On June 28th, 1817, Mr. Barry left England, and remained abroad for more than three years. During that time he travelled, first, chiefly alone, in France and Italy; next with Mr. (afterwards Sir C.) Eastlake, and Messrs. Kinnaird and Johnson, in Greece and Turkey; thirdly, with Mr. D. Baillie, Mr. Godfrey, and Mr. (afterwards Sir T.) Wyse, in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; and lastly, chiefly in company with Mr. J. L. Wolfe, in Sicily and Italy, returning alone through France in August, 1820.
His travels had, at the time, a considerable interest of their own: few had gone so far as the second cataracts of the Nile; still fewer had added to their Egyptian experiences so great an extent of Eastern and Western travels. Accordingly, on his return to Rome, he was one of the lions of the season, and his portfolio of sketches excited unbounded interest, as much by their novelty as by their intrinsic excellence. All this is, of course, greatly changed; scenes then little known have become almost hackneyed; what were then difficult and even hazardous journeys, are now pleasant summer excursions. The intrinsic interest of any narrative of his travels (such as might easily be drawn from his copious journals) is therefore to a great extent lost. But the importance of their effect on his own mind can hardly be exaggerated, and it is to this, therefore, that attention must here be drawn.
In the first period of his travels, the point most deserving notice is the exciting and enlarging effect of novelty and beauty on a mind, which had hitherto been cooped up within narrow limits, and had lacked its own congenial food. The change was infinite, after the narrowness of home experience, and the depression of all artistic and scientific energy in England by the long war. It seemed to be the entrance on a new life, one day of which (to use his own constant expression) was “worth a year at home.” His frank and buoyant spirit, his love of adventure, and good-humoured determination in all his purposes, answered readily to its call.
There is little at first in his journals of a strictly professional character; the architect is merged in the artist; and even the artistic element has by no means an exclusive dominion; observations of all kinds throng his journals, as impressions of all kinds evidently crowded on his mind. The external aspect of the country, both as to its scenery and its life, social peculiarities, and differences from English customs,[3] political feelings and tendencies, aspects of individual life and character—all claim their place, side by side with the records of sketches taken and buildings criticized.
Such a process, as it was the most natural, was also probably the most beneficial, if travel was really to enlarge his mind and to educate his whole nature. The work of life would soon narrow, and so deepen, the stream of thought and observation; and, indeed, at all times, he possessed the power of subordinating all his various interests and enjoyments to his one important business. He always liked the greater freedom of foreign life and foreign society, as compared with the conventions and formality which, then especially, clung to the social system of England. But Paris and Rome, with all their various enchantments fully appreciated and enjoyed, never drew him away from the hard work which was the real object of his travels.
At first, of course, all study was devoted to classical architecture alone. It is curiously characteristic of the time, that at Rouen, while he thought it worth while to sketch and criticize a small Corinthian church, all the glories of the cathedral and of St. Ouen are dismissed in one line, as being “examples of a rich florid Gothic;” and at Paris, the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are noticed in the same spirit, as having an antiquarian interest, and a certain irregular beauty of their own; but not as deserving any high admiration or study. Milan Cathedral is noted for its grandeur and richness, but with no criticism as to its architectural details. All this gradually changed as the revival of mediæval architecture began. On his return over the same ground the contrast seen in his journals is remarkable; and Gothic, though not studied or understood as it would be now, was regarded by him with keen interest and deep respect.
Art of all kinds, not exclusively architectural, attracted him at once. At Paris the Louvre occupied him for days together; and it was characteristic of his taste (which always inclined to the real rather than the ideal) that, on the one hand, he passed by at once as “showy and unnatural” the then popular school of David and Gérard, and, on the other, devoted more attention to the grand historical series of Rubens’ pictures, the Claudes, and the Dutch pictures (which reminded him of Wilkie), than to those of a higher and more imaginative kind. At Rome (thanks to the kindness of Canova, to whom he had letters of introduction) he spent whole days in sketching among the antiquities, the sculptures, and the paintings of the Vatican, and of other galleries. In fact, at this time he often seemed to turn aside from architecture to woo the sister arts, although afterwards his own art gradually asserted an almost exclusive dominion, and he was accused, with some truth, of looking at the others as merely her handmaids.
Travelling as he was in Italy, he could not fail to be impressed by the artistic influences of painting, sculpture, architecture, and, above all, of music, which the Church of Rome presses into the service of her religious ceremonies. He first saw these displayed (and he could hardly have seen them more gloriously) when he entered Milan Cathedral on the feast of St. Carlo. He had fuller opportunities still, in his long sojourn at Rome, of witnessing all the splendours of Christmas and Easter. They could not but appeal to his artistic tastes, and especially to his great love of music; but they seem never to have laid hold of his mind. The sense of the artificiality and cumbrousness of ceremony spoilt the effect to his taste; and neither the time nor his own disposition was such as to appreciate any devotion, in which superstition might appear to lurk, whether in the wayside chapels of Switzerland or under the dome of St. Peter’s itself. He felt in it occasionally “something awful and divine;” but his feeling was marred by the prevailing sense of unreality. Even his friend Pugin’s enthusiasm in after days, though it commanded respect, could win no real sympathy from him.
With regard to natural scenery, though his observation of it was always keen, he delighted in what was rich and beautiful, rather than in the highest forms of grandeur. The love of mountain scenery was not then a fashion, which few, even in a Journal, would dare to disregard. His admiration of it was blended with the notion of something strange and almost grotesque in it. He speaks of it as exhibiting “the freaks and outrageous effects of Nature” in its wilder features, and the beauties of an Alpine pass seemed to him to present something “appalling,” calculated to excite a kind of awe, too oppressive for genuine admiration. He delighted more in the Apennines, rising in mountains of equal height “like the waves of the sea,” and disclosing in their lateral valleys scenes of quiet beauty and richness, or in the scenery of the Saronic Gulf, with its bright colour and picturesque variety. Colour, indeed, at this time, seems to have impressed him more than form: sunsets, or moonlight effects, and the contrasts of white cities with the verdure surrounding them, are constant themes of notice and admiration. He cared for what was bright and beautiful more than for any sombre and awful grandeur; and he was always master of his impressions rather than overmastered by them.
His examination of buildings was always comprehensive, and his criticisms, even from the first, audaciously defiant of all fashion and authority.[4]