Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/412

 390 THE BUILDING NEWS. May 17, hinj Nema ee el IE dN I has to joc. «Tooth etuatin elagufl sell Vs vncinvcx scala AR cote cL a the final one, and crude notions which, in their earlier years, they would have abandoned as fast as they arose, are committed to paper, worked out by sub- ordinates, and transferred to, not, we may be thankful to remember, imperishable stone. We miss the beautiful bits of detail with which Mr. A. or Mr. B. once delighted us, and which went so far to raise them to. positions they occupy. Mr. A. and Mr. have no time to spare for such things now, for they now have fifty bits of detail to invent in place of one. How much better if, instead of trying to invent themall, they turned nine- tenths over to young, but able men, and, while keeping a general right of acceptance or rejection over the whole, they reserved their own special care for the remainder. Who would not rather be known as the designer of one spire like that of Senlis, or one door way like those of Chartres, than of a whole Palace of Westminster—full of vapid ornamenta- tion? Our ‘eminent architects,” on the present system, have to beat their gold out very thin; but, singularly enough, “it is for the opposite reason to that assigned by the Quarterly veviewer. The fault is not that assistants design too much, but that they do not design enough ; the principal has no leisure for invention, he attempts more than mortal man can accomplish, and his pro- ductions deteriorate as the result. One more word relating to the Quarterly Review article, which we may, at any rate, thank for giving a direction to our thoughts. The assumption on which it is all based is this—that no genuine art can be produced except by a man actually working out, in stone, wood, or metal, his own ideas. The sculptor, we are told, invented his sculpture as he carved it ; had he merely given a design for it to other men, his work would have been worthless, and his workmen slaves. The mason, in like manner, designed his doorway and his window, and wrought it himself, and this is what gives it its value, and so on with everything else ; ; and from these facts, or rather fancies, with’ a nucleus of fact, ‘the writer argues that no such thing as an archi- tect ever ‘ought to exist, because an architect does not, w “ith his own hands, carry out his own designs. Now, we hav ealway sconsidered, in common with the majority of the world, that there was such a thing as general desion about every building of excellence, and that this design was made by some one. We find it difficult to imagine, for instance, that Salisbury and Lincoln Cathedrals grew up in their present forms and proportions by the fortuitous conjunction of a number of masons and carpenters, each doing to his special bit of detail as pleased him best. Somebody must have fixed the lengths and widths, He dimensions of the bays, the sizes of the towers, the projection of the buttresses, the height of the vaulting, the pitch of the roof, the levels of the string-courses and arcades and windows; the design, in fact, apart from the details, must have done, in short, with that exception, just what an architect does now. On the Quarterly reviewer's funda- mental principle, the man who did this ought to have built it all himself. Since he certainly did not, we leave it to the reviewer to say whether the work is worthless, or whether his grand principle is a delusion. —_=+.@—__.. DECORATIVE ART.—UNION NECES- SARY BETWEEN ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS. ECORATIVE ART is in a sad plight, and the present Exhibition at the Royal Academy shows even a less number of attempts than usual at any combined action on the part of artists and architects in this respect. At the time when funds upon a liberal scale have been contributed for the embellishment of S. Paul’s Cathedral, the absolute lack of men fit to undertake the work is thus painfully demonstrated. W hy have we no School of Decorative Painters and Sculptors? Who is to blame? The few works for which sufficient funds are forthcoming are thrust into the hands of one man, Mr. G. G. Scott, who honestly disavows having time to devote to this branch of the profession, and who hands cathedral after cathedral to Messrs. Clayton & Bell to deco- vate polychromatically, and to various carvers to fill with an unlimited amount of floral and conventional ornament and avery limited quantity of what may be called statuary, in which the figures are ration the size of dolls. Some few architects, with lesser opportunities, occasionally endeavour to introduce here and there a higher quality of art, but space and means are denied to them to produce any effect. The public, in their appreciation of art, have always an eye to themart of Christie & "Manson, and buy with the main object of making a good investment. Consequently, pot- -boilers are the staple commodity of the galleries of Burlington House. Portraits oceupy half the space upon the walls, and tableaux du genre and landseapesthe other half, and for sheer want of practice and opportunity painters and sculptors neglect entirely art as a means of decoration. A few nitdlittects give their attention to it as well as they are able ; but we only recently heard one of the most able of these state his disappointment from not being able to get his designs decently carried out, and avowed his intention to dis- continue hereafter any effort to do more than what any workman could execute by means of paperhangings and stencilling. Another, who aims at, and has obtained opportunities for, rich decorative work, to our knowledge, is seeking, as yet without success, for either trained or trainable hands to carry out his proposed works. In our pages last week we inserted a letter from the Rev. Mackenzie Walcott, in which he speaks of the paintings in ‘the reredos of Llandaff Cathedral in depreciator terms, although they are the work of D. G. Rossetti, one of our first men, and admirable in themselyes—an art treasure of which the age may well be proud, and yet, as decorative art, and with regard to appropriateness for their position, undoubtedly so far a failure as to justify to a great extent Mr. Walcott’s thus passing them by. . Is it, then, te be supposed that English artists of the present day are incapable of performing the task if adequately put before them ? ‘This we can in no wise believe. But we do fear, and have good grounds for our fear, that for a sudden demand—such as that likely to be made upon them with respect to S. Paul’s Cathedral—they are not prepared. They have yet to be educated in the very first principles of art decoration, and we have but to point to the lamentable attempts made in two of the spandrels under the Dome of S. Paul's, to the freseoes by Leighton and Watts insome of our recent churches, to show that our ablest men are quite at sea with regard to this class of work. We have also very recently heard a strong expression of opinion by an artist of eminence—to our mind, pre-eminent in the dramatic and historical de- partments—that architects are equally at fault as to essential principles. With such dif- ferences at the outset, and the quarrels among the S. Paul's Decoration autos as to whether Classic or Medieval influence should be permitted to influence the great work now contemplated, the prospect ‘before us is a gloomy-one. What, then, are the principles which should be observed in such matters? This question is of vital importance, and we would invite its careful consideration. What is the part of the architect, and what the province of the painter? If we are to have a any decorative art at all, this must be decided. It is absurd to suppose that when the fabric has been erected the former is to be dismissed, and the latter suffered to run riot within the interior. W. e happened the other day to visit a really fine church in the suburbs of London, where and care, some liberal but pig-headed donor had, in spite of the architect’s remonstrances, filled the cast window with stained glass of a character which utterly destroyed the harmony of the whole of the fe In. Llandaff Cathedral, again, the gifted painter there employ ed—though entreated to consider the position and its lighting, and therefore to execute a bright clear picture—produced a dark and elaborate one, and then recommended the eastern end to be painted black, to throw out his work. Subsequently, the firm of Messrs. Morris, Marshall, & Co., were commissioned to make an altar-cloth for the altar, which stands in front of that reredos, and a noble one accordingly they did make, but its bright erimson ground completely - takes all the colour out of the picture, in itself a some- what difficult thing to accomplish. The complaint made against architects by the artist before referred to was that thei scheme of colouring was crude and inharmo- nious. Now this is a point upon which an architect would do well to consult and to defer therein to the painter. But, in his turn he may fairly ask that when he pro- videsasolid spandrel, “al its solidity Stouie not be destroyed by its being aaintea as clouds, or with landscapes in perspective. The archi- tect may and should see that his flat walls are left flat, and his transparent windows not made opaque, and he should mark out the lines and panels which will suit his architec- tural details. After all, decorative art is no novelty. It has been pretty extensively indulged in in all ages of the world, and so there is no lack of precedents, Is it possible that men with eyes in their heads should differ as to whether the pre- or post-Pre-Raphaelite treatment is the right Stee Both, since they are opposite in principle, cannot be. Here, at the outset, if necessary, let a divi- sion take place, and each party try their hand on different buildings. Many archi- tects say that the quiet, simple, broad, early treatment is what we need for merely decorative art, with the figures in one plane, without. backgrounds and erspec- tive, and they ask for “this beeause without it architecture is destroyed, although within the limits of a frame ie painter “knows no such bounds, and need not know them. This granted, we, on our part, will be willimg and anxious to give the painter full scope in the treatment of his colouring, and to see that no neighbouring ornament interfere with it, as was so sadly ‘done in the case of the proscenium of the Queen’s Theatre, where the effect of Mr. Moore’s charming painting was injured by the coarse arabesque work near it. Howe ever, there will undoubtedly be much to learn, much to bear and forbear, on both sides, which we doubt not would soon be amicably effected. Opportunity for practice is the first thing needed, and if the differ- ences which seem to have overclouded the commencement of the work at S. Paul’s shall be overcome, we shall hope that the School of Artists we need may gain training in that work, and that itmay be “the first—thoug’ h, as first, it is not likely to be the best—of a aoe series yet to come- ——“o—— QUEENSLAND TIMBER. CORRIDOR from the Jewellery Depart- ment on the east side of the Inter- national Exhibition of 1872 leads to a small out-building, devoted to Queensland products. After the blaze of gems just left, the contents of this little room will not ‘present any attraction to the ordinary observer, yet to the arborist and those interested in wood as applied to manufacturing purposes, it pre- sents more objects of interest than. all the jewels exhibited. The specimens of wood are very numerous, and each has a polished surface which brings out the grain, and above a stately reredos, designed with delicacy | enables the visitor to judge of its value to