258 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Septembeb, 



carving), the clerks' desks behind them, the candelabra or stands 

 for gas-burners — everything, in short, has been designed with a 

 most i)raiseworthy regard to artistic propriety and keeping in 

 every respect. There is nothing of that paltry meanness, or 

 downright slovenliness, with respect to lesser details and minutiae 

 which so frequently is permitted, even where embellishment is 

 aimed at upon the whole, to operate more or less as a decided 

 drawback upon the satisfaction which, but for such gross negligen- 

 ces and blemishes, might be experienced. To say the truth, if we 

 may judge by the Glasgow Bank, the Scotch seem to have got 

 greatly ahead of us in tasteful as well as liberal decoration of 

 places of public business; at all events, there is not yet one build- 

 ing of the class in all the metropolis which offers anything like the 

 same degree and completeness of embellishment. 



The Stock Exchange, at Glasgow, we have as yet merely men- 

 tioned, but must reserve a description of it for some other oppor- 

 tunity, — when, perliaps, we shall be able to give an engraving of 

 that building also. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK, 

 FASCICULUS XCVII. 



•* I must have liberty 

 Wlthul, as large a charter Q' the windB^ 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. I ought, perhaps, now to desist from saying anything further 

 concerning Mr. Iluskin and his "remarkable book" — as it has not 

 untruly been called, — but the latter is so suggestive of remarks in 

 opposition to his own opinions that I cannot refrain from making 

 a few more observations. Those who have cried up the 'Seven 

 Lamps' as a literary phoenix and matchless production of its class, 

 will hardly be surprised at its obtaining a more than ordinary share 

 of notice; or if they do, they will not own it, although they may 

 feel sore at finding that their unqualified and hysterical admiration 

 liave provoked remarks of a very different tenour. Criticism is 

 now beginning to open a debtor side of its account with Mr. Rus- 

 kin, so that when the balance comes to be struck, it may prove to 

 be very much against him; more especially as the laudations have 

 proceeded chiefly from those who are evidently not much au fait 

 with the subject, and who, for fear of uttering anything to the 

 prejudice of the book, have not ventured even to protest against 

 the abominable hideousness of the Illustrations, — which are cal- 

 culated to give one a fit of the nightmare. Those who have 

 lauded Mr. Ruskin to the skies, appear to have done so chiefly 

 on account of his language, or, as they call it, his eloquence; yet in 

 some quarters his eloquence is now looked upon as little better 

 than verbiage and cant. "He would be thought," says the Me- 

 rhanici' Muguxbie, "a man of fine feelings and lively emotions; 

 but only plays the part of the Bombastes' of the stage, and the 

 Mawworms of the conventicle. The pith of his discourse lies in 

 exaggeration; in saying odd and absurd things in a fantastic 

 way!" so that, perhaps, after all, he may get the unenviable title 

 of either Bombastes Ruskin, or Mawworm Ruskih. The publica- 

 tion just quoted takes him to task for his unqualified reprobation 

 of "cast or machine wrought ornaments, in which he evidently 

 points to the large share which the admirable wood and stone 

 carving machinery of Mr. Jordan has had in the embellishment 

 of the New Palace of Westminster." If such really be the case, 

 Mr. Ruskin should have distinctly instanced that edifice as 

 strongly exemplifying the unsatisfactory result of machine- 

 carving, and of what he calls "deadly cut" work. For my own 

 ](art, 1 must confess I do not see that it makes any difference 

 whether what is mere pattern-work in itself be produced by the 

 liand of the workman, or by either machinery or casting. The 

 former operation is more tedious and expensive, but just as me- 

 chanical as the latter, the workman having merely to follow an 

 express pattern, witliout being allowed to deviate from it in the 

 slightest degree. The carver himself is not required to have any 

 intelligence of design as regards the work he executes, but merely 

 such skill as will enable him "to turn it out," as it is called, in a 

 workmanlike manner, — that is, executed throughout with such 

 uniform precision, that it shall appear to have been produced by 

 a machine rather than hyhund. Were the designer and the carver 

 of architectural ornament the same individual — as seems to have 

 been not unfrequently the case in mediaeval building — then, 

 indeed, he might treat his work with freshness and spirit. At 

 present, on the contrary, the operative is a mere plodder, not even 



so much as allowed to think for himself, or in any way exercise his 

 own discretion; consetjuently, what he does is just as "lifeless" as 

 if it were wrought by purely mechanical means; which being the 

 case, if machinery can be made to perform the same work, the 

 employment of manual labour becomes little better than wasteful 

 extravagance. According to the present practice, detail and orna- 

 ment require scarcely anything amounting to design even on the 

 part of the architect himself: however good it may be, his detail is 

 rarely ever the product of his own mind and invention, but merely 

 second-hand and borrowed. We may see the same columns and 

 entablatures Jhcsimilized over and over again indifferent buildings, 

 so that, except as they differ in dimensions, they might just as 

 well have been all cast in the same mould; and so is it, too, with 

 other members and features. Here, then, we have '■'■ tifelessness" 

 with a vengeance, — utter inertness of design, where design might 

 be made to exert itself most strikingly. And surely if we can 

 tolerate mechanical routine where there ought to be some evidence 

 of artistic mind and thinking, we have no right to scoff at ma- 

 chine-carving. Rather let us hope that we shall ere long get 

 machine-designing, we being even now in a very fair way towards 

 reaching such consummation. 



II. On the subject of deception with regard to materials, Mr. 

 Ruskin is absolutely furious, denouncing it in the most unqualified 

 mann,er not only as unworthy artifice, but as downright immoral 

 falsehood and wickedness. Dishonesty and positive fraud it cer- 

 tainly would be, were an architect to make use of factitious ma- 

 terials and then charge his employer at the rate of the genuine 

 ones; whereas, the merely deceiving the eye is, if not a particu- 

 larly laudable, surely a very harmless species of imposition, not- 

 withstanding that in his overrighteousness Mr. Ruskin actually 

 foams against it in the genuine Mawworm style — as some one has 

 observed of him, — reprobating it as nothing less than iniquity. 

 The worst that can be said of all such artifices is, that they are un- 

 satisfactory, and show paltriness; yet if we are to believe our 

 Mawworm — Mr Ruskin, I mean, — the more exact the imitation — 

 the more difficult it is to detect any difference between the feigned 

 and the real material, the more unpardonable becomes the decep- 

 tion; the more clever the imposition, the more inexcusable does it 

 become, and all the greater is the sinfulness of it — which is, as- 

 suredly, very strange and unartistic doctrine. So determined is Mr. 

 Ruskin to reprobate imitation as to material, that he does so for 

 the most contradictory reasons: thus, immediately after condemn- 

 ing those parts in the staircase of the British Museum which are 

 painted to resemble grandite, as being "the more blameable be- 

 cause tolerably successful," he just as strongly condemns columns 

 and other architectural decorations '■'■daubed with motley colours" 

 to look like veined marble. In the latter case his censure is suf- 

 ficiently just; yet, according to his own doctrine, the paltry and 

 slovenly executed imitation to which he alludes carries with it its 

 own excuse, since the intended cheat is performed so bunglingly 

 as to impose upon no one; therefore, like "whitewash, is not to be 

 blamed as a falsity." 



III. Imitation as to materials is neither to be absolutely ap- 

 proved, nor absolutely rejected. It may be perfectly satisfactory, 

 or quite the contrary, according to the judgment and taste exer- 

 cised in applying it. That it is generally the contrary of satisfac- 

 tory is not so much owing to its being imitation, as to its being 

 coarse and paltry imitation, and being also made to show exceed- 

 ingly paltry and vulgar taste. Because it is comparatively cheap, 

 decoration of the kind is apt to be grossly overdone, and to 

 become vulgar by being far too ostentatious, and thereby pro- 

 claiming its spuriousness; whereas, by discreet reserve, it might 

 perhaps pass for genuine. Assuredly, as far as design and artistic 

 effect are concerned, it makes little or no difference whether the 

 materials be genuine or fictitious, provided, of course, that they 

 produce exactly the same appearance; for in such case, if you are 

 not aware of the deception, you are cheated very agreeably into 

 unsuspicious admiration; and on the other hand, should you happen 

 to be informed of it, — why, then you admire the happiness and 

 success of the artifice — or, as Ruskin would call it, the lie. 1 

 myself have seen a room fitted up with very superior taste in the 

 Tudor-Gothic style, although all tlie architectural forms were no 

 more than what some wouUI denounce as sham; yet, most certainly 

 there was no appearance of trumpery about it. Of such appear- 

 ance, however, and of very trumpery taste, we frequently meet 

 with a good deal where the materials are all genuine, and in such 

 case their genuineness rather occasions regret than contributes to 

 satisfaction. There is, besides, very considerable difference in 

 artificial materials and modes of imitation, some being so good as 

 to be scarcely distinguishable from what is imitated — perhaps not 

 at all distinguishable by the eye alone; therefore the employment 



