The Practical and Artistic Principles of Early Architecture in Great
Britain.
The close of the eleventh century--The “new manner of
building”--Conditions necessary to an _arcuated_, as distinguished
from a _trabeated_, style--First principles of Grecian and Roman
architecture--Rationale of the _arcuated_ style--Its
developments--Cloisters of St. Paul without the Walls and St. John
Lateran, Rome--Doorways--Windows--Vaulting over spaces enclosed by
walls or ranges of piers--Simplest elements
defined--Barrel-vaults--Hemispherical vaults or _domes_--Groined
vaults.
When I delivered my last lectures in this Academy, it was my intention
to give a practical sketch of the history and development of
architecture in this country from the earliest rise of civilisation
among the races of which our nation is composed, down, perhaps, to the
period of the revival of Classic architecture. As, however, such
continuous history has been disturbed by the omission of my lectures
last season, and as few now present heard, and fewer, probably, now
remember, those lectures, it is not my intention to continue my former
course, but, adopting as my stand-point the stage at which I had then
arrived, to digress into an inquiry into some of the practical and
artistic principles of the class of architecture of whose development I
was then treating.
The chronological point which I had reached was the close of the
eleventh century,--a point well fitted to be chosen as one for leaving
the beaten track for the purpose of inquiring into principles. It was
the very stage at which the great round-arched style, which had just
developed itself into a strong and sturdy luxuriance, was in the
condition best suited to receive the refinements of art.
It was, too, the very eve of that wonderful politico-religious movement
which was to bring the nations of the West into contact with the
East;--thus preparing the way for a vast influx of new ideas and of
fresh artistic elements; and, so far as our own country was concerned,
it was just the moment when the simple and unambitious architecture of
the Anglo-Saxon race had given place to the more colossal edifices and
the more systematic style of the Norman invaders; and when the
newly-imported architecture, having taken firm root in our soil, was
ready to become naturalised as our own, and to be pressed forward in all
zeal and earnestness by the united races which--now neither Saxon nor
Norman--were becoming, to all intents and purposes, _English_.
Nor let it be supposed that the architecture, thus made ready as the
nucleus of subsequent developments, was in itself essentially rude, or
mean, or barbaric. I admit that it was stern and severe, and lacking the
refinements of advanced art; and that its sculpture, though a reflection
from that of Byzantium--as that had been from ancient Greece--was
nevertheless grim, uncouth, and unrefined; yet in grandeur of conception
and in vastness of scale its productions vied with those of almost any
period or country; and I shall be able to show you that it contained
principles the most profound and accurate, and capable of being carried
forward to any degree of refinement.
A single half-century had, in fact, filled the length and breadth of our
land with structures of prodigious scale and impressive grandeur,
founded on the most reasonable principles, and containing, in a rough
and unrefined form, the most prolific and the most artistic elements. So
many of these vast edifices have given place to others of more advanced
style, or have been recklessly destroyed, that we can now with
difficulty realise the architectural status of a country where they were
rising or were just completed in every town and (on a reduced scale) in
almost every village;--a period when vast fortresses, such as the Tower
of London and the stupendous keeps of Rochester, of Norwich, and of
Headingham were specimens of the vernacular architecture to be seen all
over the land; when the now shattered ruins of Newark and the grim tower
of Newcastle were as freshly erected as their names imply; when the
awful names of Durham and Gloucester were but specimens of the “new
manner of building” then recently introduced, and which pervaded the
whole land; and when no city, or hardly a village, could be approached
without the lofty scaffoldings heaving first into view which surrounded
campaniles which could boast such as those at St. Alban’s and Tewkesbury
as their types.
We will, however, quit the track of mere history, to inquire into the
intrinsic principles of the architecture thus far attained, and in
course of development; and I must beg to be forgiven if, in doing so, I
am compelled at times to repeat what I have brought under your notice in
former lectures; for, not then intending to go systematically into this
inquiry, I have occasionally forestalled my subject by adverting to
these principles, as the course of my historical sketch chanced to
suggest.
I shall, then, firstly consider the architecture in question,--this
“_novum genus ædificandi_,”--from a point of view bearing upon its great
structural characteristic as a purely _arcuated_ style, and one whose
strivings all took the direction of rendering that structural fact the
main source, as well as the main receptacle, of its artistic character
and decoration.
Now what, I would ask, are the conditions necessary to an _arcuated_, as
distinguished from a _trabeated_, style?
I would thus define them:--Generally, I would say that such a style
should be capable of doing all, whether structural or artistic, by means
of the _arch_, which other forms of architecture had done through the
use of the horizontal _beam_ or lintel.