1S42.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



23 



ON ARCHITECTURAL PRECEDENT. 



No two classes of men ap|icar to have so great a respect lor precedent as 

 lawyers and architects ; by the one it is lookcil upon as of more importance 

 than equity, and by the other it is appealed to as being a greater authority 

 tlian any abstract principles of beauty or fitness; a juilgmenl biaseil by the 

 errors of our ancestors is considered as the best guide for conduct in modern 

 times by the lawyer, and the architect uniformly persists in copying the <lc- 

 signs of the ancients, however unsuitable they may be to tlie habits of the 

 present day. 



The universality of this prejudice in the case of the architect is eridcntly 

 attributable to the system adopted iu his education. X youth is taken into 

 an architect's ofSce, and the first principle of any iniiiortancc that he learns 

 is that " it is impossible to excel the ancients, and that the only thing we 

 moilerns can do is to cojiy their works -." he sees .ill around him engaged in 

 making designs in accordance with the good old patterns, and is perhaps 

 himself chiefly employed in preparing enlargements after some of the ancient 

 examples : any natural taste that he may have for ornamental designing is 

 checked, by telling him that he will never be able to come up to the works 

 of our predecessors, and that he would be employing his time much better in 

 studying the precedents handed down to us. The consequence is that he 

 gradually imbibes the same veneiation for antiquity that influences his seniors, 

 and at the tenuination of his pupilage, instead of having had his natural 

 creative talent brought to some perfection, he is probably as little capable of 

 oriyiiialing anything worthy of admiration as he was at the time he was 

 articled; and he commences his professional career with the same determina- 

 tion to adhere to classic precedent that characterised his instructors ; and 

 this resolution being the result of a prejudice implanted in youth, is rarely to 

 be removed by any arguments that may be adduced. 



Surely it is sadly derogatory to the dignity of the profession, to have to 

 acknowledge, that out of all the arts practised by the modems, arciiitccture 

 forms the only case (with the exception of sculpture;, in which the ancients 

 liave not been for outshone : such a conviction in the mind of an architect is 

 certainly rather inconsonant with due respect eitlier for himself or for liis 

 employment. 



Is it then to be wondered at that there sliould be that want of public 

 respect towards the profession frequently complained of by architects .' Is it 

 likely that society should entertain any high veneration for an art whose very 

 professors acknowledge themselves to be mere copyists .' 



Many persons will say that painting should be included amongst the arts 

 m which we have not excelled the ancients. Perhaps in no one case is the 

 notorious gtdlibility of John Dull more glaringly instanced than in the almost 

 nniversal veneration for old pictures ; every one sets himself up as a critic in 

 such matters, even though he never made use of a pencil or brush in his life, 

 and if a specimen coming under his notice happens to have the appearance 

 of age, it immediately elicits great approbation, probably expressed in a string 

 of cant phrases, which he recollects to have heard used on similar occasions : 

 U however any attempt he made to ascertain the meaning of these expressions, 

 the interrogator may consider himself clever if he can identify any ideas at- 

 tached to them; not one in fifty who alTect to be judges of the old masters 

 can really give any sensible reasons for the preference he pretends to have 

 for their works. 



Tlic public generally arc aware of the advantage continually taken by pic- 

 ture venders of this undue devotion to what is old ; it is almost their every- 

 day practice to secure some of the more spiritless of the modem paintings, 

 and after having hung them for some time in a smoky room, and otherwise 

 dijguised their juvenile appearance, to palm them ofl' upon these pseudo-con- 

 uoistcurs u being some of tlie finest works of the old masters. 



And yet notwithstanding the notoriety of this practice, and the conchtsive 

 eviilence it affords that a great part of the supposed superiority of the old 

 paintings is chimerical, the prejudice of society in their favour appears to be 

 nearly as strong as ever. 



The permanency of colouring, and the transparency of shailc appear to be 

 the only points in which we have been really excelled in this art by our an- 

 cestors. These are certainly two very desirable qualities, and their attain- 

 ment is well worthy of attention, but after all they merely appertain to the 

 mechanical department ; the mixing of colours that shall be the most stable 

 or the most transparent, can hardly be put upon a par with purity of artistical 

 feeling or excellence of composition ; surely the mere technicalities of the 

 art are not to be compared with the grand imaginings of a Martin, or llie 

 exquisite truth of a Land seer. 



The fact is that this affected admintion for the productions of our fore- 

 fathers is only another development of that most abominable of maxims " do 

 as the tforlj dom :" men mixing with society find it the custom to enlarge 

 upon the inferiority of modern art, and to laud the ancients, and even though 

 they may have sufficient t.iste to see the injustiic of the censure, they 

 acquiesce in the opinion rather than endure the sneers of their associates. 



But to return. — In attempting to prove the possibiUiy oi improvement 

 upon the architecture of former ages, I am triumphantly met by au opponent 

 with the fact that there hare been men who sconied to follow in the beaten 

 track ; who have struck out a new path for themselves, and have attempted 

 to originate new styles but h.ive signally failed. Now what is there to he 

 surprised at in this - Is it likely that out of all the architects existing in 

 England, that the man who happens to he the most independent and liberal 

 minded should of course be the one best fitted to carry out his views, and to 

 compete with the combined efforts of the ancients .' 



Is it likely that amidst all tlic opposition of the ad;nircrs of antiquity, the 

 prejudices of the public, and the jeers of the profession, that he should suc- 

 ceed iu his endeavours ': Is it probalde that when lenctation after genera- 

 tion have been engaged in servile copyism, and thai all exercise of original 

 taste has been discouraged under the belief that it was impossible to excel, 

 that a man should spring up who should at once be able to vie with the 

 ertbrts of those whose forefathers had been in the continual exercise of their 

 powers of design ? The faculty of creating new forms is obedient to the 

 same laws that govern the other attributes of the mind, and is only to be 

 developed by constant practice, and the Iraiismission of the talent from father 

 to son ; and if this talent has been allowed to lie dormant for generations, its 

 power will gradually be reduced, in accordance with the same law that what 

 is no longer exercised to the same extent, no longer retains the same capa- 

 bility. 



There is then no ground for surprise that the architects of the present day 

 shotdd be unable to produce any thing superior to what already exists ; it is 

 even probable that if they were una'iimous iu attempting to originate, they 

 would all fall short of what has already been done : but what would that 

 prove r not that it is impossible to fix up a higher standard than that hitherto 

 attained, but simply that the faculty of design requires redevelopment, hav- 

 ing lost ground from want of practice during the latter ages. In short to use 

 something hke a truism, it is evident that so long as architects retain the be- 

 lief that they cannot excel the ancients, they never wilL 



Tiie influence of precedent has been much increased by unfair criticism ; 

 it has been the universal custom to enlarge upon all the beauties of the old 

 buildings, and to pass over all the defects, and on the other hand all the im- 

 perfections of the moderu ones are sought out and magnified, and all the 

 merits passed over as unworthy of remark. The fact is that to an tinpreju- 

 diced eye there are in many ancient examples far more glaring errors than in 

 any modern buildings of the same character. For instance, if I recollect 

 rightly, in the nave of Glo'ster Cathedral, we have ranges of plain and massive 

 Norman columns supporting small circular Norman arches, producing the 

 impression of great stability, and then we find the adjoining aisles lighted by 

 pointed Gothic windows, with all the usual characteristic lightness of this 

 style of architecture. What can be more inharmonious than such a mixture .* 

 If one of the moderns had perpetrated such au incongruity, his reputation as 

 a man of taste woidd have been irrecoverably lost. 



Again, if one of the profession of the present day, a little more liberal than 

 his brethren, happens iu making a design in accordance with the style of 

 some particular period, to introdnce an ornament which was onlj used at 

 some other era, although all the architects in England should not be able to 

 otler any cogent reason why it should not harmonise with the other features 

 of the building, he is at once sneereil at by the crili'-. and stigmatized as a 

 man of no purity of taste. But on the other hand if there should chance to 

 be in the elevation of some cathedral a range of Gothic windows with angles 

 of half a dozen ditfercnt degrees of aeuteness, producing evident want of unity 

 in character, and any one draws attention to the fact as a great defect, the 

 case is quite different — Oh, no ! this is one of the works of our great ances- 

 tors, and we nuist not dare to criticise the designs of such superior men. 



It is inueh to be regretted that such erroneous impressions respecting the 

 ancients and their works should ever have crept into society : that same 

 veneration for antiquity, is one of the greatest olistacles, not only to the ad- 

 vancement of architecture, but to the progress of every species of improve- 

 ment. Perhaps no more ctTectual method could be ailopted to lower the 

 dignity of mankind, and to reduce the general tone of society, than to spurn 

 the doctrine of the superiority of our predecessors : no method better cal- 

 culated to produce want of confidence and couiequeut danger of incapabiUly, 



