Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy

by George Edmund Street

I am never sorry to have a day in Paris. In spite of alterations and reconstructions which have converted an interesting old city into the most spick-and-span place in the world, there are even to the present day parts which are untouched by the improver, and full of a pleasant national character which seems to be little to the liking of the rulers of the French. There is, too, in spite of the changes which a great and rich city must always undergo, a great deal which is interesting to the architect. We may look at old engravings, and wish ourselves back in those old times when the walls surrounded the city where now the Boulevards run round its heart, when the Temple and a number of other important buildings, now wholly destroyed, adorned the country just outside the walls; but the city which has still, among other architectural treasures, such churches as Notre Dame, S. Germain des Près, the Sainte Chapelle, S. Martin des Champs, and a host of lesser lights, and the Chapel of Vincennes, and S. Denis within a short drive, is in quite a different category from such a city as London, and is indeed hardly second to any other in Europe in architectural interest.

To come to much later times and very different work, it is always pleasant to be able to walk down the Boulevard des Italiens to the Madeleine, and for a few minutes to gaze at a church which certainly presents one very grand idea—that of space—clothed in very gorgeous dress. One always feels a certain sympathy for a church in which so many people are ever praying; and I have never yet been into this church without being able to count them by scores. The last time I was at Paris I remember being struck by seeing for the first time a peripteral building made really useful. The walls within the columns were hung with rich draperies, and a long procession coming out marched round the circuit of the church between the columns and the walls, and in again at the west door; the effect was, as may be imagined, very striking.

From the Madeleine we found our way to the new church of S. Clothilde, a large cruciform church, and the last erected in Paris in the Gothic style. Its design is intended to be of early character, but in reality is quite late in its effect; nor do I know when I have seen anything much less successful than the two western steeples rising but a short distance above the nave roof, and looking mean and weak to a degree. In plan the church is not badly arranged; there is just such a choir as might easily be properly used, and a large space for congregational purposes.

How much we want churches, in this respect at least, somewhat like S. Clothilde, in our large cities in England!

There are here a great many windows filled with stained glass, executed, I believe, by Mons. Marischal. His windows are illustrations of a truth which men are very slow to receive and act upon, viz. that in decorating a transparent material, one whose transparency moreover is the sole cause of its use, we have no right to shade it with dark colours so far as to destroy its brilliancy. These windows were elaborately shaded, and, as a necessary consequence, were heavy and dismal in their effect; besides which, most unpleasant mixtures of green, yellow, and ruby, and of ruby and blue—very glaring and very bad—abounded.

The carving of the capitals is, as is usually the case in recent foreign works, all derived from natural types of foliage, and is fairly well done: but the carving of rather elaborate sculptures of the “Stations” did not please me, having none of the severity of ancient examples. When shall we see a school of sculptors rise able really to satisfy the requirements of the times? I confess I despair more on this point than on any other; for I have as yet seen no fair attempt made to recover the style, or work upon the principles, of the best mediæval sculptors. The work of our modern sculptors is nearly all foreign and unreal, and almost always involves the assumption that they are representing the proceedings of the Greeks or Romans, and not of the English: it is impossible therefore that such a school can be healthy, strong, or successful. We lack men who will give us (clothed with as much anatomical correctness as they like, so that they do not leave them lifeless and academical) representations of subjects from English history and national life, illustrations of the Scriptures which we still believe, of the faith which we still profess, conceived in something of the architectonic and yet really dramatic and romantic spirit which marks the best sculpture of the middle ages. The strange thing is that with works near at hand which few living men could rival, they absolutely refuse to study them at all, and I believe if we were to summon all the most eminent sculptors to a conclave and put them to the question, not one in four of them would confess to having ever been to Chartres or Bourges, and four out of five would assert that it would have done them no good if they had. If they would give us anything at all comparable to the great works of the best Greeks the case would be altogether different, but to be served with a réchauffé of the antique when one is crying out for something suitable to the present, is cause enough for the apathy of the English public about sculptors’ work. We ask for English history or Bible story, and are treated to nymphs combing their hair; and for figures of our Lord and St. Peter, and get nothing but Musidoras and Clyties. No sculptor would lose much by the study of the best mediæval examples of drapery—and there are among the gothic statues which deck the doors and porches of the churches I have named, some of the most admirable description, such as warrant any one, who is at all troubled with feeling for his art, in using strong language about those who neglect them. In Italy we shall find the same careful shutting of men’s eyes to what is good, simply because it belongs to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Orvieto is left on one side in order to spend time over work not possessed of a tithe of the beauty of that on its cathedral façade; and, indeed, just as the French examples, they appear only too often never even to have been so much as heard of!

The study of ancient sculpture in England is not quite so easy, because our old buildings are not so rich in it as are the French; but if one is told—as one is too often—that the art of sculpture in the middle ages was unknown or rude in comparison with its state now, one may fairly refer to some of the modern attempts at its imitation for a proof that this was not the case, as e.g. to the recumbent effigy of Archbishop Howley at Canterbury, or to another, of some more humble individual, in the south transept of Chichester Cathedral; a glance only at which, and a comparison with some of the noble mediæval effigies lying in all the stateliness of their repose by their sides, will at once show any one that it is not merely necessary to put an effigy upon its back with its hands in prayer in order to vie with the effigies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The position is something, but not all, and requires very much more skill in its treatment than of late years we have had to bestow.

From S. Clothilde we went first to the pleasant gardens of the Luxembourg—gardens which always make one envious for London—and thence to Notre Dame. Here I always feel no slight pride in the success which its architect has achieved. Six hundred years have passed over Paris, one effort after another has been made, vast sums of money have been spent, and still this great work stands supreme and separated by a vast distance from all competition, and greatest beyond comparison of all Parisian buildings, not only in its general scheme, but equally in the admirable design and execution of every detail. There is much to be seen and learnt here in every way. The west doors are superb. The planning and construction are very fine, and the series of sculptures behind the stalls full of interest and well worthy of study.

From Notre Dame one goes, of course, to the Sainte Chapelle. When this journey was undertaken everything about this chef-d’œuvre was gradually growing to perfection: the flèche was being put up on the roof, the painting on the walls was nearly finished, and the altar was in progress. Since then it has escaped, as it were by a special providence (and why not?), from the incendiary fire which destroyed almost the whole of the surrounding Palais de Justice, and it still rises uninjured among the ruins. Of all the chapels of the same kind it is certainly the most beautiful—and whether one names our own St. Stephen’s, or thinks of others, such as the Chapel at S. Germer and the other at Riom, the Paris chapel is certainly by far the finest—being in truth a real work of inspired genius.

Altogether, I cannot help thinking that the effect upon the mind of what one sees in Paris is very unsatisfactory; the revival of Christian art seems, as it were, to be only skin-deep; there seems to be no enthusiasm for it. What is done is done in the same way as other public works, as the business of the state, not by the will of the people. The scaffolding, which was just being removed from the avenue leading from the Tuileries to the Barrière de l’Etoile, after having assisted at the fête of Napoleon, was an illustration sufficiently apt of the work which seems to engage too many of the artists of Paris; Parisian fête composers and decorators really appear to be the architects of the day, and of course this fact must mitigate very much against real art in every branch, as its tendency is to make people accustomed to temporary exhibitions, the shortcomings of which are pardoned on the score of their temporary character, and so the artist is lowered in his tone by assisting in the production of works which are not intended—as all great works ought to be intended—to last for ages.