THE FIELD OF ART
THE USE AND ABUSE OF DECORATIVE CONVENTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE
It is always more or less futile to quarrel with the vernacular. Otherwise we should take exception to the word design in the sense of invention. The latter is the more expressive term. In the language of those nations from which modern art is derived, dessiner, disegnare mean to draw. Italian authors of the Renaissance, in estimating an artist's achievement, invariably weighed his inventive faculties. Thus Vasari, in summarizing Raphael's qualities, extols his "disegno, colorito ed invenzione"—his drawing, color, and invention. An illustrator "invents" and "draws;" for instance, "Giovanni Albertelli inv. e dis." Emphasis is here laid on the word invention, and on its vogue in other lands, both because it is very forceful, and because it seems to imply something more than "design." A plagiarist might venture to risk the term "design" when he would balk at "invention."
If we enter one of our patrician homes—palaces, palazzi, or private hotels, they would be called elsewhere—what do we find to exalt the decorative artist, where the work has been the sole product of the architect, and it may be added of the patrician himself? Much splendor there is, assuredly, and gold, and rich carving, and sumptuous marble, and opulent stuffs; even expatriated mantles and whole rooms, kidnapped from the harmonious surroundings where they were a perpetual joy—imported to discord with our modern alien habitats. Sometimes we happen on an Italian Renaissance room without a spark of the easy invention and graceful free-hand work that was the charm of the original; but more frequently we meet with debased Louis XV. and Louis XVI., debased in the inspirationless copy. The originals of these things are very beautiful indeed, and will ever be the immortal models for decorative artists. But it must not for a moment be supposed by the laity that in mechanically reproducing these things we are inventing or adding an iota to the art product of the world. Perhaps this lack of invention can better be appreciated when the bald statement is made that a well-equipped decorator would not think it worth his while to enter our buildings for the purpose of studying fresh ideas; always excepting those instances where the services of a capable artist have been engaged, and the few exceptions to every rule.
Archæology has taught its lesson of accuracy in the arts. As we have already observed, the tendency is to copy rather than to assimilate. The reproductive processes have overwhelmed the practitioner with an excess of material, far more than can be digested. We have acquired the photograph habit. Could half the time be devoted to invention that is given to the excavation from portfolios of the desired prototypes, and to the formation of collections, it would be better for art. We have repeatedly anathematized the vast aggregation of photographs so cheaply and easily obtained. Were they to perish from the earth, design would take a great leap forward—for their abuse is almost inevitable. The mere power of limning is compromised by an over-reliance on them. Constant reference, even to an original study from nature, clogs the creative faculty, and hampers the impatient hand, much more so, an alien reproduction. Once a distinguished artist lost all his preliminary studies for a picture when his house was ransacked by the Prussians. "I am glad of it," he said, "for now I feel emancipated and can work with greater freedom." It must always be borne in mind that the best designs were made before the invention of the reproductive processes, and the exactions of precise archæology. It is safe here to use the word "best," because the constant copying of them is an admission of their primacy. It must not be supposed that the Renaissance man was more virtuous than we are. Probably he was less so. He stole things wherever he could lay his hands on them. Fortunately, there was less to steal in quality and quantity. Nor had he acquired the lesson of accuracy. Even the engraver, when he tried to counterfeit, let us say an "Albert Dürer," did it rather clumsily. If an artist wished to reproduce another's work for self-instruction, he rendered it very freely, infusing a good deal of his own personality into the copy, unconsciously, without doubt. From our point of view this copy was pitiable as an imitation. For his purpose, it was just as good as the closer reproduction, even better. Giuliano Sangallo's drawing from the antique would make schoolboys merry, while both they and their preceptors admire the creations which these somewhat clumsy sketches evoked. One of the fragments of the lost "Battle of Anghiari," by Leonardo, comes to us through the exuberant handling of Rubens, the freest sort of a translation, as were all his Italian notes. Raphael, painter-architect, makes a pen and ink from the "Three Graces at Sienna," after graduating from the school of Perugino (we follow Müntz). From the photographic standpoint the humblest in a well-conducted antique class could do better. But these men, and hosts of others, invented—some painters, some sculptors, some architects, perhaps the two or three in one. Take, for instance, that much used and very popular member, the capital, a magnificent vehicle for decorative expression. Observe Sangallo's in the Palazzo Gondi, Stagio-Stagi's at Pisa, or those in the Palazzo dei Pazzi. But why specify these, when beautiful examples swarm in Bologna, Ferrara, Urbino, and all over northern Italy, full of lovely ideas and graceful in contour, capitals evolved from the antique in a general way, and quite equal to them for pure beauty, and surpassing them in fancy? We are prone to denounce the "barocco" work. Eliminating for the nonce the question of taste, let us glance at it from the inventive point of view. We have seen compositions by the much abused painter-architect, Vasari, evidently turned out with perfect facility, that would tax the creative faculty of a modern almost to despair. The Zuccari Brothers, Poccetti, and men of that generation, at times did things in shocking taste, but at times they composed very beautifully and were always interesting, flinging broadcast fresh ideas. We may not like a frame, or an arm-chair by a barocco Brustolon, yet we must admire his fluent design. Thanks to passionless imitations, the uninitiated are prone to associate nothing but dry formality with such names as Vignola or Palladio. Let them see the villas by these architects in the neighborhood of Rome or Vicenza, and they will soon be disabused of any such impressions.
It is high time that the architect should declare himself an artist by a display of the artistic qualities, an important one being the invention of ornamental motives. He should differentiate himself from the engineer. But as matters now stand, finding himself unable to evolve fresh decorative forms either from lack of time or faculty, he has recourse to his library, and cribs or re-distributes decorative conventions, more or less trite, according to the date of the print or photograph, with the well known result. These aids are also within the reach of the engineer, or even the "builder," pure and simple. With a very little study, either might learn to handle them adroitly. So that if the architect wishes to occupy an impregnable position, he must fortify it with artistic accomplishments.
That somewhat negative quality, jejune good taste, a sparse use of the very well known and approved decorative forms, has its charm. It is a perfectly safe policy for an architect to pursue. In the face of much tawdry stuff, one craves it—the mere hungry surface, relieved here and there by the authorized classic motives. But this cold chasteness is as much a moral as an artistic idea. It means æsthetic sterility, petrified decoration. A living art connotes invention. The same is true of the dictum that a good copy is better than a bad original. Perhaps it is; but no artistic progress can be made under such a tenet, and the beautiful prototype deteriorates in reproduction, and loses the inspiration in its frequency.
Be it understood that the question of decorative instruction is not under discussion. More tenaciously, perhaps, than others, we hold that the student must know the historical conventions, his grammar of ornament, just as a writer must know his alphabet, not in order to use them subsequently, but to profit by their lessons. What concerns us now is the golden mean between the use and abuse of accredited conventions. Certain simple decorative motives, such as dentils, egg and darts, pearls, frets, etc., have become part and parcel of our decorative conceptions. They are valuable accessories, almost as essential to artistic syntax as the unimportant, yet necessary, conjunction is to rhetorical syntax. In literary composition no objection can be made to a timely quotation as an auxiliary to the subject-matter, but very serious objection would be made were citations forced to do the author's work vicariously. It is only when architects make their conventions bear the sole brunt of ornamentation and call it "art" that complaint is made. Did we not constitutionally object to the thoughtless use of the superlative so much in vogue, especially when æsthetic themes are under discussion, we should say that in the use of classic conventions, the discretion and taste of the della Robbia were very nearly supreme. The founder of the clan, Andrea, was, perhaps, less influenced by the antique than any decorative artist of his time; still he was influenced by it, as every Italian of his date must have been. Take one of his famous tondi as an example. The expressional picture is in the centre, architecturally framed as it should be by a fillet or two, or an egg and dart, perhaps, confining a decorative border of great beauty, inspired by the fruits of the earth, largely treated. Here we have a composition firmly framed, well suited to structural needs, sufficiently architectural, yet immensely interesting. This is the very acme of decorative excellence.
Archæology and chance have recently conferred one benefit, not to mention others, for which we must be truly grateful. They have clearly demonstrated the inventive faculties of the ancients. They have proved to us that the architects and decorators of classic times were always doing what artists will ever do—the unexpected. Familiar with the reproductions of certain consecrated monuments, students have been too prone to believe that the art of the Greeks and Romans was highly conventionalized; that it moved in very narrow and prescribed channels. The rendering of these monuments in the authoritative works has aggravated the belief. Actually, the ancients worked with great freedom, doing what we should never look for. Suppose it had been required to "restore" a Livia's villa, not knowing the original, would it ever have entered the restorer's head to paint a freehand landscape on its walls? Suppose the task was to make a patera à l'antique, would it ever have occurred to the designer to plant a portrait head in its centre with a meagre line or two about it? Yet just such a patera was found at Bosco Reale a few years since. The problem being to build a Roman arch, who would ever have dreamed of constructing such an one as we find at Timgad, dedicated to Trajan, with its lateral bays crowned by curved pediments? It is very well known in these days that the ancient Greeks and Romans were creative artists, whether they diademed an Acropolis, or carved the throne of a Zeus, or "hit off" a Tanagra figurine, or colored a Palatine wall, or a Pompeiian villino—not to mention the myriad household utensils, some the most humble, exquisitely designed. In plain English—they invented.
The failure of the architect as a decorative designer is a logical sequence of commercialism. It is not to be expected that the breadwinner should make superfluous sacrifices—that would be "bad business." While in every profession there are philanthropic enthusiasts capable of high and costly flights of altruism, the rank and file cannot be called upon to immolate themselves to an unremunerative idea. One must live, and live well, too, in these days. Taking his long and expensive training into consideration, and his multifarious requirements, it may be boldly asserted that few, if any, of the professions are so poorly paid as that of the architect. He is not bedecked with the trappings of wealth. His range of theoretical knowledge must be wide, and his practical experience very considerable. Probably no class of men is more roundly abused for its pains. The client has usually a pack of complaints against his architect, and makes it a point to air them. On several occasions we have heard men, high in their respective callings, irritably denounce, on the flimsiest grounds, all architects as "frauds." It is needless to say that our sympathies have invariably been with the latter, for, as a profession, we believe them to be high-minded, cultivated, conscientious, and efficient. The reason that they are not decorative designers is because they are not paid for original design. Yet, with all their diversified requirements in these days of novel and necessarily tentative construction, they would quickly acquire the lost habit, if it were worth their while. Yes, the habit is lost, has perished of inanition, temporarily, at least. The client does not want original design at the price exacted. He is not a Mæcenas; he prefers the mechanical reproduction of stale forms at a lower figure, i.e., the shopworn conventional. Moreover, he is rather inclined to the habitual as being safer. Under these conditions, fresh thoughts cannot be looked for. Even those men whose lives are devoted to architectural decoration alone, the decorative painters and sculptors, are frequently forced by the client to use the wearisome ornaments of the past, much to their chagrin, because fresh thought is too expensive. Not much objection seems to be made to a lavish outlay on mere barbaric material, but a vigorous stand is taken against an outlay on artistic invention. What is the result? Unable to evolve fresh motives, the architect, perforce, turns to his portfolios and copies. He must have ornament, for ornament is part and parcel of his profession as well as solid construction and harmonious proportion. Therefore, he purloins it. There is no sin in it, for it is done overtly and no one is deceived. Any man in the other professions would do likewise under similar conditions. It would be reprehensible if he did not. Only this road does not lead to new ideas—to a new style. Artistic invention cannot thrive under such conditions.
F. C.
It is not many years since a wealthy New Yorker, a man who employs builders a good deal, and architects somewhat, objected to arguments and appeals similar to those printed above, by demonstrating that a good old building was certainly fine, whereas a proposed new building only ran small chance of being fine, and that it followed (for so it seemed to him)—it followed that it was wiser for an architect to copy the old building rather than to try to design a fresh one. This was a fin-de-siècle idea, indeed! Surely, the decadence can hardly go farther than to embody itself in a declaration that it was less troublesome and more satisfactory to take your designs ready-made from fine old things of the past! The rich New Yorker in question was, undoubtedly, quoting his favorite architectural practitioner; but that same practitioner would hardly have been willing to have said as much among artists. Assuredly he would never have stood up at a meeting of artists and have declared his gospel in any such terms.
The difficulty in the way of expense may be thought by some not so great as Mr. Crowninshield has made it. When the present writer was a pupil in an architect's office, the head man, the designer, the real maker of the drawings, a workman prolific and able in his way, allowed this confidence to escape him—"Yes, I used to think I would get a mountain of tracing-paper and trace everything [photographs were not so cheap in those days]—and then I would never be out of material! But I found by and by that it was too much trouble to find what I wanted; it is really much easier to design it; what you want, is a knowledge of the style, and what may be done, and what cannot be done; and there you are! Besides the time lost in finding your 'material' you lose another infinite lot of time in fitting the material together—and then it does not fit!" That is as true now as it was a good many years ago. The only reason why a modern designer finds it easier to copy than to invent is that he is not really familiar with the style, nor really in the habit of designing in it. He is not really familiar with the style, because he has accustomed himself to go straight to books where all his details are to be found complete, and with their relative dimensions figured, and to copy them. He is not in the habit of designing in the style (whatever it may be), because, again, he has done nothing for years but patch together copied details. He is not in the habit of inventing, because, as Mr. Crowninshield has shown, he has too much else to do and too much else to think of; and because invention is not required of him by his clients, nor even delicate, choice, and careful treating of what he has chosen, nor even seemly combination of what he has chosen into new resulting wholes. If he really knew his style so that he felt at home in it—so that he felt it to be plastic in his hands; so that he dared play with it and alter its details in absolute conviction that he would not abandon its essential characteristics in so doing—then he would find it easier to invent than to copy, provided always he had the habit of freehand drawing and of simple modelling, and the habit of using either or both of those familiar arts for the ornamentation of objects large and small.
R. S.