Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/271

 Marca 29, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 253 staircase shut off with screens glazed or open, and charming the eye by the intricate framing of its natural and artistically-treated carpentry, and, in short, everywhere the beauty that always attends natural dispositions of the plan, and poetical concep- tions of life and its arrangements. Who is there that has not felt all this? Who is there that has not occasionally thought that the house even of a hundred years since, often somewhat irregular in its plan, in its levels, and in the general design of the interior, is, after all, infinitely more delightful than the pretentiously regular houses in which most of us are now compelled to pass the whole of our lives. without the remotest possibility of ever feeling any love for any one of the rooms or any part of one of the rooms they contain? This is a miserable state of things; the object ought to be to give each man something to love in his own house and in his own room, and the more speciality of character, the more peculiarity and quaintness, the more beauty, and the more soul there is in the design and arrangement. of the interior of a house, the more chance there is of this. Our old Gothic architects accomplished all this; their love of variety and the rationality of their treatment of all details made this possible, whilst they saved them also from the dreary monotony of that iron law of uniformity which has impressed it- self upon architects just in proportion as they have succeeded by their rules, their traditions, and their fixed systems in destroying all special character in the individual man, and making him little more and little better than a machine. They never thought it necessary to sacrifice common sense to symmetry, so as to make, for instance, every window absolutely alike throughout a building hundreds of feet in length, without reference to whether they light the principal apartments of the house, the butler’s pantry, the staircase, or the garderobe. They built no enormous porticoes leading only to the first floor rooms, and therefore seldom used, or, if used at all, conveying the idea—as we see at the National Gal- lery—that the rooms on the ground floor are mere cellars; and so unfitted to our climate, that—as we see at the British Museum, or as we used to see too, during the season, at the Royal Academy—they are obliged to extemporise a glass or canvas cloister within the portico in order to enable the public to pass through it. A happy result of the course which our fore- fathers pursued was that their buildings were, per- haps, the most picturesque in their groupirg and general effect that were ever seen; and there are few Englishmen, fond of the scenery of their country, who are not ready to admit the singular fitness of the buildings for their sites which marks medieval houses in contrast with most of those of any pre- tension erected within the last two centuries. This picturesqueness is so natural to our Eng- lish eyes that even in later days a long array of buildings may be adduced, arranged in imitation of ‘Gothic houses, with almost exclusive attention to picturesque effect; whilst, in some districts, the Gothic principle may almost be said never to have died out. Elizabethan and Jacobean buildings were ‘the obvious result of a struggle to retain the loved and loveable characteristics of earlier works; and there are large districts in which, as in Northamp- ‘tonshire and Somersetshire, the steep-roofed, stone- monialed houses, and others—as Sussex or Kent— where even the farm-houses and cottages were in- stinct with the old fire, and scarcely touched by the influence of the Classic school, even down to the end of the last century—the country builders never haying given up their old traditions, and modern ar- chitectural rules and mannerisms having never been introduced among them. Is it possible, then, to adduce better reasons for any kind of architecture in the world than can be adduced for our own Gothic style? It is the style consecrated to us by its essentially national character, as proved by its development through all its stages in our own country; consecrated also by its essen- tially religious character, as shown by its use in all our religious buildings, and its connection with all our most sacred associations ; allied with all our best types of education in our great universities and public schools ; with all our ideals of the picturesque and the homely in countless old houses spread across the land; and with all our recollections of charitable duties in the hospitals and bedehouses, of which so many still remain. It is a utilitarian style, and a free and practical style, as is proved by the way in which, of old, it availed itself of every obtainable material, every then conceivable resource, for the development of its character and the increase of its attractions. A style, therefore, which, if it be treated in the same spirit and with the same sense of the real duty of the artist as of old, must lead mo- dern architects to combine with a healthy reverence for the past a hearty energy in availing themselves of all the many advantages and opportunities of the present; a style in which it is no taskwork to design, in which there is no sense of bondage, but rather the noblest kind of freedom—an ordered liberty. It may be said, however, as it often has been, that these developments, which some men think so natural and so lawful, will really destroy the Gothic character of our work. It must be observed, in passing, that this assertion is not always very honestly made, because generally those who make it are the very men who venture themselves on far greater departures from their Renaissance or Classic types. But it is, however, sometimes used by those who are, or pretend to be, in favour of Gothic, and to them a few words are due. They have a just dread lest any one should merely import copies of foreign examples—not understanding how to gather the lessons which they teach, and so as to obliterate all the distinctive character of English Gothic—and to a great extent we are inclined to agree with them. Wedonot sympathise with those who would plant Venetian palaces among the trees and in the parks of England; though, on the other hand, we have as little sympathy with those who refuse to learn any lesson from buildings which contain so much that is alike beautiful and useful. The Italians, for instance, to whose work the greatest objection is usually made, were for a long period but little behind French, Germans, or Eng- lish in love for Gothic art. Theirs was a land of redundant richness in art, and, if the Etruscan and Roman remains are noble and numerous, those of the Gothic period are no less so. There is, more- over, this special feature about them—that they are almost as well suited in every respect for modern use as any buildings can be. The Italian towns in the middle ages were much like our own at this day ; they were great centres of general intelligence and of artistic pursuits. The houses inclosed within their walls were often true palaces—light, airy, and cheerful—imposing in their character, and in no wise savage or gloomy. The vast number of the medieval remains in Italy is most remarkable, nor less so is the enthusiasm with which every one with the eye and hand of an artist singles them out at once as the subject for every sketch or painting that he makes. Their value to us will be seen if we examine them fairly and without prejudice. If the necessities of locality require brick building, nowhere in Europe shall we find more suggestive examples than these. If covered passages are wanted, nowhere can we see more perfect types than are afforded by Italian examples of their treatment. If decoration in marble or with colour be an object, the best examples of both are to be seen in Italy. If the value of ground be so great that we are obliged to use it economically with simple unbroken masses of wall and great height of elevation, no- where else are both so often seen as there. Besides all which, it is not difficult to trace analo- gies and similarities between many features in English and Italian Gothic. Our archi- tecture is all derived from Romanesque or Byzantine work, and, despite the alterations and modifications which were gradually made in it, still bears evidence of its origin; and, in availing our- selves of hints and suggestions derived from the study of foreign examples, if we begin with sufficient reverence for and knowledge of our national art, we may avail ourselves of the lessons they teach with- out showing any want of loyalty to our own traditions. Take the case of windows, for instance, and it is impossible to say that there is anything opposed to our English Gothic in the best Italian examples. We are told that the windows of some of our oldest buildings are too small, inconvenient in their con- struction, and only fitted for the most primitive mode of glazing. Now, whatever modicum of truth there may be in this charge as applied to ordinary English windows, there is none whatever if it is applied to Italian examples. They are either wide single lights with simply pointed or cusped heads, or they are grand compositions of several lights divided by detached shafts, and surmounted not unfre- quently with fine open traceries. ‘The principle of all is alike. They are ample in their width, ana the window-frames of wood are placed behind the stone jambs or shafts. They admit, therefore, of any kind of wooden framework for sashes, French casements, or shutters; and where they are used it is a matter of perfect indifference what fashioned fittings it is desired to introduce, whilst it seems preposterous to suppose that those who inherit the traditions of the only school of artists who ever treated the decoration of glass in a right manner should be debarred from adopting any kind of glazing the use of which is demanded by reason of the advantages which it affords. There is no one, probably, who really believes that if plate-glass had been made in the thirteenth century architects would then have refused it ad- mission into their buildings; and, though one may more than doubt the artistic advantage of introduc- ing it, it is simply absurd to say that it is unusable. The advantages which it presents are many and notorious ; and, on the other hand, the disadvantages of its use, if not so obvious, are still serious. Seen from the exterior, its broad, smooth surface makes the windows look like so many unglazed holes in the wall, and there is none of that pl>y of light and shade and colour which in other glazing pleases the well-trained eye; whilst seen from the inside its effect is always cold and cheerless. Doubtless the most pleasing glazing is always that which shows some kind of design and taste in its arrangement, and it is quite possible to combine this with larger unbroken space in those (generally the lower) parts of windows which are alone used for looking out of. The sub-division of the rays of light is always, by very much, more agreeable to the eye than their admission in one unbroken mass ; and, however much the smartness of plate-glass commends itself to modern taste, every one who goes into an old house, which still retains its old glazing, is involun- tarily charmed with its effect. The system of design of Italian windows is not un- known in England. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries most of our domestic windows had shafts instead of moulded monials. Examples may be seen at Southampton; at Christ Church, Hants; John of Gaunt’s House, Lincoln; Boothby Pagnel; Long- thorpe; Oakham, and many other houses of that age. If we cross to France we shall find examples of the same kind occurring constantly. In Belgium we shall see them in the best early works—as e.g., in the exquisite town-hall at Alost, and in Germany, in the numerous medieval housesof Ratisbon—to men- tion some of the oldest out of numerous examples. It will be seen, therefore, that we have not to depart from English or northern traditions in adopt- ing more largely a type of window which happens to have been brought to the greatest perfection and used most frequently in Italy. It is difficult to over-estimate the peculiar advan- ages derivable from the Gothic treatment of windows. It need hardly be said that, if there is one feature of detail which marks the style more than another, it is the system of fenestration. To add windows to Classic buildings you either rudely run counter to all old traditions, or you are obliged to treat your windows with very little variety, and generally just in the same way, and with the same details, as your doors. In Classic buildings the window is an incon- venience, in Gothic it is the principal ornament of design. The consequences of this difference are im- portant and notorious. In a Gothic building the windows may be proportioned exactly to the wants of the room they light: every variety of size is ad- missible. They may be wide or narrow, tall or short, divided by monials or not; for, if a wide opening is admissible in buildings which do not freely allow the introduction of arches, surely it is tenfold more so in one which insists upon the arch, and objects to the invariable cracked window-head of our nineteenth-century houses. The openings of windows may be square-headed, cusped, or simply arched; square-headed windows are of constant occurrence in early work. Some- times the openings are wide, and haye flat segmental arched heads; often the openings are square-headed, but above them are pier¢ed traceries. They may be contrived also to suit exceptional positions. In staircases, for example, they may be built with sills sloping or’ stepped to suit the rise of the stairs. They may be projected or corbelled out, as bay win- dows or oriels, and they may have balconies, which will be best liked when they are most closely founded upon the Venetian examples, whose simplicity, beauty, and utility make it impossible to devise any form which shall be an improvement upon them. They may be placed, so as to command particular views, at an angle of a room or wherever most con- venient, or they may be placed as close together as is necessary to secure the very largest amount of light in the interior. Finally, the absence of all necessity for a rigid uniformity of the exterior makes it easy to introduce them wherever most wanted for internal convenience, whilst the flexibility of the style makes it possible not unfrequently to make every window tell its own tale, just as we see in old houses, where the chapel, the hall, the lady’s bower, and the kitchen are each so clearly marked that even in their present most forlorn state they can be still recognised with the greatest ease. Comparing the liberty of Gothic work with the bondage of Classic and Renaissance in this respect, we may well be astounded at the infatuation which can make any one doubt as to the superior fitness of the one to the