the dust and heat of the French capital to the light and glory of the
Italian lakes, and finds the tall marble chambers and orange groves, in
which he thinks, were he possessed of them, he could luxuriate forever,
left desolate and neglected by their real owner; but, were he to try
such a residence for a single twelvemonth, we believe his wonder would
have greatly diminished at the end of the time. For the mind of the
nobleman in question does not differ from that of the average of men;
inasmuch as it is a well-known fact that a series of sublime
impressions, continued indefinitely, gradually pall upon the
imagination, deaden its fineness of feeling, and in the end induce a
gloomy and morbid state of mind, a reaction of a peculiarly melancholy
character, because consequent, not upon the absence of that which once
caused excitement, but upon the failure of its power.[43] This is not
the case with all men; but with those over whom the sublimity of an
unchanging scene can retain its power forever, we have nothing to do;
for they know better than any architect can, how to choose their scene,
and how to add to its effect; we have only to impress upon them the
propriety of thinking before they build, and of keeping their humors
under the control of their judgment.
[Footnote 43: [Compare _Modern Painters_. vol. III. chap. x. § 15.]]
215. It is not of them, but of the man of average intellect, that we are
thinking throughout all these papers; and upon him it cannot be too
strongly impressed, that there are very few points in a hill country at
all adapted for a permanent residence. There is a kind of instinct,
indeed, by which men become aware of this, and shrink from the sterner
features of hill scenery into the parts possessing a human interest; and
thus we find the north side of the Lake Leman, from Vevay to Geneva,
which is about as monotonous a bit of vine-country as any in Europe,
studded with villas; while the south side, which is as exquisite a piece
of scenery as is to be found in all Switzerland, possesses, we think,
two. The instinct in this case is true; but we frequently find it in
error. Thus, the Lake of Como is the resort of half Italy, while the
Lago Maggiore possesses scarcely one villa of importance, besides those
on the Borromean Islands. Yet the Lago Maggiore is far better adapted
for producing and sustaining a pleasurable impression, than that of
Como.
216. The first thing, then, which the architect has to do in hill
country is to bring his employer down from heroics to common sense; to
teach him that, although it might be very well for a man like Pliny,[44]
whose whole spirit and life was wrapt up in that of Nature, to set
himself down under the splash of a cascade 400 feet high, such escapades
are not becoming in English gentlemen; and that it is necessary, for his
own satisfaction, as well as that of others, that he should keep in the
most quiet and least pretending corners of the landscape which he has
chosen.
[Footnote 44: [This passage seems to suggest that the Villa Pliniana on
Como was built by Pliny. It was, however, the work of an antiquarian
nobleman of the Renaissance, and merely named after the great
naturalist, who was born, perhaps, at Como, and mentions an ebbing
spring on this site.]]
217. Having got his employer well under control, he has two points to
consider. First, where he will spoil least; and, secondly, where he will
gain most.
Now he may spoil a landscape in two ways: either by destroying an
association connected with it, or a beauty inherent in it. With the
first barbarism we have nothing to do; for it is one which would not be
permitted on a large scale; and even if it were, could not be
perpetrated by any man of the slightest education. No one, having any
pretensions to be called a human being, would build himself a house on
the meadow of the Rütli, or by the farm of La Haye Sainte, or on the
lonely isle on Loch Katrine. Of the injustice of the second barbarism we
have spoken already; and it is the object of this paper to show how it
may be avoided, as well as to develop the principles by which we may be
guided in the second question; that of ascertaining how much permanent
pleasure will be received from the contemplation of a given scene.
218. It is very fortunate that the result of these several
investigations will generally be found the same. The residence which in
the end is found altogether delightful, will be found to have been
placed where it has committed no injury; and therefore the best way of
consulting our own convenience in the end is, to consult the feelings
of the spectator in the beginning.[45] Now, the first grand rule for the
choice of situation is, never to build a villa where the ground is not
richly productive. It is not enough that it should be capable of
producing a crop of scanty oats or turnips in a fine season; it must be
rich and luxuriant, and glowing with vegetative power of one kind or
another.[46] For the very chiefest[47] part of the character of the
edifice of pleasure is, and must be, its perfect ease, its appearance of
felicitous repose. This it can never have where the nature and
expression of the land near it reminds us of the necessity of labor, and
where the earth is niggardly of all that constitutes its beauty and our
pleasure; this it can only have where the presence of man seems the
natural consequence of an ample provision for his enjoyment, not the
continuous struggle of suffering existence with a rude heaven and rugged
soil. There is nobility in such a struggle, but not when it is
maintained by the inhabitant of the villa, in whom it is unnatural, and
therefore injurious in its effect. The narrow cottage on the desolate
moor, or the stalwart hospice on the crest of the Alps, each leaves an
ennobling impression of energy and endurance; but the possessor of the
villa should call, not upon our admiration, but upon our sympathy; and
his function is to deepen the impression of the beauty and the fullness
of creation, not to exhibit the majesty of man; to show, in the
intercourse of earth and her children, not how her severity may be
mocked by their heroism, but how her bounty may be honored in their
enjoyment.
[Footnote 45: For instance, one proprietor terrifies the landscape all
round him, within a range of three miles, by the conspicuous position of
his habitation; and is punished by finding that, from whatever quarter
the wind may blow, it sends in some of his plate-glass. Another spoils a
pretty bit of crag by building below it, and has two or three tons of
stone dropped through his roof, the first frosty night. Another occupies
the turfy slope of some soft lake promontory, and has his cook washed
away by the first flood. We do not remember ever having seen a
dwelling-house destroying the effect of a landscape, of which,
considered merely as a habitation, we should wish to be the possessor.]
[Footnote 46: We are not thinking of the effect upon the human frame of
the air which is favorable to vegetation. Chemically considered, the
bracing breeze of the more sterile soil is the most conducive to health,
and is practically so, when the frame is not perpetually exposed to it;
but the keenness which checks the growth of the plant is, in all
probability, trying, to say the least, to the constitution of a
resident.]
[Footnote 47: We hope the English language may long retain this corrupt
but energetic superlative.]
219. This position, being once granted, will save us a great deal of
trouble; for it will put out of our way, as totally unfit for villa
residence, nine-tenths of all mountain scenery; beginning with such
bleak and stormy bits of hillside as that which was metamorphosed into
something like a forest by the author of "Waverley;" laying an equal
veto on all the severe landscapes of such districts of minor mountains
as the Scotch Highlands and North Wales; and finishing by setting aside
all the higher sublimity of Alp and Apennine. What, then, has it left
us? The gentle slope of the lake shore, and the spreading parts of the
quiet valley in almost all scenery; and the shores of the Cumberland
lakes in our own, distinguished as they are by a richness of soil,
which, though generally manifested only in an exquisite softness of
pasture and roundness of undulation, is sufficiently evident to place
them out of the sweeping range of this veto.
220. Now, as we have only to do with Britain at present, we shall direct
particular attention to the Cumberland lakes, as they are the only
mountain district which, taken generally, is adapted for the villa
residence, and as every piece of scenery, which in other districts is so
adapted, resembles them in character and tone.
We noticed, in speaking of the Westmoreland cottage, the feeling of
humility with which we are impressed during a mountain ramble. Now, it
is nearly impossible for a villa of large size, however placed, not to
disturb and interrupt this necessary and beautiful impression,
particularly where the scenery is on a very small scale. This
disadvantage may be obviated in some degree, as we shall see, by
simplicity of architecture; but another, dependent on a question of
proportion, is inevitable.
221. When an object, in which magnitude is a desirable attribute, leaves
an impression, on a practiced eye, of less magnitude than it really
possesses, we should place objects beside it, of whose magnitude we can
satisfy ourselves, of larger size than that which we are accustomed to;
for, by finding these large objects in precisely the proportion to the
grand object, to which we _are_ accustomed, while we know their actual
size to be one to which we are _not_ accustomed, we become aware of the
true magnitude of the principal feature. But where the object leaves a
true impression of its size on the practiced eye, we shall do harm by
rendering minor objects either larger or smaller than they usually are.
Where the object leaves an impression of greater magnitude than it
really possesses, we must render the minor objects smaller than they
usually are, to prevent our being undeceived.
222. Now, a mountain of 15,000 feet high always looks lower than it
really is; therefore the larger the buildings near it are rendered, the
better. Thus, in speaking of the Swiss cottage, it was observed that a
building of the size of St. Peter's in its place, would exhibit the size
of the mountains more truly and strikingly. A mountain 7000 feet high
strikes its impression with great truth; we are deceived on neither
side; therefore the building near it should be of the average size; and
thus the villas of the Lago di Como, being among hills from 6000 to 8000
feet high, are well proportioned, being neither colossal nor diminutive:
but a mountain 3000 feet high always looks higher than it really
is;[48] therefore the buildings near it should be smaller than the
average. And this is what is meant by the proportion of objects; namely,
rendering them of such relative size as shall produce the greatest
possible impression of those attributes which are most desirable in
both. It is not the true, but the desirable impression which is to be
conveyed; and it must not be in one, but in both: the building must not
be overwhelmed by the mass of the mountain, nor the precipice mocked by
the elevation of the cottage. (Proportion of color is a question of
quite a different nature, dependent merely on admixture and
combination).
[Footnote 48: This position, as well as the two preceding, is important,
and in need of confirmation. It has often been observed, that, when the
eye is altogether unpracticed in estimating elevation, it believes every
point to be lower than it really is; but this does not militate against
the proposition, for it is also well known, that the higher the point,
the greater the deception. But when the eye is thoroughly practiced in
mountain measurement, although the judgment, arguing from technical
knowledge, gives a true result, the impression on the feelings is always
at variance with it, except in hills of the middle height. We are
perpetually astonished, in our own country, by the sublime impression
left by such hills as Skiddaw, or Cader Idris, or Ben Venue; perpetually
vexed, in Switzerland, by finding that, setting aside circumstances of
form and color, the abstract impression of elevation is (except in some
moments of peculiar effect, worth a king's ransom) inferior to the
truth. We were standing the other day on the slope of the Brevent, above
the Prieuré of Chamouni, with a companion, well practiced in climbing
Highland hills, but a stranger among the Alps. Pointing out a rock above
the Glacier des Bossons, we requested an opinion of its height. "I
should think," was the reply, "I could climb it in two steps; but I am
too well used to hills to be taken in in that way; it is at least 40
feet." The real height was 470 feet. This deception is attributable to
several causes (independently of the clearness of the medium through
which the object is seen), which it would be out of place to discuss
here, but the chief of which is the natural tendency of the feelings
always to believe objects subtending the same angle to be of the same
height. We say the feelings, not the eye; for the practiced eye never
betrays its possessor, though the due and corresponding mental
impression is not received.]
223. For these reasons, buildings of a very large size are decidedly
destructive of effect among the English lakes: first, because apparent
altitudes are much diminished by them; and, secondly, because, whatever
position they may be placed in, instead of combining with scenery, they
occupy and overwhelm it; for all scenery is divided into pieces, each of
which has a near bit of beauty, a promontory of lichened crag, or a
smooth swarded knoll, or something of the kind, to begin with. Wherever
the large villa comes, it takes up one of these beginnings of landscape
altogether; and the parts of crag or wood, which ought to combine with
it, become subservient to it, and lost in its general effect; that is,
ordinarily, in a general effect of ugliness. This should never be the
case: however intrinsically beautiful the edifice may be, it should
assist, but not supersede; join, but not eclipse; appear, but not
intrude.
224. The general rule by which we are to determine the size is, to
select the largest mass which will not overwhelm any object of fine
form, within two hundred yards of it; and if it does not do this, we may
be quite sure it is not too large for the distant features: for it is
one of Nature's most beautiful adaptations, that she is never out of
proportion with herself; that is, the minor details of scenery of the
first class bear exactly the proportion to the same species of detail in
scenery of the second class, that the large features of the first bear
to the large features of the second. Every mineralogist knows that the
quartz of the St. Gothard is as much larger in its crystal than the
quartz of Snowdon, as the peak of the one mountain overtops the peak of
the other; and that the crystals of the Andes are larger than
either.[49] Every artist knows that the bowlders of an Alpine
foreground, and the leaps of an Alpine stream, are as much larger than
the bowlders, and as much bolder than the leaps, of a Cumberland
foreground and torrent, as the Jungfrau is higher than Skiddaw.
Therefore, if we take care of the near effect in any country, we need
never be afraid of the distant.
[Footnote 49: This is rather a bold assertion; and we should be sorry to
maintain the fact as universal; but the crystals of _almost_ all the
rarer minerals are larger in the larger mountain; and that altogether
independently of the period of elevation, which, in the case of Mont
Blanc, is later than that of our own Mendips.]
225. For these reasons, the cottage villa, rather than the mansion, is
to be preferred among our hills: it has been preferred in many
instances, and in too many, with an unfortunate result; for the cottage
villa is precisely that which affords the greatest scope for practical
absurdity. Symmetry, proportion, and some degree of simplicity, are
usually kept in view in the large building; but, in the smaller, the
architect considers himself licensed to try all sorts of experiments,
and jumbles together pieces of imitation, taken at random from his
note-book, as carelessly as a bad chemist mixing elements, from which he
may by accident obtain something new, though the chances are ten to one
that he obtains something useless. The chemist, however, is more
innocent than the architect; for the one throws his trash out of the
window, if the compound fail; while the other always thinks his conceit
too good to be lost. The great one cause of all the errors in this
branch of architecture is, the principle of imitation, at once the most
baneful and the most unintellectual, yet perhaps the most natural, that
the human mind can encourage or act upon.[50] Let it once be thoroughly
rooted out, and the cottage villa will become a beautiful and
interesting element of our landscape.
[Footnote 50: In § 166 we noticed the kind of error most common in
amateur designs, and we traced that error to its great first cause, the
assumption of the humor, instead of the true character, for a guide; but
we did not sufficiently specify the mode in which that first cause
operated, by prompting to imitation. By imitation we do not mean
accurate copying, neither do we mean working under the influence of the
feelings by which we may suppose the originators of a given model to
have been actuated; but we mean the intermediate step of endeavoring to
combine old materials in a novel manner. True copying may be disdained
by architects, but it should not be disdained by nations; for when the
feelings of the time in which certain styles had their origin have
passed away, any examples of the same style will invariably be failures,
unless they be copies. It is utter absurdity to talk of building Greek
edifices now; no man ever will, or ever can, who does not believe in the
Greek mythology; and, precisely by so much as he diverges from the
technicality of strict copyism, he will err. But we ought to have pieces
of Greek architecture, as we have reprints of the most valuable records,
and it is better to build a new Parthenon than to set up the old one.
Let the dust and the desolation of the Acropolis be undisturbed forever;
let them be left to be the school of our moral feelings, not of our
mechanical perceptions; the line and rule of the prying carpenter should
not come into the quiet and holy places of the earth. Elsewhere, we may
build marble models for the education of the national mind and eye; but
it is useless to think of adapting the architecture of the Greek to the
purposes of the Frank; it never has been done, and never will be. We
delight, indeed, in observing the rise of such a building as La
Madeleine: beautiful, because accurately copied; useful, as teaching the
eye of every passer-by. But we must not think of its purpose; it is
wholly unadapted for Christian worship; and were it as bad Greek as our
National Gallery, it would be equally unfit.
The mistake of our architects in general is, that they fancy they are
speaking good English by speaking bad Greek. We wish, therefore, that
copying were more in vogue than it is. But imitation, the endeavor to be
Gothic, or Tyrolese, or Venetian, without the slightest grain of Gothic
or Venetian feeling; the futile effort to splash a building into age, or
daub it into dignity, to zigzag it into sanctity, or slit it into
ferocity, when its shell is neither ancient nor dignified, and its
spirit neither priestly nor baronial,--this is the degrading vice of the
age; fostered, as if man's reason were but a step between the brains of
a kitten and a monkey, in the mixed love of despicable excitement and
miserable mimicry.
If the English have no imagination, they should not scorn to be
commonplace; or rather they should remember that poverty cannot be
disguised by beggarly borrowing, that it may be ennobled by calm
independence. Our national architecture never will improve until our
population are generally convinced that in this art, as in all others,
they cannot seem what they cannot be. The scarlet coat or the
turned-down collar, which the obsequious portrait-painter puts on the
shoulders and off the necks of his savage or insane customers, never can
make the 'prentice look military, or the idiot poetical; and the
architectural appurtenances of Norman embrasure or Veronaic balcony must
be equally ineffective, until they can turn shopkeepers into barons, and
schoolgirls into Juliets. Let the national mind be elevated in its
character, and it will naturally become pure in its conceptions; let it
be simple in its desires, and it will be beautiful in its ideas; let it
be modest in feeling, and it will not be insolent in stone. For
architect and for employer, there can be but one rule; to be natural in
all that they do, and to look for the beauty of the material creation as
they would for that of the human form, not in the chanceful and changing
disposition of artificial decoration, but in the manifestation of the
pure and animating spirit which keeps it from the coldness of the grave.
[With this remarkable foreshadowing of Mr. Ruskin's Art-teaching compare
_Seven Lamps_ and _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_,
throughout.]]
226. So much for size. The question of position need not detain us long,
as the principles advanced in § 104 are true generally, with one
exception. Beautiful and calm the situation must always be, but--in
England--not conspicuous. In Italy, the dwelling of the descendants of
those whose former life has bestowed on every scene the greater part of
the majesty which it possesses, ought to have a dignity inherent in it,
which would be shamed by shrinking back from the sight of men, and
majesty enough to prevent such non-retirement from becoming intrusive;
but the spirit of the English landscape is simple, and pastoral and
mild, devoid, also, of high associations (for in the Highlands and Wales
almost every spot which has the pride of memory is unfit for villa
residence); and, therefore, all conspicuous appearance of its more
wealthy inhabitants becomes ostentation, not dignity; impudence, not
condescension. Their dwellings ought to be just evident, and no more, as
forming part of the gentle animation and present prosperity which is the
beauty of cultivated ground. And this partial concealment may be
effected without any sacrifice of the prospect which the proprietor will
insist upon commanding from his windows, and with great accession to his
permanent enjoyment.