Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/266

 260

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. SEPT. 23, 1911.

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A History of Architecture in London. By Walter

H. Godfrey. (Batsford.)

MB. GODFREY claims for architecture that it is the crystallization of history, just as, in a much less marked degree, are the arts of literature and painting. In an interesting Introduction he traces the succeeding waves of Hellenic, Roman, and Byzantine influence upon the art of building in Europe. Citing as examples Ictinus and Callicrates, he discusses that intense idealism which characterized the Greek nation, and expressed itself in the conception of such master- pieces as the 'Parthenon.

The sense of proportion, with its resultant harmony and unity, was the secret of the Greeks' success. For complicated types of construction they had no desire ; the plea of novelty was probably unknown to them, and would at any rate have been considered superfluous. The height of simplicity marked the zenith of their success.

Mr. Godfrey quotes the words of Horace, Grsecia capta ferum Victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio,

and points out that though the Romans were able to deprive the Greeks of their liberty, they were themselves forced, because of their own material- ism, to become the patrons of Greek art. It was the genius of the Greeks, after all, that clothed the imperial arches of Vespasian's Colosseum with their beautiful veneer of stone.

A discussion of the Roman arch leads to the important year 324 A.D., in which Constantine virtually put an end to the classical Roman period by removing the capital of the Empire to Byzan- tium. The universal style which logically should have been evolved from the Roman Imperial design was the Byzantine dome construction. But this only became fully developed in the reign of Justinian, when the famous church of San eta Sophia at Constantinople was built ; and even then it was largely confined to the East and to Italy. Thus it must be left out of account in discussing the Romanesque development of Northern and Western Europe. What the reign of Constantine did for architecture was to signalize the triumphant appearance of the Christian Church, because for more than a thousand years after this period the history of the one became the history of the other.

The work of the latter is traced in four chapters, through the Romanesque, and the Gothic periods of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth cen- turies. The last of these witnessed its completion so far as architecture was concerned ; for a great -enthusiasm for the building of country houses and town mansions had arisen by that time. And the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. brought about their wholesale adaptation into splendid mansions, of which there is left to us a great example in the Charterhouse.

The Tudor period, the early Renaissance of Elizabethan and Jacobean times, and the middle seventeenth-century Renaissance of the Inigo Jones period are all discussed in an interesting manner. A clever model of the Fortune Theatre

in Golden Lane has recently been made from plans prepared by Mr. Godfrey in collaboration with Mr. William Archer. An illustration of this theatre, in which Shakespeare is supposed to have acted, will be found in the chapter dealing with mid- seventeenth-century work, though from a chrono- logical point of view one would have expected to find it among the buildings of the early Renais- sance period.

The longest, and perhaps the most important, chapter in the book is that which gives new side- lights upon the work and characteristics of Sir Christopher Wren.

The volume closes with the discussion of the Georgian period, and an appreciation of the work of the brothers Adam. Robert Adam died in 1792. Of so little importance does Mr. Godfrey consider the work of the Victorian enthusiasts that he dismisses them with a single paragraph. He gives as his reason for this treatment the fact that their work was not far-reaching enough to warrant its inclusion. In this book, therefore, a complete history has not been attempted. Its significance lies rather in the completeness of its view, which is purposely a bird's-eye one.

At the beginning of each chapter there is a list of the principal buildings of the period with which it deals. Plentiful illustrations are supplied, but, owing to their arrangement, constant refer- ence to them is rendered rather wearisome work. Good maps and an index are also provided.

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