S80 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[ACGI'ST, 



tions by their silence, instead of reprobating them, as they ought 

 t<) have (lone, — if only to show, as they had a fair opportunity of 

 doing, tlieir own inijiartiality, and that they were not to be im- 

 ])osed upon by the prestige of the reputation ])reviously aef[uired 

 bv the same writer's 'Modern Painters.' By that reputation the 

 gentry of the press had their cue given them; they felt certain 

 that they might praise safely — conscientiously is quite a different 

 matter. Enough it was for them that they might, very safely to 

 themselves, "lay it on thick;" and they have done so accordingly, 

 hnlteriiiff Ruskin over with their oily phrases in such manner that 

 t!ie butter actually drops off again. They might have spared their 

 butter and tlieir pains, for after all, ciii iinim? — what can toadying 

 puff do for a work which aims at becoming influential? — and which 

 if it ever so become, must be seconded by opinion, and very great 

 change of opinion, in a different sphere from tliat of the public 

 press, which, whatever it may be in other matters, shows itself to 

 l)e in tliose of Architecture and Art equally empty-headed and 

 hollow-hearted. 



IV. "'We want no new style of Architecture," says Ruskin, and 

 very justly too; or did we so, we should never get one, if by a 

 "new style" we are to understand a sudden transition to a system 

 of architectural elements, forms, and combinations decidedly dif- 

 ferent from, and in no respect modelled upon, those which either 

 now are or formerly have been in use. Yet such impossibility 

 affords no argument at all for resisting, as we now strenuously do, 

 all further extension and modification of the styles we profess to 

 adopt. We merely think of copying them as closely as we can; 

 and where they stop short, we stop too, through our inability to 

 carry them on in the same spirit — or if not precisely in the same, 

 in a congenial one. As Mr. Ruskin excellently well observes — it 

 is in fact one of the most sensible and valuable remarks in his 

 book — "A man who has the gift, will take up any style that is 

 going, the style of his day, and will work in that, and be great in 

 that, and make everything that he does in it look as fresh as if 

 every thought of it had just come down from heaven. I do not 

 say that he will not take liberties with his materials or with his 

 rules; I do not say that strange changes will not sometimes be 

 wrought by his efforts, or his fancies, in both. But those changes 

 will be instructive, natural, facile, though sometimes marvellous; 

 and those liberties will be like the liberties that a great speaker 

 takes with the language, not a defiance of its rules for the sake of 

 singularity, — but inevitable, uncalculated, and brilliant consequen- 

 ces of an effort to express what the language, without such infrac- 

 tion, could not. There may he times when the life of an art is 

 manifested in its changes, and in its refusal of ancient limita- 

 tions." — Most true: yet what with plodding servile copying, and 

 slavish, superstitious adherence to precedent. Architecture has 

 now, instead of an artistic, only a sort of artificial life. It is no 

 longer permitted to grow with the growth of society, to keep 

 pace with its advance, and with general improvement in other 

 respects, — but is stunted, dwarfed, and crippled like the feet, or 

 rather pettitoes of a Chinese lady. If we need no new style, we 

 certainly do need, and that very greatly, much more freedom for 

 those which we have and make use of. 



V. Excellently well, again, does Ruskin point out the proper 

 use and service of Precedent— num. Ay, to guide and instruct, not 

 to fetter and enslave, as it is allowed to do. "When we begin," he 

 says, "to teach children writing, we force them to absolute copyism, 

 and require absolute accuracy in the formation of the letters; 

 as they obtain command of the received modes of literal expression, 

 we cannot prevent their falling into such variations as ai-e con- 

 sistent with their feelings, their circumstances, or their characters. 

 So, wlien a boy is first taught Latin, an authority is required of 

 him for every e.xpression he uses; as he becomes master of the 

 language he may take a license, and feel hin riyht to do so without any 

 anthoriti/, and yet write better Latin tluin when he borrowed every sepa- 

 rate expression." In the same way, he goes on to observe, should 

 "our architects be taught;" and in such way, in fact, do they seem 

 to have been taught in former times, whereas now they are kept, 

 or else are content to remain in a state of schoolboyism all their 

 lives. Even those who may be supposed to have fully "mastered 

 the language" of their art, — who at any rate have credit with the 

 public for having done so, confine themselves to stereotype and 

 therefore hackneyed forms and expressions, without venturing to 

 show that it is in their power to vary them and impart freshness 

 to them. On the contrary, they are but too apt to make a posi- 

 tive merit of what accuses'tliem of want of artistic power, and of 

 spoutaneousness of thought and geniality of conception. So ex- 

 ceedingly humble is their ambition, that they are jiroud of showing 

 with what admirable precision they can copy features and details, 

 the pattern of which are taken — stolen is an ugly word — from other 



buildings or representations of them. Admitting, however, for a 

 moment that mere copying gi>es us all that we now want or need 

 ask for, an exceedingly ticklish and awkward question presents 

 itself — namely, is it at all reasonable that mere copying — and what 

 is more, mere mechanical copying — should be paid for at the same 

 rate as original talent, or rather infinitely higher?— Q«« tendis} — 

 stop, stop in time, friend Candidas, and do not broach such an un- 

 comfortable question as that. Consider, in by-gone times Genius 

 was a fool, and exerted itself for fame; in our wiser and more 

 enlightened age, mere Talent works for money alone. The 

 substance, it seems, we cannot get, but at all events we pay 

 liberally enough for the shadow of it, and be that our consola- 

 tion. 



VI. As in some other respects, Mr. Ruskin is not very consistent 

 with himself when — although he says that we do not so much re- 

 quire a new style as one that should be universally followed — he 

 recommends us to adopt for such universal purpose what would be 

 to us altogether new. "The choice" — that is, for a style to be 

 henceforth generally followed — "would lie, I think," he says, "be- 

 tween four styles: — 1, the Pisan Romanesque; 2, the Early Gothic 

 of tlie Western Italian Republics, advanced, as far and as fast as 

 our art would enable us, to the Gothic of Giotto; 3, the Venetian 

 Gotliic in its purest development; 4, the English Earliest Deco- 

 rated. The most natural, perliaps the safest, choice would be that 

 of the last, well fenced from the chance of again stiffening into 

 the Perpendicular." — Unlucky Perpendicular! how art thou flouted 

 at, and spoken of contumeliously by Ruskin — who, of most as- 

 sured certainty, will not find Charles Barry among the admirers of 

 what one reviewer has termed "a hook unique in our language." 

 Now, for a universal style, or rather for the foundation of one that 

 would be capable of being moulded to every one of the various 

 architectural purposes required at the present day, the three first 

 of those proposed by Mr. Iluskiu are decidedly out of the ques- 

 tion; and even the last is scarcely less so. It would. In fact, be 

 utterly impossible to shape out of it a style accommodated to gene- 

 ral usage, and which would conform to the conditions imposed by 

 actual purpose. Is it for a single moment to be thought of as 

 suitable for domestic and street architecture, or for secular build- 

 ings at all, in this nineteenth century? ''How can a style which is 

 fit only for ecclesiastical buildings — on which account, perhaps, 

 that and other mediaeval styles are now affected for that particular 

 class of structures, as markedly distinguishing them — he now con- 

 stituted a universal style ? We may adopt mediasvalism for our 

 churches, but we cannot possibly throw off modernism in our habi- 

 tations, in our houses and our street architecture. Consequently, 

 so long as we insist upon retaining the former, we shall never 

 arrive at — no, nor even take a single step towards that oneness of 

 style which Mr. Ruskin regards a sine-qiia-non for the healtliy 

 condition of architecture, — and not of architecture alone, but of 

 all the arts of design. For such desirable condition of art gene- 

 rally, among us, he asserts there is but one chance, "and that 

 chance rests on the bare possibility of obtaining the consent both 

 of architects and the public, to choose a style, and to use it uni- 

 versally." He himself, however, has, by what he recommends, 

 rendered "bare possibility" a bare impossibility. Rather ought 

 he to have said : Let us take up the system of building and con- 

 struction now generally employed by us, and endeavour to work it 

 up into one capable of answering worthily to all purposes and 

 occasions, no matter how opposite they may be. Such was the 

 course pursued by the modern Italian architects at the period of 

 the so-called Revival, or Renaissance. The style which they then 

 took up they employed for all purposes alike, — for both secular 

 and ecclesiastical buildings — for both public and private ones; 

 although not indeed with tliat judicious discrimination which they 

 might have done. Yet, notwithstanding that he is of opinion an 

 architect of talent can take up "any style that is going, the style 

 of his day," and mould it to his purpose, Mr. Ruskin recom- 

 mends us to endeavour to get an entirely new style, — one con- 

 stituted quite differently from any one now in use, by modelling 

 it upon that particular mediieval and ecclesiastical one which is 

 now generally teimed the Early Decorated English. Such being 

 his opinion, it was incumbent upon him to endeavour at least to 

 point out how far that style accords with existing conditions, and 

 our present actual requirements. As he has not done so, we may 

 reasonably question not only the propriety but the practicability 

 of what he recommends; and which, even if practicable at all, 

 would be no better than what ]\Ir. Cockerell has justly called 

 "disgraceful retrogression." 



