May 3, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 361
FINE ART AT THE INTERNATIONAL
EXHIBITION.
ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS.
ee present collection of architectural
drawings compares unfavourably with
that which formed part of the Exhibition of
1871, both as regards the number and the
quality of the designs exhibited. They are
fewer than one hundred in number, and there
is not more than a fourth of the whole
possessing anything approaching to con-
spicuous merit. That many of the drawings
have been exhibited before is only a circum-
stance which occurred last year, and may be
expected always to occur at these Interna-
tional Exhibitions of works of fine art; but
it is to be regretted that architects have not
more cordially embraced this, the only
opportunity now open, of contributing to
an exhibition of works of their art
under the direction, to a large extent,
of members of their own profession. No
doubt the locale of the Exhibition of last
year was open to grave objection, and we can
easily believe that if the first display had
taken place on the well-lighted and accessible
screens now provided a far larger number of
exhibitors would haye come forward this
year; but allowing for this, and for very
natural professional distrust of the South
Kensington authorities, there isa deeper and
amore potent cause to be foand in the com-
parative indifference with which, in our
opinion, architects of the present day regard
their art, and in their unreadiness to take even
the smallest trouble necessary for the display
of their works.
The drawings will be found on screens
placed in the easternmost of the two quad-
rants that connect the permanent Exhibition
Galleries with the Conservatory and Albert
Hall. Here they receive an abundant light,
and are very readily accessible. The princi-
pal drawing on the first screen is No. 3605, a
group of Manchester warehouses, by the late
Edward Walters, a man of original mind and
much artistic power. ‘The buildings shown
in this drawing were among the earliest, and
remain to this day some of the best, of the
architecturally-treated commercial buildings
which so abound in Manchester. Dignity has
been obtained by simple means, and though
the grouping of stories and happy mixture of
arcading and fenestration shown here is now
a commonplace expedient in such works, it
must be recollected that to a very large
extent the design before us showed the way.
The drawing is a good one. Two pleasing
little churches in red brick, by Mr. F.
Chancellor, are shown in exterior and interior
(8601-3-7-9.) They resemble one another toa
considerable extent, being both apsidal and
with waggon-head ceilings ; they are not re-
markable efforts, but are unquestionably
satisfactory as far as they go. A large facade
by Mr. Power (3602) of one of the premiated
designs for Messrs. Spiers and Pond’s much
exhibited ‘‘Criterion” competition hangs here ;
it is specially remarkable for the inartistic
weakness of the treatment of the ground-floor
story, which seems as totally inadequate to
carry the weight above as any London shop-
front. Mr. Steane exhibits a pen-and-ink
drawing (3604), carefully done, but rather
overworked, of a design for a Wesleyan
Chapel. This building is marked by a tower
with a gabled roof, surmounted by a central
lantern. The design, like the drawing, is over-
laboured, and will probably benefit should
it become necessary a little to ‘cut
it down” before execution, but it has
points of considerable merit. A far higher
level both of design and draughtsmanship is
reached by Messrs. Ernest George and
Vaughan, in their admirable pen-and-ink
sketch of No. 36, Cornhiil (3606). This
building reminds one a little of a Venetian
palace by its solid dignified massing, its use
of surface ornament, and its open loggia
with large round shafts, and capitals of a
Venetian type; but the main features are
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more French and Flemish than Italian; the
whole is of good Gothic, well put together,
and the architects unquestionably under-
stand what they are about. Mr. W. Young
exhibits (5608) the elevations of a house,
and on other screens, a design for a school
at Northampton (38617), and a_ series
of lodges and other domestic examples
(8662). All these works are marked by a
strong feeling for the picturesque; both
drawing and design are often careless,
especially the drawing, but where the archi-
tect has taken pains he shows great command
over the homely elements out of which
domestic buildings of moderate size have to
be designed, with a fertile and happy fancy.
If Mr. Young will never allow himself to
do less than his best, he may rise to an
eminent position as a designer of this class
of buildings. Messrs Alexander and Hen-
man (3610) exhibit a design for Gateshead
Schools by Mr. C. Henman, and the same
architects also contribute (3663 and 3672)
two other very similar designs. These are
simple and not unpleasing buildings, but
more suited, we should have thought, for erec-
tion ina country village than in the large
towns for which two of them were designed.
In a town land generally is scarce and chil-
dren plentiful, and a compact building of
several stories high is more often called for
than that sort of picturesque and rather ex-
tended composition with the aspect of which
we are all familar in half the villages of Eng-
land.
The central position on the second screen
is given to an excellent drawing by Mr.
Horace Jones (3611), exhibiting the new
library and museum now erecting at Guild-
hall in avery satisfactory manner ; the frame
includes an exterior and two interior views
and two sketch plans, all well-drawn and
tinted. ‘The building or library has a nave
and aisles, something church-wise, the aisles
being divided into bays by the bookcases.
In a kind of erypt below, accommodation
is provided for the museum ; and the structure,
which is in fifteenth century Gothic, will
harmonise with the best portions of Guildhall
in style, and appears well devised for its
purpose. There is a certain thinness in the
arcade separating the centre or nave of the
library from the aisles which may be a
defect in the drawing, but which, if found
on the executed building, will be detrimental
to its success ; as a whole, however, this is
a very satisfactory design. Mr. William
White exhibits a drawing (3616) of a mansion
recently erected by him; the execution of
‘the drawing is very defective, and unworthy
of the really picturesque design which it
attempts to illustrate. Why, however, in the
nineteenth century does Mr. White think it
necessary to surround an English gentleman’s
house (we beg pardon, an Irish gentleman’s,
not that it makes much difference) with
battlements which have ceased for centuries
to be of any use whatever? Architectural
effect might have been secured at less cost of
propriety. Mr. 'T.H. Watson exhibits (8615)
a rather telling sketch from Venice, and
Messrs. Woodzell and Collcutt a competition
design (3615) for Winchester Town Hall, not
without merit, but damaged by a weak tower
anda kind of want of connectionamong features
which individually are most of them good. Mr.
Thomas Cox exhibits a design (8613) for
the decoration of a ball-room, where the
colour is much too dark in key and too erude
and inharmonious for its purpose; some of
the patterns and features employed are good,
but the whole is spoiled beyond redemption
by the introduction of something which, as
far as it can be made out, is a headless female
trunk to do duty as a bracket, and to be re-
peated all round the room. These novel and
unpleasing caryatides would compromise a
far more successful design than Mr. Cox’s.
Mr. Alfred Smith, Mr. Came, Mr. Fogerty,
Mr. Sorby, and Mr. Worley follow with de-
signs which it is hardly necessary to notice
here, and we then come to the best drawing
in the gallery. This is contributed by Mr.
Henry W. Batley, and represents the end of
a sitting-room (2623) in elevation. This
drawing affords an apportunity of showing
architecture, mural decoration, and furniture,
all harmoniously designed, and treated in a
most artistic manner. The author is evidently
a student of Mr. E. W. Godwin and Mr.
Talbert, or at least follows in the same line
of study, and has produced an excellent
whole of which the parts are also excellent.
We shall hear of Mr. Batley again. On
either side of this hangs an architectural in-
terior ; the one is a view from Burgos (1622),
by Mr. Dobbin; and the other a composition
by Mr. Schoy, of Brussels (1624); this last
is the finer drawing of the two, and a good
Belgian example. Mr. Galsworthy Davis
exhibits two students’ prize drawings, both
of which were noticed here at the time they
gained their distinction. His Academy gold-
medal drawing (1626) is, whatever may be
thought of it as a design, a remarkable speci-
men of finished tinting. Mr. Seddon ex-
hibits a large drawing, full of elaborate work
(38636) of the decorations for a chapel, the
subjects by Mr. Rosseter. ‘There is some-
thing oyer-laboured about the design, and
the colouring is not altogether satisfactory,
but there can be no question as to the great
care and thought which have been expended
upon this remarkable design, and there is
little doubt that if executed with such in-
crease in the power of the colouring as is
natural when a finished sketch is translated
into actual mural painting, a splendid interior
must be obtained. The same architect ex-
hibits a large and telling drawing of his
University College, Aberystwith, an exe-
cuted design of which the irregularity and
picturesqueness are, we believe, unique. Many
an architect has had such a dream: no one
else, so far as we know, has had the oppor-
tunity andthe courage to put it into stone and
brick. ‘lhe design has been seen before, but
this drawing is none the less welcome, and will
tendtoraise Mr. Seddon’s reputation asa master
of vigorous picturesque composition. Mr.
Edis exhibits his restorations and additions
to the Bishop’s Palace, Buckdon (3633) in a
well-executed drawing of a rather low but
pleasant tone of colour. This drawing was
noticed in the Burtpinc News when ex-
hibited at the Academy, we need, therefore,
only here say that it shows practised skill in
its adaptation of ancient architecture to
modern uses, at once harmonising and distin-
guishing the old and the new portions. The
same architect exhibits two specimens of
Londonstreet architecture, at Queensborough-
terrace (3632) and Southwark-street (86584).
Mr. Knightley exhibits a well-executed pencil
sketch of a pleasing Renaissance design
for the East India Railway Company’s Offices
(3634), a good piece of street architecture ; also
a much less successful interior of a concert
theatre (3661). Some sketches by Mr.
Batterbury, Mr. Cooper, and Messrs. Perry,
Hanson, and Lee, hang near here; also two
specimens of simple internal decoration by
Mr. Robins, and an unfortunate drawing by
Mr. Plumbe (3631), which entirely fails to do
justice to what is in reality a very effective
London facade, remarkable for a novel and
ingenious mode of lighting the lower stories.
Mr. Waterhouse exhibits a small, brightly-
executed drawing, or rather finished sketch,
of his Manchester Town Hall, and a photo-.
graph of the entrance to his Assize Courts.
‘These are too well known to need description
here. The same architect sends a clear and
effective photograph of part of Allerton
Priory, showing a cleverly-executed feature
of domestic architecture. Why, we ask, if
drawings are expensive and troublesome, will
not architects follow the example thus set and
exhibit photographs of their executed works
or of features of them? An excellent archi-
tectural exhibition could be so formed, and at
small cost to the exhibitors. Mr. Roger
Smith exhibits three drawings of mansions of
considerable size (8640, 3654-5), two of them
