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Title: Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1
Author: Scott, Gilbert
Language: English
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LECTURES
ON
THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF
MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE
[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Western Porch, Ely Cathedral.
_The restoration of the Vescica Piscis is taken from a print in the
British Museum, dated 1730._]
LECTURES
ON THE
RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF
Mediæval Architecture
Delivered at the Royal Academy
BY SIR GILBERT SCOTT, R.A.,
F.S.A., LL.D., ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. I.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1879
_The right of Translation is reserved._
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
PREFACE.
Only half of the following Lectures were delivered by me, as the
_Professor of Architecture_, at the Royal Academy. The first seven were
delivered while Professor Cockerell held the Chair; but, owing to his
infirm state of health, I being then an Associate, was, in conjunction
with Mr. Smirke, called in to relieve him of this duty. The eighth and
ninth Lectures were prepared six years later, after Mr. Smirke had
retired, and those which follow, when I had succeeded him in the
Professorship.
The Lectures are naturally somewhat disconnected; and having been
written both at various times and for audiences often changing, may be
found in some instances to repeat the same facts and ideas, for which,
as well as for too great a prolixity of style, I beg to apologise.
They were written with much zeal; and, thanks to my staff, and to my
pupils, my sons, and others, they were magnificently and profusely
illustrated; more so, perhaps, than any such Lectures had ever been
before.
They have lain long in abeyance; but it seemed to me, that “for better
for worse,” and notwithstanding the lapse of time, they ought to be
published, and Mr. Murray has most kindly undertaken to do this for me.
In correcting them for the press, I have made only verbal alterations,
or corrected accidental errors, or omitted a few harsh expressions.
Where I wished to amplify, I have done so by notes. The illustrations
have been mainly drawn by my friend and assistant, Mr. W. S. Weatherley,
chiefly from those exhibited when the Lectures were delivered, with
additions from my more recent sketches, and will be found to contribute
largely to the elucidation of the text.
GEO. GILBERT SCOTT.
LONDON, _February 1878_.
* * * * *
_At the time of the sudden and deplorable death of Sir Gilbert
Scott in March last, more than 200 illustrations had been made and
engraved. The remaining ones are completed in conformity with his
marginal directions._
_Many of these were prepared by me for the Lectures ten years ago,
and all have been compared with Sir Gilbert’s sketches, with the
diagrams in the MSS., and redrawn. The engraving is by “Leitch’s
photographic process.”_
_Some valuable woodcuts, lent by permission of Mr. Fergusson and
Mr. Murray, have also been inserted among the letterpress._
W. SAMᴸ. WEATHERLEY.
20 COCKSPUR STREET,
LONDON, S.W.
CONTENTS.
VOL. I.
LECTURE I.
The Claims of Mediæval Architecture upon our Study.
Introduction--Art follows the course of civilisation--Three _primâ
facie_ claims Gothic Architecture has upon Study--Additional
claim, that it is Christian Architecture--Objections to the
title--Explanations of the term--Byzantine the earliest Christian
style--Summary of the Historical claims of Mediæval Architecture--Its
intrinsic claims--Abstract beauty--Advantages of an arcuated over a
trabeated style--Facility in decorating construction, and in converting
structural features into elements of beauty--Adaptability to varied
climates--Unites all arts in one--Painted glass--Sculpture--Foliated
sculpture--Gothic Architecture suited to the severest and most elegant
styles--Beauty of external outline--Delicacy of mouldings--Religious
solemnity of the interior of its temples--The spirit with which
the study of Mediæval Architecture should be undertaken--How to be
pursued--Practical objects for which it should be followed up Page 1
LECTURE II.
Sketch of the Rise of Mediæval Architecture.
Anomalous state of things in Western Europe after the destruction
of the Roman Empire--Art almost extinct--Saved by the Western
Church and the Eastern Empire--Architectural elements of the new
races--Charlemagne’s attempts to revive art--Primitive art in England
and the north of France--Dawn of better things--Architecture of
the tenth century--Schools of art and science--Bishop Bernward’s
works--Origin of early styles in France and Germany--Early architecture
of Rome--The arcuated and the trabeated systems--Development of
Romanesque--Its leading characteristics--Romanesque and Pointed
architecture not TWO styles, but ONE--Barrel vaults--Groined
vaults--Oblong bays--Main arches of groined vaulting changed from the
semicircle to the pointed arch--Flying buttresses--Groin ribs--The
pointed arch arose from statical not geometrical or æsthetical
motives--Wall ribs remain round long after the wider arches become
pointed--Two modes adopted to avoid the difficulty of oblong groining
over naves--Sexpartite vaulting Page 37
LECTURE III.
The Transition.
Gradual refinement of Romanesque--French architects the earliest to
systematise the pointed arch--The English before the Germans--The
Italians from the Germans--Fully acknowledged in France 1140--Suger’s
work at St. Denis--Carving in French churches--Corinthianesque outline
of capitals--Distinctly Byzantine capitals--A route by which Byzantine
foliage may have reached France--The importation indisputable--Its
effects seen in Early English capitals--West front of Chartres--Fluting
on basement of doorways--Cathedral of Noyon--St. Germain des Pres,
Paris--Cathedral of Sens, prototype of the Choir and Trinity Chapel
at Canterbury--Nôtre Dame, Paris--A new kind of foliage--The capital
“à crochet”--English transition--Incipient specimens--Refined
Norman--Pointed style, with reminiscences of Romanesque--William
of Sens--William the Englishman--Influence of French work--Oakham
Castle--Glastonbury Abbey--Cathedral of St. David’s--Temple Church,
London--Chichester Cathedral--Tynemouth Abbey--Hexham Abbey--Unfoliated
capitals--Round moulded capitals--Characteristics of English and French
transition--The German transition--Practical lessons from studying
these changes--Principles to which the transition was pioneer Page 69
LECTURE IV.
The Thirteenth Century.
Mediæval architecture usually classified under heads of
centuries--Actual points of change do not coincide with these
divisions--Auspices for the development of the Early Pointed
style--Great works in England and France--Artistic disturbance
in Germany--Progress in Italy--Energy pervades every branch of
art--Perfected Early Pointed a natural growth from Romanesque--Leading
characteristics--Columns--Bases of Columns--Capitals--Plan
of the abacus--Circular plan--Whence this arose--Moulded
capitals--Windows--Bases of buildings--Cornices and foliated
bands--Doorways--French and English compared Page 137
LECTURE V.
The Thirteenth Century--_continued_.
St. Saviour’s, Southwark--Choir of Temple Church, London--Chapel
at Lambeth--Westminster Abbey--Its Italian mosaic work, monuments,
and ancient reredos--Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Holborn--St.
Alban’s Abbey--Priory Church, Dunstable--Stone Church near
Gravesend--Waltham Cross--Jesus Chapel, Cambridge--Ely and Peterborough
Cathedrals--Warmington Church--West Walton Abbey--Crowland
Abbey--St. Mary’s and All Saints, Stamford--Ketton, Grantham, and
Frampton Churches--Lincoln Cathedral--Southwell Minster--Newstead
Abbey--York Cathedral--St. Mary’s Abbey, and St. Leonard’s Hospital,
York--Skelton Church--Beverley and Ripon Minsters--Fountains, Rivaulx,
Whitby, Kirkham, and Guisborough Abbeys--Chapel of the Nine Altars,
Durham--Hexham and Dryburgh Abbeys--Chapel of Holyrood--Elgin and
Glasgow Cathedrals--Furness Abbey--Southern examples--Most great
churches in France vaulted, not so in England--Universal excellence
of workmanship from 1175 to 1400--Domestic architecture of France,
Germany, Italy, and England--Influence of thirteenth century work on
our artistic practice Page 170
LECTURE VI.
The Rationale of Gothic Architecture.
Contradictory opinions as to the character and origin of Gothic
Architecture--True causes of its origin--The arch--The Romans
eminently practical--Two defects in their architecture--Practical
improvements--Use of small materials--Arches in rims--Sub-ordinating
rims--Imposts--Pilaster capitals--Decorative columns--Romanesque
arch decorations--Labels--Clustered columns--Weight of arches
on columns--Doorways--Windows--Rejection of ancient rules of
proportion--Efforts to improve construction and decoration in the
twelfth century--Absolute demand for an arch of less pressure and for
an abutment of greater resistance--_Ribbed_ as distinguished from
_arris_ vaulting--Reasons for adopting the former--Pointed arch as
effecting proportion Page 215
LECTURE VII.
The Rationale of Gothic Architecture--_continued_.
The bases of a thirteenth century church indicate the plan and
construction of the vaulting--The system of mouldings--Windows,
their development--Rationale of stained glass--A general principle
of ornamentation common to all good architecture--The roof--Secular
buildings--Cloth market Yprès--Warehouses, Nuremburg--Windows in
secular and ecclesiastical buildings--Trabeated architecture in
its truest forms--Fireplaces--Chimney-shafts--Oriel and Dormer
windows--Ceilings--Subordination of external design to internal
requirements--Designs adapted to the materials most readily
obtained--Conditions demanded of our future architecture--Gothic
architecture well fitted to unite these conditions Page 246
A Digression concerning Windows Page 276
LECTURE VIII.
On the Practical Study of Gothic Architecture.
Evident ignorance or neglect of those who practise Gothic
architecture--Faithfulness of others--The styles should be learned
from ancient buildings--Our knowledge to be continually revived
and added to--Hints to students--The study of Lincoln Cathedral,
Canterbury Cathedral, and examples in London--Libraries and museums
in London--Foreign travel--Examples in Paris, and other parts of
France--Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. etc. Page 290
LECTURE IX.
On the Study and Practice of Gothic Architecture.
Every-day business and practical work to go on _hand in hand_ with
the study of ancient buildings--How best to be accomplished--The
study _from books_--Artistic and archæological portions cannot be
wholly disconnected--Heraldry--A knowledge of the history of art
absolutely necessary for the study of Mediæval architecture--Greek
art the parent of Gothic sculpture--Ruined cities of Central
Syria--Mahometan styles--Our own form of church the direct
inheritance from the earliest Christian temples--Training _as
artists_--Choice among specimens of different Mediæval periods and
styles--Examples especially recommended--Practical studies of ancient
buildings in connection with their _structural_ and _mechanical_
qualities--Vaulting--Timber-work--Stone-work, etc. etc.--The _actual
practice_ of Mediæval architecture--The _repairs_ and _restoration_ of
ancient buildings Page 331
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CONTAINED IN VOL. I.
FIG.
Ely Cathedral. Western Porch _Frontispiece._
PAGE
1-14. Diagrams explanatory of the various systems of Romanesque
Vaulting 52-63
15. St. Denis. Interior of one of the Apsidal Chapels 78
16. Do. Exterior of do. 79
17. Do. Part of Capital from do. 79
18. Greek. Acanthus, from the Choragic Monument to Lysicrates,
Athens 81
19. Roman Acanthus, from the Temple of Mars Ultor 81
20. St. Denis. Scroll from 82
21. Do. Part of a Cornice 82
22. St. Mark’s, Venice. Capital from the church of 83
23. St. John’s, Constantinople. Do. do. 83
24. St. Frond, Perigueux. Do. do. 83
25. Do. do. Fragment of do. 83
26. Column of Marcion, Constantinople. Capital from 84
27. St. Germain des Pres, Paris. Do. 85
28. Lincoln Cathedral (north-west Portal). Capitals from 85
29-33. Chartres. Enriched shafts from 86
34. Cathedral of Noyon. Interior of one of the Apsidal Chapels 89
35. Do. Exterior of do. 89
36. Do. Plan of do. 89
37. St. Germain des Pres, Paris. Two Bays of Choir 92
38. Do. do. Western Doorway 93
39. Cathedral of Sens. Interior view 94
40. Cathedral of Sens. View of Choir Aisles 96
41-42. Do. Capitals from do. 97
43-46. Nôtre Dame, Paris. Capitals from 98-100
47-48. Do. do. Carving from 101
49. St. Leu, near Creil. Capital from the Apse 101
50. Nôtre Dame, Paris. Capital from the West Front 101
51. St. Eusèbe, Auxerre. Capital from 101
52. Noyon. Capital from the Apse 102
53. Laon. Capital from 102
54. Sens. do. 102
55. Nôtre Dame, Paris. Capital from 102
56. Sainte Chapelle, Paris. do. 103
57. Do. part of Capital from 103
58. St. Remi, Rheims. Capital from 103
59. Fountains Abbey. View across Nave 104
60. Kirkstall Abbey. View of South Transept 105
61. Durham Cathedral. The Galilee 106
62. St. Mary’s Abbey, York. Vestibule of Chapter-house. View
from Cloister 107
63. St. Mary’s Abbey, York. Do. View
from Chapter-house _To face_ 108
64. St. Mary’s Abbey, York. Plan of Vestibule of Chapter-house 108
65. York Cathedral. Archbishop’s Palace, Fragment of 109
66. Ripon Minster. Bay of Choir _To face_ 109
67. Ely Cathedral, South Transept. West end 110
68. St. Cross, near Winchester. Capital from 111
69. Canterbury Cathedral. View of Choir _To face_ 112
70. Do. Do. Trinity Chapel 112
71. Do. Capitals. William of Sens 112
72. Do. Trinity Chapel. Capital. William the
Englishman 113
73. Oakham Castle, Rutlandshire. Capital from 114
74. Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury. Exterior
view 115
75. Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury. Interior
view 116
76. St. David’s Cathedral. Internal bay of Nave _To face_ 117
77-78. Do. Capitals from 118
79. Temple Church, London. View of Circular Aisle 119
80. Chichester Cathedral. Do. Eastern part _To face_ 120
81. Tynemouth Abbey. The Choir “ 120
82. Hexham Abbey. South side of Choir 121
83. Bridlington Priory Church, Yorkshire. Capital from 122
84. Ripon Cathedral. Do. 123
85. Fountains Abbey. Do. 123
86. St. Cross, Hampshire. South Aisle of Choir 124
87. Durham Cathedral. Chapel of the Nine Altars _To face_ 140
88-91. Bases of Columns from Bridlington: St. Mary’s Abbey, York:
St. Stephen’s, Caen: Veselay: and Westminster Abbey 150-151
92-93. Sections of early Bases 152
94. Rollestone, Notts. Capital from 154
95. Chartres. Specimens of carving from 154
96. Southwell Minster. Capital, etc., from 154
97. St. Quentin, Aisne. Capital with angular Abacus 156
98. Canterbury Cathedral. Capital from Crypt 157
99-102. Moulded Capitals from Salisbury, St. Alban’s and Westminster,
with sections 157-158
103-107. Base Moulds of Buildings 164
108. St. Alban’s Cathedral. Ornament in Western Portals 167
109. Do. Western Portals, south entrance _To face_ 167
110. Temple Church, London. View of Choir 173
111. Chapel of St. John Baptist, Westminster Abbey. Conventional
foliage 177
112. Do. do. Natural do. 178
113. Retabulum, or moveable Reredos, formerly belonging to the
High Altar, Westminster Abbey _To face_ 181
114. Iron grille, Queen Eleanor’s Tomb, Westminster Abbey 181
115. Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn. Side Windows 183
116. Ely Cathedral. Western Porch. _Frontispiece._
117. Ely Cathedral. Eastern Front 190
118. Peterborough Cathedral. Circular Window, West Front 192
119. Peterborough Cathedral 193
120. Lincoln Cathedral. Rose-window North Transept 197
121. Do. View from the South-east 199
122. Do. South-east Portal _To face_ 198
123. Palais des Podestats, Orvieto, Italy. Domestic Windows 206
124. Torre di Santa, Ninfa, Palermo. Do. 206
125. Meslay, near Tours. Do. 207
126. Cluny. Houses at. Do. 207
127. Gostar. The Emperor’s House. Do. 207
128-129. Cologne. Houses at Do. 207
130. Gloucester. West Gateway, College Green. Do. 208
131-133. From an old building called Canute’s Castle, Southampton.
Domestic Windows 208
134. Moyse’s Hall, Bury St. Edmunds. Do. 208
135. Oakham Castle, Rutlandshire. Do. 209
136-137. Diagrams of Arches 223
138-140. Diagrams showing development of Piers 224
141-143. Diagrams illustrating the development of the Clustered
Column 226
144. St. Trophimus, Arles. Cloisters, north side 229
145. Bridlington Priory Church. Part of remains of Cloisters 230
146-147. Diagrams showing the effect on proportion by the introduction
of the Pointed Arch into Romanesque work 243
148. Laon Cathedral. Respond in Choir Aisle 248
149-151. Diagrams explaining the system of moulding 248
152. Cloth Market at Yprès _To face_ 262
153. Warehouses at Nuremburg 262
154-156. Diagrams concerning Windows 278
157. St. Pantaleon’s Church, Cologne 278
158. Burgh Church, Norfolk. Chancel, Window from 279
159-164. Diagrams of Rere-arches 280
165. Broughton Church, Oxfordshire. Window from 283
166. Christchurch, Hants. North Transept, do. 283
167. Stone Church, Kent. do. 284
168. Chancel, Brecon Priory 285
169. Winchester Cathedral. De Lucy’s work 286
170. Furness Abbey. Bay of Chapter-house 287
171. Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Holborn. West Window _To face_ 287
172. Do. do. East do. “ 287
173. Salisbury Cathedral. Chapter-house 288
174. Lincoln Cathedral. Easter Sepulchre 305
175. Do. Capitals north side of Choir 306
176-177. Westminster Abbey. Carved Capitals from 311
178-179. Westminster Abbey. Angels, from the Triforium of the
South Transept 312
180. Westminster Abbey. Mosaic from the Tomb of the Children
of Henry III. and Edward I. 313
181. Temple Church, London. Capitals, West Door 314
182. Montmartre. Capitals from 319
183. St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Plan of Choir 320
184. Do. View of Choir 321
185. Do. South Aisle of Choir 322
186. Do. Chapel, south side of Choir 323
187-188. Nôtre Dame, Paris. Western Portals. Corbels from 324
189-191. St. Martin aux Champs, Paris. Capitals from 325
192. El Barah, Central Syria. Capital from 336
ERRATA.
Page 81, Fig. 19, _for_ Temple of Mars, Ultor,
_read_ Temple of Mars Ultor.
“ 94, line 26, _for_ Choir at the Trinity Chapel,
_read_ Choir and the Trinity Chapel.
“ 170, Contents, line 6, _for_ Stanford, _read_ Stamford.
“ 175, foot-note, _for_ Beavais, _read_ Beauvais.
MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE.
LECTURE I.
The Claims of Mediæval Architecture upon our Study.
Introduction--Art follows the course of civilisation--Three _primâ
facie_ claims Gothic Architecture has upon Study--Additional claim,
that it is Christian Architecture--Objections to the
title--Explanations of the term--Byzantine the earliest Christian
style--Summary of the Historical claims of Mediæval
Architecture--Its intrinsic claims--Abstract beauty--Advantages of
an arcuated over a trabeated style--Facility in decorating
construction, and in converting structural features into elements
of beauty--Adaptability to varied climates--Unites all arts in
one--Painted glass--Sculpture--Foliated sculpture--Gothic
Architecture suited to the severest and most elegant styles--Beauty
of external outline--Delicacy of mouldings--Religious solemnity of
the interior of its temples--The spirit with which the study of
Mediæval Architecture should be undertaken--How to be
pursued--Practical objects for which it should be followed up.
It is with feelings somewhat closely bordering upon trepidation that,
availing myself of the liberty given by the regulations recently passed
by the Council of the Royal Academy, I venture to address you on a
subject which has never, till now, been more than incidentally touched
upon within these walls; a subject, indeed, dear to my heart, and
entwined among my inmost thoughts and affections, but one which, perhaps
for that very reason, I feel it the more difficult to bring before you
through the medium of a lecture. It may be at first sight imagined that
love, of all the human feelings, is that best calculated to aid in
describing the beauties of its object, and in advocating its claims upon
the admiration; but it is not so. We can hardly state the reasons why we
love our parents or our brothers. We know that it is a feeling which has
grown with our growth, and is a part of our very existence; yet it is
probable that an acquaintance who has never shared in these warmer
sentiments might describe their character and even their virtues more
successfully than ourselves. If we seek to investigate them, we find the
research all too cold and too methodical to accord with the tone of our
feelings; and, like the poet who wished to sing of the Atrides and of
Cadmus, the chords of our hearts respond only of love.
So it is with those who have harboured an early affection for the
architecture of their native land. Strongly as I appreciate the
intrinsic beauty of the monuments of classic antiquity, and the merits
of very many works of the Revival, I should doubt whether it were
possible for any unsophisticated youth, before studying their
architecture as a science, to entertain towards its productions in this
country any feelings bordering upon real affection. He may see in them
much to admire--much to lead him to study the art which has produced
them; and this study will, no doubt, often kindle those warmer feelings
which ripen into love. But this is a very different feeling from that
deep and filial affection which many a youth, untaught in art, but
gifted by nature with a perception of its beauties, has entertained from
his tenderest years towards the old churches of his neighbourhood, and
which has impelled him to walk from village to village, not only under
the balmy influences of summer, but along muddy roads or snowy paths,
and, with glowing heart but shivering hand, to sketch the humble porch,
the unaspiring steeple, and the mutilated though venerable monument,
with feelings of indescribable delight.
It is this instinctive affection which it is so difficult to reason
upon, and to which cold investigation seems so uncongenial; yet most
pleasant it is, in after life, to find ever new proof that our early
feelings have not been misplaced; that those once callous warm up when
they are led to examine; that those who, strange to say, disliked the
architecture of their forefathers, are now forced to admit some of its
beauties; that the style, once despised, has become gradually
appreciated, and its study become the favourite pursuit of
thousands--every county having its society organised to promote it; that
in every country in which it once flourished (Italy herself not
excepted), the same revived feeling towards it has arisen; and, finally,
that this distinguished Academy has stamped it as equally classic with
the architecture of the ancient world, and admitted it to an equal place
in the instructions offered to her students.
Having found it impracticable, from previous engagements, to give, as
had been kindly suggested to me, a short course of lectures during this
season, I propose on the present occasion to limit myself to some
introductory remarks on the study of Mediæval architecture, which I
trust, with the kind permission of the Council, to follow up next year
by one or two further lectures, both upon its original productions, and
upon the bearing of the study of them upon our own practice and the
architecture of the future.
I will commence by considering the different claims which Pointed
architecture has upon our study.
The more carefully we examine into the subject, the stronger and the
more numerous do we find these claims to be. To a casual observer, the
interest we feel in the subject may appear to be the result of local
prejudice or of arbitrary choice, and our Mediæval styles may seem to
have no greater claim upon us than those of a hundred other periods or
countries. The fact, however, is the very reverse--that Pointed
architecture is marked out from others in the most signal and remarkable
manner. I will briefly point out some of the circumstances which thus
especially single it out.
In tracing the history of civilisation, we cannot fail to perceive that,
from the earliest ages to the present, it has followed one not unbroken,
yet connected stream, and though branches have struck off in different
directions, it has ever had one main channel, which at each period
represents the central mass of civilisation; this stream, passing now
through this country and now through that, but its place being nearly
always so marked as to leave no doubt as to where, in each succeeding
age, the main seat of civilisation is to be found. Art has in regular
succession followed in the same course--the main channel of civilisation
and art having been the same, though each possessing its minor branches.
The earliest seats of mental culture were the great valleys of Egypt
and Mesopotamia. There, too, were the cradles of primitive art. The less
enduring materials of the Eastern valley have deprived us of the remains
of its earlier architecture, but the imperishable ruins of Egypt will
tell till earth’s closing day how mighty was her primæval civilisation.
Persia seems to have succeeded to Egypt and Assyria as well in art as in
dominion; but long before her political power had been overthrown, the
stream of mental power had been transferred to Greece, whose arts and
knowledge, partly indigenous and partly derived from Egypt and Assyria,
so infinitely excelled all which had preceded them, that we are apt, and
with reason, to view them as the only genuine art and civilisation of
the ancient world.
Rome, succeeding Greece in external power, borrowed both her arts and
literature, but, throughout her whole career, was as subordinate to her
in these as she was predominant in power; and when that great
catastrophe occurred which crushed to dust the mighty fabric of Roman
domination, it was again in Greece that civilisation and art flowed on,
and it was thence that those friendly streams proceeded which enabled
the Gothic conquerors of Rome to reconstruct what they had destroyed,
and among the _débris_ of ancient art and knowledge to sow the seeds and
to foster the growth of that richer and mightier civilisation which
distinguishes the modern from the ancient world.
In all its earlier stages, the growth of civilisation in the modern, as
in the ancient world, was marked by corresponding changes in its
architecture. Each age had its architectural style distinctly and
strongly marked; a style which, though connecting itself unmistakeably
with the long chain of ancient art that, though rudely broken in the
West, had been continuous in the Eastern empire, was nevertheless so
distinct from any former link in that chain as clearly to mark a new
dynasty in human affairs, and to show that the stream which had passed
successively through Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, was now
making wide and deep its channel among those Gothic nations whose
progenitors had been viewed as the enemies of art and knowledge, and
that the seat of art was henceforth to be established among those
vigorous races which had destroyed that of the ancient world.
My object in going over this well-beaten path is to draw your attention
to three very marked _primâ facie_ claims which Gothic architecture has
upon our study. Firstly, that, though we are in the habit of considering
it antiquated, it is in fact the architecture of the modern as
distinguished from the ancient world--that, just as the architecture of
the earlier half of the world’s history culminated in that of Greece,
which must ever be viewed as its most perfect and most glorious
representative, so did the indigenous architecture of the newer world
reach its culminating point in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
among the nations of Western Europe--the depositaries of a new
civilisation. Secondly, that it is the architecture of the Germanic
nations, through whose land the main stream of civilisation now runs, as
of old it did through Greece, Egypt, and Rome. And, thirdly, that it is
the latest original style of architecture which the civilised world has
produced; that the chain of architectural styles, commencing in Egypt,
and passing on in continuous course through Assyria, Persia, Greece,
Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the infant nations of modern
Europe, and by them prolonged through successive ages of continuous
progress, terminated in the style which we are treating of, and has
never since produced another link of its own.
As, then, the architecture of Egypt claims our respect as the earliest
link in the history of architecture, so are our own Mediæval styles
especially marked out from all others as being its latest creation. That
continuous stream of indigenous art which from the earliest ages of the
world had unceasingly flowed onwards--now through this country, and now
through that; now smoothly flowing on through a deep and copious
channel, and now choked up with rocks, or spreading itself
sluggishly and unhealthily through marshes and morasses, but ever
progressing--seemed at the end of the period we are speaking of to turn
back upon its course, and, instead of creating as heretofore ever new
beauties of its own, to content itself with reproducing those of bygone
periods: instead of illustrating, as it were, the collateral stream of
civilisation which flowed on so mightily by its side, it accompanied it
by images of that of an older world--of another family of nations--of
another religion; and since then, though civilisation has rolled on in a
continuous course, it has failed to produce any style of architecture of
its own.
Mediæval architecture, then, is distinguished from all other styles as
being the _last_ link of the mighty chain which had stretched unbroken
through nearly 4000 years--the glorious termination of the history of
_original_ and _genuine_ architecture.
The next claim to which I will direct your attention is, that our style
is, _par excellence_, Christian architecture.
This is a claim which it is so much the fashion of the day to dispute,
and even to deride, that it demands somewhat careful investigation. Many
who have no hesitation in using the terms Mahometan, Hindoo, or Buddhist
architecture, and who do not in the least deny the influence of the
various religions of the ancients upon their modes of building, see
nothing but fanaticism in attributing any such influence to
Christianity; or if they do not deny this influence, they view Pointed
architecture as the special property of the Roman Church (though Rome
herself boasts of having scarcely admitted it within her walls), and
find no style to symbolise their Protestantism but that derived from the
heathenism of the ancient world, and whose more recent type is to be
found in the great metropolitan church of modern Rome.
Other more reasoning persons object that, as Christianity, in its purest
ages, adopted a modified form of the ancient Roman style, and bent it to
its uses, the Roman style became by that process a _bona fide_ Christian
architecture; and further argue that Pointed architecture, having
derived some of its forms from the Saracenic, has thereby lost its title
to being considered a purely Christian style.
To meet these objections, it is necessary to explain what we mean by
Christian architecture.
There can be no doubt that nearly all forms of architecture have taken
their rise in the temple, whose form and character have been regulated
by the religion for which it was erected. From the temple it has
diffused itself throughout all classes of buildings, carrying with it,
in a certain degree, the feeling it had already acquired. No one will
deny this of the Egyptian, the Greek, or the Saracenic; and so
inconsistent are people on such questions, that the very persons who
would laugh at the term “Christian architecture” will almost in the same
breath object to the use of our style for secular buildings, on the
ground that it will make them look like churches!
Now, what we claim for Pointed architecture is, not that it is the only
Christian style which has arisen or is likely to arise, but that it has
been more entirely developed under the influence of the Christian
religion, and more thoroughly carries out its tone and sentiment than
any other style. It is not exclusively, but _par eminence_, Christian.
The early Christians naturally adopted the style which was ready made to
their hands. That this style, as they found it, was essentially Pagan,
it would be absurd to deny; but it was the only one they knew; and,
carefully avoiding the types of Pagan temples, they adopted one of its
secular forms, and wholly adapted it to their uses. The buildings thus
produced were unmistakeably Christian, but it would be absurd to say so
of their style. This being nearly identical with that of their Heathen
predecessors, it needed a long course of remoulding before it could
justly be predicated of it that it was a Christian style--a style
generated under the influence of Christian customs, to fulfil Christian
requirements, and to harmonise fully with the sentiments of the
religion of those who made use of it.
The earliest style which may fairly be called Christian was the
Byzantine. In the East no sudden revolution had affected art or
civilisation, but the Greek empire, founded at the moment when
Christianity became the established religion, went on quietly adapting
its arts and institutions to its new religion. Art having already
degenerated under the later Pagan emperors, and difficulties both from
without and from within gradually weakening and undermining the power of
the State, it was natural that the changing style should not have that
full scope which would have been afforded it had the purifying
influences of Christianity acquired full sway during the Augustan age.
Painting, sculpture, and architectural carving had lamentably fallen off
before they were transferred from the Heathen temple to the Christian
church, and even the more mechanical features of Roman architecture had
departed widely from their original purity of form. The task prescribed
to the new religion was not to take the highest form of Pagan art as it
had existed under Pericles or Augustus, and to mould it to its own uses
and its own purer and holier sentiments: what she had to deal with was a
mere wreck of its former self: all its early simplicity destroyed, its
vigour enervated, its magic instinct for beauty gone, its artists fast
falling back into barbarism; and that not the savageness of early but
untutored art, but the effete and nerveless heartlessness of a race
whose glory had departed. It was this lifeless body which Christianity
had to awaken to new energy--this dull and spiritless lump out of which
she had to mould her future arts, and that at a time when the western
half of the empire was about to be crushed to powder by the mighty storm
of Northern barbarism, and the eastern portion itself weakened by
gradual decay and by the incursions of the Goths, Huns, Persians, etc.,
and eventually by the tremendous inundation of the followers of Mahomet.
That such a glorious result as Byzantine architecture should have been
produced out of materials so lifeless, and through the agency of a
decaying nation, speaks volumes for the power of religion over art.
Let us turn, however, to the Western empire. There the case is still
stronger. With the same decayed and lifeless art as their nucleus, the
people of Christian Rome had the additional disadvantage caused by the
removal of the seat of government, and with it of the seat of art, to
Constantinople; nevertheless, their first efforts were so successful,
that though, in the words of Thomas Hope, “The architecture of the
Heathen Romans, in its deterioration, followed so regular a course, that
that which most nearly preceded the conversion of its rulers to
Christianity is also the worst,”--the same author tells us that “the
early Christian buildings, from their simplicity, the distinctness, the
magnificence, the harmony of their component parts, had a grandeur which
we seek in vain in the complicated architecture of modern churches.”
What course art would have taken had the Roman empire continued it is
impossible to judge. It was destined to share the fate of the empire
itself, and to be utterly overwhelmed by that mighty deluge which severs
the ancient from the modern world; so that its Christianisation,
instead of being gradual and progressive, as in the East, became a
complete reconstruction by the successors of those who had destroyed it,
though aided in their work by the friendly hands of those who, in the
Eastern empire, had kept alight the lamp of civilisation.[1] The
architecture of the West, therefore, instead of being a mere translation
of the old style from Pagan to Christian uses and expression, was a new
creation, formed, it is true, out of the ancient _débris_, but
nevertheless originated, carried on, and perfected by Christian nations
and for Christian uses, and may, consequently, be said, even in a
stronger sense than that of Byzantium, to be a distinct Christian style;
and I suppose none would doubt that its culminating point, and that to
which all its progress tended, was the Pointed architecture of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
An argument against its claim to the title has been founded on the
theory that the Pointed arch, which is, in some respects, the
culminating feature of the style, was not developed spontaneously by
our Christian forefathers, but learned by them from the Saracens. As
well might it be attempted to sever Grecian architecture from the
mythology and traditions of the Greeks, merely because some of its
details may find their prototypes in Egypt or Assyria, or to disconnect
the native architecture of India from their religion, because its first
inspiration seems traceable to the Fire-worshippers of ancient Persia!
Even Saracenic architecture itself was an emanation from that of
Christian Greece; so that _if_ we are indebted to it for the Pointed
arch (a question which I will not now attempt to investigate), she only
paid back to the religion from which she had borrowed. No one, however,
can study the tendencies of the late Romanesque without seeing that the
Pointed arch was becoming every day more necessary to the development of
the germ which the rising style contained. The gradually increasing
predominance of the vertical over the horizontal, the increase in the
height of pillars and jambs demanding a proportionate addition to the
arch; the necessities of groined vaulting over oblong spaces, and a
hundred other evidences, proved the Pointed arch to be the inevitable
result of the already attained developments; and often had it, almost
unconsciously, appeared in intersecting arcades. If its systematic
adoption can with certainty be traced to the suggestive architecture of
the East, surely this does not unchristianise the already Christian
architecture of the soldiers of the Cross, who brought the idea home
among the spoils won from their unbelieving foes! Is it not rather in
the spirit of our religion to receive tribute and homage from all the
nations of the earth? And if it may be said of the Christian Church
that
“Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farthest west;
And Æthiopia spreads abroad the hand,
And worships,”
it is equally reasonable to expect of her material temples that
“The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind,
And Saba’s spicy groves, pay tribute there.”
The character of a style of art does not depend upon the mere material
from which it has been fabricated, but upon the sentiments under which
it has been developed. Were not this the case, all styles, excepting,
perhaps, those in China and Central America, with a few others still
more obscure, would be more or less connected with the religion of Egypt
or of Nineveh; whereas, in fact, every race up to the sixteenth century,
had so moulded the original materials upon which its arts had been
founded as to render them expressive, in a great degree, of their own
sentiments, and especially of their own religion; and more strongly than
in any other case was it so with our own forefathers, when developing
the latest of all styles of genuine architecture, and moulding it to
harmonise with the sentiment of our holy religion.
The last of the historical claims of Pointed architecture to which I
will call your attention is, that it is the native architecture of our
own country, and that of our own forefathers. Here, again, I must define
my meaning for the sake of meeting a class of objectors who delight to
attach a false and exaggerated meaning to an expression.
I do not, then, mean that Pointed architecture belongs to us in any
different sense from that in which it belongs to France or Germany: I do
not mean to revive the claims of our country to its origination, nor to
assert in its behalf any pre-eminent share in its development. All I
mean to urge is the simple fact that, by whatever members of our family
of nations it was shared, it was, nevertheless, the architecture of our
own country--just as much English as we are ourselves--as indigenous to
our country as are our wild flowers, our family names, our customs, or
our political constitution.
In England, as in France and Germany, the same Romanesque architecture
had (with local varieties) grown up with the new civilisation; as it
perfected itself it showed in each the same tendencies and the same
yearnings, which Pointed architecture could alone satisfy. If it were so
that these were at length met by suggestions from the East, it was our
forefathers who fought there side by side with those of our neighbours,
and the lessons learned and the trophies won were common property. It is
possible that France was more rapid in making use of them, and it is
certain that Germany was the most tardy in doing so; but in each the
result had long been aimed at; in each it was the natural consequence of
what had already been attained; and was therefore not the property of
one, but the common inheritance of all; and each having attained it,
carried it on and developed it in her own way, thus making it in every
sense her own.
I am, however, only urging this as a claim which our old architecture
has upon our own study. If we investigate the architecture of Egypt, of
Assyria, or of Persia, we find that it tells of races with whom we have
no national or personal sympathy. If we go to the classic shores of
Greece, though there we should be viewing the work of a race whose arts
and literature are, more than those of any other people, the property of
the world, we nevertheless fail to find anything to connect them in any
special sense with ourselves. If we transfer our researches from Greece
to Rome--though we now view the vestiges of that mighty empire whose
world-wide sway stretched its iron sceptre over our own land, and though
we find among them the germ of the arcuated architecture which forms the
nucleus of our own styles--they are still severed from us by so wide a
gulf that, were it not for the modern revival of their style, they would
appear perfectly alien to our race and climate. All these studies must
be followed up in distant lands, excepting only those few fragments of
Roman work scattered here and there in our own and neighbouring
countries--the evidences of universal empire, the footsteps and symbols
of ancient servitude. How different is the study of Gothic architecture!
Its original exemplars are at our own doors; the very churches, perhaps,
in which from our infancy we have worshipped; the monuments of our own
forefathers; the works of men bearing our own names, whose armorial
badges we are still proud to use; who spoke, in its pristine form, our
own language; who sat in our own Parliaments, were lords of
still-existing manors, founders of still-surviving charities, men who
fought the battles of which we are still proud, and laid the foundations
of our liberties and of all those institutions which render the name of
England illustrious among the nations of the earth. Surely the
architecture which grew up among men so nearly allied to us has a
pre-eminent claim upon our attention!
I have thus traced out what appear to me to be the leading historical
claims of the style we are treating of, and which I will recapitulate as
being--
1stly. That it is the architecture of the modern, as distinguished
from the ancient world.
2dly. That it is the architecture of the nations wholly or
partially of Germanic origin, in whose hands the civilisation of
the modern world has been vested.
3dly. That it is the latest link in the chain of genuine and
original styles of architecture, a chain commencing with the first
settlement of the human race, and terminating in Gothic
architecture.
4thly. That it is, in a stronger sense than can be predicated of
any other style, Christian architecture.
5thly, and lastly. That it is pre-eminently the architecture of our
own forefathers and of our own land.
I will now proceed to direct your attention to some of the more
prominent among its _intrinsic_ claims.
Commencing, then, with its abstract beauty, I will not treat this as a
comparative, but as a positive, quality. Differences of taste and
education lead us to form varied estimates of the relative merits of the
several styles of art, but the most devoted follower of classic
antiquity could scarcely question the absolute and intrinsic beauty of a
Gothic cathedral. Every style of architecture has had its own glories.
The mighty Hall at Karnac; the Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis; that model
of symmetry, the Parthenon; the Coliseum at Rome; and that gorgeous
congeries of domes which canopied the shrine of Holy Wisdom at
Constantinople, all rank among the most noble of the works of man; but
who is there so prejudiced as to deny the worthiness of those glorious
temples which preside in august serenity over the cities of Northern
Europe to an equal place in our admiration? Surely, if abstract beauty
and intrinsic grandeur alone are considered, the cathedrals of Amiens,
of Rheims, of Chartres, of Bourges, of Strasburg, of Cologne, of
Lincoln, Salisbury, or York, with a hundred others, will not suffer by
comparison with the works of any previous age? Nay, I am convinced that
an unprejudiced umpire would go much further, and pronounce them in most
respects far superior to the works of earlier ages; but my argument only
requires that they should be admitted as their equals.
The next claim I will state is this--that as trabeated architecture was
brought to its highest perfection by the Greeks, so the other great type
of construction, arcuated architecture, was perfected by the Mediæval
builders; the round-arch variety in the twelfth, and the pointed-arch in
the two succeeding centuries. No one who gives the subject a moment’s
consideration will doubt the enormous advantages of the arcuated over
the trabeated system: indeed, with the materials we have at command in
this country, the former style in its purity is in most cases
impracticable, as is shown by half our modern attempts at it being in
reality arcuation plastered over to look like trabeation.
The peculiar advantages of the pointed arch (though I do not urge them
to the exclusion of other forms) are its greater power of carrying
weight; its lessened thrust; the facility with which it proportions its
height to that of its supporting jambs, and the general feeling of the
building in which it is used, whether more or less vertical in its
tendency; and its great advantages in groined vaulting.
The next quality I will mention is the extraordinary facility of our
style in _decorating construction_, and in converting structural and
useful features into elements of beauty. The arch, its normal feature,
supplies to it an endless store of beauty. The vault supplies another
inexhaustible fund, and assumes forms unrivalled in any other style. The
window, comparatively neglected by the ancient architects, and even
hated by the Greeks, was, in the hands of the Gothic builders, a perfect
treasury of architectural loveliness; and the introduction of
window-glass, an invention nearly unknown to the ancients, became the
source of an entirely new and most enchanting art, and one which
exercised the most surprising influence upon architecture. The buttress,
the natural but unpromising accompaniment of an arcuated style, became
in their magic hands, a source of stateliness and varied beauty. The
roof, unwillingly shown by the Classic builders, adds solemn dignity to
the works of their Northern successors; while, if need be, its timbers
are made to contribute liberally to the effect of the interior. The
campanile, a structure resulting wholly from practical necessity, became
the greatest ornament of Christian cities, and supplied an endless
variety of majestic forms, which had no parallels in ancient
architecture; and generally, whatever feature, whether homely or
otherwise, construction or utility demanded, was at once enlisted, and
that with right goodwill and heartiness, among the essential elements of
the design.
Carrying out the same spirit, no material was either too rich or too
rustic to find an honourable place in the works of these truly Catholic
builders. The varied marbles of the Appenines, the polished amethysts of
Bohemia, the glass mosaics of the Byzantines, with gold and silver,
enamel, brass, and iron, were all brought under tribute to make their
richer works glorious; yet they were equally at home in the use of
brick, or flint, or rubble, and did not despise even a homely coating of
plaster, if only it were honestly and truthfully used. And, what is more
remarkable, they excelled in the use of nearly every one of these
materials, and varied their design with instinctive precision to meet
every one of their individual conditions.
Carrying on the same spirit a step further, Gothic architecture shapes
itself instinctively to varied climate and local tradition, and that
without sacrificing its leading principles. It is true that its great
normal types are found in Northern Europe, and that the north of France
may, perhaps, be considered as its central province; yet how admirably
does it shape itself to the varied conditions of Italy or Spain, to the
valleys of Switzerland or the inhospitable shores of Scandinavia! while
in every country where it prevailed it assumes a national type, and in
every province a local variety.
In the same way, again, it suits itself to every grade and every class
of building to which it is applied. It is equally at home in the humble
chapel of the rustic hamlet as in the metropolitan cathedral. The
traveller through Lincolnshire is no less charmed by the village
churches which rise in such profusion from its level surface than with
the majestic minster, which, from its lofty site, surveys the whole
county; nor are we, after wondering at the stupendous grandeur of York,
the less disposed to be delighted with the little village chapel at
Skelton; and even the rudest structures of the most obscure district
possess a truthfulness and a sentiment which does more than compensate
for their rusticity. To pass again to different classes of building, the
Mediæval castles, though belonging to a class which the altered modes of
warfare have rendered obsolete, are in their degree as noble and as
thoroughly suited to their purpose as the sacred structures. The
manor-house, the farm, and the cottage, show equal appropriateness of
treatment. The timber street-fronts of Coventry or Brunswick; the brick
houses of Lubeck or of the Lombard cities, or those of stone at
Nuremberg--all evince the same power of meeting the conditions of
purpose or material; while the vast warehouses of the commercial cities
of Germany, the town halls of Flanders, and the tithe barns of an
English village are, in their way, as admirable and as appropriate as
the minster at Rheims or the castle at Carnarvon.
Again, Gothic architecture unites all arts in one, more, perhaps, than
has been effected by any other style, or, to say the least, fully as
much so.
In its normal form a stone architecture, it does not make all other
materials conform to this condition, but treats them each according to
its own demands. It is almost equally successful in its timber roofs as
in its stone construction, and equally perfect in wood as in stone
carving; it treats iron and brass in a manner perfectly suited to the
varying conditions; it brings in painted decorations of the richest or
the simplest character, as best suits the building; it has introduced
one all-pervading art entirely of its own--I mean painted glass; and no
art perhaps ever contributed in so large a degree to the increase of
architectural effect: its jewellery, enamels, ivory carving, embroidery,
tapestry, and all other arts are in perfect harmony; and though it fell
short of the Classic styles in the perfection of its figure sculpture,
it possessed even here a solemn and severe dignity, hardly equalled at
any period, and its draperies often exceeded in beauty those of the
Classic sculptors.
In describing the sculptures at Wells Cathedral, our revered professor,
who possesses, in a greater degree than any one whom it is my privilege
to know, the happiness of being susceptible of enthusiastic emotion from
the beauties of a rival school of art to that to which he has especially
devoted himself, makes the following remarks:--
“Regarded in the right spirit, we shall wonder at the inexhaustible
resources of the artist in delineating the various and opposite
characters of his multifarious composition--in which no two are to be
found alike, and in each of which we find the appropriate idea--and the
fulness of embodiment which sustains the _dramatis personæ_ throughout,
with an untiring energy of impersonation in costume, symbol, and action,
which excites our warmest admiration.
“We have the sanctity of the Monk, the meekness and abstraction of the
supreme Pontiff; the Archbishop; the pious energy of the Bishop in the
act of benediction; the prudent Abbot; the devoted Anchorite; the
haughty and imposing King; the stark conqueror fiercely justifying his
usurpation; the placid and impassible Confessor administering his good
old laws ...; the inspired Evangelist or the malignant sprite;--each and
all discovering a racy energy of conception which the informed artist
may envy.”
Again: “The Mediæval artist appealed sometimes to the imagination, and
sometimes to the conscience; and thus gave a degree of sentiment to his
works, which the moderns can scarcely attempt,--much less attain....
“But it is the moral understanding of the artist which is most affected
by the contemplation of so vast an assemblage of Christian art, as
contrasted with the Classical, contained in our museums or in ancient
monuments. Habituated to the Grecian model, in which the pride of life,
the sensuality of beauty, a superhuman energy, or an unreal Elysium are
assumed, deluding with a _beau-ideal_, and disappointing to all human
experience, he is brought here to the full admission of the realities
and true conditions of human existence--probation by the sweat of the
brow, and the grand achievement of eternal life. Art is here employed
to impress the great lessons of Truth, the warfare of the world, the
subjugation of the natural to the spiritual man, the honest employment
of the intellect in the great cause of religion.... No characters enter
into this picture which have not been signalised by some great good to
society, or some great triumph over all-absorbing self. Wisdom in its
true sense, and varying energies of personal or intellectual strength,
in a great cause, are the only passports to admission in these records.”
I need not apologise for quoting at so much length from him who has so
often and so eloquently addressed you from this place, and cannot
refrain from adding the following admirable reflections to which the
work he was describing gave rise:--
“The poetic faculty, the fine sense of beauty, grace, and humour, are
the gifts of nature: technical and mechanical skill may be acquired by
academy and happy circumstances. The union of these qualifications,
which is requisite to perfection in a work of art, is indeed a rare
felicity: their separate existence is a melancholy fact, exhibited by
the history of schools; in which, for the most part mechanism and
technicality usurp the higher attainment, and the wide distinction
between the professional practitioner and the inborn artist is made
apparent to us. But the end of all sound criticism should be to
recognise these distinctions; to seize the poetical conception, however
encumbered with a faulty execution; and to appreciate in their true
merit the more exalted and the rarer qualities; else the poet descends
to the grammarian, and the intellectual artist to the handicraftsman.”
In foliated sculpture the Mediæval artists exceeded those of, perhaps,
any other period. In their works you find the finest specimens of
conventional or imaginary foliage,--founded on natural principles, yet
not imitated from nature,--the best instances of the introduction of
natural foliage, either wholly or united with the conventional,--and the
most admirable examples of conventionalising nature, or, as Mr. Ruskin
defines it, “bringing it into service,” so as to suit it to the material
and to the forms, conditions, and purposes of architectural decoration,
whether in relief or in painting. And not the least valuable of the
lessons we learn from them is the acknowledgment of the mind and
imagination of the art workman, who was not, as in classic architecture,
employed to make for his capitals, or other features, an indefinite
number of facsimiles of a single model, much less, as in most modern
works, to copy in a hundred buildings a model which its author never
meant to be used but in one; but after having acquired a due amount of
skill in the arrangement and execution of his foliage, and a due
knowledge of the general tone and feeling which the architect desired to
express, was then left, under only general guidance, to the indulgence
of his own inventive and artistic faculties, and thus rendered every
capital, every boss, and every cusp a distinct and separate work of art,
though all in harmony with the ideal of the whole design.
In variety of expression Gothic architecture is excelled by none, being
equally capable of the sternest and most majestic severity, and the most
exquisite and refined elegance, as well as of all the intermediate
varieties.
In beauty of external outline no other style of architecture approaches
it; and in the variety, depth, and refined delicacy of the profiles of
its mouldings it stands unrivalled. Time would fail me to tell of the
wonderful manner in which our style shapes itself to every accidental
requirement; grapples with every difficulty, and converts it into a
source of beauty; disdains, on the one hand, all artificially effected
symmetry, nor, on the other, fears to submit to the most rigid
uniformity, should the conditions of the case require it, being equally
noble in the castle, where no two parts are alike or, as in the Hall at
Ypres, where scarcely any two are different; how it meets every
emergency with the utmost frankness and honesty; how it disdains all
deception; thus contrasting itself, not with other genuine styles, for
none really systematically admit of shams, but with the despicable
trickiness which our modern architects have learned from their own
plasterers and house-painters. Nor have I time to treat of the boldness,
freedom, and originality of its conceptions. But, above all, its great
glory is the solemnity of religious character which pervades the
interior of its temples. To this all its other attributes must bend, as
it is this which renders it so pre-eminently suited to the highest uses
of the Christian Church. It was this probably which led Romney to
exclaim, that if Grecian architecture was the work of glorious men,
Gothic was the invention of gods.
Having--I fear at too great length--sketched out the claims of Mediæval
architecture upon your study, I will conclude with a few remarks as to
the spirit with which that study should be undertaken, the manner in
which it should be pursued, and the practical objects for which it
should be followed up.
In the first place, I will premise that your studies should not be
undertaken in a spirit of mere antiquarianism. We owe very much to
antiquaries, and far be it from me to depreciate the value of their
researches; on the contrary, I think that the enlightened system on
which they are followed up is one of the things of which our age has to
be proud, and one for which, as lovers of art, we have great cause for
gratitude; nor do I wish to discourage the pursuit of such
investigations by architects. It is, in some degree, a necessary
accompaniment to their studies, and will always add interest to them.
What I wish to suggest is that our own proper subject is _art_ rather
than antiquity. The fact that the types from which we have to study have
grown old is accidental: their merits and their value are perfectly
irrespective of their age, and would have been as great had they been
erected in our own day; nay, more so, for then we should be following
up, as in former days, the works of our own immediate predecessors, and
should not be suffering, as now, from a great and unnatural _hiatus_ in
the history of our art. In the second place, our studies should not be
undertaken in a spirit of mere philosophical investigation: that, too,
is very useful in its place, and is an important element in the study of
art, though somewhat too cold to suit the feelings which belong to the
true artist.
I would suggest two classes of sentiments as especially suited to our
own studies, somewhat opposite in their character, and each calculated
to temper and correct any tendency to undue excess in the other. On the
one hand, I would urge that your studies should be the earnest following
up of the genuine impulses of the heart;--that their primary
characteristics should be warmth, enthusiasm, veneration, and love.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of
life.” Never repress in yourselves, nor ridicule in others, the generous
impulses of enthusiasm. They are the very soul of art; they are the
fresh spring flowers of the youthful mind, the life-spring of every
noble thought and action: without them art would cease to exist, and we
should sink under the bondage of an iron age. Above all, cultivate these
feelings now that you are young: guard and cherish them as you would the
choicest and tenderest of flowers; for, depend upon it, the chilling
blasts of advancing years, and the deadening contact of a hard and
unsentimental world, will have sufficient tendency to nip the precious
bud almost before it has time to burst into bloom. On the other hand, it
is necessary that the exercise of this zeal, heartiness, and veneration,
should be regulated by sound and discriminating judgment,--a perfect and
unfettered freedom of thought, and an eye to real beauty of form and
reasonableness of construction and design; so that our generous
enthusiasm may not betray us into forming erroneous judgments.
However perfect a style of art may be, its productions are not all
perfect nor all of equal merit; while every human art has had its period
of rise, culmination, and decline; and, enthusiastic and heart-stirring
as must be our feelings towards any art in which we hope to excel, and
intense as may be our veneration for the skill and noble sentiment of
its original masters, these feelings should in no degree be permitted
to blunt the sensitiveness of our own instinctive perception of beauty,
whether positive or relative, nor to bias the freedom of our judgment as
in the comparative truthfulness, propriety, or genuineness of the works
of different periods or of different hands. We must keep a constant
balance between our zeal and our judgment--not repressing the exercise
of either, but giving each its full play, and exercising each in its
highest and noblest degree.
I now come to the _manner_ in which Mediæval architecture should be
studied.
In the first place, though books and prints are very useful in their
degree, let me impress upon you, in the strongest manner, that all real
study should be at the fountain head. You may derive information as to
the history of art from books, but knowledge of art itself must be
derived from works of art. The knowledge derived from books and prints
comes to you at second hand--you are seeing through other men’s eyes;
the really useful information is that which you obtain at the first
hand, and through your own eyes. If you learn a fact from a book, be
never satisfied till you have proved it by your own observation; if you
are impressed with the beauty of a building from a drawing or a print,
make sure of its being really beautiful by examining it for yourselves.
Investigate every theory, however rudimental, by actual examination of
the _data_ on which it is founded, so that none of your knowledge shall
be merely taken upon trust from others.
During a genuine and natural state of art, every one learned it from,
and developed it upon, the works of his immediate predecessors. This
natural course having been broken up, the most reasonable substitute for
it is to study the actual works which surround us, and which were
produced while art was still genuine and unbroken. We have not to visit
distant shores, and to investigate obscure fragments,--the works of
races which have vanished from the face of the earth: we are surrounded
on every side by original examples of the arts which we would study;
they are the productions of our own country and our own race. The
temples from which our authorities are derived are not those of an
ancient and bygone nation, but those in which we ourselves worship, and
within and around whose hallowed walls sleep the remains of our own
forefathers. We study no outlandish or exotic architecture, but that of
buildings which from our infancy we have been taught to venerate. We
have, then, no excuse if we neglect to obtain our knowledge from the
fountain head.
The choice and order of the particular buildings which we select for our
studies must depend much upon accidental circumstances; but, as a
general rule, I would advise each student to begin with those which are
readiest to his hand. If your home is in the country, visit, study, and
sketch from your own parish church, and from those immediately
surrounding you, widening your circle as you proceed; generally studying
the simpler specimens before you venture upon the more magnificent. If
you live in London the case is different. The humbler specimens have
mostly perished, but the earnest student will still find out many of
which the public are ignorant. Here, however, you must for the most part
attend to the more magnificent works, and reserve the humbler for your
rural excursions; and, above all, you must diligently study the glorious
abbey church of Westminster--internally, perhaps, the finest in England,
but which, from its proximity, is made nothing like so much use of as it
ought to be. Though the village churches round London have suffered more
than almost any others, you would still do well to make pedestrian
excursions among them, and carefully sketch what remains of them; and by
extending your excursions to Waltham and St. Alban’s, to Eltham and
Hampton Court, you will find objects of study of the highest merit and
the most thrilling interest. I would, however, recommend, as the most
profitable mode of following up the subject, more lengthened excursions;
as, for instance, pedestrian tours through particular counties or
districts, walking from village to village, and carefully sketching
everything worthy of note to be found in it, whether ecclesiastical or
domestic. This should be repeated over and over again in different
districts. If you wish to direct your attention to the nobler
productions of architecture, you must seat yourselves down in some
cathedral town, and follow it up patiently from day to day, till your
time is exhausted. A hasty view to these noblest of structures is of but
little use.
Especially would I entreat your attention to those beauteous but
melancholy ruins which still mark the sites of ancient monastic
institutions. You may find in them the finest and best studied examples
of your art--works designed and carried out, not in the bustle and busy
hum of cities, but under the quieting influence of learned retirement:
they are the works of the most thoughtful spirits of their age, and have
received their utmost study and consideration. Not only are they
intrinsically among the most beautiful specimens you can visit, but
their present condition is calculated to impress them the most deeply
upon the imagination and memory.
It is well to visit these remains _alone_; to stay long at them; to
study them thoroughly, and not to repress the emotions to which they are
calculated to give rise. I would also plead for them on another ground.
There are many of them fast mouldering away or tottering to their fall.
A few years more, and many of them will have perished. Lend, then, a
friendly hand while they still exist, and rescue from oblivion their
noble details by making careful and measured drawings of every part; so
that, when the reality is no more, the truthful representation at least
will be preserved.
I need hardly say that no works of art can be really profitably studied
without _drawing_ from them. The memory will not retain its impressions
by mere abstract study and observation. I would not advise hasty and
careless sketching, unless your time is so short as to render more
impossible, but would urge upon you the necessity of carefully and
assiduously drawing whatever strikes you as worthy of it, making
measured drawings whenever you can, and noting down your impressions as
to the merits or the defects of the work. So study what you see as
thoroughly to learn it,--as if no one had ever made drawings of it
before. Never buy prints or photographs of it as substitutes for your
own work; though they are most useful when you have done all you can for
yourself. In this way you will in a few years obtain a good knowledge of
the architecture of your own country, and this is the best preparation
for studying the contemporary works of other lands.
I would never encourage a student to go too early abroad. Study well our
own examples first, and follow up foreign ones later.
When you go abroad, begin with France. It is the great centre of
Mediæval art. Perhaps the best course is to take Normandy first, as
being most allied to our own country; but still more important is the
district round Paris--the old royal domain--which seems to be the heart
from which Gothic architecture diffused itself throughout Europe. The
architecture of this central district, particularly in works of the
thirteenth century, demands the closest and the most diligent study; it
is the great standard and type of the style, and, without a good
knowledge of it, your studies would be not only incomplete, but
defective at the most vital part.
After France, I would recommend Germany. Pointed architecture in Germany
is a direct emanation from France, far more so than is the case with
that of our own country. Yet it has a character of its own which it is
well to study, and the later Romanesque of Germany, which is
contemporary with the early Pointed architecture of France and England,
is replete with beauty and suggestiveness.
Italy should come after France and Germany; and the study of its
Mediæval works is, in my opinion, necessary to the completeness of the
course I am suggesting. It should, however, be undertaken with much
caution, without which it is apt to lead astray. I have above
recommended you never to repress the generous impulses of enthusiasm; I
fear, however, I must here make an exception to my rule. On first
visiting Italy, the scenes are so new and so exciting, and the effects
of the climate and the beauty of the atmosphere so intoxicating to the
feelings, that we are apt to view everything through an exaggerating
medium. Without repressing noble and generous emotions, I would still
suggest that a rigorous watch should be kept over the undue effect of
merely external influences. “Put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man
given to appetite.” With proper safeguards, however, on this head,
southern Gothic is one of the most useful and delightful branches of the
studies which lie before you, and supplies many a _hiatus_ which would
otherwise exist.
I hope, however, on some future occasion, to say more on this subject.
For the present, I will close my remarks on the manner in which Gothic
architecture should be studied, by saying that it is not mere
architecture which you will have to attend to: painted decoration,
whether in its nobler or humbler branches, stained glass, illuminated
manuscripts, sculpture, metal-work, jewellery, enamelling, seals, carved
ivories, embroidery, and a hundred other subsidiary branches, possess an
almost equal claim upon your attention; and many of these must be
followed up in museums and public libraries, in collections of archives,
and in the sacristies and treasuries of monasteries and cathedrals,
where, for the most part, they lie hidden and unknown to the busy world
around. Nor would I leave you to suppose that the objects of your study
should be either exclusively, or even, perhaps, mainly, ecclesiastical.
You must search out with the utmost diligence the remnants of civil,
secular, and domestic buildings of the same ages: without this your
studies would be imperfect indeed! The caprice of individuals and the
love of living in new houses, have rendered these remains most imperfect
and fragmentary; yet the fragments are strewn on all sides of us, and
demand to be carefully collected, and not a village you pass will fail
to supply you with some contribution.
Finally. What are the special objects for which this course of study
should be undertaken? They are, I think, threefold.
_First._ For the mere sake of acquainting ourselves with one of the most
remarkable phases in the whole history of art, and that which belonged
to our own race, country, and religion. It is one of the most striking
characteristics of our day that in it alone, of all periods of the
world’s history, the arts of all preceding times are studied and their
history understood; and strange would it be if, while traversing every
land to glean vestiges of its bygone arts, we should neglect to acquaint
ourselves with that noble style which prevailed among our own
forefathers, and whose glorious monuments surround us on every side.
The _second_ object is one of a more practical nature. These noble
monuments, the pride and glory of our land, have, through the lapse of
time and the barbarous hand of modern Vandalism, become in many cases so
decayed and mutilated as to demand at our hands the most careful and
judicious reparations. This cannot safely be undertaken by any but those
who have as perfect knowledge as is possible of their architecture, and
who are able to trace out with precision the history and changes they
have undergone, and whose feelings are such as to lead them to deal
tenderly and lovingly with them. This alone is a sufficient object to
induce a careful study of our Mediæval architecture.
There remains, however, a _third_ object to lead us to this study, but
it is one on which so much difference of opinion exists, that I must
avoid on the present occasion doing more than naming it. I refer, of
course, to the revival of Pointed architecture now going on. The
promoters of this great movement do not desire to revive a departed art,
however glorious, exactly as they find it in its original remains. Such
may naturally be the character of their first essays, but it is not
their ultimate wish. Their view is rather this: that, feeling deeply the
fact that we have long since ceased to possess an architecture which can
be said to belong to our race or our age, and fully agreeing with those
who desire to see a new development of our art to meet these demands,
they feel that the most probable foundation for such a development is
the native architecture of our own race and country, and that the
thorough study of its principles may tend in time to promote the
formation of an architecture of the future, which will be more
thoroughly our own than that, however meritorious, which has been
founded upon traditions of the ancient world.
LECTURE II.
Sketch of the Rise of Mediæval Architecture.
Anomalous state of things in Western Europe after the destruction
of the Roman Empire--Art almost extinct--Saved by the Western
Church and the Eastern Empire--Architectural elements of the new
races--Charlemagne’s attempts to revive art--Primitive art in
England and the north of France--Dawn of better
things--Architecture of the tenth century--Schools of art and
science--Bishop Bernward’s works--Origin of early styles in France
and Germany--Early architecture of Rome--The arcuated and the
trabeated systems--Development of Romanesque--Its leading
characteristics--Romanesque and Pointed architecture not TWO
styles, but ONE--Barrel vaults--Groined vaults--Oblong bays--Main
arches of groined vaulting changed from the semicircle to the
pointed arch--Flying buttresses--Groin ribs--The pointed arch arose
from statical not geometrical or æsthetical motives--Wall ribs
remain round long after the wider arches become pointed--Two modes
adopted to avoid the difficulty of oblong groining over
naves--Sexpartite vaulting.
In the introductory lecture which I had the honour of reading before you
last year, I endeavoured to give an outline of the varied claims of the
architecture which was developed in our own and neighbouring countries
during the Middle Ages, upon the study both of architects and lovers of
art at the present day.
I will not recapitulate what I then said; but, presuming that by
honouring me with your presence this evening you admit the subject to be
well worthy of your attention, will crave your indulgence while I
endeavour, at the risk of appearing to be going over a trite and almost
exhausted subject, to give a brief outline of the rise and development
of the architecture whose claims upon your study I then attempted to
advocate.
My object is rather to trace out the re-awakening of art in the eleventh
and following centuries from the slumber in which it had so long lain,
than to chronicle its changes during the chaotic ages which followed the
final catastrophe of the ancient world. Like the contemporary fable of
the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, its changes during this dreamy interval
were but the turnings of the slumberer from the right side to the left,
and little need is there to investigate such sluggish and disconnected
movements. Our concern is rather with _living_ and _energetic_ art; and
if we stop at all to inquire into its semi-dormant condition, it is
rather for the sake of judging what were the elements of life which it
retained, than from any really practical interest which attaches to its
productions.
It is hardly possible to conceive of a state of things so utterly
anomalous and contrary to all historical precedent as that of Western
Europe after the deluge of Northern barbarism had annihilated the
mightiest empire the world ever saw, and almost swept from the face of
the earth the arts and literature which it had taken the whole period of
human history to generate. Like the giant-slayers of old romance, the
barbarous conquerors must have been filled with awe in contemplating the
stupendous proportions of their now lifeless victim; and while wandering
amidst the mighty monuments of the people they had overthrown, they
must have been inspired with deep veneration for their intellectual
power, and with ardent longings to inherit some portion of their
skill--aspirations which, if we may judge from some of the structures
erected by Theodoric, there can be little doubt would have been realised
had not every wave as it subsided been succeeded by a fresh torrent of
barbarism. The lamp of art was only saved from utter extinction by two
surviving institutions--the Western Church and the Eastern Empire; the
one seeming to absorb each succeeding wave of conquering barbarism, and
the other to supply to each those elements of civilisation by which its
fury was in its turn to be abated.
As might be expected from the circumstances of their position, the
architectural efforts of the new races were founded on the basis of the
Roman monuments, with whose vestiges they were on every hand surrounded,
aided by friendly and continuous importations of the still living art of
the Eastern Empire. Their elements were the Christianised Roman of the
Western Basilica, and the newly-developed architecture of the Byzantine
Church. Long, long, however, was it before any distinctive style was
developed out of these elements. The efforts of Theodoric must be
considered as rather Byzantine than _Gothic_; and for three centuries so
little, if any, was the progress, that we find Charlemagne, the
re-founder of the empire, actually despoiling the palace of the early
Gothic king to use its architectural fragments in his own structures!
There can be no doubt, however, that the efforts made by Charlemagne
for the revival of art would have soon produced some great results had
he been followed by successors in any degree worthy of him; but so far
from this, the nations he governed seem to have fallen back into almost
worse barbarism than before, while the incursion of Northmen, Huns, and
Saracens long repressed every effort after better things. We know little
of the actual state of architecture during this melancholy period. The
notion of Charlemagne having found a distinctive style of architecture
in Lombardy, and having transplanted it to the banks of the Rhine, seems
to be little more than a myth, though I think it not improbable that the
Lombards had already taken some steps towards the formation of a new
style.[2]
It is dubious whether a fragment of the structures erected by the
Lombard kings now exists from which we may ascertain their style;[3],
and though it is possible that the subsequent architecture may have been
influenced by them in some degree, it is certain that the models which
the Frankish emperor more especially followed were rather found in
Byzantine Ravenna than in barbarous Lombardy, and the few remains of his
architecture seem to be imitations of either Classic or Byzantine
structures.
In England the works of this period were a very rude and unintelligible
imitation of those of the same period at Rome, united with a strange
translation into stone of their own timber structures, and occasionally
enriched with that primitive kind of ornamentation which it is customary
to call Runic.[4]
In the north of France it would not appear that the humbler class of
churches were much better than those of which we find the remains in our
own country. The remnants of one of the churches erected at that period
on the site now occupied by Nôtre Dame at Paris, are debased Roman with
Corinthian capitals; but the few remains of smaller churches--such as
the old church at Beauvais--are not very unlike the Saxon structures in
England. Of the latter it is but fair to state that the fragments which
remain nearly all belong to merely rustic churches, and are hardly fair
specimens of their style; they afford, however, sufficient proof of the
rude state of art, though we have the witness of contemporary and
succeeding historians to the fact that they were supposed and intended
to be in the Roman style--meaning thereby, not that of ancient Rome, but
that which prevailed at the period, and which we usually designate as
the Basilican style.
The dawn of better things may be dated from the commencement of the
tenth century, and may be mainly attributed to the consolidation of the
German empire under the three first Othos (936-1002) and their immediate
successors, and more especially to the fact of these emperors having had
Lombardy equally with Germany, Switzerland, and portions of France under
their sway, and thus in some degree uniting in one that vast expanse of
country which extends from the banks of the Po to those of the Elbe.
Though Charlemagne had been the first to establish this mighty empire,
and that on a yet grander scale, and may claim the title of the founder
of modern civilisation, the seeds he had sown scarcely began to take
root till the days of his German successors of the tenth and eleventh
centuries. I say _German_ successors, because the kings of France were
his successors as _Frankish kings_, the others as _German emperors_; and
from this time forward we find a sort of contest or competition ever
going on, both in politics and arts, between those who represented him
in those two capacities.
From the commencement of the tenth century we find one style of
architecture for a time spreading over the plains of Lombardy, the
valleys of Switzerland, and that of the Rhine, and extending itself over
Saxony and all the civilised parts of Germany.
I do not say that the style was absolutely identical; but still it was
essentially the same. It was promoted by the same all-pervading
political influence; and there can be no doubt that the same
ecclesiastics, and even the same artists, were engaged in carrying it
out; and that even among those most remote from one another a constant
interchange of views as to taste and construction was ever going on,
while the differences which we observe would arise rather from those of
climate, material, and proximity to the relics of ancient art, than from
any essential or intended difference of style.
The force of the influence brought to bear at this period upon the
furtherance of art may be judged of from the accounts we have of the
schools of art and science established so far north as Hildesheim (in
the neighbourhood of Brunswick and Hanover), by Bernward, Bishop of
that see, at the close of the tenth and the commencement of the eleventh
century. Bernward was tutor, and afterwards chancellor, to Otho III.,
and there are extant portions of an elaborate treatise on geometry from
which he instructed that prince. He was himself skilled in many arts, as
wall-painting, the illumination of MSS., mosaics, working in metals,
cutting and setting precious stones, as well as in architecture itself;
and it is said that “whenever he found a youth with a feeling for art,
he took him into his laboratory, and instructed him with the greatest
kindness in giving the required forms to stubborn metals, hard stone,
wood, and ivory. The most artistic of these young men he always took
with him when he travelled, especially when he went to Italy, that their
taste might be improved by seeing masterly works of art, and hence be
enabled to execute similar works at home.” Bernward rebuilt his
cathedral and erected the church of St. Michael at Hildesheim (still
existing); and of his works in metal there remain the gates and the
spiral column (of which casts may be seen at the Crystal Palace), as
well as the great corona, in the cathedral. I have dwelt the longer on
these particulars because we happen to have more complete records of
Bernward than of most of his contemporaries in art, and because the
sphere of his operations was at a point so distant from the recognised
centres of art; and when it is recollected that he was cotemporary with
the erection of many of the great Romanesque cathedrals of Germany--as
Mayence, Spire, and Bamberg, and of multitudes of less important
churches (at the dedication of many of which he was present), and
further, that he lived earlier than the erection of the Cathedral of
Pisa, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, or St. Zeno at Verona--it will
be seen at once how early and energetic was the architectural movement
in Germany under those emperors who were also kings of Italy; and we
need not wonder at the immense hold which the architecture, thus
generated, had over the national mind of Germany.
It is probable that about the same period a style somewhat analogous to
the Lombardo-Rhenish, though more strongly tinctured with Classic
detail, was growing up in Provence and the other southern provinces of
France, spreading itself northward, and thus meeting the German variety
on the borders of Switzerland and in Burgundy. The dates, however, of
buildings in those districts seem too indefinite to be argued upon with
confidence, though it is certain that at a date somewhat later a very
noble and refined variety of Romanesque, but with a strong Classic
admixture, prevailed there.
About the same time the development of a distinctive style was promoted
in the North by an apparently adverse cause. The Northmen, under Rollo,
having ravaged and possessed themselves of an extensive province in the
north of France, and having soon afterwards joined the Christian Church,
set themselves vigorously about the task of repairing the sacrilege
which, in the days of their ignorance, they had committed: nearly every
ecclesiastical edifice in their new dominions had been destroyed, and
never, perhaps, had a new and vigorous people a more perfect _carte
blanche_ for generating a new phase of architecture. We accordingly
find that they soon covered their land with edifices; at first, it is
true, rude and simple,[5] but subsequently possessing elements of
dignity and massive grandeur of a very high order.
Of the central district of the Frankish monarchy at this period we have
few architectural relics. The weakness of the Carlovingian monarchs, and
the almost entire dismemberment of their dominions, left them, probably,
little able to carry out great works; yet it cannot be doubted that the
active genius of the race--surrounded as they were by the Romanesque
developments of Lombardy, Provence, Rhineland, and Normandy--could not
have failed to have produced works fully proportioned in merit to those
of their neighbours, though during the period of subsequent greatness
they were not deemed worthy to be retained.
We now arrive at the period at which the real subject of which I have
undertaken to treat commences; and it may here be well to give a few
moments’ consideration to the intrinsic nature of the art at this time
being generated.
The early architecture of Rome,--locally occupying a position between
the Greek colonies to the south and the Etruscan cities to the
north,--partook, as it would seem probable, of the characteristics of
both, and was more especially marked by the union of the Greek orders
and their trabeated structure with the arched construction shadowed
forth by the buildings of Etruria. The whole history of Roman
architecture seems to evince a competition ever going on between these
rival systems. It was at first an unequal contest, for the arcuated
system had never, when first taken up by the Romans, had the advantage
of being treated as the vehicle for architectural decoration--it was as
yet _mere construction_; while the trabeated system had passed through a
refining process of two thousand years’ duration, and had been brought
by the Greeks to the highest pitch of beauty and perfection. The Roman
structures display every step in this contest, some of their greatest
structures being purely arcuated and merely constructive, others as
purely trabeated--mere imitations of Grecian architecture; but the
majority uniting both in different proportions, the Grecian element
being very commonly little more than a decorative overlaying of the
arched reality. As time moved on, the arched construction steadily
gained ground: not only were openings arched over, but wide spaces
vaulted both with domes, continuous cylindrical vaults, and those of the
groined or intersecting form.
During the later ages of Pagan Rome, though architecture as a decorative
art was on the wane, the triumph of arched construction became more and
more complete. Columns hitherto used to support horizontal entablatures
were employed directly to carry arches, the architrave being bent into a
semicircle instead of lying horizontally upon the column; while spaces
of gigantic span were covered with groined vaulting, some reaching to a
width never since attempted.
In the Eastern empire the dome became subsequently the favourite form of
vault, though, in each division of the empire, the arching over entire
buildings in all its branches was practised with the greatest skill and
success.
During the dark interval which followed the Gothic invasions, though
constructive skill was immensely reduced, the preponderance of arcuated
over trabeated architecture became yet more complete. The Greek element
having during the later Roman period become merely decorative, and
therefore no more than an artificial adjunct, it was natural that the
overthrow of the ancient civilisation should at once sweep it away as a
useless luxury, and that the real and useful portions of architecture
should alone survive, though the actual skill in using them would be
reduced. We find, accordingly, that during this interval architecture
became purely arcuated, though in Western Europe the more difficult
forms of arcuation, such as the vaulting over of large spaces, were
usually avoided. This art, however, was never forgotten nor lost, but
simply disused from diminution of skill, and the grand characteristic of
the reawakening of architecture was the revival of these more difficult
systems of construction; so much so, indeed, that nearly every
structural change which we trace from the tenth to the thirteenth
century arose, more or less, from the endeavour first to revive and then
to carry on to higher and higher perfection the construction of arches
and vaulting, and to elevate it from _mere_ construction into the
highest place among the means of producing beauty of decoration and
sublimity of effect.
In the south of Italy the architecture continued all along to follow, in
the main, the character of the Roman Basilica; and for a long period, it
is probable, as I have before stated, that most of the Northern churches
were rude imitations of this type; but gradually, in the countries north
of the Po, a new form came over the architecture, which ever after
distinguished _Northern_ from _Southern_ buildings, and which may be
designated by the family name of GOTHIC, not only as being the
progenitor of the style which has generally received that title, but as
being actually in a great degree the style of the nations of Gothic
extraction as distinguished from those of Roman parentage. This style
has generally received the name of Romanesque, or Romane, to distinguish
it from the pointed-arched style which succeeded it, but is by Mr.
Fergusson more philosophically termed the _round_-arched _Gothic_, while
he transfers the term Romanesque to the Christianised Roman or Basilican
style. This is far more correct than the usual nomenclature; but as the
latter is established by custom I shall not depart from it, but shall,
for convenience, designate this round-arched Gothic style--as
distinguished from the Christian Roman and from the Pointed style--by
the customary name of _Romanesque_.
Of this style the following may be enumerated as the leading
characteristics:--
1. Subordination of the arches.
2. Subdivision of piers to meet the subordination of arches.
3. Introduction of systems of moulding and decoration proper to
subdivided arches.
4. The use of shafts or colonettes as means of decoration and
accentuation.
5. The entire relinquishment of Classic proportions in the columns,
which are henceforth proportioned in thickness to their _load_,
irrespective of their _height_.
6. A system of decoration of its own, founded on Roman and Byzantine,
but worked up into a new character, more or less independent of the
original type, according to the locality, and to its removal from or
proximity to antique monuments.
7. Great thickness of walls to resist the thrust of vaulting, aided by
flat, pilaster-like buttresses in the principal planes of pressure.
8. In many cases--indeed, as a general rule--an air of gigantic
massiveness in the entire construction.
9. The vaulting at first exactly accords with that of Roman buildings,
embracing the barrel vault, the groined vault, and the dome, in nearly
all the hitherto attained varieties. The arches always either
semicircular or segmental.
The above characteristics are chiefly of a mechanical nature. The style
possesses, however, sentiments of an infinitely nobler kind than
anything which these mere material elements could impart. It possesses a
sternness and dignity almost unearthly--a majestic severity of sentiment
which seems, as it were, as if intended to rebuke the unpitying
barbarity of the age, and to awe its rude and lawless spirits into
obedience to the precepts of the Divine law. Its aspect is religious to
the utmost extreme; but it expresses the stern uncompromising _severity_
of religion rather than its more winning and elevating attributes--the
asceticism of St. John the Baptist, the rebuker of sin and the preacher
of repentance and of righteousness, rather than the spirituality of St.
John the Evangelist, the preacher of Christian love, devotion, and
praise. The sentiment they would express seems not so much “Worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness,” as “Fear before Him, all the earth;”
and the task they prescribe to their ministers to be rather to proclaim
“the day of vengeance” than “the acceptable year of the Lord”--less to
“bind up the broken-hearted and comfort all that mourn,” than to “lift
up their voice like a trumpet, and show the people their
transgressions.”
This stern simplicity is not, however, universal, for from the first the
Romanesque architects _occasionally_ indulged in even rich
ornamentation, and, at a later date, often carried it to profusion; yet,
even in the richest decorations, they continued grave and severe--their
lines were hard and precise, their foliage strong and harsh, and their
figure sculpture (unless intended to be grotesque) was the very image of
sternness--rude in art, but often of great dignity of expression; and
though in an age like ours, of technical perfection and flippant
criticism, it often provokes a smile, it was, in its own simple and
untechnical age, well calculated to produce wholesome and solemnizing
impressions.
This is the style of which we should first treat when attempting to
trace the history of Mediæval architecture. It is a mistake to imagine
Pointed architecture to be severed by a great gulf from the
Romanesque--the Pointed Gothic from the Round: it is its legitimate
offspring, or rather _itself_ in a more advanced stage of its
development. The change from the round-arched to the pointed-arched
Gothic is no change of essential principles; it is but the carrying on
to their inevitable results of the principles of refinement,
purification, elevation, the perfecting of the construction, and the
softening down of the asperity of expression, which were going on during
the whole of the Romanesque period. Nearly every characteristic of
Pointed architecture finds its type, or its perfected model, in the
Romanesque. They are not _two_ styles, but _one_--the earlier and the
later phases of the _same_ architecture; the latter being only the
carrying on to perfection of the progression which had, during every
moment of its dominion, and in every province of its empire, been
uniformly going on in the former.
Though the refining process went unceasingly on during the whole history
of Romanesque architecture and affected all its features, it would
appear that the constant endeavours to bring to perfection its various
systems of _vaulting_ were among the greatest causes of the change from
the Round to the Pointed style, I will, therefore, endeavour to give a
concise outline of the changes in this branch of construction during the
period under consideration.
The churches of Western Europe up to this time, like the early
basilicas, were for the most part covered with timber roofs; and the
task which the Romanesque builders proposed to themselves was to convert
them into _vaulted_ churches.
The most normal and readily invented vault is that of the continuous
barrel or demi-cylindrical form, covering an oblong building from end to
end, and the most readily conceived idea, where the building has to be
roofed over such a vault, is to fill in the space between the arch and
the triangle of the roof solid, and make it at once the ceiling of the
room and the support of the roof covering. Such a vault, however, has
considerable outward thrust, and, being heavily loaded at the crown,
would require walls of great thickness to stand against it. Let us
suppose it applied to the nave of a basilica in place of the timber
roof, and it is obvious that, being balanced on two ranges of columns,
it could not stand for a moment without some very effective contrivance
in the construction of the aisles to buttress up the walls and pillars
on which this barrel vault is to rest.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
In the Baths of Diocletian, the Basilica of Maxentius, and other great
Roman halls, this was met by cross walls pierced only by small archways,
and placed at intervals, dividing the aisles into chambers, each of
which was covered by a short barrel vault at right angles to that over
the central space (Fig. 1). This, however, would be inconsistent with
the uses of a church, and, indeed, applies to a _groined_ rather than a
barrel vault, though a very similar expedient was sometimes used by the
Romanesque builders, by covering the aisles with cross barrel vaults, as
those above described, supported by arches across the aisles, instead of
by cross walls (Fig. 2). Another system was to cover the aisles by a
half or little more than a half longitudinal barrel roof, forming a
continuous arched buttress to the continuous central vault (Fig. 3).
This gave them a perfectly vaulted building of trustworthy construction,
provided only that the aisle walls were of sufficient strength. The
barrel vaults were often both strengthened and their monotony relieved
by arched ribs added to their thickness over each pillar of the nave,
and _repeated_ over the aisles, while these planes of extra strength
were carried through to the exterior in the form of buttresses of small
projection against the aisle walls (Fig. 4).
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
The builders of such churches were not, however, ignorant of the
principles of the _groined_ or _intersecting_ vault formed by the
inter-penetration of two demi-cylinders, and so largely used by the
Romans. They did not use them in such buildings, because their main
vault rising into the roof, they could not, under the same roof-plane,
introduce the intersecting vaults,--though this had been effected in
Roman structures by a series of cross gables over the _cross_ vaults. In
churches of the same kind, however, we find the groined vault used to
carry a gallery in the aisles, all the rest remaining as before (Fig.
5).
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
It would appear that the obvious mechanical advantages it offered led at
an early period, in the south of France, to the substitution of the
_pointed_ for the round arch in the great vault of churches of this
construction; but I will suppose for the present the semicircle to be
strictly adhered to. The great defect in such a church as I am supposing
would be want of light in the nave from the absence of clerestory
windows; and as such windows had been in use from the days of the
earliest basilicas, this loss would be fully appreciated.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
The first idea for obviating it was to lower the springing of the vault
for the sake of bringing the thrust to bear upon a portion of the wall
more capable of resisting it, and, by raising the nave relatively to its
aisles, to obtain space for a range of small windows between the roof of
the aisle and the springing of the main vault (Fig. 6). This, however,
was a most unsatisfactory arrangement--it compromised the security of
the structure, and gained but a very miserable range of lights.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
This difficulty led to the somewhat unpalatable measure of lowering the
springing of the main vault so much as to bring its crown below the
level of the walls, and to convert it from a barrel into a groined
vault. The springing being then level with the impinging line of the
aisle roofs, a good abutment was obtained, while the cross vaults
afforded ample space for clerestory windows (Fig. 7). I called this an
unpalatable expedient for two reasons:--1st, Because it involved the
loss of the entire height of the roof as a part of the interior; and,
secondly, because it led to the relinquishment of the incombustible
construction, by rendering it impossible to make the vaulting to form
the actual roof, and the consequent necessity for a timber roof above
it. In a Northern climate, however, this was not an unmitigated loss,
for a vault immediately under the roof-covering is always damp, and
extremely difficult of repair; and we shall see that the loss of height
was soon compensated for by a subsequent invention, while the
substitution of a groined for a barrel vault not only introduced a
beautiful in place of a comparatively dull form, but did away with the
illogical characteristic of a _continuous_ vault supported by _detached_
pillars; the load being now collected together into points immediately
over its supports. The same cause would naturally lead to the
abandonment of the half-barrel vaulting of the aisles, the need of
abutment being now not continuous, but in detached points. The aisles
were consequently covered with groined vaults, a cross wall being raised
upon their transverse arches, or _arcs-doubleaux_, which served as
buttresses to the main vault, or would even carry external buttresses
against the clerestory wall. The blank wall in the nave, caused by the
space between the groining and roof of the aisles, was subsequently
occupied by a gallery, so well known as the “_triforium_.”
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
A difficulty here presented itself, which I must state before proceeding
further, as much stress had been laid upon it, and it unquestionably
exercised a strong influence upon the subsequent arrangements. It is
this: the simple groined vault being formed by the intersection of
demi-cylinders, demanded that the space covered by it should be divided
into perfect _squares_. Now, the aisles of a church being usually about
half the width of the nave, it follows that the groining of both cannot
be _square_. If those of the aisles are so, those of the main vault must
be about twice as wide as they are long (Fig. 8); while if these are
made square, those of the aisles will be twice as long as they are wide
(Fig. 9). The first alternative was that most usually adopted north of
the Alps, though the second was more frequent in Italy. The difficulty
was how to groin these oblong bays. It was not, however, a _new_
difficulty; it had occurred in Roman structures, where it was met by the
simple expedient of raising the springing of the narrower vault so high,
that its crown was level with that of the wider one. This answered the
purpose, but it produced a most unpleasant line of intersection,
reducing the vault, in fact, for a portion of its height, to a mere
strip of the _arc-doubleau_, and giving a _winding_ intersection for the
remainder of the height, as two cylinders of unequal diameter do not
intersect in a _plane_. The mathematical solution of the problem would
have been to make the section of the narrower vault, an upright
_semi-ellipse_; but this does not appear to have been at any period
adopted, or, if at all, in exceptional cases only. The pointed arch
would have been an approximate expedient, and its introduction has been
very ingeniously attributed to this difficulty,--a theory to which I
shall have again to allude.
Another solution of it would be to make all the arches semi-circles, but
to raise up the crown of the vaults of a smaller diameter in a curve to
meet the others, thus making it (roughly speaking) a portion of an
_annulus_ instead of a _cylinder_.
This had one great disadvantage: that it cut off a considerable portion
of the space for the clerestory windows; or, if the level of the main
vault was raised to obviate this, it became impossible to have a tiebeam
to the roof. The system actually adopted in most instances would appear
to have been a union of that last named with the Roman mode of stilting
the narrow vaults, the difference of height being made up _partly_ by
raising its springing, and _partly_ by elevating the crown (Fig. 10).
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
While these perplexities, however, were under consideration, several
others arose, every one of which led to the introduction of features
essential to the perfecting both of the style and construction. The
first was the desire to elevate the central vault to a higher level,
both for the sake of compensating for the loss sustained when it was
brought down below the roof, and also to obtain a greater space for the
clerestory windows. This involved, again, the difficulty as to abutment,
through its raising the springing of the vault above the roof of the
aisles. We have seen that, where reduced to a similar difficulty with
the _barrel_ vault, the architects of the south of France had at an
earlier period resorted to the _pointed_ vault as having less outward
thrust: the same expedient was now had recourse to for _groined_
vaulting, the main arches of which were now--towards the middle of the
twelfth century--changed from the _semicircle_ to the _pointed arch_.
When the elevation of the clerestory above the aisles was but moderate,
this was often found sufficient; but the construction was precarious,
and in many instances failed, and a more perfect mode of meeting the
case was required.
What was demanded was the power to elevate the clerestory with the main
vault to any reasonable height above the aisle, without endangering the
stability of the structure.
Here the recollection of an earlier expedient came to the rescue. It
will be remembered that the early barrel vaults were buttressed by
_half_ barrel vaults over the aisles, thus doing away with the
clerestory. A continuous vault demanded a continuous abutment; but, now
that the pressure was concentrated into detached planes, it became
sufficient that the abutment also should be in those planes; and though
the continuous semi-_vault_ would do away with clerestory windows,
detached semi-_arches_ would have no such effect. The thought
accordingly occurred of erecting the _arc-doubleau_ of the old
semi-vault in open air as a buttress to the main vault of the groined
church; and hence that much-admired, and, of course, also
much-depreciated feature--_the flying buttress_. The pressure being
concentrated upon points, it became also necessary to fortify those
points by attached buttresses of considerable projection, such as we
henceforth find to have become a leading external characteristic of
Mediæval structures. The wall, in fact (where the system was carried to
its extreme limits), became a mere _curtain_, needed rather for
enclosure than for strength, and capable of being pierced with windows
to any required extent; a liberty which the contemporaneous development
of stained glass caused to be unhesitatingly taken advantage of.
I must, however, return to the vaulting, having overstepped my
chronology by not yet noticing another most important invention. I mean
the introduction of _groin-ribs_--those narrow arches erected under the
lines of intersection of the vaults. The early groins had no ribs
excepting the transverse ones, or _arcs-doubleaux_; the edges at which
the vaults cut one another were left _bare_, and were the weakest parts
of the construction; often but faintly marked, and not necessarily lying
in _planes_. In more complicated vaults, such as now became necessary,
this system could scarcely be continued; and the introduction of a stone
rib, under every intersection, may be viewed as the crowning fact in the
development of vaulting.
It is impossible to lay too much stress upon its importance, for it
_changed the entire geometrical system_. Up to that time the
construction of groining was wholly governed by the forms of the
vaulting _surfaces_; the intersections being allowed to take their
chance, and to present any irregularity of figure, while the wide
surfaces of vaulting were apparently carried on mere _pins’ points_ at
the springing--correct enough as a mathematical figure, but ill
calculated for strength. Now, however, the _intersecting lines_ assumed
the government of the construction, and the form of the _surface_ was
made to accommodate itself to them. They were always in planes,[6] and
always true figures--usually arcs of circles; but the _panels_ of
vaulting became often irregular in their configuration, and could be
twisted to meet contingent requirements without offending the eye; while
the ribs, all meeting in a solid springer at the foot, brought down the
pressure, and deposited it firmly upon the points of support.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
It will be seen from the above that the pointed arch was not introduced
into Mediæval structures from mere caprice--merely from seeing it
elsewhere and taking a fancy to its form,--but from the necessities of
construction, from its increased strength and diminished thrust. It was
at first used for the main arch only of the greater vault. The same
reason soon led to its introduction wherever great weight was to be
carried, as under towers, etc.; but for all small arches the semicircle
was long retained. I have alluded to the very beautiful theory that it
was introduced for the side arches of oblong groins, simply as a means
of obtaining arches of equal height with only half the span with those
of the main vault. True it is, that, at a later date, it became most
useful for this purpose. But a careful study of the monuments in which
it is first systematically used clearly shows that its introduction was
from _statical_, and neither geometrical nor merely æsthetical motives;
for in the face of that theory we find the narrower arch or wall-rib
remaining round long after the wider arch had become pointed (Fig. 11).
Such is the case in nearly all the earlier of the French transitional
churches, as at Noyon and at St. Germain des Pres, and we see the same
at Canterbury. In most of these buildings the narrow arch is stilted and
the crown of the cross vault raised up as before described, thus losing
a part of the clerestory wall, a disadvantage obviated when the pointed
arch became more frankly acknowledged.
Although, however, the pointed arch was _actually adopted_ from simple
necessities of construction, its advantages in all points of view soon
became apparent. In an essentially arcuated style it becomes necessary
not only to have the command of a form of arch capable of carrying the
greatest weights and of requiring the least abutment, but it is
essential to have at command an arch of _variable_ proportions. It
carries absurdity on the very face of it that, while able to give our
piers a greater or a less degree of height at pleasure we should have no
such power over the arch they sustain; not to mention the numerous cases
in which we have to bring together arches of unequal span, and which
nevertheless demand an equal height. The rules of harmony imperatively
demand that the arch should be equally capable of modification in its
proportions of height to width, with all other features of the
architecture.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.]
In the above outline of the history of vaulting I have, for the sake of
simplicity, omitted two modes actually adopted to avoid the difficulty
of oblong groining over naves. The first, which was common in German
round-arched churches, was to make the vaulting of the nave simply to
comprise _two_ bays of the aisles, thus bringing the main vault equally
into squares with those of the aisles. The second was the use of what
Dr. Whewell has entitled _sexpartite_ vaulting, and which is common both
in France, Germany, and England (Fig. 12). It adopts the system last
named, but subdivides the double bay by a triangular slip of vaulting
(Figs. 13, 14). The real solution arose, however, from the free and
simple use of the pointed arch, which gave the result which is seen at
Westminster[7] and in nearly all the vaulted churches of the thirteenth
century--the simple groined vault with arches of equal height, though
the side arches are sometimes stilted, not from necessity, but merely to
afford greater space for clerestory windows.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.]
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
On this plain and practical result M. Viollet le Duc (of whose admirable
essay on vaulting, together with those of Dr. Whewell and Professor
Willis, I have made free use) makes the following striking remarks:--
“It had required fifty years for the architects of the end of the
twelfth century to arrive, from the still Romanesque vaults of Autun and
Vezelay, at this great result; and from this moment the entire
construction of religious edifices was derived from the disposition of
the vaults; the form and dimension of the pillars--their spacing; the
window-openings--their width and height; the position and direction of
the buttresses--the importance of their pinnacler; the strength, the
number, and curvature of the arched buttresses; the disposing and the
carrying off the rain water; the system of covering,--all proceed from
the combination of the vaulting. The vaults govern the _ossature_ of the
monument to a point to which it would be impossible to raise it
otherwise than by commencing rigorously to plan them previously to
laying the first courses of the structure. This rule is so well
established that if we see a church of the thirteenth century destroyed
to the level of the bases, and of which the plan alone remains, we can
with certainty trace the plan of the vaults, and indicate the direction
of all the arches and their thickness. At the end of the fourteenth
century the rigour of the system is still more absolute; we can trace,
in examining the base of an edifice, not only the number and direction
of the arches of the vaults, and know their strength, but the number of
their mouldings and even their profiles. In the fifteenth century it is
the arches (mouldings) themselves which descend to the floor, and the
pillars are only vertical _fasces_ formed of all the members of these
arches. After this, we demand how is it that serious men have been able
to repulse, and still do repulse, the study of the architecture of the
Middle Ages as having been only produced by chance?”
It will be seen from what I have above stated that the order in which
the pointed arch was successively adopted for different parts of a
building, and the motives which led to its adoption, may be roughly
classified under the heads of _Statical_, _Geometrical_, and
_Æsthetical_, or positions in which it was demanded for soundness of
construction, for the mathematical agreement of parts, and for harmony
and beauty of effect.
The first head embraces all wide-spanned arches, especially those I have
pointed out as the first in which it made its appearance: the transverse
arches of wide vaulting, also arches carrying towers, and others bearing
great weight on their crown, and all which are defective in abutment, or
demand the addition of buttresses (for remember that, though buttresses
were rendered sources of beauty, they originated in _necessity_, and the
aim was to keep their projection within bounds, rather than unduly to
increase it). The second, or geometrical class, includes, primarily, the
narrower arches of oblong vaulting; for, even had the transverse section
continued round, the pointed arch must soon have suggested itself for
the narrow arches of the sides; and though for a time the idea did not
occur, the necessity of it is only the more apparent in the want of
harmony, the undue stilting, and the loss of clerestory space which
arose from its neglect. Under the same head come all other cases of
irregularly formed vaulting in which the sides differ in width, and
arches of varied proportion are therefore needed. Of the same kind are
many other cases in which arches of different widths are in the same
range, and where--though the _statical_ view would demand that the
widest span should have the strongest arch--_geometrical_ agreement
suggests the contrary; as, for instance, in the choir of St. Germain des
Pres, at Paris, and many others, where the side arches are all round;
but those of the apse, being narrower, are pointed. These two pressing
necessities having once established the use of the pointed arch in a
large number of the most important positions, a natural feeling for
harmony would come in to suggest its use in many others. First we may
mention windows under the narrow compartments of groining--as in
clerestories, apsidal chapels, etc.,--where, as soon as the pointed arch
was used for the vaulting, the round-topped window would present a
certain degree of discord, as we see at St. Cross,[8] and at St.
Joseph’s Chapel[9] at Glastonbury. Then again, as windows became more
elongated, the round arch became ill-proportioned to the jambs; and
generally, as the architecture acquired a more aspiring tendency, the
pointed arch was found more congenial with its spirit; so that, little
by little, from being an exception, used from mere constructional
expediency, it became the prevailing feature of the style; the
semicircle being reserved for those positions only in which want of
space forbade the more elevated form. Still, however, it was never
abandoned, and in every period of Pointed architecture we find it
occasionally making its appearance, used from motives of convenience
alone, as the pointed arch had at first been by reason of its strength.
After this it will be seen of how little importance it is to inquire
_whence_ the form is derived; for it was introduced _not_ as a matter of
_taste_, but of _utility_--not as a change of style, but to meet the
practical requirements of that already in use. The pointed arch was, in
fact, as early (or thereabouts) in its invention as the round;--it is
foreshadowed in the works of the Egyptians, the Pelasgi, and the
Etrurians; it was used by the Romans, and, I believe, by the Byzantines
and other Oriental Christians, and by the Sassanian Persians, and was
from an early period the prevailing arch among the Saracens. It is
absurd, then, to suppose it unknown to the inhabitants of Western
Europe, who were in constant communication with the East; and the most
natural thing to expect was that, as soon as they wanted it, they would
make use of it; though there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition
that they were especially reminded of it, in consequence of the two
circumstances of the Crusades and Norman Conquest of Sicily. In the case
last named, indeed, the conquerors had at once adopted it, simply
because it was the prevailing arch of the country, and, as Mr. Gally
Knight remarks, “with no scientific object, and without any reference to
the vertical principle.”
The wonder which has been expressed at the introduction of the pointed
arch reminds me of a very homely tale, which I must apologise for
repeating before so grave an assembly. An unimaginative individual, on
visiting the Falls of Niagara, was greatly perplexed at the astonishment
expressed by his companions; and on one of them exclaiming to him--“Is
it not a most wonderful fall?”--replied, “Wonderful? no! I see nothing
wonderful in it. Why, what’s to hinder the water from falling?” Much the
same reply is applicable to the wondering inquiries after the source of
the pointed arch. When the builders of the twelfth century found they
wanted it; when they had seen its form in the first proposition of
Euclid; when they had actually used it hundreds of times in their
intersecting arcades; when they knew that it was constantly used in the
East, with which they were connected by trade, science, pilgrimage, and
war; and when they knew that their brethren had used it in Sicily, and
their fellow-countrymen in Provence; we may well ask, with our
unsentimental friend, “What was to hinder them from using it?”
Simple, however, and obvious as were the means, the result was
_magical_! It is not the _materials_ of art to which its expression is
due, but the sentiment--the heart--the soul of those who use it. This
particular form of arch had long been used without one hint at such
expression resulting from it. It had been highly conducive to beauty,
but little, if at all, to elevation of sentiment: when, however, it came
into use as an aid to the upward strivings of the architects of Northern
Christendom, as an element placed in the hands of men who had been
labouring for centuries, with all their energy, to render their
architecture expressive of the ennobling sentiments of religion--it
became, in their hands, a means of perfecting that solemnity of
expression which the Romanesque buildings possessed in so wonderful a
degree, and of adding the most exalted sublimity to its hitherto stern
and rigid grandeur; just as the simple action of gravity gives to the
Niagara Falls a sublime and overwhelming majesty; such as the same cause
acting under different conditions has no tendency to produce.
I must apologise for having occupied so long a time on these merely
preliminary and, perhaps, not very interesting topics. I hope in my next
lecture to be able to give an outline of the transition as it showed
itself in the different countries, and also to point out and illustrate
the changes in the decorative and more purely artistic features of
architecture by which it was accompanied.
LECTURE III.
The Transition.
Gradual refinement of Romanesque--French architects the earliest to
systematise the pointed arch--The English before the Germans--The
Italians from the Germans--Fully acknowledged in France
1140--Suger’s work at St. Denis--Carving in French
churches--Corinthianesque outline of capitals--Distinctly Byzantine
capitals--A route by which Byzantine foliage may have reached
France--The importation indisputable--Its effects seen in Early
English capitals--West front of Chartres--Fluting on basement of
doorways--Cathedral of Noyon--St. Germain des Pres,
Paris--Cathedral of Sens, prototype of the Choir and Trinity Chapel
at Canterbury--Notre Dame, Paris--A new kind of foliage--The
capital “à crochet”--English transition--Incipient
specimens--Refined Norman--Pointed style, with reminiscences of
Romanesque--William of Sens--William the Englishman--Influence of
French work--Oakham Castle--Glastonbury Abbey--Cathedral of St.
David’s--Temple Church, London--Chichester Cathedral--Tynemouth
Abbey--Hexham Abbey--Unfoliated capitals--Round moulded
capitals--Characteristics of English and French transition--The
German transition--Practical lessons from studying these
changes--Principles to which the transition was pioneer.
In my last lecture it was my endeavour to illustrate the _mechanical_
and _structural_ portion of the process by which the Romanesque, or
round-arched Gothic, became changed into the _Pointed_ style--a change
which I showed to have resulted primarily from causes purely
constructional, and arising from the mere necessities of the case,
though subsequently carried on into parts, in which the change in the
form of arch, though not _statically_ necessary, was demanded from
reasons of _geometrical_ and æsthetic harmony. I further showed that the
change was not, by any means, that abrupt revolution which it is often
described as having been; that a large proportion of the distinctive
characteristics of Gothic architecture are common to its round-arched
and pointed-arched varieties; that these two forms of architecture are
hardly to be called two styles, but rather the grand divisions of one
style--the latter being the natural and logical result of the
progression ever going on in the former, during every moment of its
prevalence, and in every country where it prevailed.
The portion of the subject, however, on which I then treated, was only
the mechanical framework of the style--its mere ossature, to use M.
Viollet le Duc’s expression, or--as a celebrated palæontologist, who did
me the honour of being present, said--the “_backbone_” of the subject.
My object this evening is to overlay this skeleton with the muscles and
sinew, and with the external expressions of its inner life; to show that
those dry bones lived; or, in other words, to show the changes in the
decorative features of the architecture, and in the sculptural art which
accompanied it. I have further to trace out the transition as exhibited
in the structures of different countries--and especially of France,
England, and Germany;[10] and in a general manner to inquire both into
their peculiar characteristics and into the order of their chronological
precedence.
The tendency I have so often mentioned to refine and to elevate the
character of the Romanesque architecture is common to all the countries
where it prevailed. In all we find the severe simplicity of its earlier
productions gradually and steadily relaxing throughout the whole period
of its history; the rudeness of its early decorations disappearing in
favour of a more artistic treatment; its ponderous massiveness becoming
lightened; its low proportions changed for more lofty ones; and the
general asperity of its character becoming softened down; so that in its
later stages it seems often to possess nearly every feature of the
succeeding style, excepting the pointed arch and the elevation and
lightness which followed its introduction, though it also possessed
features which its successor speedily discarded. I especially refer to
those systems of ornamentation--most of them of Oriental origin--by
which the Romanesque buildings may usually, irrespective of their
arches, be distinguished from those of the succeeding periods.
The pointed arch having, as I have before shown, been first introduced
in the vaulting,[11] where its particular statical advantages were most
required, it naturally follows that the change would commence earliest
in those countries in which the builders set themselves most actively
about the solution of the problem--the steps of which I somewhat at
length traced out in my last lecture; I mean the conversion of the
basilica, with its timber roofs, into a completely vaulted structure;
and I think there can be no doubt that that country was France.
This, however, would not be the only condition on which the probable
precedence among the different nations, in taking the step which was
necessary to generating a perfect form of arcuated architecture, would
depend. It seems necessary that it should _not_ be a country already so
thoroughly provided with noble churches as to preclude the probability
of a great architectural movement, nor one which had already made so
determined an effort in perfecting its national style as to have become
too much enamoured of its successes to be in a position to strike out
boldly in a new line: indeed, it should be a people of so active a
spirit, and with so strong a tendency to progress and to change, as to
render it improbable that they should ever settle down in quiet
contentment with their own attainments. The question as to where the
great stride forward was to be expected would naturally lie between
France and Germany--the dominions of the two great successors of
Charlemagne in his _kingly_ and his _imperial_ capacities. Neither Italy
nor England were so likely: the former, from her too great proximity to
Classic monuments; while the latter--though her political power was
equal to that of France, her continental possessions most extensive, and
her architectural strivings most vigorous--had too newly risen from the
position of a conquered country to take the first place in such a
movement, and was also the less likely to do so from the fact of her
builders having for the most part avoided the vaulted construction (on a
large scale at least), from which the first advance was largely
suggested.
The matter lay, then, between France (I mean the actual centre of the
Frankish monarchy, of which Paris was the focus) and Germany. The
latter, however, had already made her great architectural movement, and
was (and not without cause) becoming selfsatisfied with her
achievements. She had generated a glorious style, and covered her land
with monuments of which she might well be proud; while the part of
France immediately under the royal power had not yet been able to erect
structures of a magnitude worthy of her position as the great
representative state of Western Europe. The immense influence gained
just at this time by the French monastic establishments, as well as
their schools of learning and science, and still more the increase of
the regal power under the wise government of Louis VI., and by the
annexation of the southern provinces through the marriage of his
successor, brought about the commencement of the great building period
in France, a little before the middle of the twelfth century, and the
active genius of the people decided the rest. The consequence was that,
though the refinement and perfecting of the Romanesque architecture went
on uniformly in all the countries I have named, and though its
transition into the Pointed style is as distinctly national in England
and Germany as in France, the precedence as to the _time_ at which the
grand advance was made must be unhesitatingly awarded, I will not say to
_France_ (for some parts of it were particularly tardy), but to that
district of France round Paris, the focus of the royal power--that
portion of it, in fact, which was immediately under regal government, as
distinguished from that of the great vassals of the Crown. We must
further in justice admit that, though each country had its own
transition, founded directly upon its own national and even local
variety of Romanesque, each was also in some degree tinged and
influenced by the early developments arrived at in the royal domain of
France.
I wish to be as specific as possible on this point, for the sake of
steering between two exaggerated views. The one view is this: Seeing the
transitional style of each country to be distinctly national--a logical
and consistent transition from their own local Romanesque--to conclude
from this that the result was absolutely independently arrived at,
though a considerable chronological interval may have intervened. The
other is the conclusion that, as the central French architects had been
the earliest in systematising the pointed-arched developments, all other
countries had simply followed in their wake, and done no more than
follow the fashions set at Paris. The truth lies between these
contradictory views. The communication ever going on throughout Europe
caused each country to know pretty perfectly what was going on in
others; their Romanesque in each was about on a par as to advancement,
and in each the want of the pointed arch must have been nearly equally
felt. Each, then, had its national and logical transition; but the
French having outstripped the others as to _time_, many of their minor
developments were adopted ready-made (if I may say so): so that though
each transition is clearly national, and distinct from that of other
countries, we nevertheless find, both in Germany and England, features
which have as clearly been borrowed from the French.
The English--though it would appear likely, from their adherence to open
timber roofs, that they would have felt the want of the pointed
arch less than the Germans, who more usually vaulted their
naves,--nevertheless outstripped their more phlegmatic kinsmen in its
adoption. This may have arisen from two causes--the constant use in
England of central towers, the frequent failures of which, when
supported by round arches, would have given them another reason to
desire one of greater strength; and also their intimate connection with
France and the vast domains in that country which came under the rule of
our kings.
It is true that (with the exception of Anjou and Maine) the provinces
held by Henry II. were those in which the Romanesque style held out the
longest; yet the fact that the two countries were at the time almost as
one--the English provinces of France being larger than, perhaps, either
England itself or the independent domain of the French king--their
ecclesiastical systems intimately united--the French language spoken by
all the higher orders in England, who held possessions perhaps of almost
equal extent in both countries--it is hardly probable that the state of
architecture should be greatly different in England and in France.
The Normans, however, and the Aquitainians had both a strong affection
for their own Romanesque styles, which had in each country more strongly
marked characteristics than that of the royal domain of France; and this
predilection seems to have kept back their strivings for a short time,
and to have produced a similar effect in England--which, nevertheless,
was the next country to royal France--and the parts immediately around
it, to make the change towards the Pointed style, leaving Germany to
come on at the close of the century, when we had already matured our
Early Pointed or Early English style, and Italy to adopt it still
later, and through the medium of the Germans, as a return for the
Lombardic Romanesque which three centuries earlier she had imparted to
Germany; “As if,” to use the eloquent words of Mr. Petit, “that mighty
river, that bore the tide of Roman civilisation into the heart of
Europe, had infused into the nations through which it flowed a
veneration for Roman memorials; with a wish to preserve and perpetuate
them, by establishing, according to the principles of their
construction, a kindred and lasting style of their own:” but, as I may
add, on finding at length those principles to be imperfect, desired to
send back to the source of this early civilisation those more advanced
developments and increased beauties which these nations had generated
from them.
Having thus roughly indicated the national order in which the transition
showed itself, I will proceed to describe its characteristics and its
productions in these different countries, beginning with France.
I have before mentioned that in the south of France there is reason to
believe that the pointed arch was used for barrel vaults from an early
date; and in the celebrated domical churches of Perigord and Angoumois
it is used below the pendentives of the domes, as well as in the section
of the domes themselves: this, if the usually adopted opinion be
correct, would bring it into the centre of France early in the eleventh
century. It is certainly found in the royal domain from the commencement
of the next century, but it is from about 1140 that we must date its
systematic introduction as a fully acknowledged architectural element.
I will not pretend to say what is the earliest work in which it is thus
admitted, nor attempt to investigate the commonly received opinion which
attributes the launching of the new style (if such it should be called)
to Suger, the celebrated Abbot of St. Denis. As, however, the
architectural progress at this period was clearly most active within the
influence of the court of Paris, and as Suger was not only one of the
wisest and greatest men in the kingdom, but was a great minister of
state, it is not unnatural that his personal influence upon art should
be powerful. In the year 1140 he had rebuilt the nave of his church, and
also the west front, as it existed previously to the wretched
restorations which have rendered nearly worthless the most valuable
landmark in the history of the transition. So far as we can now judge of
it, it presents a very early transitional character, the round and
pointed arch being almost indiscriminately used. Of the three portals,
the central one has a round arch; the others are very slightly pointed.
Their character is gorgeously rich, the shafts being either elaborately
carved with surface ornamentation, or having full-length figures
attached to them, and the arches replete with sculpture, agreeing,
indeed, precisely in character with those of the west front of Chartres
and some others. The parts which are original are beautifully executed,
and the capitals are of that perfectly Byzantine variety of the
Corinthianesque type which I shall shortly have to describe more in
detail. In the interior, the arches of the vaulting, and those carrying
the towers, are all pointed, but contain some strictly Romanesque
features. On the whole, the work has a decidedly Romanesque appearance,
but, nevertheless, has the pointed arch so freely used in it as to show
that it was anything but the first essay.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--St. Denis. Interior of one of the Apsidal
Chapels.]
In the same year (1140) Suger laid the foundations of the eastern end of
the church, which, as it is said, “with stupendous celerity” he had so
far completed by the year 1144, as to permit of its consecration; the
king, with his capricious queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and a multitude
of the great men of the country, being present at the ceremony.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--St. Denis. External Sketch of one of the
Apsidal Chapels.]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--St. Denis. Part of Capital from one of the
Apsidal Chapels.]
Of the church of Suger the two ends with portions of the transepts are
all that now remain; the whole of the intermediate portion, forming
little less than the entire church, were rebuilt from the ground in the
succeeding century, including even the pillars of the apse; so that we
are not able to ascertain the design of an internal bay of his church.
What remains of the eastern part embraces the pillars round the
ambulatory of the apse, with all the apsidal chapels, including also
their crypts. Of one of these chapels I exhibit an internal (Fig. 15)
and external (Fig. 16) sketch. From these it will be seen that though
the crypt--from want of height as much as from any other cause--has
round arches, the upper chapels are purely pointed, and are very elegant
in their design. The pillars are cylindrical, with Corinthianesque
capitals (Fig. 17), the windows and vaulting pointed, and the whole,
though obviously early, has very little of a Romanesque air, much less
so than our own transitional specimens of a much later date, and, what
is more remarkable, less than many French churches of twenty years
later. The chapels, however, in the crypt are much more Romanesque, all
their arches being round, and their vaulting without ribs, though the
details agree with those of the chapels above.
The principal remnant beyond what I have here mentioned is the doorway
of the north transept. This is pointed, and generally has a more
advanced air than those in the west façade, though on examination the
details differ but little. There are full-length figures attached to the
shafts, and angels carved in the arch mouldings, as those of the western
portals and as those at Chartres; and such parts of the foliage as have
not been renewed are most beautifully carved in the same Byzantine
style. Of the same character also are a number of capitals from the
monastic buildings preserved in a neighbouring shed.[12]
I will now crave your indulgence while I make a digression on the
subject of the carving in French churches of this period. No one can
have failed to notice the Corinthianesque outline of the capitals which
prevail in France from early in the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth
century. It has, indeed, been remarked by writers on the subject, that
this Corinthian character greatly increased _just before_ the period of
the transition. Though the effects of importations of Byzantine taste
are evinced in the Romanesque ornamentation throughout the whole period
of its duration, it seems generally to have come in the form of
manufactured goods, woven fabrics, jewellery, etc., etc.; and though the
patterns, both of Byzantine and other
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Greek Acanthus, from the Choragic Monument to
Lysicrates, Athens.]
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--Roman Acanthus from the Temple of Mars, Ultor.]
Oriental manufactures, are to be traced in the Romanesque ornaments, and
were the origin of many of those most familiar to us, actual
architectural features of Classic form, such as capitals, do not seem to
have been very directly copied, excepting where the remains of antique
buildings were at hand to offer models. The Romanesque capitals of
earlier date are, in many cases, of types belonging to no other style,
though in others they betray a distant descent from the Roman; and the
cushion capital, and perhaps others, seem derived from Byzantium; but
generally their forms differ much from the original, till we approach
the period of which I am treating, when suddenly they assume an almost
Classic form--the acanthus being freely used, and that of a variety
resembling that of ancient Greece (Fig. 18), as distinguished from Rome
(Fig. 19); and the same Greek leafage being found in cornices (Fig. 21),
scroll-work (Fig. 20), and almost every other position in which it could
be used. Not having travelled in the south of France, I will not venture
to be very dogmatic as to the cause of this sudden change. I fancy,
from such drawings as I have seen, that this Byzantine capital prevails
a good deal in the south of France, but I am not able with certainty to
distinguish it from the capitals directly imitated from Classic remains
around.[13] M. Viollet de Duc views them all as being of this origin,
calling them Gallo-Romaine, as distinguished from the Romanesque
capitals found side by side with them. I view those, however, I am
treating of as _distinctly Byzantine_, and the following facts suggest a
route by which the purely Byzantine foliage may have reached the north
of France.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Scroll, St. Denis.]
[Illustration: Fig. 21--Part of a Cornice, St. Denis.]
The Church of St. Mark, at Venice, was erected between the years 977 and
1071, and its capitals are, many of them, precisely of the kind I am
naming (Fig. 22), and are also identical with many at Constantinople
(Fig. 23). No one who has had a training in drawing the Corinthian
capital will fail to recognise at Venice that variety of the acanthus by
which he has been accustomed to distinguish the Greek from the Roman
Corinthian. According to M. de Verneill, the Church of St. Frond, at
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Capital from the Church of St. Mark, Venice.]
[Illustration: Fig 23.--Capital from St. John’s, Constantinople.]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Capital from the Church of St. Frond,
Perigueux.]
[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Fragment of Capital from St. Frond, Perigueux.]
Perigueux, was built at nearly the same time, in the centre of France,
but under the influence of Venetian merchants. This church is a direct
imitation of St. Mark’s at Venice; but besides the distinctly Byzantine
forms which characterise this and the numerous family of churches which
imitate it, it contains capitals of exactly the same kind as those at
Venice (Figs. 24, 25); and from shortly after this time we find them
becoming prevalent in districts
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Capital from the Column of Marcion,
Constantinople.]
the other Byzantine features of the Perigordian churches are not
followed. I give a series of capitals from Constantinople (Figs. 23,
26), Venice (Fig. 22), and Perigueux (Figs. 24, 25), which can be
compared with those I exhibit from St. Denis (Figs. 20, 21), St. Germain
des Pres (Fig. 27), etc., etc., to show how indisputable and how direct
is the importation, though, unlike the works of Classic architects, we
find no two capitals alike. They have other points of resemblance to the
Corinthian capital, as the cauliculi, and a rudimental relic of the
concave-planned abacus. This we find also in Pisan architecture, and in
that of the Moors in Sicily, and probably in all styles which were
influenced by the Byzantine; and it was, no doubt, derived from the
practice, which arose when the Corinthian capital began to be used
directly to bear an arch (and that _overhanging_ the column), of placing
a strong square block over the more delicate abacus, to defend it
against the fracture to which it would otherwise have been subject.
These features will be found in nearly every church of the transitional
period in the part of France of which I am speaking, and probably in
nearly all parts.[14]
[Illustration: Fig. 27.--St. Germain des Pres, Paris.]
The Corinthianesque foliage became the originator of the magnificent
capitals which pervade the finest French works of the thirteenth
century, though the foliage became entirely altered; and in our own
country, though the Byzantine original is seen, I believe, only in the
work of William of Sens, at Canterbury,[15] the _effects_ of it are
visible in the outline of many of our finest Early English capitals,
though these are so distinctly national, and differ so much in treatment
from those in France.
Nearly contemporaneous with Suger’s work is the west front of the
Cathedral of Chartres, one of the very noblest productions of the style.
It is not, I believe, exactly known when this façade was either
commenced or completed, but the towers were actively progressing in
1145. The three central portals are of peculiar magnificence (Figs. 29,
30, 31, 32, 33); they are too elaborate for me to venture upon
illustrating them by drawings.
[Illustration: Figs. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.--Enriched Shafts from Chartres]
The figures in the jambs are, as was usual at the period, in the same
block with the shafts themselves, and their extraordinary elongation,
and the long upright folds of their draperies were, no doubt, intended
to harmonise with their position as parts of columns. The heads are of
peculiar dignity and grace. These doorways are probably the finest
remaining of the transitional period. Their excessive richness contrasts
strikingly with the severe though noble simplicity of the remainder of
the façade, and displays not only that tendency to lavish all the
resources of art upon the doorways, which so especially characterises
French art, but also illustrates, in the most striking manner, the
absolute independence of the architecture of mere ornamentation, and, at
the same time, the freedom with which it avails itself of it; the rich
doorways and the severely plain towers being equally glorious specimens
of the style, and neither suffering in the least by juxtaposition with
the other.
I will just call attention to the singular ornamentation of the pedestal
or basement of the doorways, by means of fluting, etc. This was common
in France at that period, though I am not able to trace it to its
source. It is almost identical with that of the western doorway of St.
Germain des Pres,[16] and we find it carried out with still greater
richness in the somewhat later doorways which flank the western façade
at Rouen.
The capitals in this façade (at Chartres) are of the kind I have above
described. The southern tower and spire are most noble in their
composition, and are hardly exceeded in beauty by those of any
subsequent period.
The next example I will allude to is the Cathedral of Noyon. The date
of this cathedral is unknown; but the old church having been destroyed
by fire in 1131, and the Bishop (Beaudoin), who shortly after succeeded
to the see, being an intimate friend of Abbot Suger, it has been put
down almost as an historical certainty that he commenced rebuilding the
church not long after the erection of that of St. Denis, and that the
designs were made under the advice of Suger. I am not prepared either to
subscribe to this implicitly or to dispute it. On first examining the
church, my impression was adverse to this theory; but St. Denis itself
looks so much later than it is, and the apparent anomalies in the dates
of this period are so perplexing, that one is disposed to hesitate
before disputing a theory supported by such men as Viollet le Duc. If,
however, the idea be correct, I should limit the early date to the
_lower portion_ of the choir. The same intermixture of the round arch
with the pointed obtains throughout the cathedral; but not only are the
mouldings of later section in the western parts (as M. le Duc points
out), but the capitals which prevail in the upper storeys of the choir
itself are of a kind which I cannot think so early as the date assigned.
The capitals of the lower storey (or the aisles and apsidal chapels),
are of the Corinthianesque description, intermixed with others of
interwoven stalks, etc., and are eminently beautiful.
I give a sketch of one of the apsidal chapels, both within (Fig. 34) and
without (Figs. 35, 36), as a parallel to those at St. Denis. The
comparison will certainly tend to confirm the theory as to its date, as
the prevalence of the round arch gives it an appearance of even earlier
age; but we shall see from other examples that this evidence is not
wholly to be relied on.
[Illustration: Figs. 34, 35.--Cathedral of Noyon. Interior and Exterior
of one of the Apsidal Chapels.]
[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Cathedral of Noyon. Plan of one of the Apsidal
Chapels.]
The plan of this church is exceedingly beautiful, having apsidal
terminations, not only to the choir (Fig. 36), but to each transept. In
this it is supposed to have been imitated from the noble transepts at
Tournay, with which see Noyon was connected till the year 1153, almost
the very year to which both of these works have been attributed, though
the transepts at Tournay are still purely Romanesque, and that of the
very grandest and boldest kind, excepting only the pointed vaulting;
while those at Noyon (which, however, are somewhat later than the choir)
are of very light and almost flimsy construction, and though containing
many round arches, are, in their whole aspect, of the Pointed style.
The church at Noyon is of a construction to which I barely alluded in my
former lecture--that in which the aisles are of two storeys, both of
which are vaulted.
It is customary to call this second storey a triforium, but I should
rather term it a _gallery_, for the triforium proper occupies the
interval between the roof and the vaulting of the aisles, a space which
occurs _over_ these galleries; so that a church of this construction has
_four_ storeys--the aisle, the gallery, the triforium, and the
clerestory; the triforium being, as its name seems to import, the
_third_ storey, though in churches of the more customary type it is only
the _second_. This construction was very common at this period in France
and Germany, though in England I recollect only one instance--the choir
of Gloucester--which, however, is so altered as almost to conceal its
construction.[17] The vaulting at Noyon is pointed, but its side cells
are, I think, in every case round. The exterior of the apsidal chapels
at Noyon is not unlike those at St. Denis, though without its crypt.
Like it, it has columns used for buttresses, an idea inherited from
those of earlier date--as those at Nôtre Dame du Pont at Clermont, at
Issoire, and many others.
There are noble portals on the east sides of the transepts in which the
carved foliage is of the most gorgeous description, and which were
formerly replete with sculpture, every vestige of which is now gone,
having been most carefully cut out at the Revolution.
On the whole, this church is one of the best studies of the transition,
though defective in one important element--a _date_.
The next example I will notice is the Church of St. Germain des Pres at
Paris, an example of special value from its possessing the element which
we lack at Noyon. It was dedicated in 1163, or nineteen years after St.
Denis.
The comparison of St. Germain with St. Denis leads to one of the most
curious questions connected with this part of architectural history; for
during this interval of nearly twenty years _no progress whatever_ would
appear to have been made; indeed, to judge from the buildings, one would
be disposed to transpose their dates; for while the eastern part of St.
Denis, in 1144, is purely pointed (the crypt alone excepted), St.
Germain, in 1163, has round arches used in most prominent positions,
though in other respects exactly agreeing in detail; and this in a most
important church in the royal city itself.
How is this long stagnation to be explained?
I will not pretend to answer it positively, but I would suggest the
following solution:--Two years after Louis VII. and Queen Eleanor
attended the consecration of St. Denis, they set out on a great
Crusade--the one at the head of 10,000 warriors, the other of a troop of
Amazons she had levied from among the ladies of her court. The Amazons
and their inordinate amount of baggage led to the destruction of the
army at the battle of Laodicea. The king returned to his dominions
impoverished and humbled, shortly after which his Amazonian consort,
obtaining a divorce, deprived him at one stroke of half of his
dominions, and transferred the rich Provençal dower to Henry II., the
English king. I would suggest, then, whether this sudden stoppage in the
development of architecture may not be accounted for by the equally
sudden exhaustion of the resources of the French kingdom, as the early
commencement of the improved style has been in a measure attributed to
its previous increase in prosperity?
[Illustration: Fig. 37.--St. Germain des Pres, Paris. Two Bays of
Choir.]
The sculptural art at St. Germain des Pres seems exactly on a par with
that at St. Denis and Chartres. The capitals are either of the Byzantine
Corinthianesque, or are filled with animals (natural and grotesque), or
consist of a union of both. They are exceedingly fine examples of their
style, and I have selected one[18] of them as a type of the style. The
design of the interior of the choir, though severely simple, is
exceedingly fine, and in some degree original. I exhibit a sketch of two
of its bays (Fig. 37).
[Illustration: Fig. 38.--St. Germain des Pres, Paris. Western Doorway.]
The western doorway (Fig. 38) seems to have very closely resembled those
at Chartres; but the whole of the sculpture has been removed, excepting
from the tympanum, which still bears the representation of the Last
Supper; and the shafts, which, we are informed, bore full-length
figures--alternating, in all probability, with smaller ones richly
diapered, as at St. Denis, Chartres, and Bourges--have been exchanged
for plain ones. The capitals are of rich Corinthianesque foliage,
amongst which are represented grotesque birds, harpies, etc. The
basement or pedestal is fluted exactly as at Chartres. On the whole,
this church deserves much more attention than it seems generally to have
received.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Cathedral of Sens. Interior View.]
I now come to an example of peculiar interest to ourselves;--that
cathedral which it is customary to suppose to be the parent of our own
Pointed architecture; and which, though I by no means subscribe to that
opinion, possesses an interest sufficiently deep as being, without
question, the prototype of the glorious choir at the Trinity Chapel at
Canterbury,--the metropolitan church of all England--and as having,
through them, exercised a powerful influence, and given a certain
degree of French colouring to the immediately succeeding developments
throughout the length and breadth of our land. I need hardly say that I
allude to the cathedral of Sens.
I am ashamed to say I had not seen this noble church till a short tour I
have made during the present winter,[19] and with reference to the
present lecture. I had unconsciously entertained a certain feeling of
jealousy towards it, arising from the exaggerated opinions constantly
expressed as to the entire dependence upon it of our Pointed style; but
my first exclamation on entering its nave was, “Well, if our Gothic
churches are all derived from this, they had, to say the least, a
_glorious_ parentage!”
Though a cathedral of the second magnitude, and much injured by
subsequent alterations, I know few which have a nobler or more
impressive aspect. Even the soaring interior of Amiens, which I chanced
to visit the day after, did not efface from my mind the sterner grandeur
of Sens.
The interior is extremely simple (Fig. 39), and rather obtains its
impressive effect from the magnitude of its leading features, and still
more from the noble sentiment which must have pervaded the mind of its
designer, than from anything which can be specifically defined in words.
Its nave is of unusual width, being 49 feet from centre to centre of the
pillars, which are alternately vast clustered piers of about 11 feet 6
inches diameter (a large portion of which runs up to the vaulting), and
coupled columns of nearly three feet diameter each. The triforium is
somewhat too small--the only
[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Cathedral of Sens. View of Choir Aisles.]
fault in the composition--and the clerestory windows have,
unfortunately, been renewed at a later age. It is generally stated that
the whole of the vaulting was renewed with them: this, however, is
incorrect; the only parts renewed were the side cells, which, as is
proved by evidence I need not here go into, were round-arched, and came
low in the clerestory wall, thus diminishing the height of the
windows--a defect which led to their reconstruction. Not only are the
ribs of the original section, but the bosses are clearly of the same
early age, which, I think, is sufficient to disprove the idea of the
vaults having been rebuilt. The vaulting of the aisles has round
transverse arches, and the aisle windows, as well as the wall-arcading,
are round-arched (Fig. 40). The carving is of the same kind with that I
have so often described, and most of it is severely simple. Some of the
capitals to the wall-arcading are very rich, and many of them contain
grotesque animals, birds, etc., finely carved (Figs. 41, 42).
[Illustration: Figs. 41, 42.--Sens. Capitals from Choir Aisles.]
The west portals were, probably, the latest part of the original church,
and have since been altered by the substitution of tympana of later
date; but the sculptured art they contain is some of the very finest of
its period, many of the figures being of classic beauty, and of far more
than classic expression. This church was dedicated in 1167, though (with
the sole exception of the portals) its character would have led one to
place it earlier than St. Denis.
Two years before the consecration of Sens was commenced the great
crowning work of the French transition--Nôtre Dame at Paris.[20] Its
erection occupied the remainder of the century, while that of the
western façade reaches over the first quarter of the succeeding one. I
will not attempt a description of what this most noble church was in its
original condition: it will be found clearly particularised in M.
Viollet le Duc’s Dictionary--a work which should be in the hands of
every architectural student. I will rather confine myself to its
influence upon sculptured foliage.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Nôtre Dame.]
On its first commencement no advance was made upon the Byzantine carving
of St. Denis; indeed, the capitals in the eastern gallery look almost
more archaic than their predecessors of twenty or thirty years’ earlier
date. It is curious, however, that the capitals of the large columns
below these galleries are in a decidedly more advanced style. This M. le
Duc ingeniously attributes to the employment of artists of different
ages, and to the preference given (in an age of advancement) to the
younger ones, leading to the more important capitals being committed to
their hands. I should, however, be inclined to account for it
differently, by supposing the smaller and more detached capitals to have
been carved before they were fixed, and those of the great pillars left
to the last thing before the removal of the scaffolding. I can
appreciate this by my own experience, for in the church I am building at
Hamburg there will be some ten years’ interval between the carving of
the triforium and of the pillars which support it; during which interval
I am horrified when I recollect that _all but one_ of the artists have
died from the destructive effects of the stone dust, and that one has
been saved only by my having requested him to relinquish carving and to
content himself with making models for others to work from--a system
which, under other circumstances, is one of the advisableness of which I
entertain doubts.
The capitals, however, in the _nave_ are those which best display the
enormous advance now being made. I should not have dwelt so long on the
merely antiquarian fact of the importation of the Byzantine
[Illustration: Figs. 44, 45, 46.--Nôtre Dame, Paris.]
Corinthian into France, had it not led to this glorious result. In the
nave of Nôtre Dame every vestige of this _Greekesque_ foliage is got rid
of, its general outline alone excepted;[23] and a kind perfectly new and
most truly noble is subtituted, founded slightly on reminiscences of the
true Romanesque foliage previous to the Oriental importation, retaining
the outline suggested by the acanthus leaf, but worked up into a form
which had never before been hinted at, and which was destined to effect
a great revolution in this branch of art. From this time forward (till
the end of the thirteenth century) the French carving is noble and
effective in the very highest degree--at first gradually approaching
natural forms without directly imitating them, but eventually adopting
frankly the productions of nature as its guide, but so far
conventionalising them as to fit them perfectly to their position, and
to make them produce a contour
[Illustration: Figs. 47, 48.--Nôtre Dame, Paris.]
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--St. Leu, near Creil.
Capital from the apse.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Nôtre Dame, West Front.]
[Illustration: Fig. 51.--St. Eusèbe, Auxerre.]
harmonising with, and adding the utmost beauty to, the features of the
architecture to which they are applied. I exhibit specimens of this
class of foliage in Nôtre Dame (Figs. 47, 48). I will also call
attention to a drawing of one of the capitals from the apse of St. Leu,
near Creil (said to have been executed a little after a great accession
of wealth to the abbey in 1175, M. le Duc says about 1190), as a
specimen of the same advance in foliaged carving, and to some of the
capitals from the west front of Nôtre Dame (about 1220) as examples of
its success just before the systematic introduction of natural foliage.
[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Noyon. Capital from the apse.]
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Laon. Capital.]
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Sens.]
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Nôtre Dame.]
At this point I ought to mention the introduction (though of somewhat
earlier date) of what the French call the capital “_à crochet_.” I
exhibit a sketch showing its origin from a plain unruffled leaf, which
accompanied the Byzantine acanthus (Fig. 51). This plain leaf may be
seen in a simple form in the apsidal columns at Noyon, in a more
advanced state in the nave of the same church, and at Laon (which,
however, is a good deal later), and pretty well developed at Sens, and
at Montmartre. In Nôtre Dame the capital _à crochet_ assumes a
considerable importance, and in the west front is used in its most
perfect purely conventional form; while a little later, as at the Sainte
Chapelle, it is decked and entwined with natural leaves in the most
elegant manner imaginable. No feature which arose during the French
transition is so universal in its influence on the architecture of other
countries. In France its use is often carried to a vicious excess; but,
used in moderation, it is a very valuable element in the
_architecturalisation_ of foliage.
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Sainte Chapelle.]
[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Sainte Chapelle.]
[Illustration: Fig. 58.--St. Remi, Rheims, W.E.]
I have to apologise, as well for the length to which I have prolonged my
remarks on the French transition, as for the very meagre outline with
which the limits of a lecture have compelled me to satisfy myself. I
will reserve a few remarks suggested by what has passed so hastily in
review till I have described some of the English examples.
The English transition was so complete in itself, and all its stages so
perfect and so consecutive, that were it not for our knowledge of that
of France, and for the _interpolation_--if I may say so--of the almost
purely French work at Canterbury, one would be loath to believe that it
had been influenced by any other than the natural and spontaneous
working out of the development of our own Romanesque.
It may be divided into several stages, though they are often
intermingled in the same work.
[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Fountains Abbey. View across Nave.]
First, those buildings which are strictly Romanesque, excepting only
that pointed arches are partially used. Such is the nave of Fountains
Abbey. The date of this is unknown; but it was in all probability
erected between 1140 and 1150, thus agreeing in age with St. Denis. Next
comes Kirkstall Abbey, commenced in 1153, and, though it appears to have
taken thirty-three years to complete it, retaining the same character
throughout--_purely_ Romanesque--and that of a stern and severe variety,
but with the pointed arches to its more important parts. Buildwas Abbey
belongs to the same class, commenced probably a few years after the
foundation of the abbey in 1135, its earlier parts thus probably
agreeing in age with Fountains.
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Kirkstall Abbey, South Transept.]
These examples would appear at first sight to date back our transition
as early as that of France; but this would scarcely be a fair
conclusion, for, without doubt, many French examples of the same
kind--mere Romanesque with the larger arches pointed--exist in France of
an earlier date than that of Abbot Suger’s work. I will therefore pass
over these merely incipient specimens.
The next class is the extremely refined Norman,
[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Galilee, Durham.]
with or without pointed arches--such as the Galilee at Durham, where,
though the date is clearly transitional, the ornaments are Norman of a
delicate character, very different from Fountains and Kirkstall, and
showing a later date. This was the work of the celebrated Bishop Pudsey,
the great promoter of the transition in the north. He commenced in 1155
(as I
[Illustration: Fig. 62.--St. Mary’s Abbey, York. Vestibule of Chapter
House. View from Cloister (restored).]
believe) with his chapter-house--a purely Norman work--and closed with
the erection of Darlington Church, nearly as purely Pointed;[24] his
episcopate spreading over about forty years. Of this class the examples
in the north of England are most numerous, but are so intermixed with
decidedly Pointed work as somewhat to confuse the classification. It is
common, in fact, to find a building nearly purely Pointed, but with
doorways of this class; of which there is a notable, but not very early
instance, at Jedburgh, where the doorways are perfect gems of refined
Norman of the highest class and most artistic finish, while the interior
of the church is purely Pointed.
[Illustration: Fig. 64.--St. Mary’s Abbey, York. Plan of Vestibule of
the Chapter House.]
One of the most remarkable specimens of this class is at St. Mary’s
Abbey, at York, in the vestibule of the chapter-house. I give a restored
view of one of the entrances, partly from remains _in situ_, and partly
from fragments preserved in the Museum. The date of this most exquisite
work is unknown; but I should suppose it contemporary with the later
years of Archbishop Roger, the great promoter of the transition in that
diocese, and who presided over the see from 1154 to 1181. He rebuilt the
choir of his cathedral, of which the noble remains of the crypt were
[Illustration: Fig. 63.--St. Mary’s Abbey, York. View of Vestibule from
Chapter-House (restored).]
[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Part of Choir of Ripon Minster, as built by
Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque.]
discovered a few years back, of a very refined Norman style. He also
built the palace on the north side of the cathedral, of which a most
beautiful fragment remains (Fig. 65). This fragment, though simple, and
with round arches, agrees exactly in its detail with the doorway at St.
Mary’s, even to the exact diameter and height of its shafts and
capitals, and was, no doubt, executed by the same persons.
[Illustration: Fig. 65.--Archbishop’s Palace, York.]
Roger, also, as has been proved by Mr. Walbran, built the choir at
Ripon, of which I give a bay (Fig. 66). Of the same class, and in the
same diocese, may be mentioned the west end of Selby Abbey and the
Church at Old Malton; Roche Abbey, and of the same date are probably the
stately remains of Byland Abbey--one of the noblest relics of the age,
and of which the choir was clearly built on the plan of that of Roger at
York.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Ely Cathedral, South Transept. West end.]
In the south I will first mention the Church of St. Cross, near
Winchester, which seems to be intermediate between the above-named
classes; it is Norman, of a grand and severe, but, at the same time,
highly refined character, but with pointed arches to all principal
parts; its foliage is untinged by French taste, but is of a very refined
and elegant character; it is as massive as the earlier specimens,
without their heaviness--impressive, without becoming oppressive; it is,
in fact, the most perfect and the purest type of the indigenous English
transition. Unfortunately, its date is unknown, for though founded in
1136, and the hospital actually commenced in that year, it is impossible
to give so early a date to the church. It was founded by Henry de Blois,
brother to King Stephen, who held the see of Winchester from 1129 to
1171, and it is but reasonable to suppose that the earlier parts of the
church were completed during his lifetime.
[Illustration: Fig. 68.--St. Cross, near Winchester.]
Contemporary with the close of this structure is the great western tower
of the Cathedral at Ely, erected by Bishop Ridel, between 1174 and 1189,
in a very grand and effective style, for the most part purely English in
character, but occasionally displaying the influence of French examples
in the use of the _crochet_ capital.
This brings me to the great type of the third class--those buildings
which are unquestionably in the Pointed style, but retain sufficient
reminiscences of their Romanesque origin to distinguish them from the
fully-developed Early English. I allude to the choir (Fig. 69) and
Trinity Chapel (Fig. 70) at Canterbury. I may here save myself and you
much time by referring you to Professor Willis’s admirable architectural
history of this cathedral, a book with which every architectural student
should be familiar. I will only mention that the splendid late Norman
choir having been destroyed by fire in 1174, the monks committed its
restoration to William of Sens, who had, in all probability, been
engaged on the recently-completed cathedral in that city. He carried on
the works till disabled by an accident in 1179, when he left them in the
hands of his assistant, called, by way of distinction, William, the
Englishman, who brought them to a close in 1184 or 1185.
[Illustration: Fig. 71.--Canterbury Cathedral, Capitals. William of
Sens.]
The work of the first William is almost purely French, and, though far
more elaborate than that at Sens, very strongly resembles it. He had,
however, the good judgment to Anglicise it in a slight degree, as we see
in the liberal use of the zigzag and other
[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Canterbury Cathedral. Choir.]
[Illustration: Fig. 70.--Canterbury Cathedral. Trinity Chapel.]
Norman ornaments. His capitals are some of the Byzantine character of
Sens, and others in the newly-developed style of Nôtre Dame at Paris,
and are very finely carved (Fig. 71). The arches are not all pointed,
the pier arches, wall ribs, and triforium arches being round.
[Illustration: Fig. 72--Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral. Capital.
William the Englishman.]
William the Englishman discarded the Byzantine foliage, and adopted,
almost exclusively, the Nôtre Dame type and the capital _à crochet_,
which he carried out with extreme beauty. His work is far more beautiful
than that of his master, though from the resemblance of the plan to that
of Sens, and from the use of doubled columns, it must have been laid
down by the French William. I know no work of the age finer than those
of these two architects. One thing I will remark about the second
architect, that he made his crypt, in which he worked unfettered by the
designs of another, more English than the superstructure, using there
(as he did also in one or two other places) the round abacus,
subsequently so characteristic of English work.
The influence of the French work thus introduced into England is
distinctly marked, and there is no difficulty in tracing it wherever it
exists; but it is by no means such as to supersede the national type.
Perhaps the most pervading symptom of it is the prevalence henceforth
of the _crochet_ capital, though even that seldom assumes a form wholly
French, but receives a distinctly English and often a local
modification. The most palpable instance (and almost the only one of
this direct kind which I remember) of the imitation of Canterbury work
is seen in the hall of the castle at Oakham, built by Walkelin de
Ferrers, probably, as Mr. Hartshorne says, between 1180 and 1190. In
this the capitals, though with some originality, are obviously of French
character, and probably founded on those of the Trinity Chapel.[25]
[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Oakham Castle.]
Immediately after Canterbury, and probably in part contemporaneous with
it, was the magnificent Abbey Church of Glastonbury. It appears to have
been erected chiefly between 1180 and 1190, though finished a little
later. I am not aware whether the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea
(which stands at the west end, like the Galilee at Durham) was built
earlier than the church:[26] at first sight it would convey that
impression, all the arches, except those of the vaulting, being round.
In its details, however, it
[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury.
Exterior View.]
resembles those of the church, where the arches are all pointed. This
chapel is of exquisite beauty, and its details in the highest degree
refined; indeed, nothing could exceed the studious care with which every
feature and the profile of every moulding is carried out. The English
type is adhered to in the retention, in an exceedingly refined form, and
in great variety of decorations founded in the chevron, and in the use
of intersecting arcades. The external buttresses assume
[Illustration: Fig. 75.--Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury.
Interior View.]
a form of peculiar elegance and originality; the base moulds are of
noble form, wholly differing from those in France. The turrets at the
angles are of great beauty. The whole shows symptoms of a perfect
knowledge of French developments, but the only distinctive imitation of
them is in the capitals, which display, in many instances, the _crochet_
form, but with a beauty and freedom of treatment peculiarly their own,
differing not only from the French examples, but from the great majority
of English ones, and exercising a strong local influence, extending from
Somerset along the north side of the Bristol Channel, and reaching even
the distant Cathedral of St. David’s. The church agrees in its details
with the chapel, but its remains are grievously fragmentary. The
triforium was united
[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Cathedral of St. David’s. Internal Bay of
Nave.]
with the pier arcade in a manner I do not recollect in any other Pointed
church, though it is seen on a round-arched form at Oxford, and in the
early portion of Jedburgh Abbey. The piers are beautifully clustered, as
is suggested by the multifarious destinations of their parts, one
portion being to carry the vaulting of the aisles; a second, the lower
tier of pier-arches; a third, the upper tier; and a fourth, the higher
vaulting. It is distressing to think how little of this most glorious
church remains. It was probably unequalled by any transitional church in
England, but has actually--even up to our own day--been used as a stone
quarry!
I should have mentioned that in the chapel the pointed vaulting is used
in its fully-developed form--both main arches and side cells being
pointed.
Of the same age is a great part of the Cathedral of St. David’s, of
which I give an internal bay (Fig. 76). It was commenced in 1182, just
after William of Sens relinquished his work at Canterbury. Its character
is decidedly more Romanesque than that of Glastonbury. The arches are
generally round, and the vaulting seems to have reversed the early
custom, being round in the main arch, and pointed in its side cells. The
ornaments of the chevron type are used, as at Glastonbury; there is the
same refined and studious detail, and the same class of capital is
occasionally used, though the majority are formed on the Norman cushion
capital. This form of capital had undergone a long series of changes; at
first the cushions were single on each face and the profile convex; then
they became gradually multiplied, but still convex below; then the
outline became concave; subsequently the cushions from semicircles
became a much greater portion of a circle, appearing like a series of
rolls bent into a concave outline, with deep hollows between them. This
occurs frequently at St. David’s. The next step is to decorate the
circular ends of these rolls. This is done at St. David’s, sometimes
with foliage, sometimes with little figures, as in medallions, and, as a
last step, before the final rejection of the type, the whole roll is
converted into foliage together. At St. David’s all these later steps
are exhibited in a very curious and interesting manner. Some of them may
be seen in the choir of Lichfield Cathedral, and at Hereford in the
eastern chapel.
[Illustration: Figs. 77, 78.--St. David’s.]
At St. David’s the triforium is united with the clerestory, something as
at St. Germain des Pres.[27] The clerestory has two bays to one arch
below, and has had sexpartite vaulting; not, as usual, embracing two
bays, but two of these semi-bays. It is interesting to find in this most
remote of the cathedrals of South Britain, and only just verging out of
the Romanesque, a degree of originality and of refinement equal to what
is met with in our best examples.
The circular portion of the Temple Church in
[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Temple Church. View of Circular Aisle.]
London is exactly contemporary with Canterbury, having been consecrated
in 1185, the year when that work was completed. It is somewhat less
advanced in style, possibly from a preference felt among the Templars
for the Romanesque. The pillars and main arches, with the vaulting
generally, it is true, are quite advanced Pointed, and are exceedingly
beautiful; but the triforium consists of an intersecting arcade, as at
St. Cross, and the windows are quite Norman; while, on the other hand,
the wall-arcading is pointed. The capitals are of several varieties;
most of them are of the simple water-leaf form so prevalent in the north
of England, while others are founded on the cushion and the _crochet_
forms.
It is exceedingly vexatious that the dates of buildings of this period
are so difficult to be ascertained.
Even where we know by whom they were erected, their founders were often
so long-lived as to render the information perfectly indefinite. Thus,
Pudsey presided over the see of Durham for forty years, Roger over York
for nearly thirty years, and Henry de Blois over Winchester forty-two
years; and Walkelin de Ferrers, who built the hall at Oakham Castle,
held the manor from 1161 to 1201.
Among the later works of the transition may be mentioned the eastern
part of Chichester Cathedral[28] (Fig. 80), a most beautiful example, of
which I give an internal view; and a yet nobler specimen is the eastern
portion of Tynemouth Abbey (Fig. 81). Of this I give a restored view, in
which I have supplied one of the bays which have fallen, and also the
vaulting, with its curious termination,
[Illustration: Fig. 80.--Chichester Cathedral, Eastern Part.]
[Illustration: Fig. 81.--The Choir, Tynemouth Abbey.]
[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Hexham Abbey. South side of Choir.]
against the east end. This, again, is a dateless work. Though externally
the flat Norman buttress is retained, it possesses internally no
Romanesque features, but is purely Pointed and thoroughly developed in
every part, though retaining what in England is the great distinguishing
characteristic of the transition--the square abacus. The details are
exceedingly rich and beautiful, while the vast thickness of its walls
gives to the interior a massive grandeur seldom equalled. Its situation
is ungenial, being on a dull promontory and close upon the shore, so
that every blast from the German Ocean whistles through its arches; yet,
chilling as its position is, no one of taste can visit it without
finding his heart warm up with admiration of its noble and beautiful
architecture, which is excelled by few, if any, examples of its period.
In the same northern district is Hexham Abbey, a noble example of what
may called the _transition_ from the _transition_ into the developed
Early English (Fig. 82). Farther north, again, we have noble examples at
Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh: the first having the round arch nearly
throughout; the second, as I have before said, famed for its exquisite
doorways; and the last having doorways equally refined, but remarkable
rather for their chaste simplicity than for their richness of detail. I
ought also to mention, among other northern examples, the Abbey of
Furness and the sister church of Cartmel; also the noble refectories at
Fountains and Rivaulx.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.--Bridlington, Yorkshire. Capital found in wall.]
To attempt, however, an enumeration of English examples would be an
endless task. So far from being a mere exotic, the country appears to
have been absolutely saturated with transitional buildings: and these,
so far from showing any of that inaptitude which would accompany the use
of a mere imported style, actually evince a degree of originality and a
revelry (if I may use such a term) in the new art which is perfectly
charming, and display beauties wholly different from any I have seen in
other countries. Not only is this the case in works on a grand scale,
but in the smallest village churches, in which we find the style reduced
to its simplest elements, yet exhibiting a sense of beauty and a
studious attention to detail which is quite surprising. One of the
features of these simpler productions is the plain unfoliated
capital--such as those at Fountains Abbey--but which, from its
simplicity, is of frequent use in village churches. Nothing could be
more severely plain, yet it possesses a degree of beauty equal in its
way to that of the most gorgeous capitals. We see from the examples I
give from Ripon and Fountains, how this passed off into the round
moulded capital which is so peculiar a characteristic of the English
Early Pointed.[29]
[Illustration: Fig. 84.--Capital, Ripon.]
[Illustration: Fig. 85.--Capital, Fountains.]
The distinctive characteristics of the productions of the English, as
compared with the French, transition, are somewhat difficult to define,
inasmuch as they begin in a manner the very reverse of that in which
they terminate; for at first they evince themselves in a stronger
resemblance to the preceding Romanesque,
[Illustration: Fig. 86.--St. Cross, Hampshire. South Aisle of Choir.]
while they terminate in a style differing from it more decidedly than
was the case with the perfected Early Pointed architecture of France.
The early transitional works of the royal domain of France appear to an
English eye more advanced than they really are, because the Romanesque
of that district had less of those characteristics which, to our eye,
distinguish the style, than those either of England or of other parts of
France. The designs of the archivolts--as M. Viollet le Duc says, were
sparing in ornament but liberal in mouldings; and if we compare Early
Pointed examples with the preceding Romanesque of the same district of
France, we shall find that the changes were comparatively slight. In
England the change was at first equally slight; but the Romanesque being
rich in characteristic decorations, it follows that, to us, our early
transition appears more Romanesque than that of France. Compare, for
instance, St. Cross with Sens; the proportion of round to pointed arches
in each differs but little. At Sens even the vaulting of the aisles is
round, while at St. Cross it is pointed; nor do they differ much in
their relation to the preceding Romanesque of the same districts, as
will be seen by comparing my sketch of an internal bay at Sens with some
I give of corresponding portions of French Romanesque churches; yet
Sens, being absolutely devoid of those Romanesque ornaments in which St.
Cross is so rich, strikes our eye as being more advanced.
We had, in fact, much more to be got rid of in our Romanesque than they
had in and about the Isle of France.
The remarkable converse of this is, that at the close of our transition
we had not only thrown off this excess of Romanesque characteristics,
but had gone beyond the French in altering those of a less palpable
kind, and introducing details distinct from those of the preceding
style. Thus our arch mouldings became far more rich and more studied in
their profile than those in France, which continued to be little more
than the repetition of a roll between two hollows, while ours were
composed of numerous and beautiful members; the proportions of our
windows became much more graceful than those customarily used in France,
and the basement mouldings were better. On the other hand, we were far
less liberal in the use of sculpture, and we generated a purely moulded
capital, which the French can scarcely be said to possess--thus, if I
may say so, giving ourselves the choice of a _Doric_, as well as a
_Corinthian_, variety in our columns; and, finally, we relinquished the
square form of the abacus, and made our capitals for the most part
round; so that, at the end of our transition, we had departed much more
widely from our own Romanesque than the French had from theirs; and
while the early French transitional works look more advanced than those
of a corresponding stage in England, the case is reversed at its close,
when the English examples appear more advanced than the French, as may
be seen by comparing the interior of the Galilee at Ely with the western
portals of Nôtre Dame, which are of some years’ later date.[30]
I will close my outline of the English transition by referring to four
examples which mark the limits of its duration, by showing how soon the
true Early English attained its perfect development. The examples I cite
for this purpose are the following:--
1st. The choir and eastern transepts at Lincoln, which were
completed by Bishop Hugh before the close of the twelfth century,
and which, though of early character, are decidedly not
transitional, but developed Early Pointed.
2d. The western portals at St. Alban’s, built by William de Cella
between the years 1195 and 1205.[31]
These are among the most beautiful Early English works in the
kingdom, and have no Romanesque reminiscences, nor any French
characteristics, except the _crochet_ capital, which is
magnificently developed beneath round abaci.
3d. The eastern chapels at Winchester, built by Bishop de Lucy
about 1204. These have no striking feature, excepting that they are
pure “Early English,” and even show suggestions of tracery.
4th. The Galilee porch at Ely, built by Bishop Eustacious, who held
the see from about 1195 to 1214, and which is one of the most
magnificent specimens of the fully-developed style in the
country.[32] It has the _crochet_ capital gorgeously enriched, not
with French, but English conventional foliage; while the arch
mouldings are filled with the most exquisite foliage of pure Early
English character.[33]
Thus we see that though the French preceded us in the commencement of
their transition, our own was, with very trifling exceptions, equally
national with theirs, and that it was not only completed as soon, but
that it was carried through to a style more distinctive, and fully as
national as the glorious Early Pointed of France.
On this subject I will only add one remark: Early as were the first
French developments compared with ours; long as was the interval of
stagnation between St. Denis and St. Germain des Pres; many as were the
steps between the stages of the transition in both countries, and many
more before we had developed out of it that Pointed style we know as the
“Early English,” with its lancet windows and round abaci; the whole was,
nevertheless, carried through within the period of _one lifetime_. Not
only were the transitions of France and England carried on to perfection
under contemporary monarchs, but that queen who was present at the
consecration of Suger’s precocious monument, who caused that subsequent
stagnation by her frivolity, and who perhaps witnessed the completion of
St. Cross during her long captivity at Winchester, actually lived there
long enough to have seen the fully-developed Early English of De Lucy’s
chapels in the neighbouring cathedral.
The length to which my remarks on the French and English transition have
been necessarily extended has compelled me to limit what I hoped to have
said on that of Germany to a very few observations.
I have already mentioned the extraordinary tardiness of the Germans in
relinquishing their much-loved Romanesque. I am not prepared, as in the
case of French and English buildings, to trace out the first appearance
of the pointed arch, and I have no doubt that there are numerous
instances of its use at an earlier date; but there is nothing like a
transition into the pointed-arch _style_ till the commencement of the
thirteenth century--after it had been completed both in England and
France. Nevertheless, the German transition is as distinctly national
and as evident an offspring of their own Romanesque as that of France or
England; indeed, it is so peculiar as to appear, at first sight, to have
little in connection with the architecture of either of those
countries, and is usually spoken of as being only a slight variety upon
German Romanesque. Let any one look at a few of its leading
productions--as St. Martin, St. Gereon, and a few others at Cologne; the
churches at Neuss near Dusseldorf, Limburg on the Lahn, Zinzig, or
Gelnhaussen; the western façades at Andernach, Xanten, St. Sibald at
Nuremberg, and at Halberstadt, the east end of Magdeburg, or at the
representations of the cloisters (now destroyed) of St. Gereon, or
Altenberg, or at any of the multitudinous list of German churches of the
first quarter of the thirteenth century--and he will at once see that
they present as natural and logical a transition from their own national
Romanesque as the works of Suger do from that of the royal domain of
France. The use of the _crochet_ capitals in some of the later examples
is the solitary instance of any direct imitation of the already
perfected transition in the neighbouring countries.
The great misfortune of the German transition was that it occurred so
late that, before they could perfect it, the French had passed into the
second stage of their developed Pointed, and had worked out the great
problem of window tracery. The consequence was that German patience at
length gave way;--they relinquished their transition just as they were
perfecting a Pointed style of their own, and, throwing themselves almost
wholly into the hands of the French, passed at one step from their own
curious and characteristic art into the fully-developed style of Amiens
and Beauvais.
Mr. Fergusson laments this as having prevented the development of a
perfect _round-arched_ style; but it must be recollected that the
round-arched style of Germany had been almost entirely relinquished
previously to the succumbing of their national architecture before the
dominant star of France: the loss, then, we have to lament is not that
it prevented a more perfect round-arched development, but that it
suspended, when on the eve of being perfected, the formation of a really
national German variety of the _pointed-arched_ style; and though they
did much to remedy this, it unquestionably rendered their architecture
for the next century in some degree a German version of French style.
I have, however, dwelt so long upon the mere history of the transition
that I have had no time to extract any useful practical lessons from the
changes in art we have been tracing out. What, then, are the leading
lessons they suggest?
1st, They show us how absolute must have been the necessity in
generating a perfect arcuated style, to cast away the slavery--I will
not say of the round arch, for it is one of the most genuine and useful
forms--but of the adherence to one unchanging form in the arch,
admitting of no variation in its proportion of height to span, nor any
change of form suited to its statical duties, or its geometrical or
æsthetical position.
2d, They suggest encouragement in the task of working out a style suited
to the exigencies of our day, by showing how vast are the results to be
anticipated when not only the artists, but when the rulers, the nobles,
the ecclesiastics of a country thoroughly set themselves to the task
with one heart and one mind, and work on together with all their zeal,
energy, and perseverance, till they have insured the great object of
their designs. Would that we could see some equivalent effort in our own
country and in our own day!
In the age we have been treating of, the previous architecture, though
in a great degree original, retained elements derived from the
degenerated Roman, and others belonging to the ages of darkness and
barbarism which succeeded; but, by the effort we have been chronicling,
both these elements were thrown off, and the style came forth like gold
tried in the fire--pure and refined.
3d, We may learn a lesson of _patience_ from what we have reviewed.
Those of us who have been endeavouring to generate a style on the basis
of the architecture of our own family of nations, have been often
taunted with the slowness of our progress. Now, it is scarcely twenty
years since we set earnestly about the task; and, rapid as the
transition in the twelfth century appears, we have seen an interval of
twenty years in its history in which we can trace no progress at all;
which, with all our deficiencies, can hardly be said of us during a
corresponding period. Let us, then, take courage, and press forward in
spite of temporary discouragement, and in the end a like success may
crown our labours.
4th, It has often been spoken of as a vice to be too fond of studying
_transitional_ styles. This may possibly be true as regards taking them
as our models; but I hold the very contrary to be the case as to
selecting them as special objects of study. They are the very periods of
intellectual energy--the moments of the most intense effort of the human
mind. From them we learn what zeal, what determination, what strength
of will, what unity of purpose, what patient perseverance are required
in working out a great good. The result of the mighty struggle was that,
freed from every barbaric or lifeless element, our architects commenced
the next century with their course clearly open before them, everything
in their power, and no hindrance to the attainment of their object.
Would that we could say this of ourselves, whatever may be our views as
to _style_!
5th, Then, again, in the style itself of the buildings we have been
considering there is much for us to learn. They possess a masculine
grandeur, a noble sturdiness of character, an independence of ornament
united with a grateful acceptance of its aid, which would supply a
wholesome element to any style. A perfected style is often defective in
these characteristics. It is toned down to too perfect a symmetry--a too
nicely weighed balance of parts: the whole may suggest nothing but
harmony, yet the parts are too much lost in the whole; there is too much
of the satiety of attainment, and not enough of the excitement of the
effort after perfection. The first developments of Pointed architecture
produce an excitement on the mind which more perfected examples do not
give rise to, and it seems to me that they contain elements which we
should not do amiss to instil into our works, as I may have occasion to
suggest more practically, if I should continue my course of lectures in
this place.
6th, There is something to be learned from the curious history I have
traced out of the re-introduction of one classic element--the Corinthian
capital--at the moment when all other relics of the architecture of the
old world were about to be thrown off. It is a kind of parallel to the
revival of classic literature at the same period, on which M. Viollet le
Duc remarks:--“It is precisely at the moment when the researches into
antique letters, sciences, philosophy, and legislation were pursued with
ardour--during the twelfth century--that architecture abandoned the last
remnants of antique tradition, to found a new art whose principles are
in manifest opposition to those of the arts of antiquity.” “Are we,
then,” he proceeds, “to conclude from this that the men of the twelfth
century were not consistent with themselves? Quite the contrary; but
that which distinguishes the Renaissance of the twelfth from that of the
sixteenth century, is this--that the former penetrates into the antique
_spirit_, while the latter allows itself to be seduced by the _form_.”
The Corinthian capital stood alone among the details of ancient
architecture, as being founded on principles of beauty common to all
_ages_. It was foreshadowed in the works of their earliest predecessors,
the Egyptians, and had suggested the forms for the capitals used in all
succeeding styles, whether by the Byzantines, the Sassanians, the
Saracens, or the Gothic conquerors of Rome. It was, then, consistent
that, while about to purge their arts of mere dead rudimental relics of
ancient art, this one feature should be revived as a nucleus for
development. The same may be said of the pointed arch, if the theory be
true of its Saracenic suggestion. It had been invented in very early
times, perhaps earlier than even the round arch, though its uses were
not then appreciated. The Romanesque builders had adopted many dead
forms of ornament from Saracenic and Persian manufactures, and the
introduction of this one really living feature at the moment when the
exigencies of the style demanded it (whether the idea occurred to them
spontaneously or by suggestion) was the signal for throwing off, as
effete and useless, all the Orientalisms which they already had in use.
From this we may learn not to shrink from adopting into our developments
external suggestions from whatever source, provided only that they
approve themselves to our eye and our intellect as legitimate sources of
beauty, or aids to construction, and as capable of being harmonised with
the style we are working out. Let us throw them boldly into the
fining-pot, and if we are skilful manipulators, the gold will remain and
the dross be thrown off.
Another thing we may learn is, that the mere precedence of one nation in
the working out of a style does not deprive the developments of
neighbouring countries of the claims of nationality. The English
transition began a little later than the French, and it is, as we have
seen, distinctly marked in its character and its results, so that no one
can ever mistake an English building for a French one.
The German transition came on after the English and French were
perfected, yet is (if anything) even more national than our own; while
the Italian Gothic, though an absolute importation, and often defective
in detail, has more strongly-marked national characteristics than any
other.[34]
When, however, we use the term “national,” we do not usually refer to
these local varieties, but rather wish to express the general fact that,
in our own country and amidst the family of European nations, those
styles which were generated during the rise of our own civilisation are
more national than the revived architecture of the ancient world. Each
country has its own local variety; but the whole is one style, and that
style is our own. While reviving this style, then, though we make in
each country our own phase of it our groundwork, we must not permit
either the narrow prejudices of friends, or the taunts of critics, to
lead us into the folly of rejecting any of the really noble and valuable
elements of our style, in whatever country they may have been generated.
I will close my too protracted lecture with a quotation from that
admirable writer and accomplished architect I have so often referred to.
He thus describes the leading practical principles of the architecture
to which the transition we have been tracing out was the pioneer:--
“From the commencement of the thirteenth century architecture developed
itself after a method completely new, in which all the parts deduced
themselves--the one from the other--with an imperious rigour. Now, it is
by the change of method that revolutions in sciences and arts commence.
The construction commands the form; the piers destined to bear several
arches divide themselves into as many columns as there are arches;
these columns are of a diameter more or less substantial, according to
the load which will rest upon them, rising side by side with them to the
vaults which they have to sustain, their capitals assuming an importance
proportioned to this charge. The arches are slight or thick, composed of
one or more ranges of voussoirs, as dictated by their function. The
walls, becoming unnecessary, in great structures disappear completely,
and are replaced by window-openings decorated with stained glass. Every
necessity becomes a motive of decoration. The roofs, the leading off of
the water, the introduction of light, the means of access and
circulation to the different stages of the building--even less important
matters, such as iron-work, lead-work, ties, props, the means of warming
and ventilation, not only are not concealed, as is so often done in our
buildings since the sixteenth century, but are, on the contrary, frankly
acknowledged, and contribute, by their ingenious combination and the
taste which ever presides over their execution, to the enrichment of the
architecture.[35] In a beautiful edifice of the commencement of the
thirteenth century, splendid as we may think it, there is not an
ornament to be spared, for each ornament is but the consequence of
requirement satisfied.”
LECTURE IV.
The Thirteenth Century.
Mediæval architecture usually classified under heads of
centuries--Actual points of change do not coincide with these
divisions--Auspices for the development of the Early Pointed
style--Great works in England and France--Artistic disturbance in
Germany--Progress in Italy--Energy pervades every branch of
art--Perfected Early Pointed a natural growth from
Romanesque--Leading characteristics--Columns--Bases of
Columns--Capitals--Plan of the abacus--Circular plan--Whence this
arose--Moulded capitals--Windows--Bases of buildings--Cornices and
foliated bands--Doorways--French and English compared.
In the two lectures I delivered during the last session, my object was
to trace out the development of Pointed architecture from the Romanesque
nucleus of the preceding age; to show how far this was the result of
constructional necessities and the natural progression of art, and how
far it was aided and furthered by external influences; and to illustrate
the unity and grandeur of the artistic movement which, in so short a
time, generated an art at once so original and so truly noble. My object
on the present occasion will be to give a general sketch of that art
when it had arrived at its culminating point, or rather during that
wonderful century through which it reigned triumphant, rejoicing in the
full attainment of the object of its strivings, and, proceeding from
strength to strength and from beauty to beauty, filled the countries of
Western Europe with creations at once new to art, and in many respects
nobler than anything the world had previously seen.
Though it is convenient to classify our Mediæval architecture under
heads of centuries, its points of change do not, in reality, coincide
with such a division. It would, perhaps, be nearer to the fact if we
classed the last quarter in each century with that which follows: thus,
in this country the Norman style would be supposed, roughly speaking, to
occupy the interval between 1075 and 1175; the Early Pointed style from
thence to 1275; the Middle or Decorated periods from 1275 to 1375; and
so on.
On this view of the case, a great deal of what I treated of in my last
lecture belongs artistically to the present one, and a portion of what I
am embracing under the head of the thirteenth century would better go
with the fourteenth. As, however, I should wish to be as comprehensive
as possible in defining the period of the unimpaired integrity of the
style, I gladly extend it to the very end of the century, and will not
quarrel with those who would dip a little into the succeeding one; for,
though I prefer the strength and boldness of the works of the earlier
part of the century, the style can hardly be regarded as complete if
deprived of the more delicate productions which characterise its close.
In my last lecture I showed how, both in France and England, the last
quarter of the twelfth century was occupied in bringing the earlier
phase of Pointed architecture from a state of mere transition to one of
full development and consistency, and how that the works of this period
of especial earnestness in onward striding are characterised by a
masculine vigour, scarcely equalled at any other stage.
We have now to view the Early Pointed style at the period of the full
attainment of its aims, and when its endeavours were rather to amplify
and to extend its means than to construct a style.
The thirteenth century commenced under the most favourable auspices for
the development of the newly-created architecture. In France, both the
secular and the ecclesiastical powers were in the highest state of
prosperity; and if in England such was not the case with the Crown, and
we were checked by a bad and mean-spirited King, it is clear that both
the Barons and the Church were in a state of high prosperity, for, from
the very opening of the century, we find works on the grandest scale to
have been everywhere undertaken. Whether in the castle, the palace, the
cathedral, the monastery, or the parish church, we find the
newly-developed style to have been put largely into practice, so that
scarcely a building of note fails to show the impress of the youthful
art. Every great church must have its share of it; thus, at Canterbury,
though they had just completed the eastern half in the style of the
transition, the cloisters were added in the perfected manner. At York,
again, the choir had been rebuilt in the last half of the preceding
century; but the perfected style must have its sway, so the Norman
transepts were rebuilt in it. At Lincoln the transformation of style had
commenced under St. Hugh before the close of the twelfth century, and
before 1280, but small vestiges of the Norman structure remained. At Ely
the century commenced with the building of the western porch, which was
followed up by the magnificent eastern arm of the cathedral. At St.
Alban’s the gigantic Norman church had not been completed much more
than half a century before its western façade was demolished and
recommenced in the new style, in which one-half of the nave partook; and
before the thirteenth century was finished the choir had also been
rebuilt. At Durham the Norman church received the magnificent addition
of the Chapel of the Nine Altars: at Fountains a similar addition was
made, with an entirely new choir and many noble appendages. Wells
Cathedral was almost rebuilt in the new style. Indeed, it is scarcely
possible to single out any great church which does not more or less
evince the influence of the great architectural movement which ushered
in the thirteenth century. Its most complete work is the cathedral at
Salisbury; and among its later creations we may enumerate the eastern
portion of Westminster Abbey, the whole of Tintern Abbey, and the
greater part of the once sumptuous church of St. Mary’s Abbey, at York;
while its last decade produced some of the most exquisite gems of art,
such as the tombs of Crouchback, of De Luda, and of Archbishop Peckham;
the chapel of Ely Place, Holborn, and the Eleanor Crosses; so that,
taken as a whole, the century can claim most of the noblest, as well as
of the most elegant, productions of English art.
In France its pre-eminence is, if possible, yet more manifest. The
century opened there under the fully established power of Philip
Augustus, the most powerful monarch who had ruled France since the days
of Charlemagne. In the days of his predecessor the English King had
governed more French provinces than the King of France himself; but now
the English
[Illustration: Fig. 87.--Chapel of Nine Altars, Durham.]
were almost entirely expelled, and this mighty monarch reigned without a
rival. In his days commenced an almost general rebuilding (wholly or in
part) of the cathedrals, excepting such as were of very recent date. The
west façade of Nôtre Dame at Paris, the greater part of Rouen, of
Rheims, of Amiens, of Coutance, of Bourges, the eastern half of Le Mans,
and a list far too long to be enumerated, owe their grandeur to his
reign, or those immediately following.
Towards the middle of the century the same work progressed gloriously
under the auspices of St. Louis, and though slackened from actual
satiety towards the close of the century, it was not really checked till
the commencement of the English war.
As in England, the works thus produced evince masculine grandeur of the
highest order at the commencement, and the most delicate beauty at the
close of the century, while during its middle portion the two are united
in the works of St. Louis. In Germany the works of this century evince
great artistic disturbance. The change from the round to the
pointed-arch style had been there resisted, while both in France and
England it had been worked out to maturity. At the opening of the
century, German architecture consisted of a highly-refined variety of
Romanesque, with the partial use of the pointed arch, chiefly where
suggested by constructional necessities. This, during the first quarter
or more of the century, developed itself into an Early Pointed style,
strictly German, and holding out promises of great force and
originality--promises which were frustrated by the sudden inroad of
French Gothic about 1250, after which, though Germany took a course
still very much her own, it was one in a great degree severed from her
noble early tradition, and emanating from the French graft rather than
from the original stem.
Italy received her Pointed architecture from France and Germany, and
mingled it freely with her Classico-Lombardic traditions. The union
produced many noble and many incongruous developments. The lessons they
offer must be used with caution; but Italy being the land of ancient
art, the land of sculpture, of painting, of rich marbles, of mosaic
work, and of municipal and other civic edifices, the graft of Northern
art upon so prolific a stock has, as may readily be imagined, produced
varieties which the circumstances of Northern nations would have
rendered impracticable in its native lands; and the suggestions they
offer, if judiciously used, are well calculated to add copiousness to
the style in the hands of its modern revivers. Of this I may have
occasion to say more hereafter.
The thirteenth century was to Mediæval art what the Periclean and
Augustan ages were to the Greek and Roman; and in each case, though war
and bloodshed are in themselves hostile to art, there can be no doubt
that the excitement of the human mind, resulting from great national
struggles, has tended to produce that advance in art which followed, in
one case, the glorious assertion of national independence; in another,
the conquest of the world; and in a third, the romantic and unselfish
efforts of the Crusaders.
It was a period of deep-seated mental excitement, of a prodigious
upstirring of the human intellect. Our learned men at the present day
may smile at the quaint and imperfect erudition of these early periods
of our civilisation, but they should remember that they were our days of
_youth_, of _warmth_, and of rising vigour, while the more perfected
literature of our own age may possibly be found to superadd to its
maturity a few symptoms of old age.
This youthful energy pervaded every branch of art; everything seemed to
experience a new, a generous, and vigorous impulse. All Europe became
filled with the productions of the newly generated art; every city
became a repertory of noble and sublime architecture, and every town and
village became possessed of productions equally beautiful, if more
modest in their pretensions; while the intervening country was studded
over with castles and monastic establishments, in which the same
majestic art displayed itself in ever-varying forms, each suited to meet
their different requirements.
Nothing is more difficult than to describe a perfected art. My last two
lectures traced out the gradual construction of Pointed architecture,
and its transition from the preceding style. This was comparatively
easy; but to describe it when it had attained perfection is far less so.
The fact is that there is neither in France nor in England any very
marked difference between the styles during the later period of its
transition, and when perfected beyond that unity and consistency of
parts which indicate maturity. In France, particularly, this is the
case; for neither had the style there continued long to evince its
transitional state by the retention of strictly Romanesque
features--unless the square abacus can be so designated--nor did it,
when perfected, throw off, as in England, that one detail which to our
eye seems a relic of transition. The later transition and the earlier
perfected specimens seem in France to be the same art, a little more
developed and more homogeneous, rather than to have many describable
points of difference. In England the change of the abacus from the
square to the round form makes the distinction more marked, so that
English examples at the opening of the thirteenth century always appear
later and more advanced than contemporary French ones. I instanced in my
last lecture four early examples of perfected Early English: the eastern
transept of Lincoln, completed about 1200; the eastern chapels at
Winchester, about 1204; the western portals at St. Alban’s, finished
about 1205; and the western porch or Galilee at Ely, finished about
1214. None of them show any remains of transitional character, and all
having the English round capital in full development, appear to the
English eye more advanced than such works as the western portals of
Nôtre Dame at Paris, which are, if anything, somewhat later in date. In
this country, in fact, the form of the abacus is the distinguishing
feature between the transition to the perfected style, while in France
there is no such distinction to be found. The difference is more one of
feeling, which the practical eye perceives at once without being able to
define.
Though I speak of the Early Pointed as a newly-generated art--as it in
effect was--it must never be forgotten that it is a distinct and natural
growth from the pre-existing Romanesque. The more I study old examples
the more obvious does this appear. Take either France or England alone,
and you may from either construct, _ad libitum_, unbroken _catenæ_ of
examples, showing step by step the natural and logical growth of the new
style out of the old; and that without any essential imported element
(for the Byzantine capital, which was the parent of the Gothic one, was
an accidental, though a happy, importation).
This progressive growth was but the practical realisation of three great
aims towards which the Romanesque architects were ever striving--the
perfecting of their arcuated and vaulted construction, the increase of
the altitude of their proportions, and the general adding of refinement
and elegance to their details. Thus, if you take the internal bay of a
Norman cathedral, and simply set yourself the task of increasing its
height in a given proportion, the result will be a Gothic bay, for the
arches cannot participate in the increased elevation without becoming
pointed. If the details are further refined, it becomes an ordinary
transitional design; and if the process is carried on a little farther,
it becomes a perfected Early Pointed work--the distinction between
transition and perfected Early Pointed being merely the carrying on of
the process by which the former was generated out of Romanesque. This
fact, which all who look closely into it must see, was what led a
talented writer to say that Early Pointed was only Romanesque improved.
He meant this as an argument against it as compared with the still
succeeding styles; but I confess, for my own part, while feeling
strongly the truth of the observation, and highly appreciating the
importance of some of the subsequent developments, I do not the less
admire the glorious productions of the Early style from seeing in them
the evidences of the vigorous stock from which they have sprung.[36]
It will be seen, by enumerating the leading characteristics of Pointed
architecture, that the great majority of them were already perfected,
or, at least, brought to that reasonable and consistent state of
development which stops short of excess and exaggeration, at the
commencement of the thirteenth century.
The pointed arch had obtained universal predominance, though without
involving the rejection of the semicircular or the plain segment, where
circumstances called for them; the general predominance of the vertical
line was acknowledged, without running into the excess of underrating
the horizontal; lofty and aspiring proportions prevailed, though not to
the extent of exaggeration, and without unreasonably asserting their
claims in works of a humbler class; the subdivision of arches into
orders, and the clustering of the pillars, so as to satisfy the eye that
each member of the arch was severally supported, had arisen during the
Romanesque period, and was now carried out still more systematically and
with greater elegance; and the system of making the bases and capitals
face in the direction of the insisting arch-rib, which had also arisen
early, was (in France at least) very generally adhered to. The
distinction between constructional and decorative pillars--one of the
great characteristics of the Gothic style, both Round and Pointed--was
carried to its fullest extent; the vaulting system was perfected,
though retaining its normal simplicity; and the corresponding system of
buttress (solid or arched) and pinnacle, which are the necessary
accompaniments of a perfect arcuated style, had been brought to
perfection; the continuity of line was acknowledged sufficiently to
suggest a feeling of natural growth of the parts one from another, from
the bases of the shafts to the bosses of the vaulting, but without that
sacrifice of force and of all salient points which became the vice of
later styles.
The principle of rendering the useful features ornamental was fully
developed; as an instance of it--the doorways, the only parts of the
exterior which _must_ of necessity be seen from close at hand, were
rendered magnificent beyond all former precedent, and became the
vehicles of noble sculpture, and the great exponents of the objects of
the building, whether religious or secular. The windows now became great
characteristic objects, not only from their richly painted glass within,
but as leading architectural features, both within and without. The bell
towers became glorious structures, rendering the cities conspicuous
throughout the whole surrounding district, and making every village a
distinct and beautiful point in the landscape. The same principle
obtained in all secular structures. The castles of the nobility became
truly noble structures, glorious for the stern grandeur of their
external aspect, and for the massive beauty of their internal
architecture; the gates and defences of cities partook of the same
severe grandeur; while the street fronts, the town halls, and other
civic buildings, displayed architectural characteristics, modest or
grand, as suited their several purposes. In Italy, where municipal
institutions were more developed, noble street palaces were erected; and
everywhere the architecture, whether viewed in the mass or in its
details, was suited, as by an unerring instinct, to the objects on which
it was exercised.
The decorative system of the architecture had also been brought to great
perfection. The mouldings were refined without losing boldness or
strength--in fact, were strong or delicate, as suited their position;
the foliated carving had arrived at very high perfection, and was of a
kind perfectly new--the magnificent creation of the artistic mind;
sculpture was often profusely used in connection with architecture, and
if not of that perfectly studied symmetry which satisfies the academic
critic, it evinces a boldness of conception, a quickness of invention,
and an unaffected grandeur of sentiment, which our modern sculptors
would do well to emulate, while it is eminently suited, by its rigid
lines and severe force, to architectural purposes.
It would be absurd to attempt, in a single lecture, to give any detailed
description of the architecture of this great period; nor is it
necessary, as no style is so familiar to those whose attention has been
at all turned to such subjects; I will, however, take a few of its
leading points, and call attention to some of their characteristics.
I will begin with the _Column_. In no feature is the difference between
Classic and Gothic architecture so strongly marked as in the column. In
the former, one general idea alone prevailed--the round shaft with a
capital, and with or without a base. In the latter this normal type is
equally admissible and equally honoured, but, in addition to it, an
almost endless list of forms are introduced. In the first place the
round column is converted at pleasure into the octagonal or other
polygonal form--this is a mere variety of the normal type; then either
the round or the polygon is flanked by four smaller shafts, attached or
detached, and these subsidiary shafts may be increased in number,
subordinated one to another, both in size and salience, and may be all
attached, all detached, or the attached and detached shafts may be used
alternately or in any other order in the same pillar.
Then, again, instead of the cylindrical pillar, we may have four
cylinders united in one, and these may in their turn be made the nucleus
round which detached or attached shafts may be grouped: or we may have
two or more separate cylindrical main shafts carrying the load, and may
group subordinate ones round them; and again, we may take other forms of
nucleus--as the square, the canted square, or a pier with receding
orders--and place our shafts round them; and, finally, we may form
groups in which no specific form of nucleus is to be traced, but which
consist of shafts arranged with reference to the superincumbent arch
alone.
The number of changes which may be rung on these varieties of pillar are
absolutely endless, though it is not desirable to indulge too much in
the more intricate forms of grouping, but, as a general rule, to keep to
forms which are naturally suggested by the duties the pillar is
designed to perform. When detached subsidiary shafts are used, it is
somewhat unnatural to joint them in their length without introducing
some visible means of tying them to the main pillar within. This
necessity gave rise to the use of the moulded band, which forms so
beautiful a feature in the pillars of this period. It is sometimes made
of brass, but more usually of stone or marble.
The bases of columns throughout the Romanesque period were most usually
founded on some traditional variety of the Attic base. The resemblance
is often obscure, but in many cases very close.
[Illustration: Fig. 88.]
[Illustration: Fig. 89.--St. Stephen’s, Caen.]
Towards the end of the Romanesque period very great attention began to
be paid to the sections of base mouldings, and in transitional works
they are often more beautiful than at any other period. The difference
between these bases and the ordinary Attic base is of the same kind
which distinguishes Greek from Roman moulding. It is an extreme delicacy
of curve, the substitution of elliptical sections for circular, and a
wonderfully studious grouping of the hollows, rounds, and arrises, so as
to produce a refined and delicate contrast and gradation of light and
shade, without destroying the strength necessary to the main supporting
feature. In this they showed a high appreciation of what is in all
architecture a difficult problem--the uniting the conflicting claims of
the lower part of a building, as on the one hand demanding the greatest
strength of character as supporting the whole structure, and on the
other a delicate finish, as the part open to the closest inspection.
The bases have usually one more part than a Classic base, having in most
cases a projecting sub-plinth, either chamfered or moulded. In earlier
instances the plinth and sub-plinth are both square in plan; and here,
again, we obtain a feature of great beauty which antique architecture
did not possess. I mean the beautiful leaves or bosses of foliage which
spring out of the lower torus to cover the projecting angles of the
plinth.
[Illustration: Fig. 90.--Veselay.]
[Illustration: Fig. 91.--Westminster.]
This projection is often reduced by making the torus overhang the square
plinth in the centre of its sides, and a little projecting corbel is
often put to carry this overhanging, as well as the leaf to cover the
angles of the plinth.
At a later period the square plinth gave way to the octagonal, and in
England and Normandy often to the round form.
In early work the bases often faced about diagonally as the caps, to
indicate the direction of the arch-ribs to be supported.[37]
In France the elliptical section of the lower torus continued much
longer than in England, and the upper torus was often converted into a
kind of ogee, and both in France and England the scotia was usually very
narrow and deep--so much so, indeed, as to hold water. In England
another kind of base is frequent, in which a bead is substituted for the
scotia.
[Illustration: Figs. 92, 93. Westminster Abbey.]
In some rich work the plinth is clothed with foliage.
I have said a good deal of the history of the capitals of the Early
Pointed period in my last lecture. I particularly showed that about the
period of the transition a great change took place in France in the form
of the capitals, in which the old Romanesque form was almost universally
abandoned in favour of one of a distinctly Byzantine origin, which I
suggested came, in all probability, by way of Venice, at the time of the
erection of the Byzantine churches in Aquitaine; and that though the
domical construction of churches then brought into France does not
appear to have extended northward of the Loire, the Byzantine capital of
the Corinthianesque type was adopted quite into the north of France, and
became the parent of the exquisite capitals and foliage which, in the
next generation, pervaded the architecture both of France and England,
and, a little later, of Germany.
I also showed that the peculiar stalk or crocket, which became so
constant a feature in early Gothic capitals, took its origin from a
plain unraffled leaf frequent in the Byzantine capitals,[38] which in
their turn may have been suggested by unfinished leaves, which are of
very common occurrence in capitals of that period.
During the first half of the thirteenth century these crocket capitals
were brought to very high perfection, the stalk or crocket either
appearing in its most normal form, or being more or less clothed and
concealed by foliage. In the latter case it forms a strong background to
the leaves, giving them the apparent stiffness and strength necessary to
their position. These usually turn over in a bunch of foliage, which is
distinct from the leaves which clothe them, so that there is no
inconsistency, but the reverse, in the clothing foliage being natural,
while the terminal bunch which completes the crocket is
conventional.[39] Towards the middle of the century the natural and
conventional foliage were very much used together, the former being
often a light playful overlaying of stronger leading forms; but
afterwards, in French work, and still later in English, natural foliage
became the rule and conventional the exception.
[Illustration: Fig. 94.--Rollestone, Notts.]
[Illustration: Fig. 95.--Chartres.]
[Illustration: Fig. 96.--Southwell Minster.]
The capitals which prevailed during this century form the most
magnificent series which any style of architecture can boast. Whether
the foliage is natural, conventional, or both united, the artistic power
evinced is truly delightful; and when it is recollected that no two
capitals are ever found exactly alike, the fertility of invention they
display is perfectly wonderful.
It would be hopeless in such a lecture as this to attempt to go
through, even in the most cursory manner, the endless varieties of
capitals--from the stupendous masses of noble foliage which crown the
apsidal columns at Rheims, whose single shafts are nearly six feet in
diameter, to those of the delicate colonettes which decorate the
mullions of windows. This one feature alone would form an ample subject
for an entire lecture, or almost for a series of lectures. I will
confine my present remarks to the great characteristic differences which
distinguish French from English capitals during the thirteenth century.
This great distinction lies in the plan of the abacus; for while in
France the square form of the preceding style continued, the English
architects very soon substituted the circular plan.
It is a curious question how and when this arose. In both countries the
round abacus was, in some instances, used from an early period; but this
was chiefly on great cylindrical columns, with low capitals, such as
those in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral, though even in France the
round form occasionally occurs to subordinate shafts, as at St. Omer;
but, as a general rule, both countries used the square or the angular
form till late in the transition, when the English commenced the free
adoption of the round, first alongside of the other, and afterwards to
its almost entire exclusion.
So early as the erection of the crypt under the Trinity Chapel at
Canterbury, by William the Englishman, about 1180, we find the round
moulded capital; and in the altar recesses in the eastern transept we
find the round abacus on foliated capitals; though, I confess, I doubt
its belonging, in this last-mentioned instance, to the original work.
Much difference of opinion now exists as to the comparative merits of
these two forms. By some the square abacus is assumed to be the great
symbol of force and vigour; while by others it is said to be
inconsistent with the true principles of Gothic architecture. Perhaps
the question might be solved by deciding that both are beautiful, both
vigorous, and both consistent with Gothic architecture, and, therefore,
that both should be admitted on equal terms as portions of our general
_matériel_.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.--St. Quentin, Aisne.]
The advantages of the angular abacus are, that it allows of the capitals
indicating the direction of the arch-ribs, and assuming irregular forms
suggested by them (Fig. 97), which the round form _forbids_; that it
allows of the use of _square_ orders, and, consequently, of simpler and
more effective arch mouldings than can be placed in the round abacus, on
which the mouldings have to be somewhat crushed in their section, and
their parts multiplied, to bring them nicely on to the round support;
and that the angles indicate the direction towards which the main stalks
of the foliage should tend. There can be no doubt, on the whole, that it
produces the most vigorous effect; and I must plead guilty to an
un-English preference for it, though I also greatly admire its
competitor, whose advantages are the beautiful form which the round
moulding takes as seen in perspective from below, and its less
disturbance of the continuity of line.
[Illustration: Fig. 98.--Capitals from Crypt under Trinity Chapel,
Canterbury.]
[Illustration: Fig. 99.--Capital. Salisbury.]
[Illustration: Fig. 100. Sections of moulded Capitals, St. Albans.]
Another great characteristic of English architecture is the moulded
(unfoliated) capital. This is almost wanting in French architecture; and
I strongly contend that the invention of this capital, which we may
almost claim for our own country, is one of extreme value, and supplies
what would be otherwise a great _hiatus_ in the style. Among its earlier
instances is that I have already mentioned in the crypt at Canterbury
(Fig. 98). It is there in rather a plain and normal form, nearly
resembling a capital denuded of its foliage, but with the space below
the abacus and the bell somewhat increased, for the sake of strength.
The fully-developed moulded capital differs from this in having a
considerable overhanging moulding, which is the substitute for, and the
representative of, the foliage of the richer capital (Figs. 99, 100).
Though this overhanging moulding is uniform in type, the varieties it
assumes in detail are endless, and the groups of mouldings in these
capitals are among the most beautiful in the whole range of Gothic
architecture; and the addition of this beautiful feature to our rich
treasury of forms of capital is of infinite value.
[Illustration: Figs. 101, 102.--Capitals, Westminster Abbey.]
The abacus of the moulded capitals is not necessarily round. There are
many instances of its being square, and still more of its being
octagonal--a form which is continued through the later periods of
English architecture.
I ought to have mentioned that in its normal condition the abacus is in
a separate stone from the rest of the capital, though convenience
frequently suggests its being in one.
When marble shafts, however, are used, it is far better that the same
material be used also for the abacus.
Next in importance to the column as a characteristic of the style, we
must place the _Window_. Indeed, it has generally been made to take the
precedence of it, and is no doubt that by which the date of a building
is most readily ascertained and its style defined.
The Romanesque windows were simply openings with round heads, the jambs
and arches being either perfectly plain, moulded, with or without
enrichment, or the jambs shafted. These windows were most usually
isolated, but were here and there grouped into couplets, triplets, etc.,
or made to form portions of continuous arcading.
In the early days of the transition the windows remained unaltered,
otherwise than as to the general refinement of their details. Later on
the arches were made pointed, and their proportions somewhat elongated;
and even in the fully-developed Early Pointed style--properly so
called--the window differs little in principle from that of the
Romanesque period, though, in fact, it assumes a widely different form,
through its carrying towards their ultimate results the principles of
grouping begun during the previous style, and those of refinement and
elongation incident to the transition.
It is in carrying out these principles to a still greater extent that
the Early Pointed of England differs from that of France. It is really
the same style, and no important feature can be pointed out in the one
country which is not to be found in the other; but just as the Germans,
by dwelling longer on the Romanesque style, rendered it more refined and
perfect than elsewhere, so the English, by the continued retention of
the unmullioned window, systematised its use in a manner not equalled in
other countries. I see no difference of principle in the fenestration of
the Early French and the Early English Pointed styles: in both the
principle was the decoration and combination of single lights. Nor do I
see that in England this was done in a manner essentially differing in
any respect from what was common in France. The great difference was the
far greater width of the French openings, which often rendered their
windows inelegant in proportion, while it offered a noble field for
stained glass. The characteristic of the English windows, on the other
hand, was narrow and tall proportions, and a greater amount of
enrichment of the jambs and arches, though none of these are, by any
means, constant features. Sometimes we find in English works lightness
carried to a vicious extreme, as in the beautiful but frail eastern
transept at Worcester; though in a majority of instances it retains a
masculine firmness and solidity, as in the east end of Whitby.
Time would fail me to illustrate the magnificent combinations of this
early class of window to be found in cathedrals and monastic
churches--as the east end of Ely, the west at Llandaff, or the north
transept at York; nor would it be possible to enumerate the simple and
impressive village churches to which, in their humbler forms, though
with equal artistic merit, they lend such a charm. The style is too well
known in England to need minute description, and its merits too fully
acknowledged to need enforcement from me.
I will rather proceed to consider that great invention which may be
considered to complete the series of developments which constituted
Pointed architecture: I mean the mullioned and traceried window; not
that I consider it as in all points better than its predecessor, nor
that in our own revival it should supersede it; but that, as a matter of
fact, Gothic architecture would have been imperfect without it. Like
almost every other feature of Pointed architecture, the traceried window
grew out of the Romanesque.
In all periods of Romanesque we find occasionally two or more arched
openings comprised under one enclosing arch. The arrangement is more
frequent in belfry windows and triforium openings than elsewhere, but
occurs in ordinary windows, especially in secular buildings. The space
intervening between the large arch and the two or more placed below it
was, even as early as this, occasionally pierced with circles or other
forms of opening. Here, then, we have the elements of the mullioned
window before even the introduction of the pointed arch. In the same
situations it gradually developed itself, step by step, during the Early
Pointed period, so that we have in triforium arcades and in other
positions a pretty full development of what is called _plate_ tracery
before its use became frequent for ordinary windows. The case was pretty
much the same both in France and England, though on the whole the love
of placing two openings under one arch was greater in France; thus, we
see in the aisles at Chartres two plain lights under one arch with a
circular opening, and above, in the clerestory, a very large circle in
the head with somewhat complex subordinate piercings. The same is the
case at Bourges, where three lights are often comprised under one arch,
with a single circle in the head.
The next great element which aided in producing tracery windows was the
wheel, or other richly-pierced circular window. This, again, originated
under the Romanesque style, as we may see at Barfreston and elsewhere.
It is, in fact, a very close approach to tracery, and when placed in the
space between comprising and comprised arches, it almost completes the
change. All that is wanted is the piercing of the intervening spaces in
forms whose outlines are parallel to the main piercings, so as to form
what Professor Willis calls _bar_ tracery. This was, I fancy, commenced
in France--though there are very early traces of it in England--and was
done at first in a partial and clumsy manner, as in some windows at Le
Mans and Tours, but soon was systematised.
I do not see that in any of the previous steps the French were in
advance of the English architects, but in this last step I think they
were so, and this led them to a much earlier abandonment of the single
window and its combinations; so that for some time the French were using
tracery windows, while we were rendering more perfect the unmullioned
system--not from want of knowledge of the other, but rather from a
preference for a system in which we were producing more beautiful
combinations than our neighbours had attained.
It is not a very profitable question to inquire by how many years the
French may have been in advance of us in this development, and it is so
exceedingly difficult to get at positive dates of the erection of
buildings in either country, that it would be impossible if desired. The
fact, no doubt, is, that for many years the two kinds of window were
contemporaneous. Thus, traceried windows may have been in use at Rheims
and Amiens, while the older kind was being used at Bourges and
Chartres.
It is said that in England the fully-developed bar tracery was first
used in Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245; but this is
merely an assumption; and it is clear that it was used in the eastern
part of St. Paul’s, a part of which was consecrated in 1240. The east
window of Netley Abbey looks very early, but I do not know its real
date, but believe it is said to have been finished in 1249; while the
eastern windows at Lincoln look too thoroughly developed to be very
early specimens, though known to have been erected between 1256 and
1280. In any case the change had fully established itself in England
during the third quarter of the century.[40]
There can be no doubt that, whichever class of window we prefer, this
invention was of immense practical utility. It rendered possible what
was never attained before--the formation of windows of _any_ width which
might be wanted, without injury to the beauty of the building. This is,
in fact, the great use of the mullion, to enable you to use wider
windows than you could use without it--indeed, to render their width
unlimited; and the consequence of the invention was the introduction of
windows in some cases not less than 30 feet or more in width, and 60 or
70 in height, and that without appearing to make any unseemly gap in the
walling, which would otherwise have been the case with a window of
one-sixth of the size.
After the system was once introduced, it seems to me to have been often
more beautifully carried out in England than in France; indeed, I hardly
know in France windows of equal beauty with those at Lincoln, Tintern,
or St. Mary’s Abbey at York.
At a later period excess of tracery became the great vice of the style,
but while kept within bounds, it unquestionably was a great element to
its perfection; and though it must always be remembered that a building
of any amount of beauty and dignity can be designed without it, it would
be placing upon ourselves a very foolish restriction if, merely from an
individual preference for the earlier and sterner style, we were to
debar ourselves from the use of so convenient and reasonable an element.
[Illustration: Figs. 103, 104, 105, 106, 107.--Base moulds of
Buildings.]
One feature in which the English works of this period appear to me to be
peculiarly excellent is the base moulds; I do not mean of columns, but
of the building itself. I have never seen any in France to equal many of
our own in the quality of appearing eminently fitted to support the
whole structure, or in the artistic arrangement of their parts.
Against this we may balance on the other side the French cornices and
foliated bands, which are one of their most beautiful characteristics.
They usually consist of two courses--a hollow projecting moulding
containing the foliage, capped by a weather moulding--the equivalent
respectively of the bell and abacus of the capital; indeed, in many
cases forming the continuation of the capitals of window jambs across
the intervening piers. We have in many cases cornices equivalent to
these--as at York, Howden, and the nave of Lichfield; but they are, on
the whole, a much less English than French feature. The foliage they
contain is usually of great beauty, and eminently suited to its
position.
The great glory, however, of the French churches is their doorways; and
beautiful as are those of our own, they make no kind of pretension to
vie with those of our neighbours in magnificence. In this respect the
architects of the two nations seem to have gone on quite contrary
principles; for the French, even in buildings on a secondary scale,
introduced portals of prodigious size and extreme richness, while the
English, even in buildings on a grand scale, often made their doorways
very inconspicuous. Compare, for instance, the façades of Amiens and of
Wells: in one the portals are everything, so that you can recollect
little else; in the other they are nothing, and you can scarcely
recollect their existence; while, in the façade above, the English
example is the richer of the two; and the illustrative sculpture which
in the one case is expended on the portals, is in the other diffused
over the entire front. In England a magnificent portal is of rare
occurrence; in France one looks for it as a thing of course. Nothing
more glorious than the great French portals can be conceived: the lofty
and deeply-receding jambs are divided in their ample height into two
portions, the pedestal or basement of which is richly decorated either
with diaper-work or with sculptured medallions, or, as at Amiens, with
both; and the upper stage contains colossal figures of apostles or other
holy men of old, who appear to view with severe and solemn benignity the
entering crowd, and to express, by the gravity of their countenances,
the caution, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God.” In the
tympanum are sculptured scenes from Scripture history, the lives of
saints, our Lord surrounded by the evangelistic symbols, or perhaps the
awful scenes of the final Judgment; and the mouldings of the arch are
probably filled with angelic figures, as if the guardians of the
faithful worshippers; while this impressive array of imagery is placed
in a setting of the noblest and most perfect architecture, and that on a
scale well suited to the sublimity of the sentiments expressed.
The portals of Nôtre Dame at Paris, of Amiens, and of Chartres, may be
instanced as among the most striking examples; but all great churches of
the end of the twelfth and of the thirteenth century have the same truly
glorious approaches, well calculated to solemnise the minds of those
entering by them, and to prepare the way for the overwhelming dignity of
the interior.
The nearest approach which we have in England to this class of doorway
is the south entrance to the
[Illustration: Fig. 109.--Western Portals, south entrance, St. Alban’s
Cathedral.]
eastern part of Lincoln--a truly noble portal;[41] but on the whole,
though of a different class, the most dignified approach to any English
cathedral is the western porch of Ely.[42]
St. Alban’s has had three magnificent western entrances. The smaller
ones have been wonderful works of art, though now ruined.
[Illustration: Fig. 108.--St. Alban’s Cathedral. Ornament between
Shafts, Western Portals.]
The north porches of Salisbury and Wells are very noble; indeed, many of
our great churches have portals which we should deem magnificent, could
we forget those of France, and which we know to be eminently beautiful,
however they may be surpassed in magnificence.
In almost all other parts the English cathedrals of this age are often
richer than the French, as in the clustering of the columns, the
richness of the arch mouldings, the beauty of their wall arcading, the
importance and detail of the triforium, etc.; while, on the contra side,
they have to yield greatly to the French in altitude, and in many cases
in general scale, as well as in the amount of sculpture with which they
are enriched.
My object in drawing these comparisons is not a wish to lay any claim to
superiority for either, nor to shake the claims of our neighbours to
general precedence, as I view Paris to have been, in a certain sense,
the centre and metropolis of Mediæval art. It is rather to show that
these were the arts of a great _period_, not of a single _people_; that
all were labouring together in perfecting a great and glorious
development of art, each knowing well what others were doing, each
according to their means taking care to keep up to the standard already
attained, and to add to the public treasury developments of their own;
each making it his great endeavour to do his own work as well as it
could possibly be done according to the means at command, and each
people vying with its neighbours, not in the spirit of petty jealous
competitors for praise, but each striving, with a noble and glorious
emulation, to do the utmost in its power to further the great art which
all had contributed in generating.
Having given, in this and my two preceding lectures, a rough and very
imperfect sketch of the rise and perfecting of Gothic architecture, it
is not my intention any further to pursue the subject historically;
but--assuming the thirteenth century to be the great period of the
style--I should wish, in any future lectures I may give, to illustrate
and discuss its principles, and the many sections into which it divides
itself, whether geographical varieties or the leading features of the
buildings themselves. I may not be able to carry out this intention, but
in my next lecture, the last of the present session, I purpose--after
alluding to some of the most remarkable works of the period and with
some slight description of their characteristics, and after calling
attention to the all-pervading character of the art as it bore upon
secular and other buildings, upon the allied arts, and upon the
ordinary arts of common life--to found upon what we have had in review
before us some general suggestions as to the practical lessons we ought
to learn from what we have been considering, and the influence it ought
to have upon our own artistic practice.
LECTURE V.
The Thirteenth Century--_continued_.
St. Saviour’s, Southwark--Choir of Temple Church, London--Chapel at
Lambeth--Westminster Abbey--Its Italian mosaic work, monuments, and
ancient reredos--Chapel of St. Ethelreda, Holborn--St. Alban’s
Abbey--Priory Church, Dunstable--Stone Church near
Gravesend--Waltham Cross--Jesus Chapel, Cambridge--Ely and
Peterborough Cathedrals--Warmington Church--West Walton
Abbey--Crowland Abbey--St. Mary’s and All Saints, Stanford--Ketton,
Grantham, and Frampton Churches--Lincoln Cathedral--Southwell
Minster--Newstead Abbey--York Cathedral--St. Mary’s Abbey, and St.
Leonard’s Hospital, York--Skelton Church--Beverley and Ripon
Minsters--Fountains, Rivaulx, Whitby, Kirkham, and Guisborough
Abbeys--Chapel of the Nine Altars, Durham--Hexham and Dryburgh
Abbeys--Chapel of Holyrood--Elgin and Glasgow Cathedrals--Furness
Abbey--Southern examples--Most great churches in France vaulted,
not so in England--Universal excellence of workmanship from 1175 to
1400--Domestic architecture of France, Germany, Italy, and
England--Influence of thirteenth century work on our artistic
practice.
In my last lecture I gave a hasty outline of the developed architecture
of this great period.
I will now endeavour to give an equally hasty glance at some of its more
marked creations, beginning--as in duty bound--at home. Their number,
however, is so great, that one is perplexed to know where to begin, or
in what order to take them. Perhaps the most profitable way will be to
imagine the student to live in London, and to commence with the works of
this century, which he may study within a walk of his home.
Let us begin, then, with the church of St. Saviour--formerly St. Mary
Overie--in Southwark.
When I first knew this Church the whole of it was standing: externally,
it is true, the aspect it presented was not very pleasing, for it had
been cased almost throughout with red brick, and the Lady Chapel was
little else than a ruin. The choir was then in course of restoration.
The interior was a most noble structure, and was almost perfect, and
nearly all of this century, though some small portions westward were
earlier, and the south transept possibly a little later. The whole was
on a very symmetrical design, that of the nave being very much the same
with the choir.
Its character may easily be judged of from what remains. It was nobly
massive and grand, not of lofty proportions, but still such as to
satisfy the eye. The pillars were alternately round and canted squares,
flanked with attached shafts; the triforium consisting of arcades,
interrupted only by the vaulting shafts. At the east end is a beautiful
Lady Chapel, vaulted on light clustered pillars.
The restoration of the choir was carried out by the late Mr. George
Gwilt, aided by his sons; and it is impossible too warmly to praise the
zeal and ardour with which they pursued the work, their study of the
style then so little understood, or the untiring pains they took to
render their restoration accurate. All these ardent lovers of ancient
art are now deceased, and I feel a melancholy pleasure in bearing
witness to their merits. I was intimately acquainted with one of the
sons, and never did I meet a man more enthusiastically devoted to the
style on which his artistic education had been founded. He absolutely
adored everything which was Early English; and, in carrying out
restorations--in one of which he aided me--so faithfully did he
reproduce the whole work, that nothing could induce him to alter even
the positions of the jointing of the ashlar work.
The pains which Mr. Gwilt took in restoring the choir disgusted the
heartless parishioners, who, on proceeding to the transepts, placed the
work in other hands; but, on the Lady Chapel being undertaken by private
individuals, Mr. Gwilt nobly undertook the work gratuitously, and
carried it out with the same care he had bestowed on the choir.
Shortly after this, a report having arisen that the nave roof was
decayed, a surveyor was employed to examine it, who, recklessly
condemning it as unsafe, it was taken off, and none put on in its place.
The walls, being of chalk, became shattered by exposure to the frost of
several winters; and when the restoration of the nave was proposed to
the parishioners, that enlightened body of men negatived it, and, taking
down the glorious old structure, erected the present abject monstrosity
in its place.[43]
Happily, however, the interiors of the choir and Lady Chapel are still
perfect. Let us hope and pray that their widowhood may not be of much
longer duration, but that a reproduction of the noble nave may be
substituted for its unworthy supplanter.
[Illustration: Fig. 110.--Temple Church, London. View of Choir.]
I should mention that the nave was entered on the south side by a very
noble double doorway, of great height and depth, though when I knew it
its decorative features had perished. I will only add that if measured
drawings of this church are in the possession of the family of Mr.
Gwilt, it would be most desirable that they should be deposited among
public archives, to await the time when they _must_ be wanted as a guide
to the re-erection of the lost portions. In the meantime let me beg of
you to study well what remains.[44]
Next in importance, and probably in date, comes the choir of the Temple
Church, which was consecrated in 1240--a more fortunate building than
the last, and not needing from me any chronicle of its restoration. It
is, in idea, a magnified transcript of the Lady Chapel at St. Saviour’s,
being, like it, vaulted throughout upon pillars of equal height, and is
probably about the most perfect specimen in England of this beautiful
mode of construction.
The only other important instance I recollect in London of the earlier
portion of our style is the chapel at Lambeth--a very good Early English
chapel, though somewhat dishonoured by plaster vaulting, the ribs of
which I myself saw being prepared for by a core of spikes and tar-cord.
Let us hope that this is the last instance of such construction,
especially of its introduction in a time-honoured building like this!
We now come to one of the noblest of England’s temples--the Abbey Church
of Westminster; and you will readily excuse me from dishonouring this
truly glorious temple by attempting its description in the course of a
hasty catalogue like that I am now giving. As you all know, it was
commenced in 1245 by King Henry III., and the eastern portions finished
about 1269. This makes it contemporary, in a certain sense, with Amiens;
for though the latter was commenced in 1220, it was not completed till
1288. There can be no doubt that the cathedral at Amiens was, at the
time of its erection, viewed as the most perfect development of the
style; for it is clear that it was made, in many instances, the model on
which the designs of other churches were formed.
Cologne Cathedral, for instance, was commenced in 1248, during the
erection of that at Amiens, and is manifestly a free copy of it so far
as concerns its earlier portions;[45] and though Westminster Abbey is by
no means built on the model of Amiens, it was probably influenced by it.
That prodigious pile, carried forward through so long a series of years,
would be a great object of interest to all contemporary church-builders;
and Henry, who was much in France, would naturally send the architect of
his own sacred mausoleum to see the great work of his day.
Westminster Abbey is a church built on a French ideal, but with English
detail--a great French thought expressed in excellent English.
The windows are of the perfected bar tracery, which had not yet been
much used in England; but in other respects I cannot find a
distinctively French detail--or scarcely any--in the building, excepting
the work of a single French foliage carver. Even the plan, which is
purely French in idea, is carried out in a manner quite different from
that of any French church I have seen.
In the architecture the union of the manners of the two nations is most
happy. The pillars are nearly like those of the great French cathedral,
but the side shafts, instead of being attached, are separate shafts of
Purbeck marble, the nucleus and the capitals and bases being all of the
same beautiful material. The use of this hard stone led to that of
moulded unfoliated capitals, in which they lose in effect when compared
with those at Amiens; but the nobler material would more than compensate
for this.
The triforium is far superior to that at Amiens both in design and
detail, and the whole internal design, though inferior in size and
altitude, is to my eye far more pleasing; and when its varied materials
retained their colour, and the Purbeck marble, which pervades every
part, preserved its polish, there cannot be a doubt as to the superior
magnificence of its effect.
The parts, too, are much better proportioned, with perhaps, the one
exception of the too acute form of the main arches; the wall arcading is
much more beautiful, and the details generally more richly moulded. We
have, then, here, at our doors, a building whose interior is equal to
that of any existing Gothic building, and we have no excuse if we do not
avail ourselves of so noble an opportunity of study.
Of the exterior I will say nothing. All its old features had perished by
the end of the seventeenth century, when they were vilely renewed, and
this base restoration is now in its turn decayed.
The chapter-house is a splendid but melancholy relic, little more than a
ruin, and that not like those ruins which seem to do honour to the
memory of their bygone glory by the picturesque loveliness which graces
their decay. It is choked up with presses, chests, galleries, huge sacks
of parchment, and every possible obstruction and disfigurement. Its
beautiful windows--which filled the entire width of its sides--are
walled up, and its elegant vaulting destroyed. Just enough remains to
render its restoration practicable. I have, with great labour, traced
out all the old details, and only wish for the chance of restoring it in
some degree to its pristine beauty.[46] I should mention that the
splendid encaustic floor is still perfect, and that very fine specimens
of wall painting still remain. The vestibule and staircase by which it
is approached are beautifully designed, and the doorway from the
cloister is among the most splendid relics of English art. The latter is
in a dreadful state of decay, but I am happy to say that it has just
been stereotyped in its present state by the application of an invisible
solution, which will prevent the further progress of disintegration, and
which has set and hardened the crumbling particles, which the gentlest
touch would have before displaced.
[Illustration: Fig. 111.--Conventional Foliage, Chapel of St. John
Baptist, Westminster Abbey.]
The foliated carving in Westminster Abbey unites the two great types
which characterise this century--the conventional and the natural--and
contains some of the best of each. I commend it to your careful study,
and will mention that all within reach has been indurated in the manner
I have just alluded to. What remains of the figure sculpture is also of
great merit, especially four angelic figures in the triforium of the
transept,[47] and two full-length figures in the chapter-house, one of
which I had the great happiness of discovering.
[Illustration: Fig. 112.--Natural Foliage, Chapel of St. John Baptist,
Westminster Abbey.]
The internal proportions of the church seem to me to surpass those of
any other I have seen. They appear to be generally founded upon the
equilateral triangle, and a comparison of this with many other churches
will confirm the truth of what I have heard has been stated by an
ancient Freemason--that the square will furnish good proportions, but
the equilateral triangle much better.
The introduction of Italian mosaic-work[48]--both porphyry mosaic on the
pavement, and glass mosaic on the tombs of the builder and rebuilder of
the Abbey--is a fact of great interest, as showing the high estimation
in which the arts peculiar to Italy were then held, so much so as to
lead to the bringing to England of two master mosaic-workers--Odorico
and Pietro[49] (each, no doubt, with his staff of workmen)--to carry
out the two branches of the art. Both artists were from Rome, as the
inscriptions still testify; but their work was put together here, as is
proved by the use of Purbeck marble, both as the groundwork of the
pavement and for the architecture of the tombs. This architecture is not
very elegant in its details, excepting only the beautiful spiral
pillars, and some of the surface patterns prepared for the mosaic; and
the introduction of an art so inferior to their own, for the sake of the
rich inlaying it contained, still more strongly proves their
appreciation of the merits of the mosaic art. Let us follow the example
more wisely, and when we import any foreign specialty, let us not bring
with it any of the demerits which chance to accompany it, but unite it
with the best art we are masters of.
I know few, if any, churches which possess the same internal beauty as
Westminster Abbey. More modern art has done its worst to ruin it, but
its intrinsic loveliness overrides every such attempt, and reigns
triumphant over every disfigurement. One characteristic it possesses
almost alone--I mean the virgin privilege of perpetual exemption from
the brush of the whitewasher. It probably owes this unique happiness to
its having been built on the principles of constructive polychromy. It
has materials of at least four varieties of colour, and these, in some
degree, systematically and artistically used; and this fact has been
sufficient to keep the whitewasher at bay. We are told that it is
un-English and fantastic to care anything about the colours of our
materials; but let it never be forgotten that the churches which could
boast of the chaste dignity of their unvaried stone colour, have been,
both at home and abroad, made over periodically to the tender mercies of
the monochromist, while this, at least has been spared,--and that on
account of the “un-English” phantasy of using more than one natural
colour in its construction. These colours are now nearly concealed by
smoke, but they still show modestly through, and still aid in rendering
the tone more solemn and striking than that of any church I have seen,
excepting that very different one--St. Mark’s at Venice.
Among the monuments in the Abbey belonging to this century I will
mention--in addition to the Italian works already alluded to--the effigy
of William de Valence, an oak figure plated with enamelled copper, the
enamels on which are of magnificent workmanship; the beautiful bronze
effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor, with the marble altar-tomb of
the latter, and its beautiful iron grille (Fig. 114); the pretty little
altar-tomb of some of the royal children, and the gorgeous monuments to
Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Aveline, his countess: the latter have
been among the most splendidly decorated works of their day, and are
worthy of the very closest study, both by the architect and the
architectural painter.
[Illustration: _Centre compartment._
Fig. 113.--Retabulum, or moveable Reredos, formerly belonging to the
High Altar, Westminster Abbey.
_The paintings, except the merest fragments, have gone from the panels
to the right of the centre compartment._]
[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Part of wrought-iron grille, Queen Eleanor’s
Tomb, Westminster Abbey.]
I will call attention to one other object in the Abbey--I mean the
remarkably ancient retable or movable reredos formerly belonging to the
high altar. It is a wonderful work of art, and I call attention to it
especially in this place, because it contains the most beautiful
specimen of very early painting remaining in this country. The pictures
are probably by an Italian artist, several of whom are known to have
been brought over about this time; but I confess I have seen no work of
its age in Italy which I thought equal to it, an opinion confirmed by an
Italian professor of architecture to whom I once showed it. It is, I
believe, contemporary with the early days of Giotto.
I will now pass on to a far humbler building, and one very little known
or visited; I mean the Chapel of St. Etheldreda, in Ely Place, Holborn.
This was the chapel of the splendid town palace of the Bishops of Ely,
and was built by Bishop De Luda soon after 1290. The destruction of the
palace you will, I dare say, recollect to have been celebrated by Pugin
in his “Contrasts.” It was sold during the last century, and the present
untempting-looking street built on its site--a place where one would as
little expect to find a gem of ancient art as the ripe strawberries
which Dickon of Gloucester saw growing there and begged for.
The chapel is in a wretched plight; its side windows have lost both
tracery and mullions, its west window is in great measure boarded up,
the cradled roof plastered, the whole galleried around and fitted up
with pewing which would disgrace a tabernacle of the last century; yet
through all this its beauty still shows. The chapel is, as was so usual
with private chapels, elevated on an overground crypt, so as to bring it
to a level with the principal apartments of the palace. Curiously
enough, this crypt is not vaulted, but has over it the original floor of
massive timber.
The east and west windows, of five lights each, are among the finest of
their period and size.[50] The side windows, denuded of their tracery,
retain, internally, their beautiful jamb mouldings, and the wall between
them has a graceful canopied and crocketed panel to each intervening
pier, which gives the sides a very rich effect. I had long and often
lamented their mutilated condition, and was one day trying to get at
some clue to the design of their tracery, by examining the scars where
it had been amputated, when the thought struck me that the two
westernmost of them being blocked up by the adjoining houses, might, if
opened out, be found to retain their decorative features. I applied for
permission to do this; and what was my delight, on removing the material
which obstructed them, to find the old window--mutilated, indeed, and
shattered--but still retaining every element needful to the restoration
of its design!
[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Side Windows, Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely
Place, Holborn.]
The doorway to the chapel is very beautiful, and its foliated ornament
well worthy of study. The internal dimensions are about 90 feet by 30--a
favourite size, it would seem, and not differing much from the
dimensions of St. Stephen’s Chapel, that at Temple Balsal, or the Sainte
Chapelle at Paris (reckoning the latter in French feet).
The architecture of the chapel is nearly allied to that of a series of
sepulchral monuments I alluded to in my former lecture, and some of them
again in this. One of these is that of its own founder at Ely; the
second and third are those of Edmund and Aveline, at Westminster Abbey;
and the fourth is that of Archbishop Peckham, at Canterbury. All these
date between 1290 and 1300, and are works of exquisite beauty and of the
richest decorative art.
I will now lead you on a short excursion out of London, to a glorious
old temple which was, in the days of my pupilage, considered to be
within walking distance, and can now be reached in less than an hour by
railway. I mean the venerable Abbey Church of St. Alban.
You probably know the general history of this church: founded over the
tomb of the protomartyr of England, within ten years of his martyrdom,
and rebuilt on a larger scale by Offa, King of Mercia, it was again
rebuilt of its present enormous dimensions by the earlier of the Norman
abbots, using the materials excavated from the ruined city of Verulam.
The Roman brick was not a material very suggestive of ornamental
architecture, and we accordingly find the original portions to be plain
and massive in the extreme, but, nevertheless, highly impressive and
interesting. In the work of a later Norman abbot we find this unshapely
material cased with stone-work, and of richly decorative details; but
the church in general retained its severe simplicity undisturbed till
the accession of Abbot John De Cella, in the reign of King Richard I.
This worthy abbot was more a man of taste than of business, and his
temperament more sanguine than calculating. He had no sooner taken
possession of the abbacy than he embarked on a magnificent project for
rebuilding the western façade of his abbey church; only a prelude,
probably, to the reconstruction of the whole in the new style.
The massive brick front, with its flanking towers, would have formed an
excellent nucleus for his work; but his ardent spirit would not submit
to such an expedient, and he at once took down the vast façade, and that
before he had collected money for the new one. The consequence was that
he had scarcely got his new work out of the ground before his funds were
exhausted. His first builder turned out a rascal, and he had to
discharge him; the stone he used was destroyed by the frost; and, mishap
after mishap following his undertaking. The worthy man was led, as is so
common with bad men of business, to bend his proud spirit to a paltry
trick; and, as a means of raising the wind, he sent one of his monks
about the country with a man whom he declared to have been raised from
the dead by the agency of the relics of St. Amphibalus, and begged money
on the strength of the miracle. But all would not do, and after ten
years’ labour, during which the old historian tells us that all the
funds he procured were merely like rivers flowing into the sea, which
was no fuller for receiving them, he could not bring his work above the
level of the masons’ shed; and, at length, giving it up in despair,
contented himself with more humble undertakings.
He was succeeded by Abbot William De Trumpington, a man who united with
the taste for building, inherent in the age, a more moderate ambition
and greater aptitude for business. He resumed the suspended works, but
moderated their costliness; and making all the details plainer, and
giving up or postponing the flanking towers, he was not only enabled to
complete the rest of the front, but also to carry on the new work a long
way down the nave, and subsequently to make many other alterations.
Now, I beg you to go and examine these works, and, in doing so, to bear
in mind their history. You will find--as the chronicler tells us--that
just about the height of a mason’s shed, there is a sudden change in the
work. Up to that height the details are very superior, and far richer
than above. Below, we find traces of the artist; above, of the
constructor and man of business, though not to the forgetting of art.
Thus, round the piers below are bases for marble shafts; somewhat higher
are the marks where their moulded bands have been broken off; but above,
their capitals are wanting--
“For William’s shears had cut the bauble off.”
The three portals I alluded to in my last lecture are the work of the
unfinancial artist;[51] the range of pillars, etc., down the nave, of
the not inartistic man of business. Both are noble works. Trumpington’s
works are bold and massive, and his details good, though simple; but for
beauty of design we must award the palm to his less thrifty but more
_spirituel_ predecessor: indeed, I know few works equal in design to
what he commenced; and had he been able to carry it out, this façade
might have vied with that of Wells. Unhappily there are, externally,
little remains of the work of either of the abbots.
Late in the century the choir, also, was in great measure rebuilt. Its
character is less forcible than the earlier works, yet exceedingly
beautiful.
The eastern chapels--which opened by five arches into the church--were
at the same time commenced, but only in part carried out, the Lady
Chapel having been stopped short after rising a few feet from the
ground, and the chapels which opened from the choir having suffered
considerable alterations from their first design. They are now virtually
in ruins, but their details are of exquisite beauty. The windows have
tracery of very high merit, and the wall arcading--now almost entirely
destroyed--has been quite charming.
These works form a continuous series, from the last days of the twelfth
to the end of the thirteenth century, and are admirable illustrations of
the architecture of this great period.
I will dip seven years into the succeeding century to mention the
exquisite fragments of the substructure which carried the shrine of the
protomartyr. They have recently been exhumed in opening a walled-up
arch. They are of Purbeck marble, and, in spite of the stubborn
material, are most wonderfully carved, the leaves being so much undercut
as in places to be quite detached.[52]
This venerable church possesses claims upon the student residing in
London second only to those of our own Abbey of Westminster. I recommend
it to your special and diligent study, and you will, I am sure, never
blame me for my advice.[53]
On some of your visits there, pray go on to Dunstable, where you will
find a noble priory church, in the later Norman style, whose western
portal was probably in its day the finest in the kingdom; but owing to
the friable clunch of which it was constructed, has lost the greater
part of its decorations. The west front contains excellent work of the
thirteenth century. It is a great architectural enigma, which I believe
I have solved, but I will not spoil it for you by explaining my
conjectures.
I begin to see, however, that I have embarked on an endless task, and
have got half through my time without getting through the home district.
I will therefore leave it, with a request that you will not consider
Stone Church, near Gravesend, the worse for having become somewhat
hackneyed. It is a mutilated work, but what remains of it is as
exquisite an example of a period about agreeing with that of Westminster
Abbey as can, perhaps, anywhere be found.
As I cannot pretend to give you a complete architectural itinerary, I
will imagine--not seeing my way to a better--a northern tour in search
of works of the age I have been treating of; and giving a passing look
at Waltham Cross, in which I once delighted, though now, I confess, its
so-called restoration has rather damped my enthusiasm, and hastily
looking in at Jesus Chapel at Cambridge, a very excellent specimen of
Early English, let us proceed to Ely. I have repeatedly alluded to the
two great works in our style which it contains: the western porch, built
between 1197 and 1214, is by far the noblest in this country. It is
peculiar in its size and position, more of a narthex, perhaps, than a
porch, or rather the western arm of the cross formed by the western
transept. Externally, it is covered with decorative arcading in four
ranges. It is of two storeys, the upper one having formed a spacious
chamber. The angle buttresses are of that beautiful kind which are
almost peculiar to this period, being of the form of clustered pillars.
The two portals--the outer and the inner--are, in their leading forms,
alike; they are double, and of very lofty proportions. Their heads were
formerly filled with the Vescica Piscis, possibly containing sitting
statues; but this--why, it is impossible to divine--was taken out in
both instances, and a wretched piece of flowing tracery, in plaster,
substituted by Bernasconi, to the no small detriment of the doorways.
The inner doorway is an exquisite work of art, the mouldings being most
beautifully foliated. The sides of the porch are arcaded in two stages
in a most beautiful and artistic manner, and probably contained
sculpture. The capitals are among the finest to be found in any English
building. The porch measures internally 40 feet by 30 feet.
The other great work of this century, at Ely, consists of the six
eastern bays, with the eastern front. They were commenced by Bishop
Northwold in 1235, and completed in 1251.
[Illustration: Fig. 117.--Ely Cathedral, Eastern Front.]
It forms one of the finest specimens of the Early English style. The
noble development of its triforium is an inheritance from the Norman
church, with whose levels it was made to range. The liberal use of
Purbeck marble adds vastly to the beauty of the work: the pillars are
entirely of this material, including even their richly foliated
capitals, as are the long and elaborately carved corbels which carry the
vaulting shafts.
The carrying out of the whole--its proportions, its details, its
mouldings, the massive strength of its construction, united with just a
sufficient degree of lightness, the great elegance of its vaulting, and
the grandeur of its eastern façade--render it one of the most valuable
objects of study which we possess. The tomb of its founder is a
wonderful work of art--a canopied effigy surrounded by statuettes,
angels, and even subjects, all in a single block of Purbeck marble.
There are other works of our period at Ely, and fine ones; but we must
not linger there, but proceed onward to Peterborough.
If the three great arches which form the west front here are to be
viewed as portals, I was certainly wrong when I said that English
portals were small and inconspicuous. These are, in fact, of such vast
elevation as to deprive them of that title. The whole may be viewed as a
vast portico, it is true, but the doorways are within it, and of
moderate dimensions, while above them, and still below the arches, are
considerable windows. It is, in fact, a design which stands quite by
itself, and can scarcely be judged of by ordinary parallels.
I confess that to my eye it has always appeared as a glorious
conception, though one not often to be repeated. Had its flanking towers
been completed in the same style, the two great towers which backed it
up completed with their spires, and the odd little chapel which has been
thrust into its central arch been omitted, I know few fronts to which it
would yield in grandeur, and none in originality.
[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Circular Window, West Front, Peterborough
Cathedral.]
Peterborough once possessed a noble work, in the latter part of the
century, in its Lady Chapel, but only a few fragments remain. Its
mutilated cloister, the gateway to the bishop’s palace, and the ruins of
the infirmary, are beautiful works of this period. I know few cathedrals
which, externally, I more enjoy than Peterborough. In old coaching days
I used often to pass through at between four and five in the morning,
and if daylight permitted, I made it a point of conscience to run round
the cathedral while the mail bags were in course of arrangement; and
never will the impression it produced on my mind be effaced.
[Illustration: Fig. 119.--Petersborough Cathedral.]
We come here into a country replete with village churches, many of which
are in our style. Warmington, for instance, between here and Oundle, is
an almost perfect thirteenth-century church, and I only mention it as
one specimen, for time would fail me to enter upon even an enumeration.
Off to the northeast, too, there is West Walton, with its splendid and
unique detached tower--an almost unequalled example; and nearer at hand
are the mournful and tottering relics of the sister Abbey of Crowland,
the details of whose Western front are hardly to be surpassed, and are
the more interesting as having been evidently the work of the architect
to the eastern part of Lincoln Cathedral. Even the stone is from
Lincoln, though it is a material not used in the district.
As you go from Peterborough to Lincoln, whichever road you take, there
are endless series of village churches, as well as others of greater
pretensions. Stamford is rich in work of this age, but I will only
allude to the churches of St. Mary and All Saints. Close by is the
beautiful Early English tower of Ketton. Grantham possesses the most
stately steeple (next only to Salisbury) in the kingdom; and on another
road I may mention Frampton, as having the most perfect of all simple
Early towers and spires that I know. But let us hasten on to the
crowning glory of the district, whose lordly towers preside in serene
majesty over the whole surrounding country.
No English cathedral is, externally, so imposing as that of Lincoln, nor
do I recollect any abroad which, as a whole, surpasses it; and nearly
the whole of its sublime architecture belongs virtually to this century,
though in actual date it begins a few years earlier, and ends a few
years later.
It is the custom to speak of Salisbury as the great typical example of
the Early English style, and its unity and completeness may warrant the
claim; but both for the grandeur of the whole and the artistic beauty of
every part, and also as a complete exponent of English architecture
throughout the whole duration of its greatest period, Lincoln far
surpasses it. Its leading features form a perfect illustration, and that
on the grandest scale, of the entire history of our architecture, from
the last years of the twelfth to the early part of the fourteenth
century.
As I have so often mentioned, the Pointed style commences here with the
choir, the smaller transept, and perhaps the chapter-house,[54] all of
which seem to have been erected before the year 1200 by Bishop Hugh. It
is commonly stated that his architect was a Frenchman from Blois; and M.
Lassus broadly states that he reproduced at Lincoln, in 1188, the design
of a church commenced at Blois in 1138. I am not able to speak as to the
authorities on which these statements are founded, but I must say that
the internal evidence afforded by the building itself gives it, so far
as I can judge, little or no support. In the first place, an eastern
transept, in addition to that at the main crossing, is much more
frequent in England than in France; whether the cathedral of Blois (now
destroyed) possessed this I do not know. In the second place, the
polygonal chapter-house is an equally English feature. In the third
place, one of the most remarkable characteristics of this work is the
nearly universal use of the round abacus--that distinctively English
detail--and that at a period somewhat earlier than that of its customary
predominance. The general distribution of the parts seems to me rather
English than French, and though the work displays some idiosyncrasies, I
do not see in them anything to indicate a French origin, unless it be in
the capitals of the main pillars; indeed, it is a work in which
distinctively English characteristics appear in a somewhat advanced
state of development. As to its being a reproduction of a work commenced
at Blois in 1138, the assertion carries with it its own refutation; for,
in an age of restless progress, is it likely they would take the trouble
to bring over a foreign architect of so retrograde a taste as to ignore
the artistic progress made in his own country during half a century? In
fact, the wonder of the work is being so much in _advance_ of its age,
and that advance is not in a French but an English direction. The Church
of St. Nicholas, at Blois, is in the Early Pointed style of the latter
half of the twelfth century, but bears not the least resemblance to
this; it is of the same character which is usual in French transitional
works, and its carving is strictly Byzantine, not a trace of which have
I observed in Bishop Hugh’s work. If, then, a French architect was
engaged here, he must not only have made over the details of his work
wholly to Englishmen, but have studiously followed English forms in the
general features.[55]
The rebuilding of the cathedral seems to have been followed on
systematically westward by the two successors of Bishop Hugh, till the
completion of the nave by Bishop Grostete, about 1240.
The nave is by far the finest portion of the work as then completed,
and is, probably, on the whole, the grandest example of the Early
Pointed style in this country. It exhibits our Early English style in
its highest state of development: massive without heaviness, rich in
detail without exuberance, its parts symmetrically proportioned and
carefully studied throughout, the foliated carving bold and effective,
there seems no deficiency in any way to deteriorate from its merits.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.--Rose-window, North Transept, Lincoln
Cathedral.]
The west end is unique, being a vast and almost unperforated wall
covered over with range upon range of decorative arcading, flanked by
two vast stair turrets, and backed by two noble towers, the completion
of which was, however, delayed till a much later period. It always
strikes me as a very impressive front, but I find that it does not
strike all eyes so favourably. I would call attention to the beautiful
chapels to the right and left on entering from the west, with their
light and elegant columns contrasting most agreeably with the massive
piers of the nave; also to the noble rose window in the north transept,
perhaps the finest in England (Fig. 120).
The most gorgeous part, however, of the cathedral is its eastern
portion. This was added between the years 1256 and 1282, and is
consequently a little later than Henry III.’s work at Westminster. It
agrees with it in style, but carries out the principle of window tracery
on a far grander scale. It is, in fact, the most splendid work of that
period which we possess, and, did it not lack internal height, I do not
think it could be exceeded in beauty by any existing church.
The sculpture with which it was once profusely enriched was of a very
high order, the foliated carving perfectly exquisite, the mouldings and
other details of the most perfect character. The east window is probably
the finest in the kingdom, as is the east front in general, after
allowing a certain abatement for the error of having false gables to the
aisles.
I have already mentioned the exquisite portal, the sculpture in which is
superb (Fig. 122).
The student of Mediæval art ought to make a long sojourn at Lincoln, and
study its treasury of art at his leisure; not forgetting, by the by, the
beautiful remains
[Illustration: Fig. 122.--South-east Portal, Lincoln Cathedral.]
of the chapel to the bishop’s palace hard by the cathedral.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.--Lincoln Cathedral, View from the South-east.]
In passing northward from Lincoln, a profitable digression may be had to
Southwell, whose noble choir seems to be an emanation from Lincoln, and
its far-famed chapter-house from York; and to Newstead, whose beautiful
west front and lovely carving agrees in style with the eastern portion
of Lincoln.
Yorkshire is especially the land of minsters and abbey churches. To
attempt here a description of them would be vain; a Yorkshire tour is
one of the richest treats the student can look forward to, and one to
which he ought to be liberal in his allowance of time. At York itself
the transept is among the finest examples of the earlier part of the
style, and the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey of its later portion. I know
few works so enchanting as the latter. It agrees in date with the east
part of Lincoln, and is not unlike it in detail. It is a mere wreck, but
worthy of the closest study, and the shattered fragments which lie on
every side offer melancholy facilities to the student. The chapter-house
of the cathedral is a little later, and has been well called a “Domus
Domorum,” though I would not willingly admit its superiority to those of
Westminster or Salisbury.
The neighbouring village church at Skelton--said to have been built by
the same hands as the transept of the cathedral, and the ruined chapel
of St. Leonard’s Hospital in the gardens round the abbey--show how
unerringly the same style fitted itself to works of the most stupendous
or of the humblest scale.
This great county is filled with the noble productions of the thirteenth
century. The minsters of Beverley and Ripon owe much of their beauty to
it; and scarcely one of the abbey churches, whose lovely but mournful
ruins add a charm so melancholy to the secluded valleys of Yorkshire,
fails to show the work of the great period.
I cannot attempt even a cursory description. Go, I pray you, and study
for yourselves: go to Fountains Abbey, and study well its choir and
eastern chapels, with their massive pillars, the tallest perhaps in
England, and the remains of its wonderful abbatial hall, exposed to view
by the recent excavations, and its many other wonders; but do not be
satisfied with a passing visit: take up your quarters at Ripon, and
follow up your studies from day to day. A week is but a short allowance
for so rich a school of art. Then go to Rivaulx and Whitby, twin works,
it would seem, of the same accomplished architect. I cannot award the
palm to either--they are truly a “_par nobile fratrum_,” and it is fair
to prefer whichever of them we have seen the last. Their great point of
difference is that the choir of one has been vaulted, and that of the
other has shown its timber roof; but in glorious architecture they are
equal, and almost unequalled. As you go from York to Whitby you pass a
small fragment of the Abbey of Kirkham: stop and look at it: small as it
is, it is one of the best designed pieces of work I ever saw. If from
Whitby you cross the moors to Guisborough, you will see what was
probably the work of the very end of the century--the stupendous east
end of that abbey, with its east window exceeding even that at Lincoln
in height.
If you go on to Durham, the Chapel of the Nine Altars will rivet your
attention;[56] and farther yet at Hexham,[57] at Dryburgh, and far on
through Scotland, to the Chapel of Holyrood, and the glorious remains of
Elgin Cathedral, and that noble temple yet preserved unruined at
Glasgow, you will find a long series of the art of this wonderful age.
In returning, pray look in at Furness Abbey, where you will find an
absolute gem of our style in the ruined chapter-house.[58] It has been
of the same construction with the Temple Church, and of exquisite
beauty.
I have passed over the whole series of southern examples--as Hythe,
Shoreham, Winchester, Boxgrove, Wells, Llandaff (one of its most
original productions), Worcester, Lichfield, Hereford, and a hundred
more examples, all of which supply proofs of the wonderful perfection of
the architecture of this century.
But a mere catalogue is both useless and wearisome.
I ought also to have called special attention to the circumstance, that
while in France nearly every great church is vaulted, such is not the
case in English works: they seem to have acted with perfect freedom in
this respect, and their churches, even the largest of them, have
frequently had open timber roofs, and suffer little by the variety.
One thing cannot fail to strike every one who closely studies our old
architecture. In early Norman buildings we often find rude and clumsy
workmanship; in works from the middle of the fourteenth century, on to
the extinction of Gothic architecture, we frequently meet with the
same--the work of rude, untutored hands, evidently unable to do justice
to their style; but from about 1175 to the end of the thirteenth
century, and nearly fifty years later, we scarcely ever meet with this
inequality. The art seemed to be all-pervading. Certain buildings may
have been plain to a degree, and rustic in their object and material,
yet you rarely find anything you can call rude in workmanship or
unskilful in treatment. It was a great period, and its greatness seemed
to pervade even the most secluded districts, and the workmen everywhere
to have felt a pride in keeping up to the period of their art in which
their lot had been cast. Nor need we wonder at this, for _everywhere_
were buildings going on; scarcely a village church escaped the notice of
the builders of this wonderful age. The whole country was engaged in the
one work of building, and that with an ardent feeling to render their
work worthy of the style they had generated.
And let us not imagine that the architecture of the age developed itself
only in cathedrals, abbeys, or churches of any kind; all other buildings
evince the same spirit: a barn of the thirteenth century shows the
nobleness of the pervading style as clearly as even the cathedral
itself, and what remains of their domestic architecture tells the same
tale. Everything was done _well_, in good taste, and in accordance with
reasonable and practical requirements and the means at command.
Nor was it to architecture alone that the arts of the period were
devoted: we find the same art expended on stained glass, on metal-work
of all sorts, on enamels of the most magnificent character, on the
illumination of manuscripts, the painted decoration of the buildings, on
jewellery, on ivory-carving, on embroidery, on woven fabrics, tapestry,
seal-engraving--in fact, on every branch of decoration; every one of
which arts were carried out with a degree of skill and instinctive taste
truly amazing. All these branches should, however, be treated of
separately.
In my enumeration of buildings I have limited myself to our own country;
but we all know that in France the same great facts are, if possible,
yet more wonderfully proved. The architecture of the thirteenth century,
in France, is rendered illustrious by an endless category of buildings,
the most glorious perhaps which the world has produced.
Germany, though her style is broken harshly by the cause I have before
alluded to, nevertheless furnishes, whether in the native variety of the
former or in the adopted one of the latter half of the century, a series
of buildings of which any country might well be proud.
In Italy the style was certainly imported from the North; but was it an
unnatural transplantation? I should say by no means so. Had not Italy
her own Romanesque, which she had in some degree exported to Northern
countries? and have I not shown that Pointed architecture was a natural
and logical development from Romanesque? Why, then, should it be
accounted foreign to the land from which Romanesque itself had
sprung?--and if the growth of Pointed architecture was aided by ideas
culled from Byzantium and the East, why should those ideas be less
suited to Italy than to France or England, whose communications with the
East were far less direct? Did not she take part in the same Crusades?
nay, did not the Byzantine element in French art actually come there
through the medium of Italy? Let us not, then, deny to her a fair
participation in the architecture of the age. We had it before her, it
is true, but let us not on that account say that it is none of hers.
The great fault in the Mediæval architecture of Italy lies in its
details, such as its mouldings, etc., which evince too much of their
antique original: its great value lies in its use of materials of varied
colour, of inlaying, mosaic-work, and other decorative arts, inherited
also from the past. These arts ally themselves well with our style,
though the Classic mouldings do not so; and in our judgment of Italian
work we should never lose sight of this; we may otherwise be led either
to reject real merit from the offence which incongruous detail offers to
our taste, or we may be led to accept what is bad and spurious, because
gilded over, and its demerits concealed by beautiful art, which would
appear to greater advantage if united with purer architecture.
Another cause, however, which gives great value to the Mediæval art of
Italy, arises from the somewhat accidental circumstance that her
internal position was such as to require town buildings very much of the
kind which we want now. The consequence is that Italy was, even in those
early days, the land of street palaces, and that we find yet remaining
there numberless buildings of a class which we find but rarely in other
countries, and those treated in a manner very parallel with what we
often require at the present day. Not, let it be borne in mind, that
they are treated in a manner essentially different from the coeval works
in more Northern countries, but rather that there were more of them,
that these were on a larger scale, and that more of them have remained
to our own day.
It is a mistake to suppose that the secular architecture of Italian
cities essentially differed from that of the same period elsewhere. If
you will carefully look through any book showing specimens of the
domestic architecture of France in the thirteenth century, you will find
that it closely resembles that of Italy, except in having purer details.
The same kind of window, for instance, which, from habit, people have
got into the way of calling Italian or Venetian, prevailed in France and
Germany, and is often found in England.
[Illustration: Fig. 123.--Palais des Podestats, Orvieto, Italy.]
[Illustration: Fig. 124.--Torre di Santa, Ninfa, Palermo.]
I give you a series of Italian (Figs. 123, 124), French (Figs. 125,
126), German (Figs. 127, 128, 129), and English (Figs. 130, 131, 132,
133, 134, 135) windows of early date, where you can scarcely
distinguish the one from the other; indeed, you would seldom be able to
detect an Italian window at all, if divested of the accidental clothing
of its non-essential details. This establishes the unity of the style;
yet the fact remains that works of the kind are more abundant, larger,
and more developed in Italy, and that they may consequently be studied
there to great advantage as an aid and expletive to what we learn
elsewhere.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.--Meslay, near Tours, France.]
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--From Houses at Cluny.]
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--The Emperor’s House, Gostar.]
[Illustration: Figs. 128, 129.--Houses at Cologne.]
This brings me to the concluding subject of my lecture--the question of
what lessons we should learn from what has passed in array before us,
and what effect it ought to have on our own artistic practice.
[Illustration: Fig. 130.--Window, West Gateway, College Green,
Gloucester.]
[Illustration: Figs. 131, 132, 133.--From an old building called
Canute’s Castle, Southampton.]
[Illustration: Fig. 134.--Moyse’s Hall, Bury St. Edmunds.]
It would be hopeless to enter upon the general question of the revival
of styles. I will suppose that question to have been disposed of _for_
us, and limit myself to considering what is the most reasonable course
to follow in conducting such a revival, or rather in carrying on the
development of a style upon a revived basis such as that of the
architecture we have been considering.
[Illustration: Fig. 135.--Oakham Castle, Rutlandshire.]
Now, such a revival, to begin with, is hardly to be viewed as a
deliberate act. A man would scarcely be bold enough to make up his mind,
_à priori_, to revive a style of architecture: circumstances must have
gradually led to such a course, and it must have been set about
gradually, and almost unconsciously, to give it a chance of success. We
may, in looking back upon what has taken place, construct a very good
theory for it all; but no such theory really led to it--it came about
very much of itself. We may, by thought and by studying our position, do
a little in finding good reasons for an existing movement; but the
movement itself must have arisen from some more hidden and deep-seated
cause, or it would have died away long ago. What, then, does this
deep-seated feeling demand, and with what will it be satisfied?
It craves spontaneously after a great style of art, which it sees to
have been once the birthright of our race. It demands that we should--I
will not say simply _revive_ that style of art, but that we should
_revivify_ it: not that it should be reproduced as a splendid pageant,
to be re-enacted for the sake of gratifying our romantic or antiquarian
predilections, but that we should rekindle its actual life; and having
done so, should not only think, and design, and invent in that style,
as the living medium for the expression of our artistic aspirations, but
that we should cause it to take root, to spring forth, to germinate and
ramify--to shape itself to all the demands of our age, and to adapt
itself to its materials, its discoveries, its inventions, and its
science; in short, to become in every sense a living, a vigorous, a
growing art.
Now, to further such an object, what is the best manner in which we can
make use of the lessons to be learnt from the past creations of that
style?
One of the lessons I think we should learn is to work in the same free
and liberal spirit in which our forefathers worked: not to do _what_
they did, but _as_ they did. If we, on the one hand, shut ourselves up
in our own country, and, reproducing the style we find to have prevailed
here, sulkily rejecting the lessons to be learned from neighbouring
lands, we may produce a servile reproduction of _what_ was done by our
predecessors, but shall be acting anything but _as_ they acted. If, on
the other hand, we travel widely, and, giving free license to our
individual preferences or momentary fancies, we import now this style,
and now that--here building in a French, there in an Italian variety of
our style--we shall in each case be doing _what_ was done in one or
another province of Mediæval art, but shall be equally far from doing as
the old artists did: the one course involves servility, the other adds
to it frivolity.
The great principle on which the Mediæval architects of each country
instinctively acted was, while adhering in the main each to the dialect
of the great art which happened to be current amongst them, to improve
it by the free importation of ideas and adoption of hints from
whencesoever they might be derived, but especially from the dialects of
the same artistic language. Thus, for instance, the Pointed architecture
of the royal domain of France is, as a whole, a logical sequence of the
Romanesque of the same district; yet no scruple was felt at importing
into it the Byzantine capitals and foliage, which had come to them
through the medium of Venice; and to this foreign importation they owed
some of the greatest beauties of their architecture; nay, if the
Oriental origin of the Pointed arch be true, they went further, and
engrafted upon their traditional art a feature learned from the infidels
they were combating. Again, the English Pointed may be traced step by
step from the preceding style, yet they had no hesitation about
introducing into it details developed by the French. The Germans carried
the principle too far: giving up their own traditional variety of
Pointed architecture, they adopted the French developments ready made;
yet, having done so, they worked them up in a manner quite their own:
while in Italy, the new style having been brought in upon the
pre-existing Romanesque, they soon elaborated it into a dialect as
distinctively characteristic as those of other European countries.
Besides this, no nation had any scruples about employing artists
belonging to another; so that the advancement made by each became in a
degree the common property of all; and even the woven fabrics and other
manufactures imported from the far East were allowed to offer
suggestions to the European decorator.
To follow out the same principle, we ought, while especially making
ourselves masters of the architecture of our own country, and using it
as the groundwork of our revival, nevertheless to view the style _as a
whole_, and, while not forsaking our own provincial dialect, to make
ourselves masters of the _entire language_. We should not wish our
revived art to be indistinguishable from that of our forefathers. It
should certainly reflect some of the characteristics of our own age, one
of which is our enormously-increased habits of locomotion; and as we
visit all the districts where our style prevailed, nothing can be more
natural than that our revived art should show the effects of our more
extended sphere. Knowing, as we do, that France was the central
district--the very heart--of Mediæval art, should we not be insane not
to study well her glorious monuments, and, having studied them, to
enrich our own style by the many lessons we may learn from them? It has
been suggested that we should do this, with a special regard to those of
the provinces of France which were once subjected to the English kings.
I would not reject the historical interest which this connection
naturally gives rise to, and I doubt not that those provinces are rich
in instruction; but I would not on that account neglect the fact that it
is the _royal domain_ of France--the district of which Paris is the
centre--which was the special focus of our art. Look again at the
ancient cities of Germany--perfect storehouses of old architecture: let
us never be so suicidal as to reject the lessons they offer! “So far,”
some may, however, say, “is all very well; but, for goodness sake, do
not cross the Alps! Ruskin has driven you all mad about Venetian,
Veronese, and Florentine architecture: be more of men than to be led
astray by popular writing. You cannot but see that Italian Gothic is
very corrupt, though somehow or another very captivating. Listen not,
then, to the siren’s song; reject the enticing bait, nor pollute the
pure stream of Northern art with the corrupted waters of the South.”
I admit that there is some ground for such a caution:--there is a
mysterious fascination about Italy, which has led astray many who have
visited it before they had grounded themselves firmly upon a Northern
foundation; but is this a reason for rejecting all the lessons she
offers? Was not Italy the land of ancient art, of painting, of
sculpture, of mosaic-work? Is she not the land of marbles and
richly-coloured material, and the land of ancient municipal
institutions, and of the edifices to which they gave birth? Her
Romanesque architecture was the parent stock of our own; and if our
Gothic was in its turn the stem from which hers sprang, surely its
transplantation into so prolific a soil offers the greatest possible
_primâ facie_ grounds for expecting a rich variety to spring forth from
it--and such has been the result. It is for us to use it with judgment:
rejecting what is in its own nature defective; not bringing into the
North any features which are the result of a Southern climate, but
judiciously culling such suggestions as will with advantage unite
themselves to our English nucleus; and especially let us take advantage
of the lessons it affords us in the use of rich materials of mosaic and
fresco painting, and in any suggestions it offers for the perfecting of
our secular architecture. Only let us do so with judgment, never
forgetting that it is _in England_ that we are working, and that if we
borrow ideas from France, from Germany, or from more southern lands,
those ideas must be expressed _in English_--a language in art, as in
literature, of whose antecedents we find abundant cause to be proud.
Let us also remember that, though we must be ever learning, it is not by
this alone that an art is to be generated; that we must _act for
ourselves_, as well as learn from others; and that it is to our own
vigorous and manly exertions we must trust to make the art we are
reviving shape itself to the necessities and the spirit of the age we
live in.
LECTURE VI.
The Rationale of Gothic Architecture.
Contradictory opinions as to the character and origin of Gothic
Architecture--True causes of its origin--The arch--The Romans
eminently practical--Two defects in their architecture--Practical
improvements--Use of small materials--Arches in
rims--Sub-ordinating rims--Imposts--Pilaster capitals--Decorative
columns--Romanesque arch decorations--Labels--Clustered
columns--Weight of arches on columns--Doorways--Windows--Rejection
of ancient rules of proportion--Efforts to improve construction and
decoration in the twelfth century--Absolute demand for an arch of
less pressure and for an abutment of greater resistance--_Ribbed_
as distinguished from _arris_ vaulting--Reasons for adopting the
former--Pointed arch as effecting proportion.
In my former lectures I have endeavoured to trace out the history of
that course of transition by which the rude arcuated architecture which
prevailed in Western Christendom, during the dark ages between the fall
of the Roman empire and the rise of modern civilisation,--commonly known
as the “Romanesque” style,--first emancipated itself from its
semi-barbaric character, and became a consistent round-arched style, and
subsequently, by a perfectly logical series of changes, resulting from
the suggestions partly of scientific construction, and partly of
artistic refinement, developed itself into that new, original, and
beautiful style which has in more modern times received the very absurd,
but now unavoidable, name of _Gothic_ architecture.
Having traced this development up to what I consider to be its
culminating point--the form which it arrived at towards the end of the
thirteenth century--it had been my intention, before I proceeded farther
with the historical view of the subject, to have given a series of short
practical treatises on several of the more important elements of the
style whose history I have traced out; as, for instance, on the
principles of Gothic _vaulting_, on _tracery_, on the system of
_mouldings_ belonging to the style; on _roofing_; on architectural
_carving_ and _sculpture_, etc., etc. Circumstances, however, having
rendered it impracticable for me just now to devote to it the time which
would be necessary to do justice to these subjects, I purpose on the
present occasion to content myself--at the risk (I may say with the
_certainty_) of repeating what I have already stated--with an inquiry
into the _rationale_ of the style of architecture of which I have been
treating.
Such an inquiry is the more necessary from the extraordinary contrariety
of opinion which we find to exist as to the real character of the style,
as well as the external and internal causes of its development. Such
opinions assume the most contradictory forms. One class of them may be
denominated the _religious_ view of the question. Under this head one
party describes it as Christian, and another as Roman Catholic
architecture. One attributes to its various parts a deep symbolisation
of Christian truth; another discovers in them nothing but the mystic
arcana of Romanism; while another cuts the knot by protesting that it is
Mahometan architecture. A second class of opinions assumes an
_ethnological_ form. Under this head some have thought the style
especially English; some pre-eminently German; some, again, in the most
exclusive and straitened sense of the term, French; and others (in the
widest sense) Teutonic; while the entanglement is again cut through by
the champions of the _Saracenic_ claim.
Then comes a _political_ class of disputants. One declares the style to
be nothing more or less than the visible exponent of feudalism. If the
system of Durandus were applied to this view, we should perhaps have the
orders of the arch shown to represent the divisions of feudal
aristocracy.--The point of the arch to be the king; the outer voussoirs
the great, and the inner the lesser, vassals; the clustered pillars to
be the bishops surrounded by their clergy; the ashlar stones the
freemen; the rubble stones the villains and serfs; the mortar to be the
bond of union or of slavery by which the whole system was cemented
together; and the painted glass to be that clerical monopoly of learning
by which the pure light of knowledge was imparted through an
artificially-coloured medium. Others have, however, shown that the style
developed itself just when feudalism was giving way, and just among
those very communities who were most resolutely exerting themselves for
its overthrow; and that, in England especially, it synchronises with the
foundation of those institutions to which we owe our liberties and our
greatness; while our knot-cutting friends would contemptuously pooh-pooh
the whole question by saying that it had nothing to do either with
feudalism or Magna Charta, but was simply the natural result of the
Crusades.
Again, as to its more practical characteristics; one party claims for it
the most unbounded liberty, another denounces it as curbing the free
following of practical and artistic requirements. The very same party
sometimes describes it as excluding the light of day, and sometimes as
offering no protection against the glare of sunshine. In fact, without
going farther into these contrarieties, it may be sufficient to say that
among those who have not gone much into the subject no opinions are too
inconsistent either with one another or with facts to find ready
advocates.
My object in this and the succeeding lecture will be to show that the
style originated in no occult influences; that, if it can be called
either Christian, Teutonic, French, English, German, or Western
European, it is so only in a plain, straightforward, and historical, and
not in any hidden, exclusive, or mysterious, sense; but that it, in
fact, arose from the application of plain common sense to plain
practical requirements; that many of these requirements were not
peculiar to the period, but belong to all time; that many were not
limited to a race or climate, but are common, with certain
modifications, to different races and countries; and that the
application of the same class of common sense to altered requirements
would produce results by no means militating against those thus arrived
at, but, on the contrary, tending to enrich, to amplify, and to add new
life, variety, and harmony to the art which it had first suggested.
To judge of the practical reasonableness of a style of building, it is
not enough to prove that it answers its purpose; we may pre-suppose that
all civilised people would effect as much as that--indeed, that all
people would do so who can construct at all; for if uncivilised, their
aim would be more simple and more readily attained.
The question is, whether the purpose is provided for by means consistent
with common sense, with the laws of nature, with the properties of the
materials at hand, and without an expenditure of labour and material
disproportioned to the result. In this I do not restrict the question to
merely utilitarian results, but admit the artistic element in a degree
proportioned to the rank and purpose of the edifice. I would also wish
to guard myself against being understood to imply that the superior
reasonableness of a style of architecture proves a higher state of
civilisation among the people who use it. Inventions are often
accidental, and independent of high civilisation. Thus, though an arch
is a more rational means of spanning a wide opening than a single block
of marble, the early Romans who used the arch were probably much less
civilised than the early Greeks, who were ignorant of it.
The Egyptians and the Greeks used most nobly the means of spanning
openings with which they were best acquainted, and for which their
numerous quarries of granite and marble supplied them so liberally with
the materials; but such a mode of construction is manifestly costly,
dependent upon natural facilities of the most exceptional kind, and
extremely limited in its application. The use of the arch obviates all
these difficulties, and consequently a mode of construction which admits
the arch is more rational than one which does not. Roman architecture,
in short, than Greek.
The Romans were, in fact, eminently a practical race, and their
architecture is in its construction in a high degree practical and
rational; they by no means limited themselves to the use of costly and
bulky materials, but united in their structures the use of all the
materials of which their world-wide dominion gave them command, and were
equally successful in employing in them the most stupendous masses of
marble, as at Baalbec, the granite of Egypt, or the flint-nodules of
Kent; and never hesitated at spanning the widest structure with vaults
of domes of such solidity as almost to defy the ravages of the elements
and of time.
The two great defects in the _rationale_ of their architecture
were--first, that, as the conquerors of the world, the resources at
their command were so unlimited that economy of material seems to have
been almost dismissed from their consideration, and their principle of
statics seems to have been rather that of passive and inert resistance
than of equilibrium of forces; and, secondly, that, having adopted the
artistic features of Greek architecture, they attempted to unite them
with their own totally different system of construction, in a manner
which cannot always be said to be consistent with reason.
When the nations of modern Europe began to emerge from the chaos of
centuries, and to generate for themselves a new civilisation, their aim,
as regards architecture, seems rather to have been to recover that of
ancient Rome, than to generate a new style for themselves; but their
limited resources, and unfamiliarity with what is now denominated
“Classic” art, freed them from the tendency to follow their great
masters in the two defects which I have mentioned. True, they often
built with needless massiveness; but this was not the result of
profuseness, but of want of experience; and when they imitated or
re-used the details of Roman architecture they applied them with more
regard to practical utility then to Classic precedent.
At first the Romanesque builders were at a low level both as to
constructive and artistic skill; but all their efforts being directed to
practical improvement, they, in course of time, succeeded in generating
a very consistent round-arched style, in which every feature may be said
to have resulted, in a greater or less degree, from practical reasoning
on immediate requirements and on their experience of preceding defects.
The observations I have to offer on the developments thus reasoned out
are intended to apply mainly to those of the countries north of the
Alps, but may in many points be found to be of general application.
One of the first practical principles aimed at throughout the whole
range of Mediæval architecture was so to arrange their designs as to
facilitate the use of small materials, and to render themselves
independent of the accident of having quarries at command which would
supply vast blocks of stone. It happened that in the great seats of
early art this was of less consequence, for Egypt, Syria, Greece, and
Italy contain such quarries in tolerable abundance, though even the
Romans resorted to concealed arches for the security of their
architraves; but in Northern Europe, though building-stone in most parts
abounds, it is quite exceptional to find it at once in blocks of great
dimensions and of strength which would render it a trustworthy covering
to openings of any considerable bearing. With all our increased
facilities at the present day, we never find the trabeated system
carried out in its integrity when on a large scale; either the middle
stones of architraves are suspended by concealed arched joints, as is
the custom here, or are visibly arched-jointed, as in France, or the
entire architraves consist of brick arches plastered over, to mimic the
construction they affect but cannot follow. Even in our Gothic
buildings, where every facility exists for the use of moderate-sized
stone, it is often with much difficulty that blocks of a size suited to
all purposes can be obtained. Thus with the Houses of Parliament, after
the whole kingdom had been ransacked by a geological commission, not
only was the quarry they recommended summarily rejected as incapable of
furnishing stone of any reasonable size, but the second quarry, which
was adopted in its place, and which produced an admirable material, was,
after a time, abandoned, and a third selected, the productions of which
have, in other respects than size, proved so lamentably inferior. The
fact is that it is only here and there that we find quarries uniting
_quality_ and _size_ which suit even our moderate requirements; and if
such is the case now, with all our mechanical advantages and facilities
of transit, how much more must it have been felt in days when the
mechanical appliances of the ancients had been in a great measure lost,
and the Roman roads broken up, while the means which were to supply
these deficiencies were yet in their infancy.
While, then, _at all times_ and _everywhere_, it is a desideratum to a
rational system of construction that it should offer every facility for
the use of ordinary and easily-obtained material, such was the case in a
more than usual degree in those early ages of modern art.
Though the universal use of the arch by the Romanesque builders
obviously promoted this object, it would not of necessity lead to its
fullest attainment. Arches may be, and often are, constructed of
enormous blocks of stone; and it had to be studied how to make good
construction with small materials.
The most obvious means of doing this was by building the arches in
_rims_, as we do our brick arches--a deep arch, consisting of several
distinct arches laid one over the other, each forming the centre on
which the next is built (Fig. 136). By this mode of building an arch of
any degree of strength may be built of stones of the most moderate
dimensions. This system, consequently, became general in the Romanesque
buildings.
[Illustration: Fig. 136.]
[Illustration: Fig. 137.]
Now, a deep arch so constructed, and built square through the wall, has
a heavy clumsy appearance, and forms a dark and cavern-like recess. You
may ornament the voussoirs and vary their colour as you please, but
still it is heavy, wanting in play of light and shade, and obstructive
to the free passage of the rays of light. This was early felt and early
obviated.
In an arch built in several rims, it is not necessary that any but the
outer rim should be of the full width of the wall. This suggested the
system of _sub-ordinating_ the rims, or recessing them, one behind the
other, so as to divide the arch into what are called _orders_ (Fig.
137).
This gives us at once a new and beautiful mode of arching, economical,
and adapted to all varieties of material, giving great play of light and
shade, offering the greatest freedom for the admission of light, and
suggesting (as we shall see) a perfectly new system of decoration.
This division of the arch into receding orders necessitated a
corresponding form in the piers which supported it.
[Illustration: Fig. 138.]
[Illustration: Fig. 139.]
[Illustration: Fig. 140.]
The first means of relieving the plainness of this block form was the
introduction of an impost at the springing, defining the line which
separates the pier from the arch (Fig. 138). Afterwards the orders of
the jamb would receive pilaster capitals (Fig. 139), and finally
decorative columns would be inserted in their place (Fig. 140), thus
completing the general idea of the pier and arch as made use of during
the Romanesque period.
The arch itself was at the same time subjected to various systems of
decoration suited to its _normal_ construction.
It is clear that the extreme angles of the orders contribute but
slightly to their strength. These might, therefore, be rounded,
chamfered, or moulded at pleasure. It became common to form them into
large rolls between two hollows, and also to cut the order into various
mechanical or other forms, as zigzag, etc. etc., according to the fancy
of the architect, from which arose the whole system of Romanesque
arch-decoration; and as the junction of the arch with the wall above was
but slightly marked by the change in the direction of the joints, a
small projecting moulding was introduced between them, which we call the
dripstone or label, which not only drew the line more emphatically but
also served to prevent the water which ran down the face of the walls
from discolouring the arch-mouldings.
It will readily be seen that this logical and reasonable mode of
constructing arched openings would, when applied to arches carried on
pillars, lead to the clustered column.
If the wall was not thick, the arches might certainly continue to be of
one order, and the most natural mode of supporting them would then, as
heretofore, be single columns. Where, however, the wall was so thick as
to give it a clumsy look if the arch ran square through it, it would be
divided into two orders, and would assume at its springing a cruciform
plan. The impost must break round this figure; and though the column
might still remain (and often did remain) round (Figs. 141, 142), the
abacus only assuming the cross form, the most natural thing would be to
form a complex pillar composed of four shafts united in one, each
apparently supporting its own order of the arch (Fig. 143).
[Illustration: Fig. 141.]
[Illustration: Fig. 142.]
[Illustration: Fig. 143.]
If the arch were divided into three orders, a more complex form
suggested itself, containing eight shafts; and as the system was carried
out, many other combinations arose not necessary to enumerate.
Thus we see that the adoption of the arched system of construction,
unbiassed by any pre-existing laws of art, but aided only by the very
rational desire to utilise the materials most abundantly provided by
nature, led to two of the most important characteristics common to
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, viz., the sub-ordinated arch and the
clustered column, with the whole system of decoration derived from them;
than which no two features can be pointed out which have been more
richly fruitful of architectural forms the most original and beautiful.
Again, in the mode of bringing down the arch upon columns, the
Romanesque builders exercised a sound discretion. The Greeks and Romans
in their trabeated construction, reasonably enough, made their
architraves only as wide as the upper diameter of their columns, so that
whatever projection the capitals had beyond the shaft, they had the same
beyond the architrave also. When, however, you substitute two arches for
two architraves, you bring down the weight by two opposite forces; its
footing on the capital, therefore, requires as much steadiment as
possible.
The Romans, as many of their modern followers, were for a time so
inconsistent as not only to limit the arch, like the architrave, to the
thickness of the upper diameter of the column, but actually interposed,
without a shadow of use, a bit of entablature between the column and the
arch; thus, instead of doing all they could to give steadiness to the
spring of the arch, they made it as tottering in its construction as
possible. This was corrected by the Romans of the Lower Empire, and the
arch was placed by them, as reason would dictate, directly upon the
capital, or (still more sensibly) on a strong flat impost laid on the
capital; and for this most reasonable step they have in after ages been
pronounced barbarous! The Romanesque architects, taught by common sense
rather than by precedent, followed their example. If they imitated or
re-used the Corinthian capital, they laid upon its fragile abacus a more
trustworthy impost, and to give greater steadiment to the foot of the
arch they made it somewhat wider than the diameter of the column--a
practice which pervades Mediæval architecture, and contributes greatly
both to its good construction and its beauty.
The system of constructing _doorways_ is directly derived from what I
have already described--as many recesses being given to the jambs as the
arch has rims, and these decorated with columns if thought good. The
head is often filled in with a tympanum supported by corbels in the
jambs, both as a field for sculptured decoration, and to make the door
itself square instead of arch-formed. If this is not done, the inner
arches are made to spring from a higher level, to allow the doors to
open without catching against them.
The windows show the same regard to reason. The inside is nearly always
widely splayed, to spread the light equally in the room. The external
recess depended partly on the degree of architectural character aimed
at, and partly on the depth required for the arch. Where the openings
were but narrow, and the resources small, one arch-rim would suffice;
and this would often be chamfered at the edges, to prevent obstruction
to light.
If the opening were wider, and so required a deeper arch, or if the
architectural effect aimed at were greater, we find two or more such
orders as the above, with, perhaps, columns supporting the outer ones;
the receding orders, in either case, doing away with undue obstruction
of light or view; the sill always well sloped, to throw off the water,
and having usually a string-course below, to prevent it from running
down and discolouring the walls. In all this, strict regard to practical
reason and utility is manifest; every step is argued out on the basis of
construction and requirement, and every decoration is founded on, and
results from, the conclusions come to on these practical grounds.
In domestic architecture, if a window were beyond the width of a single
casement, a small pillar was often interposed, and the inner order of
the window was divided into two arches, while the outer one, if there
were any, was in one, the casements or shutters falling into rebates in
the back of the column, by which a window of double width, which would
not otherwise be conveniently attainable was produced. In window-like
openings in which glazing was not needed--as in triforiums, cloisters,
and screens--this system was used for beauty where not demanded for the
same reasons as in windows, and the subdivisions were often increased to
three or four under one comprising arch.
[Illustration: Fig. 144.--St. Trophimus, Arles. Cloisters, north side.]
In other instances of the same kind, where light arcading was needed, as
in cloisters, and the wall was too thick to rest upon a single capital,
two small columns were placed one behind another, or a sort of bar or
double corbel placed on the capital of a single pillar to support the
springer of the arch, for the sake of avoiding the use of thick piers,
which were not needed for strength, and would obstruct view and light;
and all these practical contrivances were made elements of beauty and
varied effect.
[Illustration: Fig. 145. Priory Church, Bridlington. Part of remains of
Cloisters.]
Another legitimate exercise of reason on the part of the Romanesque
builders, was the rejection of the fixed rules of proportion observed by
the ancients between the diameter and height of their columns. These
rules were good in their place, but they had been worked out for a
totally different system; and we know that the ancients themselves were
anything but as slavish in their adherence to them as their modern
imitators. In a purely arcuated system, however, it became clear that
such rules were out of place and inconsistent with reason.
Circumstances, in a majority of cases, prescribed the height of a
column, from reasons wholly irrespective of the question of its load. It
followed, then, that the diameter must be regulated rather by the load
than the height, so that every variety of proportion became admissible.
Take, as an example, the crypt under the choir of York minster. Its
height being prescribed by circumstances, and the portion of it required
for the vaulting being fixed by the width of the arched bays, it
followed that the height of the columns was also rigorously defined; but
some of these columns had to carry those of the church above, and with
them the whole superstructure, while others had no load but the vaulting
of the crypt and the floor of the church. Surely, then, the simplest
exercise of reason dictated that their diameters should vary with their
load, irrespective of their height. The system of clustering columns
both helped to moderate the extremes of such variation in proportion,
and, at the same time, introduced still wider liberty; for, though a
pier destined to carry a vast load might be subdivided, and its apparent
proportions thus lightened, the individual shafts of which it was
composed, not having each its own proper load, might be viewed as
decorative only, and be made exceedingly thin for their height. The use
of such thin shafts did not, however, originate in the Middle Ages.
Canina shows in his work on _Domestic Architecture Decorated with
Ornaments of a Light Form_, that it was frequent among the ancients,
though not often adopted by modern Classic architects. Even for really
constructive pillars it is admissible where the material is of
remarkable strength, as in the case of metal columns, and, in a less
degree, with those of marble or granite where the load is very small;
but it is especially so where the columns are of a decorative rather
than a functional character, in which case it is not only lawful, but
correct, to show this by making them of slender proportions. The
liberty, however, which I here defend, must, as all other liberty, be
kept within reasonable bounds, and must be regulated by a correct eye
and sound judgment.
Another sound exercise, as I think, of reason and liberty, which was
universal among the Romanesque and Byzantine architects, was the
departure from the rule of the ancients that all capitals and other
recurring objects of a like nature should be worked to one and the same
pattern. It may be that the unity of a colonnade, united by a single and
unbroken entablature, demanded this. I am not finding fault with it in
Grecian or Roman architecture; but where the capitals are separated by
arches, or did not form a continuous range at all, the effect would be
most painfully monotonous if the sculptured capitals were all alike, as
if cast in a mould by the hundred. We accordingly find it established as
a universal law that, though moulded or other mechanically-formed
capitals might, if you please, be alike, no such slavery should be
imposed upon the sculptor; but that he should have the fullest scope,
within the reasonable limits suggested by the requirements and the
general balance and harmony of mass and outline, for the freest exercise
of his own imagination.
Now, though these and other developments of the Romanesque period were
founded on a thoroughly practical and logical course of reasoning, it by
no means follows that a perfected form of arcuated architecture had yet
been arrived at, any more than that the decorative system had been
brought into a thoroughly refined or artistic form.
Towards the middle of the twelfth century the efforts of the architects
were redoubled towards the attainment of these two objects; and the
advancement made, both in correcting defects in construction and
refining the decorative system, were most strenuously followed up, and
all improvements made were founded strictly on reason. The great
constructive difficulty met with arose from the powerful outward
pressure of the round arch when of great span or carrying any great
load, and especially so when used in situations where it was difficult
to give it any very massive abutment.
The cases of failure from this cause were most frequent; so much so,
that besides the numerous instances recorded of buildings wholly or in
part falling from the failure of the arches, we find among the buildings
still remaining abundant evidences of the insufficiency of the round
arches for their load, and of the abutments to resist their pressure. In
ordinary architecture we cannot, as in bridges, viaducts, etc., give our
arches an unlimited abutment proportioned to the pressure, whatever it
may be; we are limited in our means of doing this by innumerable causes:
thus, in a central tower, if the arms of the cross have aisles, the
natural abutments of the tower arches are reduced to the frail aid of a
continuous arcade upon detached pillars; and even if there are no
aisles, the abutting walls are perforated with windows. The abutments,
again, of a chancel arch are perforated either by arches or windows,
while the gable over the arch loads it heavily at its weakest point.
The abutment of an arch, again, has often to impinge upon a pier at half
its height, as in the case of a nave arcade abutting upon the detached
piers of a central tower. In all such situations the undue pressure of
the round arch was found to be most prejudicial. Still more strongly was
it felt where the nave was spanned by stone vaulting. The Romans had got
over this, as in the Baths of Diocletian, by breaking the continuity of
the aisles by vast abutting walls across them. But in a church this was
impracticable. Its uses demanded continuity of aisle and moderation in
the size of the pillars. Failures often occurred from these adverse
causes, and the ingenuity of the architects was naturally directed to
obviating the defect.
I have, in a previous lecture, described the series of tentative
experiments, all of them dictated by constructive and practical
requirements, by which it was attempted to avoid these difficulties. I
will not weary you by recapitulating them. The two obvious desiderata
were an arch of less pressure and an abutment of greater resistance; and
these were the two objects aimed at in most of the succeeding
developments. The first demand was met by the pointed arch; the second
by the systematised use of the buttress, whether of the solid or arched
description. It was perfectly well known that the outward thrust of an
arch diminished as its height increased; that the resisting power of an
abutment depended mainly on its extension in the direction of the
pressure; and that where sufficient extension of abutment could not be
obtained without inconvenience or dissight, the deficiency might be
compensated by loading it from above: and by arguing on these three
facts the constructive characteristics which distinguish Gothic from
Romanesque, or the pointed-arched from the round-arched Gothic, were
logically worked out.
The strictly mathematical mode of increasing the height of an arch
would, I suppose, be by using a semi-ellipse, its major axis being
vertical. The form is, however, most unpleasing to the eye and
troublesome in execution, from its constant variation of curvature, so
that by far the most natural and practical means of effecting the object
is the adoption of an arch of two centres, or what is commonly called
the “pointed arch.” We accordingly find, as I have shown by ample
evidence in a previous lecture, that this form was in the first instance
used just in those situations in which a reduction of outward pressure
or an increased power of bearing weight were of the greatest importance.
I have shown that this form was not adopted at first as a matter of
taste, of fashion, or of fancy; nor even, as has been suggested by a
highly talented writer, as a means of meeting the difficulties arising
from the varied heights of the arches of vaulting, but simply from
_structural_ and _mechanical_ necessity. It matters not whether the form
was new or old, whether it occurred to them without external suggestion,
or whether they saw it in the East, in their own intersecting arcades,
or in the first proposition of Euclid. It was not the seeing of it in
any such manner which caused its introduction, but the simple fact that
they had arrived in the course of their constructive development at a
practical problem of vital importance, which _absolutely demanded_ the
pointed arch for its solution.
The first situations in which the pointed arch was substituted for the
semicircle are the wide spanning arches of vaulting and the arches
carrying central towers and gables. We next find it in the wide arches
of nave arcades; and it is not, as a general rule, till it became
customary in those positions where it was demanded for practical
reasons, that it began to be used as a matter of taste in other
positions.
Having secured the first object--an arch of reduced pressure--the
second, viz., the abutment of an increased resistance, was attained by
the systematic development of the buttress--a feature very much
neglected by the Romanesque builders; and, as the vaulting of a lofty
nave could not be directly supported by the ordinary buttress, the
arched or flying buttress was introduced, spanning the aisles and
conveying the pressure to the buttresses beyond. That this was
introduced for utility only, and not from taste, is proved by the
attempts in early instances to conceal it; so that we may with certainty
conclude that all these beautiful features of Gothic architecture
originated not from taste or caprice, but from reasoning upon practical
and urgently pressing constructional requirements, and that the beauties
to which they gave rise proceeded from the application to them of the
great principle of Gothic architecture, the decoration of constructive
or useful features.
Let us, however, suppose for a moment that our building is not vaulted,
but has timber roofs; there still remains an advantage in the use of the
pointed arch. If it has, for instance, a central tower, the demand for
an arch of reduced thrust is still greater than if the church had been
vaulted, for the arms of the cross, from their reduced weight, are less
effective as abutments.
The chancel arch, again, demands height, and the more so if it be wide,
as in our own day is necessary. The nave arcades are better pointed than
round, as are any others carrying any considerable weight. Buttresses
remain necessary at the ends of the arcades, and are desirable as a
steadiment to the outer walls, particularly where roofs without a direct
tie are made use of, and are further useful as permitting the
introduction of larger windows than might be safe without them. In all
cases, indeed, where roofs or floors are so constructed as to
concentrate pressure upon points, it is clear that buttresses are
desirable; and when the efficient size cannot be given them without
inconvenience or dissight, it is equally clear that the deficiency may
be readily compensated by loading them with lofty pinnacles. It is wrong
to use buttresses without any object but appearance, but there are
numbers of cases where they are of great advantage, besides those in
which we know them to be indispensable. If so many of our arched and
vaulted buildings in these days were not mere pretences in lath and
plaster, we should have more practical experience of the need of the
buttress and of the pointed arch. I was once told by the English
Commissioner in Scinde that the European engineers had difficulty in
making the native builders there believe that any but a pointed arch
will stand.
Let us now inquire as briefly as may be into the _rationale_ of _ribbed_
vaulting as distinguished from the _arris_ vaulting of the Roman and
earlier Romanesque builders.
A groined vault does not of absolute necessity demand the use of ribs
any more than the plain waggon-head vault. Even the latter was from an
early period frequently divided into compartments or bays by transverse
ribs, which were useful as a means of giving it rigidity; but in
_groined_ vaulting these were of nearly constant use, both for the same
reason, and because the vault, being reduced at its springing to so
narrow a footing, required this additional strength. The arrises,
however, or diagonal lines of intersection, were always left without
ribs.
Why, then, was the custom changed? For two important reasons. The first
was this: that the intersection forms naturally a feeble line, both from
the difficulty, particularly with the rough materials usually employed,
of making its construction sound; from its forming an arch of greatly
increased width without corresponding increase of height: and from its
reduction at the springing level to a pin’s point.
The second was of a more intricate nature, and requires to be explained
more in detail. When the two intersecting vaults of a groin are similar
and equal in their section, or when the section of one is the
mathematical resultant of that of the other, the line of intersection
falls in a _plane_. When vaulting, however, became general, all sorts of
irregularly-formed spaces would have to be so covered, and would present
problems of considerable difficulty, in which it would be impossible in
all cases that the vaulting surfaces should be portions of cylinders or
regular cylindroids, and in which the intersecting lines could not,
without much twisting of the surfaces, be brought to fall into planes.
The introduction of the diagonal rib met both of these difficulties. It
strengthened the weak angle and gave it a substantial footing; and it at
the same time gave to the lines of intersection a certain degree of
independence of the vaulting surfaces; so that, instead of the surfaces
governing the intersection, they were thenceforth governed by the ribs,
and the latter could be made to fall into planes, and to avoid unsightly
forms even in vaulting spaces of the most irregular and abnormal forms.
The substitution of the rib for the arris worked as great a revolution
in the principles of vaulted construction as did the pointed arch
itself. Nothing in the way of vaulting was now impracticable or
unsightly; the architect was absolutely master of his work, and could do
what he liked with it. The facilities it offers are quite marvellous in
the eyes of the modern practical man when once they are opened to them.
I have myself found one of the most practical men I ever met with, who
had for years taken the leading management of the business of the
greatest builder of our day, though hitherto uninitiated in Gothic
construction, almost in ecstasies at finding a difficult problem in
vaulting he had been puzzled over for days and making models of in vain,
solved in an instant by seeing the absolute liberty of action exercised
in a similar case in Westminster Abbey. The old builders themselves
perfectly luxuriated in their newly-discovered liberty: not only could
they vault spaces of any conceivable plan, every dimension of it
varying, and the difficulties increased by the necessity of pushing up
windows in its sides in all kinds of difficult positions, but they could
make the result so pleasing and apparently so straightforward and
natural, that not one observer out of a thousand ever finds out that
there was any difficulty to be got over at all. Sometimes, indeed, we
find them rejoicing so much in their freedom as to set themselves
needless puzzles for the very luxury of solving them. There is a most
remarkable instance of this in the crypt under Glasgow Cathedral, where
the pillars which support the floor have been placed in a variety of
intricate positions for no reason, apparently, but to produce curious
perplexities in the vaulting and create strange problems, for the mere
pleasure to be derived from their solution and the beauty of the puzzle
when solved.[59]
It has been argued that the Gothic vault is less refined than some of
the previous forms, because less strictly mathematical; that a refined
system of construction should in all cases possess an exact mathematical
solution, though the builder may, when once master of the true theory,
depart from it in execution; that the work, in short, though irregular
in execution, should be perfect and mathematically accurate in its
theoretical type.
I agree with this doctrine in the main; but I hold that the Gothic vault
complies with its conditions.
The square groined vault, with semicircular arches, is perfect in its
theory, and gives elliptical arches for its arris lines. The same, if
vaulted with the pointed arch, is equally true in theory, for the
diagonal ribs may be pointed arches, formed each of portions of two
ellipses. The oblong vault, again, is perfect if the wide arch is a
semicircle, the narrow one a vertical semi-ellipse, and the arrises
horizontal semi-ellipses of the same height; but the ancients generally
chose to stilt the narrow arch instead of using the vertical ellipse,
and by doing so threw the diagonal arris out of the plane and out of
shape; but the theoretical form remained, nevertheless, perfect. In like
manner, if the same figure be vaulted across its widest span by a
pointed vault, and if the narrow vault have a pointed arch composed of
two portions of ellipses, and the intersections be of the same figure as
resulting geometrically from the intersection of the two vaults, the
theoretical form is perfect. Now, if in either case the architect thinks
the elliptical pointed arches inferior in beauty to those composed of
parts of circles, and by using ribs finds himself enabled to throw the
error resulting from the substitution of the latter form into the
vaulted surfaces where it will be invisible, surely he is only using
that discretionary power of introducing irregularities upon a perfect
theory which is claimed as his right; and this is exactly what the
Gothic architects introduced.
The fact is that, besides its unpleasing form, especially when the major
axis is vertical, the use of the ellipse entails such an annoying series
of difficulties as greatly to increase the trouble and consequent cost
of execution. The constant change of curvature, the troublesome methods
of striking it, and of finding the true lines of the arch-joints, not
to mention the mathematical fact that the same joint line is never true
both for the extrados and intrados, and that, if the rib-mould remains
unchanged in depth, the extrados and intrados cannot be both true
ellipses at all; all these furnish quite sufficient practical reasons
for its rejection in cases where not only is there no necessity but an
abstract mathematical idea to be satisfied by its use, but the beauty of
the work is greatly improved by dispensing with it.
Though the pointed arch was introduced from purely constructive reasons,
there was another of a more æsthetical nature, which rendered its
adoption more general when once introduced. It was a double one; not
only did the general tendency towards lofty proportions render it
necessary to make use of an arch more in harmony with the general
feeling of the architecture, but the rejection of a fixed code of
proportions for pillars and other parts demanded for the arch an equal
power of varying its own proportions. The semicircular arch is absolute
and invariable, and though the use of smaller segments would meet the
case in one direction, there were no means of proportioning it to
features of _increasing_ height. This was attempted both in Romanesque
and Byzantine works by the expedient of _stilting_, but this is, after
all, more a semblance than a reality. As in cases already cited, the
mathematical solution of the problem is the ellipse; but only imagine
anything so unpleasing as a series of elliptical arches placed the
length-way upwards! Good taste would not suffer it. But the pointed arch
at once met the difficulty. To illustrate my meaning, I will beg you to
take an internal bay of a Norman cathedral (Fig. 146), and to suppose
yourselves to have to increase its height throughout in the ratio of
one-third (Fig. 147).
[Illustration: Fig. 146.]
[Illustration: Fig. 147.]
You first, after setting out your widths as in the original, increase
the whole height and that of each storey by one-third; you then increase
the pillars and the jambs of the triforium and clerestory windows in the
same proportion: this brings you to a stand, for the arches, being
semicircles, are invariable. Either you must leave them unaltered and
throw all the extra height into the wall above them, or you must stilt
them each to the extent of one-third of their height unless you can make
use of an elastic arch which will change its proportion at pleasure.
The ellipse occurs and meets the case, but it offends your eye. At
length, however, the pointed arch suggests itself, and gets rid of the
whole difficulty. So similar are a Romanesque and an Early Pointed bay
in all other respects, that the change of proportion which I have
described seems at once to effect the whole change in style.
Had the constructional motive alone existed, the pointed form would have
been confined to arches of considerable span; but the demand for a
variable arch adding æsthetic to the constructional claim, caused its
speedy adoption in positions where strength alone would not have
demanded it, though the semicircle, the plain segment, and the segmental
pointed arch, were, at all subsequent periods of the style, used side by
side with the true pointed form.
I have been the more particular in showing the true reasons for the
change in the form of the arch, because the great majority of writers
treat it purely as a matter of taste and of altered fashion; indeed,
some excellent writers on the history of Mediæval architecture have
strangely imagined that the pointed arch had a greater outward thrust
than the round, and that the increased projection of the buttresses was
necessitated by its use, instead of the two being simultaneously
introduced as a double means of avoiding the evils experienced from the
great thrust of the round arch and the small buttresses by which it had,
during the Romanesque period, been accompanied.
I will now close my present lecture, but hope in the next to carry on
the same inquiry into a number of other details, as well as into the
general spirit and principles of the architecture of which I am
treating, and to add some practical remarks on the application of the
_rationale_ thus traced out to our present revival of the style, and
such developments as it may give rise to.
LECTURE VII.
The Rationale of Gothic Architecture--_Continued_.
The bases of a thirteenth century church indicate the plan and
construction of the vaulting--The system of mouldings--Windows,
their development--Rationale of stained glass--A general principle
of ornamentation common to all good architecture--The roof--Secular
buildings--Cloth market Yprès--Warehouses, Nuremburg--Windows in
secular and ecclesiastical buildings--Trabeated architecture in its
truest forms--Fireplaces--Chimney-shafts--Oriel and Dormer
windows--Ceilings--Subordination of external design to internal
requirements--Designs adapted to the materials most readily
obtained--Conditions demanded of our future architecture--Gothic
architecture well fitted to unite these conditions.
In my last lecture I traced out the _rationale_ of a number of the
leading features, both of Romanesque as distinguished from Roman
architecture, and subsequently of Gothic as distinguished from
Romanesque. I will endeavour to avoid wearying you by carrying the
inquiry into too great a multiplicity of details, but I must,
nevertheless, ask your indulgence while I pursue them somewhat further
than I have yet done.
Nothing would, perhaps, do more to show the reasonableness of the
various developments in question than to trace out the details of the
vaulting system; to show the varieties it exhibited in different
countries and provinces and at different periods, the various modes
adopted for effecting a given purpose and the many mechanical and other
difficulties to be contended with, and the methods adopted of meeting
them. This is, however, so extensive and so intricate a subject, that,
if I had devoted these two lectures exclusively to it, I could barely
have done it justice. I will, therefore, at present content myself with
referring those of you who are anxious to make yourselves acquainted
with it, to an admirable and elaborate essay on the subject by Professor
Willis, in the Transactions of the Institute of British Architects, and
to the article “Construction,” in the fourth volume of Viollet le Duc’s
Dictionary. No one who has not gone carefully and practically into the
subject can have any idea of the amount of forethought which it demands;
so much so that, as Viollet le Duc says, the design for a vaulted
building has to be commenced at the top and worked downwards; and we may
often form a pretty correct idea, from the bases of a thirteenth century
church, of what was the plan and construction of its vaulting.
This principle of designing each part from the first with reference to
its ultimate intention is very strongly marked in French works of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and in those of the transitional
period in England. The form, not only of the capital, but even of the
base of each shaft, usually indicates the direction of the arched rib or
order which it is destined to carry.
This was, however, lost in English works on the introduction of the
circular abacus, and I must say that much expression and emphasis was
lost with it. Not only, indeed, did the abacus in French work face or
point in the direction of the arched rib, but its plan was often made to
fit to it in the most direct manner, and even the direction of the
principal stalks of the foliage had reference to the supported rib (Fig.
148).
[Illustration: Fig. 148.--Laon Cathedral. Respond in Choir Aisle.]
The system of moulding, again, follows out the same laws of reason. An
arch-moulding, for instance, is founded on what is supposed to be the
original section of the order or rib. Thus, if the normal section of the
rib be square, the section of the mouldings is made to fit to that
figure (Fig. 149); if chamfered or a part of an octagon, the mouldings,
again, fit to it (Fig. 150); the abacus in each case taking the normal
plan of the ribs.
[Illustration: Fig. 149.]
[Illustration: Fig. 150.]
[Illustration: Fig. 151.]
As to æsthetical forms, the mouldings were studiously arranged so as to
produce in some parts the greatest contrasts, in others the most elegant
gradations of light and shade. The heaviness of large roll mouldings was
often relieved by fillets or by raised edges or “keels,” by which
diversity was gained without loss of mass (Fig. 151).
Hollows, again, were relieved by the insertion of sparkling ornaments,
such as the toothed ornament, the rosette, the ball-flower, the
four-leaved flower, and many others; and in other instances by the
introduction of bands of foliage. The sections of moulding differed
entirely from those of Roman architecture, being far more free and less
mechanical, and at once more delicate in feeling and more carefully
studied with reference to light and shade. They resembled Greek
mouldings, in fact, far more than Roman.
Enriched mouldings differed from the usual practice in antique work in
this respect, that the enrichment was added to instead of being cut out
of the original moulding; its practical use being to strengthen the
hollows rather then to enrich the rounds. In this respect the practice
of the Romanesque builder had been different; and perhaps a union of the
two systems would be better than a close adherence to either.
Mouldings which receive much rain, as copings, cills, tops of cornices
etc., were very much more sloped than in Classic work, so as to throw
off the wet more rapidly. The custom in modern Classic buildings, where
the stone is not very hard, of putting lead on the upper surface, as
well as the damage often sustained when this is neglected, show the
reasonableness of this increased slope. They had to do with a more rainy
climate, and generally with softer stone, than the ancients, and they
designed their work accordingly. The under sides, again, of projecting
mouldings, as string-courses, drip-stones, water-tables, cills, etc.,
were carefully designed so as to prevent the wet from running round
them. Base mouldings round buildings were designed in such a manner as
both really and apparently to give it a substantial footing, and at the
same time to add greatly to its beauty; many of them are as noble
combinations as could easily be conceived.[60]
In short, it may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that in no
style of architecture has a system of moulding been generated so full of
variety and so capable of suiting itself to every position; and not only
to provide for the practical demands of each position, but to give to
each just that kind of effect which it most demanded.
Let us now proceed to consider the _window_. In the days of ancient
Greece, and in the earlier days of Rome, windows were necessarily kept
in a very undeveloped form, through the non-existence of window glass;
so much so, that in Classic architecture the window seems a thing
shunned as an unhappy necessity; and the imperfect manufacture and
dearness of this material, no doubt, influenced, in a considerable
degree, the architecture of the later Roman and the immediately
succeeding periods. In churches and other vaulted buildings, another
cause would lead to the use, during the last-named (_i.e._, the
Romanesque) period, of as small windows as would just answer the
purpose. The unaided thickness and the whole length of the wall being
relied on for the abutment of the vaulting, it naturally followed that
perforations were as much avoided as possible, as tending to reduce the
abutting mass. Accordingly, as buttresses increased in projection,
greater and greater openings in the curtain wall were ventured on,
simply because there was strength sufficient to admit of them, till,
when Pointed architecture received its full development, and the
pressure of the vaults was entirely concentrated upon the buttresses,
the whole intervening space might, if needful, be converted into
windows.
Simultaneously with this change, the increasing use of stained glass
_necessitated_ a corresponding increase in the area of window opening,
so that we have one development _facilitating_, and the other _rendering
necessary_, the constant enlargement and multiplication of the windows.
The _primâ facie_ mode of obtaining increased window light would be by
widening the openings; but as this, if carried too far, would at once
injure the beauty of the window and cause inconvenience in glazing it,
the more usual course adopted was to increase the number. Hence the
couplets, triplets, and more numerous groups of the Early English
windows. These groups, when placed in a side wall and under a level
roof-plate, would naturally assume the form of arcades of equal height;
but when under a gable, an arched roof, or a vaulted bay, they increased
in height towards the centre,--thus giving us the two most familiar
forms of grouping. The sections of the jambs were arranged (as in the
earlier period) in the manner best suited to the admission of
light--care being taken externally to avoid deep shadows upon the glass,
and internally, to disperse the light as readily as possible through the
building.
In domestic buildings, where windows have to serve the double purpose of
admitting the light and facilitating external view, they were not
usually grouped as above described, but were made wider in their
openings, the unpleasant effect which might otherwise arise from it
being obviated, and the glazing and opening of the window rendered more
easy by the use of thin mullions or pillars dividing the window into two
or more lights. This system offered advantages so obvious that it was
very soon adopted for churches also; so that, instead of obtaining
increased light, as heretofore, by the indefinite multiplication of
comparatively small windows, it became customary now, _for the first
time in the history of architecture_, to make windows of _any_ size
which their position or utility might dictate; the whole end of a church
and the entire bays of its flanks being occupied, if need be, by single
windows.
Now, nothing could be more rational than this development. The mode of
glazing in use was most conveniently applicable to spaces of moderate
width. It is true that by the more extended use of iron it was then, as
it has often been in modern times, applied to openings of 6, 8, or even
10 feet in width; but narrower spaces were much more convenient. The
lights, however, at Westminster Abbey (which is one of the earlier
buildings in which this kind of window is systematically used in this
country), are 4½ feet wide, and in France they are generally much more.
The prevailing practice of placing a massive pier between each of such
lights was obviously imperfect. The concentration of pressure upon the
buttresses now allowed of openings of almost any size; what, then, was
more reasonable than to make extensive openings, and then to subdivide
them by light mullions into compartments at once sightly and convenient?
That this practice has sometimes, from caprice, been carried to a
vicious excess in no degree militates against its _rationale_; indeed,
with all our modern facilities for glazing and opening our windows, we
continually find the same expedient resorted to for convenience, and
invariably so when any extraordinary amount of light, and consequent
width of window, is needed.
The next question which would arise is, how is the arch to be filled in?
This we find done at first by a plate or tympanum of stone as thick as
the depth of the mullions, each light being arched, and the tympanum
pierced at pleasure with such openings as suited the builder’s taste;
and, later on, we find these piercings connected together into those
systematic groups which we call tracery; thus converting the window into
a perfectly novel and most beautiful architectural feature.
As I shall have more to say on the subject of windows when we come to
secular architecture, I will limit myself to two remarks. One is this;
that in positions in which there is not much height, where there is no
great load to be sustained, and where the termination of the wall
internally and externally is horizontal, the Mediæval architects by no
means held themselves bound to the arched form, but reserved perfect
liberty to put square heads to their windows; the other is a passing
remark on the _rationale of stained glass_. I do not conceive it to be
simply a decoration or a means of adding rich colouring, but that it
also arose from an unconscious feeling that it was necessary to the
perfect effect of an architectural interior that it should be
_self-inclosed_. In a living-room one wishes not only for admission of
light, but for facility of looking out at the windows; and this
necessity prevents us from seeing the windows well as architectural
features, because the focus of the eye has constantly to be changed in
passing from the window itself to the view beyond. In a church, on the
contrary, you do not wish to look out at the window, and it is better
that it should be filled with a medium only semi-transparent, and which,
being at about the same distance from the eye with the surrounding
architecture, at once does away with the necessity of a change of focus,
and supplies a beautiful decoration to the medium by which that object
is effected.
I have not yet noticed one of the leading features of the style, and one
in which it assumes a character most peculiarly its own: I mean the
_roof_.
All previous styles of architecture with which we are acquainted, having
originated in Southern countries, had roofs of a low pitch. I have no
doubt that in many of those countries there were occasions in which a
higher pitch would have answered better; but as the lower line
harmonised better with the generally horizontal lines of their
architecture, and was found to answer, they naturally adopted it. The
Romanesque architecture of Southern Europe had also somewhat low roofs,
and when first imported into Germany the roofs were by no means high.
Gradually, however, as men forgot its connection with Italy, and viewed
it as belonging to themselves, they would naturally use with it the form
of roof they had found most serviceable and were most accustomed to in
their ordinary buildings; and thus the high roof of the North became
engrafted upon the Romanesque style, and became conspicuous feature in
external architecture. Happily this change harmonised well with its
general character. The arch seemed to suggest a higher pitch of roof
than did trabeated construction, and when greater height was generally
introduced, and the pointed arch took the place of the round, the high
pitch of the roof would be found better to harmonise with it.
I view, then, the high roof as partly the result of climate and partly
of the æsthetic tendency of the style. But is it to be considered as an
essential characteristic of Gothic architecture? By no means. The true
characteristic of the style is _liberty_; and in the roof, as in every
other feature, perfect freedom is reserved; so that we find roofs
varying from almost perfect flatness to a very high pitch, a preference
being given, _cæteris paribus_, to the high roof where there was not
some decided objection to its use.
In internal construction also the roof was founded on rational
principles, good construction being always considered before beauty, but
the latter made very generally to result from it.
Gothic timber roofs would form a subject which could hardly be done
justice to under one or two lectures, so I will not go farther into them
now. Modern carpentry has shown us how to construct roofs with less
timber than was used in these structures (there was then less necessity
for the economy of timber), but we have never done anything to compete
with the noble pieces of ornamented carpentering bequeathed to us by our
Mediæval forefathers. As to covering of roofs, I may just mention, in
passing, that though the Mediæval builders made use of every material
which it is customary to use for this purpose, there are several which
cannot be made use of with any but a high pitch, and are therefore
unusable with low roofs such as are used in other styles, as, for
instance, plain tiles, ordinary stone slate, shingle, and thatch.
The next point in the _rationale_ of Gothic architecture is one which I
by no means claim as its peculiar property, inasmuch as it is common to
all _good_ architecture, though certainly our style is somewhat
pre-eminent in its adoption of it. I refer to that general principle of
ornamentation which trusts mainly for beauty to the useful and
constructive features of the building, rather than to those which are
introduced directly for appearance.
Thus, in a noble Gothic building, the ornamental character arises from a
greater or less richness in the _doorways_, in the _windows_, the
_buttresses_, the _cornices_, _parapets_, or other parts needful for the
uses or construction of the building. This belongs to all noble
architecture, but is more thoroughly, I think, carried out in Gothic
than in other styles, and perhaps less so in modern Italian, especially
in what is commonly called Paladian, than in any other. I do not lay
claim to it as an argument in favour of one style above another, for all
_ought_ to possess it alike; but the absence of it in a very great deal
of modern architecture is at least a proof that much reformation is
needed among ourselves; and the strong degree in which it was adopted as
a maxim by the Gothic architects is a proof of the reasonableness of the
principles on which they acted.
There are, of course, in all styles of architecture decorations of a
merely gratuitous kind, and when largeness of means leads to profusion,
they are likely to be carried to excess; but in Gothic architecture of
the best periods the beauty of a building (after good proportion,
outline, etc., are secured) depends not on this deliberate
ornamentation, but on the artistic treatment of the necessary features.
Whatever parts were dictated by practical necessity were the chief
objects on which decoration was expended, and to which the architect
trusted for the beauty of his building.
More especially was it, _par eminence_, a _window_ style. Of all the
objects provided for, the _admission of light_ was the first and
chiefest; accordingly, the window was made, both within and without, the
leading source of beauty. It is by the design of the _windows_ that we
define the gradations of style. It is chiefly by the _windows_ that we
describe a building, and the first question asked about a Gothic
building generally relates to its _windows_. On them, therefore, was
expended a large portion of the architectural decoration. How
marvellous, then, is the inconsistency which we meet with!--people with
one breath objecting to Gothic architecture--the offspring of Northern
climes--as not admitting light enough, and urging the use of Southern
architecture to obviate the imagined defect; and then telling you of the
beauties of a modern building,[61] the great characteristic of which is,
that its principal façade has no windows at all!
Next to the windows, the _doorways_ claim the most careful attention.
Indeed, in some respects, they had the precedence, inasmuch as of all
parts of a building the doorway is that which challenges the closest
inspection. The decorations, consequently, of doorways are those which
contain the greatest amount of actual sculptured art. It is a great
principle to place sculpture where it will be best seen; and as every
one who enters a building must of necessity obtain a close view of the
doorways, they were naturally made the great vehicles for sculpture. In
France especially, every part of the doorway frequently is sculptured.
Take, for example, the western portals of Amiens: the pedestal or
basement of the jambs is decorated with medallions, illustrating Bible
history by bas-reliefs; the jambs contain colossal statues of saints;
the central pillar of the great double doorway contains the chief
statue; the tympanum is filled with subjects, and the orders of the arch
with angelic figures; so that the entire doorways are alive with
sculpture.
The buttresses, again, those naturally uncouth projections--mere inert
masses to resist the pressure from within--are rendered beautiful by
their stately proportions and architectural details, the niches and
statues which adorn their receding stages, and the aspiring pinnacles by
which they are crowned.
The stone roof-plate, enriched with mouldings and foliage, and, perhaps,
supported on sculptured corbels, becomes the crowning horizontal
feature; and the parapet--the defence of the workmen engaged on the
roofs--is pierced into tracery, or forms a miniature arcade, giving
delicacy and lightness of effect to the generally massive structure;
while the bell-tower, raised high to make its voice heard from afar,
becomes the culminating ornament of the whole exterior. So completely
was it the recognised principle of the architecture to render the useful
and constructive parts sources of decoration, that, where any deliberate
decoration was made use of, it was often formed of imitations of
constructional features, such as window tracery, arcades, gables,
pinnacles, columns, etc.
I am not prepared to say that this is in itself to be applauded; indeed,
I think it ought, at the least, to be kept within moderate limits; but
it nevertheless owed its origin to the firm hold which the principle of
rendering construction the leading source of decoration had upon the
architects. Being accustomed to decorate construction, they got into the
habit of using constructive forms as decorations.
My illustrations have hitherto, perhaps, for the most part, been taken
from churches, but the same principle of common sense applies equally to
secular structures. Each is treated in a manner suited to its class and
purpose. Those classes and purposes differ, as a matter of course, in a
majority of cases, from their correlatives at the present day, as they
did in different periods of the Middle Ages themselves, and in the
different countries of Europe, at any given period; so that the mere
fact of such differences existing is no argument against any lesson we
may learn from them. I presume, for example, that no great analogy can
be established between a Roman villa and one of the nineteenth century
in England, and not much between an Italian Renaissance palace of the
fifteenth century and a London mansion of the nineteenth. Even in
Germany and in France at the present day the houses differ greatly from
those in England. The question of the _rationale_ of a style is rather
whether it is so flexible and so essentially founded on common sense and
reason that it will readily shape itself to meet practical demands,
however varied they may be.
Now, it is scarcely possible for a building of the Middle Ages and one
for a kindred purpose at the present day to differ more widely in their
requirements than did different buildings of the same age; and if the
most varied demands of one period are equally met by a given style, why
should we fear that the same style would fail to meet variations
proceeding from a change of manners and habits?
Take, for example, a Gothic fortification and a Gothic town hall. Can
any requirements be more totally different? In one the great object was
to shut off all communication from without: external windows must be
either wholly avoided or reduced to mere eyelet-holes. In the other the
walls are perforated with windows to the greatest extent which the
strength of the structure would admit. In one the entrance must be
guarded by all possible contrivances; in the other it must, as it were,
open its arms widely to invite the incoming citizens. In the one the
whole expression is one of stern exclusion and frowning defiance; in the
other of busy concourse and festive hilarity. Now, is it possible for
these widely differing demands and contrary expressions to have been
more perfectly embodied than they are in the feudal castle, and in the
halls of the manufacturing cities of Flanders and Germany?
Take, again, the domestic buildings of a convent, and those of the
citizens of a great commercial town. Both, it is true, were human
residences, and must provide for the common wants of our nature. Yet in
one the great principle of the foundation was ascetic gravity and
religious mortification; in the other the objects aimed at were
hospitality, cheerfulness, and family enjoyment: and in each case the
objects were perfectly provided for, as well as expressed in the aspect
of the building. Why, then, should we imagine that because our ideas of
family comfort are more perfect than in the days of our forefathers, the
style of architecture which they so successfully applied to purposes
differing so widely one from another will refuse to accommodate itself
to a more complete form of one of the same purposes? Yet people
continually tell us that Gothic architecture is feudal and monkish! Of
course the castle was feudal and the convent monkish: it would have been
strange if they had not, seeing that one was built for the feudal lord
and the other for monks. But was the town hall or the city residence
monkish? Were the warehouses of Nuremberg or the market-halls of
Flanders feudal? The idea carries absurdity on the face of it. They
were, in fact, built by those very communities who had used their utmost
endeavours to overthrow feudalism, and were ever most strenuously
opposing its authority and influence.
I have in this, and more especially in my last lecture shown you that
the development of Gothic architecture itself was founded, step by step,
upon common sense and upon practical considerations. In like manner were
these made the great principles which guided its application.
In all classes of building, whether ecclesiastical, military, monastic,
civic, domestic, commercial, or rustic, though the architecture was in
reality one and the same, the treatment was absolutely and imperatively
commanded by the purpose, and the expression followed by instinct. As I
have said on other occasions, a Mediæval barn is as good and as true in
its architecture as a cathedral; both are essentially in the same style,
yet one is as obviously a barn and as absolutely subservient to the
requirements of a barn, as the other is a church. One has no windows,
but slits of some 4 inches wide, and yet looks as Gothic as the other,
which has more window than wall.
[Illustration: Fig. 153.--Warehouses at Nuremburg.]
Take, again, two commercial buildings--as the great Cloth Market at
Yprès and the huge warehouses at Nuremburg--one for exhibiting
manufactures, the other for stowing away goods. The first is,
internally, a continuous room or gallery some 30 or 40 feet wide, and
(measuring along its several ranges) about 600 or 700 feet long; its
entire sides occupied by continuous and uniform ranges of large windows,
and the exterior unbroken to express the unity of the interior, and its
[Illustration: Fig. 152.--Cloth Market at Yprès.]
lower storey subdivided into rooms of a small size for more varied uses;
and with all this unbroken uniformity, it would be hard to find a more
wonderfully striking building. The other, being for stowage, demanded
multitudinous storeys and numerous supports. The storeys within are not,
perhaps, more than 8 or 10 feet high, and the floors are carried on
oaken pillars. The windows, being more for ventilation than light, are
small and square, and closed by shutters instead of glass. The crane
houses are made noble structures of timber, but no ornament is admitted,
excepting to the doorways and perhaps the gables. The whole speaks its
purpose so unmistakably that I do not suppose any one ever yet asked
what it was; and though a mere unmasked and almost unadorned warehouse,
it stands forth and asserts--and not in vain--its claims upon public
admiration amongst the admired monuments of that truly interesting city.
To go into the various classes of secular buildings, and to show the
consistency of their treatment, each with its own proper requirements,
would fill a volume, and a volume, if it did any justice to the subject,
well worth reading. I must not now go farther. I will, however, point
out a few developments demanding our notice. I have before alluded to
several points of difference between the windows of secular and
ecclesiastical buildings. These differences were carried farther and
farther according to the demands of the particular building in hand. The
windows were wide or narrow, more or less numerous, subdivided or
undivided, arched or square-headed, and, if arched, had high or low
arches, strictly according to the demands of the rooms within; and
whatever those demands were, the architecture was subordinated to them.
Some buildings had windows few and far between; others were nearly all
window; and of course there were all intermediate varieties. Some
buildings were vaulted in every storey, giving good examples of really
fireproof construction; others were fireproof through one or two
storeys, and timbered above; and others, again, had timber floors
throughout. In secular structures we find trabeated architecture in its
truest form--not stone beams, which, when extended beyond very narrow
limits, go against the nature of the material, but real beams of wood,
used in a thoroughly sensible and constructive manner. I would
particularly call attention to the fact that beams were not merely run
into walls--where, the moment the ends so immured decay, down comes the
floor; but they were aided by stone corbels, and not only so, but by
timber corbels, lying on them; or if the bearings were very great,
braces were added, which will carry the beams even when the ends are
rotted off.
This is trabeated architecture in a very genuine form. I dare say both
Greeks and Romans may have used it so, too; but as their timbers have
gone to dust, the Renaissance has lost its precedents, and has too often
imitated stone construction in wood, or in more modern works, in lath
and plaster; for wood, having disappeared from among the precedents, has
of late been to a great extent eschewed as a visible architectural
material.
Then, again, we have another common-sense development--the fireplace.
The Romans had a number of good methods of warming their buildings; but
the straightforward, honest fireplace--the social palladium of the
Englishman--we owe, I believe, to the Mediæval builders--the men who are
said to have known nothing of modern comforts. There are fireplaces in
old Norman castles--Conisborough, for instance--as good as in a
Belgravian house, and the chimney-pieces were often a great deal
handsomer. With the fireplace came that other modern feature, the
chimney-shaft. Look how consistently with common sense, and with the
principle of decorating what was demanded by utility, that was treated!
The oriel window or bay window was another Mediæval invention, and it
would be difficult to find a feature more conducive to comfort and
cheerfulness. It is often very sensibly translated into other styles;
but, like the fireplace and the chimney, it belongs to the style of
those “_comfortless_” ages of which we are treating.
The dormer window is another invention of this _window_ age. The high
roof was not to be thrown away--it must be utilised by being formed into
attic storeys; windows, therefore, must be contrived wholly or in part
in the roofs. Hence that highly picturesque and useful feature, which,
though like the oriel, now translated into other styles, was invented in
the middle ages, and, like all their inventions, originated in common
sense.
I have spoken of the construction of floors, but omitted to notice the
ceilings. Great scope was given to variety in their treatment. Sometimes
all the timbers were shown, and, perhaps, decorated with colour, the
wood-work being more or less ornamented, as the character of the
building demanded. For lofty rooms this often gives a noble covering; in
other cases, the beams and binding joists are shown, and the intervening
spaces panelled; in others, again, the whole is panelled, and in each
case any amount of decorative painting used which might be desired.
There is no doubt that the ceilings in Gothic buildings were, in many
cases, the types which suggested those of the earlier Renaissance
buildings before people began to imitate stone construction in plaster,
and to make quasi-constructive features in hollow cradling. In the
middle ages, either constructive parts were exposed to view, or the
decorations which concealed them were designed simply _as decorations_,
without in any degree professing to be constructive--plain honest common
sense being the ruling principle, as it ought to be, and once was in
other styles.
One of the most striking ways in which this principle of common sense is
displayed is in the absolute freedom exercised in planning, or, more
correctly speaking, the absolute subordination of external design to the
practical requirements of the interior. There was no love of
irregularity for its own sake among the Mediæval builders; on the
contrary, they had no objection at all to general uniformity where the
circumstances of the case did not suggest a departure from it; and where
irregularity was demanded for use, they did not carry it beyond what the
demand required; but when the practical requirements naturally led to
irregularity, they fearlessly followed them, without any of that morbid
striving after forced uniformity which characterises--I will not say
Classic works, for the ancients also acted on more natural
principles--the great majority of modern buildings. That they did not
capriciously strive after irregularity is proved by such buildings as
the great market halls of Bruges and Yprès, the latter of which has a
front of 450 feet long, without one deviation from uniformity, simply
because the practical requirements in each wing were identical. That,
when the internal requirements but slightly differed, they carried
irregularity no farther than the demands of reason suggested, is proved
by such fronts as that of the ducal palace at Venice, and of a very
great number of street houses and palaces in different countries, where
the normal idea is uniform, but the windows placed to suit rooms of
varying size; but that, when the practical requirements had no reference
to uniformity, they fearlessly acted on them, without any of those
sickly repinings which would so sadly disturb the peace of the modern
architect, still more without any torturing of the internal arrangements
to make them fit to a preconceived elevation (which is the usual
practice in these more enlightened days), is abundantly proved by many
of the noblest works which our forefathers have bequeathed to us.
Now, far be it from me to say that this honesty of treatment belongs
exclusively to Gothic architecture. It does not. It is the leading
principle of all true architecture; and I have no doubt, indeed we have
indisputable proof, that it was acted on by the Greeks and Romans, as
well as by our own forefathers. The contrary practice seems to be an
error rather of our own age than of the genuine periods of Classic art;
but when the defenders of the revived Classic art use it as an objection
against Mediæval architecture, we then have a full right to point out
its true principles, and to show that it is an exercise of common sense
so obvious and reasonable, that any style of art which refused it would
stand self-condemned, as rejecting the plain demands of reason; and,
though I do not hold that Classic architecture stands so condemned, it
would be so if we were to admit against it the accusations of some of
its own advocates. At any rate, it is fair on the part of Gothic
architecture to say that in this great principle of the subordination of
external design to internal requirement, it not only follows the great
styles of architecture which preceded it, but that, in the opinion of
its opponents, it carries out the great utilitarian principle even to an
excess.
There can be no doubt that the principle is pre-eminently in harmony
with the genius of Gothic architecture; more so, probably, than with any
other; and if those who think it a vice desire to saddle it exclusively
on our style, they cannot complain if we, who hold it to be a virtue, at
the least, claim for that style the lion’s share of the credit.
I do not for a moment dispute that there is room for excess, even in
acting on a principle so reasonable. If we were to make it an excuse for
careless planning; if we were so affected as to seek excuses for
irregularity when the arrangement, if carefully considered, offered
none; or if we neglect reasonable means of avoiding them when it can be
done without any injury to the arrangement, we are clearly open to the
charge of excess; but, on the other hand, if we were to avoid
irregularity by making two essentially different parts look alike, at
the sacrifice of their practical demands; if we place windows in
inconvenient or unsightly positions in the interiors of our rooms, for
the sake of making them match some windows in an opposite wing, or to
form a regular range, disagreeing with internal divisions; if we make
sham windows where none are wanted, or omit real ones where they would
be useful; or if we torture and displace our rooms to obtain uniformity;
or play any of the thousand tricks which are too current amongst us to
make our exteriors uniform where our interiors are the contrary; surely
we are guilty of a far more culpable excess in the opposite direction,
for the exaggeration of common sense is unquestionably a more venial sin
than its renunciation. However this may be, Gothic architecture, whether
rightly or wrongly, looks to internal requirements as paramount to
external regularity; places its windows rather with reference to the
rooms within than to the elevations without; and rejoices in making the
exterior express in some degree the changes of purpose in the internal
arrangement: but it does not reject uniformity where compatible with
truth and utility, nor refuse to admit of careful artistic combinations
of parts, so long as they are made subservient to, or at least do not
militate against, practical requirements. As I have said before, I
believe that in this it only reflects, and carries out more perfectly,
the principles of true Classic art; and that, if these principles are
often forgotten or rejected, it is in the main an abuse of modern date.
It is, however beyond all question inherent upon that form of revived
Classic art with which we are surrounded.
The same may, in fact, be said of truthfulness in minor things. It would
be unjust to father the contemptible and endless fallacies of our own
day upon Classic architecture. It is true that they pervade and saturate
many of the modern productions of that style, and that the revival of
Gothic architecture has somehow led to their exposure; but the
truthfulness which we are proud to claim as one of its great and leading
stars, we freely yield as the property, not of one style, but of all
noble architecture.[62]
Did time permit, I might follow up the _rationale_ of the style under
consideration as evinced in the judicious employment, treatment of, and
the mode of workmanship applied to, different materials as well as
different branches of artistic decoration. The Mediæval architect
adopted the material he could most readily obtain, and adapted his
design to suit its peculiar qualities.
If he used block-stone throughout his work, or united it with rough
walling-stone or rubble, or if his building were of brick, or flint, or
pebbles, he studied to use them so as to look well and to aid the effect
by their variety; as instances of this I will refer to the exquisite
stone and flint structures in the eastern counties, and the
interstratification of block stone with the thinnest rubble in some of
the oolitic districts; to the domestic brick architecture of Norfolk,
or Northern Germany, and of Lombardy, to the timber structures of
innumerable districts and cities; to the variously-coloured stones in
the buildings in Auvergne; and last, but not least, to the magnificent
marble structures, with their inlayings and mosaics, which delight us
when in Italy. The great principle was how best to utilise the materials
which Nature had provided: where Nature had been chary in her gifts,
even external plaster was not despised, but truthfully made use of;
where she had been lavish, even precious stones were used as building
materials, as at Prague, where there is a chapel whose interior is faced
with a kind of rubble-work of polished amethyst, the stones being cut
through, but otherwise unshaped, the irregular jointings being covered
with embossed gilding.
In metal-work each metal was treated on its own merits and its own
natural characteristics.
In decoration--frescoes, mosaics, tapestry, needlework, embossed
leather, metal-work, enamels, etc., were profusely used when funds
permitted. Indeed, nothing was rejected, either on the score of
homeliness or expense, provided it suited the work in hand and the means
at command.
But what, I may be asked, is the utility of tracing out evidences of a
fact so probable on the face of it as that our forefathers acted upon
reason when engaged on so practical a thing as architecture? I would
reply that its utility is twofold. In the first place, we have too much
lost sight of the _rationale_ of architecture, and of the necessity of
acting upon it. I do not wish to rip open old sores, or to object
against other errors of which we are all of us guilty. Let us each
examine ourselves, and ask ourselves how far we act upon truth and
reason in our designs; and if compelled to admit our derelictions, a
review like that on which we have been engaged may not be otherwise than
useful--quite apart from any question about what style we are working
in.
In the second place, it is an undoubted fact, that we are at a
transitional period of our art, that we are dissatisfied with the
present and aiming at an altered future, and that some of us are
following up that aim on the basis of a revival of the style of which I
have been treating, while there is a _vis inertiæ_ in art which is not
easily overcome, but yields reluctantly to change; how important, then,
is it to us to know that the style we are reviving was itself based, as
all good architecture must be, on the firm rock of common sense, and how
essential to our success that we should place our revival on the same
basis! Shall we, then, secure this object by doing only _what_ our
forefathers did? By no means; rather, as I have urged in a former
lecture, let us do _as_ they did: that is, _act upon reason_. They
thoroughly suited all their works to their varied objects. Let us do the
same, how much soever more varied our requirements may be. They made
their houses comfortable to the extent of their habits; let us make ours
so to the greatly increased extent of our own habits. They welcomed
every invention as it arose: let us do the same by the inventions of our
own prolific age. They utilised every material which presented itself to
them: let us do so by all the materials which modern science or
ingenuity has placed at our command; only let us do all this truthfully
and consistently with reason; for example, if we meet with an invention
suited to the surface decoration of rooms but devoid of constructive
strength, let us use it _as_ a surface decoration, and not, as is too
commonly done, make troughs and pipes of it, and pass them off for beams
and columns! If we admire a vaulted construction, by all means let us
use it, but do not let us emulate the vaulting of Diocletian’s Baths and
Westminster Abbey or the domes of the Pantheon or St. Sophia in lath and
plaster! If we want plaster casts of ancient monuments, let us place
them in our museums, but, for goodness sake, let our buildings
themselves be real!
The conditions to be demanded of our future architecture, whether
destined to be based upon the Classic or the Gothic Renaissance, or
whether they are to continue ever, as now, to assert side by side their
rival claims, are:--a perfect and unhesitating fulfilment of practical
demands, whether of construction, convenience, or comfort; an equally
unhesitating adoption of the materials, inventions, and mechanical and
constructive appliances of the age; a capability of reasonable economy
or of judicious magnificence in all degrees and proportion; a character
at once noble and in harmony with the country and climate, and with
national associations; a perfect freedom of treatment, united with
perfect truthfulness; and a free admission of the sister arts in their
highest and most perfected forms. How happy would it be for art if we
could proclaim an armistice between rival styles, while the advocates of
each devote heart and soul to the realisation of these conditions, so
obviously demanded by reason and common sense!
That Gothic architecture is in its spirit well fitted to unite these
conditions, I think may be judged by much that I have shown you in this
and the preceding lecture. It lays claim in a pre-eminent degree to the
character of _Freedom_. Free in its use of arcuated or trabeated
construction, as may best suit each particular case; free in the form of
its arches, which, in addition to those used in other styles, take other
and excellent forms, which enable them to assume all possible
proportions of height to span; free in its vaulting, which has peculiar
facilities for adapting itself to every possible space and span; free in
the proportions, as well as infinite in the varieties, of its columns;
free as air in the sculpture it applies to their capitals, as well as to
other architectural uses; free in the pitch of its roofs; in the size,
number, form, and grouping of its windows; and, above all, absolutely
free in its planning, in which the practical requirements of the
interior have undisputed sway irrespective of external design--it seems
as if it could not be otherwise than suited to an age in which freedom
is the great point to be aimed at in all we undertake. Convinced that
such is the case, let us devote ourselves, heart and hand, to the task;
let us bring all our energies to rendering the style we select as our
groundwork really and absolutely subservient to the wants and to the
spirit (so far as it is a healthful and a truthful spirit) of our age;
let us apply to the work all our reasoning powers, and ground all we do
upon common sense. But let me not be mistaken: this cannot be done by a
mere abstract effort of the mind: let me, therefore, urge upon you who
are students to exercise your reason and common sense in another way,
and to be assured of this, that you cannot succeed in the practice of
art, unless, in addition to all the practical considerations I have had
occasion to allude to, you make yourselves, in the strictest sense of
the word, ARTISTS.
A Digression concerning Windows.
In the foregoing Lectures, having only brought the history of our
Architecture down to the close of the thirteenth century, I have
neglected that of the later styles, and, consequently in great measure,
the development and progressive changes in window-tracery. This has,
however, been so amply treated of in many books and essays that it is
not a matter with me of much regret. I confess I _had_ intended to have
supplied the omission in subsequent lectures, but circumstances
prevented.
It would have been an agreeable task to have followed up the history of
window-tracery and the many details which accompanied it, through the
remaining two and a half centuries of the reign of Gothic
architecture--to have shown how it grew from the purely geometrical
system of Westminster, Newstead, and the “Angel choir” at Lincoln into
the sweeter tracery of the “Easter aisle” at St. Albans, and of St.
Etheldreda’s Chapel in Holborn; and on again into the yet softer
loveliness of the Lady Chapel at Chichester, the halls at Penshurst,
Mayfield, the gatehouses of Battle Abbey and of St. Augustine’s at
Canterbury, and the Chapel of St. Anselm and De Estria’s work at the
cathedral there; and then again into the more flowing tracery of Alan de
Walsingham’s work, till it fell into debility by its too sensuous
ramifications, and was brought back again to vigour by the stern
perpendicular work of Wykeham; and how that, in its turn, became
softened down, into such works as Crosby and Eltham Halls, and again
into the exuberance of the Tudor style. All this would be very pleasant,
but would necessitate the treating of all contemporary variations of
detail, and would swell my lectures out into another volume: more than
this, _I have given no such lectures_. It has been _my_ task to show the
principles on which Gothic architecture _was founded_, and on which it
attained its leading developments, rather than to follow them out to
their ultimate results, on attaining which much which led to them was
thrown aside, as scaffolding is taken down when a structure is
completed.
I feel it necessary, however, while neglecting the more usual course of
chronicling the history of window-tracery, to supplement my lectures at
this point with some remarks on the general construction of
windows--applicable more or less to all periods of Mediæval
architecture.
The most normal form of a window in an arched style is simply an opening
straight through the wall covered by a barrel arch. This is, however,
obviously defective in its fitness for diffusing light in the interior,
a deficiency which, though slight in the case of a large window in a
thin wall, becomes serious when the window is narrow and the wall thick.
The simplest method of meeting this is to splay the jambs and arch of
the window, at, for example, an angle of forty-five degrees, so as to
allow for the spreading of the rays of light within.
In English architecture of pre-Norman days, this was most frequently
done, both within and without, by placing the glass a long way from the
outer face, or perhaps in the mid-thickness of the wall (Fig. 154). This
had the advantage of splaying the head or arch as well as the jamb,
which allowed more high light to enter; an advantage often increased by
splaying the exterior of the arch _more_ than the jambs, giving it a
bonnet-like shape, and so obtaining still higher light (Fig. 155).
Windows thus splayed inside and out, may be seen in the Castle Church at
Dover--some few of these are not arched but had oak lintels, splaying
upwards at about forty-five degrees (Fig. 156). The bonnet-headed window
may be seen at Holy Trinity Church, Colchester; Clapham Church,
Bedfordshire and many other buildings.
[Illustration: Fig. 154.]
[Illustration: Fig. 155.]
[Illustration: Fig. 156.]
[Illustration: Fig. 157.--St. Pantaleon’s Church, Cologne.]
The deeply splayed window may also be seen in part of St. Pantaleon’s
Church at Cologne (Fig. 157), which is a work of the tenth century, and
in the aisles of the Basse-œuvre at Beauvais, a church of at least as
early a date, so that it may be viewed as a feature common during these
early periods of Romanesque which preceded that from which our Mediæval
styles were developed. During the rise of the Norman style, a different
system was more usually adopted, the splay of the jambs and arch being
mainly internal. A series of humble village churches at the back of
Dover Cliffs have windows in which the glass was flush with the
exterior, and all the splay put inside; many both in Normandy and in
this country differ from this only in having a very small external
splay, and even when the exterior is shafted the inner splay often comes
close to the face of the recessed order.
[Illustration: Fig. 158.--Chancel, Burgh Church, Norfolk.]
This excessive flushness is less frequent as the style advances, and in
Early English, though sometimes, as in the beautiful chancel at Burgh in
Norfolk, (Fig. 158) the glass is sometimes brought extremely close to
the outside: it is usual to have at least a few inches of splay around
it.
In transitional work, as in Norman, the internal splay, often of very
great width, usually runs round the arch concentrically; but in
developed Early English,
[Illustration: Fig. 159.]
[Illustration: Fig. 160.]
[Illustration: Fig. 161.]
[Illustration: Fig. 162.]
[Illustration: Figs. 163, 164.]
and in subsequent styles, a special variety of internal arch is
introduced suited to those numerous cases in which the glass-plane is
far nearer (as it is in a majority of instances) to the outer than the
inner face of the walls. The simplest form of this internal window-arch
takes the form of a barrel (pointed) arch, springing so much lower than
the spring of the outside arch as to allow it to span the increased
internal width without rising unduly higher than the outside arch, as
was the case when the splay was continued round the inner arch. This
arch of necessity formed an intersection with the inside splays. Its
edge was usually in the plainest specimens, relieved by a chamfer (Fig.
159), which was often exchanged for a moulding (Fig. 160); but a far
more agreeable finish was a rib dropping down a little from the arched
soffite, its edges being either chamfered or moulded with or without a
label over it (Fig. 161). This, if the arch were made slightly
segmental, would die into the jamb-splay, or it might be carried on a
corbel (Fig. 162) or a shaft (Figs. 163, 164), thus forming a very
agreeable and picturesque internal finish to the window.
This rib is usually termed a rere-arch.
Professor Willis, in his paper on the _Architectural Nomenclature of the
Middle Ages_, calls it a “Scoinson Arch,” from a French word
“_escoinsons_.” He also quotes the term “_arrière voussure_,” probably
meaning the arch behind the rib.
Professor Willis’s general description, which I had not referred to when
I wrote the above, is as follows:--“An arch is placed so as to carry the
inner surface of the wall. In simple examples, like the present, this
rib is plain, and dies against the jambs, but in superior buildings is
richly moulded, and a shaft, with base and capital and side-mouldings,
are added to the edges of the jamb. But this arrangement is mostly
distinct from the window-tracery. This arch is of different and larger
span from that of the window-head, because the spreading or embrasure of
the jambs increases the opening inwards. It is also of a different
curvature, and the decoration of the two disconnected and separated by
the plain splayed sides of the window-opening, connecting the two, and
resting at one end on the tracery, and at the other on the rib, is a
narrow vault or _voussure_, which again is not necessarily of the same
curvature as the sustaining arches, but which carries the core of the
wall above.”
He says farther on:--“We may therefore call the said vault, rib, and
shaft; the rere-vault, rere-rib, and rere-shaft of the window.” He also
remarks that, “in the thick walls of Mediæval structure, the tracery
and its glazing are commonly placed much nearer to the outer surface of
the wall than to the inner.” This last observation calls our attention
to a great and important distinction by which nearly all Mediæval
windows may be classified--viz., those which have their glass-plane at
or near the mid-thickness of the wall, and those which, as the Professor
says, have it “much nearer to the outer surface than to the inner.”
This distinction was, as I have shown, of early date; being in its
earlier ages rather distinctive of “Saxon” from Norman windows. The
class, however, in which the glass was nearer the outer than the inner
side had, up to about the year 1200, its inner arch concentric with its
outer one; but the invention of the rere-arch and its accompaniments
obviated this, and established a hard and obvious distinction between
these two great classes of windows.
The custom of sometimes placing the glass at the mid-thickness of the
wall was in no degree given up, but, on the contrary, was continued
through all styles; but, when adopted, the older system of making the
inner concentric with the outer arch was nearly always continued,
marking more distinctly the great difference between the two classes of
window. The choice between them became a mere matter of taste and of
outlay; all styles acknowledging both as equally admissible and correct.
The two systems may be distinguished as _rere-arch_ windows and
_through-arch_ windows--_i.e._, those in which the inner is distinct
from the outer arch, and those in which the same arch runs _through_ the
wall, showing itself more or less similarly on its outer and inner
faces.
[Illustration: Fig. 165.--Broughton Church, Oxfordshire.]
[Illustration: Fig. 166.--Christchurch, Hants. North Transept.]
In thick walls and rich work there is often another order of
through-arch within the tracery order, or rather the outer order
re-appears within. The rere-arch is occasionally cusped, as in a window
at Broughton, Oxfordshire (Fig. 165), and the intervening space is
sometimes groined, as in some windows at Salisbury and Christchurch
(Fig. 166), or richly panelled, as in some at Westminster. In some
instances the place of the rere-arch is occupied by distinct tracery,
like a second window in advance of the real one. This consists in most
instances of perfect bar tracery, while the window itself is of plate
tracery; as may be seen in some of the windows at Stone Church, Kent
(Fig. 167), and as once existed on a much larger scale in the
chapter-house at Tintern. I may here mention that the tracery of a
window is always viewed as an _arch-order_; and, though the
corresponding order in the jamb is in the solid with the jamb up to the
springing, the tracery, like other arch-orders, is severed by a
continuous joint from the order above it.
[Illustration: Fig. 167.--Stone Church, Kent.]
The most normal type of the through-arch window is that in which the
glass is placed in the middle of the thickness of the wall, and the
interior of the window is a mere repetition of its exterior. This is
not, however, by any means necessary or constant; for the glass is often
either less or more recessed, and the inner mouldings, etc., are not
always similar to the external ones, so that the existence or
non-existence of a separate internal arch is the more clear distinction.
Some, however, of an intermediate character, are to be found in which an
inner arch, separate in design, is nevertheless concentric with the
outer arch. In others the separate existence of the inner arch arises
from the existence of a triforium passage, which in clerestory windows
leads to some changes of design from the normal type. In others the
rere-arch is not only concentric, but is so close upon the outer arch as
to be almost one with it. The two classes are, however, for the most
part easily distinguished.
[Illustration: Fig. 168.--Chancel, Brecon Priory.]
One of the earliest instances which I recollect of the rere-arch is in
the eastern part of Tynemouth Priory.[63] This is in the transitional
style, and the strongly-marked separation of the inner from the outer
arch is largely owing to the vast thickness of the walls. The glass
plane is perhaps four times as far from the inside as from the outside.
A fine series of specimens is in the chancel of Brecon Priory (Fig.
168), where the separation between the outer and inner arch, and the
depth of the glass from the inner face are also very great. Most of the
early English windows found in churches of an ordinary type are of this
class. Among Early English buildings in which the windows are mostly of
the “rere-arch” variety, may be mentioned Salisbury Cathedral, Whitby
Abbey, the Temple Church (eastern part), the Chapel of the Nine Altars
at Durham,[64] Trumpington’s work at St. Alban’s, the choir of Brecon
Priory, the eastern Chapels at Winchester (Fig. 169), the chapter-house
at Oxford, the choir of Fountains Abbey, etc. Among those of the same
style in which the “through-arch” window prevails, may be mentioned the
transepts at York, the choir aisles at Carlisle, Rievaulx Abbey, the
chapter-house at Furness Abbey (Fig. 170), much of the work at Lincoln,
Kirkham Abbey, etc.
[Illustration: Fig. 169.--Winchester Cathedral. De Lucy’s work.]
Among buildings transitional between Early English and Decorated, or
very early Decorated, may be named as having mainly rere-arch windows,
Westminster Abbey (excepting the chapter-house), Tintern Abbey, the
eastern parts
[Illustration: Fig. 172.--Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn.
East window.]
of St. Alban’s Abbey, the beautiful Templars’ Church at Temple Balsal,
the Chapel of the Palace of the Bishops of Ely in Holborn (Figs. 171,
172), the choir of Dorchester Abbey, the Bishops’ Hall at Wells, the
choir of Merton Chapel at Oxford, etc.
[Illustration: Fig. 170.--Furness Abbey, one bay of Chapter-House.]
[Illustration: Fig. 173.--The Chapter-House, Salisbury Cathedral.]
Among those of a like period in which the through-arch window prevails,
may be named the chapter-houses at Westminster and Salisbury (Fig. 173),
the later parts of Lincoln, the choir aisles at Selby and Guisborough,
the choir of St. Mary’s Abbey at York, most of the Decorated work at
York Minster, Exeter, etc. In later Decorated work the same freedom of
choice prevails, as it does also in “Perpendicular” buildings, though,
as we come down to later dates, the “through-arch” becomes, on the
whole, more prevalent.
Taking all styles together, the rere-arch, or in earlier works the wider
internal splay, is greatly more frequent, probably because less costly
than the other form; and though, when the “through-arch” is used, the
glass is usually set deeper from the external face than when there is a
rere-arch, and is frequently near the centre of the wall, such is often
not the case, as in the eastern windows at Kirkham, where the internal
depth is much the greater, and, in a few instances, where it is less,
than the external. On the whole, it may be said that the rere-arch
system tells most internally, while the other offers greater freedom for
external depth of jamb and arch mouldings. Both are equally at the
choice and command of the architect, who can use both, if he pleases, in
the same building, and to condemn either would be like blotting out an
essential element of architecture.
LECTURE VIII.
On the Practical Study of Gothic Architecture.
Evident ignorance or neglect of those who practise Gothic
architecture--Faithfulness of others--The styles should be learned
from ancient buildings--Our knowledge to be continually revived and
added to--Hints to students--The study of Lincoln Cathedral,
Canterbury Cathedral, and examples in London--Libraries and museums
in London--Foreign travel--Examples in Paris, and other parts of
France--Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. etc.
As it is six years since I last delivered a lecture in this place, and
nine years since the first of the short series which I gave, it is in
the highest degree improbable that any one of the students whom I have
the pleasure of addressing was present on any of those occasions. Had
that series been a complete one, I might possibly have done better by,
in some degree, repeating it; but as it was not so, and as there is an
inconsistency in offering supplementary lectures to a new audience, I
have adopted the expedient of printing my former lectures, and
distributing them to the architectural students, and of re-exhibiting
the illustrations which accompanied them; so that, knowing that those
who have thought it worth while may have read what I have already said,
I am free to proceed as if my audience were unchanged.
I will here mention that I only come before you at all owing to my
friend Mr. Smirke (who for five years has so ably and indefatigably
fulfilled the duties of Professor of Architecture), having felt it
necessary, for this year at least, to retire from those duties, and to
my having been asked to do something--be it ever so little--to prevent
the class of architecture from falling into abeyance for the year. I
have, therefore, undertaken two lectures, as a mere apology during the
interregnum for the more onerous duties of a professor, and I must beg
to be excused if the manner in which I perform this temporary duty is of
the same dubious kind with the duty itself.
In my former lectures I endeavoured, first, to state the claims of
Gothic architecture upon our special study and attention; I next, in a
series of four lectures, traced out with some minuteness the history of
its development from the earlier and ruder forms of Romanesque--through
the various processes of refinement which brought that style to its
highest state of perfection--and, through the great process of
transition by which it became gradually and systematically changed into
the Pointed style: not, as I showed, from a mere change of taste or
fashion, but from strictly logical and practical causes, accompanied by
an ardent unresting determination to raise the art to the highest
perfection which the circumstances of the age would permit; and I then
showed how the Pointed style--when once generated--developed itself into
the perfected and glorious architecture of the middle of the thirteenth
century.
I did not follow out the history of Gothic architecture in its
succeeding stages, as my object was rather _moral_ than merely
_historical_, and I desired rather to exhibit the glorious earnestness
of a people, who, while developing a new civilisation, pressed ardently
forward, side by side with it, the generation of a new style of
architecture, than to give a history of the successive changes through
which that architecture passed. When, therefore, I had traced out the
style to its culminating point, I quitted mere history, and closed with
two lectures on the _rationale_ of the style, showing how every form
which characterised it in its best days was dictated, not by fashion or
caprice, but by _reason_.
Being now, after a lengthened interval, called upon to add two lectures
to my series, I take for my subjects the practical study of Gothic
architecture, and its actual practice and adaptation to the requirements
of our own day.
Commencing, then, with the _study_ of the style, nothing seems at first
sight so obvious as how to gain knowledge of such a subject; indeed, you
may feel puzzled to think what there is to say on so simple a matter.
“Surely,” you might say, “if a person wants to obtain a knowledge of a
subject so thoroughly investigated, so popular, and brought so
prominently before the public as for many years past has been the case
with Gothic architecture, there is no difficulty in the world about it,
nor is it worth while to waste an hour in listening to a lecture on so
patent a question.” How is it, then, we may ask in return, that such a
multitude of architects erect Gothic buildings, one glance at which is
sufficient to show that they are ignorant of the style in which they are
pretending to work?--that we see at every turn attempts at advanced
development of the style which betray an utter innocence of all
acquaintance with its A B C?--and that worst of all, we find the
precious remnants of Mediæval art _restored_--Oh, shame on the
misnomer!--by men who have never given thought enough to the subject to
enable them to appreciate, even in the faintest degree, the value of the
treasures committed in such false confidence to their keeping, or to
form the most distant idea of their own ignorance? Surely, this is
enough to prove that the study of Gothic architecture is not understood,
or is grievously neglected by those who assume a knowledge of and
presume to practise it.
And the converse is equally true: that the success, more or less
perfect, of many others proves that the true road is known, and by a
certain number is faithfully followed. My object in what I have to say
is more, perhaps, to urge upon each of you to be of that number than to
make any but what will appear most trite and self-evident suggestions as
to what the true road is in which I ask you to walk.
In the first place, it is self-evident that Gothic architecture is only
to be learned from the _old examples_. I notice, absurd as it may seem,
that many young architects appear to think that it may be learned from
books and by looking at modern buildings, and really pay little
attention to the original sources of all our information. True, it is
the part of every student to make use of _all_ the resources within his
reach, and it would be absurd to undervalue the aid of books; it is also
wise to look at the works of such modern architects as are worthy of
confidence; but there is no source from which the style can be _really
learned_ but the _ancient examples_, and to these it is impossible to
devote too great an amount of study.
I would next observe that this study of old examples must be
_continuous_. It is not a course of study to be followed up for a
certain time and then brought to a close, but must be continued
indefinitely throughout your whole course, so as to be ever _reviving_
and ever _adding to_ your knowledge. In the study of Classic
architecture, though it is from the original examples that knowledge and
inspiration are drawn, these examples are so far removed from us, in
this country at least, that it is as a rule only possible to study from
them once or twice during a whole life. The case is, happily, very
different with the examples of Mediæval art: we are surrounded by them
wherever we go;--they are the early monuments of our own country, the
works of our forefathers, and our study of them is not the work of one
strong effort at a single period of our lives, but a constantly renewing
study, a fountain to which we may return again and again whenever we
feel to need its refreshing influences. This, though an inestimable
advantage, _may_ prove a temptation to negligence, as we are apt to let
go opportunities which are ever at hand, so that we must not trust to
these desultory sippings for our main supply, but must _drink deep and
long_ when we have the opportunity; and more especially I would urge
upon _you_ to do so _now_--in the days of your youth, while yet
unencumbered by the cares of business, while your feelings are fresh and
your thoughts unshackled. _This_ is the time for laying in the great
stores of knowledge which must be the main supply of your future lives,
and _without_ which the scant and hasty draughts obtained on chance
opportunities will be of no avail, but _after_ which they will be the
means of constantly refreshing and adding ever new life to the
knowledge already possessed. We may say of this as of other branches of
study,
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
The conditions under which the study has to be pursued seem in some
degree to preclude its being followed in a strictly _systematic_ manner.
We are obliged to study buildings, of whatever date, as they may come in
our way; and every building we visit is likely to be of many periods and
to have undergone alterations more or less radical; so that we are
almost forbidden to systematise our studies on any principle,
chronological or otherwise. We must, in fact, take our examples pretty
much as we happen to find them; and the best method when we set out on a
sketching tour is, probably, to devote our attention to a particular
district, and to follow it up, town by town and village by village, as
convenience or previous information may suggest, visiting and thoroughly
studying _all_ objects worthy of it which come in our way.
Nothing can be more delightful than these excursions. If you know
beforehand what you are likely to meet with, the very anticipation of
what each day will bring before you will add zest to your appetite for
architectural enjoyment; while if you do not know what objects of
interest may lie in your course, the very speculation will give relish
to the search.
Here, perhaps, you come to the site of some famous monastery, less happy
in its days of ruin and desertion than some which have become the
favourite haunts of the artist. It has, perhaps, been for ages the
stone-quarry of the district, and now only some one gable-end with its
lofty lancets shows the noble scale of the ancient church. Here, it may
be, nothing stands aboveground but the bases of the pillars; farther on
the wall rises to the height of the window-jambs, and shows the arcading
of the walls; and there the aisle wall retains the doorways leading
through into the cloister--now a farm-yard--on the eastern side of which
you find the three beautiful arches, the central one of which formed the
approach to the chapter-house, and round this cloister you still trace
the plan of the refectory and other monastic buildings. But, scanty and
now humble as are the ruins, you find the details to be of the highest
order of artistic refinement. The bases of the lost columns are profiled
with the most studied delicacy, the few remaining doorways are perfect
models of rich though unostentatious detail, the archways, perhaps, of
the chapter-house entrances are of the most elegant and studied beauty.
On tracing out and measuring the plan, you find its arrangement and
proportions to be of the most perfect kind; and, though so little
comparatively stands _in situ_, the ground is strewn here and there with
masses from the superstructure, from which you may trace out the design
of much which has fallen down, while the fences and agricultural
buildings around are perfect storehouses of mouldings, capitals, and
fragments of tracery or of groining, from which you can study the detail
almost as profitably as from a perfect building.
In the next village you find, perhaps, a church of the humblest
dimensions and of the most unambitious architecture, yet you trace in
its simple details the proofs of its having been erected by the monks of
the neighbouring convent, and you feel that, plain and unpretending as
they are, they were designed by as masterly a hand as the abbey church
itself, and deserve to be as carefully studied and as minutely sketched
and measured. Again, farther on, you find a church of noble scale, in
which you trace the work of many periods. The internal pillars and
arcades show a period just emerging from the Romanesque, though its
rudeness has been quite cast aside, and its mouldings are, on the
contrary, of the greatest refinement. The chancel, perhaps, is of more
advanced Early Pointed, the aisles, the clerestory, and the tower of
later periods; and the screens and the few remaining old seats are
specimens of the oak-work of the fifteenth century. Here and there in
corners you find encaustic tiles, in some of which you recognise
patterns you had observed in the site of the ruined abbey. In the upper
parts of the window-lights and scattered among the plain glazing you
find fragments of glass which would do honour to any age, and such as
our glass painters would do well to study, instead of turning them out
with scorn to make way for a memorial to some recently departed
squire.[65] The _sedilia_ in the chancel, and the _piscinæ_ both there
and in the aisles, are any of them alone objects worthy of the most
careful study, and every doorway and every window possesses more or less
claim upon your attention.
In another place you find less, perhaps, to interest you in the church,
for it has passed through the hands of some architect famed in the
county for his successful destructiveness, but you find other objects of
interest. There is an old manor-house which, though mostly of Jacobean
date, retains traces of early and scarce periods of domestic
architecture. Nor are its later portions unworthy of your study: its
brick chimneys have a beauty about them which modern architects have
striven in vain to emulate; the half-timber gable fronts are models of
timber construction; within there are remnants of oak panelled ceilings,
of wall linings, of doors perhaps with moulded oak door-cases, of simple
but well-designed chimney-piers, and all sorts of little odds and ends,
all worthy of being carefully and minutely noted, whatever may be their
age; for our old house architecture is often most valuably suggestive,
even down to very late periods. The cottages around, too, seem to do
homage to the more dignified residence, by showing here a good timbered
gable-end, there a well proportioned brick chimney; indeed, I would
advise the architectural tourist never to despise the cottage
architecture of our villages, but to note as they pass every fragment
which has escaped the hand of time, for they are most useful and
instructive, and, you may depend upon it, they will not much longer
exist.[66]
In another village you will, perhaps, find that the church has been the
burial-place of some famous family of olden times. Under low arches in
the aisles, and now almost hidden by the high pewing, you find the
cross-legged effigies of the earlier members of the house, perhaps of
oak, and hollowed out beneath, to prevent their warping out of shape;
and if you examine these effigies, you will find them far from being the
rude specimens of sculpture which our modern critics may suppose. You
find in their attitude a dignity and stern nobility which our sculptors
would find it not so very easy to emulate, while the chain armour, with
its rigid lines, and the linen surcoat, with its more delicate foldings,
are executed with a truthfulness and feeling which show that the man who
worked them possessed both the soul and the hand of an artist. These are
worthy of being carefully drawn, though to do this _well_ demands much
time. I have heard of Stoddart giving a week to one such figure! There
are, perhaps, in the same church, one or two female effigies whose
drapery and pose remind you of that of Queen Eleanor at Westminster, and
one or two brasses well worthy of being _copied_, rather than rubbed
off; for the object of these tours is not only to obtain possession of
representations of the objects of art which you meet with, but to
practise and tutor your hand and eye by practically studying from them.
Then, again, as you pass through the county, you find other objects
equally worthy of note; as, for instance, the old bridges which here and
there the county magistrates have permitted to remain, and which
travellers but rarely see because they pass _over_ them. The village or
churchyard cross, the lych-gate, sometimes even the dovecote--all have
claims upon your attention; and where a church is generally humble, and
perhaps denuded by the mutilations of older ignorance or of modern
conceit, there may yet remain a doorway, a pillar, a window or two
worthy of attention. In one place it will be the tower which most
excites your interest; in another the timber roofs; in a third you may
luxuriate in carved screen-work, in chancel stalls, and rich nave
seating; and in a fourth the great attraction may be the painted glass.
In one tour you may take a homely series of churches like those of
Essex, which, under an unpretending exterior often contain some of the
most useful and valuable work; or going on farther in the eastern
counties, you may visit the fine churches of Suffolk and Norfolk, with
their noble timber roofs, their beautiful seating, and in many cases
their richly and artistically coloured and embossed screens; or, taking
another direction, you may follow the noble course of churches of
Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with their charming towers and
spires. Indeed, in whatever direction you go, some new and differing
characteristics will reward your labour; and in every one I would urge
upon you to sketch everything which strikes you as worthy of notice,
whether in the church, the castle, or the cottage, not omitting the
humble brick chimney-shaft, or the brick or stone or timber gable, or
even the stamped plaster of the eastern counties.
In all this course of study you will be much facilitated by the
remembrance of your practical office work. You will remember puzzling
questions which have occurred to you while making working details, and
watch to find them solved in original work. How is the gable of an aisle
connected with the eaves? and how with the parapet? How are timber
overhanging eaves brought in contact with a stone gable? and how is the
same done with stone eaves, or where the eaves are wood, and the roof
timbers show through the gable?[67] All sorts of little questions such
as these will have occurred to you in practice, and rested as doubtful
points on your minds, but may be solved in many natural and pleasant
ways while travelling among old examples--except, indeed, where the
modern “restorer,” innocent as a babe of all such doubts, has levelled
everything to his own office tariff. In such tours, be most careful
accurately to sketch all the _scarcer_ classes of examples you meet
with, such as remnants of thirteenth and fourteenth century roofs and
other wood-work, fragments of painted glass, specimens of iron-work,
early screens and stalls, choice specimens of carved foliage or figure
sculpture, traces of wall decorations, illuminations of screens, etc.,
and colouring on roofs. The unsparing hand of the so-called restorer has
devastated and is still eagerly devastating whole districts, and
clearing them of these invaluable records of ancient art; and this
alone, independently of their high intrinsic value, renders it doubly
important that the few remaining relics should be carefully represented.
And be it ever remembered that such representations, to be really
valuable, should not be mere hasty memoranda, but, if possible, careful
measured drawings.
I have hitherto supposed your sketching expedition to be one of a purely
rural kind, and the examples from which you study to be mainly on the
scale which we find in villages. I will now transfer the imaginary
tourist to the opposite extreme, and suppose him to be devoting himself
to one of our greatest cathedrals, as, for example, _Lincoln_. Here the
case is greatly changed, for he will get no great good unless he seats
himself down, determinedly and long, and goes through a lengthened
course of careful and minute study, not necessarily of the entire
cathedral, but at least of the parts selected for special attention. It
is best at once, on your arrival, to take lodgings near at hand, and to
enter into some arrangement with the verger for your admission at all
reasonable hours, obtaining, if needful, a _carte blanche_ from the
authorities to go where you like, and at proper times to do what you
like.
Should you set yourselves the task of tracing out and studying, step by
step, the course of architectural change from the Norman Conquest to the
close of the Mediæval periods, there are few places more suited than
Lincoln for the purpose: indeed, I only remember a single link up to the
middle of the fourteenth century which is missing from the chain, and
that not wholly so.
In the towers of two churches in the lower city you have specimens of
what may be fairly called _Saxon_, though of the date of the Conqueror;
for when he drove out the old inhabitants from the upper city, to make
way for his cathedral and castle, they erected for themselves churches
in their own old architecture below the hill, while his people were at
work in “the new manner of building” above. Of that “new manner” you
will find specimens looking anything but new (excepting for the
endeavours of the present chapter to impart that look to them[68]) in
the west front; and if their surface shakes your faith in their
authenticity, you will find _within_ some parts, once external, but for
six centuries enclosed in an early English appendage, which you will not
doubt to be the work of old Remigius.
In the central doorway you have Norman of later date, and in the side
ones truly exquisite specimens of the latest and most refined period of
Romanesque, just before its transition into the Pointed style; and you
will find the same work extending upward through the lower stages of the
towers.
Here occurs, so far as I recollect, the only _hiâtus_. I do not remember
any of that early variety of the Early Pointed of which the special
characteristic is the square abacus, and on which I have dwelt so much
at length in former lectures, such as that which prevails in Byland
Abbey, and is seen in such high perfection in the entrance to the
chapter-house of St. Mary’s Abbey at York.[69] The two late Norman
doorways I have just mentioned tread close upon it, and the work which I
shall next mention follows so closely after it as to differ only in the
shape of the abacus, but the exact style is absent, its place being
supplied by an almost unique variety of Early Pointed, which I would
advise you specially to study. I refer to the work of Bishop Hugh, which
forms the staple of the eastern transept with its appendages, the choir,
and half of the east side of the great transept. At first sight this
work looks like the fully-developed Early Pointed, and its date, which
closes in 1200, seems an anachronism; but on closer inspection it will
be found that this antedate quality is limited to the abaci of the
shafts, which are nearly all circular. In every other particular the
details agree with their date, and belong clearly to the early variety
of the style. The mouldings are of that peculiarly beautiful and studied
profile which we find at no other period, and are worthy of your most
careful study; indeed, I know of no work which will better repay the
laborious and accurately measured drawing of its details.
I had intended to have gone carefully into a description of the varied
beauties of Lincoln. I recollect, however, that in one of my early
lectures I dwelt long on this cathedral, and I must not repeat myself;
but having spent lately nearly a week in the careful study of its
details, I wish, from personal and recent experience, to urge its claims
upon you. As I said in the lecture referred to, you will find in the
nave one of the finest examples we have of the fully developed and
typical Early English, and in its eastern parts perhaps the very finest
of its latest form. The Easter Sepulchre is a fine specimen of Early
decorated of about the period of the Eleanor Crosses, and the sleeping
soldiers beneath it are charming pieces of sculpture; the choir screen
is an excellent specimen of later Decorated, and the stall-work of fine
early Perpendicular work.
In studying these various authorities, each among the highest of its
class, I would suggest that they, particularly the productions of the
three great periods
[Illustration: Fig. 174.--Easter Sepulchre, Lincoln Cathedral.]
of Early Pointed architecture, should be followed out systematically and
relatively; comparing them part by part, by means of drawings not only
carefully measured, but plotted down accurately on the spot. Thus, I
would compare bay with bay of each period both within and without, and
then follow up this more general comparison by comparing the details,
as, for example, pillar with pillar, base with base, capital with
capital, string-course with string-course, and so on through the
arch-moulds, the triforium, the windows, the vaulting, the wall
arcading, and other features. By such a comparison you would obtain a
very accurate knowledge of the whole course of thirteenth century
architecture, as exemplified by one of the finest series of works that
this or any other country can boast.
[Illustration: Fig. 175.--Capitals, north side of Choir Lincoln
Cathedral.]
You must not, however, rest here: you must draw artistically and
carefully from the more decorative portions of the several works. There
is a perfect study of carved foliage in each of the divisions of the
work. There are noble portals,[70] one of which, in particular, is
itself worthy of a special visit to Lincoln, and of the devotion to it
of a considerable amount of time. There is also a great amount of very
fine figure sculpture, not only in the triforium of the “angel choir,”
but in the portal just mentioned, and on a few of the buttresses around
it. These merit your most careful drawing, as they are some of the
finest examples in this country. There is also a good deal of beautiful
figure carving of a rather later date in the wooden bosses in the
cloister, and some of a still later age in the stall work of the choir.
I have already mentioned the sleeping soldiers under the Easter
Sepulchre.
There are also a few remains of early wall painting. The largest amount
is to be found in a chapel at the south-western angle of the nave, where
a wall, the result of an alteration almost contemporary with the Early
English chapel, has been richly decorated with bands of foliage, etc.
These are now oddly intermixed with some decorations of the seventeenth
century, but are readily distinguishable, and are a very useful series.
Traces of decoration may also be found in the vaulting of the church
itself and elsewhere. The stained glass in the circular window of the
north transept is very fine, and merits close study, as also do the
remains of that which once filled windows of the eastern part of the
church, as well as remnants in other parts. All these, and a hundred
other features, should be most carefully and studiously drawn from;
indeed, there are few cities in Europe from which so vast an amount of
information and instruction can be drawn--lessons not limited to the
cathedral, but extending throughout the town, and consisting of domestic
as well as ecclesiastical buildings.
I have only taken Lincoln as a specimen. The same course applies
_cæteris paribus_, to all of our cathedrals. Look, for instance, at
Canterbury.[71] What a magnificent and instructive series of objects of
study does it offer! The Early Norman of Lanfranc and his immediate
successors; the gorgeous later Norman of Conrad, including, probably,
the beautifully ornamented shafts in the north-eastern part of the older
crypt, and in the cloister-like building lying to the north of the same;
the work of William of Sens (without studying which no one can
thoroughly understand the English transition), and that of his English
successor and pupil, which carries on the change a little farther. The
charming developed Early English in the walls of the cloister; the early
Decorated of Peckham’s tomb and the later Decorated of the lower stage
of the chapter-house, of the enclosure of the choir and of St. Anselm’s
Chapel; followed up as they are by fine works of later styles and
accompanied by collateral work of the greatest value, both around the
cathedral itself, in the remains of St. Augustine’s Abbey, and in other
buildings in the city; form of themselves the groundwork for a course of
study which would, if earnestly pursued, give the student a complete
foundation on which all his future knowledge might well be based.
A comparison of William the Englishman’s work with that in the Castle
Chapel and Castle Church at Dover would be interesting, as probably
showing the works of the same hand; and a comparison of these, on
another occasion, with the more thoroughly English work of the same
period at St. Cross, and other buildings in which the English and French
transition seem to work hand in hand, as Glastonbury and the rather
later work at Chichester, followed up, again, by a study of the Northern
transitional examples, would give a pretty perfect knowledge of this
most instructive, perhaps, of all periods of English architecture.
I will not, however, weary you with barren bills of fare and outline
tours, but will content myself with saying that the same course of close
all-gathering study must be followed up wherever you go, whether making
a tour of village churches or of the great northern abbeys, or seating
yourselves down before a majestic cathedral.
Architecture properly so called, wood-work, metal-work, decorations,
stained glass, and every form of art and workmanship, must be studied as
if you had to perform like work for yourselves; and you must make
yourselves perfect masters of it in every way; and, moreover, you must
study the _object_ and _meaning_ of everything so as in every way
perfectly to understand its motive, whether ritual, constructive,
iconographic, artistic, or simply utilitarian.
I will make one other suggestion as to your English studies. You cannot
be always making tours, but you need to be always studying. Do not,
then, neglect those objects which surround you while at home. You have
at your doors, if you live in London, abundant objects to occupy such
incidental hours as you may have at your command.
To begin with, you have Westminster Abbey, the study of which may supply
your leisure moments for life. What an inexhaustible fund of material of
all kinds we have here! Of the earlier periods we have objects which--if
not _artistically_ important--possess at least a deep _antiquarian_
interest; for we retain extensive remnants of that work of Edward the
Confessor which a contemporary writer tells us was the very first
erected in England in the “new manner of building;” meaning the Norman
Romanesque as distinguished from the Saxon, which latter, curiously
enough, had been viewed by those who practised it as being _Roman_.
Then, we have the Late Norman of St. Catherine’s or the Infirmary
Chapel. These are but incidental objects of interest, but how different
is the case with the abbey church itself!
We have there the foremost work of its period in this country--a work
distinctly intended to surpass all others, and in which the most
advanced developments of its period were introduced. True, the exterior
has been pared down and renewed in the last century till little is left
but its mass and proportions which invites your study; but what an
interior! I know of none more beautiful. Its uniformity may at first
sight make it seem unprolific in variety of detail; but I would only
say, _try it_, by commencing a systematic series of sketches, carefully
measuring every part, making accurate sections of the mouldings and
studied drawings from the foliage and the remains of the figure
sculpture; and you will soon find that it is a _mine_ of the most
valuable examples of every kind of detail. Its workmanship, too, is of a
very superior kind, and suggests lessons to those who carefully examine
into it of the utmost importance. The chapter-house is as valuable an
example as the church and its vestibule, and the early portions of the
cloisters offer studies of the utmost value always open to the student.
The comparison between the works of Henry III. and of Edward I. form an
interesting study, as showing the one step onward in the second stage of
the work.
Of the age of this second work, you have several gorgeous specimens in
the monuments of Queen Eleanor, of Crouchback, and of his Countess
Aveline. The two latter are invaluable studies of coloured decoration in
its most sumptuous form, and I specially commend them to your attention.
[Illustration: Fig. 176.--Westminster Abbey.]
[Illustration: Fig. 177.--Westminster Abbey.]
Of foliated carving you have admirable specimens, both of the most
refined form of the conventional kind, and of the earliest form in which
natural foliage was made use of (Figs. 176, 177). You have, in the tombs
of Eleanor, Crouchback, and Aveline, and in the bosses of Edward I.’s
work, the same carried on into a more systematic form; and I may here
mention that generally the bosses in the vaulting are worthy of most
careful study. Then, again, you have noble examples of figure sculpture
in the earlier monuments, especially those of Henry III., Queen Eleanor,
Crouchback, Aveline, and Aymer de Valence. Also some admirable relics of
it in connection with the architecture; as, for example, in the angles
of the triforium of the transepts (Figs. 178, 179), in the bosses of the
western aisle of the north transept, and over the doorway of the
chapter-house. Of later figure-sculpture there is an endless catalogue,
winding up nobly with Torrigiano’s works in Henry VII.’s Chapel.
[Illustration: Fig. 178.--Angel Triforium of the South Transept,
Westminster Abbey.]
[Illustration: Fig. 179.--Angel Triforium of the South Transept,
Westminster Abbey.]
Of enamel-work you have splendid relics in the monument of William de
Valence and in the shields on Edward III.’s. Of mosaic-work, whether of
porphyry or enamel, you will find abundant examples, as you so well
know: of the finer forms of painting you will find most exquisite relics
in the wonderful retabulum of the altar[72] (now preserved in the
ambulatory of the choir) and in the chapter-house; of iron-work you have
a splendid example over the tomb of Queen Eleanor; and of bronze-work
(though late in date) in the exquisite gates of Henry VII.’s Chapel and
in his tomb, with its surrounding screen, also in the accompaniments of
the bronze effigies already alluded to; while of later styles of
architecture you have as splendid a series as this country can produce,
ranging from the very earliest perpendicular in the cloisters, dating
not much after the middle of the fourteenth century, to the gorgeous
chapel of Henry VII.
[Illustration: Fig. 180.--Mosaic from the Tomb of the Children of Henry
III. and Edward I., Westminster Abbey.]
With such a storehouse of art at your doors, you need never want work.
You have, however, in London many minor works of great value. To place
them in chronological order: you have the chapel of the Tower, a work
dating back almost to the Conquest;[73] St. Bartholomew’s Priory Church
in Smithfield, a beautiful specimen of the later Norman;[74] the Temple
Church, consisting of one of the finest
[Illustration: Fig. 181.--Temple Church, London. Capitals, West Door.]
examples of the transitional[75] united with one of the finest of the
fully-developed Early Pointed style; the remains which the modern
Vandals have left us of St. Saviour’s Church, a noble Early Pointed
work; the chapel of Lambeth Palace, in the same style; Ely Place Chapel,
a work contemporary with the Eleanor Crosses;[76] the crypt of St.
Stephen’s, Westminster; the hall of Lambeth Palace; Westminster Hall,
and many an interesting object of minor importance. You have, if you
want a day’s or a week’s trip, St. Alban’s Abbey, a never-failing and
inexhaustible treasury; Waltham Abbey, with what remains unspoiled of
the Cross; Stone Church, Hampton Court, Eltham Palace, Croydon Palace,
Beddington Hall, Eastbury House, the ruins of Nether Hall, the Rye
House, and many old churches now brought within an hour’s ride of
London; not to mention the rapidly failing relics of the old churches
of Middlesex, now the mere sport of destructive and ignorant committees,
and--with shame I say it--sometimes of equally destructive but more
culpable, because only _wilfully_ ignorant, clergymen.
But London supplies _other_ facilities for the study of Mediæval art in
addition to its ancient buildings. In the first place, I may mention its
libraries, in which the student may devote his spare hours in studying
every work which has ever been published bearing upon the subject. The
library of the British Museum (including the print-room and the
manuscript-room) contains everything of that kind which the student
could desire, and I strongly recommend you to gain the privilege of
admittance and to make full use of that privilege. Your own library,
too, at the Royal Academy, and those of the Institute of British
Architects and of the Department of Art at South Kensington, offer every
facility for study. I would especially mention that last named as being
open in the evenings, and as being one of the most complete libraries of
works on art in existence. The Architectural Museum[77] and the South
Kensington Museum are absolutely invaluable as aids to the student; so
that you have ample employment for the dead season of the year in which
sketching tours are impossible, and it is your own fault if you do not
make full and ample use of the privileges you possess; for, believe me,
they are such as in former times it was impossible to obtain. I need
hardly mention the British Museum, which, though not rich in Mediæval
works, is the repository of those wondrous stores of Greek and other art
which the Mediæval artist knows as well how to value as those who devote
to them their more exclusive study.
You will perhaps wonder that I have said nothing as yet of _foreign_
travel. I have delayed this intentionally, and for this reason: the
facilities for travelling abroad are now so abundant, and so great a
stress has of late years been laid on the study of foreign examples,
that there is great danger of the student rushing headlong into foreign
travel before he has made himself acquainted, in any but the most
superficial manner, with the architecture of his own country.
You may possibly be disposed, after reading my former lectures, to say
that, as most of the developments of our art seem to have originated
abroad, it would be more systematic to study them in the first instance
where they originated, and then to trace their ramifications in other
countries. I would reply that, though when _writing_ on a subject one is
obliged to be systematic, it is by no means necessary that we should be
rigorously so in our studies. Effects have in all sciences to be
examined into before their causes are discovered, and it is often better
that each student should for himself go through the process of tracing
back familiar developments of art through the long course of
circumstances which led to them, rather than, beginning at the original
germ (which he must learn from others), to proceed--in a course not his
own--till he arrives at the result with which he is familiar from its
being at his own door.
However this may be, I hold it to be most unnatural for the English
student of Gothic architecture to plunge into the study of its
productions in other lands before he has made himself perfectly
acquainted with those of his own. Our language is _mainly_ derived from
German and French, but who would wish his children to be taught those
languages before they could speak correctly their mother tongue? We love
Gothic architecture in the first instance, not because of the buildings
we have heard of or seen pictures of as existing in foreign countries,
but from those which we see around us--our own village churches, our own
cathedrals, and a hundred objects which we have known from our
childhood. From these we learn the native language of the art, and it
behoves us to pursue the study of that language, and to perfect
ourselves in it, before we turn our attention to foreign dialects, even
though they may be of older date than our own.
When, however, you are well grounded in our own architecture, nothing
can be more delightful or more instructive than to follow up your
studies in foreign countries; though here, again, you must ever keep a
watch over yourselves--a guard to your patriotism--lest you should be
tempted to forget or to undervalue your mother tongue.[78]
The first country to visit is unquestionably France. A question may
occur whether it is best to begin with the old royal domain--the great
central province of the Pointed style, the fountain-head of our art--or
with Normandy as the connecting link between ourselves and that
fountain-head. On this question I would not offer any very strong
opinion, though I incline towards the former. I do not think that, after
the Romanesque period, the developments of the French came to us in any
very great, or at least any very exclusive, degree through Normandy; and
we know that very shortly afterwards that link of communication was cut
off by our loss of that province, and that immediately after this the
architecture of Normandy became more distinctly _French_, and that of
England more exclusively _English_. I think, therefore, that you would
be better prepared to understand the architecture of Normandy by having
first studied that of the central province of France.
This, however, is a secondary question. The great matter is, wherever
you go, thoroughly to _study_, thoroughly to _sketch_; not to hasten
over the ground to get through an extensive programme, but to seat
yourselves down where you find good material, and work on patiently at
it. Where you begin is comparatively of little matter, excepting that it
is undesirable to take the abnormal before the normal--the mere dialect
before the language.
If you begin at Paris, as the great centre, you will find, amidst the
Napoleonic modernisms of that centre of fashion, a very perfect series
of typical Mediæval remains, over-restored and otherwise often sadly
damaged, but nevertheless of the utmost value. I have mentioned most of
them in my former lectures, but I will just enumerate them to refresh
your memory, and roughly in chronological order.
I know little of purely Romanesque date unless it be the eastern part of
the abbey church of St. Martin. This is curious and worthy of attention.
The earliest object, however, of paramount importance is the older part
of the church of St. Denis. I have said a good deal about it before, and
will now content myself with pressing its importance as the grand
typical example of transition. The Byzantine foliage here displays
itself in a most marked form. You will find it in the string-courses and
other parts of the west end very finely developed.[79] The great portal
of the north transept is a noble specimen of this early style. The
foliated carving on it is of very high merit. The eastern chapels, both
of the church and crypt, are well worthy of the closest study, and there
are many fine remains both stowed away in the churchyard and preserved
in a temporary museum close by. These, however, do not all belong to
this church, some having been brought here, under what circumstances I
do not know, from St. Germain des Près. I will just mention that you
must get permission to sketch (so long as the works of restoration are
going on) from M. Viollet le Duc, and, having obtained, pray use it to
the utmost.
[Illustration: Fig. 182.--Capitals, Montmartre.]
Next in date, so far as I know, comes St. Germain des Près. Here you
will find, especially in the choir and its aisles, a most noble series
of studies of the Byzantinesque foliage. The architecture, too, is very
excellent; but you will perceive that the present form of the triforium
is altered from the original.
Perhaps about the same age is the church of Montmartre. Here the
Byzantinesque foliage is nearly all of the plain unraffled form, and is
very curious and worthy of study.
[Illustration: Fig. 183.--St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Plan of Choir.]
In the same class may be placed the little church of St. Julien le
Pauvre, now the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu. The choir and its aisles form
a perfect work on a very small scale in the transitional style, with
Byzantinesque foliage. The church is but little known, but is well
worthy of attention. It shows how mistaken is the idea that the Early
French style is not suited to small buildings. The clear width of the
side bays is actually under four feet, and the other dimensions in
proportion, yet the whole not only has not a _miniature_, but has a
decidedly _dignified_ air, while its details offer considerable
varieties, even the two apsidal chapels being wholly different in their
design and plan. What remains of the nave and the fragments of the fine
western portal are good specimens of the succeeding style.
[Illustration: Fig. 184.--St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Choir.]
We now come to the church of Nôtre Dame, which offers an almost perfect
series of objects of study from the same period on into the fourteenth
century. In the eastern parts is transitional work with Byzantine
foliage, showing some very curious varieties. One of the western
portals, too, contains two exquisite corbels belonging to its
predecessor of the transitional period (Figs. 187, 188). The nave with
its truly glorious portals is a most noble illustration of two
immediately succeeding periods; as fine, indeed, in its details as
anything can be. The iron-work of one of the west doors is unequalled.
The upper portions of the façade go off into later yet still noble work.
The transepts, now sadly over-restored, belong to the latter half of the
thirteenth century, and have been fine though somewhat attenuated works.
[Illustration: Fig. 185.--St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. South Aisle of
Choir.]
The _porte rouge_ is a model of a small and elegant doorway, while the
eastern chapels, which nevertheless possess great elegance, show how the
massive and masculine Early French style had become thinned down before
the close of the first quarter of the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 186.--St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Chapel, south
side of Choir.]
The refectory of the abbey of St. Martin aux Champs is a most noble
apartment of the first half of the thirteenth century, and some of the
foliated carving is among the finest of its period (Figs. 189, 190, 191)
while the
[Illustration: Figs. 187, 188.--Corbels, Western Portals, Nôtre Dame,
Paris.]
Sainte Chapelle, said to be the work of the same architect, carries on
the style a little farther, and is too well known to need any remark
from me.[80] Of later architecture there are also many specimens, though
my tastes and leisure have not allowed me to go much into them. There
are also several minor works of the early styles, of most of which I do
not remember the names. The Hôtel Cluny, itself a charming specimen of
the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, contains, besides
its invaluable collection of movables, a most interesting mass of
fragments of architectural detail well worthy of several days’ careful
devotion.
[Illustration: Fig. 189.--Capital, St. Martin aux Champs.]
[Illustration: Figs. 190, 191.--Capitals, St. Martin aux Champs.]
Quitting Paris, no city in France has, perhaps, stronger claims on your
attention than Chartres. I will not go into any description of what you
will find there, further than to say that it contains some of the very
finest and richest examples both of the transitional and of the
fully-developed Early Pointed styles. You might seat yourselves down
there for a month and work hard every day, and be glad to go again and
again and do the same, and yet find ample scope for study. In all these
works the figure sculpture claims equal attention with the architecture,
and no place offers a nobler field for this study than Chartres. A short
run farther brings you to Le Mans, where the same two styles are again
gloriously displayed, the one in the nave and the other in the choir,
etc.; but this takes us out of the regions of the old royal domain and
trenches on the Angevine district.
Between Paris and Amiens, and both near to and wide of the road to the
right and left, you will find an admirable series of village churches
worthy of being made the object of an entire tour, while among them are
many more gorgeous monuments, as the abbey church of St. Luc d’Esserent
with its exquisite series of capitals, and the cathedral and other
churches of Senlis. Amiens and Beauvais need no recommendation from me,
nor need I call your attention to that glorious group consisting of
Noyen, Soissons, Laon, and Rheims, with the Château de Coucy, the
monastery of Ourscamp, etc. This group should be the subject of a
distinct tour, though too extensive to be thoroughly studied in one of
short duration.
I should have mentioned that at Creil, which you pass in going to almost
any of these places, are the ruins of the exquisite transitional church
of St. Evremont, another instance of the way in which the early French
builders fitted their architecture to works of small size. I know few
more valuable examples of its period than this.
In another direction you reach Sens--a church so closely allied with the
English transition--and Auxerre--a mine of fine detail, and farther on
the venerable abbey of Vezelay, and several others less in scale but of
great interest; but here again we get out of our province: only let me
beg you, if you go to Vezelay, to give plenty of time to the
chapter-house, a truly exquisite work of the transitional period.
Each district of France, however, has its own special objects, all
interesting and instructive, and all claiming your careful study, though
the central district bears most directly upon ourselves, excepting only
Normandy, with its Romanesque identical with our own, and its host of
charming village churches, which remind one so much of those of England.
Wherever you go, be particular to give attention to the _rarer_ objects,
such as timber roofs of early date, chancel stalls, wall decorations,
with those relating to groining, etc., to metal-work, jewellery,
shrines, illuminated manuscripts, and more especially to stained glass;
and, perhaps, almost more than all, to figure sculpture. I would also
suggest that you should generally give preference to objects which are
really _beautiful_ rather than to those which are odd and extravagant. I
confess I have not myself seen much of the latter class in France; but
some of my friends who have a keener eye have, if one may judge of
causes by effects, come home loaded with eccentricities such as I have
failed to meet with.
Germany is almost as delightful to the architectural tourist as France
itself, and is much more so in one respect. I mean the general retention
of the movables of churches, even to the jewellery.
The architecture in Germany which is, perhaps, the most valuable is that
of the transition, which, as I have before pointed out, took here a
line of its own. After this, the most valuable is, perhaps, the brick
architecture of the North. The timber buildings, however, are almost
equally important, were it not that it is a material not much in use for
external architecture in our own day.
The movables, however, are the richest inheritance of the German
churches, and to these I would recommend your devoted attention. They
form a special and most important subject of study, and one for which no
country offers such facilities. Besides the more ordinary objects, such
as chancel fittings, reredoses, bronze gates, metal and other screens,
lamps, _coronæ_, fonts (whether of stone or of brass), tabernacles for
the reservation of the host, ancient organs, paintings, and a hundred
others of parallel classes, almost every great church has its
_Schatzzimmer_, or treasury, and these usually contain valuables of the
highest interest and of the most splendid art. These are not always easy
of access, and it is difficult to obtain permission to sketch in them;
but it is worth every exertion to do so. The treasuries at
Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne are known to every traveller, and their
claims upon the student are apt to be passed over from very familiarity;
but a few days devoted to each would be invaluable. I know no ancient
work more glorious or more exquisite, so far as it remains intact, than
the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. I have on two occasions
obtained permission for a brief period to draw from it, and have been
filled with wonder at the exquisite art which a close examination
unfolds. At Hildesheim are numberless objects of early art of the same
class. At Brunswick, again, are a few; while the treasury of the
cathedral at Halberstadt is a complete museum of Mediæval art. Sacred
vessels, reliquaries containing the finest early workmanship, books with
glorious jewelled covers, mitres of all degrees of richness, tapestries
from the earliest periods, altar coverings both of embroidery and linen
of early periods, and exquisite works of every class we can imagine are
to be found in that charmed enclosure.[81] At Marburg there are also
many such objects, and among them the shields of the old Teutonic
knights and the perfectly wonderful shrine of St. Elizabeth. I do not
refer to the beautiful stone structure which contained it, and which is
figured by Moller, but to the gorgeous jewelled shrine which it
contained. All through Germany, however, the case is the same: wherever
you go you find the great churches replete with the movable works of
Mediæval art. It is for you to study them with the care which they
deserve.
I have in a previous lecture said a good deal about the study of Italian
architecture, and I will not now repeat it. Suffice it to say that Italy
is the land in which to study the use of rich materials, of mosaic-work,
and of architectural decoration in its highest forms. It is the land in
which to give the finishing touch to your architectural training, to
learn the last and loftiest lessons--those which show us how to link
architecture with the sister arts in their highest perfection. If you
are artists when you go there, you may be much more advanced artists
when you return. We learn, too, there much that is most useful in
respect of the domestic architecture of towns. It is, however, a
seductive country, and we have to keep on our guard there, and not to
forget that we are members of a Northern nation.
Mr. Street has told us a great deal that is deeply interesting about
Spanish architecture, so I will not (as I have never seen it) enter upon
that subject; and will close what I have to say on foreign travel by
urging you to the diligent use of it, but urging you also when you
return home, not to forget that you are _Englishmen_, and that _English_
is your proper language. I would also advise that your foreign tours
should be followed up or alternated with English ones, so that your own
native architecture may always be kept prominently before your mind.
I have offered to you in this lecture what may appear to you but the dry
bones of the subject. In my next I hope to follow it up by suggestions,
both as to the spirit in which this course of study should be
undertaken, and the personal training both of the mind, the eye, and the
hand necessary to fit you for such studies; and as to the practical uses
which you should subsequently make of the lessons you will have thus
learned.
LECTURE IX.
On the Study and Practice of Gothic Architecture.
Every day business and practical work to go on _hand in hand_ with
the study of ancient buildings--How best to be accomplished--The
study _from books_--Artistic and archæological portions cannot be
wholly disconnected--Heraldry--A knowledge of the history of art
absolutely necessary for the study of Mediæval architecture--Greek
art the parent of Gothic sculpture--Ruined cities of Central
Syria--Mahometan styles--Our own form of church the direct
inheritance from the earliest Christian temples--Training _as
artists_--Choice among specimens of different Mediæval periods and
styles--Examples especially recommended--Practical studies of
ancient buildings in connection with their _structural_ and
_mechanical_ qualities--Vaulting--Timber-work--Stone-work, etc.,
etc.--The _actual practice_ of Mediæval architecture--The _repairs_
and _restoration_ of ancient buildings.
In my last lecture I gave you an outline of the course of study
requisite to obtaining a knowledge of Mediæval architecture, so far as
this is to be done by the studying and sketching from ancient buildings.
I purpose, in this, to carry on the same subject into other particulars,
and also to offer some suggestions as to the actual practice of the
revived style.
I might have appeared, in what I have said, almost to presuppose--what
is improbable, if not impossible--that those whom I have been advising
as to their studies have the entire command of their time, and are
comparatively free from the demands of every-day business. I not only do
_not_ suppose, but should be as far as possible from desiring, this; for
I am convinced that those whose usual occupations are not such as to
familiarise them with the demands and the difficulties of practical
work, and with the questions which are ever being suggested by actually
working out the details of architecture for practical use, are not
prepared to profit in the fullest degree from the study of old examples.
This study, and the practical work to which it is the only key, must go
on _hand in hand_. There are numberless intricacies and niceties;
problems long since solved; difficulties ingeniously met; clever ways of
making accidents, which in their own nature would cause a blemish, the
means of adding beauty; numberless instances in which decorative or
other treatment was the result of some practical reason which would at
first sight appear to be merely a matter of taste; and a thousand other
instructive and important matters which would be entirely passed over or
fail of approving themselves to the understanding of the student who is
not prepared to appreciate them by the suggestion to themselves of the
same problems, the same difficulties, the same little knots to be
untied, the same little intricacies to be unravelled, and the same calls
for clever contrivance to meet accidental circumstances arising in their
own daily practical work.
The man, on the other hand, who is _always_ at practical work, without
studying much from old examples, becomes dull and normal, or flighty and
crotchety, according to the bent of his own mind; while, if he
constantly supplies and revivifies his practical work by study from
original examples, and fits his mind to receive these lessons by his
practical work, he is prevented from becoming dull and lifeless by the
constant suggestions of brightness and life which he receives, or from
becoming crotchety and over fanciful by the _reasonableness_ which he
finds to pervade the objects which he studies, and the evident aim which
they evince rather to _chasten_ and _conceal_--to subject to the
doctrine of reserve--their clever contrivances than to flaunt them
obviously to public gaze.
To carry out this mutual co-operation of practical work and the study of
old examples, I would recommend you always to note down any puzzle you
fall into in your work, and any doubt as to how a perplexity is to be
met or difficulty to be got over, and any uncertainty which may occur to
you as to the best mode of treating a particular feature; so that, when
you next go out sketching, you may have a list of questions for which
you have to seek for practical answers from the old architects
themselves, still speaking to us and instructing us through their works;
and in the same way you may have, ever and anon, answers suggested by
the old men to questions which you have not yet thought of asking, but
which in your practical work you will soon find to arise. This playing
of practice and study into each other’s hands will add vastly to the
pleasure and profit of both, and will keep up a zealous and lively
interest in your minds which will make your return to business only
second in enjoyment to your setting out on a sketching tour; the one
keeping alive by practical use the pleasure and interest of the lessons
learned by the other.
I must now say a word, which perhaps ought to have come at the beginning
of my last lecture, about preparation of another kind for this class of
study.
I need hardly dwell upon the obvious necessity for having acquired at
the outset, and for constantly continuing to acquire, a knowledge _from
books_ of the subject you are studying.
At the beginning of this century it was wholly unknown; since that time
it has gradually become better and better understood; and it is clear
that, to carry on this cumulative process, each generation of students
must take as their basis the full amount of knowledge yet attained,
and--riding as it were on the crest of the wave--must add their own
progress to that attained by their predecessors. I will not attempt to
enumerate books. If you are anxious to follow up the subject, you will
already have found them out or will soon do so. I will mention, however,
that you must not limit your reading to _English_ works, for the French
have done, I think, even more than our own countrymen to elucidate the
subject; and among English writers let Professor Willis take a leading
place as your instructor.
But what you have to learn from books is not architecture alone. I will
not stop to insist on the necessity of general reading, just as every
one should follow up: some of the usual classes of general reading are,
however (if it were possible) even more directly important in their
minute details to architects than to others: I would more especially
instance _historical_ knowledge, and all that tends to illustrate the
changes which have influenced civilisation, and through it have borne
more or less directly upon art.
Though antiquarianism is very distinct from art, and though the
architectural student should be always on his guard against the danger
of reversing the relative positions of the artistic and the
archæological portions of his studies, it is nevertheless manifest that
the two can never be wholly disconnected. You must, therefore, follow up
antiquarian studies so far as they have a direct or a real bearing upon
your main pursuit.
I would mention, in passing, that there is one antiquarian science which
is a special link of connection between the present and the past: I
refer to _Heraldry_, a branch of study which we too much neglect, but
which has very strong claims upon our attention.
Then, again, you must always study the _meaning_ and _object_ of every
ancient building which you are examining, that you may know how far its
practical characteristics bear upon or are alien to such as belong to
our own day. In _ecclesiastical_ works this becomes a practical and
necessary study; for, though the ritual uses and customs have greatly
changed, many of them hold good in our own day, either directly or in
some modified or parallel form, which connects the study of the ritual
arrangements of ancient churches more or less directly with our own. The
study, then, of ecclesiastical and ritual history and antiquities is one
of those directly necessary to the church architect; though, as in the
case of antiquarianism, he must avoid the danger of making it in any
degree take the place, instead of assisting and guiding his study, of
architecture itself.
I would here take the opportunity of urging upon those who purpose
devoting themselves especially to Mediæval architecture the necessity of
making themselves acquainted, in some reasonable degree at least, and
the more thoroughly the better, with the whole range of the history of
art. It is only by means of such knowledge that we are able to
comprehend the true position which Mediæval architecture takes in the
long stream of art history.
The classic styles are the parents of the Mediæval styles, and without a
good knowledge of them the Gothic architect is unable to understand his
own architecture. More than this, however: Greek art--properly so
called--is the parent of Gothic sculpture, whether foliated or relating
to the human figure; and in respect of the latter it is (next to nature)
the best corrective of its faults. I urge upon you, therefore, the study
of _Greek_ sculpture of the best _early_ schools, as a direct means of
perfecting that of your own works.
Then again, with Roman architecture, and the course of its decadence:
how replete is its history with anticipatory suggestions as to the rise
of the new architecture which after a long period of darkness sprang up
from its decayed roots! And equally instructive is the study of
Byzantine architecture--that “light in a dark place” which was destined
to shed its rays so beneficently on the rising, but yet embryo, arts of
the Middle Ages.
A most interesting addition has recently been made to our knowledge of
this style by the researches of the Count de Vogüé among the ruined
cities recently discovered in the mountains of Central Syria.
[Illustration: Fig. 192.--El Barah, Central Syria.]
These cities seem to have been in prosperity up to the moment of the
Mahometan conquest of Syria, but to have been suddenly deserted, as in
one day, on the approach of the Arabian armies, and since then to have
remained untouched but by the elements and earthquakes; so that they
hand down to us the earlier Byzantine architecture (as practised in
Syria) in the most perfect and instructive manner. In these wonderful
cities we have not only the churches, but nearly every description of
Byzantine building, either nearly perfect, or--when thrown down by
earthquakes, as is often the case--with the parts still lying as they
fell, so that the entire design can be perfectly understood.
These remains supply the connecting link between the Byzantine and the
old Classic styles; but it is the _later_ buildings, such as St. Mark’s
at Venice, which give the link at the opposite end of the chain,
connecting it with the churches of Aquitaine, and through them with our
own Romanesque and transitional works; while the various productions of
Byzantine art of the same period, with which Western Europe was so
liberally supplied, became the germs from which much of the
ornamentation of our own earlier works originated. All this it behoves
the Gothic architect to study; nor should he neglect the parallel
supplies of suggestions from the _Mahometan_ styles--themselves the
offspring of the Byzantine. But still more incumbent is it on him to
follow out that direct _catena_ by which, in _Western_ Europe, the Roman
style passed through the Early Basilican phase in Southern Italy, the
Lombardic in Northern Italy,[82] and the various derivative forms of
Romanesque in Southern France and Rhineland, as well as in the less
familiar European countries.
In all these varied courses of gradual change it is yet more
interesting, and far more profitable, to trace out--as distinct from all
questions of architectural style--the ritual and practical changes
through which the basilica, so early adopted as the great type of the
Christian Church, became the parent of the typical form made use of to
our own day and for our own churches, and those by which the
later-introduced Greek cross was perfected into the form of the
Byzantine churches, and the less usual circular type into that of a
series of exceptional churches both in the East and West. The _first_ of
these _catenæ_, in particular, is most interesting to ourselves, as
showing that our own form of church is our direct inheritance from the
earliest Christian temple: and, though we may do well to consider how
far the series of changes through which it has reached us may be
advantageously followed up by any additional modification to meet the
true demands of our own day, yet God forbid that we should so far forget
the claims of our long descent as to let go this precious inheritance of
our fathers![83]
There is, however, another more direct kind of preparation, on which I
desire most urgently to insist. I mean your personal training _as
artists_. True it is that your sketching tours will be a great means of
promoting this; but this will not do alone: you must constantly strive
to train your eye and your hand to artistic perception and skill. You
should take lessons from first-rate teachers both in drawing and in
colouring; you should take some means of training yourselves in drawing
the human figure and in animal drawing, and even in modelling if
opportunity permits. These means ought unquestionably to be afforded to
the architectural students by this Academy as a special and most
important and essential part of their training. That such is not the
case at present is, I believe, the result of the cramped and
insufficient housing which has been allowed us, and I do trust that this
hindrance will soon be removed.[84]
You should further practise yourselves in drawing and modelling from
natural leaves and flowers, and, side by side with this, in drawing from
fine examples of sculptured foliage, whether natural or conventional,
for which last-named object you have great facilities offered by the
Architectural Museum; and all this, I would suggest, can be going on
during the winter months when you cannot sketch from actual buildings.
Without this training you will find yourselves at a great disadvantage
in studying for original works; your attempts at drawing sculpture,
whether figures or foliage, will disgust and dishearten you, and even
your sketches from purely architectural objects will be both dispiriting
to yourselves at the time, will fail to express the true feeling of the
works themselves, and will convey no agreeable impressions when you
revert to them in after years.
You will have gathered from incidental remarks as I have proceeded that
I have not supposed you to limit your attention and study to
architecture properly so called. Time does not allow me to go farther
into the subject of collateral arts; but let me say that, as
architecture unites all arts in one, so you must gather into her garner
the spoils to be collected from the study of every art by which
architecture may be ennobled and enriched.
I have said nothing in the course of the foregoing remarks as to the
choice or preference you would have to exercise among specimens of
different Mediæval periods and styles, but I have said enough to show
that I do not suppose your studies of the old buildings in our own and
neighbouring countries to be limited to one selected period, nor even to
what can be strictly called Mediæval works, as much that is useful can
be gathered (particularly in domestic work) from buildings of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is absolutely necessary, too,
that you should understand and be familiar with _all_ the varieties of
our old architecture, because, though you may not follow them in your
own works, you may be frequently called upon to _restore_ them, though
this reason is hardly necessary to lead you to master the _whole_ range
of Mediæval art.
Still, however, you cannot choose but follow more lovingly the works of
the periods which most approve themselves to your minds as the days when
art was the most vigorous, noble, and full of deep and true sentiment.
For my own part, though I am less exclusive than many of my friends, I
must confess that I find a difficulty in sketching, unless with a
directly practical object, from works either so early as to be rude or
so late as to be enervated. And while I beg you to make yourselves
masters of the _whole_ range, I am far from asking you to check the
genial current of the soul by endeavouring to love all varieties alike,
or to give equal attention to those which are and those which are not in
harmony with your inner feelings.
I have dwelt much, in my earlier lectures, on the study of the vigorous
and onward-striving works of the transition: and I confess that to me
this is the most captivating period. I have already sufficiently
indicated the leading examples of it, though you will find it
interspersed with other styles all over the country. I think myself that
no style is more calculated to excite a grandeur of sentiment, but none
seems to me to have been so little studied from English examples, or
rather, I should have said, from _British_ examples, for it is as finely
developed in Wales and in Scotland as it is in England. I have said a
good deal about studying it as a _historical_ phase of the style, but
this, though necessary, is in point of fact a very secondary matter. You
must much rather study it _artistically_, with reference to its
intrinsic merits and its noble beauty, and _morally_, as illustrating
the elevated sentiment and noble earnestness of those who, while
pressing forward a new style of art, generated at every step such
glorious productions.
I have said less, perhaps, and spoken with less enthusiasm of the
fully-developed Early Pointed style, not from a lower appreciation of
its merits, but because it seems rather a breathing-place--a point of
attainment--in the march, than especially a point of noble pressing
onward. Nor need I enumerate the special objects of study belonging to
the period. They are sown broadcast over our own and neighbouring lands,
and form the staple of our most magnificent, and a large proportion of
our humble, Mediæval remains. No tour, however, is more prolific of
instruction in this style than that of the northern abbeys, and this
tour may be repeated again and again with ever fresh delight, and
extended with great profit over the borders and far away into Scotland.
After this we come to another transition, and--the period of rest being
at an end--we find again much of the same earnest striving as during the
earlier transition. I would recommend a very special amount of study to
be devoted to this style--for it is not reasonable to suppose that
traceried windows are to be banished from our revival; and loving, as
most of us do, the vigour of the earlier periods, this second
transition--the connecting link between the earlier and the middle
periods--offers most valuable material for our own developments: indeed,
I cannot conceive of a more promising course of corrective training for
those among us who have followed early and foreign work till it has
grown into an actual mania, than to set themselves the task of following
up, _nolens volens_, the minute study in all its details of a carefully
selected series of work of this second English transition.
For such a course I would especially recommend the following examples:--
The greater part of Netley Abbey; all the eastern portions of
Westminster Abbey; the eastern arm of Lincoln Cathedral;[85] the
chapter-house[86] and cloisters at Salisbury; all that remains of
Newstead Abbey; and the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. Of a period a shade
later I would recommend the nave of St. Mary’s Abbey at York; the whole
of Tintern Abbey; the chapter-houses at Southwell and at York, and the
eastern parts at St. Albans. The two latter are, however, productions of
the completed style rather than of the transition, and to give a list of
objects of study in that style would be almost hopeless, for the country
is filled with them. Nor do I admire so exclusively the earlier work as
to exclude from the better half of our Mediæval range yet later
specimens of the Middle Pointed. I cannot but think the gateways of St.
Augustine’s at Canterbury, of Battle Abbey, and of that of Bury St.
Edmund’s; the halls of Mayfield, Penshurst, and the lost hall at
Worcester; the lost chapel and the still existing crypt of St.
Stephen’s; the choir at Winchelsea; the Lady Chapel at Chichester; and a
long list of other buildings of the earlier part of the fourteenth
century, to be works claiming our high regard and admiration, and I
consequently recommend them also to your careful study.
The very latest phase of the Decorated style is often weak, but I will
not suppose _you_ to be so much so as to be unable to sever its beauties
from its faults, or to be in danger of condemning or admiring good and
bad alike; and a yet more vigorous discretion is needed in studying
from the works of the succeeding ages, though, _all through_, you will
find not only objects of high intrinsic merit, but constant suggestions
capable of being advantageously _translated_ into a more vigorous
style.[87]
A still more important subject I have as yet but incidentally touched
upon. I refer to the _practical_ character of your studies of ancient
examples, as viewed in connection with the actual _structural_ and
_mechanical_ qualities of the examples themselves, and the learning from
ancient examples the principles of Mediæval construction and practical
art, and their bearings upon _our own_ constructive and practical
operations. Thus, for example, you must give special and systematic
study to the principles of _vaulting_ as exemplified by Mediæval
buildings. I have, in one of my lectures, recommended, as a prelude to
such study, your reading Professor Willis’s paper on the subject in the
_Transactions of the Institute of British Architects_ and M. Viollet le
Duc’s in his _Dictionary_. You will be the better prepared after this to
work the subjects out for yourselves. It is a particularly difficult
matter to study, both in its own nature and because the work is usually
out of reach. You should watch for opportunities offered by scaffoldings
being raised under vaultings, and make accurate measurements. You must
study not only the lines and their setting out, but the _stone cutting_
and _jointing_, and all kinds of practical questions, the very existence
of which you cannot understand till you have given much attention to the
subject. Then, when you have obtained a perfect insight into these
questions, you will do well to consider whether there are or are not
practical faults in the old work which we should do well to remedy. So
in timber-work we should master the old system of construction, and then
think how far it is perfect and where open to improvement, and also how
far the old system as applied to _oak_ is suited to our own
constructions in _fir_, and what are the practical variations suggested
by the material. And so on through stone-work, iron-work, brass-work
(whether cast or wrought), lead-work, silver-work, and jewellery. You
must not content yourselves with studying and sketching from the work as
an architectural or decorative design, but must _dissect_ and
_investigate_ it, and find out its construction, and how far that
construction has modified or suggested its design, or how far this may
result from not only the _construction_, but the nature of the
_material_.
In respect of the _metal-work_ and other kinds of decorative art, you
will find great advantage from carefully reading Mr. Burges’s lectures,
given some time back before the Society of Arts.
By thus following up your studies from _all_ points of view, whether
antiquarian, historical, artistic, ritual, utilitarian, or practical and
mechanical, you will obtain that perfect understanding of Mediæval art
which is necessary to enable you to carry on its revival and practice
both with _knowledge_ and _intelligence_.
I now come to the _actual practice_ of the lessons learned by such a
course of study as I have been endeavouring to shadow forth.
As I said on a former occasion, I will not go into the general question
of the _revival_ of Gothic architecture, but will assume it as a _fait
accompli_, and proceed to consider some questions as to the practical
carrying of it out.
One point which has given rise to much difference of opinion is the
question of what _period_ and variety of Mediæval architecture we should
best take as the groundwork of our own developments.
When, during the long interval between the cessation of Mediæval
architecture and our own day, it was temporarily returned to in any
special instance, it seems to have been viewed rather as a _dormant_
than an _extinct_ art, and the style chosen was always its _latest_
phase; as if it had only to be re-awakened at the point at which it had
fallen asleep. And in the same manner, in our own day, nearly all the
earlier works of the revival were in the latest form of the style, as if
the revival was the mere prolongation of a chain, and to be attached to
its last link.
This was the _traditional_ phase in the revival. The interval had,
however, been too lengthened to allow this imagined connection with the
old but disused chain to hold good. People began to investigate and to
philosophise and to write books about the style. All phases soon began
to be equally known, and people could not help entertaining preferences.
Rickman had awarded the palm to the Decorated; others preferred the
Early English; and after a time all agreed that the latest link was the
worst, and must not be adopted as the starting-point. Some tried
Norman, some Early English, some Decorated. The Cambridge Camden Society
seemed at first to favour Early English; but soon they laid their ban
upon it, and preached a crusade against all but the sacred “Middle
Pointed,” and even defined with minute accuracy the precise period of
that style which they would stamp with their approval. It was to be the
earliest phase of the later form of Middle Pointed; or, as a friend of
mine jokingly defined it for them, the “_Early late Middle Pointed_.”
Some, however, preferred the “late Early,” some the earliest Middle
Pointed; and though a few still strayed into the heterodoxy of “First
Pointed,” or even into deadlier errors, it came, after a time, to be a
generally received opinion that the Middle style was the best groundwork
for us to go upon, and that it might fairly be viewed that this had been
so completely revived and re-adopted as to become _the_ style of our
Gothic Renaissance.
Though there was a good deal of nonsense current about it at the time,
as if it were almost an article of religious faith, an “_Articulus
stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiæ_,” there was, I must say, a great deal of
common sense in the choice.
The early transitional style, though gloriously noble and vigorous,
could not reasonably be re-adopted as a groundwork inasmuch as it _was_
a transition, and that from a state of things with which we have a
little or nothing in common. The developed Early Pointed had very strong
claims, but failed of being what Dr. Whewell calls “_complete_ Gothic.”
Its fault was that there were certain features which, once known, could
not be rejected, but which the Early Pointed _had not_. Its merits were
_positive_ and of the highest order; its defects were purely _negative_.
The later Pointed had been pretty generally voted to be the production
of the decline of the style, and the later half of the Middle Pointed
showed unquestionable evidences that during its period the way for that
decline had been preparing. The _Early_ Middle Pointed was thus come to
by an exhaustive process, as being at once “_complete_” and _not_ on the
decline, though some felt (and I confess to being of the number) that it
might with advantage be invigorated by importing into it a good deal of
the detail, and, even, perhaps, some whole features of the earlier
style.
This general conclusion having been tacitly consented to, people
naturally came to think that we ought to adhere to it as closely as
might be, and for this reason: that the principle of a _revival_ was
only defensible in an extreme case, and nothing could defend it from the
charge of frivolity if the revivers went on the principle of now
reviving one style and now another; but that if all by general consent
should determine on reviving _one and the same_ style, as the groundwork
for the future development of a style of our own, the revival would
become invested with _reality_, _reason_, and _vigour_. The choice,
then, of one style, and the adherence to it _as a groundwork_, seems to
me to have been _right_, and I am very much disposed to believe that the
choice come to, though its enforcement at that time bordered on
fanaticism, was _right_ also; at least in the _main_.
This promising theory, not to mention occasional tokens of rebellion at
the somewhat tyrannical way in which it was attempted to be pressed,
received a rude shock some ten years back through the competition for
the erection of the cathedral at Lille. We had been in the habit in this
country of speaking rather pityingly of the error of the French
revivalists in selecting an earlier type for their groundwork than we
had adopted; but the programme of this great European competition
_prescribed_ this early style, and our talented countrymen who won the
palm leaped over the traces to such an extent, as absolutely to
luxuriate in the till now forbidden art, even beyond what was demanded
by the conditions, and beat the French out of the field in the intensity
of their following out of the Early French style.
This was received with unlooked-for indulgence by those whose laws it
set at nought; but so marked a condonation seemed to have been viewed as
an act of emancipation, for, from that time forward, every one began to
do that which was right in his own eyes.
There was at once a violent revulsion of feeling in favour of the
earliest periods; and at the same time the long pent-up feelings of
favour to the continental styles, excited by Mr. Ruskin and by foreign
travel, were given their full swing, and for a time nothing could be
early enough--nothing foreign enough--to satisfy the emancipated
cravings. We _all_ felt this, and acted on it in a greater or a less
degree, and those who chose the _less_ degree were heartily despised by
those who chose the _greater_.[88] As time, however, rolled on, and
cool reflection began to assert her sway, we again remembered that we
were Englishmen, and that there was an English language in architecture,
and we began again also to recollect that the course of Gothic
architecture did not cease to create noble productions in the very
period of its coming into existence. Some, on awakening to this
consciousness, ran at once into the opposite extreme--condemning every
lesson they had learned abroad, eschewing the early styles to which they
had so recently sworn exclusive allegiance, and despising (according to
prescribed custom) all who did not go so far in their new direction as
they did themselves; but, on the whole, people now seem likely to settle
down into a _via media_, in which I trust that common sense will be
found to reside.
I would not have gone through this list of peccadilloes but for the
purpose of warning you against their repetition. We have, I hope, “sown
our wild oats.” Let us now take a steady and sensible course.
During the state of chaos which I have alluded to, our revival has
suffered seriously from the follies, not so much of its own champions,
as of a number of _pretenders_ who had never studied the subject at all,
but who, taking advantage of a period of disorder, palmed off upon the
public designs, especially in domestic architecture, which--really the
offspring of ignorance--were put forward as that of the prevailing
taste--as original developments founded on something _very_ early and
_very_ foreign; _so_ early, indeed, and _so_ foreign as to have never
and nowhere existed. These productions have disfigured our streets and
done more than anything to bring discredit on our revival.
Let us now consider what is the course which it becomes us to take in
the selection of our groundwork.
I think that our experience of the last few years has suggested to us:
first, the expediency of returning in some modified degree to the rule
from which we had departed, of adopting as our normal type the
architecture of _one_ period, and that not the very earliest though
still an _early_ period; but, secondly, the desirableness of not making
our self-imposed rule too strait; of, thirdly, making our revival
distinctly _English_; though, fourthly, not refusing to enrich and
amplify our English revival with the spoils of our foreign study.
I would, then, suggest that, while your basis should be the earliest
form of what has been called “_complete_ Gothic” (such, for example, as
that of Westminster Abbey, the eastern part of Lincoln, Newstead Abbey,
and the nave of Lichfield), this should be taken rather in a
_representative_ than in a _literal_ sense; that your revived style and
its developments should, in short, be based on the earlier and more
vigorous half of Mediæval architecture, which earlier half should be
_represented_ by its central point, _as a nucleus_ round which it
rallies, and into which the beauties of the _whole_ may be collected;
that the point chosen should be _inclusive_ of much which preceded and
followed it, and _exclusive_ of nothing with which it will consistently
amalgamate. Nor would I condemn as latitudinarian an occasional
departure, either forward or backward, from this _point de départ_; only
asking that the early styles may be, in a certain degree, viewed as
_one_ in our revival, rather then split up into _many_, and their
details, with proper judgment and self-restraint, be considered capable
of being united, when occasion seems really and distinctly to call for
it, in one work, or the earlier and less early forms be used, as may be
preferred, for buildings intended to express more of vigour or of
delicacy. I would not, however, advocate too free a use of this liberty,
and would therefore propose that the early “completed” style, of which
Westminster Abbey is our great type, should be always viewed as our
_central and normal type and rallying-point_.[89]
Then, again, I would recommend a return, loyally and unreservedly, to
_English_ types. That is to say, that when there is nothing to call for
a deviation from it, we should design as a matter of course _in
English_. In doing this, however, I would act as a well-instructed and
sensible English _writer_ would act. He would (except under
extraordinary circumstances) write in his _own language_, but would
never be so suicidal as to refuse to enrich his mind, and through it his
writings, by the study of foreign literature. He would, however, express
thoughts thus learned _in English_; any passage adopted from foreign
writers he would probably translate into English, excepting only where
its _ipsissima verba_ were of the essence of the quotation. So with the
English _architect_. The architecture of his own country should be his
normal type, but it would be madness for him to refuse the lessons he
can learn abroad. The results of these lessons should, however, for the
most part be translated into English, unless such translation would
destroy their vigour and their meaning. He should, as I have often
observed, do--not necessarily _what_, but--as the old architects did. It
is patent that our Norman, our transitional Pointed, our traceried
windows, and many of our minor details partake more or less of a foreign
origin. True, they were not really imported from abroad, but our
architects and those of France were working hand in hand and mutually
aiding in the development of their common architecture; but our old
builders never scrupled, nay, earnestly sought, to gather ideas wherever
they went; and yet their productions, replete as they were with the
riches gathered in foreign travel, were so unquestionably _English_ that
we detect any departure from them at once as a foreign interpolation.
Let _us_ endeavour in the same manner so to work in our foreign
gatherings as not to disturb the homogeneous character of the whole,
much less to suggest the idea that we are designing in a foreign
dialect. We _then_ need not fear even to learn and make use of the rich
arts of Italian decoration, and still less the more kindred lessons
taught us in France by the men who worked side by side with our own old
architects.
We are all too apt to run into extremes. We run wildly into early or
late, foreign or English work, according to the rage of the moment; and
perhaps hate that which we last doted on, and despise in their turn all
who hold opinions we once held ourselves or shall soon entertain. I do
not condemn _in toto_ a little of this tendency to mania, as it keeps up
our zeal, but I would wish to restrain it and bring it within the range
of reason; and I think that such a broad and liberal rule as I have
suggested will tend to this end, without imposing a galling restraint or
narrowing either our range of study or the wholesome variety of our
practice.
In our own earliest style, and in the French examples down to a far
later date, there is one feature which I confess I have a great love
for--I mean the square and angular abacus. I think it is probably the
feeling for this feature which has, more than any other, led to our
tendency to follow French types. I would mention, however, that it is
not necessarily a _foreign_ feature, as it is found in our own earlier
style, and sometimes (as in the side chapels of the nave at Chichester)
is continued later; nor is it necessarily a very _early_ form, as it was
in France continued to a comparatively late date. I do not, therefore,
see that we need deny ourselves its use. I would only _moderate_ it, and
use it and our own more typical _round_ abacus, and our own _moulded_
capital, as frequently as, and on at least equal terms with, the other.
In the form of _arches_, though keeping to typical forms as a rule, I
would not deny myself the use of the _round_ arch nor the plain segment
where there is any practical reason for their introduction, only I would
not use the abnormal forms frivolously or without a reason. I would
assert the greatest liberty in such matters, yet restrain myself by
common sense in the exercise of the liberty I claim.
I would again advise (particularly in the use you make of your _foreign_
studies) the avoiding of _queer, odd-looking_ features, for which there
has of late been so eager an appetite. I believe that most of those we
see in modern works are pure inventions for the sake of novelty and
apparent cleverness. The little stumpy columns with gigantic capitals,
and all the thousand-and-one pieces of quirkiness which one sees, are
things which, I confess, I have rarely if ever found in old work in any
country or of any period. We have really become so French of late, in
our own imagination, that no Frenchman would recognise his native style
as seen in our exaggerations of it. All this is a _vulgar_ vice, and
should be repudiated as a person of taste would all that is _loud_ and
_vulgar_ in dress or in anything else.[90]
All this has led to much neglect of our own examples, and, when we use
them, to our going too much in the contrary direction; and, from want of
familiarity with the endless variety they contain, we have got into the
way of confining ourselves to their most typical forms, whereas a
careful study of our old examples would supply us with an infinity of
varieties of the most charming kind.
It has for years been a question _sub judice_, whether architectural
foliated carving, etc., ought to represent natural or purely
conventional forms. I am not going to open up this controversy, but I
think it right to urge upon you in your studies to follow up _both_, and
to aid them by careful study of the actual objects of nature which are
suggestive either of one or the other. The period I have recommended as
our central rallying-point was just that at which the two kinds of
foliage were used together and on equal terms. My own opinion is that no
art can be a _living_ one which founds its ornamentation wholly upon a
_bygone conventionalism_. This does not, however, prove that we ought
directly to copy nature as it comes before us. If we demand
conventionalisms, though we _may_ adopt those of our predecessors, we
_ought_ to be able to conventionalise for ourselves.
For my own part, as I equally admire several of the forms of foliated
ornament I find in the range of works I claim as our types, I am content
to use them each in their turn; but I cannot reject _nature_ as the
_great guide_, though the more we are able so far to conventionalise her
productions and to “_bring into service_,” and suit them to the uses to
be made of them, the better will our work be.
In _sculpture_ I hold that we ought to be able to follow what is good
and noble in the form of that art which belonged to the finest period of
our architecture, and yet to unite it with the most perfect art which
can be produced. _Greek_ art unites perfectly with Gothic, but both
demand the spirit and soul of the true artist, aided by the use of what
he sees in actual life. I confess, however, that so little opportunity
is allowed us for cultivating this art in connection with architecture,
and so small the funds at our disposal, that we have fallen into the sin
of putting our sculpture into the hands of men of a very inferior
class--extemporised, in fact, from amongst our ordinary carvers; and the
only wonder to me is, _not_ that they do so badly, but _so well_ as they
do. This is a _noble_ subject on which to follow out a new and higher
aim, and the students of the Royal Academy might especially devote
themselves to its realisation. I fear that we older architects shall not
succeed, but we may claim aid of _you_ who have better opportunities;
and I would, as a help, suggest a course of study from the finest and
purest Greek side by side with the best Gothic sculpture, endeavouring
to unite their qualities, and to add to them what is to be gathered from
the study of nature--not only the usual study of the human figure, but
rather the importing into sculpture touches of nature and fact as they
come before us.
To this also we need to add the study of _animal_ sculpture, a point in
which such artists as we are able to employ are usually, though not
always, equally behind-hand.
Much the same may be said of figure _painting_ when used in connection
with architecture. We ought only to employ those who are _really
artists_, but these should train themselves especially for the subject;
and if the architect could fit _himself_ for the work, so much the
better, if he really does it well; though this can never become again
the general practice.
I have said a little in my last lecture on the study of the old examples
and fragments of _painted glass_ which you fall in with; I would wish
more formally and urgently to press this upon you.
The foreign fever, from which we are but now recovering, has told most
severely upon this class of art; for not only has English stained glass
been neglected as our practical guide--not only has the study of it been
almost wholly abandoned--but its very _conservation_ has been little
cared for; and not only in the churches which contain beautiful
fragments have they been contemptuously neglected as guides to the
characters of new windows introduced, but they have been constantly and
systematically _expelled_ from the windows in which they exist, and for
which expressly they were designed, to make way for new glass, designed
without any reference to their character. We have long been in the habit
of abusing, and justly, the village glaziers who turn out the beautiful
fragments of ancient glass which occupy the heads of lights and the
openings of tracery, to make way for uniform quarry glazing; but our
_glass painters_ are daily doing the same thing without remorse, and are
the more inexcusable inasmuch as they cannot plead ignorance, and if
they chose could make the design of their new windows a restoration of
the old, and retain the old fragments in their proper places. It usually
happens, however, that they _never see_ the windows for which they
prepare the glass, and are culpably innocent of all knowledge of whether
they or others in the church retain remnants of the works of those who
are, or ought to be, their masters.[91]
I have, in more than one instance, known that some of our best glass
painters, when called on to introduce windows into our finest minsters,
have completed their work without any knowledge of the fact that there
remained exquisite remnants of the ancient and coeval glass belonging
to windows corresponding with those they were supplying, and that of the
finest periods of the art; and have consequently failed to assimilate
their work to what was intended by the original builders.
The clergy, too, are often greatly to blame in this. Their eagerness for
_new_ glass often expels from their minds all care for the _old_. I have
heard of a good-natured[92] archdeacon in one of the southern counties,
who is ready to give to any friend specimens of the ancient glass he has
supplanted by new in his “restored” church.
All this makes it incumbent on you to note and carefully to draw every
fragment of stained glass which you meet with where it is exposed to be
lost or neglected; and I would further urge on you the systematic and
minute study of the better known examples, so that your knowledge of
glass painting, as of architecture, may be based upon _English_
examples. Our glass painters are open to the double charge of adhering
to old precedent too religiously in its _weakest_ point, and too lightly
in its _strongest_; for though their works are far from being generally
very close followings of the actual decorative designs of old glass, and
particularly of _English_ glass, they affect to follow the grotesque
drawing of the old glass painters, and often greatly exaggerate it. I
would rather reverse this, for the decorative portions of old glass are
so perfect that it is impossible to surpass their beauty, while the
figure drawing, though often full of deep and noble sentiment, is
usually quaint and even grotesque.[93]
In respect, however, of the figure drawing, I am very far indeed from
advising the repudiation _in toto_ of the ancient manner. It is only the
_correction_ of the drawing that I advocate. I would adhere rigidly to
the principle of representing the figures mainly (though not wholly) by
means of _sharp hard outline_. We know from the Greek Vases (if, indeed,
any proof were wanting where the fact is so obvious) that an outline may
be as absolutely artistic as a finished painting. I would further adhere
to the _general sentiment_ and _artistic style_ of the old glass, but I
would urge that the sentiment and style should be followed out with _as
perfect drawing_ (were it possible) as an old Greek artist would have
brought to bear upon it. As an imaginary illustration of what I mean, I
would endeavour to realise what the result would be if pencil outline
copies of the best thirteenth century figure subjects were placed in the
hands of such a man as Flaxman, or any really high-class artist, capable
of appreciating their sentiment and well versed in Greek art of the
noblest period, for the purpose of _simply correcting_ their drawing
without changing their sentiment and motive. It is just such drawing as
one may suppose to result from such a process that I would wish to see
in our modern church windows. In _secular_ works I would not oppose
some departure from the rigidity of such a style, nor a little further
addition of shading and high finish, though never to the concealment of
the outline; and in both I would avoid all that is _grotesque_ or
over-_quaint_ (excepting in subjects or figures which demand it, and
where it is of the essence of the motive), as these qualities introduced
into serious subjects are, to say the least, contrary to the general
spirit of the age, and are, therefore, false and unreal.
In painted decorations on walls, etc., much greater liberty may be
allowed. We have not here the _material_ limiting the class of art made
use of, and the treatment may therefore suit itself freely to the
conditions suggested--first, by the purpose of the building; secondly,
by its scale of decorative character and the limits of cost; and
thirdly, by the more or less _functional_ nature of the surface
occupied. We may, in fact, vary from outline pure and simple to
perfectly finished paintings, and from a severe and solemn treatment to
any reasonable degree of lightness and freedom, according to the
conditions: ever remembering that the more functional the surface, the
less must be the apparent relief. A painting in a panel may have any
amount of shadow and distance, while that occupying a wall, a pier, or a
vault must be kept sufficiently flat as to avoid disturbing the
functional character of the object which is the ground of the painting.
A great deal has been said about _development_ in architecture, and a
good deal of harm has resulted from it: not that development is to be
objected to--far from it; but because true and genuine development will
never be the result of direct and deliberate effort.
The true developments we have to look for are such as will be
continually forced upon us by the necessities of new materials, new
modes of construction, new requirements, and the altered habits and
feelings of the age in which we are living; by the different modes of
decoration which will from time to time offer themselves to our notice,
and the importing into English architecture arts which had previously
been peculiar to that of other countries and perhaps to wholly different
styles. The conditions also prescribed by works in different
climates--as in India, in North America, or in Australia--demand special
development.
The frank and natural meeting of these new demands and new facilities
will of itself produce developments enough to distinguish the works of
our revival from those of old times, without our affecting to alter
those elements of our style which are not naturally affected by any such
conditions. I have said so much, however, on these subjects elsewhere,
that I will not venture to crowd their multitudinous details into this
lecture: only suggesting, in passing, that _domestic_ architecture by
its absolute demands _must_ of necessity suggest very many new
developments; that another wide field for novelty of treatment is
offered by the _wrought iron_ construction and _fire-proof_ construction
of our day; and that there still remains to us the solution of the noble
problem of the introduction and naturalisation of the _dome_ as a
feature of our revived style.
I will now say a very few words on another branch of the practice of a
Gothic architect: that which relates to the _repairs_ and _restoration_
of ancient buildings.
What I have said on the _study_ of ancient examples as the one and only
source of knowledge of architecture, of necessity carries with it the
assertion of the value of those examples, whether of a higher or of a
humbler class, and the condemnation of those who would deprive us of
these monuments of ancient art or tamper with their genuineness or
integrity. Yet, strange to say, a large number of the architects who
take in hand the so-called restoration of our ancient buildings seem
utterly devoid of all feeling for their value as authentic works of
olden time. I know no subject connected with architecture more mournful
and distressing than the way in which our old churches are but too
generally dealt with. Many of our large towns contain one or more
architects who systematically prey upon the surrounding churches, more
or less ruining everything they touch, and that without remorse, and
combating with the utmost energy every remonstrance against their
destructive habits. Nor are _they_ alone to blame. _The clergy too often
love to have it so._ If they can get their churches made smart, they
often seem to care little about the destruction of their antiquities;
and thus, between them and their architects, whole counties are becoming
denuded of a great part of the points of interest in their churches.
Nay, the man who commits the greatest devastations often earns the
greatest amount of commendation; and one who venerates an old building
and seeks to preserve its antiquities has to _fight for every inch of
ground_ against the opposition of the parties interested in the work.
These destructive tendencies are not limited to the minor features of
churches, but often involve the whole buildings, or large parts of them,
in destruction, and that without a shadow of necessity. One of these
destroyers of churches is called in, and at once condemns all he does
not fancy or which can be shown to be out of repair; the clergyman
appeals to the neighbourhood for funds to meet the sad state of things
portrayed by his architect; the whole or part of it is destroyed, and no
regard to its former design is paid in its reconstruction. This is going
on all over the country, with the applause of local magnates and the
laudations of the local papers: the architect and his patrons glory in
their success, while the country is robbed, one by one, of its
invaluable and irreplaceable antiquities.[94]
Even the societies formed for the study of our antiquities fail to lift
up their voices sufficiently against this fearful Vandalism, while many
who should be the guardians of our ancient churches use specious
arguments in confutation of the protests of those who dare to denounce
the atrocities which are perpetrated.
I have expressed myself pretty fully on the subject elsewhere, and have
spoken also about the spirit in which we should undertake such additions
to old churches as absolute necessity demands; and I am happy to say
that the Institute of British Architects have issued most judicious and
strongly-worded codes of suggestions as to the treatment of old
buildings, so that I trust the public will at some time be awakened to
the monstrous course which is being too generally followed. I go over
the ground on this occasion because I suppose myself to be addressing
many of those to whose keeping our churches and other old buildings will
be at a future time committed. I desire to warn you at the outset
against following the steps of those whose misdeeds I have been
proclaiming; and I close these lectures with an earnest entreaty that
you will enter upon practice with a solemn vow to yourselves to be the
determined and consistent protectors and conservators of those precious
relics of former days, now consecrated by antiquity, and from which
alone you learn the art which I am urging you to study.
“It were a pious work, I hear you say,
To prop the falling ruin, and to stay
The work of desolation. It may be
That ye say right: but, oh, _work tenderly_:
Beware lest _one_ worn feature ye efface;
Seek not to add _one_ touch of modern grace;
Handle with reverence each crumbling stone,
Respect the very lichens o’er it grown;
And bid each ancient monument to stand,
Supported e’en as with a filial hand.
’Mid all the light a happier day has brought
We work not yet as our forefathers wrought.”
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I fancy Mr. Freeman, who has perhaps more right than any living
author to a dogmatic opinion on this question, would think that I have
gone too far in this statement; and that the course of architecture was
less broken at this period than I imagined when writing the above. In
Italy, I have since come to the opinion, the history of architecture
was fairly continuous, in spite of Gothic invasions, etc. Although the
architecture at Pavia, etc., called by Mr. T. Hope “Lombardic,” has
been proved to be of dates far later than he supposed when giving it
that name, I feel convinced that truly Lombard architecture does exist,
and that of a type naturally succeeding and carrying on the style of
the earlier Basilicæ. At Lucca, for instance, though little attention
has been paid by writers on its churches, to anything earlier than the
Pisan work of the twelfth century, a careful examination will show that
many of them have a nucleus (and some far more) of a much earlier date,
reaching back to the time of the Lombard kings (G. G. S. 1878).
[2] See note on this subject in the previous lecture. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[3] _Ibid._
[4] Mr. Freeman, in vol. v. of his “Norman Conquest,” has treated
admirably of the architecture of this period, under the name of
“Primitive Romanesque.” (G. G. S. 1878.)
[5] I do not know whether the western bays of the Church of S. Pierre,
adjoining the Abbey Church at Jumiéges (which bays seem to have
belonged to the original chapter-house), belong to the older building
destroyed by the Normans, or to that rebuilt in 930 by Guillaume
Longue-Epeé. They are in style not Norman, but refined “Primitive
Romanesque.” (G. G. S. 1878.)
[6] There is an exception to this in the vaulting of curved spaces,
such as the circular aisle round an apse in which the ribs assume a
waved plan. (G. G. S.)
[7] See views of St. Faith’s Chapel, vol. ii. Lecture XIII.
[8] St. Cross, See Lecture III. p. 124.
[9] Interior View of St. Joseph’s, See Lecture III. p. 116.
[10] The length to which the Lecture has extended itself has rendered
it necessary for the present to pass over the German transition with
very slight notice. (G. G. S.)
[11] I ought to couple with the vaulting all wide-spanned arches; but
in a vaulted building they naturally go together. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[12] There is some uncertainty as to the building to which these
fragments belonged. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[13] A better acquaintance with southern buildings does not wholly
remove this difficulty. The Greek and Roman types seem to be a good
deal mixed in them. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[14] From a careful examination of the old capitals removed from the
church of St. Frond during the “Restoration,” I observe that they
are scarcely so distinct in their Byzantine character as those later
specimens which I have been speaking of. This makes me suspect that
throughout the twelfth century actually Byzantine carvers were employed
in France. Without this I cannot account for the continuance of the
Byzantine feeling in all its purity for so long a time. (G. G. S.)
[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Capitals from the north-west Portal, Lincoln
Cathedral.]
[15] We find the Byzantine feeling every here and there strongly
developed in our own transitional examples. I will mention as an
instance the north-west portal of Lincoln Cathedral, where it is
beautifully exhibited. (Fig. 28). (G. G. S.)
[16] See page 93, Fig. 38.
[17] The same construction appears to have also existed both at
Tewkesbury and at Pershore. (G. G. S.)
[18] See page 85, Fig. 27.
[19] 1858.
[20] It is curious to observe precisely the same art as in the eastern
part of Nôtre Dame exhibited in the tiny, but exquisite choir, close
by, of St. Julien le Pauvre.[21] Another small but highly valuable
example is the beautiful ruined church of St. Evremont at Creil. An
example of this style, which I have not seen much noticed in books, is
the cathedral at Geneva. I am unacquainted with its history, but should
suppose that a considerable interval occurred between its lower and
upper stages, the latter being of perfected Early Pointed, while the
former is as admirable a transitional work as I have anywhere met with.
It partakes in some parts of that classic tendency which is displayed
in the earlier parts of the cathedral at Lyons.
To follow out the subject through the South of France would not only be
useless in illustrating the English transition, but would, compressed
into the smallest space, be a subject for an entire lecture. I cannot,
however, abstain from just alluding to the noble manner in which the
style adapts itself to Domed architecture at Angoulême and throughout
its neighbourhood, and to the Quasi-domed architecture at Le Puy.
The latter has been illustrated in an excellent paper by Mr. Street,
read before the Institute of British Architects. The southern form of
the transition must have been nobly exemplified by the church of St.
Gilles near Nismes, before that charming church became ruined in the
religious wars of the sixteenth century. The entire plan of the church
still remains intelligible, as does most of the superstructure; and it
is difficult to imagine anything more noble. The three western portals
are better known, and are truly magnificent. Parallel to them are the
western portal and the cloister of St. Trophimus[22] at Arles. The
church at St. Gilles retains the date of its commencement, 1116, which,
however, seems too early for its architecture. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[21] See Lecture VIII., p. 320, Figs. 183, 184, 185, 186.
[22] See Lecture VI., p. 229.
[23] The carving of the more advanced style here described belongs
probably to the beginning of the thirteenth century. M. Viollet le
Duc seems to think that the western façade was not begun till about
1218; but I think it must have been earlier, because the corbels and
upper jamb-stones of the south-western portal, unlike the rest, are of
exquisite Byzantine workmanship. (G. G. S. 1878).
[24] A more careful examination shows that far the larger part of
Darlington is of later date, using up, as would appear, details
prepared by Pudsey, who died before the church had made any great
progress. (G. G. S.)
[25] There is work of the Canterbury type in the double chapel to
the keep of Dover Castle, and interpolated work by the same hand in
the church hard by, in which Saxon work is re-used as material for
transitional work. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[26] The dates are given in Professor Willis’s excellent paper on the
Abbey. They are from 1186 onwards. The older Abbey was burnt down in
1186. The Chapel now known as that of St. Joseph, but which was really
the Lady Chapel, was first rebuilt, and the church followed immediately
afterwards. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[27] The clerestory and triforium of St. Germain des Pres have
undergone some alterations from the original forms. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[28] This work at Chichester was executed at the close of the century,
after the fire of 1186; but Professor Willis has shown that some early
Pointed work of a very marked character, which exists in the western
part of the Lady Chapel, must have been erected previously to that
event.
[29] This unfoliated capital I have since noticed in the Church
at Tulle in Limousin, where simplicity was suggested by the
material--granite. (G. G. S.)
[30] I read a paper on the English Transition, especially viewed in
reference to its English and French elements, before the Archæological
Institution at Canterbury in 1875. See their Journal. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[31] For illustration see Lecture IV., Fig. 109.
[32] For illustration see Lecture V., Fig. 116.
[33] It is fair to say that Professor Willis doubted the date given to
this Galilee. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[34] In the church of St. Francis at Assisi, a German and an Italian
architect worked together. The former imported into the work a German
version of the French Pointed style, while the latter retained the
semi-classic Romanesque of his own country--the two indefinitely
commingled. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[35] The last sentence, though expressing a general truth, must not be
taken too literally; for, though it is the great principle of Gothic
architecture to decorate construction, this may be effected simply or
richly, and with or without sculpture or carving, according to the
requirements of the case. (G. G. S.)
[36] I remember conducting for the first time M. Reichensperger through
Westminster Abbey, being surprised at his objecting to some details
as “Bysantinisch.” This arose from his having mentally adopted later
styles as his models, in which no trace of Romanesque origin remains.
(G. G. S. 1878.)
[37] See Lecture VII. page 248.
[38] See capital from S. Eusèbe, Auxerre, Lecture III., page 101; also
capitals from Montmartre, Lecture VIII., page 319.
[39] See capitals from Nôtre Dame, Saint Chapelle, etc., Lecture III.
pages 102 and 103.
[40] I have since discovered that the great four and five light windows
of the chapter-house at Westminster were finished in 1253. These are of
the fullest development, and have cusped heads to their lights. (G. G.
S.)
For illustration, see Interior of Chapter-House, Lecture XIV. Vol. ii.
[41] For illustration, see Lecture V., Fig. 122.
[42] For illustration, see Lecture V., Fig. 116.
[43] I remember, in the report of one of the parish meetings, Mr.
Barclay having proposed the restoration of the glorious old nave, an
intelligent parishioner exclaiming, “What! keep them great elephants’
foots?” (G. G. S. 1878.)
[44] I am glad to learn that the drawings _are_ preserved, and that
they will, D.V., be published by Mr. Dollman. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[45] Or rather, in some respects, of Beauvais. The two were, no doubt,
jointly referred to by the Cologne architect. (G. G. S.)
[46] Since writing this I have had the privilege of restoring it, and
in these days of ante-restoration I am glad that so clear a record had
been kept of its previous condition. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[47] See Lecture VIII., p. 312, Figs. 178, 179.
[48] See Lecture VIII., p. 313, Fig. 180.
[49] Much discussion has taken place as to who this Pietro--“Petrus
Romanus Civis”--was. Virtue, as quoted by Walpole, says it was
Pietro Cavallini, but he was only a child when this work was done.
The ciforium in the Church of St. Paul without the Walls bears
this inscription; †HOC OPUS FECIT ARNOLFUS CUM SUO SOCIO
PETRO!! Monsegnor Xavier Barbier de Montault, who wrote a
chapter for Mr. Parker’s work on Rome, says that this was Pietro
Cavallini. If so, he was probably the father of the more celebrated
artist. The date of the work last named is 1285, being sixteen years
later than that at Westminster.
[50] For east and west windows, see “Digression concerning Windows,”
inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.
[51] For illustration, see Lecture IV., Fig. 109.
[52] More recently, on opening out other walled-up arches, etc., the
greater part of this substructure has been found. The fragments--about
2000 in number--have been fitted together and built up in their old
place. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[53] Since this was written, the church has gained additional interest
through the opening out of the wall paintings, which probably formed a
sort of reredos over each of the small altars which stood against the
Norman piers in the nave. (G. G. S.)
[54] This is really somewhat later. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[55] This notion has since been entirely disproved, and the architect
proved to have been a member of an English family. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[56] For illustration, see Lecture IV., Fig. 87.
[57] See Lecture III. p. 121, Fig. 82.
[58] For a bay of this chapter-house, see “Digression concerning
Windows,” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII. Fig. 170.
[59] See Lecture XV., vol. ii.
[60] For illustration, see Lecture IV. p. 164.
[61] The practical and universally acknowledged success of the Assize
Courts at Manchester, as compared with those at Liverpool, speaks
volumes as to the _rationale_ of our style. (G. G. S.)
[62] It is amusing to observe the triumphant tone with which modern
writers delight to parade the bits of untruthfulness which they chance
to find in ancient Classic and other structures. I wonder whether the
old architects would enjoy the compliment if they could see works of
_our_ day. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[63] For illustration, see Lecture III., Fig. 81.
[64] See Lecture IV., Fig. 87.
[65] The manner in which our glass painters turn out these
fragments--more precious than gold--to make way for their (often vile)
memorial windows is only paralleled by the ruthlessness with which they
tear away the iron-work which once sustained the painted glass. (G. G.
S. 1878).
[66] There seems to be a perfect crusade going on against these relics
which give such a charm to our villages, though nothing shows more
painfully the contrast between the tastefulness of former times and the
tastelessness of the present than a comparison between these despised
remains and the structures by which they are constantly being replaced.
(G. G. S.)
[67] Or how were stone gables made to fit themselves to a _thatched_
roof? (G. G. S. 1878).
[68] A practice now happily _long_ discontinued. (G. G. S. 1878).
[69] See Lecture III., pp. 107, 108.
[70] See Lecture V., Fig. 122.
[71] To follow up these studies well, it will be desirable to have an
introduction to the authorities, which may exempt you from a galling
system of _espionage_ for many years prevalent in this cathedral. (G.
G. S. 1878.)
[72] See Lecture V., Fig. 113.
[73] See Lecture XII., vol. ii.
[74] See Lecture XIV., vol. ii.
[75] See Lecture III., Fig. 79; and Lecture V., Fig. 110.
[76] See Lecture V., p. 183, Fig. 115; also “Digression concerning
Windows” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.
[77] It is melancholy to think how our privileges are neglected! The
Architectural Museum itself is a _perfect mine_ of the finest objects
of study; yet how insufficient are the uses made of it. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[78] Since I wrote this--eleven years ago--the tide has turned. We are
too apt to follow _rages_ and mere _fashions_. We were, when I wrote,
becoming too French; we have since got to think of French architecture
with a self-righteous horror. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[79] For illustrations, see Lecture III., p. 82, Figs. 20, 21.
[80] Many original capitals from the Sainte Chapelle are lying in the
open air in the gardens of the Hôtel Cluny. The most precious morsels
which can be conceived! (G. G. S. 1878.)
[81] When I wrote this, they were double-locked in the old
_schatzzimmer_, but they are now displayed in the triforium gallery.
(G. G. S. 1878.)
[82] I mean the Romanesque architecture of _Lombardy_: not that of the
_Lombard Kings_, which was probably a mere version of the Basilican.
See note on this subject to Lecture I. (G. G. S. 1878).
[83] The small secular Basilica, called the “_Basilica Jovis_” built, I
think, by Domitian on the Palatine Hill, proves more clearly than any
other building I know how directly our churches are derived from the
old Halls of Justice. The recent excavations have shown both the marble
_cancelli_ which parted off the apse, and the altar within it for the
administrative oath. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[84] Surely we may claim it now! (G. G. S. 1878.)
[85] For illustrations, see Lecture V. p. 199, Fig. 121.
[86] For illustration, see “Digression concerning Windows,” inserted
between Lectures VII. and VIII.
[87] So rapidly do _fashions_ change that, though when I wrote the
above I expected to be found fault with for speaking so well of _late_
styles, I am now far behind the age! Sixteen years earlier I had done
the same at the risk, nay, with the certainty, of being pronounced a
heretic by some of the very persons who now think the latest Mediæval
art the best, and that far later than Mediæval _better still_. (G. G.
S. 1878.)
[88] Those who most despised the less _foreign_ and the less _early_
men, are, in many cases, those who have subsequently rejected all that
was foreign, and all that was early; if not yet, all that is Mediæval.
(G. G. S. 1878.)
[89] I fear my love of the early styles has led me to be unfaithful to
my theory. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[90] The French variety of our style has not only been vulgarised by
_exaggeration_, but still more by _ignorance_ and _incapacity_. The
hideousness of the capitals constantly palmed off as _French_ would
surpass belief if we were not used to it! (G. G. S. 1878.)
[91] I must mention, as noble exceptions to this, the restoration, by
Mr. Hardman, of the east window of Okeover Church, Derbyshire; and of
two windows in the north aisle of Gloucester Cathedral, which are works
deserving the highest praise. (G. G. S.)
[92] I fear this term only applies to him in respect of his liberality
in this particular. (G. G. S. 1878.)
[93] I cannot but feel that our glass painters fail grievously in real
progress. Even those who are really acquainted with their art too
frequently so _scamper_ over it as to render their figures and subjects
_mere caricatures_. The majority really know nothing about their art,
and these are the favourites with the public! Another section, who
really understand what art is, and are able to practise it, proudly set
at naught its harmony with the architecture in which it is set. (G. G.
S. 1878.)
[94] If the local and other architects who feel themselves to be open
to this charge would reconsider their ways, and determine henceforth to
devote themselves to the conservation of all the antiquities which pass
through their hands, they would earn and receive the hearty support of
all who love and value our ancient buildings, as well as securing the
gratitude of future generations. (G. G. S.)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1" ***
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