Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/203

 Marcu 8, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 187 THE BUILDING NEWS. —S LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1872. FORTY YEARS AGO. E met the other day with an old copy of Brayley’s ‘*Graphic Illustrator,” which, about the year 1832, seems to have been one of the foremost advocates of the Gothic revival: and it shows pretty clearly the distance which the Medieval School have travelled in the last forty years. Their ad- vance has been no trifling one to be effected within the memory of a single generation. It is both interesting and amusing to read the statements which were gravely made by the contemporaries of men who are still living : to see how imperfectly the details of Pointed art were understood ; and how even those who admired them most preferred whatever amongst them was least admirable. Without any disposition to despise the day of small things, we may be pardoned an occasional smile at the assertions and criticisms of these early times. ‘They may remind us how much we owe to that vast amount of research which has been going on from then till now; how much we are indebted to those archeologists whom, when we have once got from them all they can give us, we are sometimes tempted to undervalue; and to those books, which, when they have once supplied the basis of our art education, we are apt to throw aside and forget. ‘The Gothic school, rising, as we hope it will continue to do, higher and still higher towards perfection, may look back on these first attempts as a great artist looks back on his own: finding in them a proof that, whatever the world thinks about the power of genius, it is the power of diligent application alone on which either a man or a body of men will find it wise to rely. ‘The volume which has suggested these re- marks contains, amongst other matter on kindred subjects, a series of essays ‘‘ on the modern use of the styles of the Middle Ages.” Romanesque is first discussed, and set down as a mere deterioration of Roman. In one respect, indeed—its construction of arches in recessed orders—the writer has sufficient dis- cernment to recognise an important advance on Classic practice ; but this, as he properly says, was retained in later work, and forms no reason for copying Norman detail. So far his judgment has been that of his successors ; and where any type of Romanesque has found favour with them, it has usually been that of Southern Europe, which was apparently un- known to him. Proceeding, however, to the Early English style, there is a startling dif- ference of opinion. ‘It isa class of archi- tecture,” we are. told, ‘‘ which we should hesitate to consider a fit model for voluntary imitation.” The great fault found with it is the ‘‘imperfect development of the beauties and varieties of detail.” Even its mouldings, we are astonished to hear, exhibit too little variety of contour; and, though it is ad- mitted that they have considerable force of shadow, they are not ‘at all comparable to the beautifully-developed, ever-varying (!) yet ever-judicious mouldings, which obtained at the commencement of the fifteenth cen- tury.” Such criticism as this was only possible when no such books as Mr. Paley’s or Mr. Sharpe’s existed ; and it is almost inconceiy- able that it could be possible even then. The foliage of the same period comes under like condemnation. It is destitute of ‘freedom and undulation of outline,” and ‘incapable of richness.” Our author, it is evident, never made the acquaintance of Lincoln Cathedral, and we should doubt whether he knew much about Westminster Abbey. He altogether deprecates the study of First Pointed work. There is only one feature in it, he considers, worth borrowing—the triple lancet window, and this he suggests should be copied, ‘‘sub- ject to a complete modification of its mould- ings to suit the taste of later times.” Wehave seen such copies in buildings of the dark age of modern architecture, but we always sup- posed the wretchedness of the mouldings to be due to the ignorance of the designer. It sheds a new light on the subject to find that it was a deliberate infliction. In the Decorated period—which by the way had not yet received that very inappropriate designation—architecture, it is stated, ‘‘ ex- hibits many fine novelties and advances towards perfection.” As one of those ad- vances, the introduction of wheel windows is named; which, as every architect now knows, took place even before the introduction of the pointed arch itself. The multiplication of crockets and other small ornaments, and the general tendency to what we should now call fritter, draws forth the warm commendation of our essayist; but the defects of the style, he says, will be manifest on comparing it with the productions of ‘ that refined taste which laid the foundations of the Perpendicular and the Florid modes.” ‘‘ Here, from the close of the reign of Edward III. down to that of Henry VII., we find dignity and breadth, continuity and repose ; the mouldings exhibit propriety of application, variety of outline, and richness of shadow, and all the finishings of tracery and foliage evince the most chaste refinement”! This was written, no doubt, in all seriousness and earnestness, but it reads like bitter irony. So easy it is to fancy beau- ties where we cannot find them, and to do in art what Burns, as his brother relates, used to do in love. ‘‘ When he selected any one out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to whom he should pay his particular attention, she was instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, from the plentiful stores of his own imagination ; and there was often a great dissimilitude between his fair captivator as she appeared to others, and as she seemed when invested with the attributes he gave her.” There is certainly ‘a great dissimili- tude” between Perpendicular as it appears to us andas it appeared to our author in 1832. He was so enamoured of it that all its faults turned into virtues ; and while we smile at his infatuation, let us take care that future times never have like cause to smile at us. The principles on which a style was to be employed were as singular as the choice of the style itself. Buttresses, it is specially stated, were not to be limited in their use to the occasions when they are necessary ; oceasions which, in that ‘‘age of plaster- finishings,” were few and far between. They were to be inserted for the useful purpose of ‘casting bold shadows,” and we regret to add that in work of the present day a good many are still applied for no better reason. It has taken long to realise that architectural details were meant to serve some practical end ; to ascertain the purpose and the value of each, and turn it to account. It will take, in all probability, still longer to realise the true use of Medizval study as a whole—viz., to help us in supplying the wants and ex- pressing the feelings of our own times. Still, though it is rarely expressed, the idea of forty years since lingers amongst us ‘that the object to besought in the modern use of the Pointed style is the production of a complete illusion on the mind of the beholder so that he shall hardly be able to persuade himself” that the build- ing he is looking at was not erected four or five centuries ago. Few architects would now write themselyes down deceivers in this unblushing way; but many seem tacitly to aim at the character. Amongst these singular directions as to leading principles, the work we are quoting from contains much advice that was good, so far as it went, at the time it was given ; but its extreme mildness gives us ever and anon a startling insight into the state of things which produced it. Church- wardens, for example, are recommended to mix alittle tint with their next coat of whitewash, and to deviate into the daring originality of a “warm stone colour” for internal walls. Carpenters are advised not to put a door with tracery panels under an architrave ‘Cafter the Classic manner.” ‘The iron- founder has more license, and may use his material, ‘‘ under the concealment of paint,” to represent masonry or woodwork ; but in stoves and grates he is warned, as he still needs to be, against ‘‘redundancy of equivocal ornament.” ‘The upholsterer of the period receives a severe rebuke for his ‘‘cut and dried Gothic,” and if his productions were worse than those of his professional neigh- bour, he must richly have deserved it. Be- neath the lowest deep of pre-Puginesque Gothic, there seems to have been a lower deep; but what it can have been like, the imagination now fails to conceive. We can only get an approximate measure of its bad- ness by observing that the same writer, who thought it execrable, called Barry’s Church, at Ball’s Pond, ‘an architectural gem”! Perhaps, by comparison, the epithet was not altogether undeserved. We read of “a spurious Gothic’”—spurious even by the side of Barry’s earliest works, and we are fortu- nate enough to find a list of its peculiarities. Its buttresses resembled pilasters; its crockets were of ‘‘ Grecian foliage ;” its windows were wide, and filled with wooden sashes ; itstracery had no cusps ; its labels ended ‘‘in Ionic vo- lutes ;” and amongst its external features were obelisks and balusters. This ‘spurious Gothic,” it appears, captivated the taste of the multitude, till there was a fear that it might increase and multiply and even thrust out the genuine article altogether. Our author had appalling visions of the way in which, when its productions had stood a century or so, they might gain credit on the score of antiquity, and so their resemblance be propagated throughout the land ‘in more hideous deformity than that of the originals.” From this danger we are hap- pily delivered by the fact that very few of these productions remain. Bad architec- ture and bad building generally go together ; and thus time kindly relieves us of what is not worth keeping. Hitherto we have only been dealing with the opinions and preferences of our predeces- sors; but the same book from which they have been gleaned gives specimens of their designs. ‘There are elevations of Christ Church, West Bromwich; 8. Peter's, Bir- mingham ; ‘Trinity Church, Bordesley; S. Dunstan’s, Fleet-street; S. George’s, Leices- ter; S. George's, Kidderminster; and S. George’s, Woburn-square. The cheapness of some of these buildings was remarkable— or rather it sounds so until we remember of what sort they were. The last-named one, with sittings for 1,500 people, and a spire 150ft. high, cost £8,000. 8. Dunstan’s, on the contrary, cost £13,000 without fittings ; but then it hada well-built tower of Ketton stone, which, by the way, has stood our London atmosphere with great success. Most of the mouldings are still as sharp as when worked, and the building has suffered less than most eyen from the deposit of soot, The church itself is faced with brick, and is so hidden by the towers, that few, probably, of the people who daily pass it are aware of its peculiarity in plan. It isa regular octa- gon, with a semi-octagonal recess on each oblique face, and a square recess on each of the others. Of the latter, one forms the chancel and the rest are occupied by the organ and by children’s galleries. Shaw was the architect, and the works were commenced in November, 18380. With the exception of S. Peter’s, Birmingham, which was intended for Greek Dorie, all the churches illustrated are Perpendicular. §. Dunstan’s is the only one possessing the slightest interest, and, poor as it is architecturally, it was in advance of its age. There is a view of the Lady Chapel of S. Saviour’s, Southwark, as if ap- peared before restoration: ruinous enough, but picturesque and interesting, and worth far more than when made as good as new by Gwilt. Yet its restoration was looked upon, when done, as something to be proud of : its