A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

In the first period the art of architecture consisted in designing a building so as to be most suitable and convenient for the purposes required, in arranging the parts so as to produce the most stately and ornamental effect consistent with its uses, and in applying to it such ornament as should express and harmonise with the construction, and be appropriate to the purposes of the building; while at the same time the architects took care that the ornament should be the most elegant in itself which it was in their power to design.

Following this system, not only the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Gothic architects, but even the indolent and half-civilised inhabitants of India, the stolid Tartars of Thibet and China, and the savage Mexicans, succeeded in erecting great and beautiful buildings. No race, however rude or remote, has failed, when working on this system, to produce buildings which are admired by all who behold them, and are well worthy of the most attentive consideration. Indeed, it is almost impossible to indicate one single building in any part of the world, designed during the prevalence of this true form of art, which was not thought beautiful, not alone by those who erected it, but which does not remain a permanent object of admiration and of study even for strangers in all future ages.

The result of the other system is widely different from this. It has now been practised in Europe for more than three centuries, and by people who have more knowledge of architectural forms, more constructive skill, and more power of combining science and art in effecting a great object, than any people who ever existed before. Notwithstanding this, from the building of St. Peter’s at Rome to that of our own Parliament Houses, not one building has been produced that is admitted to be entirely satisfactory, or which permanently retains a hold on general admiration. Many are large and stately to an extent almost unknown before, and many are ornamented with a profuseness of which no previous examples exist; but with all this, though they conform with the passing fashions of the day, they soon become antiquated and out of date, and men wonder how such a style could ever have been thought beautiful, just as we wonder how any one could have admired the female costumes of the last century which captivated the hearts of our grandfathers.

It does not require us to go very deeply into the philosophy of the subject to find out why this should be the case; the fact simply being that no sham was ever permanently successful, either in morals or in art, and no falsehood ever remained long without being found out, or which, when detected, inevitably did not cease to please. It is literally impossible that we should reproduce either the circumstances or the feelings which gave rise to classical art and made it a reality; and though Gothic art was a thing of our country and of our own race, it belongs to a state of society so totally different from anything that now exists, that any attempt at reproduction now must at best be a masquerade, and never can be a real or earnest form of art. The designers of the Eglinton Tournament carried the system to a perfectly legitimate conclusion when they sought to reproduce the costumes and warlike exercises of our ancestors; and the pre-Raphaelite painters were equally justified in attempting to do in painting that which was done every day in architecture. Both attempts failed signally, because we had progressed in the arts of war and painting, and could easily detect the absurdity of these practices. It is in architecture alone of all the arts that the false system remains, and we do not yet perceive the impossibility of its leading to any satisfactory result.

No. 2.

Bearing all this in mind, let us try if we can come to a clearer definition of what this art really is, and in what its merits consist. Let us suppose the Diagram (Woodcut No. [2]) to represent an ordinary house, such as is found in many of our London streets. The first division, A, is the most prosaic form of building, no more thought being bestowed on it than if it were a garden wall. The second division, B, is better; the cornices and string-course indicate the levels of the several floors into which the building is divided; the quoins of the door and windows are emphasized by the use of a better or different coloured brick, and the arched forms given to door and window on ground floor suggest increased strength. In the third division, C, this has been carried still further; the rustication of the stonework on the lower storey gives an appearance of greater solidity, and the importance given to the cornices, the addition of architrave mouldings round windows, with pediments to those of the first floor, and the decoration of the parapet carry the house out of the domain of building into that of architecture. The fourth division carries this still farther; the whole design is here divided into three stages—the ground floor being treated as a podium or base to the two floors above, the whole being crowned by an attic storey; greater importance is given to the front by the slight projection of two wings; the entrance doorway is emphasized, and by means of cornices, quoins, and pilasters, a play of light and shade is given to an elevation which virtually lies in one plane. In this instance not only is a greater amount of ornament applied, but the parts are so disposed as in themselves to produce a more agreeable effect; and although the height of the floors remains the same, and the amount of light introduced very nearly so, still the slight grouping of the parts is such as to produce a better class of architecture than could be done by the mere application of any amount of ornament. The diagram deals with one phase of the subject, “a town house,” and with the elevation only, the style being that generally known as Italian; if it is admitted that the last division is an object of architecture, which the first is not, it follows from this analysis that architecture commences when some embellishment is added to the building which was not strictly a structural necessity. The value of the embellishment, from an architectural point of view, depends on—the extent to which, in its application, the structural features have been recognised,—the appropriateness of the ornament,—the careful study of proportion and balance of the several parts, and,—in a certain measure, the extent to which some known precedent has been followed.

Recurring, for instance, to the Parthenon, to illustrate this principle farther. The proportions of length to breadth, and of height to both these, are instances of carefully-studied proportion and balance; and still more so is the arrangement of the porticoes and the disposition of the peristyle. If all the pillars were plain square piers, and all the mouldings square and flat, still the Parthenon could not fail, from the mere disposition of its parts, to be a pleasing and imposing building. So it is with a Gothic cathedral. The proportion of length to breadth, the projection of the transepts, the different height of the central and side aisles, the disposition and proportion of the towers, are all instances of proportion and balance, and beautiful even if without ornament. Many of the older abbeys, especially those of the Cistercians, are as devoid of ornament as a modern barn; but from the mere disposition of their parts they are always pleasing and, if large, are imposing objects of architecture. Stonehenge is an instance of ornamental construction wholly without ornament, yet it is almost as imposing an architectural object as any of the same dimensions in any part of the world. It is, however, when ornament is added to this, and when that ornament is elegant itself and appropriate to the construction and to the purposes of the building, that the temple or the cathedral ranks among the highest objects of the art and becomes one of the noblest works of man.

Even without structural decoration, a building may, by mere dint of ornament, become an architectural object, though it is far more difficult to attain good architecture by this means, and in true styles it has seldom been attempted. Still, such a building as the town hall at Louvain, which if stripped of its ornaments would be little better than a factory, by richness and appropriateness of ornament alone has become a very pleasing specimen of the art. In modern times it is too much the fashion to attempt to produce architectural effects not only without attending to ornamental construction, but often in defiance of, and in concealing that which exists. When this is done, the result must be bad art; but nevertheless it is architecture, however execrable it may be.

If these premises are correct, the art of the builder consists in merely putting materials together so as to attain the desired end in the speediest and simplest fashion. The art of the civil or military engineer consists in selecting the best and most appropriate materials for the object he has in view, and using these in the most scientific manner, so as to ensure an economical but satisfactory result. Where the engineer leaves off, the art of the architect begins. His object is to arrange the materials of the engineer, not so much with regard to economical as to artistic effects, and by light and shade, and outline, to produce a form that in itself shall be permanently beautiful. He then adds ornament, which by its meaning doubles the effect of the disposition he has just made, and by its elegance throws a charm over the whole composition.