known for his great works, the chief of which are the Jesuits’ church
in Rome and the castle of Caprarolla at Viterbo, which he built for the
Cardinal Alexander Farnese, and also, especially to architects, for the
rules and measurements of Classical orders which he composed from the
buildings of Rome with the aid of the manual of Vitruvius.
This work comprises the elements of design used in nearly all the
buildings erected during the two following centuries, many of their
elevations being simple combinations of different pages of Vignola’s
book, which to this day is the best guide for Classical proportions and
the architects’ A B C.
The discriminator between the various architectural styles is fond
of drawing a marked distinction between Italian, French, and German
Renaissance, and illustrating it by views of the typical Italian palace,
with a flat tile roof and low pediments, and the typical French house,
with immensely high slate roofs and pretentious dormers. Although the eye
of the practised architect can distinguish between the representative
work of Sansovino and Philibert Delorme, and between that of Bernini and
Claude Perrault, yet such distinctions do not form separate styles, for
they are but unimportant differences, caused by local influences.
The subject should be looked upon in a broader sense, for all these
subdivisions tend to confuse the student and lead him to forget the
sequence of the great historical style of which they form part.
The Jacobean, Queen Anne, and kindred so-called styles in England were
merely eccentric streams flowing out of the one main channel, which were
scarcely worthy of distinction and certainly not of revival in our times.
In France, under each reign, there was a slight difference of treatment,
chiefly in the decoration of interiors, which permits of a classification
most convenient to the modern upholsterer, but for our purposes it is
sufficient to apply the two divisions—Early and Late Renaissance.
The Chateaux of Blois, Chambord, and Chenonceaux in the Valley of
the Loire, the Palaces of Fontainebleau, St. Germain en Laye, the
Tuileries and the old Louvre in Paris are splendid examples of the
former, and monuments worthy of the great artists, Pierre
Lescot, Philibert Delorme, Jean Goujon, and others, who laboured upon
them. They are illustrative of the employment of the small orders and
ornament in low relief, which characterized the corresponding period in
Italy, though they are generally richer and more spirited in design than
the Italian buildings, and the soft stone which is so abundant in France
permitted more lavish ornament upon the exteriors.
The skeletons of each design, that is to say, the main architectural
lines, stripped of elaborate detail, are much alike and can nearly all
be brought back to the ancient method of superposing orders. This is no
disparagement on the value of the work, for the plans of many buildings
were excellent, and the variety of ornamental design was of a delicacy
and imaginative beauty which has rarely been surpassed.
It is questionable, indeed, whether the change which took place in the
century of Louis XIV., in the introduction of larger proportions and
greater severity of ornament, was so much a gain as it was considered at
the time. To this period belong some of the great churches modelled upon
or rather suggested by St. Peter’s in Rome: St. Paul’s in London, rebuilt
by Christopher Wren; the Val de Grace, the joint work of Lemercier,
Leduc, and Mansart, and the church of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris,
also by Mansart, are among the finest of the period and style. The plan
of the last-named church is appended as a particularly happy example
in general arrangement and symmetrical variety, doing great credit to
Mansart, who also built the larger portion of the celebrated Chateau de
Versailles.
The publication of Stewart and Revetts’ great work upon the antiquities
of Athens called general attention in England to the beauty of Greek art,
toward the close of the last century, and resulted in the erection of a
number of buildings in imitation of Athenian monuments which were utterly
inappropriate and unsuited to the English climate.
In France architecture went through two or three fashionable phases, from
great extravagance of design under Louis XV. to extreme simplicity under
Louis XVI., finally relapsing under Napoleon into the servile copying
of entire Classic buildings: a great falling off from the principle of
the sixteenth century work, which had always been original in conception
although borrowing detail from the antique.
During the early part of this century, architecture sank to the lowest
ebb all over the world, probably owing to the disturbing influences of
the great Napoleonic wars. Within the last thirty years the spirited
writings of a few enthusiasts and the liberal teachings of the French
schools have caused a general revival, and better work is being done now
than at any time during the century.
[Illustration: PLAN OF CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES AT PARIS.]
Avaricious commerce and the predominance of the desire for display
rather than quiet love of the arts are factors which stand much in the
way of genuine progress, but it is not improbable that the spread of
refined education will eventually succeed in planting the seeds of this
love in the heart of the great masses, and enable architecture to resume
its natural and elevating position in their midst.
XII.
CONCLUSION.
At the present stage of modern art we have the principles, broadly
speaking, of two great styles of architecture to guide us in the design
of the buildings which we may have to erect. These are the Classic and
the Gothic; for we may apply the term Classic not merely to the works
of the Greeks and Romans, but to their offshoots the Byzantine and
Romanesque styles, the one branching Eastward and the other Westward,
altered in many respects, but founded on the older systems; and we have
seen that the Renaissance was but a revival of the same methods and forms.
In each of these styles the best result has always been attained where
the constructional element has been held to be as important as the
decorative, where the essential and useful have not been subservient to
considerations of ornament or display. In Classic work much has been done
that is unworthy, in the senseless repetition of columns and pilasters
which support nothing, in decoration which serves only to conceal
ill-adjusted architectural lines; and the same is equally
true of degenerate Gothic, in which whole walls have been covered with
meaningless panels, and massive buttresses built up to receive no strain.
Nevertheless, by following only what is good in the principles of each,
and by avoiding the errors which experience has enabled us to perceive,
especially those which have engrafted themselves upon us by bigoted
custom, we can not only produce fine work but assist in the advance of
architecture.
Before deciding upon what style to employ in the composition of an
edifice, it is well to first consider thoroughly the programme of what is
wanted in its plan, and then the special character with which we desire
to invest it both exteriorly and interiorly. It is scarcely necessary to
add that both should be intimately connected.
We have seen that the best period of Gothic art was that wherein the
whole structure was raised on a theory of weights and strains thrown
from vault to pier, and pier to buttress; it is, therefore, absurd, when
a building occupies a space between the party-walls of modern street
lots, to attempt an interior construction having the appearance of
corresponding with buttresses and similar contrivances for which there is
no room on the outside.
If, therefore, we choose Gothic for our style, let us follow no false
theory, but work on the principles demonstrated in its innumerable
examples, in which it may be possible to find room for further
development, introducing no feature of construction which has not a full
and consistent meaning.
One can scarcely go the lengths to which many venture, in saying that
Gothic architecture is suited only to ecclesiastical buildings, for
there are many splendid military and civil structures, from the keeps
and castles of England and France, to the town-halls of Belgium. But
there is this much to be said in their favour, that while the laws of
fortification and domestic life have altered entirely since the Middle
Ages, on the one hand, those governing the observances of religion have
remained unchanged and no manner of building is so essentially religious
in its character or better calculated to command the reverence and awe of
the devotee, on the other.
In support of this view many will agree in admitting that there is
nothing of this religious sentiment expressed in the Corinthian
colonnades of St. Peter’s, or, in fact, in any of the great number of
Renaissance churches which are scattered throughout the cities of Europe,
while it never fails to exercise its influence upon anyone entering the
great Gothic cathedrals.
The great prevailing thought of Mediæval times was a religious one, and
we see it reflected in the minutest details of the lives of the people
of that age; it was, consequently, but natural that it should attain its
highest expression when they filled their churches with the best that
could be produced in architecture, sculpture, and painting. While the
Classic orders seem out of place in a temple of Christian worship they
are appropriate in civil buildings, and we have no better examples for
beauty of proportion. They are the result of the thought and taste of
generations of architects and have stood the test of time, for they are
as pleasing to-day as in the days of ancient Greece and Rome.
It is their proportion rather than their component parts which we should
follow, for a column, unless needed as a support, is a questionable
decoration, and pilasters or engaged columns are only desirable where
additional thickness of wall is required, used as the Gothic architect
would have used buttresses, and never as mere ornaments, which are
at once a fraudulent delusion and a retrogression in the progress of
architecture.
A multiplicity of columns and entablatures does not make perfect
architecture, but great leading lines, good proportion, clear detail, and
appropriate ornament.
The guiding rule is to do nothing which has not intrinsic merit. It
is better to have an absolutely plain wall than one covered with poor
decoration; far better to have no cornice at all than a galvanized iron
one, painted to look like stone.
The true definition of architecture is “ornamental construction.” It
is not a utilitarian science, because if so there would be no _raison
d’être_ for beauty of design, for mere shelter and commodious arrangement
could as well be provided by the engineer as by the architect. The art
of the architect lies in the composition of buildings at once suited
to their purpose and beautiful to the eye; and as such his art is one
that can progress, not through a series of changing fashions which grow
wearisome before they have lasted a decade, but step by step, according
to the example of the great periods of the past.
This example teaches us never to copy slavishly, but to imitate old
examples only so far as they may suit modern needs, in principle rather
than in detail, and to eschew the reproduction of defects, however
picturesque, so that architecture may be a living art instead of the
mummified representation of archæological researches.
In pursuing the study of so vast and splendid an art we should do so with
some feeling of reverence for its dignity, not looking upon it as a mere
money-making trade, for the greatest architects the world has known have
been satisfied in being only worshippers at a great shrine. Reverence
is a sentiment slightly regarded in an age when delicacy of feeling in
such matters is often held up as a butt for the jests and derision of the
vulgar, and the dignity of the art has little foothold when it has become
a custom for the vendor of cheap furniture to style his shop an “Art
Repository,” and the founder of cast-iron abortions to call his factory
“The Art Metal Works.”
Nevertheless all of our work must reflect something of our inner
thoughts, and if we do not place them upon a high plane it is not
possible for their reflection to contain what is noble and true. We
cannot become artists in the true sense of the word without loving and
reverencing the beauty and principles which have made the art so great a
one.
It is the custom among certain people to sneer at sentiment, and call for
practical art; but the most practical art is essentially the product of
thoughtful sentiments.
As an illustration, let us compare the Laocoön, of sculpture; the Halls
of Karnak, of architecture; the Dead March, of music; the “Descent from
the Cross,” of painting, with the “Dancing Faun,” the arabesques of the
Renaissance, the waltzes of Chopin, and the gay feasts depicted by Paolo
Veronese, and the contrast shows us that each branch of an universal art
expresses the opposite feelings of gravity or tragedy, of joy or comedy,
each in its separate manner.
In designing, questions arise every moment which can only be decided by
an innate sentiment of what is good and appropriate. There are no fixed
laws governing the height of a spire or the projection of a moulding;
they are matters which depend upon correct feeling, or, in other words,
upon educated taste.
If it were not so, art would become a mechanical science, and could no
longer be called by that name. Emotion has no place in mechanics, but it
has great influence in the arts. We know the Greeks were an emotional
race, and it is said that Michael Angelo wept before a beautiful statue
or painting; and the works of the people and of the individual were
proportionate to the depth of their feelings, and have perhaps never been
excelled.
Let us, therefore, commence this study—for the omega of this book is but
the alpha of architecture—despising none of its delicate subtleties, and
endeavour to grasp its principles, in the hope of doing our share in its
further advance, laying aside the petty gratification of our vanity in a
genuine affection for our art.
THE END
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