect wishes to occupy an impregnable position, he must
fortify it with artistic accomplishments.
That somewhat negative quality, jejune good taste, a sparse use of the
very well known and approved decorative forms, has its charm. It is a
perfectly safe policy for an architect to pursue. In the face of much
tawdry stuff, one craves it—the mere hungry surface, relieved here
and there by the authorized classic motives. But this cold chasteness
is as much a moral as an artistic idea. It means æsthetic sterility,
petrified decoration. A living art connotes invention. The same is true
of the dictum that a good copy is better than a bad original. Perhaps
it is; but no artistic progress can be made under such a tenet, and
the beautiful prototype deteriorates in reproduction, and loses the
inspiration in its frequency.
Be it understood that the question of decorative instruction is not
under discussion. More tenaciously, perhaps, than others, we hold
that the student must know the historical conventions, his grammar of
ornament, just as a writer must know his alphabet, not in order to use
them subsequently, but to profit by their lessons. What concerns us now
is the golden mean between the use and abuse of accredited conventions.
Certain simple decorative motives, such as dentils, egg and darts,
pearls, frets, etc., have become part and parcel of our decorative
conceptions. They are valuable accessories, almost as essential to
artistic syntax as the unimportant, yet necessary, conjunction is to
rhetorical syntax. In literary composition no objection can be made
to a timely quotation as an auxiliary to the subject-matter, but very
serious objection would be made were citations forced to do the author's
work vicariously. It is only when architects make their conventions
bear the sole brunt of ornamentation and call it "art" that complaint
is made. Did we not constitutionally object to the thoughtless use of
the superlative so much in vogue, especially when æsthetic themes are
under discussion, we should say that in the use of classic conventions,
the discretion and taste of the della Robbia were very nearly supreme.
The founder of the clan, Andrea, was, perhaps, less influenced by the
antique than any decorative artist of his time; still he was influenced
by it, as every Italian of his date must have been. Take one of his
famous _tondi_ as an example. The expressional picture is in the centre,
architecturally framed as it should be by a fillet or two, or an egg
and dart, perhaps, confining a decorative border of great beauty,
inspired by the fruits of the earth, largely treated. Here we have a
composition firmly framed, well suited to structural needs, sufficiently
architectural, yet immensely interesting. This is the very acme of
decorative excellence.
Archæology and chance have recently conferred one benefit, not to
mention others, for which we must be truly grateful. They have clearly
demonstrated the inventive faculties of the ancients. They have proved
to us that the architects and decorators of classic times were always
doing what artists will ever do—the unexpected. Familiar with the
reproductions of certain consecrated monuments, students have been
too prone to believe that the art of the Greeks and Romans was highly
conventionalized; that it moved in very narrow and prescribed channels.
The rendering of these monuments in the authoritative works has
aggravated the belief. Actually, the ancients worked with great freedom,
doing what we should never look for. Suppose it had been required to
"restore" a Livia's villa, not knowing the original, would it ever have
entered the restorer's head to paint a freehand landscape on its walls?
Suppose the task was to make a patera _à l'antique_, would it ever
have occurred to the designer to plant a portrait head in its centre
with a meagre line or two about it? Yet just such a patera was found at
Bosco Reale a few years since. The problem being to build a Roman arch,
who would ever have dreamed of constructing such an one as we find at
Timgad, dedicated to Trajan, with its lateral bays crowned by curved
pediments? It is very well known in these days that the ancient Greeks
and Romans were creative artists, whether they diademed an Acropolis,
or carved the throne of a Zeus, or "hit off" a Tanagra figurine, or
colored a Palatine wall, or a Pompeiian villino—not to mention the
myriad household utensils, some the most humble, exquisitely designed.
In plain English—they invented.
The failure of the architect as a decorative designer is a logical
sequence of commercialism. It is not to be expected that the breadwinner
should make superfluous sacrifices—that would be "bad business."
While in every profession there are philanthropic enthusiasts capable
of high and costly flights of altruism, the rank and file cannot be
called upon to immolate themselves to an unremunerative idea. One must
live, and live well, too, in these days. Taking his long and expensive
training into consideration, and his multifarious requirements, it may
be boldly asserted that few, if any, of the professions are so poorly
paid as that of the architect. He is not bedecked with the trappings
of wealth. His range of theoretical knowledge must be wide, and his
practical experience very considerable. Probably no class of men is
more roundly abused for its pains. The client has usually a pack of
complaints against his architect, and makes it a point to air them.
On several occasions we have heard men, high in their respective
callings, irritably denounce, on the flimsiest grounds, all architects
as "frauds." It is needless to say that our sympathies have invariably
been with the latter, for, as a profession, we believe them to be
high-minded, cultivated, conscientious, and efficient. The reason
that they are not decorative designers is because they are not paid
for original design. Yet, with all their diversified requirements in
these days of novel and necessarily tentative construction, they would
quickly acquire the lost habit, if it were worth their while. Yes, the
habit is lost, has perished of inanition, temporarily, at least. The
client does not want original design at the price exacted. He is not
a Mæcenas; he prefers the mechanical reproduction of stale forms at a
lower figure, _i.e._, the shopworn conventional. Moreover, he is rather
inclined to the habitual as being safer. Under these conditions, fresh
thoughts cannot be looked for. Even those men whose lives are devoted to
architectural decoration alone, the decorative painters and sculptors,
are frequently forced by the client to use the wearisome ornaments of
the past, much to their chagrin, because fresh thought is too expensive.
Not much objection seems to be made to a lavish outlay on mere barbaric
material, but a vigorous stand is taken against an outlay on artistic
invention. What is the result? Unable to evolve fresh motives, the
architect, perforce, turns to his portfolios and copies. He must have
ornament, for ornament is part and parcel of his profession as well as
solid construction and harmonious proportion. Therefore, he purloins it.
There is no sin in it, for it is done overtly and no one is deceived.
Any man in the other professions would do likewise under similar
conditions. It would be reprehensible if he did not. Only this road does
not lead to new ideas—to a new style. Artistic invention cannot thrive
under such conditions.