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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[September, 



universal knowledge to assist him even in liis own particular brancli, so that 

 he might be at tlie public command on any emergency. It would seem very 

 odd now, if the State were to call on the Dul;e of M'ellington to take his 

 brush and commence the fresco painting in the new Houses of Parliament ; 

 and yet such a call was not uncommon in the fifteenth century. Vfc bear of 

 Michael Angelo summoned from his labours iu the Sistine chapel, to prepare 

 ■without delay the fortifications of Florence, then expecting a siege. \Ye hear 

 also of Leonardo da Vijici, on being invited to paint for the Duke of Milan, 

 beginning his labours by making canals ami bridges ; and yet, I apprehend, 

 his sublime picture of the Last Supper did not suffer from this abstraction, 

 for it still remains a miracle of art ; or that Michael Angelo's fortifications 

 did not help the less to save the city, although he was painting fresco just 

 before at Rome. This universal knowledge is one of the characteristics of 

 the fifteentli centurj- all over Europe. Vt'e find similar examples in our own 

 country in the time of Elizabeth, particularly in the class of soldier-poets, 

 and such like men, even music being included in the accomplishments of a 

 complete gentleman. I do not insist now on the necessity of possessing 

 this variety of power; but I would declare, as regards painting, that our 

 present slender circumscribed knowledge can never produce historical paint- 

 l^ers, or even their patrons. It nuist be universal knowledge and love of the 

 arts, not only as regards itself, but as regards its connexion with all other 

 arts and sciences. I want to see ray deserving countrymen, the English 

 painters, ranking with the best, and British painting arm-in-arm with poetry 

 and philosophy, which it is not now, in place of grubbing among the me- 

 chanical trades, with an exhibition room here and there, as " a house of call 

 for painters and glaziers." The liberal encouragement of painting must be 

 advanced, not by our painters shutting themselves up and prowling about 

 •with it a secret, save on the temptation of a five-guinea lesson — no; the 

 casket must be unlocked and the key thrown away, and the public instructed 

 in the principles of art. There are no secrets in art ; though art is not to be 

 understood without an effort on the part of the public, and is only to be ac- 

 quired by artists after long years of ardent and sincere study. The greatness 

 of painting must be in its difficulty, and not in its secrecy. It must be in its 

 principles and not in its vehicles ; the public must become, as it were, a 

 scholar to the painter. And why not .' Why should not the artists them- 

 selves try to mould and form that love which, I am certain, exists in the 

 English people, into something like knowledge ? 



In the education of painters, fresco will exercise all these good influences, 

 inasmuch as it tends to raise them to a true sense of the universality of 

 painting. It must give them, in a pecuniary point of view, the sustained 

 though moderate reward of years of constant employment, instead of the 

 intoxicating, lottery, chance system of the present day. We shall now have 

 the excellent old Italian plan of master and scholar, as in the production of 

 such extensive works many must be em))loyed, and the result will be advan- 

 tageous to both ; this we know was the greatness of RaflTaello, whose scholars 

 partake his fame, and so on down to Rubens, and his scholar Vandyke. 



Another great result will he to emancipate the art from the trammels of 

 booksellers, who, for more than half a century, have made inventive painting 

 subservient to their speculating purposes as a mere trade. This has kept 

 historical art back in comparison with the many things in which England 

 surpasses the rest of the world ; for what can be more servile than the vicious 

 system of ornamenting hooks, in which the greatest English painters have 

 exhausted and consumed their minds with little fame and less fortune ? We 

 have but to point to Stothard as a sad example ; he is said to have produced 

 some five thousand inventions in this way ! The art has sunk under such 

 baneful influence, and when pandering to the book trade in Annuals and 

 such trash, has ceased to be worthy the name of painting. This state of 

 things does not exist anywhere but in England, and is one of the reasons 

 ■why we have not been able to make another grand age of art. But our 

 painters must now turn their attention to the ornamenting of buildin"s, and 

 not books. 



The State itself must deal in painting and engraving, and directly reward 

 the artist, if it desires to have art that shall be worthy the English name. 

 This may be done with the outlay of comparatively small sums, indeed it can- 

 not be by the actual money expended, so well as by the direct intercourse of 

 the highest personages in the country with the artist, by a kind of friendlv 

 and cheap patronage (if I may so express it,) whereby the artist is drawn 

 out of his own narrow circle, and paints not only his own mind, but the 

 mind of his patron. This can only be done effectually in national subjects, 

 and I know well that the Munich artists have always worked, and prefer to 

 work, for their intelligent King, at a moderate rate, to being employed at 

 double the sum by unintelligent persons. Even as regards bis fame, the 



artist is content on the score of being employed by his sovereign. It is a 

 great mistake in this country to suppose that the encouragement of the arts 

 by the State would be an expensive thing. To get private patronage the 

 English artist is obliged to make an expensive tradesmaulike figure— this not 

 only t,akes up half his time, but it takes all his money ; whereas the sim- 

 plicity of his life, were be publicly employed, would enable him to bestow- 

 double the time on bis works, give them, of course, more study and per- 

 fection, and create a higher style of art. No doubt, the true reward of an 

 artist is the interest his patron takes in the work. Do we not hear of the 

 restless anxiety of Pope Julius to see Michael Angelo's unfinished paintings ? 

 Did not the Emperor Charles V. find time, amidst his active life, to caress 

 Titian, and learn the art from him } And thus it was with Da Vinci and 

 other great artists, whose inventions were quickened, and whose patience 

 sustained, by such an honourable sympathy. Eor how can an artist excel in 

 a work " where dawns the high expression of a mind," if, when complete, 

 it is to be received into bis patron's house like a chair or a table - Pounds, 

 shillings, and pence can never stand for painting, sculpture, and architecture; 

 we must have patronage, study and love. In a country where the historical 

 plays of Shakspeare are still listened to, and where the people never tire of 

 hearing Handel's oratorios, there can be no despair of historical painting 

 being encouraged, when it is properly jiut before the pubhc, for it requires 

 as great a mental eft'ort to relish the one as the other. English painting is 

 far behind these. We are in it what the ancients were in geography, when 

 they believed the earth to be a plane surface. We are afraid to go to the 

 real boundaries of art, and so we coast it along, like cowards, from place to 



place, as though there were no such thing as the loadstone of art as a 



painter's compass. Let us look for remedy in enlightenment. Fresco is the 

 fearless guide, and, with design for our helm, we shall soon be gloriouslv 

 sailing on the independent sea of art. 



MPv. VIGNOLES' LEC:TURE.S ON CIVIL ENGINEERING AT THE 

 LONDON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 



J.ECTl'RE X.— ON THE CrPER WOHKS OF RAILW.WS. 



Tins lecture was on the Upper M'orks of Railways, which term, the Professor 

 stated, was intended to comprehend everything above the bed or formation 

 level of the roadway— viz., the gravel, broken stone, or other road material, 

 technically called the " ballasting;" the stone blocks or wooden cross sleep- 

 ers, laid thereon ; the chairs and rails, and their fastenings, as attached to 

 the stone or timber supports ; and ihe boxing or filling up of the rojd 

 material around these supporis, when the railway is finally laid to the 

 proper gauge, range, and level— the whole of the materials and a.ijuslment 

 forming the " upper works' —an expression boixowcd from the German o!),'i- 

 u-crke. The depth from the road-bed to the level of the rails, of all these 

 parts, as permanently laid together, is seldom less than two feet, when a 

 good way is to be insured: the principle to be observed being to have Ihe 

 ballasting of such a material and nature that water will percolate freelv 

 through, as clean gravel, cinders, quarry rubbish, coarse sand, &c. The 

 word "ballast" is a norihern provincial term. Some of the first railwavs 

 weie introduced into the vicinity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. .Shields, and the 

 neighbouring coal shipping ports, and it being found necessary tu have a bed 

 or layer of some material, to receive the railway track, the same not to be 

 retentive of water, the gravel brought by the colliers from London .is ballast, 

 and accumulated in hills or spoil-banks near the sides of the harbours, was 

 found to answer the purpose very well ; the expression has since become 

 common for whatever other material was similarly used for laying railroads 

 Mr. Vignoles observed that a great number of other technical words now in 

 common use. when treating on railway works, were provincial terms, chieflv 

 from the north of England. When the bottom of cuttings, or top of em- 

 bankments, are of soft material, it was recommended to make a kind of 

 pavement or hard layer, on the forming level, below the ballast. On 

 embankments, until they became well consolidated, this pavement would not 

 perhaps be conveniently put in ; still means should be contrived to carry oft' 

 the vater quickly fnmi the surface, and the Professor irsisted much on the 

 free introduction of blind, or French drains, of broken stone, anion" or 

 under the ballast, connected with the open side drains, «hich should never 

 be omitted in cuttings ; on embankments these cross rubble drains should go 

 free of the road-bed. uith water channels down the slopes, of sods, or mo're 

 sulistantially formed if needful. 



The bed of the railw,ay having been prepared on the above principles, nest 

 came the consideration of the railway itself. The substance first used for 

 this trackway was wood, ami afterwards a metal rail, plated on the wood.; 

 after 200 years' trial of different systems— for so long was it since the firs. 



