Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/552

 530 THE BUILDING NEWS. Junn 28, 1872. up of pure building, without art or archi- tecture. A select few houses spring up, designed, perhaps, by architects in some phase of the Renaissance, and the church, and the parsonage-house, and the school-house, are, of course, Gothic of some kind or other, and does not each man who produces either regret that that there are not more Gothic buildings, or more Italian buildings ? Why should churches be Gothic? and why should common houses, if a little smart, be /talian of the fifteenth century? Why, it is one of the main and best hopes of the future that such a battle rages, and is never still, for it tells of perpetual mistake, and points to a future different from the present, whatever that may be. Why, Mr. Wyatt himself, how often has he regretted that all his churches must of necessity be Gothic, and how eften must Mr. Scott have deplored that his new Foreign Office was not Gothic! The fact is there is enormous strength in the Renais- sance, and so there is in Gothic, and one is unwilling, and so is the world unwilling, to give up either. But let us ask, in passing, is either the Renaissance or the Gothic as practised the genuine work, or can they be? Mr. Wyatt is very angry, as might have been expected, with the ‘‘ reviewer,” and we could have wished that he had taken up the whole subject manfully, and argued it well out. The great question is—Is the personal and indi- vidual power of the architect a power in architecture, or is it not? Or can it be left out and done away with with impunity? In other words, are the architect’s hands nothing in architecture ? Thatis the question! Mr. Wyatt has himself cited painting to prove his view of the matter ; he says—and it is an ex- traordinary statement, and shows how very little is known of the true method of art action—“It would be as_ unreasonable to pretend that English painting is in- ferior to that of ‘Titian"—he talks of Raphael in the same breath, by the way— ready made up from the dealers, while the great Italian masters had them ground up, and even ground them up themselves in their own studios and under their own eyes.” This is, if truth must be told, one of the reasons why English art is inferior. Colour is a very subtle and artistic an affair, and it is neces- sary that the artist should mix and manipu- late his colours himself'and with his own hands, and the more he does of this work the better the colours get and the truer, and it would have been impossible to have instanced a fact more strangely explanatory of artistic power than this one, or more against Mr. Wyatt's own argument. How is it that one man can make of two or three simple colours so glorious a display, while another can do nothing with them? The one man would seem almost to create colour, while the other would seem almost to destroy it. ‘This it is that is artistic power; explain it who can. You cannot stand by another man, or an assistant, and by simply telling him what to do, compel him to grind up colour in the artist’s sense of the word, still less to lay it on the canyas as he, the artist himself, can do it. Let Mr. Wyatt try a little water- colour tinting ; let him try and copy a bit of Turner, and he will soon find out the true and magnificent power there is in the work, common as he may think it, of man’s hand! He could not have selected an argument more telling as against himself. And yet, if it have no force, what is his address about. Status ! Mr. Wyatt has been, to cite another of his texts, a little hard upon art critics, as they are termed, and he seems to think that they are specially bad when they appear in ‘“ news- papers.” He speaks of self-constituted archi- tectural critics—as though there must needs he some evil in the fact of a man’s being self- constituted—and taking the world by storm by the ‘‘vehemence of their assertions, and the self-complacency of their dogmatism ; ” and seems to imagine that no ‘motive ” but the worst can actuate such critics. A poor compliment this to our contributors and general staff, printers’ devils and all! But is it true? Surely it is not true, for no one can possibly read the talk, say in this journal, without feeling quite sure that the writers in it, as a rule, are saying what they mean, and are really doing their best to find out what is real and true? For ourselves, we can only say that we have simply wasted our life in ‘theorising about art,” and trying to mend matters. We have never had a thought of persons. Besides all this, may we not fairly affirm that were it not for journals like this, and for those who criticise in them, and speculate, and hint at future and better action, things would be far worse than they are? The truth is that the art-writer, poor and fleeting as is his work, is in reality the lions’ provider, and helps, not perhaps the architect himself, but at least his assistant and working man with ideas and incentives to his work week by week. It is one thing to stand by and talk grandly of these things, but another to do them. We are really truly sorry that we cannot find in the President’s address any positive thing tocomment on. It is really surprising how any man can encounter so wide and grand a subject, and yet fail to see in it the almost infinite number of things which call for comment and notice. Art and architec- ture lie in these days, as expressions of indi- viduality, almost dead, and will not bear com- parison with other professional pursuits. It rests on a basis of its own. Mr. Wyatt dwells upon the status, as he calls it, of the profession, but he does not seem to recognise the fact that it is the work done, and not the workman, or method of work, that the world sees. It is not the status of a calling that ennobles it, but the work done and visible that brings true status to those who bring it into existence. LEyerything has yet to be done. ‘There is more fame and credit to be got out of a painted glass window if the work of a glass-painter, than is to be dreamed of in these days of art-manufacture. We have yet to see a Gothic building in the real sense of that much-abused word —a building wherein the details show palpably and visibly the handwriting (there is no better word) of the artist-architect, just and precisely in the same way as the style of drawing and touch in a picture show the handwriting in art of the painter. Would that Mr. President Wyatt had touched on these things. The status of a painter, is it not determined by the work he produces and shows to the public ; and is it not regulated both in character and amount by the artistic strength and character of the painting pro- duced? We know what Raphael was worth, what Rubens, what Rembrandt. We know and can estimate their artistic status through their works, and no accidental ruling of society in their distant day, and no prejudice against them, can now disturb the calm and serene status which the world, the public voice of the world, has universally accorded them. The true artist lives in his works, and it is the bond-fide work that crowns with honour, if not success. Honour, or status, however much of it, will not and cannot make more of the work than is in it, and it is the work the world is asking for, not status. But supposing for a moment that status is everything, and that so much, or ten thousand times more, depends on it than Mr. President Wyatt contemplates, is it not an almost miraculous occurrence that he did not say one word about that great source of artistic status, the Royal Academy? He says that the status of the architect is rising, and that in the future he will take his proper place in the social system of things, with, we may suppose, lawyers, doctors, great merchants, railway directors, bankers, and all other em- ployers of labour, literary or artistic. We may even suppose ‘that the literary element as applied weekly to art, as in the Buripine News, will come to an end, and so things approach, as near as things human can, to perfection. But of one thing eyen then there can be no doubt, and all will agree upon it— that the Royal Academy is the fountain of the highest artistic honour and status, and that there is a wide gulf of difference between the favoured few who are in it, and the vast body of outsiders who are out of it. No honours or status which the Royal Institute of British Architects could or does bestow can be placed on a level with the honours of the Academy. How, then, was it that Mr. Wyatt did not go to the fountain head and plead for the wider opening of the doors of the Academy ? and why, the Institute being so high and above reproach, should not the Academy include the Institute? Where, we may ask, is the difference between those pro- fessional architects out of the Academy, and those init? Why is not Mr. Wyatt himself a Royal Academician, and why should the highest status be confined to it ?—and then, to the simple souls who read this, what is status after all? and what has the working artist to do with it? C.B. A. ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM, Sm,—The recent General Conference of Archi- tects has brought prominently forward two impor- tant subjects—one, Antiquities, the other, Architec- tural Criticism. The interest taken in the former was clearly evident at the meeting in the British Museum, and nothing could be more gratifying, considering the ridicule endeavoured in some quarters to be cast upon this study, than the earnestness of the visitors. The recovery of the ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus must be to all lovers of art a subject of no little importance, and the suggestion of Mr. Arthur Cates, responded to in so praiseworthy a manner by Mr. Waterhouse, that the Council of the Institute should take the matter up in earnest, must not be forgotten by that body. On the subject of architectural criticism, there is much to be said, and did we take the speeches of Mr. T. H. Wyatt, and those gentlemen who followed him in his opening address, as indicative of the feeling of architects generally on the subject of criticism, the conclusion arrived at would probably be that it is most distasteful to them, and that the sooner it is entirely abolished the better for architects generally, and for one or two in particular. Now, sir, if such is the feeling of the profession, I need not impress upon you the desirability of at once discussing fully the subject. The recent article in the Quarterly Review seems to have stirred the bile of some of our delicately-minded architects, and the sweeping con- demnation of modern architecture contained in that article has given them a fright from which they have not yet recovered. That such should be the case need cause no wonder : if the individual works of one of the most vehement speakers on the occa- sion I allude to were brought to the public gaze, the reason for desiring to stifle criticism would be obvious. Criticism, to be of any value, must be made regardless of persons or names—in fact, such should be entirely forgotten when viewing the works to be criticised; facts and not theories should be en- larged upon, and whether the work is that of a man eminent in the profession or of one just commencing practice, the same standard should be employed ; or if any deviation was made at all it should be in favour of the young man, and those who ought by the length of their practice to know right from wrong should be severely dealt with when offending, as they often do, the tastes of men versed in art. Some of these very experienced architects would no doubt desire that the criticism should be one con- tinuous strain of commendation and eulogy, suchas that proceeding from the pen of the architect himself of the works criticised, and so properly exposed by you a week or so ago in the Burrpinc News. The mischief of such criticism would soon become evident. But why is it that the works of some men come in for so general a share of adverse criticism while those of others escape censure of any kind? I am speaking now of men standing equally high in the profession. Thereason is not difficult to find: they endeavour to foster upon the public their eccentrici- ties and their idiosyncrasies as evidences of superior ability and profound study : their sickening strivings to imitate some of the primitivenesses of Mediwvalism are spread out as the productions of genius ; such could bring down upon their authors nothing but expressions of disgust and pity ; but they desire that
 * ‘ because English painters buy their eolours