Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1147

 DIFFERENT STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE. li^O Mr. Hosking observes, " in applying pure Grecian Architecture to modern practice," is evident from the buildings of the Romans, and from the want of success which has attended the attempts which have hitherto been made in Britain to introduce the pure Grecian style into villas and private dwellings in the country. We may pass over this style, therefore, for that modification of it known as the Roman or Vitruvian, which, till the publication of Stuart's Athens, and similar works, was considered by Architects as Grecian. Before proceeding to Roman Architecture, we may briefly notice the alleged prototype of the pure Grecian style; viz., a wooden hut; the roof supported by trunks of trees, and these trunks joined by horizontal beams. That there is a semblance of truth in this is evident : a hut may have given rise to the Grecian style ; but if it did, still its construction appears to us to afford Little or no information as to the management of Domestic irchitecture in that style. All arts have had their origin in some very rude beginning ; and the first artificial human shelters must, no doubt, have been either huts formed by the trunks or branches of trees, or caves dug in the sides of hills or banks. The hvpothesis before noticed, of Laugier and others, that Architecture on this accomit is an imitative art, we consider to be altogether fanciful ; and, if we were asked to refer to any work where this h}-pothesis was disproved, we should point to the Dictionary of Quatremere de Quincy, and to the articles in that work attempting to prove it. 2227. The Grecian Architecture of the Romans is characterised by the introduction ot arches ; by the placing of several stories one over another ; and by great licence in every thing relating to proportion. It may be described as having little or none of that sim- plicity which is one of the greatest beauties of the Grecian temples ; but, on the other hand, it admits of all that variety of form, disposition, and details which is suitable for the construction of private houses. It is, in fact, the prevailing Architecture of Europe, and of the civOised world ; simply because it is the easiest, and, when without columns and decoration, the most economical, style of building. 2228. The Modern Roman, or Italian, Style of Architecture differs from the ancient Roman partly in the introduction of still greater licence in regard to columns and their dis- position, but chiefly in its aim to produce painter-like effects. There are several varieties of the Italian style, distingiushed by the names of the centuries in which they prevailed ; and some of these varieties contain a mixture of Gothic forms and mouldings. The great object of the modern Roman Architect seems to be, to produce harmony by means of various contrasts of form, and of light and shade. Enough of Roman details are exhibited by this manner, in even the plainest buildings used as country residences, to keep up the idea of style, and to create allusions to Roman Architecture ; but, when this is done, the next grand object appears to be, to please the eye of a judge of general com- position, rather than that of a senile follower of the five orders. We have already expressed (§ 1933) how highly we approve of this stjle, as being economical, and suit- able for dwellings for the general mass of society. 2229. The Gothic Style, characterised, as we have already observed, by vertical lines, or lines pointing upwards, consists of many varieties : some of them so delicate and peculiar, that they are difficult to describe. In almost all of them, Hosking obsenes, " the arch is considered the index to the variety, as the column is to the different orders in columnar Architecture." After the very excellent essay by Mr. Trotman on this style (§ 1872), it is unnecessary here to enter into details; but we must obsere, that all the different varieties of Gothic Architecture are, in an especial manner, adapted for domestic use. In no style is xmity of form and system more easily given and main- tained ; and, in Britain more especially, none is better calculated for producing emotion, for the reason before stated; vi2., that almost every one who has been in the habit of frequenting a country church is familiar with its details. The superiority of this style to the Grecian, Roman, or Italian, in a scientific point of view, is well known to every one at all acquainted with the principles of construction. This superiority was for the first time pointed out in detail to the English reader by Dr. Anderson, in a series of essays, published in his Recreations in Arts and Xatural History. Before the appearance of these essays, the merits of the Gothic style were not at all understood. It is now acknowledged by the first Architects, that the ancients knew very little of the science of constniction ; and the precepts of Vitruvius and Pliny on that subject are considered as imperfect or erroneous. It is also allowed that " the strength and duration of the EgT,-ptian, Greek, and Roman structures are more owing to the quantity and goodness of their materials, than to any great art in putting them together." ( Chambers.) There is more constructive skill shown in Salisbury and others of our cathedrals," Mr. Gwilt observes, " than in all the works of the ancients put together." An ingenious hj-po- thesis on the origin of Gothic Architecture, by Sir James Hall, who considered wicker- work and the interlacing of young trees as its original type, is about as plausible as the h}-pothesis of the hut as the type of Grecian Architecture. In the admirable work of Seroux d'Agincourt, it is proved that the first Gothic building in Italy was an excavation