Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/393

 May 10, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 871 THE COMPLETION OF S§S. PAUL'S. ipa appeal for a fund to retrieve the dis- grace of many years, and to place the Metropolitan Church of S. Paul’s in that small rank of cathedrals really perfect, is persisted in and responded to with equal zeal. No class of structures in Europe has been more ardently begun by the builders, or more unaccountably neglected after the lapse of a few generations. We need scarcely quote the familiar example of Cologne. All over the Continent the tourist comes upon the incom- plete towers and roofs, arches and cloisters, of edifices ambitiously planned, destined originally for all time, yet stopped far short of the architect’s design, through lack of the religious spirit in which they were designed. As in rural or suburban districts the way- farer continually lights upon some church wanting asteeple or a tower, and dependent upon subscription sermons for its erection, so in Germany, especially, nearly every an- cient town exhibits its sacred pile, waiting, as it has been waiting long, for a few last strokes of the art which isso costly. In Eng- land it may be doubted whether the final touch was ever given to Westminster Abbey. Tf so, certainly not until a comparatively few years since, when completion and restoration went hand in hand. But referring to S. Paul's, it has laboured under peculiar dis- abilities. A particular set of critics have complained that, under pretence of offering a new style, itis no more than a Gothic cathe- dval in disguise, while others have denounced the dome as a sham, having practically no- thing to do with architecture at all. We hardly think that these are the questions now at issue, which, indeed, resolve themselves into one: whether, taking what we have for what itis—S. Paul’s as S. Paul’s—itis credit- able to the nation that this at-all-events mag- nificent structure should remain without the additions and embellishments essential to its character. It isnothing to us that the Gothic glories of Cologne and Milan have suffered in the same proportion from public apathy. It is not easy, in other instances, to distin- guish between that which has been dilapi- dated and that which was never finished— as, for example, in the church of S. Lateran, at Rome—and the world and wealth of old ecclesiastical architecture that hallows the Valley of the Rhine, as well as at Treves, Worms, Mayence, Spires, Constance, and even Besancon. Surely, however, on every ground, S. Paul’s may claim to be regarded as not merely a metropolitan but asa national edifice. We will not dwell on the traditions which assert it as standing over the ruins of the shrines of Diana and Apollo. We know what was Sir Christopher Wren’s opinion of those legends, notwithstanding the relics discovered. Nor would it be much to the purpose were we to enter upon the chronicles of the vast and splendid pile destroyed in 1666. It is curious to remember, however, that before the elements of nature anticipated the decisions of men, the building had been foredoomed. It had been pronounced danger- ous to the congregation. Wren, all uncon- scious of the great work which was coming into his hands, pronounced it to be at once incomplete and ruinous. It had been ill- planned and_ ill-constructed; the roof let through the rain like a sieve; the gigantic columns bulged outwards; the walls were cracked ; the coves of the pillars were formed of rubbish ; the stone was mouldering every- where; clearly, had not the fire taken the task out of his hands, Sir Christopher must have begun operations by demolishing the cathedral. Yet, notwithstanding the splen- did structure which the City possesses we can imagine a kind of antiquarian re- gret lingering over the history of its predecessor, as it does over the chronicles of Old London Bridge; we seem still to see it in the crypts, wherein are unworthily buried Nelson and Wellington—a sixpenny sight for country cousins ; dreary hollows of masonry, a shadowy host of heavy piers and | arches; and coming, every now and then, upon an ancient stone, we cannot help think- ing of the masons who worked at the wages, then sumptuous, of three shillings a day. It is wonderful to reflect what art and labour were bestowed upon an edifice which, com- menced more than two hundred years ago, re- mains to this day incomplete, like the Cathe- dral of Frankfort, ruinous in one part and new in another. What toil that English-born but Dutch - blooded sculptor, Grinling Gibbons, lavished upon that choir, the beau- ties of which so few appreciate. Yet even this was in a slight degree left in the rough by the master hand. There was not a too reveren- tial spirit in the minds of those who put himand his coadjutors to their tasks; they pounded alabaster statuary into dust to make mortar for the walls; and, so intense was their sym- pathy with art, that they actually paid the artist from sevenpence to half-a-crown a foot for his lovely cimas, chapterings, cistal- mouldings, copings, and casements. The imi- tations of veined marble, by Thompson, cost four shillings a yard; the organ pillars fifty- two guineas for the entire group; the organ itself cost exactly half of what it would cost now—but then the difference in the value of money is to be considered; while the enrich- ments and decorations were immeasurably cheaper than those at present to be undertaken can be. We have said that not by many are the treasures, built, as it were, into the very structure of §. Paul’s, noticed or understood. Cibber’s sculpture, including the Pheenix in the tympanum of the south transept, was long neglected ; the eight mighty carved keystones of the arches round the dome, wrought after the blocks were set ; the western front, which modern Vandalism has made it so difficult to see ; the superb elevations of the north and south transepts, almost entirely lost, unless the pilgrim of art risks breaking his neck to contemplate them ; the grand projecting semi- circle eastwards, which it is impossible to study ; and the false dome, viewed with ad- vantage only from the bridges on a trans- parent day—a day not to be claimed as a British birthright. Within there is, perhaps, a too servile imitation ona reduced scale of S. Peter’s at Rome, excepting that Sir Chris- topher introduced an Attic, which has a heavy effect. Nevertheless, we trust that the ad- ministrators of the fund will not attempt to disturb the integrity of the architecture in S. Paul’s Cathedral. It is monumental of the ar- chitect and of the period. Were the erection to be begun afresh we might insist upon wider aisles, oval arches, amore majestic altar-piece, such as would not ‘ paralyse devotion ”— because, after all, the rest of a church is but an introduction to the altar—real instead of mimic marble, an improved form of stalls, a more regular sweep of the great cornice be- neath the attic; yet these changes are im- possible, so that it may be hoped the work done will be confined to making the best of the metropolitan church asitis. A prodigious amount of repolishing is needed, with resto- rations of the paint now hanging in unseemly tatters. Considerable regilding, replacing of rails, especially those encircling the church- yard and guarding some of the cracked geometrical pavement; the replacing cf fes- toons that have wholly disappeared, the restoration of the exquisite pictures illus- trating the life of the Apostle, by Thornhill, for which he was paid just forty shillings the square yard—the sketches remain, if the paintings are decayed out of recognition— and so forth. There is no remedy, we are afraid, for the sinking of the piers. So long ago as 1808 a Commission reported that in certain places they had subsided from four to five inches, the dome subsiding with them; that the stones supporting one huge arch had yawned nearly an inch and a half; that there were deep indentations in the exterior pillars, caused by rain, and forming channels for it ; that the mortar was crumbling out; and that a sad degree of corrosion was in process. No doubt, efforts have, from time to time, been made to arrest this decay; but all in a partial and perfunctory manner. At length a vigorous endeayour is to be made to do justice to our noblest metro- politan shrine, next after Westminster Abbey. But there is another source of injury not, apparently, to be reached—the inherent dampness of the walls. Possibly, modern invention may discover a cure for it; there is, however, one improvement practicable and absolutely necessary if we would restore §. Paul’s to its legitimate rank as a religious fane, a magnificent centre of public worship. It is the carting away, wholesale, of those monstrous memorials, colossal in size, pagan in taste without being pagan in genius, mili- tary, mythological, and generally belonging to the Gorgon and Griffin epoch, which en- cumber and disfigure the building. We are far from objecting to mortuary sculpture in a cathedral. When the Abbey had been oyer- crowded with statues and tablets, many of them as graceless and fantastic as could con- ceivably be, it was natural that attention should be turned to the naked surfaces, the arcades, and the recesses of S. Paul's. No more fitting Walhalla could be found for the fame of men, in their varying capacities, like John Howard (the first whose image was enthroned), Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Jones, Nelson, Wellington, Rodney, Duncan, ‘the gallant good Rion,” Ponsonby, and Picton. But why those unsightly masses, as huge as rocks, made up of allegory and emblem ? Why those hideous Fames and Victories be- stowing laurels, or blowing trumpets in all directions? Honour might have been done to S. Vincent without that fat Fame and that uninspired history. The walls in some parts resemble seas crowded with fragments of ships to commemorate our naval heroes; in others they are all shako and bayonet for the glori- fication of our soldiers. In one of the alcoves. of the nave, Baron Marochetti was positively permitted, full freedom being allowed him, to. erect a ponderous heap of black marble, sup- ‘posed to represent the gates of the Holy Sepulchre, with an angel on either side, in white marble, and call it a memorial of Lord Melbourne! Well, no “‘ completion ” will be complete until a proportion, at any rate, of these excrescences has been removed. Prin- cipally, however, the object is to perfect the embellishment of the proud structure. Upon this point we can hardly do better than quote Dean Milman, the originator of the moye- ment now in progress. ‘‘I should wish,” he said, ‘‘ to see such decorations introduced into S. Paul’s as may give some splendour, while they would not disturb the solemnity or the exquisitely harmonious simplicity of the edi- fice ; some colour to enliven and gladden the eye, from foreign or native marbles, the most safe and permanent mode of embellishing a building exposed to the'atmosphere of London. I would see the dome, instead of brooding like a dead weight over the area below, expanding and elevating the soul towards Heaven. I would see the sullen white of the roof, the arches, the cornices, the capitals, the walls, broken and relieved by gilding, as we find it by ex- perience the most lasting, as well as the most appropriate, decoration.” We must take exception to this point, because mosaic is even more durable, and unquestionably preferable as a matter of art. But the Deancontinued :— “JT would see the decoration carried out in a rich but harmonious and as far as possible from gaudy style.” All true artists will agree with him. We do not desire our Metropolitan church to be emulous of the Parisian Made- leine. The French have lately acquired a habit of converting their most splendid shrines into colossal gew-gaws. ‘The promoters of the ‘‘ completion” have no such purposes in view. ‘They simply remember that, with a few exceptional embellishments, due, if we may so speak, to private or public spirit, nothing has been done for 8. Paul’s since the days of Sir Christopher Wren. Some even of his ‘‘ temporary windows” remain, though