1S17.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



373 



offended by the most nnpardonable negligence, and sometimes by the most 

 arrant biingliog, in point of design, even in large and expensively fitted-up 

 and furnished apartments, where, just in order to sa^e a little exertion of in- 

 genuity and contrivance, symmetry and balance have been more or less dis- 

 regarded. Thus that consideration of the subject and actual circumstances, 

 which would almost of necessity prompt fresh ideas expressly adapted 

 to the occasion, is altogether evaded, and the merest ordinary routine is 

 substituted for artistic composition and artistic effect. In fact, the ma- 

 jority of those who call themselves architects, appear to have not so much 

 as any conception of what artistic effect is,— not even so much as to sus- 

 pect ihat it can have anything to do with their own art. The truth— and 

 a sad truth it is, architects are not educated artistically : artists they may 

 eventually become, but it must be entirely by the promptings of their own 

 mind, for by others they are not even so much as put into the way of be- 

 coming such— which is the utmost that can be done by the very best artis- 

 tic education. Well, therefore, was it said by one who valued his art, on 

 being asked to take a lad as his articled apprentice : " I can engage to 

 make your son a good practical builder, but as for architect, you might as 

 well ask me to make him an archbishop !"— To dismiss remarks of this 

 kind, I return to what occasioned them, by affirming that effect— genuine 

 arUst'ic effect— is generally the very last thing of all that is thought of in 

 planning interiors. It will, no doubt, be urged very sapiently that 

 effect adds nothing to convenience. Most assuredly not ; but so neither 

 does embellishment, which is only for the sake of that species and degree 

 of effect— certainly not the most valuable of all, that is to be so obtained ; 

 it being, on the contrary, that which is most easily of all ensured. Conse- 

 quently, if effect be not worth the study required for producing it, so neither 

 is decorati.m worth its cost, and the latter may be, by very far, the more 

 costly of the two, because the other may sometimes be produced by the 

 simplest means, without other expenditure than that of artistic skill. 



X. The name of Nash, of very questionable fame in John the architect, 

 is now honoured by the talent of Joseph the artist, whose mastery of 

 power in the representation of architectural subjects, more particularly in- 

 teriors, with all their manifold accessories, surpasses all praise. Those of 

 Windsor Castle by him form a matchless series of architectural pictures, 

 and completely refute the opinion-if such opinion requires other refuta- 

 tion than its own absurdity and evident prejudice-that subjects of the kind, 

 that is, mere rooms and their furniture, cannot be rendered picturesque— 

 at least, not if represented in all their freshness and beauty, and in perfect 

 order, without any of those accidents and disarrangements which are gene- 

 rally considered indispensably essential to the picturesque. Although it 

 may not answer to the usual notion of the picturesque, almost anything 

 may be rendered picturesque, or in other words, highly pictorial in repre- 

 sentation, by being treated picturesquely, and in an artist-like manner. 

 Even what is insipid in itself, and viewed with perfect indifference, may 

 be rescued from insipidity, and invested with attractiveness, by the power 

 and skill of the pencil,-as in the case, for instance, with paintings of 

 Btill-life, which are frequently composed of the most trivial objects- such 

 as would in their reality not be looked at at all. Surely then, what is 

 beautiful, pleasing, and interesting in reaUty, must, if faithfully pourtrayed, 

 be equally beautiful and pleasing in representation, and possess besides, 

 the additional charm imparted to it by the artist ; that is, supposing the 

 latter to have seized upon and brought out all the piquant points and 

 qualities of his subject. Architectural scenes of the kind in question pos- 

 sess this strong recommendation— or what ought to be such— that, besides 

 being works of art themselves, they may be rendered the vehicle for ex- 

 hibiting other works of art-paintings, sculpture, statues, carvings, mosaics, 

 tapestry, &c., almost any one of which would be an excellent still-life sub- 

 ject. Such scenes are therefore fully worthy of the utmost finish of execu- 

 tion : in them truth of imitation cannot possibly be carried too far, whereas 

 highly elaborate execution seems quite thrown away when bestowed, as it 

 often is, upon the facsimile imitation of what may be seen at any time, and 

 is 60 trivial that when seen it is not noticed.— Nash's pictures— for they are 

 infinitely more than dratvings, possess a truthfulness of local colour, per- 

 spective, and chiaroscuro, with a captivating effect of general composition, 

 that places them in a very high rank of art— at least would secure for 

 them such rank, were it not for the pedantical and nonsensical etiquette 

 that now regulates precedency in art. Art is not to be measured and 

 valued by the acre. Yet the veriest namby-pamby when magnified to the 

 dimensions of a cartoon passes for " high art." Some very strong in- 

 stances of the idealess and powerless, marked by outrageously bad draw- 



ing, are afforded by the cartoons selected for the recently published " Art- 

 Union," outline prints. If, however, those productions do not tend to en- 

 lighten public taste, they serve to illustrate something, since very well 

 might they be called Illustrations of Humbug. 



VENICE; AND HER ARTS. 



By Frederick Ldsh. 



(Coyitinued from page 345. J 



Pococke, in his " Description of the East," after giving an account of a 

 magnificent mosque, called Kubbe-el-Azab, or the cupola of the Azabs, in 

 Grand Cairo, states, that there was one particular apartment more sumptuous 

 than the rest, which was built by a grand vizier, who desired the sultan to 

 give him leave to prepare a place fit to offer him a sherbet in, on his return 

 from Mecca. There is every probability that a similar feeling was enter- 

 tained by the Venetians towards the grandees and merchant-princes of 

 Cairo, Damascus, and other sister cities, between whom a very active com- 

 merce and intercourse was carried on ;— but whether such a feeling existed 

 or not, it is certain that the same Arabic idea and spirit of building prevailed 

 in Venice, and prompted the early builders ; and the palaces, in which the 

 Saracenic predominates, seem to have been cotemporary with, and partly 

 constructed in imitation of, the mosques of the sultans of Cairo. There was 

 not— and there is not at the present day— throughout all Italy a spot more 

 in accordance with the tastes, or better accommodated to the habits, of the 

 orientalia, than the old Piazia di San Marco, before it was destroyed by 

 fire, when it bore a close resemblance to the court of a mosque— as shown 

 in the large and curious picture by Gentile Bellini (a.d. 1496), exhibited in 

 the Accademia. The inspection of this production- which preserves, as in 

 a rich cabinet, the ornaments, the " barbaric pearl and gold," and costume 

 of the period, and in which is so closely imitated the curiously carved can- 

 delabra, crucifixes, and reliques borne by the procession in their celebration 

 of the festival which it represents— enables us to form a pretty correct idea 

 of what must have been its original appearance. Then ambassadors and 

 other personages from foreign countries, sojourning in Venice for the trans- 

 action of commercial affairs, or for the mere purpose of witnessing her civic 

 or ecclesiastical ceremonies, must have admitted its splendour, and been 

 gratified with its many gorgeous spectacles. Then it was entirely Saracenic 

 the collonnades were Arabic, with horse-shoe archivolts; its cornices ser- 

 rated, the details of the oriental style imitated, and its pavement chequered 

 with bright red and white marble.* The adjoining Piazzetta, in itself, in its 

 features, and in the views it embraced, was, and even now is, equally orien- 

 tal. Here, the Ducal palace, one of the most beautiful edifices in the world, 

 rears itself,— and there could not, perhaps, be a finer and more appropriate 

 sii;e selected for it. It is set off to the greatest advantage upon its marble 

 terrace or jeli^e, stretching into the lagoon : the picturesque groups of 

 Armenians, Turks, gondoliers, and water-carriers, scattered upon that ter- 

 race, and the lagoon variegrated with many a gondola, painted sail, and 

 fruit-laden vessel, being in admirable keeping with its Eastern appearance. 

 " It was constructed by Calendario, in the middle of the 14th century, and 

 seems to have been a contemporary of the mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo, 

 just after the two great Kalaons had added so many magnificent edifices to 

 that capital." In its facades, we cannot but admire the principles studied by 

 the architect in the details, which tell with considerable effect in themselves, 

 and at the same time contribute, in a great measure, to the grandeur of the 

 whole ; the harmonizing contrast and relief which the curious and elaborate 

 tracery forms to the more simple parts ; the opposition of light and shade 

 which are observable throughout ; and the difficulty there is, if not the 

 absurdity, of inventing and applying, in the place of those features which 

 now exist, others more appropriate and expressive. It was a common prac- 

 tice among the Arabs, to give also the effect of colour and lightness to 

 buildings which possessed a great measure of solidity, by means of slabs of 

 red and white or green porphyry, and other valuable marbles, arranged m 

 diamond patterns on the external surface of the walls, and sometimes the 

 covering of their domes,— a method of inlaying followed by the Venetians, 

 of which a beautiful example is seen in the broad masses of the Ducal 

 palace, between the windows ; an introduction the most happy and the most 



~r^e of the above remarks are sugeestetl by the readins of an interesting paper in 

 the "Athemeum" oi Sept, 25, m7, called "Arab Gleanings m Veu.«." 



