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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[September, 



REVIEWS. 



ARCHITECTURE IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. 

 The Pictorial History of England. Part 74. 



From a condensed popular sketch very much is not to be expected, 

 because the writer is so cramped as to space, that he can hardly do 

 more than touch upon a few leading generalities and summing up of 

 his opinions — certainly has no room for entering into specific criticism, 

 nor always for fully explaining his meaning. We can accordingly 

 look for little more than bare opinions and critical dicta, which must 

 be acquiesced in as of oracular authority bv those who are unable to 

 examine into them. Still, even to those who are already familiar with 

 the subject, an appercu of the kind is interesting if only as refreshing 

 the memory, and it would be strange, indeed, if some fresh remark or 

 other could not be picked up from it. Let us begin by quoting the 

 following introductory one. 



"The English school, as it was constituted at the accession of 

 George ill, could devise no correction of the errors of their prede- 

 cessors, but by resorting to crude imitations of Palladio, a recurrence 

 to forms and combinations established under other modes of existence 

 totally different from their own, at another period and in another 

 climate. Neither their discriminating taste in the selection of the 

 beautiful, nor their profound knowledge of the practice of the Italian 

 schools, can redeem the want of fitness which characterizes their pro- 

 ductions, their disregard ot the exigencies of our climate, and their 

 inattention to our domestic hahits ; for in many cases their plans as 

 well as their elevations are borrowed from the Italian. The conse- 

 quences were fatal. They had rooted up a vigorous plant for an 

 exotic which they wanted skill to naturalize; it perished, therefore, 

 leaving nothing in its place, and another half century found architec- 

 ture in England reduced to a condition unprecedented since its first 

 development as an art, devoid of unitv, character, and principles." 



While this is, in the main, true, it is also somewhat vague and in- 

 distinct ; and to us itappears to partake of contradiction to speak of the 

 il iscri mi nating taste, and the profound knowledge of the Italian schools, 

 possessed by persons who resorted to " crude imitations of Palladio." 

 Feeble as may have been their powers of invention, it is strange that 

 those who it seems were acquainted with, and capable of appreciating, 

 Italian architecture generally, should not have extended their views 

 beyond Palladio and other system-mongers. And if, in regard to this 

 point, we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, still less do we compre- 

 hend what the writer is driving at when, if we do not mistake his 

 meaning, he gives it as his opinion that, being adapted to a ditferent 

 climate, the architecture of Italy is essentially unfitted to be followed 

 by us — at least without very considerable modifications. It may 

 be so, but we have yet to learn wherefore ; for though this philoso- 

 phical remark is a pretty old acquaintance of ours, we having met 

 with it we know not how many times before, never have we met with 

 even an attempt at an explanation of it. Hardly is there any thing in 

 the constitution of such a style that unfits it in any degree for appli- 

 cation in almost any part of Europe. It provides as effectually against 

 weather as any mode of building can do, and therefore the difference 

 of climate must be corrected by other means ; instead of marble pave- 

 ments or inlaid floor, we require thick carpets, good fires, stoves in 

 vestibules, and the like ; and instead of sitting with open windows, 

 we are glad to keep them shut. But matters and circumstances of 

 this kind have nothing to do with one mode of building more than 

 another. From what is sometimes said on the subject, it might al- 

 most be supposed that every ten degrees of latitude would require 

 quite a different mode of architecture ; and also might it be supp. sed 

 that the climate of England was as severe as that of the most northern 

 parts of Siberia. Changeable enough it is, no doubt, and such being 

 the case, it is impossible to fix upon any mode of building that shall 

 be perfectly suitable as regards all the fluctuating contingences of 

 weather: we have seasons when shade is as inviting as in Italy, and 

 when even the splashing of fountains in marble halls would be a luxury, 

 and when consequently Italian architecture — supposing that is at all 

 concerned with the matter, would be felt to be — for the time at least — 

 the most appropriate of any for ourselves. 



Let us test the " climate doctrine " by facts : what say they ; is St. 

 Paul's found to be at all worse adapted to our climate, than Westmin- 

 ster Abbey? Is Windsor Castle decidedly better so than Buckingham 

 Palace? Are Barry's clubhouses found to be at variance with aught 

 our climate requires? or though they give us the very quintessence of 

 the Italian style, are they not perfectly English in accommodation — as 

 thoroughly or rather infinitely more so than many houses, and very 

 costly ones, too, which exhibit no other style externally than that 



called the hole-in-the-wall style ? Still, our climate, it may be argued, 

 does not admit of arcades and colonnades; why not? — or if not, then 

 our own old English architecture was badly contrived, for that gives 

 us specimens of cloisters and covered walks, which are essentially the 

 same things as the others, differing from them only in style and in 

 name. 



The fault lies not in adopting the Italian style — Palladian or any 

 other particular species of it, but in not at the same time adapting it 

 to circumstances, and further improvinsrit. And if this be what the 

 writer means, we agree with him, at the same time wishing he had 

 expressed himself more clearly than he has done. Fully do we agree 

 with him in regard to his representation of the state of architecture 

 in this country at about the commencement of the present century. 

 With very few exceptions, indeed, it was deplorable enough: the art 

 may be said to have been in a state of starvation — reduced to the ex- 

 treme of meagreness and insipidity. Of this, we have most con- 

 vincing proof, in the New J'ttruvius Britannicus, which consists en- 

 tirely of buildings of that period, most of them below mediocrity in 

 point of taste and design, and all, more or less, infected with beggarly 

 mannerism and false simplicity, and marked by nothing so much as 

 the utter absence of all artist-like feeling or study. Even where the 

 glimmering of an idea seems to have presented itself, nothing is made 

 of it ; nor is there among the whole collection a single design that is 

 even decently finished-up. The Adams, the Wyatts, and the Bo- 

 nomis, bedevilled and vulgarized architecture : in their hands, tawdri- 

 ness, frivolitv, dullness, and meanness, became its characteristics. In 

 order to escape the reproach of heaviness, they fell into the opposite 

 extreme of flimsiness ; while of simplicity they seem to b;ive had 

 little other idea than nakedness of composition, scantiness of details, 

 and utter disregard of finish — that sine qua non in the aesthetics of ar- 

 chitecture, let the style itself be what it may. Even when they 

 aimed at richness, the result was seldom more than a sort of niggling 

 prettiness; nor was that always consistently kept up. With the 

 Adams, such was generally notoriously the case : their designs, 

 for the most part, exhibit trumpery ornament, patched upon build- 

 ings that were not even prepared for embellishment of any kind, 

 being j,) themselves quite in a state of nudity, as is strikingly the ease 

 with the Adelphi, Caen Wood, &c, which are wretched architectural 

 stuff", hardly a degree better in point of taste than our modern gin- 

 palace style. " In the screen of the Admiralty," says the writer in 

 the Pictorial History, "Adam surpassed himself. It is a work of 

 great beauty, independently of being the only instance in which he 

 adopted a recognized stvle in the detail." As to its having much 

 positive merit, however, we do not agree; on the contrary, our 

 opinion more fully coincides with that expressed by another critic, in 

 the London Interiors, Part 23, who speaking of the Admiralty screen, 

 savs, "It neither agrees in any way with the building to which it is 

 attached, nor is it on a sufficient scale to be at all suitable as a frontis- 

 piece to a public edifice ; for it looks too much like a reduced copy 

 of what was intended to be nearly double — or speaking more cor- 

 rectly, nearly four times the size, or about 2.">0 feet in length by 45 in 

 height, instead of only 130 by 22." And again, "As far as the Doric 

 colonnades themselves go, they are satisfactory enough, but not so the 

 centre compartment, forming the gateway; for it is poor in its general 

 character, and too much cut up, especially by the plain blank windows 

 or panels in the piers, which while they destroy width (breadth) of 

 surface, produce an appearance of poverty — of theabsence of decoration 

 rather than of richness: another more egregious and evident defect 

 is, that over the arch, the architrave and frieze of entablature, other- 

 wise continued tlioughout, are omitted, and thus the entablature is 

 maimed and mutilated in the very chief point of the design!" 



Adam may very deservedly be commended for one thing — the 

 study he bestowed on his plans, and for the greatly improved, more 

 convenient, and likewise more effective arrangements which he intro- 

 duced into the interior of houses, thereby contributing to the bettering 

 our domestic architecture, in a very essential point; but as an artist, 

 his taste was even at the best of a very namby-pamby kind. 



James Wyatt was in some respects a sort of Adam riformato. It 

 was his good fortune to make a decided "hit" by bis first work, the 

 Pantheon, in Oxford Street, as to which we are unable to speak, 

 never having seen any designs of it — for none are given in the Nea 

 tltruvius Britannicus, although that work contains one or two speci- 

 mens of his, and those not particularly favourable ones ; — yet if we 

 may judge from the view of the large room, given in the Pictorial 

 England, where it is styled "a noble conception," we should say that 

 it must have, been a strangely disjointed and incongruous piece of 

 design, built up with columns in some places, while there were abso- - 

 lute gaps in others. However, the Pantheon was the resort of fashion ; 

 the place itself was no doubt splendid and gay enough; and when 

 fashion is determined to be pleased, it is generally a very little indeed 



