Character of Renaissance Architecture

by Charles Herbert Moore

Fig. 132.—Portal of Wollaton Hall.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century many Flemish and Dutch ornamental workers had come into England, and had brought in the tasteless forms of design that had been current with them. The ungrammatical and inelegant misuse of the orders, and the meaningless barocco scrollwork, with which the Elizabethan houses were overloaded, may be largely due to them. But these modes of design were readily assimilated by the native English workmen, and approved by the aristocratic English taste. The architect, in the more modern sense, did not yet exist. The design and execution of these buildings were in the hands of the master builders. No complete drawings were prepared in advance. Only the general scheme in rough sketches of plans and elevations was furnished, and these were freely modified, and the details developed, as the work proceeded under the direction of the master mason. It was a survival of the mediæval system, and no better system could be devised so long as the workmen were suitably trained to their craft, worked together on traditional lines, and were governed by a common understanding, common aims, and a strong feeling of artistic fellowship. But the Elizabethan workmen were not thus associated and governed. The older traditions of design had been largely lost, and the builders were attempting to use architectural forms which they did not understand. The aberrations that resulted from the efforts of these craftsmen to use the classic orders were ludicrous, as we have abundantly seen. The orders were entirely foreign to the genius and to the requirements of the English people, and were altogether out of place in English house building. Their departure from their own proper traditions and architectural habits at length weakened the building craftsmen, so that they finally lost their occupation with the rise of the modern professional architect, who first appeared in England in the person of Inigo Jones, whose work we may consider in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
II. _Jones and Wren_

It is only by extension of the term that the architecture of England in the seventeenth century may be properly called Renaissance. But if, in architecture, we understand by Renaissance a revival of the use of classic details, such extension is justifiable, for in this architecture the use of classic details is becoming established, and the art of Jones and Wren stands in relation to the Elizabethan architecture as the art of Vignola and Palladio does to that of the early Renaissance in Italy, and that of Lescot and De l’Orme to the early French Renaissance.

Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren were the only English architects of great importance at this epoch. It was their genius that determined the character of modern English architecture, and we may therefore confine our attention to their works.

Of Jones, Horace Walpole thus speaks in his _Anecdotes of Painting_:[157] “Inigo Jones, ... if a table of fame like that in the _Tatler_ were to be framed for men of indisputable genius in every country, would save England from the disgrace of not having her representative among the arts.... Vitruvius drew up his grammar, Palladio showed him the practice, Rome displayed a theatre worthy of his emulation, and King Charles was ready to encourage, employ, and reward his talents.” This famous architect began his artistic career in the early part of the seventeenth century. Nothing is known of his early education, but in youth he appears to have manifested an inclination for drawing, and to have acquired some skill in landscape painting.[158] He does not seem to have had any systematic training in architecture, but in early life he travelled in Italy,[159] where he studied the ancient monuments and read the works of Palladio and other Italian authors. In a book entitled _Stonehenge Restored_,[160] he says: “Being naturally inclined in my younger years to study the arts of design, I passed into foreign parts to converse with the great masters thereof in Italy, where I applied myself to search out the ruins of those ancient buildings which, in despite of time itself, and violence of barbarians, are yet remaining. Having satisfied myself in these, and returning to my native country, I applied my mind more particularly to the study of architecture.” For a quick-witted man with architectural aptitudes no training could be better, except that of growing up in an atmosphere of building activity, as the craftsmen of the Middle Ages did.

In his first practice Jones appears to have worked in a mixed style. The mongrel Elizabethan art was still in full vogue, and with this style, says Cunningham, “Inigo compounded, and for some time persevered in what the wits of the succeeding age nicknamed King James’s Gothic.” The well-known porch of St. Mary’s church, Oxford, if it be by Jones, may furnish an example of this earlier style. But he soon sought to free himself from the vagaries of the Elizabethan craftsman, and strove to introduce a rigorous use of Palladian forms. He had learned the grammar of the orders as formulated by the architects of the later Renaissance, and had apparently conceived a sincere belief that the Palladian canons embodied all that was most excellent in architectural design. He saw in the Elizabethan art only its manifold infractions of the rules of order and proportion, and its grotesque distortions of classic forms. To reëstablish these rules and restore these forms appeared to him the way to regenerate English art.

First among his extant works that can be certainly identified is the well-known Banqueting Hall built in 1619, for King James I, as a part of the projected palace of Whitehall, for which he had prepared the plans on a vast scale. The first remark prompted by this design is that it is not at all English. Every form and feature of the native art is eliminated. The Elizabethan house, however overlaid with foreign elements, was English in its primary forms and expression. But here Inigo Jones swept away everything English, and substituted a Palladian scheme that is foreign to England in every particular. The low-pitched roof, the plain rectangular outline, and the narrow undivided window openings are as Italian as the orders with which the façade is overlaid. But such was the state of taste among the influential classes that these features were approved, and the design was applauded with acclamation. “It spread,” says Cunningham, “the love of classic architecture far and wide, and there was soon a growing demand for works which recalled Athens to the learned, and presented something new to the admiration of the vulgar.”[161] The learned had then small knowledge of Athenian architecture, and even now many learned people fail to consider that there was never in Athens anything at all like Palladian design.

The façade of the Banqueting Hall (Plate [X]) is in two stories on a low basement, and has a rusticated wall of smooth-faced masonry, with an engaged order in each story, and a parapet with a balustrade over the main cornice. The central part of this façade has its wall slightly advanced, and in each story the orders, Ionic and Corinthian respectively, have engaged columns against the projecting middle part, and pilasters on either side, a pair of them being set together at each end. These pilasters taper and have strong entasis, so that parts of those on the angles overreach the end walls. The entablatures are carried by the walls, and thus have to be broken into ressauts to cover the columns and pilasters. The structural function of all these superimposed columns and pilasters is therefore only that of carrying the ressauts of the parapet. The rectangular windows, of severely classic design, have pediments, alternately curved and angular, in the lower story, and flat cornices only in the story above, while a frieze below the main entablature is adorned in Roman fashion with masks and festoons.

Plate X