254 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Auocsi, 



PROCEBDINGS OP SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS. 



June 18. — T. Bellamy, V.P., in the Chair. 



Mr. Fergdsson read a paper "On the History of the Pointed Arch." 



Dismissing the usual theories invented to account for the mode in which 

 its form may have been suggested, and rejecting also (he narrow limits into 

 which the inquiry into its history had hitherto been confined, he commenced 

 dividing the subject into four sections or series of pointed arches ; — the two 

 earliest belonging to the East, the two others to Northern Europe. The 

 first series Mr. Fergusson defined as commencing with the earliest dawn of 

 architectural history, and extending downwards to the period of Roman 

 domination. He pointed to examples of tlie form as existing in the pyra- 

 mids of Gizeh and of MeriJe, and also as found in the Great Oasis at El 

 Kaigeh. This branch of the subject was further illustrated by examples 

 taken from the sepulchres and city walls of ancient Etruria, from similar re- 

 mains in ancient Greece — more especially at MycenK — and lastly from 

 Assos, and other places in Asia Minor, showing how universal the form was 

 at a very early period in all Pelasgic countries. lie then pointed out how 

 completely this form was lost under the all-pervading influence of the 

 Romans, who introduced everywhere their own favourite round arch ; but 

 proceeded to show how immediately on the decline of their influence the 

 ])ointed arch re-appeared in all the countries of the East ; illustrating this 

 by examples drawn from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem — 

 now known as the Mosque of Omar — but which, he asserted, was the iden- 

 tical edifice raised by Constantine the Great on that spot. His other exam- 

 pies were taken from the Mosque at Diarbekr, a building in the same style 

 and of the same age as the Mosque at Jerusalem — the Palace of Khosroas 

 at Ctesiphon — the Aqueducts of Constantinople, and other edifices of that 

 period ; in all which the pointed form of arch is still found. He then 

 Eliowed how the Arabs who, as a nomadic race, had no architecture of their 

 own, adopted the pointed form of arch; using it as early as the twenty-first 

 year of the Hejira, and continuing the use of it almost universally from that 

 time to the present hour in all the countries of the East, and also in Sicily, 

 as well as in their oldest edifices in Spain. In the latter country, however, 

 it appeared that they most generally adopted the round or horse-shoe form 

 of arch; thus confirming the idea that the Arabs had no architecture of 

 their own, hut adopted the forms of the country which they occupied. — The 

 third series Mr. Fergusson called the Provenfale, and defined it as a style 

 existing to the south of the Loire, to the north of the Garonne, and as ex- 

 tending from the Gulf of Nice to the Bay of Biscay, The date he assigned 

 to this style was from the age of Charlemagne to about the end of the 

 eleventh century. He adduced instances of this early pointed arch style 

 from the Churches of Notre Dame d'Avignon, Churches at Vaison, the 

 Churches of Pernes and Carcassone, the Cathedral of Cahors, St. Front 

 Perigeux, the Abbeys of Souillac and Moissa;, and more especially of Locbes, 

 &c. All of these he maintained to be earUer than the round-arch style in 

 as far as their pointed peculiarities are concerned, and certainly as preceding 

 in every respect the true Gothic style with which they had little or no af- 

 finity. — The fourth and last division of the subject was the true Gothic 

 style; which arose in Northern Europe in the latter half of the twelfth cen- 

 tury, was perfected in the first part of the thirteenth, and continued to be 

 practised so generally till the Reformation. 



With regard to the invention of the pointed arch, Mr. Fergusson showed 

 that the second style certainly arose from the first ; but mentioned that the 

 Western nations had no right to claim as an invention what had so long 

 been practised in the East, and which they certainly saw and knew long 

 before they adopted it. But though this may have suggested the form, he 

 maintained, with Dr. Whewell, that it was only its practical utility or neces- 

 sity that could have rendered it so universally prevalent ; and he pointed out 

 the manner by which, not only in the Provenfale, but also in the true Gothic 

 styles, the greatest constructive difticulties were solved by its adoption. Mr. 

 Fergusson concluded by distinguishing between the invention of the pointed 

 arch and of the Gothic style. The former he conceived to be an idea bor- 

 rowed from the East; the latter be maintained to be a thoroughly native 

 and original creation, owing all its beauty and perfection to the talents and 

 energy of the native architects of Europe, — who combined to elaborate it 

 out of the chaos of classical fragments which they had inherited. 



Jit!:/ 2. — S. Smirke, V.P., in the Chair. 



Among the donations were some models representing the actual state of 

 the Temples at /Vgrigentum, and executed in the native stone. They were 

 presented by J. St. Barbe, Esq. 



Communications were read from the Chevalier Bunsen and Herr Stiilin, 

 of Berlin, recommending specimens of zinc castings of ciihimns, capitals, 

 bases, and figures, executed by Herr Geiss, — who attended, and offered 

 some further explanation of his mode of preparing and casting zinc. 



A paper was read, written by Mr. Foster, British Consul to the Republic 

 of Nicaragua, describing the Cathedral of St. Peter, Leon, Nicaragua, and 

 the domestic architecture of that city. 



A paper was read by C. R. Cockerell, E>q., Professor of Architecture in 

 the Royal Academy, "On Style in Arch';leoture." After alluding to that 

 latitude of style in architecture and the license in the choice of style which 



unhappily at the present epoch are not only permitted but professed, the 

 author observed, that as intensity of character is commonly distinguished in 

 society by a peculiar aspect, habit, or bearing, so should the great national 

 works of a people be distinguished in the pages of time. The architect, 

 therefore, who limits his ambition to the reproduction of an antique model, 

 carries a lie in his right hand; — he shows himself to posterity as a renegade 

 to his country and his age ; — he is false to history, for his aim would seem 

 to he to deceive posterity and to perpetuate anachronisms ; — he confesses his 

 incapacity to delineate his own times, and shrinks from the exhibition of 

 them, as if knowing their unworthiness. As well might the popular writer 

 insist on the use of the style of Bede or Spenser, and the obsolete language 

 of Wicxliffe and Wykeham, as that the architect should absolutely reproduce 

 the form and character of taste in that period, — and if art means anything, 

 and we assume to read its language, the one proposition is certainly not 

 more ridiculous than the other. In speculating on the latent causes of the 

 vicious system of copying without any attempt at modification. Professor 

 Cockerell said, that although the mere fashion of pubhc opinion always 

 influences art, as it does everything else, yet he thought much of the evil 

 may he attributed to the want of an enlightened, searching, and generous 

 criticism, such as existed in the beginning and to the end of the last 

 century, from Boileau and Pope to Payne, Knight, Alison, and others. 

 He especially drew attention to the remarkable fact, that during the last 

 thirty years of devotional building, in which upwards of 1,400 cheap 

 churches of England have been erected by the zeal of churchmen, not one 

 of that learned body (as in the middle ages) has produced a critical work oa 

 style, as adapted to our Ritual, to guide architects. They have changed 

 their " building regulations" every five or six years, and have waived all 

 consistency ; and they seem to have been satisfied in raising " folds," in any 

 way for the wandering flock. The decline of the drama — that mirror in 

 which the state even of the Arts was wont to be reflected — has not been 

 without its effect ; and it is worthy of remark, said the Professor, that when 

 the drama has flourished, so have the sister Fine Arts, especially architec- 

 ture. One of the great faults committed by architects was their allowing 

 all logical consistency of feeling, all regularity, harmony, and conformity, 

 enjoined by the first principles of sound sense and artistic composition, to 

 be sacrificed to a pedantic display of our universal knowledge of historical 

 styles and dates, and the trivial conceit of a dramatic reproduction to the 

 very life (in the absence of the theatre itself) of the several periods they 

 represent. Again, we find them preferring the ornaments, the rhetoric, so 

 to speak, to the logic which is its only just foundation. This is mere pe- 

 dantry and affectation. Such a spirit will not do in the war of the camp or 

 of politics ; at the bar, or in engineering. Why, then, should it be tolerated 

 in the serious and responsible art of architecture ? Nature is never illogical, 

 — for her rhetoric is the mere appendage and the natural consequence of her 

 use and purpose. How often do we find the young architect, fired with the 

 beauty of the classic column and entablature, of the portico and the pedi- 

 ment, introducing them where their unfitness actually destroys the very 

 lieanty he is so anxious to display! It is from this false principle that we 

 have churches on a Roman Catholic plan adapted to a Protestant Ritual, — 

 buttressed walls with tie-beam roofs, belfry towers without bells, and all the 

 quackery of sedilia, piscina, &c., where they are without use or purpose. 

 The rigid adherence to Palladian or Italian example and dimensions in 

 designing masonic architecture, without the slightest allowance for the 

 growth of modern scantling — the glazing of windows in Elizabethan, or 

 "early domestic" buildings with yMarre glass, in bits of four inches square, in 

 preference to the splendid and cheap plates of the present day, each of 

 which would fill a window — all this results from that mania for imitation 

 which, far from showing progress in Art, is disgraceful retrogression. It is 

 in earnestness of purpose that we must look for what is called genius for 

 fitness, novelty, and beauty. Genius, so called, is but the more strenuous 

 attention to the means presented to our faculties by a closer criticism — by 

 greater diligence in the artist — by concurrent efforts, liberality, and patron- 

 age — and, above all, by a field to work in offered by the public. Until these 

 conditions are presented, we shall of course have imitation; that ready 

 evasion of the most diOicult and painful of all labour — the labour of thought. 

 If the prize and occasion be mean, the enterprising and the powerful mind 

 will take another career, leaving those pursuits to second and third-rate 

 minds. The wise architect, while he admits the whole power of association 

 in the efficts and influence of his art — while he sanctifies his work with 

 archaisms, and bends in some degree to fashions — still seeks to embody the 

 spirit of the actual times as well as that of antiquity, engrafting the useful 

 powers of growing science and the recent graces of convenience with a cer- 

 tain reserve ; and thus he fulfils the great purpose of his office, captivates all 

 observers by the production of things new and old, — remembering always 

 ths immortal words of Schiller — 



Tlie artist is tlie child of his time; 



Happy for him if he is not its pupil, 



Happier still if not its favourite. 



After some suggestions on the style to be employed in the several depart- 

 ments of architecture, devotional, monumental, or domestic — urging the ne- 

 cessity of conformity to the Ritual as regards the plans of our churches in 

 whatever style, and showing that the mediaeval architecture was not 

 applicable to our domestic buildings of the present day — Prof. Cockerell said, 

 in conclusion : — "Let us only be true to ourselves. Remember that we are 

 masters as well as servants to the public. Without dogma or pedantry, let 

 us investigate and disseminate good principles and exercise a wholesome dis- 



