ON SOME OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ALLIED TO ARCHITECTURE
ON SOME OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ALLIED TO ARCHITECTURE.
AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
I HAVE been asked to address you on the Arts allied to Architecture. Now, as students of Architecture you will feel, considering how closely associated all the arts of design have been in the past, with Architecture as the mother-art, that it would be very difficult to draw a line between them, or to define the precise point at which any one of them naturally part company to be considered as a separate art. In the course of evolution many causes and forces have combined to change their relationship, however, and to give some of them a more or less independent position relatively to what they once had, as in the case of modern painting and sculpture; although these arts in their origin appear to be more closely related and essential to the forms of architecture with which they are combined than almost any of the other crafts. Indeed, it would almost seem as if sculpture might dispute the claim of primogeniture with architecture itself, since cave-dwelling and rock-cut temples seem more of the nature of the former; and also when we come to the wall sculptures of Nineveh and find winged bulls forming gateways; or see, as at the gate of Mycenae, beyond the builders' cyclopean craft of stone on stone, the only architectural forms and ornament in the sculpture of the slab over the gateway itself, in the column each side of which the lions stand, and in the carved discs and spirals below them.
Again, when we come to the buildings of ancient Athens, temples of the Parthenon type might almost be described as frames or pedestals for sculpture, although in the case of the Parthenon the architecture and sculpture are so perfectly united that we hardly think of them apart. The sculptor seizes upon the deep pediments and the triglyphs to tell his mythical and symbolic story, and emphasizes them in bold relief and counterbalancing mass; to which the lines of roof and cornice, of entablature and column play a harmonious accompaniment, while the more delicate frieze completes and unites the whole scheme. Though we know that sculpture was not left to the cold embrace of white marble, but must have been beautiful in colour as it now is in form, the genius of sculpture seems to dominate here. Greek architecture, too, only repeats in stone and marble and on a large scale the primitive construction of wood; and this takes us back to the days of the sacred ark, or the tabernacle of the Israelites, more of a shrine or tent than a building, which depended so much for its beauty upon the adornment it received from—"The cunning workman, the engraver, the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work" (Ex. xxxv, 35). Certainly here, as in the descriptions of the building of Solomon's temple all the arts appeared to co-operate and were equally important to the beauty of the result, and we get a splendid picture of oriental colour and ornament. The account of the olive-tree doors of the temple carved with cherubim and palm trees and open flowers and overlaid with gold, shows the early use of a craft very dear to the modern decorator—gilding: though it probably means a more substantial kind than that of the modern frame-maker, since the text has it that "he covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work" (1 Kings, vi, 35).
The craft of working thin plates of gold and other metals in repoussé is clearly a very ancient one, and contributed to what must have been a very splendid effect in interior decoration. Our use of silvered or gilded metal in modern wall sconces and door plates may be a relic of times when it was more extensively used and on larger surfaces, but one can hardly imagine a more splendid effect than a wall covering of beaten gold.
The ordinary brass or copper repoussé work of our own day is either worked from the surface only by following the lines of the design drawn on the metal by a tool called a tracer, straight or curved, as may be required for straight or curved lines, although a straight tracer will follow all but very small curves. The tracer is tapped with a broad-ended hammer according to the amount of relief intended. I should have said the sheet of metal is fastened down over a sheet of lead by screws or nails to a deal board before working on. When the outlines of the design are hammered out, the background, which bumps up between the traced lines, has to be matted. This may be done by various patterned tools called matting tools. Your design, when the matting is done, will stand in low relief from its ground, and may be polished as much as desired. Although a pleasing effect of soft relief is obtained, this is not carrying the work very far, and would only satisfy amateurs. True repoussé work consists in actually modelling by the hammer and punch, and for this both for delicate and bold relief it is necessary to reverse the metal on the pitch block. This is formed of a mixture of pitch and Russian tallow sprinkled with plaster of paris, which forms a somewhat firm but easily indentable substance when warmed, and can be held together in tin trays. While the pitch is soft you must press in your metal plate the reverse side up and then beat up the hollows of the design as they have been defined by the tracer on the face of the work and which show clearly on the back. The tools used for doing this are rounded punches of various forms. The hammering is done rather persuasively, as sudden blows make sudden dents, which are not easily smoothed. Parts of the work, again, may be hammered on the surface over a lead or pitch block, or it may be hammered over a pattern carved in wood. This method is used when several forms recur, or it is desired to repeat the same pattern.
Black & white marble Roman mosaic pavement.
Baths of Caracalla.
From sketch made in 1871.
Patterns of Roman mosaic pavements.
Baths of Caracalla.
From sketches made in 1871.
Another art of very early association with Architecture is mosaic, which may be said to be perhaps the most permanent and most splendid kind of architectural decoration ever used. In the matter of marble mosaic the Romans, though not the inventors of the art, in their pavements carried it to great elaboration, and worked it in many forms, the most successful being, to my mind, the simpler forms of flat pattern-work such as are seen in the baths of Caracalla at Rome, where white marble, or black, or black or white, is very effectively used, and there are some admirable scale-pattern borders. These make more reserved and satisfactory decorations for a floor than the shaded pictorial battle-pieces and figures of gladiators such as are seen at the Borghese Villa. In the Bardo Palace Museum at Tunis there is a very fine collection of Roman mosaic pavements. There has been a very extensive revived use of marble mosaic for the covering of entrance floors and halls in our own time; but it has been rather too much of the second-hand Roman type, although at its best it is a good type, and, as we know, many original Roman examples have been discovered, so that we are not without historic models in our own country. Marble mosaic is usually somewhat limited in colour but looking to the variety and beauty of tint to be found in marbles there is perhaps more restriction than need be, as well as in type of design. I made a design for the floor of a bank at Cleveland, Ohio, when I was in the States, which I am afraid might have tried the colour-resources of the mosaicist, since I introduced a symbolical figure of Columbia coining, wrapped in a robe of stars and stripes, which, however, would look sober enough when translated into marble tones.
PATTERN OF ROMAN MOSAIC PAVEMENT,
FROM THE BATHS OF CARACALLA.
For real splendour of colour we must turn to glass mosaic, and for magnificent examples of its architectural use we cannot do better than look at the churches of Ravenna. My friend, the late J. T. Micklethwaite, speaking of mosaic, once humorously remarked that mosaic in decoration was "like beer—of no use unless you had a lot of it." (That is all very well for those who can imbibe, and the dictum should appeal to Britons.) However, the use of mosaic at Ravenna and St. Mark's shows what my friend meant. In the mausoleum of Gallia Placida, a small rounded arched and vaulted Byzantine building of the fifth century, there are no mouldings or carving, or any kind of architectural enrichment, to interfere with the effect of the complete lining of mosaic, chiefly in pale tones of gold and colour on a deep, subdued but rich blue ground. The effect is very solemn and splendid. The actual workmanship of the Ravenna mosaics would no doubt be considered rough by the more mechanical modern mosaicist who does not accept the cube principle in using tesserae. The head of the Empress Theodora at San Vitale, for instance, is very simply done. The tesserae are few—but since the effect from the proper distance is fine, they must be fit though few. Then these mosaics like all the ancient ones, must have been worked from the surface. This gives a certain play of surface and depth and richness of colour, each tesserae not having been set at precisely the same angle to the plane of the wall, or to its neighbour cube.
The modern Venetian way is to make the panels perfectly flat on the surface, the cement being spread over the tesserae when arranged face downwards. The modern Venetian workmen will copy a cartoon properly tesserated with the utmost precision, as I have discovered, but his panels have not the surface sparkle and variety of the old work. The method of putting in the tesserae from the front has however been revived since I made my designs. The design by Sir Edward Burne-Jones for the dome of the New American Church at Rome was worked in this way, and recently a mosaic altar-piece of "The Last Supper," for a church in Philadelphia, was executed in this way by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Holiday, the tesserae being inserted in a layer of putty.
In London we have the great work of Sir W. B. Richmond in the choir of St. Paul's, which was all worked from the surface—the tesserae being set in red lead putty which, occasionally allowed to show at the joints, gives a certain warmth of tone to the whole. Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the decoration of St. Paul's, the designs of Sir William Richmond are exceedingly fine and conceived in a noble spirit.
Mr. Anning Bell has carried out a charming design in mosaic worked from the surface for the exterior of the Horniman Museum. One projected for the exterior of the Whitechapel Picture Gallery, from a design of my own, has not so far been executed for want of funds.
I have often thought, when looking at the beautiful arrangements of tint in the fine shingle of some of our sea beaches, that the materials for a very effective kind of mosaic, at small cost, might be found there, and adapted for the ornamentation of the external walls of seaside houses, in friezes, strings, panels, or even entire walls. In thus reviving the ancient art of pebble-mosaic, a charming local character might thus be given to the buildings of certain of our coast places which would add very greatly to their attractions. The thing, of course, would need some intelligence and taste, without which indeed the most costly and beautiful materials in the world may be wasted.
One of the most charming and simple ways of decorating external walls is to be found in the patterns indented in the plaster of the surface filling of half-timbered houses such as are so plentiful in Suffolk and Essex. It is a characteristic and ancient method which it is gratifying to note is made use of by modern architects and builders in that district. Figures and ornament in relief are also used. A mixture of Portland cement and lime is a good material for this purpose, as it does not set too quickly, but finally sets hard and is durable.
Delicate plaster relief-work for ceilings and friezes is also a very charming method of interior decoration, and there are very fine examples scattered over the country, though its original home was, I presume, in Italy, whose craftsmen still maintain their pre-eminence in the skill with which they deal with the manipulation of all kinds of plaster-work. Plaster and stucco must have been largely used in ancient Rome, and there are very beautiful, both bold and delicate, examples in the decorations of the famous tombs of the Via Latina. In one instance, on a wagon vault, the figures appear to have been worked directly in the soft plaster and the relief-work is used with vigorous indented lines. The effect of the work is wonderfully direct, simple, and fresh, and suggests having been done with speed and certainty. Raphael, influenced no doubt by old Roman work, introduced modelled portions in his painted designs for the Loggia of the Vatican. The usual modern method is to model the design in clay, mould it in gelatine, and then cast it in fibrous plaster panels (supposing it is for relief work) and screw them in position, stopping the joints afterwards. This, though it has many conveniences, is not so artistic in its results as when the design is worked directly in stucco or gesso in its proper position; but if we could be sure of finding the plasterers and craftsman to do it, we should but rarely find the opportunity, or the client who would allow time for such work in situ.
A middle course is to model your design—say, for a frieze or ceiling—in gesso or stucco of some kind on fibrous plaster panels; and the design may be planned so as to cut up into convenient-sized panels to work on an easel in the studio, and be fixed in position afterwards.
I have worked panels in this way using plaster of paris, thin glue, and cotton wool. The ground should be wetted, or the suction stopped by a coat of shellac, or the work is apt to dry too quickly and peel off.
For delicate relief ornamentation, say, in wall panelling and furniture, a kind of gesso duro is good. This is a mixture of whitening, glue, boiled linseed oil and resin. It is mixed to a creamy consistency, the whitening being first soaked in water. The gesso is laid on with a brush—long pointed sable is best. The gesso sets slowly, but very hard, so that any part of the work could be scraped down if necessary.
Another effective method for external and interior work in decoration is sgraffito, also of Italian origin. It consists in cutting or scratching a design through one or more layers of mixed lime and cement on to coloured grounds. A ground is laid on the plaster of the wall, say, of black, made by mixing black oxide of manganese and breeze from a smith's forge with the cement. When this is set, a layer of mixed lime and cement is laid over the black, about a quarter of an inch or more thick. When this layer has partly set, and is about the consistency of cheese, you cut your design out, its lines and masses defined by the black ground beneath as you cut away the top layer. Two or three colours may be used in the same way, one being laid over the other, and the effect produced by cutting down to the different layers as you wish.
I once came to a town in Bohemia, Pracatic, a wonderful old place, with a fine deep Gothic gateway, with a fresco of a knight-at-arms over it. The walls of the principal houses appear to have been entirely decorated with designs in sgraffito. The Rathaus or town hall was the most elaborate and best preserved, and was covered with designs from Bible story, divided by pilasters, and panelled in scroll ornament.
Sgraffito is still extensively used in Italy and Germany, where one sees much more elaborate work in it, and on a more extensive scale than anything here, unless we except the considerable and excellent work of Mr. Heywood Sumner in this material. He, however, has used it chiefly for interior wall decoration and churches. He generally uses three colours, red, green, and black, by which his large, simple, and bold designs are well expressed. Our climate—more especially town climate—is generally unfavourable to the effectiveness and permanence of the work as exterior decoration. There is, however, an excellent object lesson in sgraffito of various kinds to be seen on the back wall of the Science Schools at South Kensington, the work of the late Mr. Moody.
It seems curious that more has not been attempted in the way of external decoration by means of coloured and glazed tiles. The colour in these is permanent enough, and good quality of colour can be obtained. I fancy pleasant effects could be produced by facing the front of houses with coloured tiles, and introducing friezes and plaques beneath and between the windows. The ground story of many brick houses in London streets are cemented and painted. Why not try the effect of coloured tiles instead? Mr. Halsey Ricardo, it may be mentioned, has used De Morgan tile panels most effectively in a house he designed in Addison Road, Kensington, which is distinguished also by a beautiful roof of green glazed tiles from Spain. Mr. Conrad Dressler has also designed extensive mural decorations in a kind of Luca della Robbia manner, which is very effective. For splendour of effect, too, few things could equal designs produced in lustre.
Tiles, of course, have long held an undisputed position as decorative linings for fire-places. A new domestic application of them is suggested in that little gem of a picture by Van der Meer of Delft, recently added to our National Gallery, where white Dutch tiles with blue figures are fixed along the wall on the floor line, where one usually sees the wooden skirting.
Of the beauty of the effect of raised figures treated in faïence colours and glazes as an architectural decoration there is a splendid example in the frieze of archers from the palace wall of Darius, now at Paris, apparently made of moulded bricks glazed with colour, a good reproduction of which was to be seen in what was formerly the architectural court at the Victoria and Albert Museum; where also we could study the bold and beautiful frieze of Luca della Robbia from the Ospedale at Pistoia. One wants to see it in the full Italian sunshine and in its proper architectural setting fully to appreciate its fine decorative effect, and it is to be regretted that these reproductions of architectural decorative works are not exhibited in the Museum with an indication of their framework to show their relation to the buildings of which they form part.[6] It would be better to have fewer examples properly displayed, I believe, than a multitude crowded together, with no means of judging of them in their proper relation to their surroundings. If the examples were accompanied by good and clear drawings or photographs of the entire buildings it would be useful.
At Pistoia, also, there is a charming porch to the cathedral covered with Robbia ware in white, yellow, and blue, in association with black and white banded marble.[7] Such examples show with what beautiful decorative effect majolica can be associated with architecture.
To Italy, again, we must look for the most beautiful illustrations of the unity of painting with architecture, from the work of Giotto at Padua and Assisi to the crowning work of the Renascence, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo. The most perfect example of mural decoration in Italy I have seen, is, however, to be found in the Appartimenti Borgia in the Vatican, painted by Pinturrichio, a very beautiful model of which can be studied in the Victoria and Albert Museum (it was formerly in the Italian Court). Here we have a scheme of decoration at once restrained and rich, in strict relation to the construction, and yet full of variety and beauty of detail; and it is interesting, too, as an example of the use of gilded gesso used both for details in the wall pictures, as well as for arabesque ornament, and bordering on the vaulted ceiling. The lower wall was evidently originally intended to be covered with tapestry hangings, as there is a moulding with the little hooks to hold them; and this would have completed the effect of the whole in a rich and reposeful way. Another very rich and beautiful instance of the earlier Renascence mural painting may be seen in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence by Benozzo Gozzoli. Some full-sized copies are at South Kensington, notably one of Lorenzo de Medici in a gilded dress going a-hunting.
The famous Campo Santo at Pisa, and the frescoes in the town hall of Siena are fine instances of the days when mural painting was a living and popular art, frankly appealing to the love of story and romance, vivid, dramatic, and yet superbly decorative. Superior modern critics might scorn such types of art as "literary," and their naïveté as "childish"; but their story-telling power is an inseparable part of their artistic form, and never oversteps it, just as their decorative instinct is in perfect accord and harmony with their architectural conditions.
This was long before the days of academies and art schools, when there was no technical art education outside the workshop, no competitive examinations, and a man learnt his craft by apprenticeship to it, beginning at the beginning, under a master craftsman.
I fail to see how any art can be wholly taught or learned on general principles, since it is of the nature of art to address itself to particular problems, the conditions of which constantly vary. Certain general principles have been evolved out of collective practice of more or less value, no doubt, in a general way, but they must always be liable to qualification in their adaptation to particular cases. Nothing of the nature of art can be formulated as an exact science, happily, or the limits of its invention and variety would soon be reached. Art, however, has its scientific side, though the science of art is not exactly scientific or theoretic, but practical, and rather consists in recognizing particular necessities of conditions and materials, and the realizing that the frank acknowledgment of the nature of these conditions and materials leads, in all the varieties of design, in association with craftsmanship and architecture, to the highest beauty.
Patterns in plain leading,
from "THE GLAZIER'S BOOKE."
The peculiar beauty of a stained glass window, for instance, is entirely dependent upon this frank acknowledgment of conditions. A screen of transparent colour and pattern, defined and united by leads, and held in position by iron bars. Directly any attempt is made to overstep its natural limits—to make it look like a painted picture, to get chiaroscuro and vanishing points, or to try to ignore the leading as an essential condition of its existence—the charm and the joy of it is lost. There is a distinct character and beauty both in plain leaded glass and roundels throwing a pleasant network of simple geometric lines over the blankness of window-panes. Henry Shaw, in his Glazier's Book,[8] gives a great variety of delightful leading patterns.
Now, any design for a coloured glass window should, in the first place, be a good arrangement of lead-lines, I think—a good pattern, in short, whether figure subject or not—and, secondly, a good pattern considered as an arrangement of colour or jewelled light.
The artistic designer and maker of a wrought-iron gate, grille, or railing, whatever phantasy he might introduce, would never forget the essential requirements of a gate, grille, or railing. He would never forget the architectural relation of his work, or rather he would make the chief beauty and inventiveness of his treatment of wrought iron spring out of that relation.
The practice of modelling in clay (though it may be useful in a student's training) designs intended to be carved in wood, has, it seems to me, been most destructive of the beauty and character of true woodcarving. The same may be said of stone and marble. The essential spirit and go of the thing, the characteristic touch and treatment which each material in which the designer works claims as its own, and which is its own particular reason for existing, these are, of course, lost or tamed out of recognition when a copy is made of something already existing in a material and produced by a method totally different.
Much better keep to simple mouldings and plain painting than bring in ornament which has no character or meaning of its own. We must not confuse the mere spreading of ornament with decoration in its true sense, for Design in all its forms may be said to be governed by an architectural instinct of its own, which makes it a harmonious part of the building with which it is united, and which unites it, and puts it in harmony with itself.
In the limits of a short paper it is impossible to do more than deal very lightly with so vast a subject as the Arts allied to Architecture, and there are many that I have not been able to touch at all, since, properly considered, all the arts are, or should be, allied to architecture, and the history of architecture covers the history of human life itself; and what, let us ask, would architecture be without the associated arts which help to express and adorn it and fit each part for the use and service of man.
[6:] This was written before the arrangement of the collections in the new building of the Victoria and Albert Museum was complete.
[7:] An illustration of this porch is given in my "Bases of Design."
[8:] The full title is "A Booke of Sundry Draughtes. Principally serving for Glasiers: And not impertinent for plasterers, and gardeners: besides sundry other professions. London. William Pickering 1848." It is almost wholly copied from an older work "printed in Shoolane at the sign of the Falcon by Walter Dwight 1615."