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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[Jan. 



iectural comjje/ilions " .' Unfortunately, the established custom is exactly 

 the reverse of what the Western Times, in its simplicity or its ignorance, has 

 conceived it to be. Any exhibition of the kind at all is quite an exception 

 from the general rule, the established custom being not to allow the designs 

 to be seen, if it can possibly be avoided ; Ijccause, if they are, the comparisons 

 made, and the opinions expressed, may be any thing but complimentary to 

 the judgment and taste of the selecting committee. The public is a strongly 

 inquisitive animal that, if not prevented, would be poking its nose in every- 

 where. It is an impertinent, busybody, mischief-maker, that would fain pry 

 into all the arcana of competitions, and the ingenious secret manoeuvrings 

 and plottings of those who manage them. In short, the public is such a pro- 

 fane beast, that I wonder no one has contrived some mode of knocking it on 

 the head at once. It is, therefore, to the honour of competition committees 

 they do their best to get rid of it. 



VII. " Oil la ver/ti va-t-elle se richer ! " was the exclamation of Moliere 

 on one well known occasion ; and, substituting virtu for the other word, it 

 was mine a few days ago, ou quitting a bookseller's shop where a gentleman 

 had been purchasing some very costly foreign works on art. " You have 

 there a most excellent customer," said I, after the stranger had departed j 

 " pray who may he be — is he a professional man, or some wealthy amateur ? ' 

 " Perhaps you will be somewhat surprised when I inform you that that gen- 



tieman is no other than Mr. of Fleet Street." " What ! the same 



who keeps the shop there ? " The same." " And does he purchase 



many works of this description ? " " Yes ; he is a very diiferent customer 



from Mr. whom you saw here the other day, a bachelor with twenty 



thousand a year, and who has somehow got the reputation of being a person 

 of great taste, an admirer and patron of the fine arts ; yet, as yo\i saw, stood 

 haggling about a two guinea book, which he has not yet made up his mind 

 whether to have or not. But perhaps," added my friend somewhat sarcas- 

 tically, " as he has got the repuation for being a very great amateur of the 

 fine arts, he may as well keep his cash in his pocket." " Hang him for a 

 hypocritical curmudgeon ! But I hope you do not find many of his stamp." 

 " More, I am sorry to say among persons of that class, than would be gene- 

 rally supposed." " Y'et among professional men of the wealthier sort, you 

 must sell a great many foreign architectural works." " There, I assure yon, you 



are quite mistaken ; I have hardly a customer of the kind. There is Mr. , 



Mr. , and Sir , all of whom it might be supposed would 



liberally encourage and subscribe to every architectural publication of impor- 

 tance, yet I have heard that they never buy a book at all, though they are 

 by no means backward — two of them, at least, in borrowing them if they can." 

 ' ' Then the greater asses those lenders who r.ccommodate such niggardly, 

 skinflint borrowers. Such fellows would not be ashamed to borrow a dinner, 

 and then return it second-hand. Do you find the nobility buy many books of 

 the kind?" "I have very few indeed of them ever come here. My best 



customer of that kind is a lady — the Countess of , to whom I have 



sold a great many French aud German architectural publications." " Xai 

 the British iluieum ? inquired I. " Why, Sir, as to the British Museum, 

 that, I suppose, you can answer for yourself. I dare say you know tolerably 

 well what works of the kind are not to be found there." " Indeed I do ; and 

 know that while tliat national concern seems to be a repository for all the 

 accumulated rubbish of our national literature, it is most shamefully defec- 

 tive in modern foreign publications on architecture and art generally. 



HINTS ON ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM.— Part 4. 



The Recapitdl.\tiov. 



To reduce the foregoing observations into order ; we discover architecture 

 to be highly poetical, first, from the suggestive power which she exercises, 

 that is, from her aliiUty to move us towards some idea of beauty, or sublimity, 

 by attitude, or the expression of forms, as also by relative position ; and 

 secondly, from her independence of mere proportion, which is essential only 

 to delight, or that satisfaction which may or may not create delight. It will 

 be seen further, that no attempt is made to trifle with constructive talent, 

 nor to infringe on the properties and harmonies of proportion, the former of 

 w liich may still le scientifically viewed, and the latter agreeably entertained : 

 but it will be seen, that, for tlie purposes of criticism, architecture has been 

 viewed as a fine art, and that as such, her power over the emotions has been 

 briefly considered to support her claims to the rank of a fine art. We per- 

 ceive that poetry does not necessarily imply imitation, but that arts which are 

 not descriptive, or imitative, may induce emotion. It would be unphiloso- 

 phical to retread ground, further to confirm what has been assumed, but it 



may be here remarked that compositions very often maintain their influence 

 by the indistinctness of the idea they foster, and that what is so remarkable 

 in poetry, viz., the sign of the effect, instead of the sign of its cause, being 

 the origin of emotion, is also applicable in a similar way to architecture. The 

 poet struck with some subliiue idea, often paints the idea, rather than the 

 cause of that idea, and this it is, which makes some of the denunciations of 

 prophetic poesy so overwhelming ; the mind having no definite idea of woe, 

 but on the contrary : — and the cause is obvious, for the feelings of a poet 

 being stronger than his reason, and those feelings being uppermost, he e.x- 

 presses Ihern. Hence arises the power of poetry, which is never truer than 

 when it exhibits its effects upon a mind. In the following passage from 

 Isaiah, nothing can be more effective. — " The noise of a multitude in the 

 mountains, like as of a great people, a tumultuous noise of the kingdotns of 

 nations gathered together ; the Lord of Hosts mustereth the hosts of the 

 battle." Here we have grand and mighty images, engnlphing our reason ; — 

 confusion of noises, and mvltitudes, and great people — tumnltuous noises, king- 

 doms of nations — the Lord of Hosts — the hosts of the battle. No one I think 

 will contend against the poetic grandeur of such a description, if description 

 it may be called, yet where can be found any thing about it, to give an ade- 

 quately clear idea, of the movements of the .\lmighty, by whom, as Lord of 

 hosts, we are arrested : we go indeed almost beyond the pale of nature by 

 contemplation. I quote in this manner from holy writ, not for the purpose 

 of allowing the sublime images of the bible, to become the pivot of an argu- 

 mentative treatise upon the power of art, but to show the origin of our emo- 

 tion. Now in architecture, many a man has felt something of this, when 

 entering the cathedral ; and this does not arise from our love of antiquity, 

 which is quite difierent in its effects, and which I will hereafter ti-y to make 

 clear, but from the mysterious union of vastness and of infinity, of obscure 

 images and of intricate beauties, amidst which reason is overwhelmed. So 

 that, in judging of poetry, we very often judge of the emotion, and pronounce 

 a composition as being good, or bad, according to whether the state of mind 

 it is intended to plinige us into, is evenly, or unevenly sustained : — and this 

 is essentially the iffovince of criticism. And here I cannot help noticing the 

 opinion whicli many entertain, of any attempt to reason philosophically upon 

 works of art, in sujiposing' that tlie promoter of such an attempt, is neces- 

 sarily trying to lay down some fundamental law, by which the artist is to be 

 ruled. It is impossible for any one, however vast his mind, or delicate his 

 perception, or care, to regulate the artist in his choice or adnptation of mate- 

 rials, because the relations of a composition vary to infinity, aud the mind, 

 which could conceive a code of laws, would have to anticipate every possible 

 relation. Criticism undoubtedly tends to invigorate and chasten, and one of 

 the signs of refinement in any art, is the pure language and sentiment of its 

 critics ; but criticism is no more than an echo of sensibihty subdued into a 

 whisper, or swelling into jiraise, according as the judgment admits by degrees 

 the full force of a composition. And all this accords precisely with a true 

 definition of taste, for the degrees of difference between the opinions of a 

 polished and an unpolished age, are, as the power of perceiving the influence 

 of associations upon the mind. For be it remembered that the influence of 

 associations varies, with our improved ideas concerning them ; whilst a com- 

 position is not always judged by the intrinsic features of design, but by the 

 ideas currcrit concerning those features, and by the activity or stagnation of 

 those ideas. Any one who has seen specimens of Indian carving, must have 

 been struck with their representation of God, which they contrive by imitat- 

 ing no one thing, but by mixing what Horace ridicules in his art of poetry. 

 Now they admire what we condemn and ridicule. We criticise their most 

 adored objects of art by a smile, because our ideas of that awful being tell us 

 that no attribute of his is exhibited. Had any barbarian of old exhibited his 

 design to an Etruscan, in the days of Zeuxis, how would the Etruscan, versed 

 from divination in forms, have smiled if the design had represented a group 

 of animals ? Just so is it with architectural criticism, which scarcely out of 

 its cradle, begins to feel shocked at the vulgar opinions of cotemporaries, and 

 this is the point I wished to arrive at, viz., to show the necessity to lay down 

 some general idea of the duties of a critic, and of the vast field over which 

 his sensibilities and judgment must move. I am aware that against such an 

 attempt there are two objections ; first, from the nature of the employment, 

 which generally raises up an army of critics, like gnats to sting secretly and 

 on the wing ; and secondly, from that dearth of genuine poetry amongst us, 

 which begets indiflerencc to such themes ; but I still hope to contend for the 

 duties of criticism, satisfied that though such attempts be ridiculed now, they 

 will not be hereafter. 



Fkedf.kick East. 

 December 18il. 



