To return to the subject of brick structures and the laws that should guide them, the principles of Martel ought not to be lost sight of, and well indeed Mr. Trollope seems to have felt them. A pedestal of stone, as he instances, even if flat, would not be an eyesore, because the ordinary colours of stone are not obtrusive, while a pedestal of red brick without proper relief would be simply intolerable. The colour of the material requires us to handle it with more thoughtfulness than stone. Who does not delight in the red coat of a trooper in one of the old Dutch pictures, or a red cow in one of Cuyp’s pieces?
A good architect must be a good artist too in dealing with this difficult material, and he has to handle his shadows with skill, and not only so, he must carry these into as many interstices as possible; he calls upon nature to aid him with gray shades by bringing some features forward, and deeply recessing others, and by repeating octangular features as much as possible, so as to make the most out of the chances of shadow that are afforded to him. “Knowing further how ill a straight line of heavy red looks when forced into contrast with the transparent blue sky, or even with the fleecy gray clouds above, he multiplies his gables as far as he consistently can, and exhibits them where they will most be seen, raises up his chimney shafts in irregular groups, and delights to diversify them by a few turrets and pinnacles, etc., so as to give as much variety and lightness to his structures as possible.”
The house where Mr. William Wilberforce was born, in Hull, is a very curious specimen of brickwork, and differs in every respect from the examples we have been considering. It seems hardly to be indigenous, and, perhaps, belongs to a large class of brick houses that were imported from Flanders; indeed, the term “Flemish bond,” as applied to the peculiar style of brickwork that prevailed in England after the reign of William and Mary, sufficiently indicates a foreign origin, and now it is commonly used in specifications of buildings where it is required, as distinguished from English bond, and is thoroughly understood by modern workmen.
Of course there is a limit to the scope in which bricks may be said to compete with stone for building purposes. The nature of the material prevents our having any great projections; they would require to be supported by iron bands and set in cement, and be entirely false construction, if not dangerous, and statuary or sculpture is of course out of the question in brick. But there is nothing to prevent deeply recessed openings in windows or doorways, and many patterns might be repeated, such as pateræ or cuspings. In all old brickwork there is no attempt to conceal the nature of the material, or make it appear to do more than it actually does in the building. But brickwork is capable of being used in tracery in churches when geometrical work is required, and by splaying the bricks if necessary a very useful material indeed is revived.
I wish I could agree with Mr. Trollope’s admirable paper in his estimate of parti-coloured bricks; he has given some examples of these which are quite as good as anything of the kind, but there is always an unpleasant look about this mode of decoration. Bricks in contrasted colours cannot avoid a harlequin appearance; the variety of colours is always great, and the contrast too strong to be pleasant. The charming surroundings with which we may have seen this kind of decoration in foreign lands often may be the cause of our having a kindly feeling towards it, but even then we none of us, probably, have admired it at first. The real point to aim at in the contrast of colours is the natural light and shade that octagonal turrets and deep recesses can afford us. Hurstmonceaux, Tattershall Castle, Hampton Court, or Lincoln’s Inn, give us all this in perfection. Moulded bricks might be used also with great advantage in fireplaces in rooms; and at a fraction of the expense of the dreary chilly marble “mantel-pieces,” as they are called, a handsome pleasing feature might be introduced. It would not be desirable perhaps to employ white mortar, for fear of giving an unfinished appearance, but mortar can be tinted in a hundred ways, and a chimney-piece of bricks, moulded and square, might be put up at a cost of £5 or £6, that should far exceed the peculiar ones that disfigure our town houses of modern days, at five times the cost.
