invention of decorations of which, as we shall show, we would have many
more in English villas than economy at present allows. Candidus[33]
complains, in his Note Book, that Elizabethan architecture is frequently
adopted, because it is easy, with a pair of scissors, to derive a zigzag
ornament from a doubled piece of paper. But we would fain hope that none
of our professional architects have so far lost sight of the meaning of
their art, as to believe that roughening stone mathematically is
bestowing decoration, though we are too sternly convinced that they
believe mankind to be more shortsighted by at least thirty yards than
they are; for they think of nothing but general effect in their
ornaments, and lay on their flower-work so carelessly, that a good
substantial captain's biscuit, with the small holes left by the
penetration of the baker's four fingers, encircling the large one which
testifies of the forcible passage of his thumb, would form quite as
elegant a rosette as hundreds now perpetuated in stone.
[Footnote 33: [A contributor to the "Architectural Magazine."]]
179. Now, there is nothing which requires study so close, or experiment
so frequent, as the proper designing of ornament. For its use and
position some definite rules may be given; but, when the space and
position have been determined, the lines of curvature, the breadth,
depth, and sharpness of the shadows to be obtained, the junction of the
parts of a group, and the general expression, will present questions for
the solution of which the study of years will sometimes scarcely be
sufficient;[34] for they depend upon the feeling of the eye and hand,
and there is nothing like perfection in decoration, nothing which, in
all probability, might not, by farther consideration, be improved. Now,
in cases in which the outline and larger masses are determined by
situation, the architect will frequently find it necessary to fall
back upon his decorations, as the only means of obtaining character; and
that which before was an unmeaning lump of jagged freestone, will become
a part of expression, an accessory of beautiful design, varied in its
form, and delicate in its effect. Then, instead of shrinking from his
bits of ornament, as from things which will give him trouble to invent,
and will answer no other purpose than that of occupying what would
otherwise have looked blank, the designer will view them as an efficient
_corps de reserve_, to be brought up when the eye comes to close
quarters with the edifice, to maintain and deepen the impression it has
previously received. Much more time will be spent in the conception,
much more labor in the execution, of such meaning ornaments, but both
will be well spent and well rewarded.
[Footnote 34: For example, we would allow one of the modern builders of
Gothic chapels a month of invention, and a botanic garden to work from,
with perfect certainty that he would not, at the expiration of the time,
be able to present us with one design of leafage equal in beauty to
hundreds we could point out in the capitals and niches of Melrose and
Roslin.]
180. Perhaps our meaning may be made more clear by Fig. 13 A, which is
that of a window found in a domestic building of mixed and corrupt
architecture, at Munich (which we give now, because we shall have
occasion to allude to it hereafter). Its absurd breadth of molding, so
disproportionate to its cornice, renders it excessively ugly, but
capable of great variety of effect. It forms one of a range of four,
turning an angle, whose moldings join each other, their double breadth
being the whole separation of the apertures, which are something more
than double squares. Now by alteration of the decoration, and depth of
shadow, we have B and C. These three windows differ entirely in their
feeling and manner, and are broad examples of such distinctions of style
as might be adopted severally in the habitations of the man of
imagination, the man of intellect and the man of feeling.[35] If our
alterations have been properly made, there will be no difficulty in
distinguishing between their expressions, which we shall therefore leave
to conjecture. The character of A depends upon the softness with which
the light is caught upon its ornaments, which should not have a single
hard line in them; and on the gradual, unequal, but intense, depth of
its shadows. B should have all its forms undefined, and passing into one
another, the touches of the chisel light, a grotesque face or feature
occurring in parts, the shadows pale, but broad[36]; and the boldest
part of the carving kept in shadow rather than light. The third should
be hard in its lines, strong in its shades, and quiet in its ornament.
[Footnote 35: [Though not in this order. C is the intellectual window;
B, the imaginative one.]]
[Footnote 36: It is too much the custom to consider a design as composed
of a certain number of hard lines, instead of a certain number of
shadows of various depth and dimension. Though these shadows change
their position in the course of the day, they are relatively always the
same. They have most variety under a strong light without sun, most
expression with the sun. A little observation of the infinite variety of
shade which the sun is capable of casting, as it touches projections of
different curve and character, will enable the designer to be certain of
his effects. We shall have occasion to allude to this subject again.
[See _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, III. 13, 23.]]
[Illustration: Fig. 13. Windows.]
181. These hints will be sufficient to explain our meaning, and we have
not space to do more, as the object of these papers is rather to observe
than to advise. Besides, in questions of expression so intricate, it is
almost impossible to advance fixed principles; every mind will have
perceptions of its own, which will guide its speculations, every hand,
and eye, and peculiar feeling, varying even from year to year. We have
only started the subject of correspondence with individual character,
because we think that imaginative minds might take up the idea with some
success, as furnishing them with a guide in the variation of their
designs, more certain than mere experiment on unmeaning forms, or than
ringing indiscriminate changes on component parts of established beauty.
To the reverie, rather than the investigation, to the dream, rather than
the deliberation, of the architect, we recommend it, as a branch of art
in which instinct will do more than precept, and inspiration than
technicality. The correspondence of our villa architecture with our
natural scenery may be determined with far greater accuracy, and will
require careful investigation.
We had hoped to have concluded the Villa in this paper; but the
importance of domestic architecture at the present day, when people want
houses more than fortresses, safes more than keeps, and sculleries more
than dungeons, is sufficient apology for delay.
OXFORD, _August, 1838._
VI.
THE BRITISH VILLA.--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
_The Cultivated, or Blue Country and the Wooded, or Green Country._
182. In the papers hitherto devoted to the investigation of villa
architecture, we have contemplated the beauties of what may be
considered as its model, in its original and natural territory; and we
have noticed the difficulties to be encountered in the just erection of
villas in England. It remains only to lay down the general principles of
composition, which in such difficulties may, in some degree, serve as a
guide. Into more than general principles it is not consistent with our
plan to enter. One obstacle, which was more particularly noticed, was,
as it may be remembered, the variety of the geological formations of the
country. This will compel us to use the divisions of landscape formerly
adopted in speaking of the cottage, and to investigate severally the
kind of domestic architecture required by each.
183. First. Blue or cultivated country, which is to be considered as
including those suburban districts, in the neighborhood of populous
cities, which, though more frequently black than blue, possess the
activity, industry, and life, which we before noticed as one of the
characteristics of blue country. We shall not, however, allude to
suburban villas at present; first, because they are in country
possessing nothing which can be spoiled by anything; and, secondly,
because their close association renders them subject to laws which,
being altogether different from those by which we are to judge of the
beauty of solitary villas, we shall have to develop in the consideration
of street effects.
184. Passing over the suburb, then, we have to distinguish between the
_simple_ blue country, which is composed only of rich cultivated
champaign, relieved in parts by low undulations, monotonous and
uninteresting as a whole, though cheerful in its character, and
beautiful in details of lanes and meadow paths; and the _picturesque_
blue country, lying at the foot of high hill ranges, intersected by
their outworks, broken here and there into bits of crag and dingle
scenery; perpetually presenting prospects of exquisite distant beauty,
and possessing in its valley and river scenery, fine detached specimens
of the natural "green country." This distinction we did not make in
speaking of the cottage; the effect of which, owing to its size, can
extend only over a limited space; and this space, if in picturesque blue
country, must be either part of its monotonous cultivation, when it is
to be considered as belonging to the simple blue country, or part of its
dingle scenery, when it becomes green country; and it would not be just,
to suit a cottage, actually placed in one color, to the general effect
of another color, with which it could have nothing to do. But the effect
of the villa extends very often over a considerable space, and becomes
part of the large features of the district; so that the whole character
and expression of the visible landscape must be considered, and thus the
distinction between the two kinds of blue country becomes absolutely
necessary. Of the first, or simple, we have already adduced, as an
example, the greater part of the South of England. Of the second, or
picturesque, the cultivated parts of the North and East Ridings of
Yorkshire, generally Shropshire, and the north of Lancashire, and
Cumberland, beyond Caldbeck Fells, are good examples; perhaps better
than all, the country for twelve miles north, and thirty south, east,
and west, of Stirling.
_A. The Simple Blue Country._
185. Now, the matter-of-fact business-like activity of simple blue
country has been already alluded to. This attribute renders in it a
plain palpable brick dwelling-house allowable; though a thing which, in
every country but the simple blue, compels every spectator of any
feeling to send up aspirations, that builders who, like those of Babel,
have brick for stone, may be put, like those of Babel, to confusion.
Here, however, it is not only allowable, but even agreeable, for the
following reasons:--
186. Its cleanness and freshness of color, admitting of little dampness
or staining, firm in its consistence, not moldering like stone, and
therefore inducing no conviction of antiquity or decay, presents rather
the appearance of such comfort as is contrived for the enjoyment of
temporary wealth, than of such solidity as is raised for the inheritance
of unfluctuating power. It is thus admirably suited for that country
where all is change, and all activity; where the working and
money-making members of the community are perpetually succeeding and
overpowering each other; enjoying, each in his turn, the reward of his
industry; yielding up the field, the pasture, and the mine, to his
successor, and leaving no more memory behind him, no farther evidence of
his individual existence, than is left by a working bee, in the honey
for which we thank his class, forgetting the individual. The simple blue
country may, in fact, be considered the dining-table of the nation; from
which it provides for its immediate necessities, at which it feels only
its present existence, and in which it requires, not a piece of
furniture adapted only to remind it of past refection, but a polished,
clean, and convenient minister to its immediate wishes. No habitation,
therefore, in this country, should look old: it should give an
impression of present prosperity, of swift motion and high energy of
life; too rapid in its successive operation to attain greatness, or
allow of decay, in its works. This is the first cause which, in this
country, renders brick allowable.
187. Again, wherever the soil breaks out in simple blue country, whether
in the river shore, or the broken roadside bank, or the plowed field, in
nine cases out of ten it is excessively warm in its color, being either
gravel or clay, the black vegetable soil never remaining free of
vegetation. The warm tone of these beds of soil is an admirable relief
to the blue of the distances, which we have taken as the distinctive
feature of the country, tending to produce the perfect light without
which no landscape can be complete. Therefore the red of the brick is
prevented from glaring upon the eye, by its falling in with similar
colors in the ground, and contrasting finely with the general tone of
the distance. This is another instance of the material which nature most
readily furnishes being the right one. In almost all blue country, we
have only to turn out a few spadefuls of loose soil, and we come to the
bed of clay, which is the best material for the building; whereas we
should have to travel hundreds of miles, or to dig thousands of feet, to
get the stone which nature does not want, and therefore has not given.
188. Another excellence in brick is its perfect air of English
respectability. It is utterly impossible for an edifice altogether of
brick to look affected or absurd: it may look rude, it may look vulgar,
it may look disgusting, in a wrong place; but it cannot look foolish,
for it is incapable of pretension. We may suppose its master a brute, or
an ignoramus, but we can never suppose him a coxcomb: a bear he may be,
a fop he cannot be; and, if we find him out of his place, we feel that
it is owing to error, not to impudence; to self-ignorance, not to
self-conceit; to the want, not the assumption of feeling. It is thus
that brick is peculiarly English in its effect: for we are brutes in
many things, and we are ignoramuses in many things, and we are destitute
of feeling in many things, but we are _not_ coxcombs. It is only by the
utmost effort, that some of our most highly gifted junior gentlemen can
attain such distinction of title; and even then the honor sits ill upon
them: they are but awkward coxcombs. Affectation[37] never was, and
never will be, a part of English character; we have too much national
pride, too much consciousness of our own dignity and power, too much
established self-satisfaction, to allow us to become ridiculous by
imitative efforts; and, as it is only by endeavoring to appear what he
is not, that a man ever can become so, properly speaking, our
true-witted Continental neighbors, who shrink from John Bull as a brute,
never laugh at him as a fool. "Il est bête, il n'est pas pourtant sot."
[Footnote 37: The nation, indeed, possesses one or two interesting
individuals, whose affectation is, as we have seen, strikingly
manifested in their lake villas: but every rule has its exceptions; and,
even on these gifted personages, the affectation sits so very awkwardly,
so like a velvet bonnet on a plowman's carroty hair, that it is
evidently a late acquisition. Thus, one proprietor of land on
Windermere, who has built unto himself a castellated mansion with round
towers, and a Swiss cottage for a stable, has yet, with that admiration
of the "neat but not gaudy," which is commonly reported to have
influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea-green, painted the
rocks at the back of his house pink, that they may look clean. This is a
little outcrop of English feeling in the midst of the assumed romance.]
189. The brick house admirably corresponds with this part of English
character; for, unable as it is to be beautiful, or graceful, or
dignified, it is equally unable to be absurd. There is a proud
independence about it, which seems conscious of its entire and perfect
applicability to those uses for which it was built, and full of a
good-natured intention to render every one who seeks shelter within its
walls excessively comfortable; it therefore feels awkward in no company;
and, wherever it intrudes its good-humored red face, stares plaster and
marble out of countenance with an insensible audacity, which we drive
out of such refined company, as we would a clown from a drawing-room,
but which we nevertheless seek in its own place, as we would seek the
conversation of the clown in his own turnip-field, if he were sensible
in the main.
190. Lastly. Brick is admirably adapted for the climate of England, and
for the frequent manufacturing nuisances of English blue country: for
the smoke, which makes marble look like charcoal, and stucco like mud,
only renders brick less glaring in its color; and the inclement climate,
which makes the composition front look as if its architect had been
amusing himself by throwing buckets of green water down from the roof,
and before which the granite base of Stirling Castle is moldering into
sand as impotent as ever was ribbed by ripple, wreaks its rage in vain
upon the bits of baked clay, leaving them strong, and dry, and
stainless, warm and comfortable in their effect, even when neglect has
permitted the moss and wall-flower to creep into their crannies, and
mellow into something like beauty that which is always comfort. Damp,
which fills many stones as it would a sponge, is defied by the brick;
and the warmth of every gleam of sunshine is caught by it, and stored up
for future expenditure; so that, both actually and in its effect, it is
peculiarly suited for a climate whose changes are in general from bad to
worse, and from worse to bad.
191. These then are the principal apologies which the brick
dwelling-house has to offer for its ugliness. They will, however, only
stand it in stead in the simple blue country; and, even there, only when
the following points are observed.
First. The brick should neither be of the white, nor the very dark red,
kind. The white is worse than useless as a color: its cold, raw, sandy
neutral has neither warmth enough to relieve, nor gray enough to
harmonize with, any natural tones; it does not please the eye by warmth,
in shade; it hurts it, by dry heat in sun; it has none of the advantages
of effect which brick may have, to compensate for the vulgarity which it
must have, and is altogether to be abhorred. The very bright red, again,
is one of the ugliest warm colors that art ever stumbled upon: it is
never mellowed by damps or anything else, and spoils everything near it
by its intolerable and inevitable glare. The moderately dark brick, of a
neutral red, is to be chosen, and this, after a year or two, will be
farther softened in its color by atmospheric influence, and will possess
all the advantages we have enumerated. It is almost unnecessary to point
out its fitness for a damp situation, not only as the best material for
securing the comfort of the inhabitant, but because it will the sooner
contract a certain degree of softness of tone, occasioned by microscopic
vegetation, which will leave no more brick-red than is agreeable to the
feelings where the atmosphere is chill.
192. Secondly. Even this kind of red is a very powerful color; and as,
in combination with the other primitive colors, very little of it will
complete the light, so, very little will answer every purpose in
landscape composition, and every addition, above that little, will be
disagreeable. Brick, therefore, never should be used in large groups of
buildings, where those groups are to form part of landscape scenery: two
or three houses, partly shaded with trees, are all that can be admitted
at once. There is no object more villainously destructive of natural
beauty, than a large town, of very red brick, with very scarlet tiling,
very tall chimneys, and very few trees; while there are few objects that
harmonize more agreeably with the feeling of English ordinary landscape,
than the large, old, solitary, brick manor house, with its group of dark
cedars on the lawn in front, and the tall wrought-iron gates opening
down the avenue of approach.
193. Thirdly. No stone quoining, or presence of any contrasting color,
should be admitted. Quoins in general (though, by the by, they are
prettily managed in the old Tolbooth of Glasgow, and some other antique
buildings in Scotland), are only excusable as giving an appearance of
strength; while their zigzag monotony, when rendered conspicuous by
difference of color, is altogether detestable. White cornices, niches,
and the other superfluous introductions in stone and plaster, which some
architects seem to think ornamental, only mock what they cannot mend,
take away the whole expression of the edifice, render the brick-red
glaring and harsh, and become themselves ridiculous in isolation.
Besides, as a general principle, contrasts of extensive color are to be
avoided in all buildings, and especially in positive and unmanageable
tints. It is difficult to imagine whence the custom of putting stone
ornaments into brick buildings could have arisen; unless it be an
imitation of the Italian custom of mixing marble with stucco, which
affords it no sanction, as the marble is only distinguishable from the
general material by the sharpness of the carved edges. The Dutch seem to
have been the originators of the custom; and, by the by, if we remember
right, in one of the very finest pieces of coloring now extant, a
landscape by Rubens (in the gallery at Munich, we think), the artist
seems to have sanctioned the barbarism, by introducing a brick edifice,
with white stone quoining. But the truth is that he selected the
subject, partly under the influence of domestic feelings, the place
being, as it is thought, his own habitation, and partly as a piece of
practice, presenting such excessive difficulties of color, as he, the
lord of color, who alone could overcome them, would peculiarly delight
in overcoming; and the harmony with which he has combined tints of the
most daring force, and sharpest apparent contrast, in the edgy building,
and opposed them to an uninteresting distance of excessive azure (simple
blue country, observe), is one of the chief wonders of the painting: so
that this masterpiece can no more furnish an apology for the continuance
of a practice which, though it gives some liveliness of character to the
warehouses of Amsterdam, is fit only for a place whose foundations are
mud, and whose inhabitants are partially animated cheeses,--than
Caravaggio's custom of painting blackguards should introduce an ambition
among mankind in general of becoming fit subjects for his pencil. We
shall have occasion again to allude to this subject, in speaking of
Dutch street effects.
194. Fourthly. It will generally be found to agree best with the
business-like air of the blue country, if the house be excessively
simple, and apparently altogether the minister of utility; but, where it
is to be extensive, or tall, a few decorations about the upper windows
are desirable. These should be quiet and severe in their lines, and cut
boldly in the brick itself. Some of the minor streets in the King of
Sardinia's capital are altogether of brick, very richly charged with
carving, with excellent effect, and furnish a very good model. Of course
no delicate ornament can be obtained, and no classical lines can be
allowed; for we should be horrified by seeing that in brick which we
have been accustomed to see in marble. The architect must be left to his
own taste for laying on, sparingly and carefully, a few dispositions of
well proportioned line, which are all that can ever be required.
195. These broad principles are all that need be attended to in simple
blue country: anything will look well in it which is not affected; and
the architect, who keeps comfort and utility steadily in view, and runs
off into no expatiations of fancy, need never be afraid here of falling
into error.
_B. The Picturesque Blue Country._