1840.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



261 



AN ESSAY 

 ON ORIGINAL COMPOSITION IN ARCHITECTURE, AS IL- 

 LUSTRATED IN THE WORKS OF SIR JOHN VANBURGH. 



By James Thomson, Fellow. 



(Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects.) 



Sir, 



I slioiild feel bound to apologize for submitting any observations of 

 mine to your notice, had they not been written in compliance with 

 that general request which the council have made from time to time 

 to every member of the Institute, viz., that each should in his turn 

 contribute (though it be but a grain of information) touching the art 

 which it is our business, and our pleasure, to pursue. 



From the time that I have been able to trace the relation of cause 

 and effect in architectural composition, it has appeared to me that 

 "there is more in it, than is commonly dreamed of, in our philosophy"; 

 or if dreamed of, that we want more general interpreters ; not so much 

 for the instruction of the professional student, or practitioner, as for the 

 public mind, so that it may be known to all the world, in very deed 

 and truth, to be a fine and liberal art. To be an art, on the one hand, 

 dependant upon the observance of fixed principles, however variable 

 the practice that arises out of them ; and on the other, to inculcate a 

 right apprehension of the impossibility to produce a work of any 

 lively interest by mere attention to what are termed "the rules of 

 architecture." 



These rules in architecture I consider to stand in the place of 

 grammar in a language, the due observance of which is as necessary 

 to the one as the other. 



We know very well that an author, to be lucid and comprehensive, 

 must dulv attend to all the relations of words and sentences, and that, 

 without it, the most vigorous imagination will produce but a jargon of 

 execrable nonsense ; but on the other hand, I am sure you will agree 

 that the iitmost attention to the arrangement of thesis and antithesis, 

 of versification or prose, (where the master mind is wanting,) will fail 

 to realize a work of importance, even though the theme be one, of 

 which but the mention, would awaken the liveliest anticipations. Just 

 so in architecture, be the subject great or humble — the rules of com- 

 position must be duly observed to avoid incongruity, although they 

 should but subserve to the development of works designed to possess 

 contemplative interest. 



And respecting this grammar of architecture, I would here observe 

 that, except for Roman or Italian structures, we possess at present 

 scarce any grammar at all! in those styles we have, from Vitruvius 

 down to Chambers, so much to guide us in proportion and detail, that 

 it is scarcely possible to err in them ; but although we have examples, 

 many, and valuable, in Greek and Gothic architecture, we have hardly 

 any principles, set forth respecting them, to say nothing of Egyptian, 

 Hindoo, and other Eastern styles, which, though they be but as dead 

 languages to us, yet possess, like their language, deep soundings of 

 the principles of art and science. 



Now when we consider by what different means the entl has been 

 accomplished of giving importance and beauty to public and private 

 erections, each amenable to certain laws that belong, not to an arbi- 

 trary set of forms and features, but to the workings of the human 

 mind to which they have corresponding influence, I submit that it is 

 to these laws that we should give peculiar attention, calculated as 

 they are to guide, but not to fetter, the free will of the architect. 

 For instance : in the ponderous masses of the Hindoo and Egyptian, 

 the mind rests as complacently as on those of other climes ; it is ad- 

 dressed and responded to in a particular way ; — in the grace and 

 simplicity of the Greeks, it is captivated in another; — in the harmo- 

 nious combination of the Italians, it is equally (though differently) 

 charmed and dehghted: and so of the rest. 



It is then I would submit the object of the architect, in an abstract 

 sense, so to combine the masses and subdivisions of a building as to 

 address themselves not merely to the eye, but to the imagination — 

 that the subject, be what it may, shall vibrate some string of the mental 

 frame as distinctly and tangibly as poetry or painting. 



On this account it has appeared to me that it would be highly 

 valuable, if we had set forth some chart of the vast region which lies 

 before us, and which, if not sufficiently detailed to point out all that 

 could be done, might indicate with sufficient precision, the rocks of 

 offence to be avoided. 



Thus it is obvious that a Theatre, and a Mausoleum should be very 

 differently treated, even though they were to be in the same style of 

 architecture — that the one could scarcely be too lively in its general 

 character, and the other scarcely too broad and simple. That in the 

 former every animation that form and colour combined could produce 



might be adopted, — while in the latter that simplicity and repose 

 should prevail, so as to prepare the mind for the not less pleasing sym- 

 pathies, which commonly associate themselves with the memorials of 

 departed worth. 



Again, it must be evident that a Temple for public worship should 

 maintain a very dirterent character to that of an Exchange, or hall of 

 commercial festivity, and that apart from the mere internal fittings, it 

 should outwardly bear some evidence of the purposes to which it is 

 devoted. 



Yet so little has this been attended to, that without particularizing 

 any, I am sure it will occur to most whom I have the honour to address, 

 that there are instances of which, if we had no previous knowledge, 

 we could not possibly divine for what purpose they were erected. 

 So far as to character of buildings, according witli their objects. 

 But now with reference to style. 



I think Sir, it is to be lamented that we have at this period no pre- 

 vailing style by which buildings of the present age, will be able in 

 after times to be identified, and tliat in but few of them does there 

 appear any recognition of the leading principles which seem to have 

 governed the ancients. There is, in our own day a continual struggle 

 in the adaptations of features at variance with the main object. The 

 private individual demands novelty, and the judgment of the architect 

 is too often called upon to bend to, instead of directing the work, 

 from this — confusion has resulted in the public mind as to what 

 is good or bad ; and to this confusion I would ascribe the indifference 

 which, it is to be regretted, has superinduced on the subject. 



Thus we have at one and the same period of time, springing up in 

 all quarters, and frequently in the same quarter, buildings of every 

 era and of every style on the globe. So that they will witli respect to 

 date completely " puzzle posterity." 



I do not of course include in my observations those restorations or 

 rebuilding of ancient structures, by which are preserved for after ages 

 the examples we ourselves so greatly admire, and with the perpetua- 

 tion of which it must be a proud event to any architect to connect his 

 name. I mean simply to allude to the practice we have of building in 

 ancient styles for modern objects. And Sir, I would ask wdiy should 

 this be the case ? seeing it is fraught with inconvenience at the pre- 

 sent — confusion hereafter— and at variance with good taste at all 

 times. It cannot be said that we have no other means, for we have seen 

 that the means are so various, it would be only difficult to fix their 

 limit, and as it was eloquently expi'essed,by a distinguished individual, 

 not long since on the subject of general design — " Sources that can 

 never be exhausted while the mind of man can conceive, or the hand 

 transfix and embody the conceptions of the mind." 



In the east we have characters so expressive that there is no possi- 

 bility of mistaking their origin or their application. The solemn dig- 

 nity of the Egyptian temples, pyramids, and obelisks, are totally diffe- 

 rent from those of the Hindoo, although both possess great boldness 

 of outline and massive ])roportions. The prevalence of the pyre-like 

 forms in the one, and the square or cubical parts of the other, produce 

 in the mind varying though equally imposing effects. 



So in the south — the simplicity and grace of the Greek temples, 

 composed of columns and entablatures, totally distinct from the eastern, 

 affect us by their peculiar and harmonious proportions. 



Again, the Romans, borrowing it is true, the column and entablature 

 of the Greeks, yet so resolved them into other proportions (making 

 the front as well as the whole partake of the change), that by another 

 avenue to the human mind, they yield to the imagination another, and 

 a new delight. 



They reduced the diameter of the columns and depth of entablature, 

 widened the intercolumniations, and divided their buildings into sepa- 

 rate stories ; adapting tliem to the habits and pursuits of another 

 people and another age. They retained the continuous and horizontal 

 lines of the Greeks, but they traversed them by vertical ones, and by 

 the introduction of the arch, they wove us in the loom of science a 

 new and beautiful fabric. 



Now let us consider another class of architecture, in which neither 

 the pyramidal form of the Egyptians, nor the massive pillars of Hin- 

 doostan, nor the column and entablature of the Greeks, nor the arch of 

 the Romans are at all, or materially discernible, yet while it adapts 

 itself to almost every occupation of life, is calculated to affect the 

 mind perhaps more deeply than aU the rest. 



I need hardly say to you, gentlemen, that I allude to Gothic archi- 

 tecture; or even to the non-professional to do more than mention it, 

 but there springs up at once from the recesses of the memory the most 

 vivid impressions of its venerable features. Of clustered pillars and 

 intersecting arches, giving a kind of endless perspective to the nave 

 and aisle of our cathedrals, and cloisters of our colleges. 



Of capitals that appear to flourish with the more luxuriance because 

 freed from the trammels of attic stringing. 



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