Marcu 8, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 187
THE BUILDING NEWS. —S LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1872.
FORTY YEARS AGO.
E met the other day with an old copy
of Brayley’s ‘*Graphic Illustrator,”
which, about the year 1832, seems to have
been one of the foremost advocates of the
Gothic revival: and it shows pretty clearly
the distance which the Medieval School have
travelled in the last forty years. Their ad-
vance has been no trifling one to be effected
within the memory of a single generation. It
is both interesting and amusing to read the
statements which were gravely made by the
contemporaries of men who are still living :
to see how imperfectly the details of Pointed
art were understood ; and how even those who
admired them most preferred whatever
amongst them was least admirable. Without
any disposition to despise the day of small
things, we may be pardoned an occasional
smile at the assertions and criticisms of these
early times. ‘They may remind us how much
we owe to that vast amount of research which
has been going on from then till now; how
much we are indebted to those archeologists
whom, when we have once got from them all
they can give us, we are sometimes tempted
to undervalue; and to those books, which,
when they have once supplied the basis of
our art education, we are apt to throw aside
and forget. ‘The Gothic school, rising, as we
hope it will continue to do, higher and still
higher towards perfection, may look back on
these first attempts as a great artist looks
back on his own: finding in them a proof
that, whatever the world thinks about the
power of genius, it is the power of diligent
application alone on which either a man or a
body of men will find it wise to rely.
‘The volume which has suggested these re-
marks contains, amongst other matter on
kindred subjects, a series of essays ‘‘ on the
modern use of the styles of the Middle Ages.”
Romanesque is first discussed, and set down
as a mere deterioration of Roman. In one
respect, indeed—its construction of arches in
recessed orders—the writer has sufficient dis-
cernment to recognise an important advance
on Classic practice ; but this, as he properly
says, was retained in later work, and forms
no reason for copying Norman detail. So far
his judgment has been that of his successors ;
and where any type of Romanesque has found
favour with them, it has usually been that of
Southern Europe, which was apparently un-
known to him. Proceeding, however, to the
Early English style, there is a startling dif-
ference of opinion. ‘It isa class of archi-
tecture,” we are. told, ‘‘ which we should
hesitate to consider a fit model for voluntary
imitation.” The great fault found with it is
the ‘‘imperfect development of the beauties
and varieties of detail.” Even its mouldings,
we are astonished to hear, exhibit too little
variety of contour; and, though it is ad-
mitted that they have considerable force of
shadow, they are not ‘at all comparable to
the beautifully-developed, ever-varying (!)
yet ever-judicious mouldings, which obtained
at the commencement of the fifteenth cen-
tury.” Such criticism as this was only possible
when no such books as Mr. Paley’s or Mr.
Sharpe’s existed ; and it is almost inconceiy-
able that it could be possible even then. The
foliage of the same period comes under like
condemnation. It is destitute of ‘freedom
and undulation of outline,” and ‘incapable
of richness.” Our author, it is evident, never
made the acquaintance of Lincoln Cathedral,
and we should doubt whether he knew much
about Westminster Abbey. He altogether
deprecates the study of First Pointed work.
There is only one feature in it, he considers,
worth borrowing—the triple lancet window,
and this he suggests should be copied, ‘‘sub-
ject to a complete modification of its mould-
ings to suit the taste of later times.” Wehave
seen such copies in buildings of the dark age
of modern architecture, but we always sup-
posed the wretchedness of the mouldings to
be due to the ignorance of the designer. It
sheds a new light on the subject to find that
it was a deliberate infliction.
In the Decorated period—which by the way
had not yet received that very inappropriate
designation—architecture, it is stated, ‘‘ ex-
hibits many fine novelties and advances
towards perfection.” As one of those ad-
vances, the introduction of wheel windows is
named; which, as every architect now knows,
took place even before the introduction of the
pointed arch itself. The multiplication of
crockets and other small ornaments, and the
general tendency to what we should now call
fritter, draws forth the warm commendation
of our essayist; but the defects of the style,
he says, will be manifest on comparing it with
the productions of ‘ that refined taste which
laid the foundations of the Perpendicular and
the Florid modes.” ‘‘ Here, from the close of
the reign of Edward III. down to that of
Henry VII., we find dignity and breadth,
continuity and repose ; the mouldings exhibit
propriety of application, variety of outline,
and richness of shadow, and all the finishings
of tracery and foliage evince the most chaste
refinement”! This was written, no doubt,
in all seriousness and earnestness, but it reads
like bitter irony. So easy it is to fancy beau-
ties where we cannot find them, and to do in
art what Burns, as his brother relates, used to
do in love. ‘‘ When he selected any one out
of the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to
whom he should pay his particular attention,
she was instantly invested with a sufficient
stock of charms, from the plentiful stores of
his own imagination ; and there was often a
great dissimilitude between his fair captivator
as she appeared to others, and as she seemed
when invested with the attributes he gave
her.” There is certainly ‘a great dissimili-
tude” between Perpendicular as it appears
to us andas it appeared to our author in
1832. He was so enamoured of it that all its
faults turned into virtues ; and while we smile
at his infatuation, let us take care that future
times never have like cause to smile at us.
The principles on which a style was to be
employed were as singular as the choice of
the style itself. Buttresses, it is specially
stated, were not to be limited in their use
to the occasions when they are necessary ;
oceasions which, in that ‘‘age of plaster-
finishings,” were few and far between. They
were to be inserted for the useful purpose of
‘casting bold shadows,” and we regret to
add that in work of the present day a good
many are still applied for no better reason.
It has taken long to realise that architectural
details were meant to serve some practical
end ; to ascertain the purpose and the value
of each, and turn it to account. It will take,
in all probability, still longer to realise the
true use of Medizval study as a whole—viz.,
to help us in supplying the wants and ex-
pressing the feelings of our own times. Still,
though it is rarely expressed, the idea of forty
years since lingers amongst us ‘that the object
to besought in the modern use of the Pointed
style is the production of a complete illusion on
the mind of the beholder so that he shall hardly
be able to persuade himself” that the build-
ing he is looking at was not erected four or
five centuries ago. Few architects would
now write themselyes down deceivers in this
unblushing way; but many seem tacitly to
aim at the character. Amongst these singular
directions as to leading principles, the work
we are quoting from contains much advice
that was good, so far as it went, at the time
it was given ; but its extreme mildness gives
us ever and anon a startling insight into the
state of things which produced it. Church-
wardens, for example, are recommended to mix
alittle tint with their next coat of whitewash,
and to deviate into the daring originality of a
“warm stone colour” for internal walls.
Carpenters are advised not to put a door
with tracery panels under an architrave ‘Cafter the Classic manner.” ‘The iron- founder has more license, and may use his material, ‘‘ under the concealment of paint,” to represent masonry or woodwork ; but in stoves and grates he is warned, as he still needs to be, against ‘‘redundancy of equivocal ornament.” ‘The upholsterer of the period receives a severe rebuke for his ‘‘cut and dried Gothic,” and if his productions were worse than those of his professional neigh- bour, he must richly have deserved it. Be- neath the lowest deep of pre-Puginesque Gothic, there seems to have been a lower deep; but what it can have been like, the imagination now fails to conceive. We can only get an approximate measure of its bad- ness by observing that the same writer, who thought it execrable, called Barry’s Church, at Ball’s Pond, ‘an architectural gem”! Perhaps, by comparison, the epithet was not altogether undeserved. We read of “a spurious Gothic’”—spurious even by the side of Barry’s earliest works, and we are fortu- nate enough to find a list of its peculiarities. Its buttresses resembled pilasters; its crockets were of ‘‘ Grecian foliage ;” its windows were wide, and filled with wooden sashes ; itstracery had no cusps ; its labels ended ‘‘in Ionic vo- lutes ;” and amongst its external features were obelisks and balusters. This ‘spurious Gothic,” it appears, captivated the taste of the multitude, till there was a fear that it might increase and multiply and even thrust out the genuine article altogether. Our author had appalling visions of the way in which, when its productions had stood a century or so, they might gain credit on the score of antiquity, and so their resemblance be propagated throughout the land ‘in more hideous deformity than that of the originals.” From this danger we are hap- pily delivered by the fact that very few of these productions remain. Bad architec- ture and bad building generally go together ; and thus time kindly relieves us of what is not worth keeping. Hitherto we have only been dealing with the opinions and preferences of our predeces- sors; but the same book from which they have been gleaned gives specimens of their designs. ‘There are elevations of Christ Church, West Bromwich; 8. Peter's, Bir- mingham ; ‘Trinity Church, Bordesley; S. Dunstan’s, Fleet-street; S. George’s, Leices- ter; S. George's, Kidderminster; and S. George’s, Woburn-square. The cheapness of some of these buildings was remarkable— or rather it sounds so until we remember of what sort they were. The last-named one, with sittings for 1,500 people, and a spire 150ft. high, cost £8,000. 8. Dunstan’s, on the contrary, cost £13,000 without fittings ; but then it hada well-built tower of Ketton stone, which, by the way, has stood our London atmosphere with great success. Most of the mouldings are still as sharp as when worked, and the building has suffered less than most eyen from the deposit of soot, The church itself is faced with brick, and is so hidden by the towers, that few, probably, of the people who daily pass it are aware of its peculiarity in plan. It isa regular octa- gon, with a semi-octagonal recess on each oblique face, and a square recess on each of the others. Of the latter, one forms the chancel and the rest are occupied by the organ and by children’s galleries. Shaw was the architect, and the works were commenced in November, 18380. With the exception of S. Peter’s, Birmingham, which was intended for Greek Dorie, all the churches illustrated are Perpendicular. §. Dunstan’s is the only one possessing the slightest interest, and, poor as it is architecturally, it was in advance of its age. There is a view of the Lady Chapel of S. Saviour’s, Southwark, as if ap- peared before restoration: ruinous enough, but picturesque and interesting, and worth far more than when made as good as new by Gwilt. Yet its restoration was looked upon, when done, as something to be proud of : its
