Byzantine Architecture.
The ancient town of Byzantium, the modern Constantinople, was mostly in ruins when Constantine the Great selected it for the new capital of the Roman Empire. He rebuilt the old town and named it after himself, and in the year A.D. 330 the inauguration of the new capital was celebrated. Later on, under Theodosius, the Roman Empire was divided, and Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern portion.
It was the great connecting-point between the countries of the East and the West. The inhabitants of the new city being mostly Greeks, the native artists and architects employed by Constantine imparted a decided Grecian character to the ornament and decoration, especially of the churches and other buildings that were erected by this emperor.
The occasion of the new political change and the rapid spread of the Christian religion served to give a great impetus to the building and lavish decoration of churches and public edifices. Although the new architecture was founded on the Roman originals, yet in the hands of the Greeks both architecture and ornament assumed a new and original character. From the time of the founding of Constantinople to the date of Justinian’s reign (A.D. 527-565), when the great church of Santa Sophia—holy wisdom—was built, on the ruins of an older church that was said to have been burnt down, we can guess that it must have been a time of experiments and developments from the basilica type of building to the well-defined domed style of architecture known as the Byzantine.
The timber-roofed and vaulted style of structure now gave place to the dome, which resulted also in a change of the plan to the square form, instead of the rectangle. During the two hundred years previous to the building of Santa Sophia, the problem of dome construction, with others of a difficult nature in building, had been successfully solved by the Greek architects of the Eastern Empire. Justinian employed the Greeks, Anthemius of Thralles and Isidorus of Miletus, as the architects of Santa Sophia, and they succeeded in erecting a marvellous structure that may justly be reckoned as one of the wonders of the world.
Four vast piers, arranged on a square plan, support four solid arches of masonry, semicircular in shape, and 100 feet span each. The four triangular spaces at the corners and the spaces formed by the angles, the semicircular arches and portions of the ring of the dome, are filled with “pendentives,” which may be described as continuations of the dome. These pendentives partly support the dome, and the other points of support are on the backs of the great arches. The four pendentives meet in the circular ring from which the dome springs. The dome is 46 feet in height from the level of its base, and 107 feet in diameter, and is rather flattish in shape.
On the side of the dome, east and west, are two half-domes, which crown apsidal walls. Other small apses are domed over at lower levels, and vaulted aisles of two stories run round the higher portions of the building, the whole forming almost a cube-like shape.
After Constantinople was captured by the Turks (A.D. 1453), Santa Sophia was converted into a mosque and four minarets, or Moslem towers, were added to its outer angles. The interior of this church, besides the stupendous effect of its unrivalled architectural construction, has its added beauties and splendour in its inlaid marbles, its richly carved cornices and arcades (Fig. 335), and its vaults and domes glittering with gold mosaics of cherubim, and dignified though gaunt and archaic figures. In the capitals of the columns was used the sharply-edged and undercut acanthus foliage, more in accordance with the old Greek type than the Roman, but have a distinctly Byzantine character of its own. Sacred signs, emblems, and birds were often introduced into the capitals; the general shape of the latter was a cubical form, the four faces slanting inwards from above, this form giving a decided appearance of great supporting and sustaining power (Figs. 336 and 338). Sometimes they were bossed out, and often contained the elements of the Ionic and Corinthian orders (Figs. 336, 337, 339). The wedge-shaped portion on the top of the capital is an ugly but distinctive feature of the Byzantine style (Fig. 338).
Fig. 335.—Cornice from Santa Sophia.
The splendour and magnificence of the decoration in Byzantine churches is proverbial: the columns were often of porphyry and serpentine marble, and the supports to the altar canopy (baldacchino), the screen (iconostasis) and the pulpit (ambo) were often inlaid with gold, silver, and precious stones. The altar itself was a gorgeous piece of workmanship, resplendent with gold and enamels, decorated with hanging lamps, vases, and candlesticks, all wrought in precious metal work, though the actual design and workmanship was rough and less refined than antique work.
Fig. 336.—Capital from Santa Sophia, showing the bossing-out of the ornament.
Fig. 337.—Capital from St. Demetrius at Salonica.
Fig. 338.—Capital from St. Demetrius.
The floor mosaics had patterns consisting of the cross, the circle, and the cube, with interlacing lines, the ornamental forms here as elsewhere being of a symbolical character. Reliquaries, shrines, and chalices in gold, and enamels, crosses, and other accessories of the altar, and sculptured ivories of a devotional character, of Byzantine workmanship, were made in great abundance. The larger churches especially, such as Santa Sophia, and St. Mark’s at Venice, possessed great quantities of these treasures. Sculpture was subordinate to painting as plastic art was not encouraged, because of the dislike to images shown by the early Christians, and so painting which led to the mosaic picture, which in its turn led to enamelling on metals, was favoured to a great extent by the Byzantine artists. Even flat bands with inscriptions and ornament were used instead of mouldings in relief.
Fig. 339.—Byzantine Capital from Santa Sophia, showing the bossing-out of the ornament.
The city of Ravenna being situated between Constantinople and Rome possessed some remarkable buildings, that do not belong exactly to the Eastern or Western type of architecture; but on the other hand have strongly marked influences of each.
Fig. 340.—St. Nicholas at Moscow.
The most important is that of the Church of St. Vitale; it is octagonal in plan, and is like Santa Sophia in having a principal central dome, half-domes, and vaulted aisles. It is resplendent in elaborate decoration and carvings. The cathedral of St. Mark’s at Venice is so well known from illustrations and photographs that it requires very little description. It was built in the years A.D. 977-1071, and its plans are said to have been drawn by Greek architects at Constantinople. Originally it possessed all the features of a genuine Byzantine edifice, but has been altered externally, and in some places internally in both Gothic and Renaissance periods. The Byzantine domes have had bulbous coverings placed over them in later times. St. Mark’s like Santa Sophia is square in plan, but has five principal domes, one in the centre, and one at each angle or end of the Greek cross plan. The aisles, with their series of low-level dome roofs, make the whole building nearly square. The surrounding countries of Bulgaria, Servia, Roumania, Armenia, and Russia, which embraced the Christian religion of the Greek Church, possess examples of Byzantine architecture. The Russian type in its later developments has distinctive characteristics of its own, particularly in the use and shape of the dome. Russian churches consist usually of a storied tower on which is placed five small domes of a bulbous shape; these are built on the tops of elongated drums. The bulbous tops of the domes grow into points, on which are placed tall crosses. These and other fantastic elements are derived from the timber edifices of Persia and other Asiatic countries (Fig. 340).
CHAPTER XVIII.
SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.
The architecture of the Saracens in its most perfect examples has a thoroughly distinctive style of its own, and their ornament in its pure form is unlike the ornament of any style that has hitherto existed.
The originality of the latter arose from the experimenting in ornamental patterns that should have no likeness to plants, animals, or other natural forms.
This prohibition of the use of objects from nature in their ornament was one of the articles of the Moslem religion; but to get any pleasing variety in ornament and leave out all natural reminiscences in the designs is out of human power, so consequently we have, even in Saracenic ornament, natural forms put through a geometrical process of draughtsmanship. Saracenic ornament in what is sometimes called Arabian has leaf and bud-like forms interlaced with strap-work, which is often very beautiful and is known under the name of “Arabesque” (Figs. 341, 342).
Fig. 341.—Arabesque Ornament from the Wekāla of Kāit Bey. (L.-P.)
The Saracens were originally composed of Arab herdsmen, nomadic wanderers of the desert, carriers or merchants, and dwellers in villages, who cultivated the land around them. The earliest building of any importance that can be called Saracenic is the “Kaaba” or Moslem temple at Mecca, which contained the sacred brownish-black stone placed by Mahomet in the south-east angle of this square temple. This black stone is supposed to be a meteorolite, hemispherical in shape, and about 6 by 8 inches in the widest dimension. Some hundreds of stone images or “gods” used to be worshipped at Mecca by the Mohammedans in their early days, or in what they call their “days of ignorance,” but these were destroyed by the prophet’s orders. Mohammed himself was a fanatic that could neither read nor write; he made up the Korân from many sources, such as the Bible, the Apocryphal gospels, the Talmud, and possibly a good many original passages of his own, which he says he received from the mouth of the angel Gabriel in visions. The Mohammedan creed contains its essence in the words:—"There is no God, but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." This text is found very frequently as a decorative legend on the walls of the mosques and on painted tiles. At first Mohammed’s new religion was not favourably received, for, after converting his near relations and a few other followers, he had to fly from Mecca to Medina, to escape assassination.
Fig. 342.—Rosette in Mosque of Suyurghatmish; Seventeenth Century. (L.-P.)
The “Hegira,” or flight of Mohammed, took place A.D. 622. He compiled more of his Korân at Medina, and altered parts of it, especially as regards the punishment of idolaters, which naturally included his late persecutors.
The punishment was to be of an eternal nature in the next world, and extirpation in this, unless they embraced Islâmism. Mohammed very soon began to make his power felt; he made a few marauding expeditions throughout the country, and gained many converts, especially when they became convinced that Islâm was to conquer the whole world by the sword. His army, however, was nearly annihilated by the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, in a battle at Muta, but he recovered himself, and marched on to Mecca, where he put to the sword all those that did not embrace his religion, and destroyed all the remaining idols in the city. He allowed his army all the plunder they could get, after he had a tithe to himself, but it is said that he led a very abstemious life, dressed poorly, and resided with his wives in the shabbiest type of dwellings. He died in A.D. 632, or ten years after the Hegira, from which event is dated the Mohammedan era. After his death many of the converts became backsliders, but his successor, Abu-Bekr, and more especially the renowned Omar—the second caliph—brought the Saracens to a great power. They were very warlike, and capable of enduring great hardships, and as they had everything to gain and nothing to lose, they made war their sole trade, and carried their successful arms to India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
The islands of the Mediterranean, the northern coast of Africa, Spain, and the south-east of France, were by them also invaded, ravaged, and partly conquered.
Fig. 343.—Alhambra Diaper, Superposed Ornament.
Fig. 344.—Stalactite Vaulting.
In the youthful days of Saracenic power, as early as the second caliphate, Persia and Asia Minor had been plundered and pillaged of their costly and valuable objects in silver, gold, embroidered carpets, and silken goods. The wealth of the Moslem conquerors was now considerable, and was accumulating fast; the sight of so much that was fine and striking in the arts and architecture of the countries they had conquered, in the eyes of these people—who were no better than barbarians or banditti—began to have a more civilising effect on them. Add to this the influence of the Byzantine architecture, especially at Constantinople, with the Saracens, whose religion was in some respects not unlike the Christian, especially as in both cases there was the stern prohibition of idols or graven images; and so it was quite natural that the Moslem mosque should be built and decorated on the main lines of the Byzantine Christian church. The dome and the niche (mehrab) came from the Byzantine; the minarets—which are not strictly essential in Moslem architecture—probably from the Perseopolitan columns. The Moslem dome, however, may have had its origin in the domed palaces of Persia, of the Achæmedian dynasty. Saracenic ornament is mostly, however, derived from the geometric Byzantine with a strong dash of Indian forms in its mixture. The super-posing in their ornament of different planes (Fig. 343), the class of ornament known as “mnemonic” (Figs. [362], [363]), and the stalactite decoration of vaults and domes (Fig. 344)—all these three classes deserve the credit of being distinctly Saracenic, although some say that the stalactite ornament was known in Persia before the days of Mahomet.
Among the earliest mosques we may mention that of Omar at Jerusalem, which was supposed to be a small wooden mosque, now destroyed. Ferguson says it was the Mosque of El Aksah.
The Mosque of ’Amr at Old Cairo was built A.D. 641 by Amru-Ibn-al-Aās, the general and governor who conquered Egypt, A.H. 21 (after the Hegira). It has been frequently restored and enlarged. The columns which support the arcaded arches are classical in character, the arches are slightly horseshoe in the curve, and are tied together. The building is nearly square in plan (Figs. 345, 346).
Fig. 345.—East Colonnade of the Mosque of ’Amr. (L.-P.)
The mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn (Son of Tūlūn) in Old Cairo was built by Ahmad-ibn-Tūlūn, founder of the house of the Tūlūn governors of Egypt, A.H. 263-5. This mosque and that of ’Amr are what are known as “cloistered” mosques. The plan of the latter (Fig. 346) gives a general idea of a cloistered mosque. The essential requirements of a mosque are very few and simple. Mahomet’s mosque at Medina was a small square brick-built structure, with a wooden roof plastered over: the chief thing required was retirement from the public for meditation and prayer.
Fig. 346.—Plan of the Mosque of ’Amr. (L.-P.)
Fig. 347.—Minaret of the Mosque of Kaloum at Cairo.
It was not essential that all the rectangular or square court that forms the mosque should be covered with a roof, provided there was sufficient shelter for the number of worshippers, which was generally small at a time, and if a larger space were required, a portion or all of the open court could be roofed in. What we would call the east end of a church corresponded to that part of a mosque where the kibla, or line of direction, would be indicated—towards Mecca—there the mihrab or niche would be fixed. Close to the mihrab is the mimbar, or pulpit, for the sermon, and in close vicinity the dikka or tribune, a raised platform, from which the imām intones the prayers and reads passages from the Korān. The minaret is a later addition, but is seen on every mosque; it is used by the Muezzin, who ascends to its galleries and calls the faithful to prayer five times a day (Fig. 347). A fountain is necessary for the lawful ablutions before prayer.
Fig. 348.—Mausoleum at Cairo.
The dome is not a necessary feature to a mosque; it only occurs over the tomb of some sultan or other dignitary, and may be used as a chapel, but only when it covers a tomb. The majority of mosques, however, have a dome, either as a principal feature, or attached to some part of the building. Cairo is particularly rich in domed mausoleum structures (Fig. 348).
The domes or cupolas in Moslem buildings generally swell up beyond the semicircle, and are raised considerably by having their lower parts straight-sided or cylindrical; this part is sometimes pierced with a row of small windows, and is recessed back on a pyramid-like story, with a square or polygonal base, which in its turn rests on the top of a square embattled tower. The dome is usually built of brick, the courses projecting roughly one over the other, diminishing towards the top, and thickly plastered over inside and out to get an even surface; sometimes the mortar is thicker than the bricks in Saracen buildings.
Fig. 349.—Mosque of Kāit Bey, Cairo. (L.-P.)
Wooden frames are often used in the construction of domes which support the plaster work. Some domes are built with slabs of stones on which a geometric pattern is carved on the outside (Figs. 348, 349); these are generally of a late period, as the tomb mosque of Kāit Bey, built about A.D. 1468 (Fig. 349). The oldest mosque in Cairo is that of Ibn Tūlūn (Fig. 350). It is a cloistered mosque, is built in a massive style, and has a high plain wall around it; it covers about four hundred square feet of ground. In the centre of the inner courtyard is a square stone building surmounted by a dome, one of the earliest carried on stalactites. This building is a century later than the cloisters, and is built over a well or fountain.
The great court is surrounded by arcades of pointed arches, that have a slight tendency to turn inwards at the base, and are built as piers of plastered brick; it is said to be the first mosque built on piers, instead of the usual round columns.
The Saracens did not make columns themselves, but took them from the ruins of Roman buildings, or even from existing Christian churches, and as often as not used the capitals turned upside down as bases.
The Saracens have a form of capital of Moorish design which harmonizes with their architecture; it has a slightly tapering, smooth, long neck, a heavy projecting head, and is well covered with characteristic foliated work (Fig. 351).
In the mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn there are only two columns; these are placed at the niche or mihrab. Three sides of this mosque have two rows of arches, and the fourth—the side towards Mecca—which is the liwān or sanctuary, has five. The architect of this mosque was a Coptic Christian, who received £5,000 and a costly dress of honour as his fee. The total cost of the building was £60,000 (Lane-Poole). Around the arches and the windows, which were placed high up between the arches, are bands of palmated ornament. These borders, according to Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, are the earliest examples of geometrical design and scroll-work that afterwards became so characteristic of Saracenic ornament.
They were made in plaster or stucco-work by hand, while the plaster was wet, and not cast in moulds, which was the case of later Moorish plaster ornament.
Fig. 350.—Arcades in the Mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn. (L.-P.)
The arcades were roofed over with sycamore planks resting on heavy beams, and the whole structure was crowned with crenellations or embattlements. One of the back walls of the arcades is pierced with grilles of stone, of beautiful tracery design.
The Arabian or Saracen arches are of three kinds—the Ogee, the Horseshoe, and the Pointed (Fig. 352, a, b, c).
Fig. 351.—Moorish Capital.
A peculiar arrangement of cusped inter-arching, combined with the horseshoe arch, is seen in the maksura, or space in front of the mihrab, of the mosque of Cordova, built A.D. 786 (Fig. 353).
This arrangement of cusping, though characteristically Moorish, is anything but beautiful. The Mosque of Cordova was begun by the Caliph Abd-al-Rahman in the year before he died, and was continued by his son Hisham, and his grandson El-Hakim. It is one of the great congregational mosques, and occupied a space of ground 580 feet by 435 feet.
Fig. 352.—Arches; a, ogee; b, horseshoe; c, pointed.
The minaret is often a feature of great beauty, and is pre-eminently distinctive of Saracenic mosque architecture; it may be called the belfry of the mosque. Sometimes it is engaged to the main building, and sometimes starts from the roof of the mosque. The base plan is generally polygonal, and the upper stories above the main gallery are often circular; the top is crowned with a pear-shaped cupola. That of the mosque of Sultan Hasan is one of the highest, being about 330 feet in height. One of the most ornate and beautiful is the minaret that adorns the mosque of Kāit Bey, at Cairo (see Fig. 349). From the roof of the mosque it starts on a solid square base, and develops into an octagon story, which is pierced with window openings, and has an elaborate cornice gallery, consisting of a pierced balustrade, supported by stalactite brackets. The next upper division is cylindrical, decorated with geometrical interlaced ornament; another story is above this, crowned with a cupola, on the top of which is placed a pear-shaped ball, ending in a finial. Wooden bracket-like forms project out of this, from which lamps are suspended at festivals. The minaret and dome are covered with elaborate carvings.
Fig. 353.—Cusped inter-arching, Mosque of Cordova.
The mimbars or pulpits are singular in construction, and are usually well covered with decoration (Fig. 354).
Fig. 354.—Pulpit of the Sultan Kāit Bey: Fifteenth Century. (L.-P.)
The remains of domestic architecture are not very plentiful—at least, of any examples of the best period of the Saracen style. The main idea in the design of the houses was to have them built so that people outside should see as little as possible of the inmates or inside, and that the women especially should see as little of street life as possible; so the first row of the windows was placed high up, and all the windows were thickly latticed, so that little could be seen from the inside and nothing from the outside (Fig. 355). An interesting and picturesque feature was the meshrebiyas, or drinking-places, so called because they were little projecting shaded structures of lattice-work, supported on brackets, that contained the water in vessels and other drinks; the currents of air that rushed through the lattice-work served to keep the drinking water cool.
Fig. 355.—A Street in Cairo. (L.-P.)
Fig. 356.—Lattice-work, S.K.M. (L.-P.)
The meshrebiyas are often very beautiful with their varied patterns of elaborate lattice-work, which is peculiarly Arabian in design. It is composed of many pieces of turned and carved pieces that are ingeniously fitted into each other to form the pattern (Figs. 356-7-8). In the museum at Kensington many examples of these lattice patterns may be seen, and also some of the meshrebiyas.
Fig. 357.—Lattice-work, S.K.M. (L.-P.)
Fig. 358.—Lattice-work, S.K.M. (L.-P.)
In the illustration of a “Street in Cairo” (Fig. 355), two of these meshrebiyas project on brackets from a house front.
A richer style of the lattice-work decoration was used in open panels and balustrades of the pulpits, where the triangles and hexagons that form part of the design are carved on the surface, and inlaid back and front with ivory or ebony.
The houses in Cairo of the purest Saracen style have the best part of the carvings and decoration in the inside; they are generally two or three stories in height, but were much higher in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The lower parts are built of stone, and the upper stories of brick and wood, plastered white.
The lower story has the stones coloured in alternate courses of red ochre and white limewash. The doorways are sometimes decorated by having peculiar voussoirs and interlaced ornament (Fig. 359).
Fig. 359.—Doorway of a Private House. (L.-P.)
There is an illustration of a shop-front in M. Bourgoin’s “Eléments de l’Art Arabe” which is an exquisite example of Saracen work of good proportion and design in its doors and windows. Saracenic ornament, as it appears in plaster, stone, wood, and mosaic decoration, of the mosques, pulpits, and wekālas or khans, deserves special notice on account of its extreme originality of design and treatment, inasmuch as, whatever may be its true origin, we must certainly admit that there is a marked difference between it and the ornament of any other historic style.
The mosques built anterior to that of Suyurghatmish (A.D. 1356) were decorated in plaster. The rosette (Fig. 342) shows a transitional piece of work of great beauty, that looks like a copy in stone of low-relief plaster-work, and has every sign of a Byzantine-like origin, seen more especially in the leaf-like markings and general treatment of the six large central flowers; the interlacing and other details are also Byzantine. It is quite likely that this example was designed by a Christian Coptic artist, as, indeed, nearly all the Saracen art in Egypt of this period was designed by Coptic Egyptians. Compare with this the illuminated Korān of the Sultan Sha’ Ban, of a year or two later (A.D. 1368). All the floral work in this is distinctly Persian in character, without any reminiscence of Byzantine, but shows rather a Chinese or Indian influence (Fig. 360). It is probably copied from a Persian embroidery.
Fig. 360.—Illuminated Korān of the Sultan Sha’ Ban; Fourteenth Century. (L.-P.)
Another example of Saracenic ornament is the stone sculptured decoration from the portal of the mosque of Sultan Hasan, in Cairo (A.D. 1358), (Fig. 361). From being carved in stone the ornament is much stiffer than the two previous examples, but it is more thoroughly Saracenic or Arabian than either of them; the large flower-like forms in elevation are evidently developments of the Assyrian form of the lotus, and have here almost the form of the fleur-de-lis. This type of design was successfully developed in the Moresque diapers of the Alhambra, where the conventional leaves and flower forms were mixed with Saracenic inscriptions, and were redeemed from their aridity by the almost sensuous character of the colouring, which has a combination of red, blue, white, and gold, and further by the superimposed planes of the ornamental composition (see Fig. [343]). It may be noticed that some of the leaf-work in these diapers have a feather-like decoration, which gives richness and variety to the ornament: these markings are evidently derived from the parallel veining of Byzantine acanthus leaf-work. The larger strap-work running through is interlaced in the form of pointed and horseshoe arches, which makes the ornament in appropriate harmony with the Moorish architecture, while the flat treatment of the whole is distinctively characteristic of all Saracenic ornament.
Fig. 361.—Ornament from the Portal of Sultan Hasan.
Two examples of Mnemonic ornament are given at Figs. 362 and 363. The former is a Kufic inscription arranged so as to form a band ornament. This is in the angular and older form of writing. The latter is an example of the cursive Arabian hand which was more generally adopted, and is termed the Vaskhy: it is more round and flowing than the Kufic. The typical feather ornament forms a background to most of these inscriptions.
Fig. 362.—Kufic Writing, from the Alhambra.
Fig. 363.—Arabian Cursive Writing, from the Alhambra.
Some of the finest specimens of purely Saracenic ornament are found on the singularly ornate mimbars or pulpits (Figs. 354 and 364). The simplicity of their straight-lined silhouettes is in restrained contrast to the extreme elaboration of their carved surfaces. The stone pulpit from the mosque of Barkuk is early fifteenth century work. It is made of solid stone slabs, with doorway, staircase, and canopy raised on small pillars and surmounted by the usual pear-shaped cupola. The stone slabs are elaborately carved with geometrical patterns, arabesques, and inscriptions, and are said to be the finest examples of stone carving in Cairo. Another pulpit (Fig. 354) of the fifteenth century, made by order of the Sultan Kāit Bey, is built in wood; it is now in the South Kensington Museum, and bears the name of this Mamlūk Sultan, who was the ruler of Egypt at the end of that century. The folding doors and the niche of this pulpit are decorated with stalactite ornament; the cupola is copper; the carving is most elaborate, and is also inlaid with ebony and ivory. Some of the carved panels from the building known as the wekāla or khan of Kāit Bey, show Saracenic ornament in its purest form—both the geometrical variety and arabesques. This Sultan and his artists have shown the most refined taste of all the great Saracen builders. The wekāla or khan is a rectangular building with an open court in the centre, and consists of numerous chambers that were occupied by merchants for a short season when they came to buy and sell in Cairo, and was, in fact, a sort of Eastern hotel.
Fig. 364.—Stone Pulpit in Mosque of Barkuk; Fifteenth Century.
The stabling was placed behind on the ground floor, and the exterior consisted of a row of small shops. The wekāla of Kāit Bey had thirteen of these shops on one exterior, and between the seventh and eighth was placed a splendid arched gateway. It is a pointed arch of eight feet in width, the edge of which is decorated with three tiers of stalactites that are carved on the sides of the archway, and has a fine band of carved scroll-work running round the face of the archway and spandrels. One of the most beautiful examples of alternating interlacing and arabesque ornament is that which forms an arch over a horizontal panel of carved ornament. This arch is shown at Fig. 365. A fine characteristic piece of carved ornament from the same building is the subject of the illustration Fig. [341].
Figure and animal representation, though prohibited by the Moslem religion, was in many cases practised by the Saracen sculptors; for instance, in the Baptistery of St. Louis is a large copper bowl inlaid with silver figures (Mōsil work) made at Mōsil in the thirteenth century. These figure and animal designs are from Mesopotamian sources, as may easily be seen in the examples given—from the Marīstan of Kalaun (Figs. 366 and 367), where on the last a centaur is shooting an arrow at a unicorn, balanced by a similar animal on the opposite side; and on the other example is a peacock in the centre, with figures of men on either side having drinking vessels and musical instruments, an evident representation of a concert and dances.
Fig. 365.—Ornament on an Arch of the Wekāla Kāit Bey. (L.-P.)
The scroll borders around this panel, and the execution of the work, are in the Saracenic manner, but the motives of the designs are Persian. Other similar carvings in which animals figure and birds are introduced are to be seen in the same building, and are of late thirteenth century work. These illustrations are taken from Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole’s “Saracenic Art in Egypt,” after “Prisse d’Avennes,” to which the student is referred for an exhaustive account of the Saracen art in Egypt. We extract the following summary of this art from the above author, who quotes from Franz Pasha, the architect to the Government of the Khedive. “While bestowing their full meed of praise on the wonderfully rich ornamentation and other details of Arabian architecture, one cannot help feeling that the style fails to give entire æsthetic satisfaction; want of symmetry of plan, poverty of articulation, insufficiency of plastic decoration, and an incongruous mingling of wood and stone are the imperfections which strike most Northern critics. The architects, in fact, bestowed the whole of their attention on the decoration of surfaces; and down to the present day the Arabian artists have always displayed far greater ability in designing the most complicated ornament and geometrical figures on plane surfaces than in the treatment and proportioning of masses. Although we occasionally see difficulties of construction well overcome ... these instances seem rather to be successful experiments than the result of scientific workmanship. The real excellence of the Arabian architects lay in their skill in masking abrupt angles by the use of stalactites, or brackets,” &c.
Figs. 366, 367.—Carved Panels from the Maristan of Kalaun (after Prisse d’Avennes): Late Thirteenth Century. (L.-P.)
This architect is right, generally speaking, in his admirable remarks, but we think, although it is admitted that Saracenic architecture lacks the cohesion and unity of parts that is the chief beauty in Greek and best examples of the Gothic, that in some instances, in the mosques and more particularly in the wekālas and in domestic architecture, the Saracen architects have proved themselves masters in the creation of architectural works second to none in point of beauty, while in their architectural application of ornament to the decoration of the various surfaces and other features of their buildings they are unrivalled. They have not only invented a new style of ornament, but in their correct application of it they have scarcely ever been equalled.
The decoration of surfaces, which is the chief glory of all Saracenic art and architecture, was the first and last lesson they learnt from their Persian masters in art, for Persian art, like the manners and customs of the people, has all its beauty and politeness on the surface.
CHAPTER XIX.
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.
Romanesque is the name given to the architectural style developed by the Western barbarians who overran the Roman Empire, after their partial civilisation, when they had learned the art of building. The style arose chiefly from the copying of Roman buildings and their remains, with some added features of Byzantine buildings.
Out of this Romanesque, in its turn, there sprang another style which was founded on the Romanesque and on the architecture of the Saracens. Towards the end of the eleventh century the new masters of the Roman Empire, in the course of their military expeditions to Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, were brought in contact with the Saracens and their architecture, and in coming back to Europe they brought with them new ideas of building, such as the pointed arch of the Saracens, which feature together with new forms of ornament were added by them to the prevalent Romanesque style, the mixture producing an entirely new style, which has been curiously named after the early Northern barbarians—the Gothic.
The subsequent Crusades against the Mohammedans had the effect, among others, of extending the knowledge of mathematics and geometry among the Crusaders, sciences in which the Saracens excelled; and in coming home again to the West, they applied their geometrical knowledge to the development of Gothic architecture to such an extent that, towards the end of the fourteenth century, this architecture could show examples of the most lofty and daring constructions in stone that were marvels in the science of building. Some Gothic buildings present with their fretted pinnacles, spires, flying buttresses, intersecting and pierced work, in flamboyant tracery, daring vaulting, and inter-penetrating mouldings, a worked-out solution of some intricate mathematical problem. In its complicated phases Gothic construction is more scientific than artistic, however much one may admire the grouping or design of the Gothic pile as a picturesque conception.
Returning to the Romanesque style, we find that in the sixth century Theodoric the Ostrogoth had, in the erections of churches, palaces, and of his tomb in Ravenna—his capital—sown the first seeds of the future developments of the German Romanesque, and in some degree of the later German Gothic style. In producing these works his ambition was to emulate the grandeur of Imperial Rome. The Longobards, the successors of the Ostrogoths, continued this building activity through the Middle Ages, and have left to us monuments of their genius in the early and rude Duomo Vecchio of Brescia, and amongst many others of their noblest works were Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan, and San Zeno at Verona.
Prior to the Carlovingian era, the Germanic people began to cultivate the fine arts in a tentative manner. This was brought about by the contact of German chiefs and warriors with Italian pomp and splendour, which also bred in them a love for personal adornment, that strongly marked the nobles and warriors of this period.
Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Germany at Rome, on Christmas Day in the year A.D. 800. The dream and ambition of this great German Prince was to establish a mighty Christian Empire in the West of Europe that should rival pagan Rome itself, not only in military power, but in a widespread culture of literature, science, and artistic excellence.
These were the days of Chivalry, of the Crusaders; the days when men were rich in high and lofty ideals; when those knightly mystics, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Vogelweide, sang of the Parsival and the Quest of the Holy Graal, of songs of love and chivalry, of deliverance from wrongs, and of many stirring and tuneful themes.
Though Charlemagne never learned to read or write, he thoroughly appreciated the value of learning. He gathered together learned men, architects, and artists, and established a school of religious music. He built many churches, palaces, and bridges, and collected many statues from Rome and elsewhere for the adornment of his great church at Aix-la-Chapelle; he organized and encouraged the professions and trades of his towns and cities.
The great tomb-church at Aix-la-Chapelle—or Aachen—was built by Charlemagne, and became the prototype of all subsequent churches erected in the Romanesque style in Germany.
It was in the region bordering on the Rhine that the great church building activity was developed in Germany. The cities of the powerful bishoprics rivalled each other in pomp and splendour, as we see in such buildings as the Doms of Spiers, Mayence, and Cologne, and in the Romanesque churches of Swabia, Franconia, Westphalia, and Lower Saxony. The Romanesque style is also found in the churches or Doms of Bamberg, Brunswick, and Osnabruck; the Godehardi and Michael’s churches at Hildesheim, the carving in which excels that in the churches of the Rhineland.
The distinctive characteristics of the German Romanesque are the great octagonal dome-like towers that arise from the crossing of the nave and transept, and the flanking towers at each end that are sometimes united to the central tower by an outside western gallery or façade. A fine modern church, built in the Romanesque style, is that of the Cathedral of Fourvière, on the hill overlooking the city of Lyons in France.
Fig. 368.—Round Arch Frieze.
369.—Intersecting Blind Arcade.
Some German Romanesque churches have a western as well as an eastern apse, and the church known as the Apostelkirche in Cologne has the transept, both of which features are disturbing elements in any church where the chief attention should be directed to the culminating point where the choir, reredos, or altar are usually found—in the apse or chancel, and at the eastern end only.
Fig. 370.—Rose Window.
The church architecture of the West—the Romanesque followed closely the requirements of the Western ritual, while the churches which observed the Eastern ritual kept to the Greek or Byzantine models.
Romanesque churches of the tenth century are distinguished by the basilica plan, the apsidal east end, round-headed arches, and single or double-light windows. The walls have generally a decoration, consisting of a series of flat pilasters—reminiscences of classic architecture—and the roofs in many cases were vaulted. Arcaded decoration, with or without small columnar supports (Figs. 368 and 369) and rose windows (Fig. 370) are features of the Romanesque. Some of the round-headed doorways are especially rich in character, and have often five or six recessed columns (Fig. 371) that carry richly moulded heads, and carved capitals of quaint animal and bird decoration (Fig. 372).
Fig. 371.—Porch of the Heilsbronn Monastery, near Nüremberg.
The shafts of the columns are usually plain, though in some instances, for the sake of contrast, they are twisted or imbricated, and the bases are copies of the classic orders (Fig. 373). Above the lintel and under the round arch mouldings is the lunette or tympanum; this space often has rich decoration of figures and ornament; sometimes it is divided into two spaces, when the entrance doorway is divided by a central pillar.
Fig. 372.—Capital from Wartburg.
Fig. 373.—Romanesque Shaft and Base.
The details and motives of Romanesque decoration are derived from classic ornament—mostly Roman—and are, as a rule, debased forms of the latter.
Fig. 374.—Roof Cornice of Church at Alstadt-Rottweil.
Fig. 375.—Later Romanesque Ornament.
The cable or rope torus-ornament, the scale or imbricated work, the chevron or zigzag, bead and reel, scroll, billet, checkers, and diapers, were all extensively used in the Romanesque, many of which have been retained in the later forms of Gothic ornament. Figs. 374, 375, and 376 are examples of the above ornaments.
a, Arcaded.
b, Checkers.
c, Waved ribbon.
d, Cable or Torus.
e, Chevron or Zigzag.
f, Billet.
g, Nail-head.
h, Scales or Imbrication.
i, Lozenge.
k, Tooth Ornament.
Fig. 376.—Various Romanesque Moulding Ornaments.
The tower was a feature of later Romanesque work, which marked the broad difference between the latter and Byzantine architecture; these towers had their stories decorated with semicircular arches on corbels or on small pillars (Fig. 377).
The corbels usually consisted of masks or grotesque figures, animals, dragons, or twisted snakes. These forms of decoration were also used in the capitals and cornices, both in the Romanesque transitional and Gothic periods. Grotesque forms were used very much as sculptural decoration in the Lombardic Gothic architecture. In Scandinavia and in Ireland this kind of ornament assumed the forms of snakes, serpents, and interlacings developed from them. (See Fig. 65, 69, 70.) The capitals were at first rude copies of the Roman Corinthian order (Fig. 309), developed later—after the character of the Byzantine cubical forms—to a solid cubic shape, called in the Norman style of Romanesque in England, the “cushion-headed” capital.
Fig. 377.—Towers and Round-arched Frieze, Abbey of Komberg.
Window-openings were usually small, and the grouping of two or more lights under one arcaded head occurs in Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic buildings. The light came usually from the clerestory, but sometimes smaller circular windows were introduced into the end gables, which subsequently were developed into windows of greater importance and intricacy of design in the great Gothic chancels and in western lights.
Fig. 378.—Capital from Palace of Barbarossa, Gelnhausen.
Fig. 379.—Capital from St. Cross, Winchester.
Romanesque architecture, and especially its decorative ornamentation, was never quite free from Byzantine or Saracenic influences. It was of itself an incongruous mixture, out of which, when the pointed arch of the Saracens was adopted, and the ornamental features modified to conform with it, the new ogival or Gothic style arose.
In every part of Europe in which the Romanesque took root, there may be noticed so many distinct varieties. The style in Rome and Central Italy naturally followed, as we have seen, the antique Roman forms. In the cathedral of Pisa the capitals are Corinthian, and there is a greater display here of mosaics and coloured marbles, both on the exterior and in the interior, than in most Romanesque buildings.
Fig. 380.—Porch of St. Zeno at Verona.
The style in Lombardy and Upper Italy is, on the other hand, different to that of Central Italy, as it there inherited the German traditions. The columns had in their capitals leafage of a different character to that of the classic orders, and had birds and animals carved amongst it, and the bases of the columns rested on animals. Doorways were square-headed, and had also a circular arch, over which was a pedimented canopy (Fig. 380). One of the finest examples of Lombardic Romanesque is the St. Zeno Church at Verona, which has a doorway of this description. The Church of Monreale in Sicily (A.D. 1174), and the Cathedral of Palermo, exhibit a mixture in which Byzantine and Saracenic influences are well defined; this was owing to the successive powers that were at different periods masters of that country.
The Normans at a later date made changes in the architecture of Sicily, and Norman architecture was developed to a great extent in this place.
It was in Sicily that Norman architecture first developed the characteristic zigzag feature that is seen so much in the Norman portals and window-heads in England (Figs. 381 and 382).
Fig. 381.—Norman Doorway, Semperingham Church, Lincolnshire. (G.)
The pointed arch of the Saracens was added to the Norman Romanesque in Sicily. The Cathedral of Cefalu (1132), and the palace of La Ziza at Palermo, are examples. Nowhere else was the Romanesque of so mixed a character. The illustration from Palermo (Fig. 383) clearly shows the pointed Saracenic arch, used after the manner of the Romanesque round arching, while some other portions of the details are distinctly Byzantine. In the south of France Romanesque architecture is far more ornate than that of the Norman style in Normandy, or other parts of the North; in fact, the latter style in France has its ornament confined to purely linear decoration; but the churches that were built at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, which represent Norman architecture in its purest phases, were noble edifices, plain and solidly built, of which the church of St. Etienne is a good example. Its arcades rest on piers, it has a vaulted nave and aisles, and has a fine transept. The gable of the nave is flanked by two western towers, the western front is built in three stories, and has two ranges of five-light windows. The Cathedrals of Bayeux and Evreux may be mentioned as two other fine examples of Norman architecture.
Fig. 382.—Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire.
Fig. 383.—Pointed Arcading from the Cathedral of Palermo.
The Romanesque doorway (Fig. 384) from the South of France illustrates the somewhat motley character of this architecture in that part of the country. Some churches of this locality show the receding arches in the doors and arcading, supported by engaged columns, which feature was developed very much in the later Gothic.
The Romanesque style in England is seen in buildings that were erected before the Norman Conquest.
Fig. 384.—Door of St. Gabriel’s, South of France.
The buildings of this period—the eleventh century—have received the name of “Anglo-Saxon.” They are characterized by the round openings of doors and windows, the latter being sometimes triangular-headed. The tower of Earl’s Barton, in Northamptonshire, is an example of Anglo-Saxon. It has pilaster-like strips of stone decorating and tying the masonry together; small triangular and circular stone-work connecting the perpendicular strips—a reminiscence of arcading—gives a distinctive appearance of wood-framing to the whole work, which is probably a copy of the earlier timber construction.
The Anglo-Saxon tower at Sompting, Sussex, and the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon (A.D. 705), are also examples of early work executed[executed] in England prior to the Norman Conquest (1066).
The work we understand as Norman in England was in existence long before the Conqueror’s time, and it is quite likely that the subsequent English Gothic would have developed just the same if the Normans had not invaded England.
The English Romanesque, or Early Norman style, dates, as near as possible, from Edward the Confessor’s time (1041-1065). This king founded the great Abbey of Westminster, of which the Dormitory substructure walls and vaulting still remain, but the rest of the original church has disappeared. On the Continent and in England, just after the year 1000, a great building period set in, as for many years prior to this date a corresponding period of an opposite kind, or a lethargy in the life of the Christian peoples, and consequently an inactivity in all building operations, was manifested, owing to the prophecy that the end of the world would come in the year 1000. When this was found to be a delusion, a building craze spread over Europe, and the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries were the great building ages, when both Christian and Saracenic architecture advanced with leaps and bounds.
The Normans in England after the Conquest, no doubt, hastened the advancement of architecture; for the rule seems to have been that wherever they found a small or old church of the Anglo-Saxon type or period, they invariably pulled it down, re-dressed the stones, and built a much larger and better church on the same site, using up the old material when available, besides building many churches on new sites. The Normans were also much better builders than the Saxons, and at this time great numbers of Norman masons were brought over from France.
The strongholds, or castles, with their massive keeps, were built at this period by the new Norman barons, in order not only to have stately dwellings for themselves, but to protect their newly-acquired honours and possessions from their Saxon foemen. Remains of many of these strongholds, especially of the keeps, are still to be seen at Hedingham Castle at Rochester; Gundulph’s Tower—the oldest—at Malling, Kent; Newcastle, Guildford, Colchester, Richmond, and Conisborough in Yorkshire, &c. One of the earliest is the great White Tower of London, in which is found the beautiful little Norman Chapel, one of the best and most perfect examples of Norman architecture in England. The Norman keeps, or towers, are uniform in design, having a square plan, with a square projecting turret at each angle, and a flat, thin buttress in the centre of the walls; windows were small, and were round or square-headed. The doorways were round-headed, recessed, and were generally ornamented.
Fig. 385.—The Landgrave’s Room at the Wartburg.
Portions of Canterbury Cathedral, as indeed, of almost all the principal English cathedrals, and many old churches, were built in the Norman period, which shows how extensively church building must have been carried on from the Conquest (1066) to the commencement of the reign of Richard I. (1189). The Norman and oldest parts of Canterbury Cathedral, built by Archbishop Lanfranc (1070-1089), are the towers forming the choir transepts.
Fig. 386.—Romanesque Ornament, Iron Hinge from Notre-Dame, Paris.
Prior Ernulf, under St. Anselm, rebuilt much of Canterbury Cathedral (1130), and added richer elements to the ornamentation. The peculiar plain cushion, or cubic capital, found so much in England in Norman work, was meant to be carved or enriched afterwards, but often the want of funds, or haste and carelessness in after years, were the causes that left them plain, until it was too late, when the style had changed, and they were superseded by later developments. It is certain that they were not intended to remain so, for many have been left half-finished in the carving, and some plain ones are found to alternate with others of the same type, but richly carved, as at Canterbury and some other places. Sometimes the intention seems to have been to decorate them with painted ornament.
Fig. 387.—Romanesque Panel from a Church at Bonn.
At Winchester and Rochester Cathedrals, St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, the transepts of Exeter, Peterborough, and, above all, at Durham, the Norman style is seen both in its best earlier and later developments.
The ornaments are very few, the zigzag being the chief. The lozenge and billet are also used in the early work, but in the later, as in the rich doorways, such as that at Iffley, Oxfordshire (1160), grotesque masks, frets, interlacings, birds, dragons, fishes, and the quadruple form of the zigzag are added. The columns in some cases are twisted and banded, and Ionic volutes appear in the capitals. In some late Norman work the tympana are richly carved with figures and ornament. Many examples of Romanesque non-ecclesiastical buildings are still in existence in Germany, or have been skilfully restored as such, which give a tolerably good idea of the private dwellings of this period. The illustration (Fig. 385) is an example of the domestic Romanesque. It is the interior of the Landgrave’s room at the Wartburg, Germany.
Examples of Romanesque ornament are given in the iron hinge from the Church of Nôtre Dame, Paris (Fig. 386), and the panel from Bonn (Fig. 387).
CHAPTER XX.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.
The Gothic or “Pointed” style grew, as we have seen, out of the Romanesque. Churches were built in which the pointed arch was used side by side with the round arch of Romanesque. These were the buildings of the transitional period. In France, Germany, and in England some of the earlier Gothic buildings were purer in style than those of the later period. The work of the thirteenth century is more correct in artistic principles, more restrained, and less bewildering in the principles of construction than the work of any subsequent period. The true home of the Gothic style was in France, from which country it extended to Germany and England almost simultaneously. The Cathedral of Soissons in France may be mentioned as one of the transitional buildings (1212), though portions of it are of a still earlier date. It is noted for its early plate tracery and very ornate foliated capitals. The hall of the Hospital of St. John at Angers shows many features of the transitional style. Its vaulted roofs and arching are in the Gothic or Pointed style, and the windows are in the round-headed Romanesque. The hospital was built by Henry II., and completed A.D. 1184.
In England, portions of Canterbury Cathedral, the hall at Oakham Castle, Rutlandshire, and the Temple Church, London, may be given as examples of the transitional Romanesque or Norman to the Early English Gothic. In all the above examples, the square-moulded abacus with debased Corinthian foliage on the bell underneath may be seen, which indicates the transitional type of capital. The buildings of the transitional style may be distinguished from those of the earlier one by being much lighter in construction: the masons, having learned their trade better, found they could economise the material—which was a great thing in those days of rapid church building—by having more slender proportions, which led to the more refined and elegant style of the Early Gothic both in England and on the Continent.
Fig. 388.—Cathedral of Notre-Dame Paris.
The Church of Nôtre[Nôtre]-Dame in Paris is a fine example of the Early French style (Fig. 388). The towers look unfinished, but they had at one time wooden spires. Chartres (1260), Rheims (1250), and Rouen (1280) are other typical examples of this period.
The period of the Early English style lasted from about A.D. 1190 to 1270, embracing the reigns of Richard I., John, and Henry III. This style is distinguished from the Norman transitional by the light and lofty pillars used singly or in groups and clusters, lancet windows, pointed arches, and by the additional use made of buttresses and pinnacles.
The slope or pitch of the roof is in harmony with the pointed arches and lancet windows, and also the pyramidal towers or spires. The greatest possible difference is thus exhibited between the Norman Romanesque and the Early English Gothic. Although the ground plan is hardly altered in the latter style, the general lightness and soaring vertical character of almost every detail, and the multiplication of buttresses and pinnacles, give to the Gothic erections of this period a triumphal look of mastery over the material that in the science of building was hitherto unknown.
The Early Pointed style in England is seen at its best in Lincoln, York, and Salisbury Cathedrals and in Westminster Abbey (Fig. 389).
Fig. 389.—Westminster Abbey.
The Cathedral of Cologne founded by Conrad von Hochstaden—that wonderful and huge pile of Gothic architecture—belongs partly to the thirteenth but more properly to the fourteenth century, having its foundations laid in 1248 and consecrated in 1327. It has been added to considerably even until modern days. It presents a slightly wearisome repetition of parts, especially in the buttresses, pinnacles, and other vertical forms of the exterior, that in a measure robs it of some part of the grandeur and sublimity which we should naturally expect in an edifice of its size and proportions. It is based partly on the design of the great Cathedral of Amiens in France. The very rich canopies and windows of geometrical tracery (Fig. 390) are later than the thirteenth century, and correspond closely to the Decorated period in England (1270 to 1380).
Fig. 390.—Window, Gable, and Parapet in Cologne Cathedral.
The interior of the Cologne Cathedral is strikingly illustrative of the real spirit of the Gothic style. The consistent unity and simplicity of its stupendous and upward-soaring nave, and its still simpler choir—which has only as its ornamental features the stringcourse below the triforium and the carved capitals of the shafts—combine to produce in the spectator that feeling of reverence and deep respect, not only for the sacred associations of the building, but for the great master-spirits who conceived the design, and who were able to work out to such a degree of perfection this great mathematical problem in stone. This triumphal achievement of “stylistic orthodoxy” on German soil is as much, if not more so than any other Gothic building in Germany, indebted to French inspiration and French models. There are also many other churches in Germany, in the country bordering on the Rhine—Strasburg Cathedral for instance—that have strongly marked features of the French ogival style.
Fig. 391.—Porch of St. Lawrence, at Nüremberg.
The towers of St. Lawrence’s at Nüremberg are somewhat Romanesque; but the windows, door openings, buttresses, and pinnacles are in the Gothic style. The recessed porch has a square-headed double doorway, richly decorated (Fig. 391). The interior (Fig. 392) of this church is extremely artistic in its general effect. The stonework is of that dark brown colour that is seen in so many German churches; the rich colour of the stained glass, the pictures, and shields hung up round the piers and on the walls, with their rich tones of gold and colours, the graceful piers ending in the ribs and supporting the vaulting of the ceilings, the carved rood-cross and pulpit, and above all the great carved wood medallion of the Annunciation, by Veit Stoss (1518), make up the richest of pictures, which is a sample of what may be seen in many interiors of German churches.[churches.]
Fig. 392.—Interior of St. Lawrence, at Nüremberg.
Another interesting church in Nüremberg is that of St. Sebaldus, more from its association with the name and works of Adam Kraft, who carved the figure work on the exterior, and Peter Vischer, whose celebrated work is the chief glory of this church—the Shrine of St. Sebaldus (Fig. 393), one of the most important works of the fifteenth century—than from its merits as an architectural work. The plan of this church is bad in having its nave and aisles of equal width, which is at utter variance with all ideas of good proportion and of the Gothic style. The shrine of St. Sebaldus is modelled and cast in bronze; Peter Vischer and his five sons laboured on it for twelve years before it was completed. It is Gothic entirely in construction, but most of the forms and details of the ornament and figure work are purely Italian; for at this time—the beginning of the sixteenth century—Germanic artists were fascinated and strongly influenced by the art that flourished beyond the Alps. A fine cast of this monument is in the Kensington Museum. The “Bride’s Door” of St. Sebaldus (Fig. 394) has an interesting canopy of German tracery.
Fig. 393.—Shrine of St. Sebaldus, at Nüremberg.
Fig. 394.—The “Bride’s Door” of St. Sebaldus, at Nüremberg.
Art having gradually passed into the hands of the bourgeois element, the principal cities in Germany, especially those of the north, vied with each other in the erection of town halls and civic buildings (Fig. 395).
In the Netherlands, in Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Louvain, Nüremberg, Augsberg, and Marienberg, many quaint edifices are still found of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, consisting often of brick glazed black and red, and wide-jointed, or of stone throughout. They have mostly steep roofs, battlemented cornices, and stepped gables.[gables.] They are decorated with little spires or pinnacles, and have horizontal or pointed openings to doorways and windows, richly decorated friezes and stringcourses, open arcades under the first story, picturesques balconies, and corner turrets ending in corbels, which were often richly carved.
Fig. 395.—Town Hall, Marienberg.
Fig. 396.—Window Gable, from the Cathedral of Florence.
The Gothic style was introduced into Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but it never took any great root in that country. In Rome there are no Gothic buildings of this period: there is one of the fifteenth century, the Church of Minerva, but is a bad example of the style. On the other hand, there are some exceptionally fine examples of Gothic canopies, of tombs and altars in several churches in Italy. It is believed that they were copies of French or English Gothic and were all the work of one family of artists called the Cosmati. Mixed with these Gothic forms in stonework they introduced bands and panels of coloured mosaic, and also are credited with the execution of much of the mosaic beautiful pavement work known as opus Alexandrinum. A particular form of the Gothic style appears in the north of Italy, and has been called the “Lombardic” or the “Pisan” style. This style of Italian Gothic was never quite free from classical influences. It is distinguished by having numerous small columns employed to decorate exteriors and interiors. Examples occur in the neighbourhood of Pisa, Lucca, and in places bordering on the Rhine. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (1174-1350) is an example. Part of the Baptistery (1278) and the earlier portion of the Duomo or Cathedral of Pisa are built in this style. Lombard Gothic was therefore contemporary with the Early English and French.
Fig. 397.—Crockets, Lincoln.
Fig. 398.—From the Temple Church.
In Florence a very beautiful mixture of the dome feature with Gothic is seen in the Duomo or Cathedral, a well-known and magnificent building. The window gable (Fig. 396) gives a good idea of Italian Gothic. The Cathedrals of Orvieto are other examples of Italian churches in which Gothic forms are used. In all these churches the façades are inlaid with coloured marbles of elaborate panelling.
The Cathedral of Milan is the finest example of a church in the Gothic style in Italy, though it is by no means pure Gothic. It is built of white marble and has some remarkably good stained-glass windows. The Palazzo Publico at Florence and that of Siena are built in the Italian Gothic style.
Fig. 399.—Dog’s Tooth or Nail-head Ornament, from Stone Church, Kent.
Fig. 400.—Spandrel, from Stone Church, Kent.
Fig. 400A.—Priests’ Entrance, Bishopstone Church, Wilts.
Fig. 401.—Norman and Gothic Mouldings.
a b c, Norman; d e f, Early English; g h, Decorated; i j k, Perpendicular.
Fig. 402.—Pedestal, Henry VII.'s Chapel.
One of the most beautiful buildings in the world is the well-known Doges’ Palace at Venice. The predominant forms are Gothic, especially the lower arcading and the pointed window openings. It rests on columns and arches which compose the lower story, and has also the second story arcaded, and pierced in its upper part with quatre-foiled openings. Above this is a high rectangular story, built with lozenge-shaped slabs of pink marble, and pierced with a row of large pointed windows, and has smaller circular openings above these. A richly designed battlement crowns the walls of the upper story. The caps of the columns are beautifully carved, and sculptured figure subjects decorate the corners of the building. This palace was a long time in building; before it was completed the style had perceptibly changed, so in consequence the portico in some parts belongs to the fourteenth and some to the fifteenth century.
Fig. 403.—Place House, Cornwall.
Throughout Venice the architecture with Gothic pretensions is mixed very much with fifteenth and sixteenth[sixteenth] Venetian or Renaissance forms. The ogee arch was used very much, and the Decorated style of windows and doorways, arcadings, and balconies with Italian forms made a quaint mixture that gives a very pleasing appearance to some of the Venetian palaces.
Fig. 404.—Flamboyant Panel.
French, Fifteenth Century.
Fig. 405.—Flamboyant Panelling.
French.
Gothic architecture in England has been divided into three styles; the Early English, which lasted from about A.D. 1189-1272, in the reigns of Richard I., John, and Henry III.; the Decorated, A.D. 1272-1377, in the reigns of Edward I., II., and III.; and the Perpendicular style, A.D. 1377-1547, from the time of Richard II. to Henry VIII. After this it became debased, and finally merged into the Tudor or English Renaissance, sometimes called the “Elizabethan.” A still later mixture of English Gothic with Italian or Flemish Renaissance details was developed in the reign of James I., which has been called “Jacobean.” The two latter styles never found much favour in ecclesiastical architecture, but were developed mostly in domestic and civic buildings, and used in the designs of pulpits, screens, and church furniture. A great quantity of carved oak and chestnut furniture was made in the Jacobean style.
Fig. 406.—Forms of Gothic Arches.
a, Pointed; b, Cusped; c, Depressed; d, Flamboyant.
The various styles of English Gothic have their transitional periods that extend and overlap them so much, that makes it extremely difficult in some buildings to determine which style they belong to; the difficulty is usually got over by assigning them to their respective periods as the beginning, middle, or end of a style. We have already noticed Early English, which is the best and purest form of the Gothic in England. In it we see the finest development of window tracery based on geometric lines. Mullions take the place of piers, windows have two or more lights, the beginnings of the flying buttress, pinnacles, crockets (Fig. 397), columns in clusters, round-headed capitals with or without the characteristic trefoil foliage (Fig. 398) known as Early English foliage (Fig. 398), which has been developed from the Romanesque. The ornament called “dog’s tooth” is common to the early examples of this style, and is also a Romanesque decoration (Fig. 399).
The Decorated style is a rich and more ornate phase of the preceding style, and is further marked by the extensive use of the ogee arch in doorways and windows (see Fig. 400A), and by the greater profusion of sculptured foliage, flowers, and ornament in the decoration. The ball flower used in the hollow mouldings is characteristic of this style, as the tooth ornament is of the Early English.
Fig. 407.—Forms of Gothic Tracery.
a, Trefoil; b, Quartrefoil; c, Cinquefoil; d, Cusped Quartrefoil; e, Pointed and Cusped; f, Flamboyant.
The Perpendicular style, as its name denotes, is characterized by its long and narrowly divided windows and similar panellings. Instead of the flowing lines of tracery in the windows, the mullions are of a straight lined and vertical character, and are divided at intervals by transoms, or horizontal divisions. The pedestal (Fig. 402) from Henry VII.’s Chapel is of Perpendicular panelling. The beautiful fan tracery seen in Henry VII.’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey and in Gloucester Cathedral is a variety of this panelling. The doorways in this style have pointed but depressed arches, and as a rule are enclosed with square-headed mouldings or labels. The spandrels formed by this arrangement are filled with tracery and shields. Towers and cornices have battlements, &c. (Fig. 403). A general squareness is given to all the ornaments, and a more severe and dry character is the chief feature of the Perpendicular decoration.
The Flamboyant Gothic style of the Continent is contemporaneous with the English Perpendicular. The panels at Figs. 404 and 405 are very good examples of Flamboyant panel decoration. Forms of Gothic arches and tracery are given at Figs. 406 and 407.
CHAPTER XXI.
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.
Many things tended to bring about the art of the Renaissance. The great impulse given to learning by the study of the writings of the Greek and Roman poets, lawyers, and philosophers, and the keen study of the rich legacy of art and architecture left by Greece and Rome, may be reckoned among the chief causes which led to the development during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Re-Birth or Renaissance both of literature and art.
Dante, and his successors Petrarch and Boccaccio, were called “Humanists,” for the reason that they studied and advocated the knowledge that was needful to man in his progress and in relation to his life in this world, and did not confine themselves wholly to theology, which was the case with those who devoted themselves to learning in the Middle Ages. This led to a wider spread of knowledge among the people, which was greatly stimulated by the invention of printing. The rulers of the people also encouraged learning and promoted the arts to an extent unknown before. In Florence, especially, under the powerful and beneficent rule of the Medici family, art and literature received every attention, and made rapid progress in every department of cultured knowledge and skilful handicraft.
Great artists like Niccola Pisano, Brunellesco, Donatello, Giotto, Alberti, and others of the early period, whose individuality and great personality did more than anything else to bring about the epoch and the art of the Renaissance, studied with evident purpose the existing remains of the art of Ancient Rome. In this they only followed the movement of the day in every branch of art and learning: all classes in every walk of life were then directing their footsteps to Rome in the pursuit of knowledge. About the year 1414 the discovery was made in the Monastery of St. Gall of the celebrated codex of Vitruvius, a work wherein the learned writer had set forth the principles of Roman architecture of the Augustan era. This work was reprinted later at Rome, and was very much used by architects as a guide for the better understanding of the Roman temples and other buildings. As the Gothic style in France, Germany, and in England was approaching its climax, the art of the Renaissance in Italy was developing, and the period of decadence in the former was contemporaneous with the finest period of the latter—towards the end of the fifteenth century. The transition, or early beginnings of the Renaissance, has been called the Trecento (1300) style, which in its ornamental features is characterised by a free use of conventional foliage, mixed with Saracenic or with Byzantine ornament, interlacings, and scroll work; in sculpture and painting by a closer study of nature and of antique remains, with an endeavour to shake off the former stiff Byzantine traditions; and in architecture by the use of the round arch and a revival of some other features of the classic orders. Niccola Pisano, Arnolfo di Lapo, Orcagna, and Giotto were some of its exponents.
The next division is known as the Quattrocento (1400), which is more properly the early form of the Renaissance. To this period belong the real founders of the style: Filippo Brunellesco (1377-1446), Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455), and Donatello (1386-1468); the former more particularly in architecture, and the latter two in sculpture. The ornament of the Quattrocento period—the fifteenth century—is distinguished by its prominence of elaborate natural forms in festoons, scroll work, and other compositions; all the ornament was decoratively arranged more or less geometrically, but the details and actual working out were closely copied from nature. The bronze gates of the Baptistery of San Giovanni (1425-52) are the finest examples of the Quattrocento style, both as regards ornament and figure work. The modelled work in high relief of fruit, flowers, and foliage on these gates, and similar work on great medallions and altar-pieces of Luca della Robbia (1355-1430) is characteristic of this style. These natural forms, mixed with tracery ornamentation, acanthus foliage, treated in symmetrical arrangements, and occasionally cartouche or strap-work, were used in the Italian ornament of this period. The panel forms were usually Byzantine, but the rest of the ornament had no symbolic meaning. Besides Luca della Robbia, the name of Jacopo dell’ Quercia (1374-1438), the Sienese sculptor, may be mentioned as one who executed some of the finest work in figure and ornament in the above style.
The Cinquecento style (1500) was the culminatory effort of the Renaissance. It is the art of Italy in the sixteenth century, and is entirely devoid of symbolism in its ornament. Although the difference is great in the matter of style between the classic ornament of the Greeks and that of the Italian Cinquecento, yet in their aim and expression they are identical, for in both there is the same striving to reach the highest possible æsthetic ideal, the same delight in the production of beautiful lines and forms for their own sakes, and a similar expression of appropriate fitness—the outcome of a correct conformity to architectural principles—pervades the ornament of both styles.
Returning to the art of the early Renaissance, we have to mention two great names, already referred to—Giotto in painting, and Niccola Pisano in sculpture, who may be justly called the harbingers of the new era of Italian art. The latter was the first to go to the antique for his inspiration and style in sculpture. It appears—according to Vasari—that in Pisa there had been accumulated a great collection of antique sculpture—the spoils of war—and among them a sarcophagus, on which the "Hunt of Meleager and the Calydonian boar "was wrought with great skill, which was placed for ornament on the façade of the Cathedral: this and other antique remains in the city were studied to great advantage by Niccola, to the great improvement of his style. One fine work of his, executed in the spirit of the antique, was the pulpit for the Church of San Giovanni in Pisa, on which are great numbers of figures, representing the Universal Judgment. For the Cathedral of Siena he also executed a similar work with subjects from various passages in the life of Christ. On this pulpit he had the assistance of Arnolfo and Lapo, his pupils, and probably also that of his son Giovanni. These works proved the great turning-point in sculpture, from the archaic productions of the Middle Ages to an era of better things, although in execution they left much to be desired. Giotto was not only the great painter who first invested his works with poetry, feeling, and expression, but was also a skilful architect, as his fine Campanile, or bell-tower, in his native city of Florence bears witness. Dante and Petrarch were his friends, the former especially so; the portrait of Dante by Giotto still exists in the Chapel of the Podesta at Florence.
Brunellesco, as we learn from Vasari, was one of the most interesting of men, and one of the most capable artists of his time, a man of acute genius and ready resource. In the early Renaissance period architecture was studied by nearly all sculptors and painters, and many, as we have seen, were apprenticed in their youth as goldsmiths. Brunellesco was no exception to this rule, for we find that he was a clever goldsmith and worker in niello.
The greatest work of his life was the building of the cupola or dome of the Cathedral of Florence—he was the only architect of his day that was found able to do it. The Cathedral was the work of the Florentine architect, Arnolfo di Lapo, the foundations of which were laid in the year 1298. Brunellesco also built the sacristy and dome on the Church of San Lorenzo, which was decorated with sculpture by Donatello, and was the architect of the Pitti Palace, besides many other works. He gained his knowledge of the construction of domes in Rome, more particularly from that of the Pantheon, having drawn from and made models of the domes of all that was worth copying of the ancient remains at Rome, in company with his friend Donatello, the sculptor.
The latter, with Brunellesco, Ghiberti, and a few other sculptors, competed with their designs for the work of making the celebrated bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence, when Ghiberti’s design was adjudged the best, and of which Michelangelo at a later period said, when speaking of the gates, that they were “fit to be the gates of Paradise.” Brunellesco’s design was good, was more restrained in character, and was more consistent with correct architectural principles than Ghiberti’s; but the latter’s design was so fresh and so vigorous, that in spite of its being too picturesque for sculpture it won universal admiration.
The next great name in architecture is that of Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), who naturally follows Brunellesco. His most complete work is the Rucellai Palace at Florence; he built and restored many churches, tombs, and palaces; was a great mathematician, and very learned in Latin, in which language he wrote poems, plays, and treatises on painting and architecture.
Fig. 408.—Portion of the Strozzi Palace.
The Rucellai Palace is a very fine work of the Renaissance. It has the three orders of architecture in its pilasters, with their entablatures. The lower story has a small square window placed high from the ground between every two pilasters, and has two square-headed doorways. Between each pair of pilasters in the upper stories are round-headed windows, which have each a double light divided by a small column. The style of building is called “rusticated,” like so many of the Italian palaces (Fig. 408). This is a roughened form of stonework, and was copied from Roman buildings, which, together with the heavy cornices and symmetrical repetition of windows, gave these palaces a heavy and imposing look. Another palace of the Rucellai type is the Cancelleria at Rome, which was built by Bramante (1444-1514), a native of Castel-Durante, in Urbino, who also built St. Peter’s at Rome, and who was the greatest architect of the Renaissance, of whom Michelangelo testified “that Bramante was equal to any architect who has appeared from the time of the ancients to our own, can by no means be denied.” Michelangelo himself was the architect of the dome of St. Peter’s, and his sublime works in sculpture and fresco adorn the interior.
The Cancelleria Palace is a masterpiece of elegance and good proportion. It has two imposing doorways, and the plainness of its lower story contrasts agreeably with the upper two, which have rows of round-headed windows enclosed in flat or square-headed architraves, and are placed at agreeable distances above the entablatures of the lower stories. The two upper stories are divided alternately into wide and narrow divisions by pilasters, the windows being placed in the wide divisions. This building is a marked improvement in point of beauty on the Pitti and Rucellai palaces.
Fig. 409.—Upper Story
of the Farnese Palace,
Rome. Designed
partly by M. Angelo.
The Farnese Palace is another typical building of the Renaissance. The design of it is attributed to Antonio Picconi, who took the surname of San Gallo (148?-1546). It is built in three stories, without pilasters, with a widely projecting cornice, and has rather a monotonous look with its numerous windows of equal size. Michelangelo is said to have designed some of the windows and the cornice (Fig. 409), though some say that the architect Vignola was the designer of the cornice, The central doorway is “rusticated” and arched, and the angles of the building are of dressed stones.
The celebrated building known as the Certosa (Charter-house) of Pavia was begun by Borgognone in the year 1473, is an example of the most ornate phase of the Renaissance, and offers a widely-marked contrast to the almost bald simplicity of the palace just described (Fig. 410). As a whole, the façade of this building cannot be called a model of good architectural composition, but it is easier to criticise its faults in this respect than to suggest improvements. It contains, however, many striking elements of beauty, and is full of useful suggestions to the architect and decorative artist.
The plan and shell of Renaissance buildings were usually of the Romanesque or Gothic types; the dome, columns, and ornament generally were all borrowed from the Roman remains.
The column, round arch, and horizontal lintel or architrave feature were extensively used in the palaces and other buildings of Venice (Fig. 411), though the Renaissance style had a difficult task to make headway in Venice against the strong Byzantine and Gothic traditions that had hitherto prevailed.
Fig. 410.—Portion of the Certosa of Pavia.
The general type of the Venetian palaces is a solid panelled wall and pier arrangement or rusticated lower story, which supports a central loggia, or arcaded second story, that has circular-headed windows and heavy cornices and balconies. The whole façade is richly decorated with engaged columns and pilasters.
The Cornaro, now the Mocenigo Palace, the Grimani on the Grand Canal, now the Post Office, and the Spinelli Palace, are said to have originally been built from the designs of the great military architect, San Michele, of Verona (1484-1588[1484-1588]), to whom the Signori of Venice owed so much as the designer of their fortifications.
Jacopo Sansovino, who built the Library of San Marco at Venice (Fig. 411); Palladio (1518-1580), the well-known writer on architecture; Scamozzi, and the Lombardi family, may be mentioned as other celebrated architects and ornamentists, who executed many works in Venice and in Verona, Florence, Padua, Vicenza, Rome and Milan, etc., during the sixteenth century. It was the tendency of the Renaissance period to build palaces and castles, and in the later times municipal and private dwellings, as learning and the arts were getting into the hands of the laymen, in contrast to the days of the Middle Ages, when the clergy and monks were the architects and master-builders: in those days hardly anything but churches had architectural pretensions; but the case was different in the Renaissance times, when the architects were not bound by the strict canonical laws of style; hence we find a greater variety and wider range of ideas expressed in the art of the period, due in a great measure to the individuality of the artists, which has given to the art of the Renaissance a different character in every country, district, or city to which it had spread.
Fig. 411.—Library of San Marco, Venice. By Sansovino.
The greatest Venetian architect of the seventeenth century, Longhena, flourished (1602-82) when the Renaissance had entered into its Baroque phase or period of decadence. He built many churches and palaces in Venice and in some other cities of Italy, but his greatest work is the celebrated Church of the Salutation—"Santa Maria della Salute"—in Venice, a picturesque building that has been painted and photographed more frequently than any other church in the world. With its domes and bell-towers, and its great buttresses decorated with figures that support the drum of the dome, it presents a striking object of picturesque beauty. This church and the Pesaro and Rezzonico palaces are exceedingly rich and ornate, but are overloaded with figures and decorative details—the Pesaro Palace especially—which is very characteristic of the florid work of the seventeenth century. Their magnificence of style reflects the palmy days of Venetian grandeur, and contrasts strongly with the simpler and better architecture of the early Renaissance period.
The influence of the Italian Renaissance spread to France in the days of Louis XII., and Francis I., the monarch who did so much for French art. Afterwards, in the reign of Henry II. and Catherine de’ Medici, who greatly favoured Italian art and artists, we find the Renaissance taking a deep root in France. Fra Giocondo was summoned to France from Italy by Louis XII., who reigned 1495 to 1515, and caused to be built the Château de Blois, and the Château de Gaillon in Normandy (1502-10) In these two buildings the native French Gothic received a grafting of the Italian forms. This was the case in France for a long time, as in that country the Gothic style was then in the full zenith of its Flamboyant period.
The Castle of Chambord is one of the finest examples, and a portion of the Château de Blois, by Viart, the architect of Francis I.
The early French Renaissance is quite different from the Italian, partly from the reasons we have stated, but it has a liveliness and exuberance that is full of inventive resource. The buildings are noted for their pointed roofs, and for their multitude of picturesque towers and pinnacles, and also rich carvings of a refined class of ornament.
The French Flamboyant Gothic and the Italian Decorative forms are happily blended in this style, to which the name of “François Premier” (Ier) has been given. This style was chiefly brought about by the employment of the Italian sculptors and architects, Serlio, Vignola, Primaticcio, Il Rosso, Cellini, and others who had been invited by Francis I. to build and decorate his châteaux and palaces. Primaticcio was also entrusted with the task of collecting a series of antique casts and copies of antiques from Rome for the gardens of the palace at Fontainebleau. This, no doubt, had the effect of helping to form the taste for classic art among French artists. Owing to all the above circumstances, French art began to show more of the influence of the Italian style. The Roman orders were henceforth invariably used, but still the new style was modified in a great measure to suit the French taste. What is known as the Henri Deux (Henry II.)[(Henry II.)] style is another French development of the Cinquecento, in which there is a preponderance of strap-work, with figures, masks, grotesques, cartouches of all kinds, and much of the conventional Saracenic ornament. The monogram of Henry II. and the arms of Catherine de’ Medici often appear in this ornament, as seen in the decorations of the Château d’Anet (1548) and on the Oiron or Henri Deux pottery.
Pierre Lescot (1510-1578) designed the western façade of the Louvre, in Paris, and Jean Buillant designed the oldest parts; these two architects and another, Philibert Delorme, brought the Renaissance to such a head in France that it became immediately the national style.
The great names in architectural sculpture of the early French Renaissance were Jean Goujon and Paul Ponce, who carved the principal figures of the façades of the Louvre. Towards the early part of the seventeenth century the architecture began to assume a more florid character, under the hands of Lepautre and Du Cerceau. It became richer, but less pure in style, an example of which is the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre, designed by Lepautre. By the time of the latter half of the seventeenth century the desire for show and the expression of magnificence, especially brought about by the “Grand Monarque,” Louis XIV., assisted by the efforts of his architects, Mansard, Perrault, Lemercier, and Blondel, who ministered to the whims of the powerful King, speedily laid the foundations for the loose and unrestrained Baroque or Rococo style which subsequently followed. The name of “Louis Quatorze” has been given to the style developed in the reign of this king. “Louis Quinze” and “Louis Seize” are names of subsequent French styles, which will be considered under the head of Renaissance Ornament.
The tame and spiritless palace of Versailles was designed by François Mansard, who invented the Mansard roofs which have been used together with this style for nearly all the palatial buildings of Europe. The purity of the Italian Renaissance was forgotten or ignored by the nations of Europe, and the stiff and pompous buildings of Louis XIV. were accepted as the patterns that all civilization was eager to copy. Even old churches and mediæval castles were transformed in some portions of their interiors into Louis XIV. imitations. In Windsor Castle the great ballroom has been vilely treated with the meaningless incrustations of this period, by the way of decorations, endeavouring, however, to make amends for its tasteless poverty of invention by the arrogant display of its rich covering of gold leaf.
In the late seventeenth and during the eighteenth centuries, the Rococo or Baroque phase of the Renaissance was in vogue in Italy and France, and indeed everywhere in Europe. The main characteristic of the Baroque style is the undue prominence given to the ornament and decoration, which arose from a gradual forgetfulness of the Roman and Greek principles of construction, and a want of order in the arrangement of the principal forms in the architecture. By degrees these forms took a secondary position: columns supported nothing or only a few mouldings, cornices and pediments were broken, brackets and consoles were inverted, mouldings ended in scrolls, hanging curtains were represented on stone carving, also wreaths of roses; pediments and gables had weak outlines of carved forms, shells and rock-work (rococo) ending in weedy scrolls, which doubtless was a Chinese inspiration, grafted on the prevailing style; in fact, the utmost license and riot in decoration seemed to be allowed, as it aimlessly sprawled over architecture, furniture, and interiors, until art had almost evaporated from the decorative productions of the age.
In spite of this, however, something must be said in favour of the Rococo: at the least it was homogeneous in its way; some of the figure work that forms part of the ornament is very fine, the finish and perfection also of the carved, painted, and gilt surfaces, from a technical point of view, leave usually nothing to be desired. The curved and broken character of the ornament is excellent for showing the play of light and shade on the gilded surface, and the effect of some interiors is very rich and brilliant; but when decoration takes the place of construction, however well executed it may be, it becomes more of an incrustation than a requirement.
Fig. 412.—Portion of the
Façade of St. Paul and
St. Louis at Paris.
Lorenzo Bernini (1589-1680) and Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) were Italian architects who chiefly brought about the Rococo in Italy. They treated the classical forms with extraordinary freedom. The column especially was degraded in its use. It sometimes supported only a few mouldings, and at other times was carried through two or three stories, when its proper function is to represent one story. One kind of architectural style a little later than this period was called the “Jesuit Style” (Fig. 412), in which churches of the Jesuit Order were built. On the vaulted ceilings of these churches a florid type of painting of sacred subjects was used as decoration.
In Spain the Renaissance, mixed with some Saracenic features, produced some very good work; the typical example of Spanish Renaissance is the Escurial, the great palace of the Spanish kings.
In Germany the Italian Renaissance made but a tardy advance, and was never thoroughly at home in that country. German Renaissance is far less refined than that of other countries which were influenced by the Italian style. It is chiefly in painting, furniture, book illustration, and in goldsmiths’ work that it appears at its best, and not in architecture. This was owing to the art of Germany being at that time in the hands of the burghers when the advent of the Renaissance took place, and also that the mass of the people were more concerned in the study of ethics and philosophy than the arts. Another reason may be added, that the nation was unsettled, and occupied with the great religious upheaval of the Reformation. All these things proved to be sufficient to retard the advancement of the Renaissance in Germany for more than a hundred years. One of the best examples of the Renaissance we can point to in Germany is the Castle of Heidelberg, built by the Elector Otto Heinrich (1556-1559). The two façades of this castle, which are now in ruins, have engaged columns and pilasters; the windows have rather heavy-headed features, and are richly carved; statues are placed in the niches between the windows. The portico of the Town Hall at Cologne is another example, and the Cloth Hall at Brunswick is a very interesting specimen of German Renaissance. It is deficient in proportion, however, by the extreme horizontality of its eight series of low stories in the principal façade, but is otherwise very picturesque.
The German Renaissance towards the later periods was characterised by its elaborate carving of ornament, figures, and animals in wood and stone; armorial bearings, escutcheons, shields, and cartouches or ornamental labels were very common in German work, and in most other forms of Renaissance ornament in Europe, except in the purest form of the Italian Cinquecento, when highly decorative vase forms and labels took the place of the shield and cartouche work of the Quattrocento period.
The Renaissance in England made its earliest appearance in the reign of Henry VIII. John of Padua was an Italian architect employed by that king. Hampton Court Palace in its earlier portions, built by Cardinal Wolsey in 1515, is Gothic, but it has been considerably added to since, and partly rebuilt in the time of William III. in a kind of Renaissance.
In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I., the Elizabethan or English Renaissance and the Jacobean respectively were predominant. The latter style was developed by Dutch architects working in England on the Elizabethan models, and is distinguished by shield work and carvings in high relief, in opposition to the lower relief cartouche and strap-work of the Elizabethan style.
The Elizabethan Renaissance is more like German work than the French, but, of course, has its native peculiarities, developed from its mixture with the Tudor Gothic of the time. This mixture is seen in many of the old halls and mansions built about this time in England.[England.] Wollaton Hall is a fine example of the Elizabethan (Fig. 413), and Holland House, Kensington, is another fine mansion of the same style (Fig. 414).
These castellated buildings of the Elizabethan style, in red brick and stone dressings, are in singular and pleasant harmony with the grand parks and richly wooded English landscape with which they are usually surrounded.
Inigo Jones, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and Sir Christopher Wren, his successor, were the greatest names in architecture of the English Renaissance period. The former was a close follower of the Italian architect Palladio, and designed, usually, his buildings after the Roman models. The palace at Whitehall, the church and piazza in Covent Garden, and Crewe Hall in Cheshire were built from his designs.
Fig. 413.—Elizabethan, North Entrance, Wollaton House.
The Cathedral of St. Paul’s is too well known to need description. It may be mentioned as the most important example of the late Renaissance in England. It was thirty-five years in building (1675-1710), and although some details and the ornament generally incline to the Baroque, the building as a whole is one of the finest and most impressive works ever produced in any country. Wren built a great many churches in London during the time that was occupied in the building of St. Paul’s, St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, being one of his finest. Chelsea Hospital, the Royal Exchange, together with some City Halls and twenty-five churches, were built from his designs or under his directions.
The architecture of the present day in France leans mostly to Renaissance traditions.
Fig. 414.—The Ancient Parlour, Holland House.
In Germany, Greek and Roman styles find favour, but Gothic and Renaissance, and sometimes Romanesque style of buildings are now erected.
In England about one hundred years ago there was a Greek revival, due in a great measure to the publication of Stuart and Revett’s works in connection with their close study of Grecian architectural remains. St. Pancras Church, in London, is one of the outcomes of this revival. Sir William Chambers was the architect of the beautiful riverside building—Somerset House, on the Thames Embankment (1725-1796); he also designed a great deal of furniture and the State carriage. He published important works on architecture and furniture, which had considerable influence on the design of the latter in England. In the first half of this century a Gothic revival took place, which was greatly brought about and assisted by the writings and architectural work of A. W. Pugin. The Houses of Parliament, built by Barry, are the finest examples of the Gothic revival in England. They are built in the Perpendicular or Tudor style. Sir Gilbert Scott was a late exponent of the modern Gothic style (1811-78), and was the architect of the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, St. Pancras Railway Station and Hotel, London, besides building and restoring many churches in the Gothic style.
The architecture of the present day in England tends to the Renaissance, with a slight mixture of Gothic and much that is original in the ornamental details, but Gothic is still a favourite style for churches.