villas, the remaining considerations relate equally to both. We have
several times alluded to the extreme richness and variety of hill
foreground, as an internal energy to which there must be no contrast.
Rawness of color is to be especially avoided, but so, also, is poverty
of effect. It will, therefore, add much to the beauty of the building,
if in any conspicuous and harsh angle, or shadowy molding, we introduce
a wreath of carved leafwork,--in stone, of course. This sounds startling
and expensive; but we are not thinking of expense: what ought to be, not
what can be afforded, is the question. Besides, when all expense in
shamming castles, building pinnacles, and all other fantasticisms has
been shown to be injurious, that which otherwise would have been wasted
in plaster battlements, to do harm, may surely be devoted to stone
leafage, to do good. Now, if there be too much, or too conspicuous,
ornament, it will destroy simplicity and humility, and everything which
we have been endeavoring to get; therefore, the architect must be
careful, and had better have immediate recourse to that natural beauty
with which he is now endeavoring to assimilate.
250. When Nature determines on decorating a piece of projecting rock,
she begins with the bold projecting surface, to which the eye is
naturally drawn by its form, and (observe how closely she works by the
principles which were before investigated) she finishes this with
lichens and mingled colors, to a degree of delicacy, which makes us feel
that we never can look close enough; but she puts in not a single mass
of form to attract the eye, more than the grand outline renders
necessary. But, where the rock joins the ground, where the shadow falls,
and the eye is not attracted, she puts in bold forms of ornament, large
leaves and grass, bunches of moss and heather, strong in their
projection, and deep in their color. Therefore, the architect must act
on precisely the same principle: his outward surfaces he may leave the
wind and weather to finish in their own way; but he cannot allow Nature
to put grass and weeds into the shadows; _ergo_, he must do it himself;
and, whenever the eye loses itself in shade, wherever there is a dark
and sharp corner, there, if he can, he should introduce a wreath of
flower-work. The carving will be preserved from the weather by this very
propriety of situation: it would have moldered away, had it been exposed
to the full drift of the rain, but will remain safe in the crevices
where it is required; and, also, it will not injure the general effect,
but will lie concealed until we approach, and then rise up, as it were,
out of the darkness, to its duty; bestowing on the dwellings that finish
of effect which is manifested around them, and gratifying the natural
requirements of the mind for the same richness in the execution of the
designs of men, which it has found on a near approach lavished so
abundantly, in a distant view subdued so beautifully into the large
effect of the designs of Nature.
251. Of the ornament itself, it is to be observed that it is not to be
what is properly called architectural _decoration_ (that which is
"decorous," becoming, or suitable to), namely, the combination of minor
forms, which repeat the lines, and partake of the essence of the grand
design, and carry out its meaning and life into its every member; but it
is to be true sculpture; the presenting of a pure ideality of form to
the eye, which may give perfect conception, without the assistance of
color: it is to be the stone image of vegetation, not botanically
accurate, indeed, but sufficiently near to permit us to be sure of the
intended flower or leaf. Not a single line of any other kind of ornament
should be admitted, and there should be more leafage than flower-work,
as it is the more easy in its flow and outline. Deep relief need not be
attempted, but the edges of the leafage should be clearly and delicately
defined. The cabbage, the vine, and the ivy are the best and most
beautiful leaves: oak is a little too stiff, otherwise good. Particular
attention ought to be paid to the ease of the stems and tendrils; such
care will always be repaid. And it is to be especially observed, that
the carving is not to be arranged in garlands or knots, or any other
formalities, as in Gothic work; but the stalks are to rise out of the
stone, as if they were rooted in it, and to fling themselves down where
they are wanted, disappearing again in light sprays, as if they were
still growing.
252. All this will require care in designing; but, as we have said
before, we can always do without decoration; but, if we have it, it
_must_ be well done. It is not of the slightest use to economize; every
farthing improperly saved does a shilling's worth of damage; and that is
getting a bargain the wrong way. When one branch or group balances
another, they _must_ be different in composition. The same group may be
introduced several times in different parts, but not when there is
correspondence, or the effect will be unnatural; and it can hardly be
too often repeated, that the _ornament_ must be kept out of the general
effect, must be invisible to all but the near observer, and, even to
him, must not become a necessary part of the design, but must be
sparingly and cautiously applied, so as to appear to have been thrown in
by chance here and there, as Nature would have thrown in a bunch of
herbage, affording adornment without concealment, and relief without
interruption.
253. So much for form. The question of color has already been discussed
at some length, in speaking of the cottage; but it is to be noticed,
that the villa, from the nature of its situation, gets the higher hills
back into a distance which is three or four times more blue than any
piece of scenery entering into combination with the cottage; so that
more warmth of color is allowable in the building, as well as greater
cheerfulness of effect. It should not look like stone, as the cottage
should, but should tell as a building on the mind as well as the eye.
White, therefore, is frequently allowable in small quantities,
particularly on the border of a large and softly shored lake, like
Windermere and the foot of Loch Lomond; but cream-color, and
putty-color, and the other varieties of plaster-color are inexcusable.
If more warmth is required by the situation than the sun will give on
white, the building should be darkened at once. A warm rich gray is
always beautiful in any place and under any circumstance; and, in fact,
unless the proprietor likes to be kept damp like a traveling codfish, by
trees about his house and close to it (which, if it be white, he must
have, to prevent glare), such a gray is the only color which will be
beautiful, or even innocent. The difficulty is to obtain it; and this
naturally leads to the question of material.
254. If the color is to be white, we can have no ornament, for the
shadows would make it far too conspicuous, and we should get only
tawdriness. The simple forms may be executed in anything that will stand
wet; and the roof, in all cases, should be of the coarse slate of the
country, as rudely put on as possible. They must be kept clear of moss
and conspicuous vegetation, or there will be an improper appearance of
decay; but the more lichenous the better, and the rougher the slate the
sooner it is colored. If the color is to be gray, we may use the gray
primitive limestone, which is not ragged on the edges, without preparing
the blocks too smoothly; or the more compact and pale-colored slate,
which is frequently done in Westmoreland; and execute the ornaments in
any very coarse dark marble. Greenstone is an excellent rock, and has a
fine surface, but it is unmanageable. The grayer granites may often be
used with good effect, as well as the coarse porphyries, when the gray
is to be particularly warm. An outward surface of a loose block may be
often turned to good account in turning an angle; as the colors which it
has contracted by its natural exposure will remain on it without
inducing damp. It is always to be remembered, that he who prefers
neatness to beauty, and who would have sharp angles and clean surfaces,
in preference to curved outlines and lichenous color, has no business to
live among hills.
255. Such, then, are the principal points to be kept in view in the
edifice itself. Of the mode of uniting it with the near features of
foliage and ground, it would be utterly useless to speak: it is a
question of infinite variety, and involving the whole theory of
composition, so that it would take up volumes to develop principles
sufficient to guide us to the result which the feeling of the practiced
eye would arrive at in a moment. The inequalities of the ground, the
character and color of those inequalities, the nature of the air, the
exposure, and the consequent fall of the light, the quantity and form of
near and distant foliage, all have their effect on the design, and
should have their influence on the designer, inducing, as they do, a
perfect change of circumstance in every locality. Only one general rule
can be given, and that we repeat. The house must _not_ be a noun
substantive, it must not stand by itself, it must be part and parcel of
a proportioned whole: it must not even be seen all at once; and he who
sees one end should feel that, from the given data, he can arrive at no
conclusion respecting the other, yet be impressed with a feeling of a
universal energy, pervading with its beauty of unanimity all life and
all inanimation, all forms of stillness or motion, all presence of
silence or of sound.
256. Thus, then, we have reviewed the most interesting examples of
existing villa architecture, and we have applied the principles derived
from those examples to the landscape of our own country. Throughout, we
have endeavored to direct attention to the spirit, rather than to the
letter, of all law, and to exhibit the beauty of that principle which is
embodied in the line with which we have headed this concluding paper; of
being satisfied with national and natural forms, and not endeavoring to
introduce the imaginations, or imitate the customs, of foreign nations,
or of former times. All imitation has its origin in vanity, and vanity
is the bane of architecture. And, as we take leave of them, we would,
once for all, remind our English sons of Sempronius "qui villas
attollunt marmore novas," _novas_ in the full sense of the word,--and
who are setting all English feeling and all natural principles at
defiance, that it is only the _bourgeois gentilhomme_ who will wear his
dressing-gown upside down, "parceque toutes les personnes de qualité
portent les fleurs en en-bas."
OXFORD, _October, 1838._
End of Project Gutenberg's The Poetry of Architecture, by John Ruskin