1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



S63 



detail given in the plates, to have been worthy of a place in the list of 

 works on Italian architecture ; and its non-insertion is all the more re- 

 markable because Gwilt himself points out for particular admiration, and 

 as example in which " the principles of that style are so admirably de- 

 veloped," the fafade of the Palazzo Pandolfini, to which the Clubhouse 

 above-mentioned bears a more than casual general resemblance. Possibly, 

 however, Mr. Gwilt never saw or heard of the book ; and if so, he will 

 thank me for pointing out both that and Rickman's, that he may insert 

 them accordingly in the next edition of his valuable Encyclopaedia. — 

 Apropos to RIckman, — the German Nailer (Nagler) has not nailed him in 

 his Lexicon, though he has nailed up there an immense number of obscure 

 or else quite forgotten names — some of them tlie smallest of the small-fry 

 artists. Well then, all the more industry and greater research does it 

 show to go and pry about with a farthing candle, and peep into all the 

 crevices and crannies of tenebrous obscurity, and turn out the poor little 

 things that lay there ensconced. 



IV, The " Times" has been very pleasant a la Punch, on that iVas/iional 

 calamity, Buckingham Palace, which it is now discovered is hardly habit- 

 able, neither Nash nor George IV. having any idea that rojal nurseries 

 could ever be wanted within its walls, and not nurseries alone, but apart- 

 ments for a whole colony of tutors and preceptors. As to a mere nursery 

 — that is already provided, there being nothing more required than to make 

 use of the " Garden Pavilion" for such purpose, for which indeed it ap- 

 pears to have been actually intended, it being so very pretty, all covered 

 over with " nice darling little pictures"^-e3iactly what a royal baby-house 

 should be, with a kitchen and other " conveniences" attached to it, — a 

 proof that it was built not only for show, but for service. The idea of so 

 making use of it, was perhaps abandoned, because it was found not suffi- 

 ciently large for the purpose ; yet surely it is just as easy, and would be 

 as CHEAP to build additional rooms out behind it, as to enlarge the palace 

 itself. If Mr. Blore will take this hint — and he ought to jump at it — it 

 will spare him a great deal of pathos, and perhaps no less perplexity also, 

 since perplexed he, no doubt, will be to patch up decently the Park front 

 of the Palace, on which side it is proposed to add another range of build- 

 ings, filling up the space between the wings, and enclosing the open court 

 in front. In doing merely that, there will be no particular diflicully ; but 

 Dnless the wings themselves — the ends of them at least are to come down, 

 and to be taken into the new East front, either what comes between them 

 must be accommodated to them — made of a piece with them, in which case 

 the architecture will be just as mesquin as at present, or the whole will be 

 more or less a piece of patch work. It will be necessary also no doubt lo 

 advance the new building before the present line of front, and continue the 

 wings also for the same distance, because unless that be done, what will 

 then be an inner court will be smaller than the present open one; besides 

 which the side elevations of the wings towards the court most either be 

 altered accordingly, or their regularity would be destroyed ; — as may be 

 seen by one of the plates of plans and elevations of the Palace in the im- 

 proved edition of the "Public Buildings of London," — which, if never 

 looked at before, are likely to be so now, out of curiosity, and in order to 

 judge what contrivance can do for improving the building. 



V. Whether Blore be a great master as to contrivance, I know not, but 

 it may be questioned if he be exactly the right Bfor the occasion, or likely 

 to improve the architectural quality of the Palace. What I have seen of 

 his, is marked by littleness and feebleness of manner; and though he has 

 had some favourable opportunities — Lambeth Palace for instance, he has 

 done nothing at all of a superior kind, nor is any work of his ever quoted 

 as manifesting more than ordinary talent. In one respect he is a copyist 

 of Sir Robert Smirke, for like him be has a horror of exhibiting at the 

 Royal Academy, and exposing any of his designs to the profane gaze of the 

 multitude. Pity that such architects can not keep their buildings as well 

 as their drawings secluded from public view. 



VI. There is one notable inconsistency in what is rumoured relative to 

 the alteration of the Palace : the works, it seems, are to be carried on with 

 all possible dispatch when once commenced — the necessity for which is 

 sufficiently apparent, and yet only £30,000 per annum is to be voted for 

 the purpose, although £150,000 is the estimated expense — at present, and 

 if there has been any miscalculation at all in the matter, it is easy enough 

 to guess on which side the mistake will be found to lie. But I forget, — 

 the Pavilion at Brighton is to be sold towards paying expense — of taking 

 it down, perhaps, unless some railway millionaire should happen to take a 

 fancy to it, and offer to give a good round sum for it. — about a tenth of what 

 it has cost first and last. Yet that would be horrible ! — only think of some 

 mushroom man of money installing himself in the pet place of George the 



Fourth. Poor George! poor Nash! poor Soane I methinks I hear the 

 ghosts of all the three abusing " Posterity" for its villainous taste, and for 

 committing such deadly havoc with their works. Carlton House gone, 

 George Ill's Golhic Palace at Kew gone, the Pavilion going ; Soane's 

 "Board of Trade" so metamorphosed that it does not know itself, the Scala 

 Regia going, " my Law Courts," too, going— about to be knocked down, 

 though not by George Robins' hammer, and now Buckingham Palace to 

 be improved I— improved indeed ! as if what the newspapers, at the time 

 of its being built, and John Britton also spoke of as an august metropolitan 

 palace becoming the dignity of a British sovereign, could possibly admit 

 of improvement. Oh dear !— but it is all owing to the March of Intellect. 

 VII. One comfort is that it will now be more work for the "Silver 

 Trowel," as no doubt the first stone of the new front of the Palace will be 

 laid with all due pomp and ceremony, if only for the benefit of the news- 

 papers, which invariably take prodigious interest in such operations. Prince 

 Albert must by this time be quite a proficient in the art of handling the 

 trowel, if in no other; but his Royal Highness seems more ready to lend 

 a hand that way, than at all to care what the buildings themselves will 

 turn out. There is a little pigmy— I might almost say piggish or priggish 

 —thing growing up in Oxford-street, the first stone of which was laid by 

 the Prince on the 10th of last June— happy and memorable day !— but all 

 the other stones after that first one have changed into bricks, which are to 

 be compoed over; and whatever it may turn out in other respects, the 

 front will be a most minikin affair. Moses — Minories Moses, I mean — 

 will turn up his nose at it, as a thing that he could easily stow away in 

 his own shop. Of course the Prince did not see the design, or he would 

 have employed the trowel differently from what he did, by plunging that 

 instrument into it. Hard work that some first-stone-laying, considering 

 the precious balaam that must be listened to on such occasions. However 

 the Prince is relieved from the drudgery of Cabinet-makiag. 



ARCHITECTURAL RECOLLECTIONS OF ITALY. 



By Frederick Ldsh, 



{Continued from page 231.) 

 " Architecture (where it was not a mechanical art dependent on mere convenience, and 

 upon the rule and plummet) was an emanation of the arts of design, and consequently, 

 in everything that regarded its more liberal concerns, its beautiful and majestical 

 effects, as a whole and parts, it was the pure offspring of drawing or modelling, and ab- 

 solutely and solely depended on the composition of forms, and the compositions of 

 chiar'oscuro and relicTo which those forms produced."— Barry's " Lectures on Painting." 



The most important constituents of beauty and grandeur in architec- 

 ture are mentioned in the above quotation. They can only manifest 

 themselves in art in proportion as that mind is imbued and acquainted 

 with the principles of beauty which we find are requisite for the 

 painter, and by which alone the architect is distinguished as an artist 

 who thinks and feels, from the mere mechanic who measures and 

 builds. How necessary then it is to possess these principles will be 

 very apparent. Architecture, as a fine art, must be judged of by its 

 agreeable effects and expressions — a cultivated eye or mind being the 

 arbiters in these results. But the architect must need have a strong per- 

 ception of several painter-like qualities — of the composition of beautiful 

 forms, chiar 'oscuro, and relievo — before he can give that expressive cha- 

 racter to his works which fills and elevates the mind, iu the same manner 

 as poetry and painting. To accomplish this end is the chief glory and 

 ambition of the architect. But to what motives and to what ignorance 

 are such noble ends too often sacrificed ? 



This art being in its nature so utilitarian, necessarily demands an ac- 

 quaintance with those general principles of art which, combined with its 

 utility and fitness, may afterwards invest it with that poetic character 

 which all works must have whose ultimate and grand object is to affeet 

 the imagination. The Italians, at the revival of art, who applied the 

 principles of painting, i. e., drawing, harmony of light and shade, &c., lo 

 architecture, eminently succeeded in this particular ; but their works, and 

 the effects they produce, could never have been created but by this com- 

 bination. Were proofs wanting, look at Michael Angelo— perhaps the 

 grandest painter, one of the greatest architects ; look at St. Peter's and 

 his other works. Then Raffaele, greatest in expression and beauty as a 

 painter, is he not elegant and beautiful in his architecture? Villa Madania 

 ana other buildings may occur to the reader as illustrations of this truth. 

 Again, what is more elegant, simple, and lovely, than the Campanile of 

 the Duomo, at Florence ? And was this not the work of a painter, and 

 when painting was in its early days of purity ? Yes ; Giotto was great 



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