Sir Christopher Wren

Before attempting some sketch of Wren’s position in the world of English Architecture, in which will be set down his own outlook on his art, mainly in his own words, it seems reasonable to describe his attitude towards the past and the views of others. The liveliness and modernity of his mind did not blind him to the lessons of antiquity, and his essays in the “restoration” of classical buildings show him to have been an earnest antiquary. Criticism of his conclusions must carry with it the remembrance that the apparatus criticus was exceedingly limited in his day, when the book was everything. The spade had not yet revealed a superior authority and opened out a vast prospect of boundless antiquity and tradition.

One of the most interesting features of the interleaved documents in the heirloom Parentalia is the sketch of Wren’s conjectural restoration of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.[D] The last note of the printed Parentalia is headed, “Of the Sepulchre of Mausolus, King of Caria.” It ends with the words, “The plate of the above is omitted, on account of the drawing being imperfect.”

This imperfect drawing is pasted on the last page of the Discourse in the heirloom copy, and shows Wren to be less careful as an archæologist than might have been anticipated. “The Sepulchre,” he writes, “is so well described by Pliny that I have attempted to design it accordingly, and also very open, conformable to the Description in Martial, Aere vacuo Pendentia Mausolea, and yet it wanted not the solidity of the Dorick order;” and he goes on to say, on very insufficient grounds, “I conclude this work must be the exactest Form of the Dorick.”

The odd thing is that Wren had not noticed the statement of Vitruvius that Pythios, the architect of the Mausoleum and the sculptor of the chariot group, gave up the Doric order because of the incongruous arrangements which arose in its use. Wren’s great blunder, however, was in the misreading of one word in Pliny’s description, “Pteron.” He says it is an unusual term. Russell Sturgis gives its meaning as “that which forms a side or flank, as the row of columns along the side of a temple, or the side wall itself.” It is the more odd that Wren boggled over the word Pteron, seeing that he used the word Dipteron in his description of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. At Ephesus there was no question in his mind of an “Attick order rising above the cornice,” but he takes the Pteron at Halicarnassus to have that meaning, and to be “a word of Greek Authors of Architecture now lost.” Anyhow, it pleasantly exemplifies on how insubstantial a foundation can rest a piece of architectural criticism which is based on literary evidence alone.

His mistake naturally vitiates the whole restoration, apart from the fact that the Mausoleum was of the Ionic order.

The consideration of Wren’s restoration will send the student to Professor Lethaby’s illuminating monographs on “Greek Buildings represented by fragments in the British Museum.” They must make him realise again, and more sensitively, the importance of going to the stones, and setting aside even Pliny (or, perhaps, especially Pliny) if he does not confirm their evidence.

On the wall of the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum is a drawing lettered “Design by Sir C. Wren from Pliny’s description of the Tomb of Mausolus, copied from Wren’s book, the Parentalia,” and signed “J. E. Goodchild, 1893.” Goodchild was a pupil of Cockerell, who also made a restoration represented at the British Museum both by a drawing and a model. In the MS. of the Parentalia at the Royal Society is a sheet with a rough sketch-plan, doubtless from Wren’s hand. From it and from Wren’s description, Goodchild presumably made his drawing. The sketch elevation in the heirloom copy gives an infinitely better-proportioned and more reasonable building than Goodchild’s. There is the possibility that the imperfect drawing referred to in the Parentalia is the sketch-plan bound up with the MS., but I feel sure the elevation in the heirloom copy is indicated. Goodchild’s description on the drawing suggests that he had merely copied from the Parentalia. It would have been more correct had he said “based on indications in the Parentalia.”

A word may be added about Wren’s description (printed in the Parentalia) of the Artemision at Ephesus. There are bound, in the ordinary copies of the book, engravings of a plan and elevation of the Temple, and also a plan and elevation of Wren’s conjectural restoration of the shrine of the goddess.

The odd feature of this restoration is again Wren’s reliance on Pliny’s figures, which would have made what Professor Lethaby calls a temple of “enormous and impossible size.” In order to fit in Pliny’s 127 columns, Wren has to make the fronts decastyle. To absorb the odd number of columns he invents a quite enchanting shrine which has small claim to credibility, and rather recalls the garden temples of the eighteenth century. He again neglects the safer guidance of Vitruvius, who states that the temple was octastyle. His observations on the Temple of Peace built by Vespasian include some charming phrases: “Each Deity had a peculiar Gesture, Face, and Dress hieroglyphically proper to it; as then Stories were but Morals involved: and not only their Altars and Sacrifices were mystical, but the very Forms of their Temples. No Language, no Poetry can so describe Peace, and the Effects of it in Men’s Minds, as the Design of the Temple naturally paints it, without any affectation of the Allegory. It is easy of Access, and open, carries an humble Front, but embraces wide, is luminous and pleasant, and content with an internal Greatness, despises an invidious Appearance of all that Heighth it might otherwise justly boast of, but rather fortifying itself on every Side, rests secure on a Square and ample Basis.”

But devotion to the antiquities of Greece did not hinder Wren from digging deeply into the history of Roman Britain, and his conclusions as to the London of the Romans are quoted with respect by the archæologists of to-day.

Amongst the criticisms directed against Wren as an antiquary are those which are concerned with his Gothic exercises. One otherwise devout admirer says of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, St. Mary’s, Aldermary, and St. Michael’s, Cornhill: “Whether Wren made these designs under pressure, or merely as academical exercises for the entertainment of his friends is unknown, but it is very evident that he had not the least sympathy with Gothic architecture, or taken any trouble to master its most rudimentary features.” Without going into the reasons for these Gothic adventures beyond dismissing the idea that Wren made such solid entertainment for his friends, it is at least safe to reply that Wren understood the nature of Gothic very well. That is not to say that he could reproduce it, but the informed student of any phase of art is not necessarily the person to create it. In 1669 he made a survey of Salisbury Cathedral for his old friend Bishop Seth Ward, and wrote a report which shows a true critical appreciation of the problems of the mediæval architect, of where he failed but also of where he succeeded. There is none of the contemptuous violence used by the virtuous Evelyn when he refers to Gothic, which led the way for Ruskin’s later vehemence about the “foul torrent of the Renaissance.” Wren merely remarks, “This Form of Churches has been rejected by modern Architects abroad, who use the better and Roman Art of Architecture,” and commends the proportions of the nave and aisles: “The Mouldings are decently mixed with large Planes, without an Affectation of filling every Corner with Ornaments, ... the Architect trusted to a stately and rich plainness.” Wren’s criticisms are directed to the foundations, the low level of the floor, the insufficient size of the pillars, and the bracing of the walls with iron. He also objected, with some justice, to the poise of the aisle vaulting, supported from without by buttresses but not within save by the pillars themselves.

It happened that Wren had to concern himself intimately with other “congestions of heavy dark melancholy and monkish piles, without any just proportion, use or beauty” (the phrase is Evelyn’s), such as Westminster Abbey. For twenty-five years he was Surveyor to the Abbey, and wrote a Report on it in 1713. We may pass over his historical paragraphs, which show shrewdness of observation, for his obiter dicta on Gothic methods. He disliked the “flutter of archbuttresses,” as they “occasion the Ruin of Cathedrals, being so much exposed to the Air and Weather,” but is tolerant of Henry VII.’s Chapel, “a nice embroidered Work.”

We have learnt by dire experience the heavy burden of repairs incident to the mediæval system of external supports by flying arches, pinnacles, and buttresses in our climate. He goes on to specify necessary repairs, some done, and others needed, and to plead for the finishing of the West Front and the completion of the Central Tower with the addition of a spire, which “will give a proper Grace to the whole Fabrick, and the West End of the City, which seems to want it.”

Sir Charles Barry was later to be equally concerned with the idea of completing the outline of the Abbey, as his last designs show.

Wren’s common sense and real respect for Gothic are alike shown by his proposal for the spire: “I have made a Design, which will not be very expensive but light, and still in the Gothic form, and of a Style with the rest of the Structure, which I would strictly adhere to, throughout the whole Intention: to deviate from the old Form would be to run into a disagreeable Mixture: which no Person of a good Taste could relish.”

He went on to talk of the north window, then stopped with plaster to prevent its total ruin, and said his models for the new work were “such as I conceive may agree with the original scheme of the old Architect, without any modern mixtures to shew my own Inventions.” His North Transept Front was swept away by Pearson, not to everyone’s satisfaction, and though the Gothic grammar of it was inevitably at fault, because he was trying to do something against the current of the times, the failure was not due to any lack of appreciation of Gothic. The existing western towers were not built in Wren’s lifetime and he need not be charged with the defects of their execution by the introduction of definitely classical cornices and other details of a type which Wren would not have used. So much for Wren as a student of Gothic. I come now to an example of the use he made of other men’s writings.

In the library of Shirburn Castle there is a copy of Wotton’s Elements of Architecture, first edition, 1624, annotated by the hand of Sir Christopher himself. It is worth while quoting from these notes in some detail, because they show that Wren was a careful reader and that he was quick to mark every kind of practical application of what he read. The page references are to the first edition of the Elements.

Where Wotton says of staircases (on p. 58) that “the breadth of every single step should never be less than one foot, nor more than eighteen inches,” Wren adds “nor so much as eighteen inches at any time, for if a step exceed twelve, those who have but short [legs] must tread twice upon the same step, especially in descent, which, to women especially, is troublesome, and dangerous to the hasty.” James Wyatt, in the circular staircase of Devonshire House, erred in this way, with exactly the effect that Wren describes. One bears in mind in this connection that Wren himself was of short stature. On p. 55 Wotton discourses of the advantage of luminous rooms: “Indeed, I must confess that a frank light can misbecome no edifice whatsoever, temples only excepted, which were anciently dark, as they are likewise at this day in some proportion, devotion more requiring collected than defused spirits,” on which Wren makes the comment that Christ Church in London was practically nothing but window, and was fitter for a stage than for a church, “although for the kind of building it is a thorough piece of work.” On gardens and their treatment with aqueducts, walks, etc., Wren makes the note, “And for disposing the current of a river to a mighty length in a little space I invented the Serpentine, a form admirably convoying the current in circular and yet contrary motions upon one and the same level, with walks and retirements between to the advantage of all purposes, either of gardenings, plantings, or banquetings ... far beyond the bungarly [!] invention at Hatfield so much liked for pleasure.” Up and down the book there are scattered all manner of other interesting notes. There is a practical thought in Wren’s reference to the very small chimneys in use in Spain, where charcoal was sold by weight. He has evidently had difficulty with smoky chimneys, for to Wotton’s observation, “Then there is a repulsion of the fume by some higher hill or fabrique that shall overtop the chimney,” he makes the significant comment, “As in our buildings here.”

In connection with terracing any story (by which Wotton seems to have meant the making of loggias), Wren remarks: “Terracing is most commended in hotter climates, and in our country must serve mostly for summer rooms.” To Wotton’s general reflection that “various colours on the out-walls of buildings have always in them more delight than dignity,” Wren adds the criticism in Latin that in this particular the noble building of Lord Exeter at Wimbledon also offends. He seems, however, to have been friendly to the use of mosaic, for he says: “Herein excels that excellent cave at Bodington wherein stands the brazen hydra with seven springs out of seven heads.” With regard to the art of the plasterer, Wotton had said: “Plastique is not only under sculpture, but indeed very sculpture itself, with this difference that the plasterer doth make his figures by addition, and the carver by subtraction.” Wren makes short work of this with, “This proposition can never hold true to the name of sculpture.”

At the end of the Elements Wotton promises another work, “A Philosophical Survey of Education, which is indeed a Second Building or Repairing of Nature, and, as I may term it, a kind of moral architecture.” Wren must have taken considerable pleasure from the Elements, for in the margin he has written: “Oh that we might see that, so long expected.”

There are bits of detailed criticism in his first Tract which might have been used in recent comments on a great London building: “Fronts ought to be elevated in the Middle, not the Corners; because the Middle is the place of greatest Dignity and first arrests the Eye; and rather projecting forward in the Middle, than hollow. For these Reasons, Pavilions at the Corners are naught; because they make both Faults, a hollow and depressed Front.... No Roof can have Dignity enough to appear above a Cornice, but the Circular: in private Buildings it is excusable.”

We know little about the amount of Wren’s general reading, but he was certainly a student of Elyot’s Governour. Some years ago I was the means of placing in the R.I.B.A. Library the 1546 edition of this once famous but now almost forgotten book. Its chief interest lies in the fact that it bears the autographs on the title-page of Sir Christopher’s father, Dean Christopher Wren, and of Sir Christopher himself. The other writings scribbled on the margins are the work of much earlier owners of the volume, which was nearly a century old when the Dean acquired it. There is some little evidence that the architect studied the book with care. Sir Thomas Elyot was concerned to set out the whole behaviour of a knightly gentleman, and among other things gives some warnings against the use of oaths. When Sir Christopher was building St. Paul’s Cathedral he was distressed by the profanity of the workmen, and posted up a notice directed against bad language. It is possible that he consulted the Governour before drafting this notice, for the page references in the index under the heading “othes” has been corrected from 170 to 160, and this was possibly done by Wren when he sought for what Elyot had to say about oaths.