1849.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



3 



III. To the venerators of Vitruviu?, Mr. Ferpusson certainly 

 does not look for applause, for presuming to characterise their idol 

 as follows: — "If there were no other work to prove it, that of 

 Vitruvius might alone suffice to show how little appreciation his 

 countrymen had either of the spirit or the aim of true art. From 

 the first page to the last of hix hook\ there is not one expression which 

 shows that he had more sympathies for its beauties than might be pos- 

 sessed bi/ an uneducated house-carpenter or stonemason: he merely 

 collects a set of dry formal rules from ohserved examjjles, and 



repeats them as if he were writing a catalogue of minerals 



That nation must have been singwlarly ignorant in art that could 

 produce a work so cold and soulless as this, which shows so little 

 knowledge of the common-sense prosaic properties of his art, and 

 still less appreciation either of its beauties or its aims." — What, 

 then, is to be said of those who adopt it as a code and an oracle .' 

 That Vitruvius was a poor, plodding creature, there can be little 

 doubt; and if the man himself was not an arrant liiimbug, certain 

 it is that his writings have been made the means of humbugging us 

 moderns on the subject of architecture, and diffusing maudlin cant, 

 and that worst sort of ignorance — learned stupidity. I have said 

 as much as this before, and others besides Fergusson have ventured 

 to impugn very freely the writings of Vitruvius ; so that although 

 many still speak of them, not for the purpose of vindicating their 

 worth, but as if their former credit was entirely unimpaired, there 

 is reason for hojiing that the contemptible Vitruvian superstition 

 wiU die out — in this country at least — with the present generation 

 of those who have been trained up in it. — May the time not be far 

 distant when the writings of the Roman architectural classic will 

 excite not enthusiastic admiration, but unmitigated astonishment 

 — merely contemptuous wonder that so much fustian and so much 

 old-womanism should ever have been regarded as a compendium of 

 architectural philosophy. 



IV. As little as the admirers of Vitruvius will the fanciers of 

 the "Invisible Curves of the Parthenon" feel obliged to Mr. Fer- 

 gusson, who is somewhat sarcastic— my readers know tliat I am by 

 far too innocent ever to deal in sarcasm myself — upon that subject. 

 "The idea," he observes, "that a form, the existence of which can 

 be detected only by the most perfect mathematical instruments, 

 should be a cause of beauty in a visible and tangible oljject, is what 

 I can neither understand nor appreciate. I hope, however, it will 

 be tried in tlie next portico we build. Perhaps the failure of the 

 e.xperiment may convince men that something more is wanted to 

 produce a true specimen of art than such abject servility as copy- 

 ing not only what we can see, but what our eyes will not enable us 

 to detect even when pointed out. We have long copied what we 

 do not understand : it seems carrying the system to its acme of 

 absurdity, to attempt also to copy what we cannot see." — Truly so: 

 the only way of refining upon such absurdity would be to have 

 recourse to ponderation, and estimate buildings l)y the aggregate 

 weight of their solid materials. It is, indeed, extravagant a 

 T outrance for people to direct their attention to the most exqui- 

 site hair-breadth minuteness of mere measurements, while they 

 altogether overlook and take no account of those esthetic qualities 

 and effects which, althougli they elude the most cunning mechanical 

 appreciation, contribute to the fascination of every genuine work 

 of art. 



V. Not the least, perhaps, among Fergusson's heresies, is his 

 attaching the importance he does to Polychromy, a species of de- 

 coration for architecture all along considered, till very lately, a 

 trait of barbaric taste, and not even so much as suspected to have 

 been practised by the Greeks; and which although it excited atten- 

 tion as matter of curious inquiry some few years ago, has led to no 

 results, and may be said t(.) be again ignored. — It may, howe\'er, be 

 remarked, oi passant, that such practice of the Greeks has been, if 

 not recommended for imitation, strongly extolled by Mr. R. N. 

 Wornum, in a lecture on Greek Art, lately delivered by him to the 

 School of Design, at Somerset House. — In this climate, polychromy 

 is hardly to be thought of for external decoration: it would no 

 more thrive liere than would the plants of tropical regions; yet, as 

 we rear the latter in conservatories and "palm-houses," as botani- 

 cal curiosities and specimens of exotic vegetation, we might rear, 

 under cover and protected from the weather, a few specimens of 

 external polychromy. There would be nothing extravagant in 

 erecting, at the extremity of an avenue in a so-called "winter- 

 garden," a full-sized model of the Parthenon, with all its polychro- 

 matic embellishment restored; — not, indeed, a model of the entire 

 structure, but merely of its fafade and pronaos; for which no more 

 costly material than wood would be required, nothing more being 

 necessary than to exliibit efect; and such exhibition of it would be 

 likely to settle the now doubtful question as to the taste which 

 sanctioned polychromy, far better than a thousand pen-and-ink 



debatings about, it, pro and con. As to the cost of such an experi- 

 ment, it would be to many a mere bagatelle — a far less expensive 

 folly, should it happen to be called one, than many of those in 

 which some of our milliunaires indulge, or else do penance, in 

 order to obtain a little brief newspaper notoriety, in exchange for 

 some of their superfluous cash. — But Cynthius aurem vellit. 



VI. If not externally, we easily enough might have architec- 

 tural Polychromy internally, — by which term, something more 

 than the employment of different-coloured materials, or painting 

 for the general surface of the walls, is to be understood. Never- 

 theless, we have not yet advanced beyond the application of co- 

 loured marbles, or the imitation of them in scagliola, for what are 

 considered the strictly architectural features in interior design and 

 decoration. Go into any of our most palatial clubhouses or man- 

 sions, and scagliola shafts to columns and pilasters ap])ear to be 

 the bout de leur Latin of our architects in regard to arcliitectural 

 decoration, properly so called. For aught further they are con- 

 tent to be indebted to Mr. Sang, or Mr. Somebody-else, for whose 

 brushes they provide blanks of ample verge and space enough to 

 be filled up ad libitum. 



VII. To return to Mr. Fergusson: were there nothing else 

 that I admire in him, I should admire the utter absence in 

 his book of that nast)', crawling, creeping, lickspittle, flunkey- 

 ism, which is the prevalent vice of a great part of the public 

 press at the present day, though it is equally the disgrace of 

 manhood and of criticism. Were he deficient in all besides, Fer- 

 gusson is the very reverse of a flunkey sycophant, and possesses 

 what in this age of wonders is tlie rarest, if not most wonderful, 

 thing of all — moral courage. And of such courage it requires not 

 a little to give utterance, as he has done, to some exceedingly 

 strong truths, that are likely to be equally unpopular in every 

 quarter. AVlien AVelby Pugin attacked his professional brethren, 

 he imputed their degeneracy in a great measure to their Protes- 

 tantism, and, no doubt, reckoned upon ingratiating himself with 

 the Catliolics — perliaps also with those whose antiquarian studies 

 and feelings prejudice them in favour of art as it was cultivated in 

 Catholic times. Mr. Fergusson, on the contrary, has placed himself 

 in a very different position, and has made himself friends among 

 no party — at least, no existing one. Pugin's cry was : Let us go 

 bade! — and backwards we have been going ever since; but Mr. 

 Fergusson's is: Let us go forward! — a matter far more difficult of 

 accomplishment tlian the other. Against that Forward, we have 

 thrown up barricades in the shape of inveterate prejudices. Be- 

 cause we cannot get forward all at once, at a single bound, we are 

 not to strive to get forward at all. Architecture has been hrought 

 into a complete fix. Yet, strange to say, instead of the impossi- 

 bility — eitiier real or imaginary — of getting architecture out of 

 that "fix" being at all regretted, it is rather made matter for 

 triumph and congratulation; for we have, ere now, been told that 

 we ouglit not so much as to think of advancing a single step fur- 

 ther than those who have gone before us, and whose stopping point 

 ought to be considered the ultima Thule of the art, and of our am- 

 bition. 



ON ISOMETRICAL PERSPECTIVE. 



By R. G. Clark. 



In my last article on "Isometrical Perspective" (vol. xi., p. 294), 

 I gave an easy rule by construction to determine the axes of the 

 ellipse, being the isometrical projection of a circle, the angle OAB 

 being 30°, (see the figure in that article). But it is sometimes 

 necessary to draw a vertical isometrical projection of a circle, as in 

 the case of a water- wlieel, or a wheel of a locomotive, thus (fig. 1) : 

 Let A B C D E F G be the iso- 

 metrical projection of a cube, 

 the side A B being in this case 

 drawn horizontal ; produce B 

 to H, then the angle H B C = 

 60° ; draw the two diagonals B F 

 and C G. The two diameters 

 can be deteimined by con- 

 struction by the last rule. But 

 as the angle C B (i is in this 

 case 30°, tlie multipliers are 

 therefore different. The num- 

 bers to be used as multipliers 

 to determine the two axes, are 



respectively 1'408 for the trans- Fig. 1. 



verse, and "365 for the conjugate. 



2* 



