Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/950

 926 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. anxious hope, th^t, in those works over which enlightened individuals or collective bodies are the arbiters of taste, and in which, from their locality and destination, the adoption of such a style would be appropriate, the mode of Architecture under con- sideration may receive a yet greater measure of patronage than it has hitherto obtained, accompanied, however, with a more vigilant degree of scrutiny. That it deserves such favourable yet watchful patronage, a few remarks, we think, will suffice to prove. 1873. As an ornamental Science, the Merits of Pointed Architecture are of the highest order, arising from a combination and consummation of excellencies, which earlier styles exhibited only in an imperfect degree. The classical structures of Greece affected the beautiful and the simple ; those of Rome the bold and the picturesque. The former could not have attained the masculine force and variety of the latter without the sacrifice of their distinctive character ; nor, without a correspondent loss, could the latter have assumed the feminine grace and detailed beauty of feature peculiar to the former. In the maturity, however, of Pointed Architecture we see tliis happy imion of properties completely effected. The contour of its masses displays the very essence of the pic- turesque ; the prevailing lines of composition, the aspiring and the curved, imite dignity with grace ; while the ornamental detail exhibits the most gratifying alternations of light and shade, and often the most luxuriant richness of a playful imagination. Nor is this all, as applicable to tlie style in general ; for, in its adaptation to particular pur- poses, its universal power is ever discernible. Thus, in York Cathedral it becomes solemnly grand ; in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, it mingles in equal proportion beauty with grandeur ; in Henry the Seventh's Chapel it assumes an aspect of dazzling richness ; in Windsor Castle it rises bold and lordly ; in the colleges of our universities it unites the domestic with the ecclesiastical ; and, in passing thence down to the simple forms of the humblest cottage, it varies its character according to circuinstances ; being no less consistent and successful in the last than in the first. Great as are thus its powers, and varied as are its resources, independently considered, the merits of Pointed Architecture are highly enhanced by the aptitude with which its productions harmonise with the scenery and atmospherical effects of nature. How happily, as contrasted with the square masses of Classic Architecture, do the towers, the turrets, the pinnacles, the gables, the battlements, and the chimneys of the pointed style mingle with the sylvan objects of the painter's study ! Observe these, gilded by the warm beams of the setting sun, or standing in strong relief against a moonlit sky, and say where is the Greek or more picturesque Italian structure that can hazard a comparison with them. The terminating lines of the latter styles are almost always of a hard and square character, setting art in marked opposition to nature ; those of the former are ever of a varied form and aspiring tendency, mingling with all the objects of landscape aerial and terrene. 1874. Suitableness of Pointed Architecture for interior Composition. Il addition to these last observations, which affect Pointed Architecture in its external developement, we may remark, that, for success in internal composition, no other style can for a moment compete with it. This success is of course exhibited, to its full extent, only in eccle- siastical interiors. In introducing a comparison between these in the pointed style, and ecclesiastical interiors in other modes of art, we must be distinctly understood as confining our notice exclusively to those features which come within the province of Architecture. In buildings, however, of domestic application, and with which we are in this place more iiumediately concerned, no limits can be assigned to the display of the impressive or the ornamental ; and, indeed, with this class of Architecture, the ecclesiastical is not unfrequently associated, as in the instance of domestic chapels. Few, confessedly, are the apartments of modern construction that can claim a dignified beauty, equal to that possessed by the halls and galleries of many of our old domestic and collegiate edifices; yet it woidd be frivolous to assert that even those venerable specimens had obtained an unapproachable degree of splendour, or had exhausted the resources of the art. 1875. TJie Perpendicular Pointed Style. There is one further consideration worthy of notice in favour of the style before us, ornamentally regarded, and it is this, that the perpendicular pointed mode of Architecture, of which we shall have occasion hereafter to speak more fully, and which is the only genus of the style capable of application to modern domestic purposes, is exclusivehj English. The finest Continental remains belong to what we shall denominate the middle period of the art ; it is to a later and more finished class that we now refer, in which an Englishman will be proud to rank many of the brightest architectural gems of his country, with King's College chapel at their head. That this mode has therefore a strong claim upon the national attention and favour, appears to us a reasonable inference ; our only hope is, that that favour may be attended with an enlightened vigilance, in order that modern jiroductions may be rendered in some degree worthy of their antique and admirable exemplars. There are, however, other considerations of weight on the side of Pointed Architecture, as founded on its