What is Architecture?
Where would the art of Painting find a shelter, were it not for Architecture?
Do the gentlemen of the brush and palette ever look around and above at the walls, the ceilings, or even at the tessellated floor of the rooms where their small framed efforts are on exhibition, and suffer their overweaning vanity to acknowledge that Architecture is really something?
How many painters can properly depict it? How many?
The ignorance which urges the pre-eminence of Painting at the expense of Architecture is more to be pitied than contemned. And the public patronage lavished on the one and withheld from the other, is superinduced by the ease with which any one can assume to be a critical admirer of an art whose governing rules are imaginary rather than real or substantial.
Some see beauty in the fidelity which a painting bears to Nature. Others consider that very fidelity as slavish imitation. And a very general notion obtains amongst painters of “assisting Nature.” Now, Architecture stands upon the solid base of Truth. Without imitating, it borrows applicable ideas from Nature to be used in carrying out its designs. Nor is it merely the imaginations, limnings, as in the case of Paintings; those designs have to be executed. Construction then comes in as the solid, tangible, work of art, which shall defy the elements and render Architecture the protectress of Painting, without whose solid enduring defence the more fragile art would speedily decay and become unknown.
But, are not the professors and admirers of Architecture themselves to blame for the degraded position it holds to-day as an art, here and in Europe? Why is there not more practical enthusiasm, and altogether less contemptible jealousy, and ill-natured feeling, amongst all who claim to have an interest in this the grandest and most over-shadowing of the Arts?
If Painting must needs hold an exclusive position as regards the public exhibitions of what is most erroneously called the “Fine Arts,” why cannot Architecture and Sculpture assert their dignity, and give the public a chance to patronize them independently? The truth is that Architecture and Painting do not at all agree in sentiment; the one is a mere luxury, and no more; the other is a necessary art, adorned or unadorned. The one can be glanced at and instantly understood; the other demands the effort of the mind to study and to comprehend. In Painting, the eye is the arbiter; in Architecture, the eye and the mind must form the judgment. It is not what a merely pretty picture is displayed; it is—how would that design look in execution?
Most of people who go to a “Fine Art Exhibition” are superficial observers. They glance at pictures by the hundred. Such are not the persons from whose judgment Architecture can expect even a recognition. They have been bedazzled with the sheen of the gilded frames, and the well laid-on varnish which bedizens the bright pigments of the gaudy glare of Art, which they have just left, and are, of course, impatient of the more staid and methodical elevations or perspectives, now presented in a narrow crowded section to their view. They have not time nor inclination to pause and consider them. They cannot bear to lose the impressions made by the “sweet shaded alley,” the “dancing streamlet,” or the “green reflective lake,” with that charming sky that looks so much more like heaven than nature. No, it will not do to exhibit Architecture and Painting together, and it is time to acknowledge this so often proven fact. The two must be distinct. Let Architects put forth their powers, and show the community what their Art really is, and what it is capable of. People will go expressly to view an exhibition of Architectural designs, combined with Sculpture, and take much pleasure in the visit, because their mind is prepared for the occasion, and will not be distracted by a rival exhibition of quite another effect. To say that the public generally will find no pleasure in the consideration of Architecture is to assert that which is disproved by fact. When the Commissioners, appointed to choose a fitting design for the new Post Office at New York, threw open to a limited number of visitors the inspection of the collection of designs, the rooms were crowded each day of the exhibition, and innumerable applications were made for tickets of admission. Had all the public been allowed the privilege, no doubt it would have been universally accepted. Yet that was but a very uninteresting display compared to one in which the subjects would be manifold, and the scales various. Not to speak of the freedom of display in color, which on the occasion adverted to was necessarily confined to an extreme limit.
Why cannot our Architects have an independent exhibition? There is nothing to be gained, but on the contrary every thing to be lost by clinging to the skirts of the painters. An effort in this direction could not fail to meet with the warmest support from our monied citizens, who are constantly proving substantially their regard for the progressive welfare of Architecture, by expending vast sums in buildings. And we have no doubt, but that State Legislatures would promptly and liberally aid any such effort to educate the general public in an art so intimately connected with the history of civilization.