Junn 7, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 453
powder required for that hole will be as the
‘cube of 2(= 8) is to be cube of 4 (= 64) so
is the 4oz. to 8 times as much, or 2lb. For
an average kind of rock the rule is, cube the
line of least resistance in feet, and divide
that cube by 32, and the result is the weight
of powder required, in pounds.
—».—
M. ANGELO AND RUBENS AND THE
DECORATION OF S. PAUL'S.
ERTAINLY one of the most curious
artistic problems in the art-doings of
the time has been that of the proposed
restoration, or preservation, or completion,
of S. Paul’s Cathedral. We might pause to
ask which of the three words best describes
what is intended to be done. Poor Sir
Christopher ! How little did he imagine what
a tremendous task he left to the modern
artistic mind. To ‘‘restore” S. Paul’s can
hardly be said to be even possible, for it has
never been completed, so that there is nothing
to restore. To preserve it would be to leave it
alone, for it is a strongly-built-up structure ;
but to complete itis surely apuzzle truly. Nay,
is itnotnow a twofold puzzle, for not only
wasand isitararely difficult thing—even with
the original architect’s sketches before us—to
realise what he intended and would have done
had he lived to do it—and not been, as was truly
the lamentable fact, worried to death; but
there has now been added the tremendous
problem of speculating as to what the old
architect would have done had he lived in this
our day—viz., in the year of grace, 1872 ; in
the age of railroads, steam-engines, and
electric telegraphs; in the age of organs
played by electricity, and in the triumphant
times of art-manufacture. What, poor man,
could he have done, and how can we best find
out what that would possibly be? What
would Newton have done had he lived now-a-
days, all his discoveries being already found
out for him? But more to the purpose,
artistically, what would the painter of a
Romanesque twelfth-century painted glass
window have drawn on the glass surface had
he lived in these days of impossible and inar-
tistic costume? It is, perhaps, a question
which no man will attempt to answer, for it
is necessary to bear in mind the great fact
that the old artists, as a rule, did not invent
new clothing for their saints and angels in
gorgeous windows, but simply clothed them
in the ordinary costume of the time. Wren
did this, and so did Grindling Gibbons in his
carvings. Who is it, therefore, that will
venture to speculate on what Wren would
have done in the decoration of S. Paul’s
Cathedral, had he had to fill it with figures
of saints and angels, and a whole Bible
History? The quaint costume of the time of
Wren really seemed to admit of a little
application to supermundane purposes, quaint
though it was, but a modern fashionable
outfit, how is it, or could it be, turned into
saintly form by any possible process? Is it
not, therefore, a little dangerous to attempt
the treading on such tender and doubtful
ground? We might here go a step further,
and ask ourselves whether Wren would indeed
“in these days, did he live in them, build a
cathedral at all after the S. Peter’s model—a
place so utterly unfit for ‘ preaching and
prayer-reading.” To attempt, therefore, to
place oneself in Wren’s place seems not a
little imprudent, if not presumptuous, and
can do but little towards solving the problem,
even if it does not positively spoil any reason-
able chance of finding out a way to do the
work as it really ought to be done. Noman
can put himself in the place of another, and
think and act for him, certainly not in art.
But all this, though so much to the pur-
pose, and so vital, is a comparatively small
matter when compared to that which it
seems so very strange has not occurred to
those who have so lately discussed the ques-
tion of the completion of S. Paul’s. It is
this—Who are they, or who is he, who is
to do the actual work—the painting of S.
Paul’s? The decoration of this great
cathedral is not, in reality, an architect’s
work at all: it isa painter's work, and we
would ask those who are interested who is
he, or who are they, who are to stand or kneel
on a tall scaffolding some 7O0ft. in the air,
and immediately under the roof of the church;
and draw first, and then paint on the: brick,
or plaster, or stone surface of the vaulting,
the figures, to a huge size, of saints or
angels, and eyen ‘thrones’? Somebody
must do the arduous and difficult work, and
the question then comes, what sort of mortal
or mortals is or are they who are destined
to do this difficult feat? The public ought
to understand this problem, and to be made
to see a little into the mysteries of art
action. Let us, by way of making the whole
matter as clear as possible, premise that it
has been said that the work is not to be so
much painting as Mosaic ; the pictures are to
be mosaic—i.e., painting in stone, the small
square fragments of stone taking the place
of the colour laid on with a brush as in the
so well-known painting process. It is more
difficult than painting, inasmuch as the
materials are more unmanageable. But in
one respect painting and mosaic are alike:
they both require, as anecessary preliminary,
that a full-sized drawing—or cartoon, as it
is called—should be made by some one single
man, or youth, of the picture to be after-
wards set in mosaic or painted in colours.
How is this to be done—who is to do it?
With charcoal point, or chalk, or other
material, this work has to be done. The
circular panels—to confine our remarks to
the ceiling for the present—are about 20ft.
across, so that the figures must be above life-
size, and must, or ought to, have in them all
that goes to make up great artistic work,
worthy of the place and the subjects
portrayed. It is impossible to imagine a more
difficult task, or one demanding a greater
power in the executive artist—that is, in the
person who actually draws with his own right
hand these figures. It is not the man who
is simply now and then for a few minutes,
or an hour, each day looking on, that we are
now concerned about; it is the actual exe-
cutive draughtsman, or artist, that we wish
the reader to look at for a moment or two.
This man, or human machine, whichever it
may be, is the moving mechanical force. He
is not, if a mere assistant, be it observed,
working out of his own head at all; he is
simply enlarging a small drawing provided
for him. If he has an idea of his own to
put his hand to it is of no use to him, his
mode of working being that of a machine, or
he is what may be termed an enlarging
apparatus. If he has not an idea of his own,
and is simply a pair of hands, it is precisely
the same, the work to be done is the same.
It is impossible to conceive of a system or
plan of work more utterly destructive of an
artistic result.
But this is not all. Itis a comparatively
easy affair to draw out an ‘‘iconography ” of
S. Paul’s. We could name a dozen ways.
There is the ‘‘ Theocracy ” of Michael Angelo,
after the idea of the Sistine. ‘There is the
‘Life of S. Paul.” There is the ‘ New
Testament History.” ‘There is ecclesiastical
history ; lives of the saints; the red-letter
saints of the English Church; the saints of
the Roman Church; and what would be
a novel and suggestive thing, indeed, to
accomplish, the discarded black-letter saints
of old Ireland. There is, indeed, no end
of what might not be done; but who, we
ask, is to do it?—not even how is it to be
done ; not by whom or how isit to be designed,
and thought about, and schemed out; but
who is to do the actual work, which John Bull
is to look so painfully up at? How strangely
do times change. ‘These are enlightened and
scientifically-advanced days. Art is pro-
eressing, and never was there somuch known
about it, or so many influences at work to
make everybody interested in it. In M,
Angelo’s time, the multitude were educa-
tionally nowhere; the public, in our
sense of the word, did not exist; enlighten-
ment, as it 18s now-a-days understood, had as
yet found no place even in the higher public
mind, But yet, as we know, did it take
not only the mind of a Michael Angelo, but
his hands, too—we must repeat it, his hands—
to ‘ decorate” the ceiling of the Pope’s
Chapel. There was no other way of doing the
work, as it happened, the very mightiest work
that has in art been done. In the main, not
so much the story of a ‘‘'Theocracy” as of a
glorifying of the human body, and the
breathing of life and energy into painted
forms. But how can this or such as this be
got by going to the shop counter, as they
must do with S. Paul’s, and to get at the exe-
cutive hands through the medium of a shop-
keeper and mere employer of art labour, and’
buyer of colours and brushes? ‘This is, and
must be, the real and matter-of-fact way of
the work. No matter what the original small
sketches and indicative drawings may be like,
their final realisation on the vaulting and
walls of the cathedral must be at the mercy
and capacity of the ‘‘ shop and counter.” But,
the reader may again urge, it is in ‘ mosaic,”
and not by painting, that it is all to be
worked out in. We again say itmatters not;
the art skill asked for is the same, if not
the more difficult of the two; and, what is
quite certain, the drawing must be done first,
however the colour afterwards may be exe-
cuted, or in whatever material ; and it is in
the drawing in the first place that the real
art power must manifest itself. What is all
this but to assure us that the proper, nay, the
only, way with 8. Paul’s is to acknowledge it
to be a painter’s problem? An architect may
say what he would like, and even put apart
panels in walls and ceiling for a special work,
but the executive work itself, we most strenu-
ously contend, is for the painter, and for the -
painter only! If he be but a mere tool and
machine, then is he altogether incompetent
for such work. If he be thoroughly com-
petent, and able to do it, then is it an
insult and a hindrance to compel him
to go to work with his hands tied and
his mind a blank. What could the Dean and
Chapter be about when they came to so lame
and impotent a conclusion? and what is to be
said of the Special Committee for the Restora-
tion of S. Paul’s? The “Sistine” is a long
way off, so that we cannot very easily any of
us go and see it, and judge by fair eyesight
of what has been accomplished in it; but
most fortunately there is, even in London
city, one building which shows on its roof
all that needs to be seen to prove the position
we are now advocating. We refer, of course,
to the magnificent work of Paul Rubens on
the chapel ceiling at Whitehall. It is really
amarvel that it was ever done, and that it
actually exists. Init is the sort of painting
that ought to cover the roof-vaulting of S.
Paul’s, and we would ask how, if Rubens
were alive, matters would be arranged?
Would Mr. Penrose, or Mr. Burges, or both
together, with the aid of the ‘“ decorator”
and his staff of assistants, take precedence of
Rubens, or only accept him as a mere de-
signer, or would they refuse his aid alto-
gether? What a curious inquiry. Rubens
versus the fashionable shop ‘‘ decorator,”
competing for the honour of decorating the
Cathedral Church of 8. Paul! It is a test,,
surely, of the art spirit of the present age.
We might say, in sporting phrase, ‘‘ Ten
to one on the shopman.” Poor Rubens.
nowhere !
We have, it is true, no Michael Angelo,.
nor have we a Rubens; but we have Millais,
and Holman Hunt, and another or two, and
the Royal Academy, and the Royal Academy
students. Will some of those who have had
a say already about 8. Paul’s, and who will
be listened to, say a word in season about
them? Letus see in fair competition what
they, the art-power of the age, are indeed
made of. C.B. A..
