1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



369 



mihtktij and the crooked policy of the Romish church. This instance, 

 however, is not even alkuled to by Mr. Lewis ; so far from giving 

 modern architects and artists credit for any ideas half so ingenious, he 

 complains that they have not only abandoned all " intelligence of de- 

 sign," but more or less paganized our churches, and made them com- 

 pounds of " classical heathenism." In his horror of heathenism he is, 

 in fact, a second Welby Piigin, .ind perhaps the more consistent 

 writer of the two. Yes, he is consistent and he is honest, wliich, as 

 the world goes, are two especially rare merits, although his honesty is 

 not of a kind at all likely to recommend him, because he blurts out 

 sundry highly disagreeable remarks against many of our architectural 

 idols — " tiine-liallowed " and "book-hallowed " structures, for which 

 our implicit and uninquiring admiration is claimed as matter of course, 

 or rather as matter of faith. So far from sparing the " wonderful " 

 Sir Christopher Wren, Mr. Lewis treats that " illustrious architect " 

 very cavalierly indeed, calling him, in all but direct terms, an igno- 

 ramus and a bungler ; for which he will, no doubt, now get a sound 

 drubbing from Professor Cockerell. But it is not merely particular 

 buildings or architects that Mr. Lewis attacks, he goes much further, 

 and loudly reprobates the whole of the present system of our archi- 

 tectural doctrine and taste, urging us to "shake olFtlie trumpery tram- 

 mels that have been placed upon us by unnatural education"! This 

 is, indeed, startling, and most awfully so ! What is, in such case, to 

 become of such venerable authorities as the great Vitruvius and the 

 great Palladio ? — what of the Professors who look up to them for in- 

 spiration? The former would be damned, the others "unfrocked." 

 Neither is this all ; for Mr. Lewis is such an ultra-reformer, and so 

 obstinately consistent that he is not disposed to tolerate heathenism in 

 our literary education. The man is so blind tliat he does not perceive 

 how highly proper it is that our youth should be early initiated into 

 the mysteries of heathen mythology, become familiar with the lewd 

 amours of Jupiter ana the other Olympian scoundrels ; or with revolt- 

 ing and unutterable impurities in the classic poets, which elder 

 school-boys translate for the edification of their juniors. He is for 

 tolerating nothing of the kind ; on the contrary, he would fain cleanse 

 the Augean stable of classical art, and ruthlessly despoil our galleries 

 of their most valued treasures, — even of such innocent subjects as 

 combats between Centaurs and Lapithae, and Greeks and Amazons. 

 With reference to these, "Who would suppose," he asks, "that such 

 disgraceful acts should be considered as fit and proper subjects of 

 study for our youth in this Christian country ? Is the act of one man 

 chopping down another worthy of imitation, or the monstrous brute in 

 human form running his sword through the body of an Amazon an idea 

 sufficiently refined to place before our youth — for their improvement ? 

 Perhaps we shall be told, that as they have been considered by com- 

 mittees of art to be most exalted works, that they are perfection, and 

 therefore placed in the Museum and National Gallery, that the public 

 may learn how to admire acts of cruelty, and our youth to become 

 skilled in murderous and artificial attitudes, that they may be enabled 

 to produce such sublime and beautiful works as will tend to the en- 

 lightenment of the irreligious and immoral. Such are some of the 

 absurdities that are established for the improvement of the rising 

 generation. Need we wonder, then, at our inability to produce origi- 

 nal designs? Can it be otherwise ? Certainly it will not be while 

 Pagan, Greek, and Roman works of art are to be considered the foun- 

 dation on which our youth are to be instructed. No style should be 

 held up for imitation, however sublime it may be. Every work of 

 art should be purely an invention; and whether it is to be a church 

 or a picture, the designs for either should arise out of the subject." 

 This will serve as a specimen, though but a mere specimen, of Mr. 

 Lewis' doctrine — singular, perhaps offensive, nor the less so because 

 it is impossible to gainsay it without touching upon very dangerous 

 ground, and attempting formally to defend a very great deal that our 

 convenient hypocrisy now winks at. 



II. The " Institute," it may be presumed, are very little aware what 

 a dreadful architectural heretic they have admitted among them as 

 one of their foreign members, in the person of Alexander Brnilov or 

 Brinlov of St. Petersburg. In a letter of his dated from Naples, 



April ilst, 1S25, and published shortly afterwards in a Russian jour- 

 nal, he expresses himself not a little contemptuously in regard to the 

 manner in which architects who go thither for study and improvement 

 occupy themselves in Italy. " It may appear," he says, " exceedingly 

 strange and even absurd to many — more especially to i\io%e. fanatics in 

 architecturt who have no notion of, nor care for any thing beyond their 

 compasses and rule — that an architect should employ himself with 

 painting brushes and palette ; but without attempting to justify my- 

 self, or to point out what does and what does not belong to au archi- 

 tect's studies, I will only say that the more variml thev are by being 

 extended to other branches of art, the more likely are architects to 

 become ai/isfx, and to give evidence of being such, in their immediate 

 profession. Therefore, although I am very far from reckoning my- 

 self among those who are gifted with a variety of talents, I do not 

 scruple to take up with other pursuits besides those which more di- 

 rectly belong to me as an architect. Is it not far better, in fact, to 

 occupy one's-self with what will improve one's taste and imagination, 

 than to pore over a shapeless mass of stones and rubbish, idly con- 

 jecturing to what edifice they once belonged, or as idly pronouncing 

 what such edifice originally was ? — yet, after such fashion it is that 

 many of those who visit Italy pursue their architectural studies. I 

 do not, however, go so far as some do, and say that the architect can 

 learn nothing in Italy that he might not equally well do at home, but I 

 will say, that if, after wandering through the Vatican, and among the 

 temples and other ruins of ancient Rome, an architect does not feel 

 that he has caught something like inspiration from them — does not feel 

 elevated by the idea that he also is called to be an artist — the only, at 

 least the best thing he can do, is to fling away his compasses, and 

 betake himself to any other calling." How far Bruilov himself de- 

 serves to rank as an artist in his profession, I am unable to say, nor 

 does Nagler afford me any assistance, for he merely mentions a single 

 work of his, viz., the new Observatory at St. Petersburg; it may 

 therefore be a welcome though small addition to that meagre piece of 

 information to state that among other buildings by him are the fol- 

 lowing ones : The Mikhailovsky Theatre, opened in 1S38 ; the Lu- 

 theran Church, St. Petersburg (Gothic) ; several of the apartments in 

 the new Winter Palace ; and a Gothic Church at Pargalova. 



III. A writer upon architectural subjects in the Spectator, who, upon 

 the whole, exhibits both cleverness and smartness, is occasionally sadly 

 at fault, .and most assuredly so when he expresses somewhat like sur- 

 prise that bow windows should not be thrown out " in front of almost 

 every London dwelling." No doubt a bow window is very agreeable 

 in a room, but then it is so only so long as it is a privilege. Were 

 every house in a street to have such windows, instead of being able 

 " to see up and down the street," people would only see that their 

 neighbour's bows on each side of them were very great bores — posi- 

 tive nuisances, not only as intercepting their prospect, but destroying 

 their privacy, rendering it impossible for them to pass to and fro 

 that part of the room without being subjected to the importinent gaze 

 of the " peojde at the next door." A single bow-fronted house in a 

 spacious street or square may be a luxury to the fortunate occupier ot 

 it ; neither would there be much inconvenience attending the making 

 a bow to every house, provided every house had a frontage equal to 

 that of the National Gallery ; but for our scanty and narrow-fronted 

 London houses, they are out of the question. A series of bows would 

 cut up the side of a street into a series of awkward projections, sepa- 

 rated from each other only by narrow strips of flat wall. So far, 

 therefore, our street architecture would not be at all imjiroved. In 

 fact, unless a "bow " be of such extent as to be, not a mere feature in 

 it, but a portion of the entire front, it would be exceedingly difficult 

 to make any thing tolerable of it externally, in either the Grecian or 

 Italian style. After all, too, the sitting at a window merely to look 

 up and down the street is very melancholy work. 



J congress of nrcltiucts at Lcipsic— ihe first assemblage of arti.sts ever held 

 in Germany— met on the 14th Sept., U) the number of 517. nini> of whom 

 were Englislnncn. The town cf Biimlirrg, in Bavaria, has been fi^eJ on .is 

 the place ul' llieir meetiiiiT next year. 



3 r 



