The revived knowledge of the architecture of Greece rudely disturbed the vernacular style derived from Rome, so that by about the year 1830 the old state of things seemed almost hopelessly damaged; and every architect, instead of working on the traditions handed down to him by his predecessors, seemed to do just what was right in his own eyes, though with a special rage for not very practicable reproductions of Greek, coupled with a conviction that Roman and its derivatives were little short of barbarous.
All the traditions of the past appeared to be broken up. Our every-day architecture, as exhibited in ordinary houses, had become mean and contemptible in the extreme; and, though things have since greatly mended, it has been from a purely eclectic, and not in the least degree from a traditional, point of view; while the untutored house-builder, left to himself, even now disports himself in reminiscences of these first decades of our century—the halcyon days of Gower Street and Tavistock Place.
It was just at this strange juncture that, by some occult influence, the public mind was brought back to view—first with interest, and then with admiration and love—the long-neglected architecture of our own country and our own race (or group of kindred races). At first this was with no intention or thought of revival; it was only interest, admiration, and love. Writers on this subject, whether friendly or hostile, affect to systematise the movement; but it was wholly unsystematic. It arose from the inmost feelings of the heart, and in no degree from premeditation or plan.
It is now the fashion to speak contemptuously of revivals; and truly they do seem strange and inconsistent after following the more natural history of art from the dawn of civilisation to the Renaissance. Yet I cannot but agree with Mr. Smirke that the Classic revival was, in the land, at least, of its rise, a natural, spontaneous, and unpremeditated movement of the human mind. That the Gothic Renaissance was so too, I know, for it was my own happy lot to be a humble agent in it, and I am old enough to have watched it, I may say practically, if not literally, from its commencement.
People talk of Horace Walpole, of Sir Walter Scott, or of any one else they like, as the early promoters of the feeling which led to the revival. I do not know how it may have been with others, but, for myself, I know that my love for Gothic architecture was absolutely spontaneous, and that I had no kind of incentive for following up its study other than the delight I took in it, before I knew a word about other architecture, or was acquainted even with the published works on our own, and that, without a thought of its study ever becoming practically useful to me. I am convinced that the revived love for our old buildings, followed as it was subsequently by a desire to imitate their architecture, was as spontaneous and as irresistible a movement of the human mind as those which had originated either Classic or Mediæval art, or that which, two thousand years after its first rise, had led to the revival of the former. It is true that its results have not yet been so all-pervading as those of the Classic Renaissance, yet they have been very great; out and away the most marked feature in modern architectural history, inasmuch as it, almost alone, has resulted from ardent and genuine enthusiasm, and from the inmost recesses of the heart.
As one of the survivors from among the more active of the earlier agents in this great movement, I may claim a right to dilate a little on my reminiscences of it.
In writing respecting it, nearly nineteen years ago, when my memories were more fresh, I made the following remarks:—
I described the movement as “being the development of a new and vigorous style upon the foundation of the glorious architecture of our own country and of our own forefathers, in the place of one at once alien to our race and our religion.
“This,” I went on to say, “I need hardly tell you is a mighty and most arduous undertaking—so mighty indeed, and so arduous, that I doubt whether, if it had been in the first instance fully appreciated, any body of men could have been found with sufficient daring to set about it. The strength, however, of the movement lies in the fact that it was not deliberate nor preconcerted, but was the involuntary working out of a deeply-seated mental revolution. It was not that a body of men deliberately banded themselves together to carry out and propagate particular tastes or opinions; such would have been but a feeble, or at best an ephemeral and merely local movement; it was rather that a number of persons, in different neighbourhoods and countries, and without any concert, had been led by their own unbiassed and unguided instincts to an appreciation of the long-neglected beauties of our own indigenous architecture. This” (with other feelings), I proceeded to say, “had led them first to study, then to imitate, and ultimately to attempt the revival of the style which had thus involuntarily approved itself to their natural perceptions of what is right and beautiful.
“There is here no conspiracy, no organised movement, no preconcerted effort. Not one of those engaged in it ever thought of its being a movement at all; few of them knew in the first instance that others were affected by the same feelings with themselves, nor perhaps were conscious of any external causes which had given rise to such sentiments in themselves. Yet all, from some internal impulse, seem severally to have been impelled in one and the same direction; and, having at a later period discovered the concurrence of their feelings, their efforts have since assumed the form of a united movement, though originating from the individual and unbiassed feeling of persons wholly unknown to each other.”
In the same paper I spoke in the following terms of the greatest of the early promoters, and in fact the great hero and Coryphæus of our revival, and of the societies which were formed throughout the country for the furthering of the study of our ancient architecture:—“About the time I am referring to, an immense impulse was given to the reformation of architecture by the earlier publications of Pugin. His Contrasts, published in 1836,”—an architectural jeu d’esprit, placing side by side in somewhat burlesqued contrast, selections from Mediæval and modern works,—“while it enraged the majority of our architects, excited others most strongly to press forward toward better things. His True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, which appeared in 1841, was a gigantic step in advance. It grappled at once with all the fallacies which had corrupted modern architecture, and established a code of rules, founded upon common sense, utility, and truth; while his Apology which came out a little later, showed the necessity of falling back upon our national style, and its ready applicability to every requirement of our day. In the meantime the success of his own personal labours was truly astonishing. Not only were the advances he made in the revival of Pointed architecture most rapid, showing genius in every touch,—this was, in fact, the smallest of his achievements,—he actually revived by his own personal exertions nearly every one of its subsidiary arts: architectural carving and sculpture, stained glass, decorative painting, metal-work,—whether in brass or wrought iron,—gold and silver work, enamelling, embroidery, woven textures, paperhangings, encaustic tiles, the manufacture of furniture, and even of ordinary household crockery-ware,—all felt the impress of his hand and of his genius.
“Shortly after Pugin became publicly known, the same course began to be vigorously taken up in our own Church. The societies formed in connection with both Universities were followed up by others in all parts of the country. That vigorous periodical, the Ecclesiologist ... did immense service in exposing the desecration and degradation to which our old churches were subjected, and in promulgating correct principles of ecclesiastical architecture and arrangement.
“A noble feeling for the subject rapidly spread itself among all classes. The zeal for church building and restoration greatly outran the increased knowledge, acts of individual munificence multiplied on all hands, and an entirely new state of things came about.”
Two more decades have nearly passed over our revival since I thus chronicled its progress; and, if it has had (as has been my own painful experience) reverses to deplore, it has had a continued series of successes to rejoice over; and if its early ardour has at all sobered down, this has served, for the most part, to give steadiness and maturity to its efforts; and anyhow, it now possesses architects and other artists of distinguished talent to carry on the work, and, while it has long held absolute possession of the ecclesiastical architecture of the day, it now adds to this many of the most important of our secular buildings.
Its success has been indeed enormous; yet its failures and drawbacks have been in proportion to it. Its artistic merit has been limited to those who have followed it up with an earnest and generous enthusiasm, for it has unhappily been practically followed up by a mixed multitude who view it as a fashion of the day, by which professional practice is to be obtained; but are devoid of all ardour and love for what they are engaged upon. The consequence is that, while we have a certain proportion of new churches and other buildings which need not shrink from comparison with those of the Middle Ages, we have a swarm of others—mere cold-blooded, heartless travesties—a disgrace to our age, and a disfigurement to our towns; but, worse still, while a minority (as I fear) of our ancient churches have been repaired or restored by men who treat them with a loving care, and with studious and intelligent reverence, a large proportion are left to the tender mercies of the mere pretenders,—often not architects at all,—who have no knowledge of, or reverence for, the treasures committed to their unworthy hands; and who have done and are doing their best to rob our country of one of its richest inheritances—its genuine and indigenous architecture.
Nor is this the only drawback to the Gothic revival.
It suffers also from a degree of capriciousness even among its abler and more art-loving followers, who, jealous, perhaps, or contemptuous of others, refuse to co-operate in any steady purpose, and who, morbidly keen in their perceptions of beauty, are apt to follow momentary fancies—now favouring one type, and now another, and, perhaps, reviving styles little allied to their purpose, as if the object of the age were to revive just for revival’s sake, rather than to gather in these extraneous beauties to enrich the resources and to widen the capabilities of one received style. This tendency seems to threaten the noble movement with premature decay, though I do trust that there remain earnestness and steadiness of heart enough to avert this danger, and to guide these artistic strivings into a healthy channel, and cause them to add new life to the general movement.
It is, in truth, as yet unsettled whether we should concentrate our revival on one phase of the old style, or whether, as the ancients did with their orders, we should use them ad libitum. The one seems somewhat artificial, the other somewhat too eclectic; but solvitur ambulando, and perhaps this discursiveness I have been regretting may promote that solution.
I have found, as I went on, that the scheme of my lecture was much too extensive for the time at my command. I had intended to say something of the application of the sister arts to architecture, as well as on the subordinate and allied arts. I must omit this; nor do I much regret it, as I trust I shall be succeeded by men better qualified to deal with the subject.
I will close my lecture,—itself the last of my long but disjected series,—with a few words of advice to architectural students.
First of all, I would repeat what I once heard from that accomplished artist who formerly graced this chair,—Professor Cockerell,—that the first rule for success in art is the same which the wise man laid down with reference to morals, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” If the inmost heart of the student is purely and earnestly devoted, with generous ardour and enthusiasm, to his work, you may make pretty sure of his success; but if he follows it up in a cold perfunctory spirit; from a sense of duty or self-interest rather than of earnest love; whatever may be his success in a merely professional point of view, he will never do any good in a higher and an artistic sense. The first thing, then, to encourage is a loving zeal for the art you have chosen.
The next aim is self-culture, and that of a twofold kind—the cultivation at once of an intimate knowledge of the form of art which you select as your groundwork, and of a personal artistic power to work in it.
In these days of miscellaneous distraction, it is difficult to give advice as to the choice of a groundwork of study. Having no actual style belonging to our age, you must choose between the two Renaissances,—the Classic and the Gothic,—as best you may.
It was my own lot, arising from the period at which I commenced, to have been trained in one (at its deadest period), and to have, from the love of it, trained myself in the other; but I will suppose, for simplicity’s sake, a single and simple choice. Nor is it for me to dictate, were it in my power to do so, what that choice should be.
What I have to say is that, your choice being made, you must study with all diligence, and with the most assiduous attention, the best and purest examples of the style you have chosen; making yourself thoroughly acquainted with it from its very root to its minutest details, and using every endeavour to catch the true artistic spirit of the style in its best phases.
If Classic architecture (whether antique or as revived) be your aim, you are at some disadvantage from not having within your reach its most authentic examples. Books and the works of our own best architects must supply the need till you have opportunity to study it in its native land.
If Gothic architecture is that on which your loving choice has fallen, you are more happily situated. Then you are not studying an imported art, but that of your own country; you have not to travel widely from home to study its noblest productions, for they are at your very doors; you have not to go through a long course of book-study, treating of examples of art which you have no means of seeing and studying with your own eyes; but, though not rejecting books, you may go from them to the originals and judge of them for yourselves. Even if kept pretty closely in London or its vicinity, you do not want opportunity for the study from its noblest productions of the art of your choice. The glorious fane of St. Peter at Westminster supplies an inexhaustible fund for study, while the history of Mediæval art may be followed up by the aid of such examples as the Chapel in the Tower, St. Bartholemew’s Priory Church, the Temple Church, St. Saviour’s, Westminster Hall, Crosby and Eltham Halls, and other minor examples; while an hour’s run will take you to the stupendous church of England’s proto-martyr, which equals its sister abbey as a fund of artistic study and information. The advice, then, I give to the student of Mediæval art is, lose no opportunity of studying and carefully sketching from old examples, wherever they may be found; nor, I would add, should you neglect the aid afforded by collections of objects of study such as our museums contain;[72] but study not only the mere facts, but the spirit and sentiment of the style you are learning.
This, however, alone is but the skeleton. You must clothe it with muscles, and breathe into it the breath of life, by the direct culture of your own individual artistic powers. Make yourselves artists,—not so much artists in the lower sense of being able to make your ideas look well on paper, as in the incomparably more important sense of making your works really noble works of art in reality and in execution. It is of very little importance to any but yourselves whether your drawings look well; but it is of infinite importance that your works, when carried out, should be really worthy of admiration, and should produce the impression on the mind which they ought to produce.
Make yourselves, then, artists, not alone in respect of mere architecture itself, but in respect also of its allied arts; in respect of architectural sculpture, in respect of painted decoration, in respect of figure sculpture and of figure-painting in forms suited to architecture; of painted glass, mosaic work, metal work, and all the subordinate arts. I do not say that you should really practise these arts yourselves, but by training yourselves in them you will become fitted to direct, guide, and check those whom you employ, or who are made your art colleagues.
Few, indeed, of us have as yet come up to this standard,—very few have even approached it. I address you as the rising generation of architects, and urge you to do what your immediate predecessors have, for the most part, failed of having the means of doing. Let your new generation go far beyond its predecessor. It is not for us moderns to be content with a standard of our own degenerate age. To “measure ourselves by ourselves, and to compare ourselves with ourselves,” is never the part of wisdom. Set, rather, before yourselves a standard of glorious days of old; and, remembering always the right noble Catæna Patrum, whose successors you hope to be, make it your first endeavour to raise yourselves to a level worthy of your parentage, and then to press ardently onwards, if Providence shall permit, to ever new and higher attainments.
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