Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/475

 Junn 7, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 453 powder required for that hole will be as the ‘cube of 2(= 8) is to be cube of 4 (= 64) so is the 4oz. to 8 times as much, or 2lb. For an average kind of rock the rule is, cube the line of least resistance in feet, and divide that cube by 32, and the result is the weight of powder required, in pounds. —».— M. ANGELO AND RUBENS AND THE DECORATION OF S. PAUL'S. ERTAINLY one of the most curious artistic problems in the art-doings of the time has been that of the proposed restoration, or preservation, or completion, of S. Paul’s Cathedral. We might pause to ask which of the three words best describes what is intended to be done. Poor Sir Christopher ! How little did he imagine what a tremendous task he left to the modern artistic mind. To ‘‘restore” S. Paul’s can hardly be said to be even possible, for it has never been completed, so that there is nothing to restore. To preserve it would be to leave it alone, for it is a strongly-built-up structure ; but to complete itis surely apuzzle truly. Nay, is itnotnow a twofold puzzle, for not only wasand isitararely difficult thing—even with the original architect’s sketches before us—to realise what he intended and would have done had he lived to do it—and not been, as was truly the lamentable fact, worried to death; but there has now been added the tremendous problem of speculating as to what the old architect would have done had he lived in this our day—viz., in the year of grace, 1872 ; in the age of railroads, steam-engines, and electric telegraphs; in the age of organs played by electricity, and in the triumphant times of art-manufacture. What, poor man, could he have done, and how can we best find out what that would possibly be? What would Newton have done had he lived now-a- days, all his discoveries being already found out for him? But more to the purpose, artistically, what would the painter of a Romanesque twelfth-century painted glass window have drawn on the glass surface had he lived in these days of impossible and inar- tistic costume? It is, perhaps, a question which no man will attempt to answer, for it is necessary to bear in mind the great fact that the old artists, as a rule, did not invent new clothing for their saints and angels in gorgeous windows, but simply clothed them in the ordinary costume of the time. Wren did this, and so did Grindling Gibbons in his carvings. Who is it, therefore, that will venture to speculate on what Wren would have done in the decoration of S. Paul’s Cathedral, had he had to fill it with figures of saints and angels, and a whole Bible History? The quaint costume of the time of Wren really seemed to admit of a little application to supermundane purposes, quaint though it was, but a modern fashionable outfit, how is it, or could it be, turned into saintly form by any possible process? Is it not, therefore, a little dangerous to attempt the treading on such tender and doubtful ground? We might here go a step further, and ask ourselves whether Wren would indeed “in these days, did he live in them, build a cathedral at all after the S. Peter’s model—a place so utterly unfit for ‘ preaching and prayer-reading.” To attempt, therefore, to place oneself in Wren’s place seems not a little imprudent, if not presumptuous, and can do but little towards solving the problem, even if it does not positively spoil any reason- able chance of finding out a way to do the work as it really ought to be done. Noman can put himself in the place of another, and think and act for him, certainly not in art. But all this, though so much to the pur- pose, and so vital, is a comparatively small matter when compared to that which it seems so very strange has not occurred to those who have so lately discussed the ques- tion of the completion of S. Paul’s. It is this—Who are they, or who is he, who is to do the actual work—the painting of S. Paul’s? The decoration of this great cathedral is not, in reality, an architect’s work at all: it isa painter's work, and we would ask those who are interested who is he, or who are they, who are to stand or kneel on a tall scaffolding some 7O0ft. in the air, and immediately under the roof of the church; and draw first, and then paint on the: brick, or plaster, or stone surface of the vaulting, the figures, to a huge size, of saints or angels, and eyen ‘thrones’? Somebody must do the arduous and difficult work, and the question then comes, what sort of mortal or mortals is or are they who are destined to do this difficult feat? The public ought to understand this problem, and to be made to see a little into the mysteries of art action. Let us, by way of making the whole matter as clear as possible, premise that it has been said that the work is not to be so much painting as Mosaic ; the pictures are to be mosaic—i.e., painting in stone, the small square fragments of stone taking the place of the colour laid on with a brush as in the so well-known painting process. It is more difficult than painting, inasmuch as the materials are more unmanageable. But in one respect painting and mosaic are alike: they both require, as anecessary preliminary, that a full-sized drawing—or cartoon, as it is called—should be made by some one single man, or youth, of the picture to be after- wards set in mosaic or painted in colours. How is this to be done—who is to do it? With charcoal point, or chalk, or other material, this work has to be done. The circular panels—to confine our remarks to the ceiling for the present—are about 20ft. across, so that the figures must be above life- size, and must, or ought to, have in them all that goes to make up great artistic work, worthy of the place and the subjects portrayed. It is impossible to imagine a more difficult task, or one demanding a greater power in the executive artist—that is, in the person who actually draws with his own right hand these figures. It is not the man who is simply now and then for a few minutes, or an hour, each day looking on, that we are now concerned about; it is the actual exe- cutive draughtsman, or artist, that we wish the reader to look at for a moment or two. This man, or human machine, whichever it may be, is the moving mechanical force. He is not, if a mere assistant, be it observed, working out of his own head at all; he is simply enlarging a small drawing provided for him. If he has an idea of his own to put his hand to it is of no use to him, his mode of working being that of a machine, or he is what may be termed an enlarging apparatus. If he has not an idea of his own, and is simply a pair of hands, it is precisely the same, the work to be done is the same. It is impossible to conceive of a system or plan of work more utterly destructive of an artistic result. But this is not all. Itis a comparatively easy affair to draw out an ‘‘iconography ” of S. Paul’s. We could name a dozen ways. There is the ‘‘ Theocracy ” of Michael Angelo, after the idea of the Sistine. ‘There is the ‘Life of S. Paul.” There is the ‘ New Testament History.” ‘There is ecclesiastical history ; lives of the saints; the red-letter saints of the English Church; the saints of the Roman Church; and what would be a novel and suggestive thing, indeed, to accomplish, the discarded black-letter saints of old Ireland. There is, indeed, no end of what might not be done; but who, we ask, is to do it?—not even how is it to be done ; not by whom or how isit to be designed, and thought about, and schemed out; but who is to do the actual work, which John Bull is to look so painfully up at? How strangely do times change. ‘These are enlightened and scientifically-advanced days. Art is pro- eressing, and never was there somuch known about it, or so many influences at work to make everybody interested in it. In M, Angelo’s time, the multitude were educa- tionally nowhere; the public, in our sense of the word, did not exist; enlighten- ment, as it 18s now-a-days understood, had as yet found no place even in the higher public mind, But yet, as we know, did it take not only the mind of a Michael Angelo, but his hands, too—we must repeat it, his hands— to ‘ decorate” the ceiling of the Pope’s Chapel. There was no other way of doing the work, as it happened, the very mightiest work that has in art been done. In the main, not so much the story of a ‘‘'Theocracy” as of a glorifying of the human body, and the breathing of life and energy into painted forms. But how can this or such as this be got by going to the shop counter, as they must do with S. Paul’s, and to get at the exe- cutive hands through the medium of a shop- keeper and mere employer of art labour, and’ buyer of colours and brushes? ‘This is, and must be, the real and matter-of-fact way of the work. No matter what the original small sketches and indicative drawings may be like, their final realisation on the vaulting and walls of the cathedral must be at the mercy and capacity of the ‘‘ shop and counter.” But, the reader may again urge, it is in ‘ mosaic,” and not by painting, that it is all to be worked out in. We again say itmatters not; the art skill asked for is the same, if not the more difficult of the two; and, what is quite certain, the drawing must be done first, however the colour afterwards may be exe- cuted, or in whatever material ; and it is in the drawing in the first place that the real art power must manifest itself. What is all this but to assure us that the proper, nay, the only, way with 8. Paul’s is to acknowledge it to be a painter’s problem? An architect may say what he would like, and even put apart panels in walls and ceiling for a special work, but the executive work itself, we most strenu- ously contend, is for the painter, and for the - painter only! If he be but a mere tool and machine, then is he altogether incompetent for such work. If he be thoroughly com- petent, and able to do it, then is it an insult and a hindrance to compel him to go to work with his hands tied and his mind a blank. What could the Dean and Chapter be about when they came to so lame and impotent a conclusion? and what is to be said of the Special Committee for the Restora- tion of S. Paul’s? The “Sistine” is a long way off, so that we cannot very easily any of us go and see it, and judge by fair eyesight of what has been accomplished in it; but most fortunately there is, even in London city, one building which shows on its roof all that needs to be seen to prove the position we are now advocating. We refer, of course, to the magnificent work of Paul Rubens on the chapel ceiling at Whitehall. It is really amarvel that it was ever done, and that it actually exists. Init is the sort of painting that ought to cover the roof-vaulting of S. Paul’s, and we would ask how, if Rubens were alive, matters would be arranged? Would Mr. Penrose, or Mr. Burges, or both together, with the aid of the ‘“ decorator” and his staff of assistants, take precedence of Rubens, or only accept him as a mere de- signer, or would they refuse his aid alto- gether? What a curious inquiry. Rubens versus the fashionable shop ‘‘ decorator,” competing for the honour of decorating the Cathedral Church of 8. Paul! It is a test,, surely, of the art spirit of the present age. We might say, in sporting phrase, ‘‘ Ten to one on the shopman.” Poor Rubens. nowhere ! We have, it is true, no Michael Angelo,. nor have we a Rubens; but we have Millais, and Holman Hunt, and another or two, and the Royal Academy, and the Royal Academy students. Will some of those who have had a say already about 8. Paul’s, and who will be listened to, say a word in season about them? Letus see in fair competition what they, the art-power of the age, are indeed made of. C.B. A..