© Jax. 26, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 61
THE BUILDING NEWS. — LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1872.
ARCHITECTURAL WORKS IN THE
KENSINGTON LIBRARY.—I.
WE published a few weeks since a brief
descriptive list of some of the most
interesting books in the Art Library which
relate to French and German Gothic. It now
remains for us to say something of those
which illustrate the architecture of other
countries, premising, as before, that under
the term ‘ Gothic,” Romanesqne is also
included.
3. English Gothic—The works in this
division are so much more generally known
than those in any of the others that it is need-
less to describe them at great length. The
literature of our national style is voluminous,
and yet incomplete. There has been a general
skimming of the surface, but very little of
that deep cultivation which is essential to
success. It is not easy to find a noticeable
building that has been left alone, but it is
more difficult still to find one that has been
perfectly analysed and represented. Enough
has been done to take off the freshness of the
subject, to lessen its interest, and render it
tame, flat, and unattractive. Little has been
accomplished towards a thorough display of
our architectural treasures. No scientific
investigation, like that in M. Viollet le Duc’s
Dictionary, has eyer been made of English
art; no monograph, like Lassus’ Monograph
of Chartres, exists of any English cathedral ;
no national record, like the ‘‘ Archives de la
Commission de Monuments Historiques,”
preserves the form and the history of our
most celebrated remains. ‘There are plenty
of pretty views of village churches and
baronial halls ; there are collections of detail
for embryo architects to crib from; but
complete, accurate, and trustworthy studies
of design and construction are far from com-
mon. Mr. Sharpe’s ‘‘ Architectural Parallels ”
are an exception ; so are Bowman and Crow-
ther’s ‘‘ Churches of the Middle Ages ;” so
again is Hudson, Turner, and Parker's
‘Domestic Architecture.” The misfortune
of the first-named work is that it was pub-
lished too soon; the drawing is hard and
wiry, the views are too mechanical and too
shadowless to suggest anything like the actual
effect, and the sculptured detail has a cast-
iron rigidity about it that is altogether repul-
sive. The book, in short, is one that is rather
to be respected than loved. It contains a
quantity of sound and careful work, displayed
in a way as unattractive as could well be
devised. The forms and proportions and
measurements are right enough, no doubt, but
the life is gone. To any one who knows the*
buildings, the book is valuable ; but it is no
substitute, not eyen a partial one, for an
actual acquaintance with them. The fault, as
we have said, belongs very much to the
period. Twenty years ago Mr. Ruskin had
not insisted on the absurdity of outline views,
nor had the French artists, far as they are
beyond us now, first shown us how to render
eleyations and sections both charming and
correct. Inspite of this weakness, however, Mr.
Sharpe’s book still stands alone ; subsequent
works have surpassed it in beauty of drawing,
but none in this country have equalled it in
extent, combined with thoroughness. The
“Churches of the Middle Ages” is as good,
or better, as far as it goes, but its range is
much narrower. Seven or eight parish
churches in tolerable preservation are much
more quickly dealt with than a dozen abbeys,
for the most part in ruins. Still, whether
more or less easy of execution, the book is a
valuable one, and we only wish that fifty more
such examples which we could name had been
as welland asthoroughly explained. Brandon's
“Parish Churches ” is useful as a sort of me-
morandum-book, but it has, of course, no
claim to come into comparison with that last
mentioned. It contains slight sketches and
ground plans, neither of them very wells
engraved, of a large number of village
churches, and gives just enough idea of them
to let one decide which are and which are not
specially worth going to see. Brandon’s
‘“ Analysis of Gothic Architecture” is, we
suppose, known to everybody; and small
blame is due to its author if it has been one
of the most misused productions which, in
England at least, ever saw the light. It was
practical and instructive up to a certain point,
but the very means by which these qualities
were attained made it a perfect treasure to
those architects who, unlike Mr. Street, might
truly boast that every detail of theirs is a
literal copy from some old example. There
are legends, whether true or false we cannot
say, respecting orthodox members of the
Denisonian clique, who kept the book in loose
sheets, and issued a door, or a window, ora
buttress to their builder as he required it. Be
this as it may, there a is singular coincidence
between the detailsin the ‘‘ Analysis” and those
in ‘‘ regulation churches” all over the country.
Wickes’s ‘‘ Towers and Spires” has an equally
familiar name. Supplemented by geometrical
drawings, it would form a valuable record
of our national tastes in the department it
relates to ; but though the views do not pre-
sent many glaring inaccuracies, we doubt
whether they would stand so severe a test.
Johnson’s ‘‘Old English Architecture” has
some sketchy but interesting illustrations ;
while many works exist which deal with the
ecclesiastical remains of particular counties.
The papers of the different archeological
societies also contain much valuable and in-
teresting matter on local antiquities. Our
cathedrals yet remain to be treated as they
deserve. Some half century ago, it is true,
more than one of them was illustrated on an
imposing scale, but the wretched drawing of
Gothic detail which then prevailed renders
these productions worse than worthless.
Murray’s ‘‘ dandbooks ” are valuable, but the
views, though well executed, are small.
Britton’s ‘‘ Cathedrals” belong, if not to the
dark age, at least only to the first dawn of
artistic drawing ; while 'Trinkle’s book on the
same subject is equally faulty on this point,
and far more desultory in its treatment.
4. Italian Gothic—Mr. Street’s ‘“ Brick
and Marble Architecture ” is too well known
to need description. It is of course a book
of sketches and suggestions, not of plans and
geometrical drawings. For the latter, as re-
gards North Italy, we do not know anysingle
book to recommend. Darteni’s ‘* Etude de
VArchitecture Lombardo-Byzantino,” relates
to the earliest periods of the round-arched
style, and though the number of examples it
treats of is so small, they are very well and
thoroughly illustrated. Hubsch’s ‘“ Early
Christian Churches,” while its range is by no
means confined to Italy, yet deals with a
great number of the oldest ecclesiastical
buildings there, and illustrates them carefully
and intelligibly. It is altogether a very in-
teresting work, though itis chiefly concerned,
not with details, but with general types of
planning and arrangement. Medieval work
in South Italy is well illustrated by Schulz, in
animmense folio volume of plates, explained
by several of text interspersed by woodcuts.
There is a vast difference between the build-
ings in the North and South of the Peninsula,
and though the former, as they deserve to
be, are more visited and better known, the
latter, from their very singularity and quaint-
ness, may suggest ideas which would never
be inspired by examples of a regular type.
Itis not always the most perfect things which
are the most instructive. Their faultless
beauty only soothes the mind to repose, while
the angularities and discords of a half-formed
style set it thinking how to mend them.
Here, in the churches illustrated by Schulz,
we see two styles contending for the mastery ;
sometimes, it is true, allied, and working to-
gether in harmony and peace, but more often
fronting eachother, separate and antagonistic,
They are the products of Europe and of Asia,
of Christianity and Mahometanism. ‘The
former, Romanesque or Gothic, shows itself
the stronger: it subdues the main forms and
shapes to its own will, and fashions the con-
structive details ; but every here and there,
in woodwork, in sculpture, and cast metal
work, which last, by the way, abounds, its
Saracenic rival creeps out and moulds this or
that feature in a way unheard of elsewhere.
Not unfrequently, this mixed detail is very
beautiful, while the purely Romanesque
carving of the district is almost always so.
Much of it bears a strongly-marked Greek
character, combining, in a way that can
hardly be imagined from a _ description,
ancient refinement with Medieval vigour.
Further on, in Sicily, there is of course plenty
of purely Saracenic architecture. Some of
it, coarsely drawn and coloured, will be found
in Gally Knight’s work on the island. Out-
line plansand sections of the Palatine Chapel
at Palermo, and of some other examples, may
be found in the ‘‘ Antichita della Sicilia,” by
the Duke of Serradifaleo, Knight’s -‘ Archi-
tecture of Italy” is better executed than the
companion volume just referred to. It con-
tains effective, if not very accurate, views of
the principal churches and cathedrals, but
few plans, and no sections. One volume of
Chapuy’s ‘Moyen Age Monumentale” is
also devoted to the same series of buildings,
some of the plates being apparently copied
from Knight. A small but neatly-executed
work, confined to a single town, is Fleury’s
‘« Ndifices de Pisa ;” its elevations are in
outline, and there is litttle construction
shewn; but it contains a few plans, not
readily, if at all, to be met with elsewhere.
Of secular Medizval buildings in Italy a
number may be seen in Verdier and Cattois’
‘« Architecture Civile et Domestique.” This,
however, gives no Venetian ones, which may
be conveniently studied from photographs,
using Mr, Ruskin’s works as a commentary
and explanation of them.
5. Spanish Gothic. — With still better
reason than in the last paragraph, we must
put Mr. Street’s name first in this one. Be-
fore his ‘‘ Account of Gothic Architecture
in Spain ” appeared, Villa Amil’s ‘‘ L’Espagne
Artistique et Monumentale ” was perhaps the
best known book on the subject. It is a
striking and showy production, in three folio
volumes, much upon a level with Gally Knight
for accuracy, and better suited, therefore, to
the tastes of the amateur than of the archi-
tect. It has no plans or scale drawings of
any kind, and though many of the buildings
it relates to are worth studying, even by this
imperfect light, it has lost most of the im-
portance it had previous to the appearance of
Mr. Street’s more trustworthy illustrations.
The Kensington library has a fine series of
Spanish photographs, both Moorish and
Gothic, and these supply a want which we
could not but feel on first perusing Mr.
Street’s volume. This was, to ascertain
what the outsides of these vast wide-span _
and wide-bay churches were like. About
their interiors and their plans he gave us
ample information, but we were generally at
a loss to discover what was made of them on
the exterior. These photographs supply an
answer, and, on the whole, an unsatisfactory
one. ‘They help to prove, what we suspected
before, that the interiors are too often the
only tolerable parts of the design. Whether
from the innate difficulties of the plan, from
subsequent patching up in a debased Classic
style, or from the attempt to do what Mr.
Fergusson blames the Middle Age builders
for not having always done—namely, to use
the stone groining fora roof as well as a
ceiling, the general outlines of the great
Spanish churches seem as arule to be un-
pleasing. We mentioned, at the beginning
of the present article, the beautiful work
published by the late Imperial Government of France. A similar, but still more magnifi- cent one, the ‘* Monumentos Arquitectonicos
