1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



Si 



be hailed with satisfaction. The Greeks never tapered their square 

 columns or pilasters; uor did the Romans, in some of their best erec- 

 tions, as for instance, the portico of the Pantheon. I beg to call the 

 attention of the profession to this, as I have heard a contrary opinion 

 expressed in this countr)'. You will find the pilasters of the portico 

 in Upper Gardiner Street partially tapered ; which is surprising, as a 

 Greek model appears to have been taken for the Ionic capitals of its 

 columns. In the same example may be seen the poverty of a four 

 columned portico, as the tympanum of such a structure must neces- 

 sarily appear heavy, ami have too high and abrupt a jjitch. Still it is 

 in better taste than the unfinished and much admired Vandal portico 

 of St. Thomas's church. It has been considered by many, that the 

 circumstance of this latter portico being allowed to remain unfinished 

 is discreditable to the parish; but tha reverse of this conclusion is 

 nearer the truth, as far as architectural taste is concerned. 



Gable-lopjxd mindoics and doors. — Of all the strange devices of 

 which I have given a list, this is the most strange. The earliest ex- 

 ample of this practice with w hich I am acquainted, is to be found in 

 the Pantheon at Rome, the most recent in our own city ; of late it has 

 been discontinued in London, but still finds admirers in Dublin. I do 

 not know whether we are indebted to an architect for this, but I pre- 

 sume not. And here I may allude to the practice of taking builders 

 out of their proper sphere, and allowing them to supercede the archi- 

 tect. This is as foolish as it would be (could we suppose it possible,) 

 that one whose personal tabernacle required repair, should have re- 

 course to the manipulator of medicines, instead of the well informed 

 professor of the healing art. But I must add, if the art is to be laiight 

 from the dogmas of Vitruvius, and adorned from the designs of Palla- 

 dio, it matters not to us on whose shoulders the mantle of patronage 

 may fall, on that of A. or B., the architect or builder. After all, it 

 may be my misfortune not to be able to appreciate the beauty of the 

 building in question ; no doubt posterity will do it justice, for it will 

 come under their notice as the property of the President of the Royal 

 Institute of the Architects of Ireland. 



The profession of architecture in this country is placed in a false 

 position — pressed on the one hand by that of aspirant builders, and 

 neglected on the other by a diactniiug public, which is not only unable 

 to decide on their respective merits, but is also ignorant of those 

 principles on which alone good taste is founded. Under these cir- 

 cumstances, it is not surprising that every edifice assuming an archi- 

 tectural form, is praised or revileil according to the number and influ- 

 ence of the friends of the architect. Committees and individuals re- 

 quiring architectural plans, decide on the relative merits of designs 

 submitted for their inspection, more from the beauty of the drawing, 

 than any reference to the efteet likely to be produced in stone and 

 mortar: hence he who is the best draughtsman will be the most for- 

 tunate competitor ; and the work may be executed without producing 

 credit to himself, or satisfaction to his employers. This state of 

 things could not exist, if public taste were better informed. 



The Pantheon wiis first used as a church by Pope Boniface IV., at 

 the commencement of the 7th century ; but the state of the arts in 

 those days forbids us to suppose the altars had not been erected be- 

 fore that period ; they are supposed to have been added by Septimus 

 Sevenis. Almost all the Vandal school have left specimens of this 

 innovation. Palladio, M. Angelo, Inigo Jones, Sir C. Wren, Sir Wm. 

 Chambers, and many others of our own times, who seem to follow, for 

 no better reason than because others have led the way. Some of 

 these architects, conceiving, I presume, that variety is pleasing, 

 give us a gable-topped and an elliptic bed-topped window alter- 

 nately. 



When I see a well proportioned window or door thus disfigured, I 

 am forcibly reminded of the story of the worthy country squim, who 

 liired a strolling artist to paint wigs on the heads of Vandyke's por- 

 traits of his ancestors. I was unable to discover the use of thcsi? 

 window tops until I saw, on the front of one of Palladio's palaces in 

 Italy, two undraped colossal figures, reclining in a perilous posture 

 above each window, literally in a li'li-a-trle position, like slack-rope 

 dancers resting themselves. Would it nut be in better taste to con. 



sider these window-tops as hobby-horses, and place a saddle and a 

 rider on the summit of each, in a more secure position. 



Sicclkd Friezis. — This invention bears a close resemblance to an 

 article of dress said to have been used by our great grandmothers, 

 called a buatle ; and if it be true that these ancient dames wore any 

 such ornament, no doubt the hint was taken from them. 



I cannot discover that the ladies of old ever placed the bustle on 

 the front elevation, as we see it in the Bank of Ireland ; nor can I from 

 memory say whether the old lady in Tbreadneedle-street has it or not 

 If the frieze were constructed of any plastic material, such as wet clay, 

 this is exactly the form it would take on being subject to pressure 

 from above ; therefore it indicates weakness. As bustles have long 

 since gone out of ^hion, we may hope the swelled frieze will follow. 

 On examining the Bank of Ireland, you will rind it discontinued on the 

 east, and afterwards on the west front, for which the architect of that 

 portion of the building deserves great credit. 

 The last subject of the list is — 



Broktn lints and partial projections. — A knowledge of painting and 

 sculpture is among the many requisites laid down by Vitruvius, as 

 necessary to constitute an accomplished architect. But architecture 

 has suflTered in the hands of the professors of the sister arts ; and M. 

 Angelo, Buonarrotti, and Raffaelle have tarnished their bright fame 

 by their architectural productions. Inigo Jones left England as a 

 painter, and returned as an architect. 



The finest field that ever was opened for the genius of man, pre- 

 sented itself to M. ^Vngelo. He enjoyed the patronage of Leo X., a 

 prince born of a race of patrons of the arts. Rome presented to him 

 a vast quarry of marble, ready chiselled ; he was required to erect on 

 the Capitoline a building for a senate-house and museum, near the 

 site of the Temple of Jupiter, which once crowned the mount " the 

 pride of Rome, the admiration of the world." Before him lay the 

 ruins of the Forum Romanum, and on his left that of Trajau ; to the 

 right and behind he had ruins of temples, triumphal arches, and co- 

 lumns in abundance : he began by turning his back on the Roman 

 Forum and all the beauties of art which it presented to him, and con- 

 structed three sides of a square, mean, trifling, and frivolous in design, 

 presenting specimens of nearly all the monstrosities of the Vandal 

 style. He has adorned Rome after the manner of Palladio, his cotem- 

 jiorary ; but his works stand no comparison with the still existing 

 monuments of past glory: and the descendants (if such there be) of 

 the Scipios, the Ciceros, and of him who was " the noblest Roman of 

 them all," although the possession of St. Peter's may flatter their va- 

 nity, yet sigh as they pass on — ma Roma, Roma, non epiu com era prima. 

 It must be admitted that M. Angelo's lofty dome on St. Peter's, and 

 the cornice on the Faranese Palace, redeem his name from indis- 

 criminate censure. It was part of his plan to make St. Peter's a Greek 

 instead of a Latin cross, and to give it a portico like the Pantheon. 

 As it is, the exterior of the dome cannot be seen from ordinary situa- 

 tions; and in taking the design before you, the painter must have 

 been on the top of one of the houses between the church and the 

 Tiber. 



Canova, too, the bright star of modern sculpture, into whose works 

 the spirit of the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon is instilled, has left 

 us a design for a church, sufficient to show that he studied not the 

 architecture as he did the sculpture of ancient Greece. 



In fact, painters cannot well be good architects, as far as the Greek 

 style is concerned. Accustomed to feel that " there is no beauty in 

 straight lines," they break up the building for the purpose of giving 

 pictorial eflfect to the design, and "however contradictory it nny be 

 in geometry, it is true in taste, that many little things will not make a 

 great one." An architectural drawing uf a (ireek subject is a slifli 

 formal production, totally diflerent from Hogarth's line of beauty. 

 Models are the fittest representations for the public to judge from. 

 Take this temple and break np all its cornices; place its columns in 

 any line but a straight one, and the painter w ill prefer it for a subject ; 

 but if in that state it be raised in stone, its beauty will be lost, because 

 its simplicity will be destroyed. According to Burko, simplicity is a 

 source of beauty — it is essential to that of Grecian architecture. 



