130 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURN.U^ 



[.May, 



CANDIDUS'S NOT E-BOOK, 

 FASCICULUS LXXXI. 



'* 1 must have liberly 

 Withal, as large a charter as the winfls. 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. M'e are never, it woulil seem, to have more than one view of 

 the new Palace of Westminster ; for tliough many representations 

 of it — or what call themselves such — have heen puhlished in va- 

 rious shapes, they are merely copies cither of the first one, or of 

 each other ; all of them showing only tlie river front, as taken 

 from the south-east. What sort of fidelity and taste stamps such 

 harefacedly piratical manufacture, may he more readily imagined 

 than decently — at least temperately expressed. Nothing less than 

 nerves of iron — or else a thorough callosity of mind that is hardly 

 conceivable in such an artist, can enable Mr. Barry to endure 

 some of the abominable libels so inflicted upon him. Schinkel, 

 Kleuze, Gartner, and other foreign architects, have been similarly 

 libelled, and perhaps more grievously still ; but then there are 

 their own authentic representations of them, as well as their build- 

 ings themselves, to show to those who have no other means of 

 judging of them, what the latter really are ; whereas, without such 

 incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, some of them might be 

 supposed to be the most barbarous and miserable things ever 

 erected, — at least, such would be the case were it not that the very 

 vileness of the representation comforts us with the assurance that 

 the structures tliemselves cannot, by any possibility, be so hideous. 



II. That plodding adherence to precedent, which is now made a 

 sine-qiia-non in design by those whose influence and authority — 

 more especially in matters of church-building — amount to dictation 

 to architects, has a tendency to operate injuriously to art, in various 

 ways. For art — in the worthy meaning of the term — is substituted 

 what is or quickly will become mere routine, sufficiently dexterous, 

 perhaps, and clever, but still routine. As far as design is concerned, 

 all, it may be said, that is now retjuired of architects is, that they 

 shall be skilful mimics. Such talent will stand them in stead of 

 imagination, invention, artistic feeling, contrivance, and much else 

 besides. The architect is in fact degraded from his position as 

 artist, the exercise of the faculties which such character implies 

 being interdicted him, and all that is expected of him being that 

 he shall scru])ulously adhere to express patterns for the particular 

 style he is called upon to imitate. Daily experience convinces — at 

 least might convince us that, somehow or other, the spirit of the 

 originals is not transfused into the copies, or else the peculiar 

 sentiment and associations connected with the former evaporate 

 altogether in the latter. Moreovei-, the example of medievalism 

 itself is, so far from aflFording any precedent for, rather opposed to 

 that system of torpid imitation which is now regarded by many 

 as the most salutary and eflicacious for art. During the middle 

 ages, there was continual change and innoi'ation in architecture, 

 by means of which transition was made from one marked general 

 mode or style to another. So far was precedent from being regarded, 

 that not even uniformity of design and style was attended to in edi- 

 fices which were carried' on by successive generations of builders ; 

 and some of which exiiibit in themselves, not only different, but the 

 two extreme phases of the Pointed style, including, perhaps, por- 

 tions in an anterior style, Tlie architects of those days did not 

 suffer themselves to be trammelled l)y precedent — to be tied down 

 to repetition and copying, even wlierethey would have contributed 

 to unity of ememb/e. Then, instead of that stand-still in art, which 

 we seem to consider essential to the maintaining it in its integrity, 

 all was innovation, progress, productiveness. The art was pro- 

 ductive, because artists wrought out of their own minds ; conse- 

 quently, infused mind, intelligence, spirit, and spontaneity 

 into their productions. They did not then reject new ideas merely 

 because they were new, nor the suggestions of imagination out of 

 the timid apprehension of being censured as incorrect, if not ab- 

 solutely heretical in taste. They did not, as we now do, abide by 

 ready-made, and ready cut-and-diied iiattcrns,but designed all their 

 details freely, for they employed what was to them their vernacular 

 language— their own motlier tongue in art, whose character and 

 idioms they helped to frame, and in which they expressed them- 

 selves instinctively. To us at the i>resent day, the style they used 

 has become a dead language ; one in which, bv dint of study, we 

 may attain to considerable proficiency ; but wh'ich we do not think 

 in, and which does not supply words and expressions for modern 

 things and modern ideas. We mav indeed so call it, but media;- 

 val English architecture is no longer our National style, if by 



"National" we are to understand the prevalent style of building 

 generally employed by us for all purposes and occasions alike. We 

 may be medi;eval in our churches, just as we mav be Ciceronian in 

 Latin orations at colleges and schools. But we ourselves are all 

 the while getting further and further off from medievalism every 

 day. Free Constitutions, Republics, and C'liartism, do not indicate 

 any great attachment to tlie spirit of mediievalism. 



lit. We are now, it seems, likely to have, for the very first time 

 a work that shall fairly answer to the character of a' Dictionary 

 of Architecture, whicli tliose wliich have Iiitherto appeared under 

 such title have been very far indeed from doing. They have al- 

 most without an exception, been little better than mere trading 

 speculations, — things manufactured fur the market ; and some of 

 them have been such arrant scissors-and-paste work, that hardly 

 any market could be found for them. The epithet, "Architectural" 

 applied to Nicholson's, is little less than an arrant misnomer ■ 

 therefore, I am not at all suri)rised at the present proprietor of the 

 copyright having been told, as I happen to know, by one whom 

 he was solicitous to engage to bring out a new edition of it, that 

 in order to be rendered at all what it would now require to be it 

 must be entirely re-written from beginning to end, and amplified 

 to almost double the quantity of letter-press. As the Dictionary 

 now promised us is to be the undertaking of a societv, there is 

 reason for expecting that it will be uniformly well-executed 

 throughout. Very great room for impro\ement upon everything 

 there is at present of the kind either in our own or any other 

 language there certainly is, if only because materials have so 

 greatly accumulated, and so many matters and subjects have 

 come up that ought to be not merely noticed, but treated of pretty 

 fully. At the present day it would, for instance, be unpardonable 

 to omit such terms, and the information connected with them as 

 Cinque-cento, Renaissance, Rococo, and numerous others either of 

 a similar or different class. 



IV. If the Dictionary in petto, here alluded to, is to contain 

 articles of architectural criticism and aesthetics, it will have to 

 supply a very great deal iiuleed merely in that single department of 

 it. In fact, the artistic philosopy of architecture has scarcely been 

 merely touched upon at the best, and that very vao-uely loosely 

 and drily,— whereas it requires to be fully elucida1,ed 'by actual 

 instances and examples. Character, Compo'sition, Contrast, Effect, 

 Grandiose, Grotesque, Heaviness, Picturesque, Purity, Richness, 

 Simplicity, and many other terms, might be made to furnish exceed- 

 ingly interesting and instructive articles— such as would assist 

 very much in popularising the study of architecture. That it 

 greatly needs to be popularised can hardly be disputed. Of very 

 little use is it for its professional followers to caU architecture the 

 queen of the fine arts — or rather their so calling it partakes of the 

 ridiculous, wliile the public are for the most part utterly indiffer- 

 ent to it as a fine art ; and that such is the case the exhibitions at 

 the Royal Academy strongly testify, where the picture of a " posy- 

 faced" girl, or of a damsel painted " in buff, " will attract crowds 

 of spectators, while tlie architectural room is a desert, or used only 

 as a thoroughfare. The pictures, in fact, possess so much stronge'r 

 attraction for the many, tliat the architectural drawings are com- 

 paratively (|uite disregarded, or if looked at, are looked at rather 

 as pictures than as designs, and judged of not so much according to 

 the architectural merits and ideas which they display, than accord- 

 ing to ability of execution, and the pictorial qualities put into 

 them ; which last species of artistic recommendation is quite dis- 

 tinct from architectural value, and is what may be imparted by a 

 skilful pencil to very poor, or even wretcliedly bad designs. 



V. If the notices bestowed upon the Fine Arts by the newspaper 

 press may be taken as a fair criterion by which to judge of the 

 favour in which they are respectively held by tlie public. Architec- 

 ture sail Ite scarcely above zero according to such thermometer of 

 popularity. ^Vlthough the class of publications just mentioned 

 professes to be ati fait on every subject, architecture is ignored by 

 it ; and wliy } — because it can be done with impunity. Is it to be 

 supposed that such a journal as the Times could not, if it thought 

 it worth wliile to do so, conimaiul as able assistance in the de- 

 partment of the Fine Arts generally, and architecture among 

 them, as in any other.'' Most undoubtedly it could; and would 



. do so, were there, on the part of the public, any demand for such 

 information and instruction. ^Ve may therefore fairly conclude 

 that there is none. This seems discouraging enough, but is said 

 not for the purpose of discouraging, but, on the contrary, of stimu- 

 lating architects, and inducing tliem to make an effort to create 

 greater general interest in behalf of their art. Their vaunting it 

 to each other is useless, and little better than so much idle vapour- 

 ing. It is the ))ublic, not they themselves, who require to be con- 

 vinced of its importance and excellence. Yet, what has tlie 



