Sir Christopher Wren

by Lawrence Weaver

One of the most interesting features of the interleaved documents in the heirloom Parentalia is the sketch of Wren’s conjectural restoration of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.[D] The last note of the printed Parentalia is headed, “Of the Sepulchre of Mausolus, King of Caria.” It ends with the words, “The plate of the above is omitted, on account of the drawing being imperfect.”

This imperfect drawing is pasted on the last page of the Discourse in the heirloom copy, and shows Wren to be less careful as an archæologist than might have been anticipated. “The Sepulchre,” he writes, “is so well described by Pliny that I have attempted to design it accordingly, and also very open, conformable to the Description in Martial, Aere vacuo Pendentia Mausolea, and yet it wanted not the solidity of the Dorick order;” and he goes on to say, on very insufficient grounds, “I conclude this work must be the exactest Form of the Dorick.”

The odd thing is that Wren had not noticed the statement of Vitruvius that Pythios, the architect of the Mausoleum and the sculptor of the chariot group, gave up the Doric order because of the incongruous arrangements which arose in its use. Wren’s great blunder, however, was in the misreading of one word in Pliny’s description, “Pteron.” He says it is an unusual term. Russell Sturgis gives its meaning as “that which forms a side or flank, as the row of columns along the side of a temple, or the side wall itself.” It is the more odd that Wren boggled over the word Pteron, seeing that he used the word Dipteron in his description of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. At Ephesus there was no question in his mind of an “Attick order rising above the cornice,” but he takes the Pteron at Halicarnassus to have that meaning, and to be “a word of Greek Authors of Architecture now lost.” Anyhow, it pleasantly exemplifies on how insubstantial a foundation can rest a piece of architectural criticism which is based on literary evidence alone.

His mistake naturally vitiates the whole restoration, apart from the fact that the Mausoleum was of the Ionic order.

The consideration of Wren’s restoration will send the student to Professor Lethaby’s illuminating monographs on “Greek Buildings represented by fragments in the British Museum.” They must make him realise again, and more sensitively, the importance of going to the stones, and setting aside even Pliny (or, perhaps, especially Pliny) if he does not confirm their evidence.

On the wall of the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum is a drawing lettered “Design by Sir C. Wren from Pliny’s description of the Tomb of Mausolus, copied from Wren’s book, the Parentalia,” and signed “J. E. Goodchild, 1893.” Goodchild was a pupil of Cockerell, who also made a restoration represented at the British Museum both by a drawing and a model. In the MS. of the Parentalia at the Royal Society is a sheet with a rough sketch-plan, doubtless from Wren’s hand. From it and from Wren’s description, Goodchild presumably made his drawing. The sketch elevation in the heirloom copy gives an infinitely better-proportioned and more reasonable building than Goodchild’s. There is the possibility that the imperfect drawing referred to in the Parentalia is the sketch-plan bound up with the MS., but I feel sure the elevation in the heirloom copy is indicated. Goodchild’s description on the drawing suggests that he had merely copied from the Parentalia. It would have been more correct had he said “based on indications in the Parentalia.”

A word may be added about Wren’s description (printed in the Parentalia) of the Artemision at Ephesus. There are bound, in the ordinary copies of the book, engravings of a plan and elevation of the Temple, and also a plan and elevation of Wren’s conjectural restoration of the shrine of the goddess.

The odd feature of this restoration is again Wren’s reliance on Pliny’s figures, which would have made what Professor Lethaby calls a temple of “enormous and impossible size.” In order to fit in Pliny’s 127 columns, Wren has to make the fronts decastyle. To absorb the odd number of columns he invents a quite enchanting shrine which has small claim to credibility, and rather recalls the garden temples of the eighteenth century. He again neglects the safer guidance of Vitruvius, who states that the temple was octastyle. His observations on the Temple of Peace built by Vespasian include some charming phrases: “Each Deity had a peculiar Gesture, Face, and Dress hieroglyphically proper to it; as then Stories were but Morals involved: and not only their Altars and Sacrifices were mystical, but the very Forms of their Temples. No Language, no Poetry can so describe Peace, and the Effects of it in Men’s Minds, as the Design of the Temple naturally paints it, without any affectation of the Allegory. It is easy of Access, and open, carries an humble Front, but embraces wide, is luminous and pleasant, and content with an internal Greatness, despises an invidious Appearance of all that Heighth it might otherwise justly boast of, but rather fortifying itself on every Side, rests secure on a Square and ample Basis.”

But devotion to the antiquities of Greece did not hinder Wren from digging deeply into the history of Roman Britain, and his conclusions as to the London of the Romans are quoted with respect by the archæologists of to-day.

Amongst the criticisms directed against Wren as an antiquary are those which are concerned with his Gothic exercises. One otherwise devout admirer says of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, St. Mary’s, Aldermary, and St. Michael’s, Cornhill: “Whether Wren made these designs under pressure, or merely as academical exercises for the entertainment of his friends is unknown, but it is very evident that he had not the least sympathy with Gothic architecture, or taken any trouble to master its most rudimentary features.” Without going into the reasons for these Gothic adventures beyond dismissing the idea that Wren made such solid entertainment for his friends, it is at least safe to reply that Wren understood the nature of Gothic very well. That is not to say that he could reproduce it, but the informed student of any phase of art is not necessarily the person to create it. In 1669 he made a survey of Salisbury Cathedral for his old friend Bishop Seth Ward, and wrote a report which shows a true critical appreciation of the problems of the mediæval architect, of where he failed but also of where he succeeded. There is none of the contemptuous violence used by the virtuous Evelyn when he refers to Gothic, which led the way for Ruskin’s later vehemence about the “foul torrent of the Renaissance.” Wren merely remarks, “This Form of Churches has been rejected by modern Architects abroad, who use the better and Roman Art of Architecture,” and commends the proportions of the nave and aisles: “The Mouldings are decently mixed with large Planes, without an Affectation of filling every Corner with Ornaments, ... the Architect trusted to a stately and rich plainness.” Wren’s criticisms are directed to the foundations, the low level of the floor, the insufficient size of the pillars, and the bracing of the walls with iron. He also objected, with some justice, to the poise of the aisle vaulting, supported from without by buttresses but not within save by the pillars themselves.