1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



131 



them steeple on Westminster Abbey middle tower better than none, and tbe 

 mongrel addition'to St. Stephen's, at Vienna, may stand excused by such an 

 alternative ; nevertheless, a vicious principle once admitted, furnishes a pre- 

 cedent to be followed when its origin has been forgotten, because mankind 

 has a natural leaning towards the corrupt in fine art, as well as in morals. 

 The school abovesaid does not^count its sole disciples amongst the successors 

 of the Huns, nor confine itself to the Carpathian wizards of the Danube ; 

 even those learned martinettes, the Prussians, sanction it; even their heaven- 

 born baumeisier, Schinkel, entered himself a pupil ! Berlin iron-work having 

 obtained great vogue for its quincaillerie and brittle 'bijouterie, insect- 

 brooches, and animalculous'breast-pins, ladies' clasps, purses, filagree trink- 

 ets, pup[iet statues, and chimney-piece articles of virtu — being proper enough, 

 too, perhaps, for coarse' or' concealed masses of construction — was brought 

 into most abusive use for prominent architectural features — nay, whole na- 

 tional edifices. The Kreuherg Deiihmt, by Schinkel himself, and Luther's 

 canopied shrine, at Wittenberg, are Je.'iamples. W.^ consider this pseudo- 

 rnasonic system only another version of imitation stone work ; as lo principle, 

 not one jot above lath-and-plaster edification: [a system biought about 

 among architects by modern Tmiddle-class taste — by the self-same low- 

 minded satisfaction with surface effects which gazes enraptured at mock- 

 marble and scagliola columns, "compo " entablatures, ;)n;)i>r-mac/ie' balus- 

 trades, and similar factitious 'substitutes— which loves them ibetter than the 

 genuine materials, because more applicable to profuse bedizenment, and 

 easier distorted into novel I'monstrosi ties. Found, if needful, a new kind of 

 architecture upon the native' character of iron, such as its essence can per- 

 vade, its attributes warrant, its powers embrace ; let some forgetive brain, in 

 Falstaff's sense hammer out a solid, sterling system of Vulcanian Architec- 

 ture, and we shall praise it ; but none of your hybrid abortions, begot be- 

 tween metallurgy and masonry, that cohere [still worse than the brass and 

 clay of Nebuchadnezzar*s'image ! It maybe said, what imports tlie sub- 

 stance, so as the appearance is agreeable? how should molecular consti- 

 tution of parts affect their integral masses, whose forms and proportions are 

 alone very important? A reply seems almostl superfluous ; yet we give it. 

 Besides that bad faith, when appearances do not fulfil their promises, always 

 offends a well-regulated mind — besides that the inward or thorough worth of 

 materials enriches the spectator's imagination — besides that their untracta- 

 bleness overcome enhances his pleasure, as the quantum of skill, toil, and 

 time employed upon all productions augments their value — besides this, we 

 are much disposed to maintain that there exists a bond, indissoluble though 

 indefinable, between beauty of end and legitimacy of means — that the nature 

 of the constructive material suggests, demands, nay, often commands the 

 style of construction ; and that, if the former become debased, the latter will 

 degenerate also. We are persuaded the Parthenon could never have arisen 

 had the Greeks built their temples of cast iron ; no, nor the beautiful Tripod 

 Monument, had their Corinthian capitals been moulded out of the very nicest 

 potter's clay in the Ceramicus, and their columns been the very best stock- 

 brick, covered over with plaster of Paros ! No more, we affirm, than the 

 Phidian Minerva could have sprung from " Coade's Stone," as the customary 

 stuff of sculpture, or little wooden lozenges given birth to the rude grandeur 

 of the Appian Way, and such specimens of cyclopean road-making. Such 

 things we will admit possible when beavers can build another Waterloo 

 Bridge with Thames mud and their tails! Augustus, it was said, found 

 Rome brick, and left her marble ; yet see how the inveterate use of brick de- 

 based the Roman style of architecture, until the native properties of that 

 material absorbed those of the finer one, and brought forth a style (the ar- 

 cadedj favourable to their full development. The spirit of the material, as it 

 were, transfuses itself throughout the creations therefrom : the meanness of 

 a material enters into the soul of the artist ; understanding by meanness — 

 not commonness (for Grecian and Etruscan fictile vases of most refined ele- 

 gance are often mere earthenware), but— poor and pitiful mis-adaptedness to 

 the given purpose ; this it is which would render an El Dorado, though built 

 of ingots, or Aladdin's palace, though walled with gems, mean architec- 

 turally beside a simple Greek fane, whose blocks beget its massive character ; 

 and which, on the other hand, permits a Gothic church of grey stone or 

 riibble itself, to rival Pentelic temples. We shall, perhaps, have the Vulca- 

 nians cite King Solomon as patronizing cast metal pillars. What then ? Were 

 either Jews or Gentiles enjoined brazen architecture thereby ? Must archi- 

 tects, till the pillars of the world give way, bow down before the brazen 

 images oi Jachin and Boaz? Had these enormous objects no loftier aim, 

 no deeper, where all was symbolic ? Briefly — how much does any one know 

 about them ? 



But hypothesis, reasonable or fanciful, aside, 'it is amongst the plainest 

 principles of art, we submit, that every material should be made to do its own 

 work, and not the work of another, unless their qualities have a close simi- 

 litude. Tempera may sometimes do the work of fresco, oils of either; yet 

 perhaps, we might date and deduce the downfall of painting from what 

 many persons derive its perfection — Van Eyck's discovery— the substitution 

 of a smooth and luscious medium, whose appropriate productions are small 

 elegant, 'and epicurean, for simple n'ater or size, best adapted to the most 



gigantic elTorts, the sublimest ami severest trials of the pencil. We would 

 push this principle farther and contend that no material, while doing its 

 lawful work, should be made to seem as if doing the work of another. Real 

 art rejects all such artifices— virile taste despises all such puerilities. Even 

 when the imitation is unintended, its existence proves either the imitator's 

 faint perception of distinct principles, or his feeble hand, which fails to obey 

 his clear convictions. Look at Henry the Seventh's Chapel; observe its 

 numberless minute, slim, canelike mouldings, its lath-and-rafter-like ribs 

 and braces, its bird-cage delicacy of screen-work, its panelled surfaces 

 throughout— little distinguishable irompanel, indeed— does it not seem rather 

 a colossal specimen of joiner's craft than anything else?— a carved, morticed, 

 and dovetailed construction of box- wood than a structure of stone ? Dexte- 

 rous, we grant, polydedalean (if you please so to call it) in mechanism, 

 fanciful as a frost-work palace in effect ; but cast your eyes on the Abbey 

 Choir next it, and behold whatamere bijou, an architectural trinket, it looks 

 compared with the massive grandeur of this! This proclaims iiself at once, 

 genuine masonry, and thus far, if no farther, much excels its florid neighbour 

 whose embattlements and enrichments might pass for petrified carpentry. 

 A coral grove may be curious, precious, and beauteous ; yet all amateurs (but 

 old children, who still cling to their corals) would prefer an oak forest. The 

 Abbey Choir, we sometimes imagine, turns a huge shoulder of contempt 

 upon the little fretted and frittered appendage behind it, perchance acknow- 

 ledging about the same relationship to it which Fingal's Cave does to the 

 mermaiden of Staffa's stalactite grotto. Indeed, the Lancet, or Early English 

 style, under this view, surpasses, we think, the Decorated (by many persons 

 deemed the perfectionated) Gothic, as well as the Florid, or decadent. For, 

 beyond dispute, those double-curved and contorted outlines— those ramified 

 cusped and tressured foliations— those antler-spread traceries, make stone 

 pretend to be what it is not— a flexous substance, make it ape live timber, 

 molten ore, or some pliable compost. Now, though we may consider stone 

 ductile or plastic in statuary and decorative details of architecture, yet, where 

 it forms a principal feature, and marks an arcliitectural style, it should have 

 itself a pure architectural character ; it should resemble mason-work, should 

 pronounce itself stone, and suggest no adventitious substitute. Thus, a 

 crocket or a corbel may imitate a leaf or a lion's head, because a positive leaf 

 or lion's head stuck upon the place would not de-characterize the edifice ; 

 but a window or a parapet should not, strictly speaking, weave its mullions 

 like a vegetable branch, nor twist its bars like iron-work, unless the edifice 

 be built of timber or metal. Even were the Greek Corinthian capital taken 

 from a flower-pot, we see that the core is a stone cylinder, and does not pre- 

 tend to be a stem of acanthus. These remarks are submitted for a very 

 difl"erent purpose from that of disparaging the Decorated Gothic, which we 

 admire and revere : but the true and strict laws of art demand our veneration 

 still more. They, alone, ever and anon dunned into the ear, will fright the 

 isle out of her improprieties, if this be possible. She finds licenses enough 

 placarded on every church-wall, through the whole breadth of its flank and 

 length of its steeple : " plenary indulgence" for unchasteness in architecture! 

 absolution without either confession or repentance! 



Akin to the above principle is another, .sinned against as with a cart-rope, 

 with the very loosest libertinage, ever since the "Renaissance," or it might 

 rather be called the Decadence, of pure architecture, seeing that the pointed 

 style is pure architecture, on its own picturesque grounds. But this aforesaid 

 transgression, like an original sin, vitiates a whole species of techtonic pro- 

 ductions, though it may leave a certain divine spirit about them still,— we 

 mean Italian edifices. More or less throughout these, pillars, entablatures, 

 and pediments are made to perform the part of mere decoration, instead of 

 staminal and horizontal support, and protective shelter, their true business. 

 A colonnade along the entire front of a house supports what ?— a cornice! 

 And what does the cornice support ? — sparrows. Tiers of little portico-fafa;les, 

 called windows, adorning the same front, what do their pediments protect ? — 

 spiders beneath their eaves, migninionette boxes in their balconies, bytiraes 

 also glaziers and chambermaids who stand outside to mend ihe panes or cleaa 

 them ! Yet this at best elegant debasement of the Classic style entitles its 

 professors to pronounce the Pointed " barbarous," and to boast their won- 

 derful progress beyond the architects of the Middle Ages. Again, let us 

 inquire, did the gods ever commit such gross actsof artistical bad faith as the 

 Italian school,— disguising, under a thin surface of cut stone, masses of quite 

 a difl'erent nature, almost always of a comparatively worthless one, which yet 

 constitute the veritable erections ? Excuse this as we may, it must be deno- 

 minated mongrel architecture. Some of the very grandest efforts in modern 

 constructive art are obnoxious to that name. St. Paul's cupola, despite its 

 many merits, is a much less genuine production than Salisbury steeple ; whilst 

 its outward appearance bespeaks a " Pantheon hung in the air," what sublime 

 elements compose it? Timber and lead ! The whole dome, exierior and inte- 

 rior, consists of no less than four distinct materials, — stone, brick, wood, and 

 metal,— thus being a specimen of mason's, bricklayer's, carpenter's, and 

 plumber's work, mixt together share and share alike, rather than what it 

 seems and ought to be, part of a masonic edifice. So far forth, it can just as 

 little call itself a legitimate feature, as the iron palisade which fences (we 



11* 



