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o(U 7%? Leader and Salurday Analyst. \ M...
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The Classic And The Gothic; Or, The Batt...
fought " The Thirteenth century" is blazoned on the Gothic banner—on the Classic flag tlie honoured names of " Vitrtjtos and Palladio " Neither side will yield .-- If it were merely an idea that the two parties-were-fighting for , there might be some hape of the war ending ; but when we remember that this is a question affecting tlie profits of a large profession , we have reason , we think , to drend still many angry campaigns . . ¦ ' ¦ Hr . MuiR , ^ y ho writes nervously and with much condensed and aphoristic force , is a warm advocate of the Gothic cause , and , by natural consequence , a no less violent opponent of what he calls pao-an and infidel architecture . He believes the Gt ) thic style to be a sturdy indigenous shelteiing style : he thinks it expresses our love of nature—our defiant manliness—our faith : that it meets all necessities of climate ; and he would have all our buildings Gothic- ^ from for
a reading-room to a cathedral . The Classic style he considers - mal , impro-ressive , hide-bound—restraining all invention—dullhaving no analogv to bur national character : in a word , utterly uiiendurable . We " allow everything that Mr . Mtjib cleverly brings forward in favour of Gothic architecture , though not all he says against the Classic . We will not be unjust against the Classic , because we think it cold , lifeless , and unsuited to our race and climate ; and though we prefer the vertical tendency of the Gothic—elevating , hopefui , and aspiring—to the conventional horizontahsm of tlieClassic art which has no growth and -no mystery about it . In thirteenth century art we see a reality , a love of nature—a striving , an earnest faith , which is radiant with genius . They turned glass , in their windows , into eternal flowers of Paradise . They learned the secret in their mortuary chapels , where the stone knight prayed ever , to vault the o-roined roof with perpetual twilight . They made stone leap 0
forthint 6 flying buttresses—their sculptured spires sprang to heaven like frozen fountains—their -cathedral fronts were niched caskets containing the whole army of martyrs—their arches sprang with divine spontaneity from " strong-ribbed pillar to pillar , in avenue after aveuue- ^ -their bell towers breathed music , or called the people with voice of prisoned thunder to pray . When the bells roared they roared ¦ with . ' -the voices that . were heard on old Sinai . All round the church the rain water poured from the heads of crushed and gaping devils doomed to this expiatory toil for countless centuries ; and when , all this was done they went to the forest for the ( retted fern leaf and for the Wild rose and thecinquefoil , and twined them round the capitals and the window mullions , arid the weather mouldings , till , the stone home of the priests became a great petrified forest—n , very fossil Eclen changed into sto ' ne—for God ' s glory and man ' s delight .
So far \ ve agree with Mr . MtriB , that we see a certain pathos and poetry and truth and " reality about thirteenth century work winch we look for in vain ¦ in Grecian structural art . Its hig h pitched roof throws off our rain storm and our snow ; its dim choirs and twi % Ut chapels have something of jthe mystery pf the northern fores t-s about them ; its aU-pevvading and varied . ornament delights the English fancy , and in the yawning corbels and the distorted waterspout heads even English humour found a vent in very durable jokes . It was harmonious and rythmical : it expressed all our thirteenth century ' s wants , hopes , and ideals . Whatever there was good in that thirteenth century must , we know , have found expression in these Gothic buildings * which still remain , for us to see . It was not a debased church that reared our cathedrals , but robust , warlike lovers of truth and justice ; rough and coarse , and free-spoken , perhaps , bufc certainly not the priests Erasjius sneered at and Luther struck in the face .
Yet at ill , much as we love the Gothic , a style that has struck sb deep its roots , and whose cathedrals are still like old oaks growing so fresh and green , we are loath to allow that . the great new stylo , that is coming , like the ' man wo have all henrd so --much of arid waited so long for , must be a mere revival of the art of the thirteenth century / Our aims are not thqae of tlio dead Gothic builders—of the in on who built Salisbury Cathedral or York Minster , any more than of those sandalled men who put the Parthenon together , or who devised the A then inn temple of Theseus .. We do not think goitig back is the right way to begin going forward . The reouler does not always lead ; to the tnieiw scmter—our faith is neither that of Wiixiam of Wykeham nor of . Peeioi . es . The Greeks hud not window ^ enough for our climate . The thirteenth century did without a hundred things that are now a $ necossiiry to us as bread or water . Art must grow , or ib is not real' art . The thirteenth century , had it been of longer duration , would have changed
every portion of its s ^ yle , from the mere craving tor novelty that exists in every mind . Now materials load to now designs ; wo hnvo iron now—iron will [ partly supersede timber and stone , and requires a- different treatment altogether from imythirig the Gothic aroliitoct over dreamed of , To imagine , as Mr . Mvtik seems to do , that tin ) great stone Eden pf the thirteenth century would express the faith of the present day , bo it great or bo it small , is simply ' absurd . It represents it no moro than the dome does , the Moor ' s honoycomb stucco , tho Egyptian ' s rook caves , or tho fantastic porcelain pagoda of China ; -roijr ideal is a now one , and a now stytf must represent it . "While , howqvor , with Mv . Mtnit , wo condemn Greek art as an exolio , unsuitedto ouv climate , wo cannot ; bo either ep wilfully unjust or organically blind as to deny that its eradication is almost hppolcKS . It may'havo dull surfaces of vapid wall . Tho ornauiont mav bu unstruotural , eto ,. but It has boon now used for more than two
hundred years in England , and , from Whitehall to ot . ( ieorgo a Hall , Um boon tejted for public purposes in . thousands of phicca . " Its pediment may bo a foolish rosting-pluco for croinpod-up fiytiroa ; its pojftioo cohunna may bloojc out tho light ; yot still , thp stylo with all its faults is liked * imd used perpetually for town halls ,
churches , and music rooms . If it hr . s no other merits , it is simple in design , and leaves a clear , open , available area for its temporary inmate ' s . The dome has been wedded to it , and the Renaissance of Italy furnishes it . with a prodigal store of not very thoughtful , but yet " -raceful and varied ¦ ornamentation .- Surely Somerset House , and Greenwich Hospital , and St . Paul ' s and St . George ' s Hall , are suffieientto save Anglo-Greek art from utter condemnation . Have our modern Goths ever got as near their models as When and Chambers did to theirs ? We trow not . Nothing of the forest mystery , we allow •;¦" . but a certain abstract modulated symmetry and beauty , that never came but from the mind of genius . In Greek , art we see a force , life , and expression of a certain measured kind . ^ admit its monotony and conventionality ; but still , of beauty there
are many kinds ; and . we . do not call a daisy hideous or nronotOnous because it always has the same number of white petals in its little frill . The whole dispute , let us disguise it as we may , is , in fact , the dispute of the Classical and Romantic schools of arti passed from literature to architecturc---froni Shakespeare and Euripides , Potrssik and Turner , to Gothic and Classic—to Scott versus Tite . It is not argnmeiit in Mr . Mvib to tell us that Classic architecture is all a question of measurement , of certain rules , of invariable ratios ; that the architrave , frieze , and cornice must be always of certain prescribed depths j that the . . fret , acanthus-leaf , bull ' s horn , book
egg , and dart , , & es , ' must ' be-all . from the tyrannical old pattern- . Mr . MuiR is here merely expressing in a casuistical way his preference for the Romantic as compared to the Classical . The Greek builder , having discovered certain laws of geometric harmony , kept them as standards , just as ' the Gothic builder did his own laws , which were more variable and irregular . You can hardly call a style monotonous which grew from , the Egyptian solidity of the Doric to the florid hivishness of the Corinthian—that , working through Roman art , originated'tire arch and dome , and indirectly gatfe birth to the Gothic , that ungrateful child that now mocks its parents There seems to us no reason that Greek in new hands might not become as
much , a new thing as Gothic . . Two things about Mr : Mum ' s book specially offend us : the One is his affectiitioii of new words , such as " thewness" " religiousness ;" the other his desire to lower every style of architecture but the Gothic . . He assures us himself that the true artist is he who believes that the world is the best archetype , both as " picture , poem , music , or mansion ;' . ' he must believe this , and love the earth , feeling that t | ie-great ' Maker Of it'loves it . Ail great thinkers have had both faith and love . To ouk eyes faith shines forth as strong in the g-reat works of Egypt as in anything the thirteenth eenUi ' ry produced . The iriimutable pyramid , the pondering Spl . iix , tiedim cave-temple , that ever-pointing obelisk , all express a divine calm , a divine rest ,- a solemn stillness , a ponderous imperturbable regality as of Omnipotence itself .
The Greelc came next , and \ v 0 rking his encliantments on the ISTilotic art , turned it into a poem of the utmost purity and harmony . Ho incarnated- its ideals , and gave materialism the fairest shape , it ever-wore . Nor can we but rejoice in tlie robxistness of lloman art , in the sensual elegimce of the Moorish , in the tent-like doming of the Turk , in the thorny strength of the Byzantine , in the lily growth of the early English , in the cheerfursplendour of the Tudor , in the lavish richness of the Renaissance . Why should not the modern architect wander among this harem , and praise the beauty of allj without detracting from tlie merits of any ?
It ia only an enthusiast's dream , a Puseyite s nightmare , to imagine that pure Gothic art will ever reign alone in England . You may prove till you are black in the face , Mr . Mum , that Gothic is tlie most religious , and expansive , and adaptable of styles ; still people , wilful people , will go on building 1 stucco Corinthian . Yoxi may even prove Gothic the cheapest style , yet town halls- with fluted pillars will arise , because they have already arisen , . have been found convenient and reasonably cheap . Good average people do not live on salads of violets ; they . care nothing about the cesthotic j taxes are more to them than discussions about Venotiun windows . They want the cheap and strong—not Iho archaic and fantastic . They have no sympathy with tho thirteenth century—they prefer a soft hassock to a hard faldstool—sleei > ine > boxos to open benches . They -will not live m
a house like u church ; and if a mullionod window breeds rheumatism , " Out with ib , " they say , " and put in a modern sash . " Evou the flowor of thein--iVcsh from Kuskin—have often strange lnirtgivin & 's about those modern fancies concornihg Gothic nncl Classic . They do not really believe that tho men who built best were necessarily tho bosfc moil , or that , because tho . Ren » issauco was a licentious , luxurious age , its art was uocoHsiirily bad and devilish . They have a fow . uyly facts , such as tho existence of Lutiieu and Coiajmbus , and tho progress of tho Reformation , tp prove tho lienaissanoo ago was not really worso than any other . Common sense is a troublesome horso to train to circus tricks of logic and casuistry ; for spjnotimo . 1 ib g-cta kicking 1 oft' its Hubkin riders , and { joing tho old straightforward way . It cries , " Away with your variorums ; " all styles of arohiteotur . o originated in simple neoyssity . Some apace must bo briageel—a wise man invents tho arch ; tho monk wants a shaded rain-proof walk—ho doviaos the cloister .
Tho old workers novor " fashed" thomsolvos with Huskin ftmoios about the " vortical and tho horizontal" faith , religiousness , etc . Thoy studied tho wants of those they built for- —all tho rost pame . In conclurtion , lot us lament that clover advooatoa like Mi * . MyiR injuro theiv oausu in tho oyos of honost and impartial people , trying to J aino Guthio nrt by lowering ( ho ClasHUtal , whoso » oautyi » not iuforior > but dlfl ' uvont .
O(U 7%? Leader And Salurday Analyst. \ M...
o ( U 7 % ? Leader and Salurday Analyst . \ M . akcu . 3 , I 860 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03031860/page/8/
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