Chapter VII: Section I (2)

Construction has been shown to be the chief aim and object of the engineer; with him it is all in all, and to construct scientifically and at the same time economically is the beginning and end of his endeavours. It is far otherwise with the architect. Construction ought to be his handmaid, useful to assist him in carrying out his design, but never his mistress, controlling him in the execution of that which he would otherwise think expedient. An architect ought always to allow himself such a margin of strength that he may disregard or play with his construction, and in nine cases out of ten the money spent in obtaining this solidity will be more effective architecturally than twice the amount expended on ornament, however elegant or appropriate that may be.

So convinced were the Egyptians and Greeks of this principle, that they never used any other constructive expedient than a perpendicular wall or prop, supporting a horizontal beam; and half the satisfactory effect of their buildings arises from their adhering to this simple though expensive mode of construction. They were perfectly acquainted with the use of the arch and its properties, but they knew that its employment would introduce complexity and confusion into their designs, and therefore they wisely rejected it. Even to the present day the Hindus refuse to use the arch, though it has long been employed in their country by the Mahometans. As they quaintly express it, “An arch never sleeps;” and it is true that by its thrust and pressure it is always tending to tear a building to pieces; in spite of all counterpoises, whenever the smallest damage is done, it hastens the ruin of a building, which, if more simply constructed, might last for ages.

The Romans were the first who introduced a more complicated style. They wanted larger and more complex buildings than had been before required, and they employed brick and concrete to a great extent even in their temples and most monumental buildings. They obtained both space and variety by these means, with comparatively little trouble or expense; but we miss in all their works that repose and harmony which is the great charm that pervades the buildings of their predecessors.

The Gothic architects went even beyond the Romans in this respect. They prided themselves on their constructive skill, and paraded it on all occasions, and often to an extent very destructive of true architectural design. The lower storey of a French cathedral is generally very satisfactory; the walls are thick and solid, and the buttresses, when not choked up with chapels, just sufficient for shadow and relief; but the architects of that country were seized with a mania for clerestories of gigantic height, which should appear internally mere walls of painted glass divided by mullions. This could only be effected either by encumbering the floor of the church with piers of inconvenient thickness or by a system of buttressing outside. The latter was the expedient adopted; but notwithstanding the ingenuity with which it was carried out, and the elegance of many of the forms and ornaments used, it was singularly destructive of true architectural effect. It not only produces confusion of outline and a total want of repose, but it is eminently suggestive of weakness, and one cannot help feeling that if one of these props were removed, the whole would tumble down like a house of cards.

This was hardly ever the case in England: the less ambitious dimensions employed in this country enabled the architects to dispense in a great measure with these adjuncts, and when flying buttresses are used, they look more as if employed to suggest the idea of perfect security than as necessary to stability. Owing to this cause the French have never been able to construct a satisfactory vault: in consequence of the weakness of their supports they were forced to stilt, twist, and dome them to a most unpleasing extent, and to attend to constructive instead of artistic necessities. With the English architects this never was the case; they were always able to design their vaults in such forms as they thought would be most beautiful artistically, and, owing to the greater solidity of their supports, to carry them out as at first designed.[12]

It was left for the Germans to carry this system to its acme of absurdity. Half the merit of the old Round arched Gothic cathedrals on the Rhine consists in their solidity and the repose they display in every part. Their walls and other essential parts are always in themselves sufficient to support the roofs and vaults, and no constructive contrivance is seen anywhere; but when the Germans adopted the pointed style, their builders—they can hardly be called architects—seemed to think that the whole art consisted in supporting the widest possible vaults on the thinnest possible pillars and in constructing the tallest windows with the most attenuated mullions. The consequence is, that though their constructive skill still excites the wonder of the mason or the engineer, the artist or the architect turns from the cold vaults and lean piers of their later cathedrals with a painful feeling of unsatisfied expectation, and wonders why such dimensions and such details should produce a result so utterly unsatisfactory.

So many circumstances require to be taken into consideration, that it is impossible to prescribe any general rules in such a subject as this, but the following table will explain to a certain extent the ratio of the area to the points of support in sixteen of the principal buildings of the world.[13] As far as it goes, it tends to prove that the satisfactory architectural effect of a building is nearly in the inverse ratio to the mechanical cleverness displayed in its construction.

----------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------- | | |Ratio in| Nearest | Area. | Solids.|Decimals| Vulgar Fractions. ----------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------- | Feet. | Feet. | | Hypostyle Hall, Karnac| 63,070 | 18,681 | .296 | Three-tenths. St. Peter’s, Rome |227,000 | 59,308 | .261 | One-fourth. Spires Cathedral | 56,737 | 12,076 | .216 | One-fifth. Sta. Maria, Florence | 81,802 | 17,056 | .201 | One-fifth. Bourges Cathedral | 61,590 | 11,091 | .181 | One-sixth. St. Paul’s, London | 84,311 | 11,311 | .171 | One-sixth. Ste. Geneviève, Paris | 60,287 | 9,269 | .154 | One-sixth. Parthenon, Athens | 23,140 | 4,430 | .148 | One-seventh. Chartres Cathedral | 68,261 | 8,886 | .130 | One-eighth. Salisbury Cathedral | 55,853 | 7,012 | .125 | One-eighth. Paris, Notre Dame | 61,108 | 7,852 | .122 | One-eighth. Temple of Peace | 68,000 | 7,600 | .101 | One-ninth. Milan Cathedral |108,277 | 11,601 | .107 | One-tenth. Cologne Cathedral | 91,164 | 9,554 | .104 | One-tenth. York Cathedral | 72,860 | 7,376 | .101 | One-tenth. St. Ouen, Rouen | 47,107 | 4,637 | .097 | One-tenth. ----------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------------------

At the head of the list stands the Hypostyle Hall, and next to it practically is the Parthenon, which being the only wooden-roofed building in the list, its ratio of support in proportion to the work required is nearly as great as that of the Temple at Karnac. Spires only wants better details to be one of the grandest edifices in Europe, and Bourges, Paris, Chartres, and Salisbury are among the most satisfactory Gothic cathedrals we possess. St. Ouen, notwithstanding all its beauty of detail and design, fails in this one point, and is certainly deficient in solidity. Cologne and Milan would both be very much improved by greater massiveness: and at York the lightness of the supports is carried so far that it never can be completed with the vaulted roof originally designed, for the nave at least.

The four great Renaissance cathedrals, at Rome, Florence, London, and Paris, enumerated in this list, have quite sufficient strength for architectural effect, but the value of this is lost from concealed construction, and because the supports are generally grouped into a few great masses, the dimensions of which cannot be estimated by the eye. A Gothic architect would have divided these masses into twice or three times the number of the piers used in these churches, and by employing ornament designed to display and accentuate the construction, would have rendered these buildings far more satisfactory than they are.

In this respect the great art of the architect consists in obtaining the greatest possible amount of unencumbered space internally, consistent in the first place with the requisite amount of permanent mechanical stability, and next with such an appearance of superfluity of strength as shall satisfy the mind that the building is perfectly secure and calculated to last for ages.

IX.—FORMS.

It is extremely difficult to lay down any general rules as to the forms best adapted to architectural purposes, as the value of a form in architecture depends wholly on the position in which it is placed and the use to which it is applied. There is in consequence no prescribed form, however ugly it may appear at present, that may not one day be found to be the very best for a given purpose; and, in like manner, none of those most admired which may not become absolutely offensive when used in a manner for which they are unsuited. In itself no simple form seems to have any inherent value of its own, and it is only by combination of one with another that they become effective. If, for instance, we take a series of twenty or thirty figures, placing a cube at one end as the most solid of angular and a sphere at the other as the most perfect of round shapes, it would be easy to cut off the angles of the cube in successive gradations till it became a polygon of so many sides as to be nearly curvilinear. On the other hand by modifying the sphere through all the gradations of conic sections, it might meet the other series in the centre without there being any abrupt distinction between them. Such a series might be compared to the notes of a piano. We cannot say that any one of the base or treble notes is in itself more beautiful than the others. It is only by a combination of several notes that harmony is produced, and gentle or brilliant melodies by their fading into one another, or by strongly marked contrasts. So it is with forms: the square and angular are expressive of strength and power; curves of softness and elegance; and beauty is produced by effective combination of the right-lined with the curvilinear. It is always thus in nature. Rocks and all the harder substances are rough and angular, and marked by strong contrasts and deep lines. Among trees, the oak is rugged, and its branches are at right angles to its stem, or to one another. The lines of the willow are rounded, and flowing. The forms of children and women are round and full, and free from violent contrasts; those of men are abrupt, hard, and angular in proportion to the vigour and strength of their frame.

In consequence of these properties, as a general rule the square or angular parts ought always to be placed below, where strength is wanted, and the rounded above. If, for instance, a tower is to be built, the lower storey should not only be square, but should be marked by buttresses, or other strong lines, and the masonry rusticated, so as to convey even a greater appearance of strength. Above this, if the square form is still retained, it may be with more elegance and less accentuation. The form may then change to an octagon, that to a polygon of sixteen sides, and then be surmounted by a circular form of any sort. These conditions are not absolute, but the reverse arrangement would be manifestly absurd. A tower with a circular base and a square upper storey is what almost no art could render tolerable, while the other pleases by its innate fitness without any extraordinary effort of design.

On the other hand, round pillars are more pleasing as supports for a square architrave, not so much from any inherent fitness for the purpose as from the effect of contrast, and flat friezes are preferable to curved ones of the late Roman styles from the same cause. The angular mouldings introduced among the circular shafts of a Gothic coupled pillar, add immensely to the brilliancy of effect. Where everything is square and rugged, as in a Druidical trilithon, the effect may be sublime, but it cannot be elegant; where everything is rounded, as in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the perfection of elegance may be attained, but never sublimity. Perfection, as usual, lies between these extremes.

X—PROPORTION.

The properties above enumerated may be characterised as the mechanical principles of design. Size, stability, construction, material, and many such, are elements at the command of the engineer or mason, as well as of the architect, and a building remarkable for these properties only, cannot be said to rise above the lowest grade of architectural excellence. They are invaluable adjuncts in the hands of the true artist, but ought never to be the principal elements of design.

After these, the two most important resources at the command of the architect are Proportion and Ornament; the former enabling him to construct ornamentally, the latter to ornament his construction; both require knowledge and thought, and can only be properly applied by one thoroughly imbued with the true principles of architectural design.

As proportion, to be good, must be modified by every varying exigence of a design, it is of course impossible to lay down any general rules which shall hold good in all cases; but a few of its principles are obvious enough, and can be defined so as to enable us to judge how far they have been successfully carried out in the various buildings enumerated in the following pages.

To take first the simplest form of the proposition, let us suppose a room built, which shall be an exact cube—of say 20 feet each way—such a proportion must be bad and inartistic; and besides, the height is too great for the other dimensions, apparently because it is impossible to get far enough away to embrace the whole wall at one view, or to see the springing of the roof, without throwing the head back and looking upwards. If the height were exaggerated to thirty or forty feet, the disproportion would be so striking, that no art could render it agreeable. As a general rule, a room square in plan is never pleasing. It is always better that one side should be longer than the other, so as to give a little variety to the design. Once and a half the width has often been recommended, and with every increase of length an increase of height is not only allowable, but indispensable. Some such rule as the following seems to meet most cases:—“The height of a room ought to be equal to half its width, plus the square root of its length.” Thus a room 20 feet square ought to be between 14 and 15 feet high; if its length be increased to 40 feet, its height must be at least 16½; if 100, certainly not less than 20. If we proceed further, and make the height actually exceed the width, the effect is that of making it look narrow. As a general rule, and especially in all extreme cases, by adding to one dimension, we take away in appearance from the others. Thus, if we take a room 20 feet wide and 30 or 40 feet in height, we make it narrow; if 40 wide and 20 high, we make a low room. By increasing the length, we diminish the other two dimensions.

This, however, is merely speaking of plain rooms with plain walls, and an architect may be forced to construct rooms of all sorts of unpleasing dimensions, but it is here that his art comes to his aid, and he must be very little of an artist if he cannot conceal, even when unable entirely to counteract, the defects of his dimensions. A room, for instance, that is a perfect cube of 20 feet may be made to look as low as one only 15 feet high, by using a strongly marked horizontal decoration, by breaking the wall into different heights, by marking strongly the horizontal proportions, and obliterating as far as possible all vertical lines. The reverse process will make a room only 10 feet high look as lofty as one of 15.

Even the same wall-paper (if of strongly marked lines) if pasted on the sides of two rooms exactly similar in dimensions, but with the lines vertical in the one case, in the other horizontal, will alter the apparent dimensions of them by several feet. If a room is too high, it is easy to correct this by carrying a bold cornice to the height required, and stopping there the vertical lines of the wall, and above this coving the roof, or using some device which shall mark a distinction from the walls, and the defect may become a beauty. In like manner, if a room is too long for its other dimensions, this is easily remedied either by breaks in the walls where these can be obtained, or by screens of columns across its width, or by only breaking the height of the roof. Anything which will divide the length into compartments will effect this. The width, if in excess, is easily remedied by dividing it, as the Gothic architects did, into aisles. Thus a room 50 feet wide and 30 high, may easily be restored to proportion by cutting off 10 or 12 feet on each side, and lowering the roofs of the side compartments, to say 20 feet. If great stability is not required, this can be done without encumbering the floor with many points of support. The greater the number used the more easily the effect is obtained, but it can be done almost without them.

Externally it is easier to remedy defects of proportion than it is internally. It is easier than on the inside to increase the apparent height by strongly marked vertical lines, or to bring it down by the employment of a horizontal decoration.

If the length of a building is too great, this is easily remedied by projections, or by breaking up the length into square divisions. Thus, A A is a long building, but B B is a square one, or practically (owing to the perspective) less than a square in length, in any direction at right angles to the line of vision; or, in other words, to a spectator at A’ the building would look as if shorter in the direction of B B than in that of A A, owing to the largeness and importance of the part nearest the eye. If 100 feet in length by 50 feet high is a pleasing dimension for a certain design, and it is required that the building should be 500 feet long, it is only necessary to break it into five parts, and throw three back and two forward, or the contrary, and the proportion becomes as before.

The Egyptians hardly studied the science of proportion at all; they gained their effects by simpler and more obvious means. The Greeks were masters in this as in everything else, but they used the resources of the art with extreme sobriety—externally at least—dreading to disturb that simplicity which is so essential to sublimity in architecture. But internally, where sublimity was not attainable with the dimensions they employed, they divided the cells of their temples into three aisles, and the height into two, by placing two ranges of columns one above the other. By these means they were enabled to use such a number of small parts as to increase the apparent size most considerably, and at the same time to give greater apparent magnitude to the statue, which was the principal object for which the temple was erected.

The Romans do not seem to have troubled themselves with the science of proportion in the designs of their buildings, though nothing can well be more exquisite than the harmony that exists between the parts in their orders, and generally in their details. During the Middle Ages, however, we find, from first to last, the most earnest attention paid to it, and half the beauty of the buildings of that age is owing to the successful results to which the architects carried their experiments in balancing the parts of their structures the one against the other, so as to produce that harmony we so much admire in them.

The first great invention of the Gothic architects (though of Greek origin) was that of dividing the breadth of the building internally into three aisles, and making the central one higher and wider than those on each side. By this means height and length were obtained at the expense of width: this latter, however, is never a valuable property artistically, though it may be indispensable for the utilitarian exigencies of the building. They next sought to increase still further the height of the central aisle by dividing its sides into three equal portions which by contrast added very much to the effect: but the monotony of this arrangement was soon apparent: besides, it was perceived that the side aisles were so low as not to come into direct comparison with the central nave. To remedy this they gradually increased its dimensions, and at last hit on something very like the following proportions. They made the height of the side aisle half that of the central (the width being also in the same proportion); the remaining portions they divided into three, making the triforium one-third, the clerestory two-thirds of the whole. Thus the three divisions are in the proportion of 1, 2, and 3, each giving value to the other, and the whole adding very considerably to all the apparent dimensions of the interior. It would have been easy to have carried the system further and, by increasing the number of the pillars longitudinally and the number of divisions vertically, to have added considerably to even this appearance of size; but it would then have been at the expense of simplicity and grandeur: and though the building might have looked larger, the beauty of the design would have been destroyed.

One of the most striking exemplifications of the perfection of the Gothic architects in this department of their art is shown in their employment of towers and spires. As a general rule, placing a tall building in juxtaposition with a low one exaggerates the height of the one and the lowness of the other; and as it was by no means the object of the architects to sacrifice their churches for their towers, it required all their art to raise noble spires without doing this. In the best designs they effected it by bold buttresses below, and the moment the tower got free of the building, by changing it to an octagon and cutting it up by pinnacles, and lastly by changing its form into that of a spire, using generally smaller parts than are found in the church. By these devices they prevented the spire from competing in any way with the church. On the contrary, a spire or group of spires gave dignity and height to the whole design, without deducting from any of its dimensions.

The city of Paris contains an instructive exemplification of these doctrines—the façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (exclusive of the upper storey of the towers), and the Arc de l’Etoile being two buildings of exactly the same dimensions; yet any one who is not aware of this fact would certainly estimate the dimensions of the cathedral as at least a third, if not a half, in excess of the other. It may be said that the arch gains in sublimity and grandeur what it loses in apparent dimensions by the simplicity of its parts. The façade of the cathedral, though far from one of the best in France, is by no means deficient in grandeur; and had it been as free from the trammels of utilitarianism as the arch, might easily have been made as simple and as grand, without losing its apparent size. In the other case, by employing in the arch the principles which the Gothic architects elaborated with such pains, the apparent dimensions might have been increased without detracting from its solidity, and it might thus have been rendered one of the sublimest buildings in the world.

The interior of St. Peter’s at Rome is an example of the neglect of these principles. Its great nave is divided into only four bays, and the proportions and ornaments of these, borrowed generally from external architecture, are so gigantic, that it is difficult to realise the true dimensions of the church, except by the study of the plan; and it is not too much to assert, that had a cathedral of these dimensions been built in the true Gothic style, during the 13th or 14th century, it would have appeared as if from one-third to one-half larger, and might have been the most sublime, whereas St. Peter’s is now only the largest temple ever erected.

It would be easy to multiply examples to show to what perfection the science of proportion was carried by the experimental processes above described during the existence of the true styles of architecture, and how satisfactory the result is, even upon those who are not aware of the cause; and, on the other hand, how miserable are the failures that result either from the ignorance or neglect of its rules. Enough, it is hoped, has been said to show that not only are the apparent proportions of a building very much under the control of an architect independent of its lineal dimensions, but also that he has it in his power so to proportion every part as to give value to all those around it, thus producing that harmony which in architecture, as well as in music or in painting, is the very essence of a true or satisfactory utterance.

XI.—CARVED ORNAMENT.

Architectural ornament is of two kinds, _constructive_ and _decorative_. By the former is meant all those contrivances, such as capitals, brackets, vaulting shafts, and the like, which serve to explain or give expression to the construction; by the latter, such as mouldings, frets, foliage, &c., which give grace and life either to the actual constructive forms, or to the constructive decoration.

In mere building or engineering, the construction being all in all, it is left to tell its own tale in its own prosaic nakedness; but in true architecture construction is always subordinate, and as architectural buildings ought always to possess an excess of strength it need not show itself unless desired; but even in an artistic point of view it always is expedient to express it. The vault, for instance, of a Gothic cathedral might just as easily spring from a bracket or a corbel as from a shaft, and in early experiments this was often tried; but the effect was unsatisfactory, and a vaulting shaft was carried down first to the capital of the pillar, and afterwards to the floor: by this means the eye was satisfied, the thin reed-like shafts being sufficient to explain that the vault rested on the solid ground, and an apparent propriety and stability were given to the whole. These shafts not being necessary constructively, the artist could make them of any form or size he thought most proper, and consequently, instead of one he generally used three small shafts tied together at various intervals. Afterwards merely a group of graceful mouldings was employed, which satisfied not only the exigencies of ornamental construction, but became a real and essential decorative feature of the building.

In like manner it was good architecture to use flying buttresses, even where they were not essential to stability. They explained externally that the building was vaulted, and that its thrusts were abutted and stability secured. The mistake in their employment was where they became so essential to security, that the constructive necessities controlled the artistic propriety of the design, and the architect found himself compelled to employ either a greater number, or buttresses of greater strength than he would have desired had he been able to dispense with them.

The architecture of the Greeks was so simple, that they required few artifices to explain their construction; but in their triglyphs their mutules, the form of their cornices and other devices, they took pains to explain, not only that these parts had originally been of wood but that the temple still retained its wooden roof. Had they ever adopted a vault, they would have employed a totally different system of decoration. Having no constructive use whatever, these parts were wholly under the control of the architects, and they consequently became the beautiful things we now so much admire.

With their more complicated style the Romans introduced many new modes of constructive decoration. They were the first to employ vaulting shafts. In all the great halls of their Baths, or of their vaulted Basilicas, they applied a Corinthian pillar as a vaulting shaft to the front of the pier from which the arch appears to spring, though the latter really supported the vault. All the pillars have now been removed, but without at all interfering with the stability of the vaults; they were mere decorative features to explain the construction, but indispensable for that purpose. The Romans also suggested most of the other decorative inventions of the Middle Ages, but their architecture never reached beyond the stage of transition. It was left for the Gothic architects freely to elaborate this mode of architectural effect, and they carried it to an extent never dreamt of before; but it is to this that their buildings owe at least half the beauty they possess.

The same system of course applies to dwelling-houses, and to the meanest objects of architectural art. The string-course that marks externally the floor-line of the different storeys is as legitimate and indispensable an ornament as a vaulting shaft, and it would also be well that the windows should be grouped so as to indicate the size of the rooms, and at least a plain space left where a partition wall abuts, or better still a pilaster or buttress, or line of some sort, ought to mark externally that feature of internal construction.

The cornice is as indispensable a termination of the wall as the capital is of a pillar; and suggests not only an appropriate support for the roof, but eaves to throw the rain off the wall. The same is true with regard to pediments or caps over windows: they suggest a means of protecting an opening from the wet; and porches over doorways are equally obvious contrivances. Everything, in short, which is actually constructive, or which suggests what was or may be a constructive expedient, is a legitimate object of decoration, and affords the architect unlimited scope for the display of taste and skill, without going out of his way to seek it.

The difficulty in applying ornaments borrowed from other styles is, that although they all suggest construction, it is not _the_ construction of the buildings to which they are applied. To use Pugin’s clever antithesis, “they are constructed ornament, not ornamented construction,” and as such can never satisfy the mind. However beautiful in themselves, they are out of place, there is no real or apparent use for their being there; and, in an art so essentially founded on utilitarian principles and common sense as architecture is, any offence against constructive propriety is utterly intolerable.

The other class, or decorative ornaments, are forms invented for the purpose, either mere lithic forms, or copied from the vegetable kingdom, and applied so as to give elegance or brilliancy to the constructive decoration just described.

The first and most obvious of these are mere mouldings, known to architects as Scotias, Cavettos, Ogees, Toruses, Rolls, &c.—curves which, used in various proportions either horizontally or vertically, produce when artistically combined, the most pleasing effect.

In conjunction with these, it is usual to employ a purely conventional class of ornament, such as frets, scrolls, or those known as the bead and reel, or egg and dart mouldings; or in Gothic architecture the billet or dog-tooth or all the thousand and one forms that were invented during the Middle Ages.

In certain styles of art, vegetable forms are employed even more frequently than those last described. Among these, perhaps the most beautiful and perfect ever invented was that known as the honeysuckle ornament, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians, but made so peculiarly their own. It has all the conventional character of a purely lithic, with all the grace of a vegetable form; and, as used with the Ionic order, is more nearly perfect than any other known.

The Romans made a step further towards a more direct imitation of nature in their employment of the acanthus leaf. As applied to a capital, or where the constructive form of the bell beneath it is still distinctly seen, it is not only unobjectionable, but productive of the most pleasing effect. Indeed it is doubtful if anything of its class has yet been invented so entirely satisfactory as the Roman Corinthian order, as found, for instance, in the so-called Temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. The proportions of the order have never yet been excelled, and there is just that balance between imitation of nature and conventionality which is indispensable. It is not so pure or perfect as a Grecian order, but as an example of rich decoration applied to an architectural order it is unsurpassed.

With their disregard of precedent and untrammelled wildness of imagination, the Gothic architects tried every form of vegetable ornament, from the purest conventionalism, where the vegetable form can hardly be recognised, to the most literal imitation of nature.

While confining himself to purely lithic forms, an architect can never sin against good taste, though he may miss many beauties; with the latter class of ornament he is always in danger of offence, and few have ever employed it without falling into mistakes. In the first place, because it is impossible to imitate perfectly foliage and flowers in stone; and secondly, because if the pliant forms of plants are made to support, or do the work of, hard stone, the incongruity is immediately apparent, and the more perfect the imitation the greater the mistake.

In the instance (Woodcut No. 5), any amount of literal imitation that the sculptor thought proper may be indulged in, because in it the stone construction is so apparent everywhere, that the vegetable form is the merest supplement conceivable; or in a hollow moulding round a doorway, a vine may be sculptured with any degree of imitation that can be employed; for as it has no more work to do than the object represented would have in the same situation, it is a mere adjunct, a statue of a plant placed in a niche, as we might use the statue of a man: but if in the woodcut (No. 6) imitations of real leaves were used to support the upper moulding, the effect would not be so satisfactory; indeed it is questionable if in both these last examples a little more conventionality would not be desirable.

In too many instances, even in the best Gothic architecture, the construction is so overlaid by imitative vegetable forms as to be concealed, and the work is apparently done by leaves or twigs, but in the earliest and purest style this is almost never the case. As a general rule it may be asserted that the best lithic ornaments are those which approach nearest to the grace and pliancy of plants, and that the best vegetable forms are those which most resemble the regularity and symmetry of such as are purely conventional.

Although the Greeks in one or two instances employed human figures to support entablatures or beams, the good taste of such an arrangement is more than questionable. They borrowed it, with the Ionic order, from the Assyrians, with whom the employment of caryatides and animal forms was the rule, not the exception, in contradistinction from the Egyptians, who never adopted this practice.[14] Even the Romans avoided this mistake, and the Gothic architects also as a general rule kept quite clear of it. Whenever they did employ ornamented figures for architectural purposes, they were either monsters, as in gargoyles or griffons; or sometimes, in a spirit of caricature, they used dwarfs or deformities of various sorts; but their sculpture, properly so called, was always provided with a niche or pedestal, where it might have been placed after the building was complete, or from which it might be removed without interfering with the architecture.

XII.—DECORATIVE COLOUR.

Colour is one of the most invaluable elements placed at the command of the architect to enable him to give grace or finish to his designs. From its nature it is of course only an accessory, or mere ornament; but there is nothing that enables him to express his meaning so cheaply and easily, and at the same time with such brilliancy and effect. For an interior it is absolutely indispensable; and no apartment can be said to be complete till it has received its finishing touches from the hand of the painter. Whether exteriors ought or ought not to be similarly treated admits of more doubt.

Internally the architect has complete command of the situation: he can suit his design to his colours, or his colours to his design. Walls, roof, floor, furniture, are all at his disposal, and he can shut out any discordant element that would interfere with the desired effect.

Externally this is seldom, if ever the case. A façade that looks brilliant and well in noonday sun may be utterly out of harmony with a cold grey sky, or with the warm glow of a setting sun full upon it: and unless all other buildings and objects are toned into accordance with it, the effect can seldom be harmonious.

There can be now no reasonable doubt that the Greeks painted their temples both internally and externally, but as a general rule they always placed them on heights where they could only be seen relieved against the sky; and they could depend on an atmosphere of almost uniform, unvarying brightness. Had their temples been placed in groves or valleys, they would probably have given up the attempt, and certainly never would have ventured upon it in such a climate as ours.

Except in such countries as Egypt and Greece, it must always be a mistake to apply colour by merely painting the surface of the building externally; but there are other modes of effecting this which are perfectly legitimate. Coloured ornaments may be inlaid in the stone of the wall without interfering with the construction, and so placed may be made more effective and brilliant than the same ornaments would be if carved in relief. Again, string-courses and mouldings of various coloured stones or marbles might frequently be employed with better effect than can be obtained in some situations by depth of cutting and boldness of projection. Such a mode of decoration can, however, only be partial; if the whole building is to be coloured, it must be done constructively, by using different coloured materials, or the effect will never be satisfactory.

In the Middle Ages the Italians carried this mode of decoration to a considerable extent; but in almost all instances it is so evidently a veneer overlying the construction that it fails to please; and a decoration which internally, where construction is of less importance, would excite general admiration, is without meaning on the outside of the same wall.

At the same time it is easy to conceive how polychromy might be carried out successfully, if, for instance, a building were erected, the pillars of which were of red granite or porphyry, the cornices or string-courses of dark coloured marbles, and the plain surfaces of lighter kinds, or even of stone. A design so carried out would be infinitely more effective than a similar one executed in materials of only one colour, and depending for relief only on varying shadows of daylight. There is in fact just the same difficulty in lighting monochromatic buildings as there is with sculpture. A coloured painting, on the other hand, requires merely sufficient light, and with that expresses its form and meaning far more clearly and easily than when only one colour is employed. The task, however, is difficult; so much so, indeed, that there is hardly one single instance known of a complete polychromatic design being successfully carried out anywhere, though often attempted. The other mode of merely inlaying the ornaments in colour instead of relieving them by carving as seldom fails.

Notwithstanding this, an architect should never neglect to select the colour of his materials with reference to the situation in which his building is to stand. A red brick building may look remarkably well if nestling among green trees, while the same building would be hideous if situated on a sandy plain, and relieved only by the warm glow of a setting sun. A building of white stone or white brick is as inappropriate among the trees, and may look bright and cheerful in the other situation.

In towns colours might be used of very great brilliancy, and if done constructively, there could be no greater improvement to our architecture; but its application is so difficult that no satisfactory result has yet been attained, and it may be questioned whether it will be ever successfully accomplished.

With regard to interiors there can be no doubt. All architects in all countries of the world resorted to this expedient to harmonise and to give brilliancy to their compositions, and have depended on it for their most important effects.

The Gothic architects carried this a step further by the introduction of painted glass, which was a mode of colouring more brilliant than had been ever before attempted. This went beyond all previous efforts, inasmuch as it coloured not only the objects themselves, but also the light in which they were seen. So enamoured were they of its beauties, that they sacrificed much of the constructive propriety of their buildings to admit of its display, and paid more attention to it than to any other part of their designs. Perhaps they carried this predilection a little beyond the limits of good taste; but colour is in itself so exquisite a thing, and so admirable a vehicle for the expression of architectural as well as of æsthetic beauty, that it is difficult to find fault even with the abuse of what is in its essence so legitimate and so beautiful.

XIII.—SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.

Carved ornament and decorative colour come within the especial province of the architect. In some styles, such as the Saracenic, and in many buildings, they form the Alpha and the Omega of the decoration. But, as mentioned above, one of the great merits of architecture as an art is that it affords room for the display of the works of the sculptor and the painter, not only in such a manner as not to interfere with its own decorative construction, but so as to add meaning and value to the whole. No Greek temple and no Gothic cathedral can indeed be said to be perfect or complete without these adjuncts; and one of the principal objects of the architects in Greece or in the Middle Ages was to design places and devise means by which these could be displayed to advantage, without interfering either with the construction or constructive decoration. This was perhaps effected more successfully in the Parthenon than in any other building we are acquainted with. The pediments at either end were noble frames for the exhibition of sculpture, and the metopes were equally appropriate for the purpose; while the plain walls of the cella were admirably adapted for paintings below and for a sculptured frieze above.

The deeply recessed portals of our Gothic cathedrals, their galleries, their niches and pinnacles, were equally appropriate for the exuberant display of this class of sculpture in a less refined or fastidious age; while the mullion-framed windows were admirably adapted for the exhibition of a mode of coloured decoration, somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed, but wonderfully brilliant.

The system was carried further in India than in any other country except perhaps Egypt. Probably no Hindu temple was ever erected without being at least intended to be adorned with Phonetic sculpture, and many of them are covered with it from the plinth to the eaves, in strong contrast with the Mahomedan buildings that stand side by side with them, and which are wholly devoid of any attempt at this kind of decoration. The taste of these Hindu sculptures may be questionable, but such as they are they are so used as never to interfere with the architectural effect of the building on which they are employed, but always so as to aid the design irrespective of the story they have to tell. There is probably no instance in which their removal or their absence would not be felt as an injury from an architectural point of view.

It is difficult now to ascertain whether Phonetic painting was used to the same extent as sculpture in ancient times. From its nature it is infinitely more perishable, and a bucket of whitewash will in half an hour obliterate the work of years, and, strange to say, there are ages, both in the East and the west, where men’s minds are so attuned that they consider whitewash a more fitting decoration than coloured paintings of the most elaborate and artistic character. While this is so we need hardly wonder that our means of forming a distinct opinion on this subject are somewhat limited.

Be this as it may, it is still one of the special privileges of architecture that she is able to attract to herself these phonetic arts, and one of the greatest merits a building can possess is its affording appropriate places for their display without interfering in any way with the special department of the architect. But it is always necessary to distinguish carefully between what belongs to the province of each art separately. The work of the architect ought to be complete and perfect without either sculpture or painting, and must be judged as if they were absent; but he will not have been entirely successful unless he has provided the means by which the value of his design may be doubled by their introduction. It is only by the combination of the Phonetic utterance with the Technic and Æsthetic elements that a perfect work of art has been produced, and that architecture can be said to have reached the highest point of perfection to which it can aspire.

XIV.—UNIFORMITY.

Considerable confusion has been introduced into the reasoning on the subject of architectural Uniformity from the assumption that the two great schools of art—the classical and the mediæval—adopted contrary conclusions regarding it, Formality being supposed to be the characteristic of the former, Irregularity of the latter. The Greeks, of course, when building a temple or monument, which was only one room or one object, made it exactly symmetrical in all its parts; but so did the Gothic architects when building a church or chapel or hall, or any single object: in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a line drawn down the centre divides it into two equal and symmetrical halves; and when an exception to this occurs, there is some obvious motive for it.

But where several buildings of different classes were to be grouped, or even two temples placed near one another, the Greeks took the utmost care to prevent their appearing parts of one design or one whole; and when, as in the instance of the Erechtheium,[15] three temples are placed together, no Gothic architect ever took such pains to secure for each its separate individuality as the Grecian architect did. What has given rise to the error is, that all the smaller objects of Grecian art have perished, leaving us only the great monuments without their adjuncts.

If we can conceive the task assigned to a Grecian architect of erecting a building like one of our collegiate institutions, he would without doubt have distinguished the chapel from the refectory, and that from the library, and he would have made them of a totally different design from the principal’s lodge, or the chambers of the fellows and students; but it is more than probable that, while carefully distinguishing each part from the other, he would have arranged them with some regard to symmetry, placing the chapel in the centre, the library and refectory as pendants to one another, though dissimilar, and the residences so as to connect and fill up the whole design. The truth seems to be that no great amount of dignity can be obtained without a certain degree of regularity; and there can be little doubt that artistically it is better that mere utilitarian convenience should give way to the exigencies of architectural design than that the latter should be constrained to yield to the mere prosaic requirements of the building. The chance-medley manner in which many such buildings were grouped together in the Middle Ages tells the story as clearly, and may be productive of great picturesqueness of effect, but not of the same nobility as might have been obtained by more regularity. The highest class of design will never be reached by these means.

It is not difficult to discover, at least to a certain extent, that the cause of this is that no number of separate units will suffice to make one whole. A number of pebbles will not make a great stone, nor a number of rose-bushes an oak; nor will any number of dwarfs make up a giant. To obtain a great whole there must be unity, to which all the parts must contribute, or they will remain separate particles. The effect of unity is materially heightened when to it is added uniformity: the mind then instantly and easily grasps the whole, knows it to be one, and recognises the ruling idea that governed and moulded the whole together. It seems only to be by the introduction of uniformity that sufficient simplicity for greatness can be obtained, and the evidence of design made so manifest that the mind is satisfied that the building is no mere accumulation of separate objects, but the production of a master-mind.

In a palace irregularity seems unpardonable. The architect has there practically unlimited command of funds and of his arrangements, and he can easily design his suites of rooms so as to produce any amount of uniformity he may require: the different heights of the different storeys and the amount of ornament on them, with the employment of wings for offices, is sufficient to mark the various purposes of the various parts; but where the system is carried so far in great public buildings, that great halls, libraries, committee-rooms, and subordinate residences are all squeezed into one perfectly uniform design, the building loses all meaning, and fails from the opposite error.

The rule seems to be, that every building or every part of one ought most distinctly and clearly to express not only its constructive exigencies, but also the uses for which it is destined; on the other hand, that mere utility, in all instances where architectural effect is aimed at, ought to give way to artistic requirements; and that an architect is consequently justified, in so far as his means will admit, in producing that amount of uniformity and regularity which seems indispensable for anything like grandeur of effect. In villas and small buildings all we look for is picturesqueness and meaning combined with elegance; but in larger and more monumental erections we expect something more; and this can hardly be obtained without the introduction of some new element which shall tell, in the first place, that artistic excellence was the ruling idea of the design, and in the next should give it that perfect balance and symmetry which seems to be as inherent a quality of the higher works of nature as of true art.

XV.—IMITATION OF NATURE.

The subject of the imitation of Nature is one intimately connected with those mooted in the preceding paragraphs, and regarding which considerable misunderstanding seems to prevail. It is generally assumed that in architecture we ought to copy natural objects as we see them, whereas the truth seems to be that we ought always to copy the processes, never the forms of Nature. The error apparently has arisen from confounding together the imitative arts of painting and sculpture with the constructive art of architecture. The former have no other mode of expression than by copying, more or less literally, the forms of Nature; the latter, as explained above, depends wholly on a different class of elements for its effect; but at the same time no architect can either study too intently, or copy too closely, the methods and processes by which Nature accomplishes her ends; and the most perfect building will be that in which these have been most closely and literally followed.