How to Study Architecture, Charles H. Caffin [best manga ereader .TXT] 📗
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Both in Southern and Northern Colonial houses the wainscots, door-and window-trims, the mantelpieces, cornices, and balustraded staircases exhibit a choiceness of design, derived from the models of Adam and Sheraton.
BOOK VIIPOST-RENAISSANCE PERIOD
CHAPTER I
CLASSICAL AND GOTHIC REVIVALS
In the latter half of the eighteenth century commenced a Classical Revival, which in the various countries that it affected lasted far on into the nineteenth. In some directions it represented a reaction from the debased Renaissance styles of the baroque and rococo; in all it was largely promoted by a more accurate study of antiquities and by the discovery of the distinction between Greek and Roman art. Its effect upon architecture was but one phase of its influence, which penetrated more or less the thought of the world and found expression in literature. This revival belongs rather to a history of architecture than to a study of fundamentals, such as this book has attempted. Accordingly we must be satisfied here with a brief sketch of the subjects. To continue the thread of the previous chapter let us start with the appearance of the classical revival in Great Britain.
CLASSICAL REVIVAL IN GREAT BRITAINEnglish Exploration.—The “Revival of Learning” had been followed in England by a continuous fondness for Greek and Roman literature. Milton, as late as 1654, was writing his political tracts in Latin; and, although such use of the language was abandoned, a familiarity with Latin and at least some acquaintance with Greek continued through the rest of this century and the following one to be the ordinary mark of an educated gentleman. In 1647 Dryden popularised the Æneid of Virgil by translating it, and in 1720 Pope produced his translation of Homer’s Iliad. For the promotion of arts and letters the Dilettanti Society was founded in 1734; and some twenty years later financed the archæological exploration of Stuart and Revett in Greece. Their work, “Antiquities of Athens,” was published in 1762. One of the results of the interest it created was the acquisition through Lord Elgin of the bulk of the sculpture of the Parthenon and a caryatid and column from the Erechtheion which were purchased by the Government (1801-1803). These in turn prompted the researches of the architect, H. W. Inwood, who published in 1831 his study of the “Erechtheion.”
Winckelmann’s Critical Studies.—Meanwhile in Germany Winckelmann had given to the world in 1763, practically at the same time as the appearance of the work of Stuart and Revett, his famous “History of Art.” The product of thirteen years of study of the antique sculptures in Rome, by one who was a profound classical scholar as well as a man of remarkable independence and extraordinary critical faculty, this work, for the first time, made exact distinction between Greek and Roman examples, established a basis of sound criticism, and analysed the characteristic quality of Greek art. This Winckelmann found to consist in a relation between the whole and the parts, so completely harmonious and so balanced and controlled by refined feeling that, if one quality can be selected as typical of Greek work, it is repose.
The influence of Winckelmann’s work and that of Stuart and Revett was reciprocal in the two countries. But that the functions of Greek sculpture and Greek architecture were also reciprocal escaped observation. Even
LA MADELEINE, PARIS
P. 443
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LIVERPOOL
P. 438
PANTHEON, PARIS
By J. J. Soufflot. P. 442
ARC DE L’ETOILE, PARIS
P. 443
OPERA HOUSE, PARIS
By Charles Garnier. P. 444
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON
By Charles Bulfinch. P. 448
CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON
Original Central Portion by William Thornton, Advised by B. H. Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch. Wings and Dome Added 1851 to 1865. P. 446
CITY HALL, NEW YORK
By Mangin. Louis XVI Style. P. 448
Courtesy Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
ST. THOMAS, NEW YORK
By Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson. P. 453
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
By Sir Charles Barry and Augustus W. N. Pugin. Victoria Tower, Left; Clock Tower, Right. In the Distance, Left, Westminster Abbey. P. 450
PLAN OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
P. 451
more than the combination of architecture and sculpture in a Gothic cathedral, because more deliberately, as a result of reasoned logic as well as of feeling, Greek sculpture and architecture were constituent parts of one design. To divorce the architecture from its sculptural enrichments, is to reduce the temperature of feeling in a building, to make it cold and too severe in its refinement. Moreover, the exterior design of a Greek building was so calculated to its plan, which was usually that of a temple, that to attempt to adapt it to the different needs of modern planning is not only a violation of its logic but also an attenuation—a stretching out to thinness—of its expressiveness.
Adaptation Limited.—In fact, a Greek façade cannot be an integral part of a modern building. Instead of growing out of the interior conditions it is merely a screen, as arbitrary in its separation from what is behind it, as was the old painted act-drop of a theatre. The realisation of this has influenced architects to emulate or imitate, as the case may be, the Roman rather than the Greek style. And, so far as Roman architecture was an adaptation of Greek particulars to the new problems of the basilica, palace, public bath, triumphal arch, amphitheatre and so forth, the model may be judiciously followed. But, when the architect essays to adapt the colossal orders of a Roman temple to the front of a bank, library, museum, or railroad station he may display a feeling for impressiveness that gives little proof of intelligent comprehension of design. He commits the same error that he is fond of charging to the layman, who, he says, thinks of the design of a building only as an exterior effect and not also in relation to the plan and internal structure. For, to take but one point, that of the lighting. Windows are an essential of a modern building, while in a Roman temple they played only a subordinate part; so that the pedimented, columned porch at the entrance and the colonnades at the sides were not employed at any sacrifice to the internal requirements.
Greek Model.—The window problem did not enter into the earliest example of the Classical Revival in England—the Greek design of the Bank of England (1788) by Sir John Soane. For, as the building was for the safe-keeping of gold and securities, the walls behind the colonnades and porch could appropriately be solid. Yet, even so, the character of the principal façade is not carried round to the side of the building and the design of the façade is merely a frontispiece. Still more so is the Greek façade of the British Museum, erected (1823-47) by Soane’s pupil, Sir Robert Smirke (1780-1867), which not only has no co-ordination with the interior arrangement, but also obstructs the needed light.
George Basevi, another pupil of Soane’s, contrived a more appropriate use of the Greek style in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, because he was able to avoid the incongruity of windows. H. W. Inwood (1794-1843) applied the results of his study of the Erechtheion to the design of S. Pancras Church; while among the examples of William Wilkins (1778-1839) are the University of London and the National Gallery. The design of the latter, which is very inferior to that of the University, was unhappily fettered with conditions. Most fortunate of all the buildings of this Classical revival in England is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, by H. L. Elmes (1815-1847). It is lifted well above the level on a stylobate-terrace and the design presents a stately treatment of Greek porticoes and colonnades; but the Greek is abandoned on the threshold, the interior being an adaptation of the Roman thermæ.
The incongruity of the Greek style with modern requirements led to a reaction in favour of astylar or columnless buildings; a return, in fact, to Renaissance design, which was started by Sir Charles Barry, whom we shall meet again in the Gothic Revival.
GERMAN CLASSICAL PERIODIn Germany the classical revival in architecture was intimately related to the thought-movement of the time, especially as it expressed itself in literature. We have already noted the almost simultaneous publication of Stuart and Revett’s “Antiquities of Athens” and Winckelmann’s “History of Art,” and the welcome which the former received in Germany. It was stimulated by the appearance in 1765 of Lessing’s “Laokoon,” a critical treatise on painting, sculpture, and poetry. He based it upon the Classic Canons; by which he meant not the canons of French pseudo-classicalism, which had hitherto stood for classic in Germany, but the Greek canons of art and literature as laid down by Aristotle. Indeed, he affirmed that Shakespeare, despite the irregularities of his style, was nearer to the spirit of Aristotle than Racine.
Goethe’s Influence.—Goethe, at the court of Weimar, where French pseudo-classicalism was the vogue, espoused the new movement. He had visited Italy and confirmed for himself the studies of Winckelmann and Lessing’s attitude. Being director of the Ducal Theatre, he was able in a large measure to control the dramatic taste of Germany, and encouraged Schiller to write his classical dramas. The aim of both Goethe and Schiller was to reconcile the cultural ideals of the eighteenth century with the models of ancient Greece.
The zeal of this movement spread to architecture. The earliest example is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (1784); but the actual revival did not begin till some thirty years later, when its leaders were Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) and Leo von Klenze (1784-1864). The scene of Schinkel’s achievements is mainly Berlin, where he is responsible for the fine design of the Old Museum and the Royal Theatre. The New Museum of Berlin was erected later (1843-55) by Stühler.
Klenze’s opportunity came with the ambition of Louis I of Bavaria to increase the architectural magnificence of Munich and make it the rival of Berlin and Dresden as an artistic centre. Among the chief works of Klenze are the Glyptothek (Sculpture Gallery), the Pinacothek (Picture Gallery), and the Propylæa. Associated with him in the decoration of these and other buildings were the painters Peter von Cornelius and Wilhelm von Kaulbach and the sculptor, Ludwig Schwanthaler.
To this period belongs the Parliament House (Reichsrathgebande) at Vienna (1843) by Theophil Hansen.
FRENCH CLASSICAL PERIODPhilosophic and Social Movement.—In France also the Classical revival was due to the momentum of writers and thinkers, impelled, however, in the first place, not so much by æsthetic considerations as by philosophic. It represented a revolution against the degradation of individual and national life, the corruption of the ruling forces of Church and State, the soulless frippery of courtiers and the abject destitution of the masses of the proletariat. The last term was revived from the vocabulary of Imperial Rome and designated the peasantry and labourers of all kinds, whose duty was to labour for the benefit of the privileged classes and whose sole right was that of propagating their species.
The protest against this social rottenness was voiced by Jean Jacques Rousseau in treatises on
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