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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



Dko. 



" sham" to the outri excess which he sometimes did. Verily the great 

 novelist's love of fiction must have been quite overrunning, when he directed 

 Mr. Hay to paint him sham frames to pictures — a species of deception so 

 inartistic — or rather a mere attempt at deception, which instantly betrays 

 itself to the eye, that almost anyone would, on seeing it, exclaim wiih 

 Macbeth : " Unreal mockery, hence !" Lest I myself should be fancied to 

 be here romancing, by imputing the strange freak in question to Sir 

 Walter, I will quote Mr. Hay's own words concerning it. After saying 

 that Scott had directed him where to fix up four pictures,— two small ones 

 (one of them a view of Melrose Abbey by moonlight) being to be placed 

 ui-er doors, — a most unfit situation for paintings of small dimensions, — 

 he proceeds to state that : " these, after being fixed to the wall by a nar- 

 row moulding of oak, were lo be surrounded with an imitation of a carved 

 frame of Ihe same material, painted in light and shade upon the flat plaster." 

 Now, however ably executed — with how admirable so ever bravura of re- 

 lief the appearance of actual carving projecting from the wall might be 

 rendered, the eye could not fail to delect the deception upon almost the 

 very first change of position ; and if they happened to be viewed sideways, 

 it would at once be perceived that those frames were only flat painted 

 iorders, without any projection at all, while the real " narrow moulding 

 of oak" would by its projection on the wall show itself very awkwardly. 

 Such a mixture of the imitative and the real must have been in very bad 

 and puerile taste— both excusable and to be accounted for only as a mere 

 whim on the part of Sir Walter, for the fun of " taking in" his guests after 

 that fashion, making them stare, and enjoying their surprise. Painted 

 frames to detached pictures hung upon a wall are just as preposterous as 

 real picture frames of the usual kind would be for paintings executed upon 

 the walls, instead of either architectural mouldings around them, or else 

 painted borders. Decorative painting should never he permitted to ami 

 at more than mere pattern in colours— not at relief or the imitation of 

 actual carving. Painted mouldings or other architectural members — and in- 

 stances there have been of painted niches and statues — are in vile taste, 

 because the deception so produced can be only momentary, the artifice, if 

 such it can be called, being delected after the first glance, and proclaiming 

 that the decoration so aimed at could not be afforded. With imitative ma- 

 terial the case is altogether and widely different : the resemblance may be 

 so perfect that the most experienced eye may not be able lo detect it, and 

 provided it shows just the same to the eye, it produces an effect fully 

 equal to what the real material would do. Every one knows, for instance, 

 that gilded ornaments are not of the solid metal, but merely covered with 

 leaf gold of almost incredible thinness — the two hundred and eighty-thou- 

 sandth of an inch ! — what then ? the appearance is produced, and it is 

 with appearance, and appearance only, that embellishment has to concern 

 itself. I, for one, am unable to sympathize with those who affect to be 

 shocked at tUf ingenious imitations and deceptions of art, reprobating them 

 as if they were downright frauds and offences against common honesty. 

 Were any one to sell, or rather attempt to sell, a plaster cast made to imi- 

 tate marble, for a real piece of sculpture of that material, he would, no 

 doubt, be himself a genuine knave ; but there is no moral imposition in 

 placing such casts on the top of bookcases, or in other situations where 

 they may pass for being of marble, which last material would produce 

 only just the same effect. — " What matters it to you or me," I once heard 

 a person say to another, speaking of a lady, " whether she rouges or not. 

 Granting that the bloom of her complexion may be artificial — and you only 

 suspect it, — I take the beauty of it to be just the same as if it was real : a 

 difference uf course there is ; but that is her affair, therefore a truce with 

 your preaching." — Value of material adds nothing to the merit of design — 

 of the architect's own share in the work, who, if he be an artist, will dis- 

 play talent and produce effect with the homeliest and cheapest materials, 



with merely fictitious ones— alias " sham ;" while he who is not, will 



show the very best materials to disadvantage, and render them less valuable 

 than they were before being used, or we may say abused, by being applied 

 to humdrum designs. 



VII. Hay has had a hit at Sang's decorations in the Royal Exchange, 

 which he has the delicacy, however, not to mention by name, contenting 

 himself with alluding to it so very pointedly that no one can possibly mis- 

 take. " Our general knowledge," he observes, " even of the propriety 

 necessary to be observed in decorations, is so far below the requisite 

 standard that the grossest absurdities are often committed. For instance, 

 we find the most flimsy and fantastical style of ornamental design, borrowed 

 at third or fourth hand from a building devoted to the private luxury of an 

 ancient Roman, adopted as a suitable style for the interior of an arcade 

 remarkable for its plain and substantial massiveuess, and devoted to a 



species of public business of such a grave nature, &c., &c." — " It is 

 scarcely possible," he continues, "to conceive a greater degree of decora- 

 tive incongruity than this, jet it has been committed in one of our greatest 

 national edifices, amidst all the agitation that exists in regard to national 

 advancement in the art of ornamental design." The censure is perfectly 

 just: the mistake there committed is such an obvious and palpable one, 

 that it is extraordinary it should have been allowed lo be perpetrated. 

 Were it possible to entertain so strange a suspicion, we might imagine that 

 this specimen was intended to satisfy the public most effectually one way, 

 namely, by cloying them and sickening them at once, and so preventing 

 all further outcry for similar embellishment in our public buildings. — As 

 to " the agitation that exists in regard lo national advancement, ixc," there 

 is a good deal of humbug in it — far more of cant than of sincerity of pur- 

 pose; or if there be the sincerity, the knowledge which should accompany 

 it is wanting. Lord Morpeth — or if it was not Morpeth, it was Lord 

 Somebody-else — is reported to have said in the House, he thought Ihe public 

 would be satisfied with Buckingham Palace — t.ie unlucky Palace again ! 

 but it can't be helped — after Mr. Blore's alterations — his lordship was loo 

 conscientious to make use of the word "improvements." But what a 

 mean opinion then must he entertain of the public taste, and how very 

 little regard must he have for its " advancement," — that is, supposing him 

 not to be himself an utter novice in matters of art, and to have had no sus- 

 picion of what a balaam design he was recommending to the " House," 

 pro bono publico ; a design which now makes the Palace look almost twin- 

 brother to the Barracks just by, in the Birdcage Walk, with which Blore 

 or somebody else must have been so smitten, as to take Ihe leading idea 

 from it. — Verily, it was not without reason that some one lately quoted, or 

 pretended to quote, the following distich : 



" Unhappy Britain 1 doomed to be disgraced 

 By Petlisniff palaces, and Royal taste !" 



VIII. Errors of the press are, if generally provoking, sometimes ex- 

 ceedingly diverling, as, for instance, that of a certain " print" which has 

 transformed the " Army and Navy Clubhouse" into that of the "Armoury 

 and Knavery," than which Mrs. Malaprop herself never uttered so amus- 

 ing a blunder. That there has been any sort of knavery in Ihe matter, we 

 are bound not to suspect; nevertheless, there is much which looks like 

 mauoeuvering. Most assuredly it looks like any thing but fair play on the 

 part of the Club to enlarge their site after the first competition, without 

 allowing the first competitors — those who had tasked their ingenuity to 

 provide the required accommodation within a space which the Club them- 

 selves have since virtually declared to have been insufficient — to lake their 

 chance in a second competition. Well, the refusal may have been mercy, 

 although, apparently, it does not say much for the liberality of the " Armoury 

 and Knavery," And what have they got after all by their clever scheming ? 

 — why, a piracy from Sansovino for their exterior, and for their interior, a 

 most humdrum, namby-pamby plan, devoid of all invention, contrivance, 

 and study of effect — merits which the " Armoury and Knavery" people 

 have perhaps no conception, much less any appreciation of. For Club- 

 houses at least, if not fur private houses, it might be supposed that something 

 more than mere routine plan would begin to be thought of, for in that 

 direction, if no other, there is room for advance, and great scope for im- 

 provement. Admitting that compound forms of rooms are more expensive 

 than the usual four-sided ones, and that they also occasion some loss of space, 

 consequently are out of the question for houses in general where economy 

 as lo both cost and space must be chiefly attended to, so far from being aa 

 argument against, it is a raison de plus for such forms and picturesque 

 effects being purposely introduced in Clubhouses and other houses of a 

 superior grade, instead of four walls with a flat ceiling, and perhaps a 

 cove lo it, being, as the Athenteum remarks, all the elements out of 

 which their apartments are constituted. Surely, says Ihe writer in that 

 journal, if it be worth while to expend so much as is sometimes done upon 

 superficial and accessory embellishnieol, it would be equally so to endea- 

 vour to secure in the first instance impressive architectural physiognomy, 

 the charm of which is more lasting than the gratification afl'orded by mere 

 ornamental detail. It is, indeed, greatly to be lamented that neither archi- 

 tects nor their employers perceive — or even if they do perceive, care to 

 turn to account Ihe infinite resources for both design and effect which pre- 

 sent themselves as soon as we break away from the wearisome monotony 

 of plan, disposition, and forms in the interiorsof houses, which now prevails, 

 to Ihe exclusion of all individual character except thai which arises from 

 ornamentation alone. 



IX. So very little study is given to matters of plan in rooms, either as re- 

 gards ensemble or individual parts and detail, that the eye is frequeotly 



