Character of Renaissance Architecture/Chapter 1

by Charles Herbert Moore

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The great change in ideas and ideals which, after the remarkable intellectual and artistic life of the Middle Ages, was manifested in the so-called Renaissance, is not always correctly conceived or fairly stated; and the character and merits of the Fine Arts of the Renaissance, as compared with those of mediæval times, have not, I think, been often set forth in an entirely true light. Of the merits of the best Italian art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there can be no question, but the belief that this art is altogether superior to that of the Middle Ages will not bear examination in the light of impartial comparison.

The Fine Arts are always an expression of the historical antecedents, the intellectual, moral, and material conditions, and the religious beliefs of the peoples and epochs to which they belong. They derive their whole character from these antecedents and conditions, and cannot be rightly understood or appreciated without reference to them. Thus a brief consideration of these conditions in the Middle Ages on the one hand, and in the period of the Renaissance on the other, may help us to understand the nature of the above-mentioned change, and to gain a more discriminating appreciation of the real character of the artistic productions of the latter epoch.

During the Middle Ages ideas and imagination were governed by a religious faith which, though in many ways mistaken and misguided, was for the most part firm and unquestioning. Mediæval Christianity was a living power with the masses, and an inspiration to men of genius. The mediæval Christian mythology was well fitted to stimulate artistic invention, and the ideals which it maintained were full of beauty. It is true, indeed, that human conduct was not wholly governed by this faith; but the precepts of the Christian religion, as defined and interpreted by the Roman church, were generally held as of supreme authority, and to them most people acknowledged that they ought to conform. This Christianity gave the chief motive power for the best activities of the time, and the social relations of men were, in theory at least, based upon its teachings. The history of the Middle Ages abounds in evidence that popular habits of life were in many ways exemplary. Villani tells us that the citizens of Florence lived in sobriety and frugality, that they had loyal hearts, were faithful to one another, and that they required the same fidelity in the administration of public affairs.^[1] Florence in the fourteenth century was alive with industry, and the open country around the city was prosperous with agriculture. Of such conditions her Fine Arts were an outgrowth and expression.

But the mediæval faith began at length to weaken. The church, as an ecclesiastical establishment, had grown corrupt and oppressive, so that men of spirit were moved to reject its dogmas and to resist its intellectual tyranny. Independent thought began to widen the range of ideas, and the reading of ancient authors gave a fresh incentive to philosophical speculation, and awakened a spirit of scientific investigation, as well as a taste for ancient poetry and mythology. The desire for intellectual freedom, and the thirst for new knowledge, which were thus stimulated in the fifteenth century constitute the good side of the Renaissance movement, the side which has hitherto been most emphasized by writers, and to which the modern world is indebted for a strong stimulus in the direction of some of its most fruitful activities.

But there were other conditions that must not be ignored if we would rightly understand the spirit of the Renaissance, by which the ideals and aims of this brilliant epoch were materially qualified and weakened. Influences were at the same time at work that were not in harmony with what was best. The humanist learning bred a Neo-pagan spirit which favoured and strengthened a growing indifference to moral principles and religious beliefs. The strong feeling of opposition to the church was in part due to this. In fact, the Renaissance was by no means an entirely noble movement in the interest of spiritual and intellectual emancipation, or an unqualified advance in ideas and attainments beyond those of the Middle Ages. With all of its abuses the church still stood for moral order and spiritual aspirations. The revolt against it was in part a revolt against both religion and morals. The animating spirit of the movement contained much that was unchristian and destructive of high ideals.

It is true that noble, and even pious, feelings survived in the minds of many men, especially during the early Renaissance time. Generous acts were still common among the merchant princes of Florence. In the early part of the fifteenth century the lives of Florentine patricians continued to be simple, and many of them recognized the responsibilities which their wealth imposed.^[2] But toward the close of that century a different spirit prevailed. Luxury and extravagance took the place of plainer living, the pursuit of pleasure without regard to justice or morality engrossed the minds of men, and vice and crime flourished in high places until the prophetic denunciations of Savonarola were called down upon the wickedness and vanity of the upper classes.

Into the service of this luxurious and immoral life the Fine Arts were now called, and of the motives which animate such life they become largely an expression. The mediæval endeavour to embody the beauty of Christian ideals in works of art gave place to the desire to make the Fine Arts minister to sensuous pleasure and to mundane pride. In the height of its splendour the vicious life of Florence, the chief centre of literary and artistic productions, was appalling. Men now not only sought to escape from all forms of ecclesiastical and ascetic restraint; they went further, and freely proclaimed the sufficiency of intellectual, aesthetic, and sensuous enjoyments to satisfy the whole of man's nature. They mistook the illusive pleasures of self-indulgence for the true joys of life. In abandoning himself to mundane pursuits and gratifications, the man of the Renaissance fancied that he got the utmost good out of this life, and took little thought of any other.

In a corresponding spirit the architect now set himself to the task of producing a luxurious and specious style of palatial architecture, drawing his inspiration from the monuments of imperial Rome, and the sculptor and the painter sought to portray physical beauty as the primary and sufficient end of their art. Their conceptions of this beauty were in part drawn from the remains of the art of classic antiquity that were then accessible. But the ancient works of art known at that time were not those of the best periods of ancient artistic culture. They were, for the most part, works of the decadent Greek schools as represented in Roman copies. Many of these have, indeed, a great deal of sensuous charm, and display much technical refinement; but they are wanting in the nobler qualities that characterize the finest arts of Greece. From the Roman copies of fauns, Apollos, and Venuses that had been preserved in Italy, it was impossible that high inspiration and true guidance should be drawn.

The Fine Arts of the Renaissance are in part a reflection of this decadent art of classic antiquity, and in part an expression of something quite different which was peculiar to the Italian genius at this time. To the man of the Renaissance the classic inspiration was necessarily different from what it had been to the man of antiquity. To the ancient Greek and Roman the pagan ideals had been real, and their inspiration was genuine; but to the Italian of the fifteenth century these ideals could not have the same meaning, or supply a true incentive. After the intervening centuries of Christian thought and experience it was impossible for men to approach the ancient themes in the spirit of the ancients. Thus the Neo-pagan Art of the Renaissance is not wholly spontaneous and sincere. It contains elements that are foreign to the pagan spirit, and not compatible with it. The art of the Renaissance is, in fact, an embodiment of heterogeneous ideas and conflicting aims.

Much has been said of the importance of the Renaissance movement in developing the individual man, and it is true that one of the most marked characteristics of the artistic productions of this time, as contrasted with those of the Middle Ages, is a distinctly individual, or personal, stamp. This is especially marked in architecture. Whereas before, and during, the Middle Ages in particular, architecture had been a communal art, the joint product of companies of men working together on traditional lines, with common aims and aspirations, it was now become very largely an expression of the personal tastes of individuals working independently of each other. The architects of the Renaissance were scholars and artists, newly acquainted with the Roman antique, animated with desire to appropriate what they apprehended of its principles, and at the same time ambitious to achieve personal fame. A building of the Renaissance is thus always the product of the fancy of a particular designer, as a building of the Middle Ages is not. But architecture of the highest excellence can hardly be produced by an individual working independently. The noblest architecture of the past has always been an evolution of a people, the joint product of many minds, and the natural expression of many conditions. The importance of the opportunity for the development of the individual opened by the Renaissance has been exaggerated, and the conditions conducive to such development which had existed before have been too much overlooked. We are apt to forget that the mediæval communal life stimulated the faculties of the individual in many noble ways, and we do not always enough consider that individuality may be exercised in harmful as well as in salutary directions. The individuality that had been developed by the institutions and the intellectual life of the Middle Ages was vastly different from that which was produced by the influences of the Renaissance, and it was in many ways more excellent. The individuality of the Middle Ages was obedient to the demands of corporate and cooperative life, while that of the Renaissance was independent and capricious. Conditions favourable to individual development had arisen early in the Middle Ages in connection with organized monastic life. The cultivation of literature, philosophy, and the Fine Arts in the monasteries had given considerable range to the exercise of individual powers,^[3] though in limited directions, and the rise of the great communal organizations tended still further to stimulate an admirable individual development. But the individual of the Middle Ages felt himself a part of an organized body from which' he derived moral support, and with which he felt that he must cooperate. It was the strong communal spirit, giving unity of purpose to the varied faculties of individuals, that made possible the production of the noble arts of the Middle Ages; and it is as the expression of this unity of purpose coordinating the fine artistic energies of the time, that these arts are preeminently notable. In so far as the development of the individual in the period of the Renaissance differed from that of the Middle Ages, it did so mainly in favouring individual caprice at the expense of harmonious collective effort. The capricious and irresponsible individuality of the time, together with the confused complexity of ideas and aims, gave rise to most of that which is open to criticism in the Fine Arts of the Renaissance.

Nearly all of the architects of this epoch were sculptors and painters. Few of them had ever had a thorough training in architectural design and construction, such as had been general with the members of the great mediæval building corporations; and hardly any of them were endowed with a natural aptitude for logical construction. The artistic genius of the Italian people has, in fact, always been essentially a genius for painting, and the painter's habits of mind are constantly manifested in the Italian architecture of all epochs. This is especially noticeable in their use of the Orders, which is rarely based on any structural need, but is governed only by the fancy of the designer in seeking to produce a pleasant surface composition. Columns and pilasters, answering to nothing in the real structural scheme of a building, are disposed with no thought save for agreeable lines and rhythmical spacings. Thus they soon came to be used in many novel ways. They were set in pairs, stretched through several stories, embraced by pediments, and varied in countless fanciful ways. In this way the architecture of the Renaissance even more than that of imperial Rome, became a mere surface architecture differing fundamentally from all of the great architectural systems of ancient times, and of the Middle Ages. This is a consideration of capital importance of which too little account has been taken. The unqualified and shortsighted laudation of this architecture by the sophisticated writers of the sixteenth century has been too readily accepted, and a more discriminating judgment cannot fail to alter materially the esteem in which it has been held.

In surveying the history of architectural design with attention to its fundamental principles we shall find that there have thus far existed in Europe but three entirely consistent and distinctive styles; namely, the Greek, the Byzantine, and the Gothic. All other varieties of architecture may be broadly divided into two classes, the one consisting of buildings of transitional character, and comprising all organic and progressive types of Romanesque, and the other composed of styles made up of mixed elements not in process of organic fusion. The first architecture of the second class is that of imperial Rome with its offshoots, the Christian Roman and the numerous subsequent forms of the basilican type, and the second is the architecture of the Renaissance. When, after studying the architecture of Greece, we come to examine that of Rome, we are at once struck by the incongruous mixture of elements which it exhibits; and although we may be impressed by its grandeur, we are unable to give it our unqualified admiration. In Byzantine art we find Greek, Roman, and Oriental elements, logically modified in adaptation to new uses, and fused into a radically new and distinctive style of entire consistency and great nobility.^[4] In the transitional art of western Europe we see the creative genius of Northern races gradually evolving the Gothic style, in which elements derived from the older systems are wholly recreated and assimilated in a wonderful manner, and when we turn from the beauty, and the structural logic, of the consummate Gothic Art^[5] to the architecture of the Renaissance, a similar contrast is again apparent.

In one branch of art, however, the best achievements of the Renaissance period command our unqualified admiration; namely, the art of painting. As before remarked, the Italian genius appears to have been primarily a genius for painting, and in this field the conditions all conspired to produce results that were without precedent for excellence, and that still remain unrivalled. Yet here, too, we shall need to discriminate. Italian painting of the sixteenth century presents a variety of phases that are by no means of equal merit, and the noblest forms of it show the least of the essentially Renaissance spirit. The Christian painters of the fourteenth century had laid a foundation on which their successors could build, and this gave a character to much of the art of the Early Renaissance which the dominant influences of the time itself could not give.^[6] But the spirit of the sixteenth century was unfavourable to the highest ideals and the most exemplary practice, and, save for the works of a few exceptional men, there were no high achievements in painting after about 1520, except in Venice, where more than elsewhere natural and wholesome conditions had been maintained.

Among the many influences that were stirring the artistic minds of the Renaissance there were two of chief importance, the Neo-pagan revival, and the true intellectual life of the people which was independent of the retrospective movement, and had been growing up through the Middle Ages, The most sterling qualities of the artistic products of the period are due to this intellectual life, and Florentine and Venetian painting, the two most admirable phases of the supreme art of Italy, are the finest expression of this. In other words, it was not the revival of interest in ancient thought and feeling, nor the influence of classic models, so much as the ripened development of the native Italian genius itself, that produced what is most excellent in the Fine Arts of the Renaissance. A consciously retrospective motive can hardly be a vital force in artistic development, and the direct attempt, in so far as such attempt was made, to shape the arts after classic models was an unmixed evil. The native traditions and innate tendencies of the Italian people were enough of themselves to give a strong classic quality to their art. In architecture what of classic feeling was natural to them needed only in the fifteenth century to be freed from the elements which had been misappropriated from the mediæval art of the North to allow it true expression in forms adapted to their needs. In normal human progress each successive stage of development creates its own appropriate forms; but peoples, like individuals, sometimes pass through periods of partial aberration, and while genius may still find scope enough, as in the Renaissance, to produce much that is admirable, the noblest forms of art are not an outgrowth of such conditions.

1. Cronica di Giovanni Villani, bk. 6, chap. 69.
2. Cf. Introduction to Villari's Niccolo Machiavelli and his Times, London, 1878.
3. Cf. Montalembert, Les Moines d’Occident, vol. 2, p. 488 et seq.
4. Cf. my Development and Character of Gothic Architecture, pp. 304–306.
5. The Gothic of northern France of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the only true Gothic art, is here meant.
6. The Viscount Delaborde, in his book La Gravure en Italie avant Marc-Antoine, Paris, 1883, p. 32, remarks on this with admirable discrimination as follows: "Certes, sous le pinceau de Botticelli, de pareils sujets [subjects drawn from Classical Mythology] gardent un caractère d'élégance tendre et de mélancolie presque analogue à la physionomie des scènes où figurent l'Enfant-Dieu et la Mádone. II y a loin de cette manière d'interpréter la Fable aux panégyriques violemment ou galamment licencieux que les hôtes les plus mal famés de l'Olympe obtiendront dans les siècles suivants; il y a loin des gracieuses inventions de Botticelli aux lascivie brutales de Jules Romain et d'Augustin Carrache ou aux gamineries mythologiques de Boucher et de ses pareils, et l'on a quelque peine aujourd'hui, en face d'aussi chastes tableaux, a comprendre la vehéménce des reproches fulminés jadis par Savonarole."