EXPRESSION IN ARCHITECTURE. 



adapted; and I would have it respected like a tliiug set apart, and which nothing secular 

 should profane. It must, however, be observed that for general purposes of expression, an 

 architect need not fetter his genius to the particular mode or style of any age or country past 

 or present. Indeed so fettered he cannot give suitable expression : his self-imposed manacles 

 will be among the causes of his failure. On observance of distinct style beauty is not de- 

 pendant, and an expressive character may be given without it : nay, architecture itself may be 

 conceived of as distinct from style: style is the servant — an useful one — of architecture, but 

 not its master. A building, I apprehend, might be so designed and erected as to exhibit 

 no trace of any style known in the world, and j-et be good architecture, — a real work of 

 art. The circumstances of climate and situation under which an edifice is to be built, 

 and its destined use, may be so peculiar as to dictate a form of structure and style of 

 decoration differing from any thing existing; j'et an unbiassed attention to such dictation 

 might result in an artistic and meritorious production. It belongs to the very idea of a 

 fine art as distinguished from the mechanical arts, to yield the utmost scope to the inven- 

 tive faculties throughout; and the remark applies to architecture as far as consistent with 

 the prior demands of utility, — the first law. The critic should therefore be taught to 

 judge of architecture independently of stj'le, and in reference onl}' to philosophical, i.e., 

 abstract architectural principle. We should not consider whether two or more features 

 we would wish to introduce into a design belong to one style, and were emploj-ed together 

 in ancient examples; but whether they would naturally harmonize. With all due reve- 

 rence for Italian architecture, I hesitate not to say, that as a style or system of architec- 

 tural design, we have nothing to do with it. With its members, its mouldings, as with 

 words, we have to do. We have to resolve it into its original elements, taking due ad- 

 vantage of what Italy or modern design has contributed to the general stock as additional 

 words enriching and swelling the antique languages, for the expression of English ideas. 

 Using it otherwise, might remind one of a tradesman or shopkeeper going to his brother 

 trader instead of the merchant for his goods. We might as well take the French archi- 

 tecture, or the Spanish modification of the classic: the error, different indeed in degree, 

 would be the same in kind. Why use a translation when we can read the original? Or 

 go to a derived system, when we can have access to the parent source? 



But whatever the style, or whether we have style or not, the present purposes of our 

 buildings, be those purposes what they may, must govern the form or plan, which should 

 be precisely what the purpose requires, — adapted to situations and circumstances without 

 reference to the associations of past art, or the requirements of deceased institutions. The 

 signs of language or elements we use, must be employed not in repeating ancient thoughts, 

 and feelings, and purposes, but in clothing the ideas of to-daj'- with a material form. The 

 purpose or destination is to a building what the subject or fable is to a poem, and like the 

 subject in the poem, this purpose should thrill, as it were, through every part, and beam 

 from every feature. The idea of its design must be conceived in accordance with our habits 

 and manner of life, customs, worship, &c., according as it is public or private, and that 

 idea of its use or destination must pass like a spirit into the building, and pervade and 

 animate it. Art owns nature and reason, not precedeiit, for her lav/-giver; "it is not 

 metre, but a metre-making argument, that makes the poem." Nor is it columns and en- 

 tablatures, nor arcades and buttresses, that constitute architecture. " For works which 

 are the result of the mere connexion of even beautiful forms," observes a German writer 

 on Art, " would themselves be without all beauty, as that which gives beautj^ to the 

 whole cannot be form. It is beyond form — it is the essential, the universal, the ai 

 and expression of the indwelling spirit of nature." S 



