In its emancipation from the mistaken principles of archæological revivals, and in its evidences of improved taste and awakened originality, contemporary British architecture shows promise of good things to come. It is still inferior to the French in the monumental quality, in technical resource and refinement of decorative detail.

ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE. In other European countries recent architecture shows in general increasing freedom and improved good taste, but both its opportunities and its performance have been nowhere else as conspicuous as in France, Germany, and England. The costly Bourse and the vast but overloaded Palais de Justice at Brussels, by Polaert, are neither of them conspicuous for refined and cultivated taste. A few buildings of note in Switzerland, Russia, and Greece might find mention in a more extended review of architecture, but cannot here even be enumerated. In Italy, especially at Rome, Milan, Naples, and Turin, there has been a great activity in building since 1870, but with the exception of the Monument to Victor Emmanuel and the National Museum at Rome, monumental arcades and passages at Milan and Naples, and Campi Santi or monumental cemeteries at Bologna, Genoa, and one or two other places, there has been almost nothing of real importance built in Italy of late years.

26. See Appendix D.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Books Recommended: As before, Fergusson, Statham. Also, Chandler, The Colonial Architecture of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Cleaveland and Campbell, American Landmarks. Corner and Soderholz, Colonial Architecture in New England. Crane and Soderholz, Examples of Colonial Architecture in Charleston and Savannah. Drake, Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex. Everett, Historic Churches of America. King, Handbook of Boston; Handbook of New York. Little, Early New England Interiors. Schuyler, American Architecture. Van Rensselaer, H. H. Richardson and His Works. Wallis, Old Colonial Architecture and Furniture.

GENERAL REMARKS. The colonial architecture of modern times presents a peculiar phenomenon. The colonizing nation, carrying into its new habitat the tastes and practices of a long-established civilization, modifies these only with the utmost reluctance, under the absolute compulsion of new conditions. When the new home is virgin soil, destitute of cultivation, government, or civilized inhabitants, the accompaniments and activities of civilization introduced by the colonists manifest themselves at first in curious contrast to the primitive surroundings. The struggle between organized life and chaos, the laborious subjugation of nature to the requirements of our complex modern life, for a considerable period absorb the energies of the colonists. The amenities of culture, the higher intellectual life, the refinements of art can, during this period, receive little attention. Meanwhile a new national character is being formed; the people are undergoing the moral training upon which their subsequent achievements must depend. With the conquest of brute nature, however, and the gradual emergence of a more cultivated class, with the growth of commerce and wealth and the consequent increase of leisure, the humanities find more place in the colonial life. The fine arts appear in scattered centres determined by peculiarly favorable conditions. For a long time they retain the impress, and seek to reproduce the forms, of the art of the mother country. But new conditions impose a new development. Maturing commerce with other lands brings in foreign influences, to which the still unformed colonial art is peculiarly susceptible. Only with political and commercial independence, fully developed internal resources, and a high national culture do the arts finally attain, as it were, their majority, and enter upon a truly national growth.

These facts are abundantly illustrated by the architectural history of the United States. The only one among the British colonies to attain political independence, it is the only one among them whose architecture has as yet entered upon an independent course of development, and this only within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Nor has even this development produced as yet a distinctive local style. It has, however, originated new constructive methods, new types of buildings, and a distinctively American treatment of the composition and the masses; the decorative details being still, for the most part, derived from historic precedents. The architecture of the other British colonies has retained its provincial character, though producing from time to time individual works of merit. In South America and Mexico the only buildings of importance are Spanish, French, or German in style, according to the nationality of the architects employed. The following sketch of American architecture refers, therefore, exclusively to its development in the United States.

FORMATIVE PERIOD. Buildings in stone were not undertaken by the early English colonists. The more important structures in the Southern and Dutch colonies were of brick imported from Europe. Wood was, however, the material most commonly employed, especially in New England, and its use determined in large measure the form and style of the colonial architecture. There was little or no striving for architectural elegance until well into the eighteenth century, when Wren’s influence asserted itself in a modest way in the Middle and Southern colonies. The very simple and unpretentious town-hall at Williamsburg, Va., and St. Michael’s, Charleston, are attributed to him; but the most that can be said for these, as for the brick churches and manors of Virginia previous to 1725, is that they are simple in design and pleasing in proportion, without special architectural elegance. The same is true of the wooden houses and churches of New England of the period, except that they are even simpler in design.

see caption and text
FIG. 218.—CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

From 1725 to 1775 increased population and wealth along the coast brought about a great advance in architecture, especially in churches and in the dwellings of the wealthy. During this period was developed the Colonial style, based on that of the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges in England, and in church architecture on the models set by Wren and Gibbs. All the details were, however, freely modified by the general employment of wood. The scarcity of architects trained in Old World traditions contributed to this departure from classic precision of form. The style, especially in interior design, reflected the cultured taste of the colonial aristocracy in its refined treatment of the woodwork. But there was little or no architecture of a truly monumental character. Edifices of stone were singularly few, and administrative buildings were small and modest, owing to insufficient grants from the Crown, as well as to the poverty of the colonies.

The churches of this period include a number of interesting designs, especially pleasing in the forms of their steeples. The “Old South” at Boston (now a museum), Trinity at Newport, and St. Paul’s at New York—one of the few built of stone (1764)—are good examples of the style. Christ Church at Philadelphia (1727–35, by Dr. Kearsley) is another example, historically as well as architecturally interesting (Fig. 218); and there are scores of other churches almost equally noteworthy, scattered through New England, Maryland, Virginia, and the Middle States.

DWELLINGS. These reflect better than the churches the varying tastes of the different colonies. Maryland and Virginia abound in fine brick manor-houses, set amid extensive grounds walled in and entered through iron gates of artistic design. The interior finish of these houses was often elaborate in conception and admirably executed. Westover (1737), Carter’s Grove (1737) in Virginia, and the Harwood and Hammond Houses at Annapolis, Md. (1770), are examples. The majority of the New England houses were of wood, more compact in plan, more varied and picturesque in design than those of the South, but wanting somewhat of their stateliness. The interior finish of wainscot, cornices, stairs, and mantelpieces shows, however, the same general style, in a skilful and artistic adaptation of classic forms to the slender proportions of wood construction. Externally the orders appear in porches and in colossal pilasters, with well designed entablatures, and windows of Italian model. The influence of the Adams and Sheraton furniture is doubtless to be seen in these quaint and often charming versions of classic motives. The Hancock House, Boston (of stone, demolished); the Sherburne House, Portsmouth (1730); Craigie House, Cambridge (1757, Fig. 219); and Rumford House, North Woburn (Mass.), are typical examples.

see caption and text
FIG. 219.—CRAIGIE (LONGFELLOW) HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE.

In the Middle States architectural activity was chiefly centred in Philadelphia and New York, and one or two other towns, where a number of manor-houses, still extant, attest the wealth and taste of the time. It is noticeable that the veranda or piazza was confined to the Southern States, but that the climate seems to have had little influence on the forms of roofs. These were gambrelled, hipped, gabled, or flat, alike in the North and South, according to individual taste.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS. Of public and monumental architecture this period has little to show. Large cities did not exist; New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were hardly more than overgrown villages. The public buildings—court-houses and town-halls—were modest and inexpensive structures. The Old State House and Faneuil Hall at Boston, the Town Hall at Newport (R.I.), and Independence Hall at Philadelphia, the best known of those now extant, are not striking architecturally. Monumental design was beyond the opportunities and means of the colonies. It was in their churches, all of moderate size, and in their dwellings that the colonial builders achieved their greatest successes; and these works are quaint, charming, and refined, rather than impressive or imposing.

To the latter part of the colonial period belong a number of interesting buildings which remain as monuments of Spanish rule in California, Florida, and the Southwest. The old Fort S. Marco, now Fort Marion (1656–1756), and the Catholic cathedral (1793; after the fire of 1887 rebuilt in its original form with the original façade uninjured), both at St. Augustine, Fla.; the picturesque buildings of the California missions (mainly 1769–1800), the majority of them now in ruins; scattered Spanish churches in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and a few unimportant secular buildings, display among their modern and American settings a picturesque and interesting Spanish aspect and character, though from the point of view of architectural detail they represent merely a crude phase of the Churrigueresque style.

see caption and text
FIG. 220.—NATIONAL CAPITOL, WASHINGTON.

EARLY REPUBLICAN PERIOD. Between the Revolution and the War of 1812, under the new conditions of independence and self-government, architecture took on a more monumental character. Buildings for the State and National administrations were erected with the rapidly increasing resources of the country. Stone was more generally used; colonnades, domes, and cupolas or bell-towers, were adopted as indispensable features of civic architecture. In church-building the Wren-Gibbs type continued to prevail, but with greater correctness of classic forms. The gambrel roof tended to disappear from the houses of this period, and there was some decline in the refinement and delicacy of the details of architecture. The influence of the Louis XVI. style is traceable in many cases, as in the New York City Hall (1803–12, by McComb and Mangin), one of the very best designs of the time, and in the delicate stucco-work and interior finish of many houses, The original Capitol at Washington—the central portion of the present edifice—by Thornton, Hallet, and B. H. Latrobe (1793–1830; Fig. 220), the State House at Boston (1795, by Bulfinch), and the University of Virginia, at Charlotteville, by Thomas Jefferson (1817; recently destroyed in part by fire), are the most interesting examples of the classic tendencies of this period. Their freedom from the rococo vulgarities generally prevalent at the time in Europe is noticeable.

see caption and text
FIG. 221.—CUSTOM HOUSE, NEW YORK.

THE CLASSIC REVIVAL. The influence of the classic revivals of Europe began to appear before the close of this period, and reached its culmination about 1830–40. It left its impress most strongly on our Federal architecture, although it invaded domestic architecture, producing countless imitations, in brick and wooden houses, of Grecian colonnades and porticos. One of its first-fruits was the White House, or Executive Mansion, at Washington, by Hoban (1792), recalling the large English country houses of the time. The Treasury and Patent Office buildings at Washington, the Philadelphia Mint, the Sub-treasury and Custom House at New York (the latter erected originally for a bank; Fig. 221), and the Boston Custom House are among the important Federal buildings of this period. Several State capitols were also erected under the same influence; and the Marine Exchange and Girard College at Philadelphia should also be mentioned as conspicuous examples of the pseudo-Greek style. The last-named building is a Corinthian dormitory, its tiers of small windows contrasting strangely with its white marble columns. These classic buildings were solidly and carefully constructed, but lacked the grace, cheerfulness, and appropriateness of earlier buildings. The Capitol at Washington was during this period greatly enlarged by terminal wings with fine Corinthian porticos, of Roman rather than Greek design. The Dome, by Walters, was not added until 1858–73; it is a successful and harmonious composition, nobly completing the building. Unfortunately, it is an afterthought, built of iron painted to simulate marble, the substructure being inadequate to support a dome of masonry. The Italian or Roman style which it exemplified, in time superseded the less tractable Greek style.

THE WAR PERIOD. The period from 1850 to 1876 was one of intense political activity and rapid industrial progress. The former culminated in the terrible upheaval of the civil war; the latter in the completion of the Pacific Railroad (1869) and a remarkable development of the mining resources and manufactures of the country. It was a period of feverish commercial activity, but of artistic stagnation, and witnessed the erection of but few buildings of architectural importance. A number of State capitols, city halls and churches, of considerable size and cost but of inferior design, attest the decline of public taste and architectural skill during these years. The huge Municipal Building at Philadelphia and the still unfinished Capitol at Albany are full of errors of planning and detail which twenty-five years of elaboration have failed to correct. Next to the dome of the Capitol at Washington, completed during this period, of which it is the most signal architectural achievement, its most notable monument was the St. Patrick’s Cathedral at New York, by Renwick; a Gothic church which, if somewhat cold and mechanical in detail, is a stately and well-considered design. Its west front and spires (completed 1886) are particularly successful. Trinity Church (1843, by Upjohn) and Grace Church (1840, by Renwick), though of earlier date, should be classed with this cathedral as worthy examples of modern Gothic design. Indeed, the churches designed in this style by a few thoroughly trained architects during this period are the most creditable and worthy among its lesser productions. In general an undiscriminating eclecticism of style prevailed, unregulated by sober taste or technical training. The Federal buildings by Mullett were monuments of perverted design in a heavy and inartistic rendering of French Renaissance motives. The New York Post Office and the State, Army and Navy Department building at Washington are examples of this style.

see caption and text
FIG. 222.—TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON.

THE ARTISTIC AWAKENING. Between 1870 and 1880 a remarkable series of events exercised a powerful influence on the artistic life of the United States. Two terrible conflagrations in Chicago (1871) and Boston (1872) gave unexampled opportunities for architectural improvement and greatly stimulated the public interest in the art. The feverish and abnormal industrial activity which followed the war and the rapid growth of the parvenu spirit were checked by the disastrous “panic” of 1873. With the completion of the Pacific railways and the settlement of new communities in the West, industrial prosperity, when it returned, was established on a firmer basis. An extraordinary expansion of travel to Europe began to disseminate the seeds of artistic culture throughout the country. The successful establishment of schools of architecture in Boston (1866) and other cities, and the opening or enlargement of art museums in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee, and elsewhere, stimulated the artistic awakening which now manifested itself. In architecture the personal influence of two men, trained in the Paris École des Beaux-Arts, was especially felt—of R. M. Hunt (1827–95) through his words and deeds quite as much as through his works; and of H. H. Richardson (1828–86) predominantly through his works. These two men, with others of less fame but of high ideals and thorough culture, did much to elevate architecture as an art in the public esteem. To all these influences new force was added by the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia (1876). Here for the first time the American people were brought into contact, in their own land, with the products of European and Oriental art. It was to them an artistic revelation, whose results were prompt and far-reaching. Beginning first in the domain of industrial and decorative art, its stimulating influence rapidly extended to painting and architecture, and with permanent consequences. American students began to throng the centres of Old World art, while the setting of higher standards of artistic excellence at home, and the development of important art-industries, were other fruits of this artistic awakening. The recent Columbian Exhibition at Chicago (1893), its latest and most important manifestation, has added a new impulse to the movement, especially in architecture.

see caption and text
FIG. 223.—LIBRARY AT WOBURN, MASS.

STYLE IN RECENT ARCHITECTURE. The rapid increase in the number of American architects trained in Paris or under the indirect influence of the École des Beaux-Arts has been an important factor in recent architectural progress. Yet it has by no means imposed the French academic formulæ upon American architecture. The conditions, materials, and constructive processes here prevailing, and above all the eclecticism of the public taste, have prevented this. The French influence is perceived rather in a growing appreciation of monumental design in the planning, composition, and setting of buildings, than in any direct imitation of French models. The Gothic revival which prevailed more or less widely from 1840 to 1875, as already noticed, and of which the State Capitol at Hartford (Conn.; 1875–78), and the Fine Arts Museum at Boston, were among the last important products, was generally confined to church architecture, for which Gothic forms are still largely employed, as in the Protestant Cathedral of All Saints now building at Albany (N.Y.), by an English architect. For the most part the works of the last twenty years show a more or less judicious eclecticism, the choice of style being determined partly by the person and training of the designer, partly by the nature of the building. The powerfully conceived works of Richardson, in a free version of the French Romanesque, for a time exercised a wide influence, especially among the younger architects. Trinity Church, Boston (Fig. 222), his earliest important work; many public libraries and business buildings, and finally the impressive County Buildings at Pittsburgh (Pa.), all treated in this style, are admirable rather for the strong individuality of their designer, displayed in their vigorous composition, than on account of the historic style he employed (Fig. 223). Yet it appeared in his hands so flexible and effective that it was widely imitated. But if easy to use, it is most difficult to use well; its forms are too massive for ordinary purposes, and in the hands of inferior designers it was so often travestied that it has now lost its wide popularity. While a number of able architects have continued to use it effectively in ecclesiastical, civic, and even commercial architecture, it is being generally superseded by various forms of the Renaissance. Here also a wide eclecticism prevails, the works of the same architect often varying from the gayest Francis I. designs in domestic architecture, or free adaptations of Quattrocento details for theatres and street architecture, to the most formal classicism in colossal exhibition-buildings, museums, libraries, and the like. Meanwhile there are many more or less successful ventures in other historic styles applied to public and private edifices. Underlying this apparent confusion, almost anarchy in the use of historic styles, the careful observer may detect certain tendencies crystallizing into definite form. New materials and methods of construction, increased attention to detail, a growing sense of monumental requirements, even the development of the elevator as a substitute for the grand staircase, are leaving their mark on the planning, the proportions, and the artistic composition of American buildings, irrespective of the styles used. The art is with us in a state of transition, and open to criticism in many respects; but it appears to be full of life and promise for the future.

see caption and text
FIG. 224.—“TIMES” BUILDING, NEW YORK.

COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS. This class of edifices has in our great cities developed wholly new types, which have taken shape under four imperative influences. These are the demand for fire-proof construction, the demand for well-lighted offices, the introduction of elevators, and the concentration of business into limited areas, within which land has become inordinately costly. These causes have led to the erection of buildings of excessive height (Fig. 224); the more recent among them constructed with a framework of iron or steel columns and beams, the visible walls being a mere filling-in. To render a building of twenty stories attractive to the eye, especially when built on an irregular site, is a difficult problem, of which a wholly satisfactory solution has yet to be found. There have been, however, some notable achievements in this line, in most of which the principle has been clearly recognized that a lofty building should have a well-marked basement or pedestal and a somewhat ornate crowning portion or capital, the intervening stories serving as a die or shaft and being treated with comparative simplicity. The difficulties of scale and of handling one hundred and fifty to three hundred windows of uniform style have been surmounted with conspicuous skill (American Surety Building and Broadway Chambers, New York; Ames Building, Boston; Carnegie Building, Pittsburgh; Union Trust, St. Louis). In some cases, especially in Chicago and the Middle West, the metallic framework is suggested by slender piers between the windows, rising uninterrupted from the basement to the top story. In others, especially in New York and the East, the walls are treated as in ordinary masonry buildings. The Chicago school is marked by a more utilitarian and unconventional treatment, with results which are often extremely bold and effective, but rarely as pleasing to the eye as those attained by the more conservative Eastern school. In the details of American office-buildings every variety of style is to be met with; but the Romanesque and the Renaissance, freely modified, predominate. The tendency towards two or three well-marked types in the external composition of these buildings, as above suggested, promises, however, the evolution of a style in which the historic origin of the details will be a secondary matter. Certain Chicago architects have developed an original treatment of architectural forms by exaggerating some of the structural lines, by suppressing the mouldings and more familiar historic forms, and by the free use of flat surface ornament. The Schiller, Auditorium, and Fisher Buildings, all at Chicago, Guaranty Building, Buffalo, and Majestic Building, Detroit, are examples of this personal style, which illustrates the untrammelled freedom of the art in a land without traditions.27

see caption and text
FIG. 225.—COUNTRY HOUSE, MASSACHUSETTS.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. It is in this field that the most characteristic and original phases of American architecture are to be met with, particularly in rural and suburban residences. In these the peculiar requirements of our varying climates and of American domestic life have been studied and in large measure met with great frankness and artistic appreciation. The broad staircase-hall, serving often as a sort of family sitting-room, the piazza, and a picturesque massing of steep roofs, have been the controlling factors in the evolution of two or three general types which appear in infinite variations. The material most used is wood, but this has had less influence in the determination of form than might have been expected. The artlessness of the planning, which is arranged to afford the maximum of convenience rather than to conform to any traditional type, has been the element of greatest artistic success. It has resulted in exteriors which are the natural outgrowth of the interior arrangements, frankly expressed, without affectation of style (Fig. 225). The resulting picturesqueness has, however, in many cases been treated as an end instead of an incidental result, and the affectation of picturesqueness has in such designs become as detrimental as any affectation of style. In the internal treatment of American houses there has also been a notable artistic advance, harmony of color and domestic comfort and luxury being sought after rather than monumental effects. A number of large city and country houses designed on a palatial scale have, however, given opportunity for a more elaborate architecture; notably the Vanderbilt, Villard, and Huntington residences at New York, the great country-seat of Biltmore, near Asheville (N.C.), in the Francis I. style (by R. M. Hunt), and many others.

OTHER BUILDINGS. American architects have generally been less successful in public, administrative, and ecclesiastical architecture than in commercial and domestic work. The preference for small parish churches, treated as audience-rooms rather than as places of worship, has interfered with the development of noble types of church-buildings. Yet there are signs of improvement; and the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine at New York, in a modified Romanesque style, promises to be a worthy and monumental building. In semi-public architecture, such as hotels, theatres, clubs, and libraries, there are many notable examples of successful design. The Ponce de Leon Hotel at St. Augustine, a sumptuous and imposing pile in a free version of the Spanish Plateresco; the Auditorium Theatre at Chicago, the Madison Square Garden and the Casino at New York, may be cited as excellent in general conception and well carried out in detail, externally and internally. The Century and Metropolitan Clubs at New York, the Boston Public Library, the Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh, the Congressional Library at Washington, and the recently completed Minnesota State Capitol at St. Paul, exemplify in varying degrees of excellence the increasing capacity of American architects for monumental design. This was further shown in the buildings of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. These, in spite of many faults of detail, constituted an aggregate of architectural splendor such as had never before been seen or been possible on this side the Atlantic. They further brought architecture into closer union with the allied arts and formed an object lesson in the value of appropriate landscape gardening as a setting to monumental structures.

It should be said, in conclusion, that with the advances of recent years in artistic design in the United States there has been at least as great improvement in scientific construction. The sham and flimsiness of the Civil War period are passing away, and solid and durable building is becoming more general throughout the country, but especially in the Northeast and in some of the great Western cities, notably in Chicago. In this onward movement the Federal buildings—post-offices, custom-houses, and other governmental edifices—have not, till lately, taken high rank. Although solidly and carefully constructed, those built during the period 1875–1895 were generally inferior to the best work produced by private enterprise, or by State and municipal governments. This was in large part due to enactments devolving upon the supervising architect at Washington the planning of all Federal buildings, as well as a burden of supervisory and clerical duties incompatible with the highest artistic results. Since 1898, however, a more enlightened policy has prevailed, and a number of notable designs for Federal buildings have been secured by carefully-conducted competitions.

27. See Appendix, D and E.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE.

INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN.

Books Recommended: Cole, Monographs of Ancient Monuments of India. Conder, Notes on Japanese Architecture (in Transactions of R.I.B.A., for 1886). Cunningham, Archæological Survey of India. Fergusson, Indian and Eastern Architecture; Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture. Le Bon, Les Monuments de l’Inde. Morse, Japanese Houses. Stirling, Asiatic Researches. Consult also the Journal and the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The architecture of the non-Moslem countries and races of Asia has been reserved for this closing chapter, in order not to interrupt the continuity of the history of European styles, with which it has no affinity and scarcely even a point of contact. Among them all, India alone has produced monuments of great architectural importance. The buildings of China and Japan, although interesting for their style, methods, and detail, and so deserving at least of brief mention, are for the most part of moderate size and of perishable materials. Outside of these three countries there is little to interest the general student of architecture.

INDIA: PERIODS. It is difficult to classify the non-Mohammedan styles of India, owing to their frequently overlapping, both geographically and artistically; while the lack of precise dates in Indian literature makes the chronology of many of the monuments more or less doubtful. The divisions given below are a modification of those first established by Fergusson, and are primarily based on the three great religions, with geographical subdivisions, as follows:

THE BUDDHIST STYLE, from the reign of Asoka, cir. 250 B.C., to the 7th century A.D. Its monuments occupy mainly a broad band running northeast and southwest, between the Indian Desert and the Dekkan. Offshoots of the style are found as far north as Gandhara, and as far south as Ceylon.

THE JAINA STYLE, akin to the preceding if not derived from it, covering the same territory as well as southern India; from 1000 A.D. to the present time.

THE BRAHMAN or HINDU STYLES, extending over the whole peninsula. They are sub-divided geographically into the NORTHERN BRAHMAN, the CHALUKYAN in the Dekkan, and the DRAVIDIAN in the south; this last style being coterminous with the populations speaking the Tamil and cognate languages. The monuments of these styles are mainly subsequent to the 10th century, though a few date as far back as the 7th.

The great majority of Indian monuments are religious—temples, shrines, and monasteries. Secular buildings do not appear until after the Moslem conquests, and most of them are quite modern.

GENERAL CHARACTER. All these styles possess certain traits in common. While stone and brick are both used, sandstone predominating, the details are in large measure derived from wooden prototypes. Structural lines are not followed in the exterior treatment, purely decorative considerations prevailing. Ornament is equally lavished on all parts of the building, and is bewildering in its amount and complexity. Realistic and grotesque sculpture is freely used, forming multiplied horizontal bands of extraordinary richness and minuteness of execution. Spacious and lofty interiors are rarely attempted, but wonderful effects are produced by seemingly endless repetition of columns in halls, and corridors, and by external emphasis of important parts of the plan by lofty tower-like piles of masonry.

The source of the various Indian styles, the origin of the forms used, the history of their development, are all wrapped in obscurity. All the monuments show a fully developed style and great command of technical resources from the outset. When, where, and how these were attained is as yet an unsolved mystery. In all its phases previous to the Moslem conquest Indian architecture appears like an indigenous art, borrowing little from foreign styles, and having no affinities with the arts of Occidental nations.

BUDDHIST STYLE. Although Buddhism originated in the sixth century B.C., the earliest architectural remains of the style date from its wide promulgation in India under Asoka (272–236 B.C.). Buddhist monuments comprise three chief classes of structures: the stupas or topes, which are mounds more or less domical in shape, enclosing relic-shrines of Buddha, or built to mark some sacred spot; chaityas, or temple halls, cut in the rock; and viharas, or monasteries. The style of the detail varies considerably in these three classes, but is in general simpler and more massive than in the other styles of India.

TOPES. These are found in groups, of which the most important are at or near Bhilsa in central India, at Manikyala in the northwest, at Amravati in the south, and in Ceylon at Ruanwalli and Tuparamaya. The best known among them is the Sanchi Tope, near Bhilsa, 120 feet in diameter and 56 feet high. It is surrounded by a richly carved stone rail or fence, with gateways of elaborate workmanship, having three sculptured lintels crossing the carved uprights. The tope at Manikyala is larger, and dates from the 7th century. It is exceeded in size by many in Ceylon, that at Abayagiri measuring 360 feet in diameter. Few of the topes retain the tee, or model of a shrine, which, like a lantern, once crowned each of them.

Besides the topes there are a few stupas of tower-like form, square in plan, of which the most famous is that at Buddh Gaya, near the sacred Bodhi tree, where Buddha attained divine light in 588 B.C.

CHAITYA HALLS. The Buddhist speos-temples—so far as known the only extant halls of worship of that religion, except one at Sanchi—are mostly in the Bombay Presidency, at Ellora, Karli, Ajunta, Nassick, and Bhaja. The earliest, that at Karli, dates from 78 B.C., the latest (at Ellora), cir. 600 A.D. They consist uniformly of a broad nave ending in an apse, and covered by a roof like a barrel vault, and two narrow side aisles. In the apse is the dagoba or relic-shrine, shaped like a miniature tope. The front of the cave was originally adorned with an open-work screen or frame of wood, while the face of the rock about the opening was carved into the semblance of a sumptuous structural façade. Among the finest of these caverns is that at Karli, whose massive columns and impressive scale recall Egyptian models, though the resemblance is superficial and has no historic significance. More suggestive is the affinity of many of the columns which stand before these caves to Persian prototypes (see Fig. 21). It is not improbable that both Persian and classic forms were introduced into India through the Bactrian kingdom 250 years B.C. Otherwise we must seek for the origin of nearly all Buddhist forms in a pre-existing wooden architecture, now wholly perished, though its traditions may survive in the wooden screens in the fronts of the caves. While some of these caverns are extremely simple, as at Bhaja, others, especially at Nassick and Ajunta, are of great splendor and complexity.

VIHARAS. Except at Gandhara in the Punjab, the structural monasteries of the Buddhists were probably all of wood and have long ago perished. The Gandhara monasteries of Jamalgiri and Takht-i-Bahi present in plan three or four courts surrounded by cells. The centre of one court is in both cases occupied by a platform for an altar or shrine. Among the ruins there have been found a number of capitals whose strong resemblance to the Corinthian type is now generally attributed to Byzantine rather than Bactrian influences. These viharas may therefore be assigned to the 6th or 7th century A.D.

The rock-cut viharas are found in the neighborhood of the chaityas already described. Architecturally, they are far more elaborate than the chaityas. Those at Salsette, Ajunta, and Bagh are particularly interesting, with pillared halls or courts, cells, corridors, and shrines. The hall of the Great Vihara at Bagh is 96 feet square, with 36 columns. Adjoining it is the school-room, and the whole is fronted by a sumptuous rock-cut colonnade 200 feet long. These caves were mostly hewn between the 5th and 7th centuries, at which time sculpture was more prevalent in Buddhist works than previously, and some of them are richly adorned with figures.

JAINA STYLE. The religion and the architecture of the Jainas so closely resemble those of the Buddhists, that recent authorities are disposed to treat the Jaina style as a mere variation or continuation of the Buddhist. Chronologically they are separated by an interval of some three centuries, cir. 650–950 A.D., which have left us almost no monuments of either style. The Jaina is moreover easily distinguished from the Buddhist architecture by the great number and elaborateness of its structural monuments. The multiplication of statues of Tirthankhar in the cells about the temple courts, the exuberance of sculpture, the use of domes built in horizontal courses, and the imitation in stone of wooden braces or struts are among its distinguishing features.

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FIG. 226.—PORCH OF TEMPLE ON MOUNT ABU.

JAINA TEMPLES. The earliest examples are on Mount Abu in the Indian Desert. Built by Vimalah Sah in 1032, the chief of these consists of a court measuring 140 × 90 feet, surrounded by cells and a double colonnade. In the centre rises the shrine of the god, containing his statue, and terminating in a lofty tower or sikhra. An imposing columnar porch, cruciform in plan, precedes this cell (Fig. 226). The intersection of the arms is covered by a dome supported on eight columns with stone brackets or struts. The dome and columns are covered with profuse carving and sculptured figures, and the total effect is one of remarkable dignity and splendor. The temple of Sadri is much more extensive, twenty minor domes and one of larger size forming cruciform porches on all four sides of the central sikhra. The cells about the court are each covered by a small sikhra, and these, with the twenty-one domes (four of which are built in three stories), all grouped about the central tower and adorned with an astonishing variety of detail, constitute a monument of the first importance. It was built by Khumbo Rana, about 1450. At Girnar are several 12th-century temples with enclosed instead of open vestibules. One of these, that of Neminatha, retains intact its court enclosure and cells, which in most other cases have perished. The temple at Somnath resembles it, but is larger; the dome of its porch, 33 feet in diameter, is the largest Jaina dome in India. Other notable temples are at Gwalior, Khajuraho, and Parasnatha.

In all the Jaina temples the salient feature is the sikhra or vimana. This is a tower of approximately square plan, tapering by a graceful curve toward a peculiar terminal ornament shaped like a flattened melon. Its whole surface is variegated by horizontal bands and vertical breaks, covered with sculpture and carving. Next in importance are the domes, built wholly in horizontal courses and resting on stone lintels carried by bracketed columns. These same traits appear in relatively modern examples, as at Delhi.

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FIG. 227.—TOWER OF VICTORY, CHITTORE.

TOWERS. A similar predilection for minutely broken surfaces marks the towers which sometimes adjoin the temples, as at Chittore (tower of Sri Allat, 13th century), or were erected as trophies of victory, like that of Khumbo Rana in the same town (Fig. 227). The combination of horizontal and vertical lines, the distribution of the openings, and the rich ornamentation of these towers are very interesting, though lacking somewhat in structural propriety of design.

HINDU STYLES: NORTHERN BRAHMAN. The origin of this style is as yet an unsolved problem. Its monuments were mainly built between 600 and 1200 A.D., the oldest being in Orissa, at Bhuwanesevar, Kanaruk, and Puri. In northern India the temples are about equally divided between the two forms of Brahmanism—the worship of Vishnu or Vaishnavism, and that of Siva or Shaivism—and do not differ materially in style. As in the Jaina style, the vimana is their most striking feature, and this is in most cases adorned with numerous reduced copies of its own form grouped in successive stages against its sides and angles. This curious system of design appears in nearly all the great temples, both of Vishnu and Siva. The Jaina melon ornament is universal, surmounted generally by an urn-shaped finial.

In plan the vimana shrine is preceded by two or three chambers, square or polygonal, some with and some without columns. The foremost of these is covered by a roof formed like a stepped pyramid set cornerwise. The fine porch of the ruined temple at Bindrabun is cruciform in plan and forms the chief part of the building, the shrine at the further end being relatively small and its tower unfinished or ruined. In some modern examples the antechamber is replaced by an open porch with a Saracenic dome, as at Benares; in others the old type is completely abandoned, as in the temple at Kantonnuggur (1704–22). This is a square hall built of terra-cotta, with four three-arched porches and nine towers, more Saracenic than Brahman in general aspect.

The Kandarya Mahadeo, at Khajuraho, is the most noted example of the northern Brahman style, and one of the most splendid structures extant. A strong and lofty basement supports an extraordinary mass of roofs, covering the six open porches and the antechamber and hypostyle hall, which precede the shrine, and rising in successive pyramidal masses until the vimana is reached which covers the shrine. This is 116 feet high, but seems much loftier, by reason of the small scale of its constituent parts and the marvellously minute decoration which covers the whole structure. The vigor of its masses and the grand stairways which lead up to it give it a dignity unusual for its size, 60 × 109 feet in plan (cir. 1000 A.D.).

At Puri, in Orissa, the Temple of Jugganat, with its double enclosure and numerous subordinate shrines, the Teli-ka-Mandir at Gwalior, and temples at Udaipur near Bhilsa, at Mukteswara in Orissa, at Chittore, Benares, and Barolli, are important examples. The few tombs erected subsequent to the Moslem conquest, combining Jaina bracket columns with Saracenic domes, and picturesquely situated palaces at Chittore (1450), Oudeypore (1580), and Gwalior, should also be mentioned.

CHALUKYAN STYLE. Throughout a central zone crossing the peninsula from sea to sea about the Dekkan, and extending south to Mysore on the west, the Brahmans developed a distinct style during the later centuries of the Chalukyan dynasty. Its monuments are mainly comprised between 1050 and the Mohammedan conquest in 1310. The most notable examples of the style are found along the southwest coast, at Hullabid, Baillur, and Somnathpur.

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FIG. 228.—TEMPLE AT HULLABÎD. DETAIL.

TEMPLES. Chalukyan architecture is exclusively religious and its temples are easily recognized. The plans comprise the same elements as those of the Jainas, but the Chalukyan shrine is always star-shaped externally in plan, and the vimana takes the form of a stepped pyramid instead of a curved outline. The Jaina dome is, moreover, wholly wanting. All the details are of extraordinary richness and beauty, and the breaking up of the surfaces by rectangular projections is skilfully managed so as to produce an effect of great apparent size with very moderate dimensions. All the known examples stand on raised platforms, adding materially to their dignity. Some are double temples, as at Hullabid (Fig. 228); others are triple in plan. A noticeable feature of the style is the deeply cut stratification of the lower part of the temples, each band or stratum bearing a distinct frieze of animals, figures or ornament, carved with masterly skill. Pierced stone slabs filling the window openings are also not uncommon.

The richest exemplars of the style are the temples at Baillur and Somnathpur, and at Hullabîd the Kait Iswara and the incomplete Double Temple. The Kurti Stambha, or gate at Worangul, and the Great Temple at Hamoncondah should also be mentioned.

DRAVIDIAN STYLE. The Brahman monuments of southern India exhibit a style almost as strongly marked as the Chalukyan. This appears less in their details than in their general plan and conception. The Dravidian temples are not single structures, but aggregations of buildings of varied size and form, covering extensive areas enclosed by walls and entered through gates made imposing by lofty pylons called gopuras. As if to emphasize these superficial resemblances to Egyptian models, the sanctuary is often low and insignificant. It is preceded by much more imposing porches (mantapas) and hypostyle halls or choultries, the latter being sometimes of extraordinary extent, though seldom lofty. The choultrie, sometimes called the Hall of 1,000 Columns, is in some cases replaced by pillared corridors of great length and splendor, as at Ramisseram and Madura. The plans are in most cases wholly irregular, and the architecture, so far from resembling the Egyptian in its scale and massiveness, is marked by the utmost minuteness of ornament and tenuity of detail, suggesting wood and stucco rather than stone. The Great Hall at Chillambaram is but 10 to 12 feet high, and the corridors at Ramisseram, 700 feet long, are but 30 feet high. The effect of ensemble of the Dravidian temples is disappointing. They lack the emphasis of dominant masses and the dignity of symmetrical and logical arrangement. The very loftiness of the gopuras makes the buildings of the group within seem low by contrast. In nearly every temple, however, some one feature attracts merited admiration by its splendor, extent, or beauty. Such are the Choultrie, built by Tirumalla Nayak at Madura (1623–45), measuring 333 × 105 feet; the corridors already mentioned at Ramisseram and in the Great Temple at Madura; the gopuras at Tarputry and Vellore, and the Mantapa of Parvati at Chillambaram (1595–1685). Very noticeable are the compound columns of this style, consisting of square piers with slender shafts coupled to them and supporting brackets, as at Chillambaram, Peroor, and Vellore; the richly banded square piers, the grotesques of rampant horses and monsters, and the endless labor bestowed upon minute carving and ornament in superposed bands.

OTHER MONUMENTS. Other important temples are at Tiruvalur, Seringham, Tinevelly, and Conjeveram, all alike in general scheme of design, with enclosures varying from 300 to 1,000 feet in length and width. At Tanjore is a magnificent temple with two courts, in the larger of which stands a pagoda or shrine with a pyramidal vimana, unusual in Dravidian temples, and beside it the smaller Shrine of Soubramanya (Fig. 229), a structure of unusual beauty of detail. In both, the vertical lower story with its pilasters and windows is curiously suggestive of Renaissance design. The pagoda dates from the 14th, the smaller temple from the 15th century.

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FIG. 229.—SHRINE OF SOUBRAMANYA, TANJORE.

ROCK-CUT RATHS. All the above temples were built subsequently to the 12th century. The rock-cut shrines date in some cases as far back as the 7th century; they are called kylas and raths, and are not caves, but isolated edifices, imitating structural designs, but hewn bodily from the rock. Those at Mahavellipore are of diminutive size; but at Purudkul there is an extensive temple with shrine, choultrie, and gopura surrounded by a court enclosure measuring 250 × 150 feet (9th century). More famous still is the elaborate Kylas at Ellora, of about the same size as the above, but more complex and complete in its details.

PALACES. At Madura, Tanjore, and Vijayanagar are Dravidian palaces, built after the Mohammedan conquest and in a mixed style. The domical octagonal throne-room and the Great Hall at Madura (17th century), the most famous edifices of the kind, were evidently inspired from Gothic models, but how this came about is not known. The Great Hall with its pointed arched barrel vault of 67 feet span, its cusped arches, round piers, vaulting shafts, and triforium, appears strangely foreign to its surroundings.

CAMBODIA. The subject of Indian architecture cannot be dismissed without at least brief mention of the immense temple of Nakhon Wat in Cambodia. This stupendous creation covers an area of a full square mile, with its concentric courts, its encircling moat or lake, its causeways, porches, and shrines, dominated by a central structure 200 feet square with nine pagoda-like towers. The corridors around the inner court have square piers of almost classic Roman type. The rich carving, the perfect masonry, and the admirable composition of the whole leading up to the central mass, indicate architectural ability of a high order.

CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. No purely Mongolian nation appears ever to have erected buildings of first-rate importance. It cannot be denied, however, that the Chinese are possessed of considerable decorative skill and mechanical ingenuity; and these qualities are the most prominent elements in their buildings. Great size and splendor, massiveness and originality of construction, they do not possess. Built in large measure of wood, cleverly framed and decorated with a certain richness of color and ornament, with a large element of the grotesque in the decoration, the Chinese temples, pagodas, and palaces are interesting rather than impressive. There is not a single architectural monument of imposing size or of great antiquity, so far as we know. The celebrated Porcelain Tower of Nankin is no longer extant, having been destroyed in the Tæping rebellion in 1850. It was a nine-storied polygonal pagoda 236 feet high, revetted with porcelain tiles, and was built in 1412. The largest of Chinese temples, that of the Great Dragon at Pekin, is a circular structure of moderate size, though its enclosure is nearly a mile square. Pagodas with diminishing stories, elaborately carved entrance gates and successive terraces are mainly relied upon for effect. They show little structural art, but much clever ornament. Like the monasteries and the vast lamaseries of Thibet, they belong to the Buddhist religion.

Aside from the ingenious framing and bracketing of the carpentry, the most striking peculiarity of Chinese buildings is their broad-spreading tiled roofs. These invariably slope downward in a curve, and the tiling, with its hip-ridges, crestings, and finials in terra-cotta or metal, adds materially to the picturesqueness of the general effect. Color and gilding are freely used, and in some cases—as in a summer pavilion at Pekin—porcelain tiling covers the walls, with brilliant effect. The chief wonder is that this resource of the architectural decorator has not been further developed in China, where porcelain and earthenware are otherwise treated with such remarkable skill.

JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE. Apparently associated in race with the Chinese and Koreans, the Japanese are far more artistic in temperament than either of their neighbors. The refinement and originality of their decorative art have given it a wide reputation. Unfortunately the prevalence of earthquakes has combined with the influence of the traditional habits of the people to prevent the maturing of a truly monumental architecture. Except for the terraces, gates, and enclosures of their palaces and temples, wood is the predominant building material. It is used substantially as in China, the framing, dovetailing, bracketing, broad eaves and tiled roofs of Japan closely resembling those of China. The chief difference is in the greater refinement and delicacy of the Japanese details and the more monumental disposition of the temple terraces, the beauty of which is greatly enhanced by skillful landscape gardening. The gateways recall somewhat those of the Sanchi Tope in India (p. 403), but are commonly of wood. Owing to the danger from earthquakes, lofty towers and pagodas are rarely seen.

The domestic architecture of Japan, though interesting for its arrangements, and for its sensible and artistic use of the most flimsy materials, is too trivial in scale, detail, and construction to receive more than passing reference. Even the great palace at Tokio,28 covering an immense area, is almost entirely composed of one-storied buildings of wood, with little of splendor or architectural dignity.