Part 22

The classic styles are the parents of the Mediæval styles, and without a good knowledge of them the Gothic architect is unable to understand his own architecture. More than this, however: Greek art--properly so called--is the parent of Gothic sculpture, whether foliated or relating to the human figure; and in respect of the latter it is (next to nature) the best corrective of its faults. I urge upon you, therefore, the study of _Greek_ sculpture of the best _early_ schools, as a direct means of perfecting that of your own works.

Then again, with Roman architecture, and the course of its decadence: how replete is its history with anticipatory suggestions as to the rise of the new architecture which after a long period of darkness sprang up from its decayed roots! And equally instructive is the study of Byzantine architecture--that “light in a dark place” which was destined to shed its rays so beneficently on the rising, but yet embryo, arts of the Middle Ages.

A most interesting addition has recently been made to our knowledge of this style by the researches of the Count de Vogüé among the ruined cities recently discovered in the mountains of Central Syria.

These cities seem to have been in prosperity up to the moment of the Mahometan conquest of Syria, but to have been suddenly deserted, as in one day, on the approach of the Arabian armies, and since then to have remained untouched but by the elements and earthquakes; so that they hand down to us the earlier Byzantine architecture (as practised in Syria) in the most perfect and instructive manner. In these wonderful cities we have not only the churches, but nearly every description of Byzantine building, either nearly perfect, or--when thrown down by earthquakes, as is often the case--with the parts still lying as they fell, so that the entire design can be perfectly understood.

These remains supply the connecting link between the Byzantine and the old Classic styles; but it is the _later_ buildings, such as St. Mark’s at Venice, which give the link at the opposite end of the chain, connecting it with the churches of Aquitaine, and through them with our own Romanesque and transitional works; while the various productions of Byzantine art of the same period, with which Western Europe was so liberally supplied, became the germs from which much of the ornamentation of our own earlier works originated. All this it behoves the Gothic architect to study; nor should he neglect the parallel supplies of suggestions from the _Mahometan_ styles--themselves the offspring of the Byzantine. But still more incumbent is it on him to follow out that direct _catena_ by which, in _Western_ Europe, the Roman style passed through the Early Basilican phase in Southern Italy, the Lombardic in Northern Italy,[82] and the various derivative forms of Romanesque in Southern France and Rhineland, as well as in the less familiar European countries.

In all these varied courses of gradual change it is yet more interesting, and far more profitable, to trace out--as distinct from all questions of architectural style--the ritual and practical changes through which the basilica, so early adopted as the great type of the Christian Church, became the parent of the typical form made use of to our own day and for our own churches, and those by which the later-introduced Greek cross was perfected into the form of the Byzantine churches, and the less usual circular type into that of a series of exceptional churches both in the East and West. The _first_ of these _catenæ_, in particular, is most interesting to ourselves, as showing that our own form of church is our direct inheritance from the earliest Christian temple: and, though we may do well to consider how far the series of changes through which it has reached us may be advantageously followed up by any additional modification to meet the true demands of our own day, yet God forbid that we should so far forget the claims of our long descent as to let go this precious inheritance of our fathers![83]

There is, however, another more direct kind of preparation, on which I desire most urgently to insist. I mean your personal training _as artists_. True it is that your sketching tours will be a great means of promoting this; but this will not do alone: you must constantly strive to train your eye and your hand to artistic perception and skill. You should take lessons from first-rate teachers both in drawing and in colouring; you should take some means of training yourselves in drawing the human figure and in animal drawing, and even in modelling if opportunity permits. These means ought unquestionably to be afforded to the architectural students by this Academy as a special and most important and essential part of their training. That such is not the case at present is, I believe, the result of the cramped and insufficient housing which has been allowed us, and I do trust that this hindrance will soon be removed.[84]

You should further practise yourselves in drawing and modelling from natural leaves and flowers, and, side by side with this, in drawing from fine examples of sculptured foliage, whether natural or conventional, for which last-named object you have great facilities offered by the Architectural Museum; and all this, I would suggest, can be going on during the winter months when you cannot sketch from actual buildings. Without this training you will find yourselves at a great disadvantage in studying for original works; your attempts at drawing sculpture, whether figures or foliage, will disgust and dishearten you, and even your sketches from purely architectural objects will be both dispiriting to yourselves at the time, will fail to express the true feeling of the works themselves, and will convey no agreeable impressions when you revert to them in after years.

You will have gathered from incidental remarks as I have proceeded that I have not supposed you to limit your attention and study to architecture properly so called. Time does not allow me to go farther into the subject of collateral arts; but let me say that, as architecture unites all arts in one, so you must gather into her garner the spoils to be collected from the study of every art by which architecture may be ennobled and enriched.

I have said nothing in the course of the foregoing remarks as to the choice or preference you would have to exercise among specimens of different Mediæval periods and styles, but I have said enough to show that I do not suppose your studies of the old buildings in our own and neighbouring countries to be limited to one selected period, nor even to what can be strictly called Mediæval works, as much that is useful can be gathered (particularly in domestic work) from buildings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is absolutely necessary, too, that you should understand and be familiar with _all_ the varieties of our old architecture, because, though you may not follow them in your own works, you may be frequently called upon to _restore_ them, though this reason is hardly necessary to lead you to master the _whole_ range of Mediæval art.

Still, however, you cannot choose but follow more lovingly the works of the periods which most approve themselves to your minds as the days when art was the most vigorous, noble, and full of deep and true sentiment. For my own part, though I am less exclusive than many of my friends, I must confess that I find a difficulty in sketching, unless with a directly practical object, from works either so early as to be rude or so late as to be enervated. And while I beg you to make yourselves masters of the _whole_ range, I am far from asking you to check the genial current of the soul by endeavouring to love all varieties alike, or to give equal attention to those which are and those which are not in harmony with your inner feelings.

I have dwelt much, in my earlier lectures, on the study of the vigorous and onward-striving works of the transition: and I confess that to me this is the most captivating period. I have already sufficiently indicated the leading examples of it, though you will find it interspersed with other styles all over the country. I think myself that no style is more calculated to excite a grandeur of sentiment, but none seems to me to have been so little studied from English examples, or rather, I should have said, from _British_ examples, for it is as finely developed in Wales and in Scotland as it is in England. I have said a good deal about studying it as a _historical_ phase of the style, but this, though necessary, is in point of fact a very secondary matter. You must much rather study it _artistically_, with reference to its intrinsic merits and its noble beauty, and _morally_, as illustrating the elevated sentiment and noble earnestness of those who, while pressing forward a new style of art, generated at every step such glorious productions.

I have said less, perhaps, and spoken with less enthusiasm of the fully-developed Early Pointed style, not from a lower appreciation of its merits, but because it seems rather a breathing-place--a point of attainment--in the march, than especially a point of noble pressing onward. Nor need I enumerate the special objects of study belonging to the period. They are sown broadcast over our own and neighbouring lands, and form the staple of our most magnificent, and a large proportion of our humble, Mediæval remains. No tour, however, is more prolific of instruction in this style than that of the northern abbeys, and this tour may be repeated again and again with ever fresh delight, and extended with great profit over the borders and far away into Scotland.

After this we come to another transition, and--the period of rest being at an end--we find again much of the same earnest striving as during the earlier transition. I would recommend a very special amount of study to be devoted to this style--for it is not reasonable to suppose that traceried windows are to be banished from our revival; and loving, as most of us do, the vigour of the earlier periods, this second transition--the connecting link between the earlier and the middle periods--offers most valuable material for our own developments: indeed, I cannot conceive of a more promising course of corrective training for those among us who have followed early and foreign work till it has grown into an actual mania, than to set themselves the task of following up, _nolens volens_, the minute study in all its details of a carefully selected series of work of this second English transition.

For such a course I would especially recommend the following examples:--

The greater part of Netley Abbey; all the eastern portions of Westminster Abbey; the eastern arm of Lincoln Cathedral;[85] the chapter-house[86] and cloisters at Salisbury; all that remains of Newstead Abbey; and the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. Of a period a shade later I would recommend the nave of St. Mary’s Abbey at York; the whole of Tintern Abbey; the chapter-houses at Southwell and at York, and the eastern parts at St. Albans. The two latter are, however, productions of the completed style rather than of the transition, and to give a list of objects of study in that style would be almost hopeless, for the country is filled with them. Nor do I admire so exclusively the earlier work as to exclude from the better half of our Mediæval range yet later specimens of the Middle Pointed. I cannot but think the gateways of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, of Battle Abbey, and of that of Bury St. Edmund’s; the halls of Mayfield, Penshurst, and the lost hall at Worcester; the lost chapel and the still existing crypt of St. Stephen’s; the choir at Winchelsea; the Lady Chapel at Chichester; and a long list of other buildings of the earlier part of the fourteenth century, to be works claiming our high regard and admiration, and I consequently recommend them also to your careful study.

The very latest phase of the Decorated style is often weak, but I will not suppose _you_ to be so much so as to be unable to sever its beauties from its faults, or to be in danger of condemning or admiring good and bad alike; and a yet more vigorous discretion is needed in studying from the works of the succeeding ages, though, _all through_, you will find not only objects of high intrinsic merit, but constant suggestions capable of being advantageously _translated_ into a more vigorous style.[87]

A still more important subject I have as yet but incidentally touched upon. I refer to the _practical_ character of your studies of ancient examples, as viewed in connection with the actual _structural_ and _mechanical_ qualities of the examples themselves, and the learning from ancient examples the principles of Mediæval construction and practical art, and their bearings upon _our own_ constructive and practical operations. Thus, for example, you must give special and systematic study to the principles of _vaulting_ as exemplified by Mediæval buildings. I have, in one of my lectures, recommended, as a prelude to such study, your reading Professor Willis’s paper on the subject in the _Transactions of the Institute of British Architects_ and M. Viollet le Duc’s in his _Dictionary_. You will be the better prepared after this to work the subjects out for yourselves. It is a particularly difficult matter to study, both in its own nature and because the work is usually out of reach. You should watch for opportunities offered by scaffoldings being raised under vaultings, and make accurate measurements. You must study not only the lines and their setting out, but the _stone cutting_ and _jointing_, and all kinds of practical questions, the very existence of which you cannot understand till you have given much attention to the subject. Then, when you have obtained a perfect insight into these questions, you will do well to consider whether there are or are not practical faults in the old work which we should do well to remedy. So in timber-work we should master the old system of construction, and then think how far it is perfect and where open to improvement, and also how far the old system as applied to _oak_ is suited to our own constructions in _fir_, and what are the practical variations suggested by the material. And so on through stone-work, iron-work, brass-work (whether cast or wrought), lead-work, silver-work, and jewellery. You must not content yourselves with studying and sketching from the work as an architectural or decorative design, but must _dissect_ and _investigate_ it, and find out its construction, and how far that construction has modified or suggested its design, or how far this may result from not only the _construction_, but the nature of the _material_.

In respect of the _metal-work_ and other kinds of decorative art, you will find great advantage from carefully reading Mr. Burges’s lectures, given some time back before the Society of Arts.

By thus following up your studies from _all_ points of view, whether antiquarian, historical, artistic, ritual, utilitarian, or practical and mechanical, you will obtain that perfect understanding of Mediæval art which is necessary to enable you to carry on its revival and practice both with _knowledge_ and _intelligence_.

I now come to the _actual practice_ of the lessons learned by such a course of study as I have been endeavouring to shadow forth.

As I said on a former occasion, I will not go into the general question of the _revival_ of Gothic architecture, but will assume it as a _fait accompli_, and proceed to consider some questions as to the practical carrying of it out.

One point which has given rise to much difference of opinion is the question of what _period_ and variety of Mediæval architecture we should best take as the groundwork of our own developments.

When, during the long interval between the cessation of Mediæval architecture and our own day, it was temporarily returned to in any special instance, it seems to have been viewed rather as a _dormant_ than an _extinct_ art, and the style chosen was always its _latest_ phase; as if it had only to be re-awakened at the point at which it had fallen asleep. And in the same manner, in our own day, nearly all the earlier works of the revival were in the latest form of the style, as if the revival was the mere prolongation of a chain, and to be attached to its last link.

This was the _traditional_ phase in the revival. The interval had, however, been too lengthened to allow this imagined connection with the old but disused chain to hold good. People began to investigate and to philosophise and to write books about the style. All phases soon began to be equally known, and people could not help entertaining preferences. Rickman had awarded the palm to the Decorated; others preferred the Early English; and after a time all agreed that the latest link was the worst, and must not be adopted as the starting-point. Some tried Norman, some Early English, some Decorated. The Cambridge Camden Society seemed at first to favour Early English; but soon they laid their ban upon it, and preached a crusade against all but the sacred “Middle Pointed,” and even defined with minute accuracy the precise period of that style which they would stamp with their approval. It was to be the earliest phase of the later form of Middle Pointed; or, as a friend of mine jokingly defined it for them, the “_Early late Middle Pointed_.” Some, however, preferred the “late Early,” some the earliest Middle Pointed; and though a few still strayed into the heterodoxy of “First Pointed,” or even into deadlier errors, it came, after a time, to be a generally received opinion that the Middle style was the best groundwork for us to go upon, and that it might fairly be viewed that this had been so completely revived and re-adopted as to become _the_ style of our Gothic Renaissance.

Though there was a good deal of nonsense current about it at the time, as if it were almost an article of religious faith, an “_Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiæ_,” there was, I must say, a great deal of common sense in the choice.

The early transitional style, though gloriously noble and vigorous, could not reasonably be re-adopted as a groundwork inasmuch as it _was_ a transition, and that from a state of things with which we have a little or nothing in common. The developed Early Pointed had very strong claims, but failed of being what Dr. Whewell calls “_complete_ Gothic.” Its fault was that there were certain features which, once known, could not be rejected, but which the Early Pointed _had not_. Its merits were _positive_ and of the highest order; its defects were purely _negative_. The later Pointed had been pretty generally voted to be the production of the decline of the style, and the later half of the Middle Pointed showed unquestionable evidences that during its period the way for that decline had been preparing. The _Early_ Middle Pointed was thus come to by an exhaustive process, as being at once “_complete_” and _not_ on the decline, though some felt (and I confess to being of the number) that it might with advantage be invigorated by importing into it a good deal of the detail, and, even, perhaps, some whole features of the earlier style.

This general conclusion having been tacitly consented to, people naturally came to think that we ought to adhere to it as closely as might be, and for this reason: that the principle of a _revival_ was only defensible in an extreme case, and nothing could defend it from the charge of frivolity if the revivers went on the principle of now reviving one style and now another; but that if all by general consent should determine on reviving _one and the same_ style, as the groundwork for the future development of a style of our own, the revival would become invested with _reality_, _reason_, and _vigour_. The choice, then, of one style, and the adherence to it _as a groundwork_, seems to me to have been _right_, and I am very much disposed to believe that the choice come to, though its enforcement at that time bordered on fanaticism, was _right_ also; at least in the _main_.

This promising theory, not to mention occasional tokens of rebellion at the somewhat tyrannical way in which it was attempted to be pressed, received a rude shock some ten years back through the competition for the erection of the cathedral at Lille. We had been in the habit in this country of speaking rather pityingly of the error of the French revivalists in selecting an earlier type for their groundwork than we had adopted; but the programme of this great European competition _prescribed_ this early style, and our talented countrymen who won the palm leaped over the traces to such an extent, as absolutely to luxuriate in the till now forbidden art, even beyond what was demanded by the conditions, and beat the French out of the field in the intensity of their following out of the Early French style.

This was received with unlooked-for indulgence by those whose laws it set at nought; but so marked a condonation seemed to have been viewed as an act of emancipation, for, from that time forward, every one began to do that which was right in his own eyes.

There was at once a violent revulsion of feeling in favour of the earliest periods; and at the same time the long pent-up feelings of favour to the continental styles, excited by Mr. Ruskin and by foreign travel, were given their full swing, and for a time nothing could be early enough--nothing foreign enough--to satisfy the emancipated cravings. We _all_ felt this, and acted on it in a greater or a less degree, and those who chose the _less_ degree were heartily despised by those who chose the _greater_.[88] As time, however, rolled on, and cool reflection began to assert her sway, we again remembered that we were Englishmen, and that there was an English language in architecture, and we began again also to recollect that the course of Gothic architecture did not cease to create noble productions in the very period of its coming into existence. Some, on awakening to this consciousness, ran at once into the opposite extreme--condemning every lesson they had learned abroad, eschewing the early styles to which they had so recently sworn exclusive allegiance, and despising (according to prescribed custom) all who did not go so far in their new direction as they did themselves; but, on the whole, people now seem likely to settle down into a _via media_, in which I trust that common sense will be found to reside.

I would not have gone through this list of peccadilloes but for the purpose of warning you against their repetition. We have, I hope, “sown our wild oats.” Let us now take a steady and sensible course.

During the state of chaos which I have alluded to, our revival has suffered seriously from the follies, not so much of its own champions, as of a number of _pretenders_ who had never studied the subject at all, but who, taking advantage of a period of disorder, palmed off upon the public designs, especially in domestic architecture, which--really the offspring of ignorance--were put forward as that of the prevailing taste--as original developments founded on something _very_ early and _very_ foreign; _so_ early, indeed, and _so_ foreign as to have never and nowhere existed. These productions have disfigured our streets and done more than anything to bring discredit on our revival.

Let us now consider what is the course which it becomes us to take in the selection of our groundwork.