OUR LADY’S ALTAR IN THE ORATORY.
We pass to the last built of the important Catholic edifices, and which, perhaps, after St. Paul’s, is the most imposing and ambitious ecclesiastical building in London, namely the Oratory. For spaciousness, splendour of adornment, fine music, and the style of the services this is an extraordinary institution, considered as the work of an unestablished and unendowed communion. Some forty years ago the Oratorians were to be found at a public room in King William Street, Strand. During the second Great Exhibition, of 1862, they moved to South Kensington, where they erected a new church next door to the Museum. Here was also built a large monastery, a hall for Societies, etc., the final development of which was the present imposing fane. Some years ago a competition was declared, and the design of Mr. H. Gribble selected. Whatever objections may be taken to particular details and treatment, there can be no question as to the successful result, and the crowds who visit it, much as sightseers do foreign cathedrals, are impressed and astonished at its proportions and magnificence. At almost every hour of week days some of the curious are found there; while on Sundays, after the services, a long stream of visitors promenade round and round, surveying the chapels and altars.
The cost of this building is said to have been close upon £80,000, and though completed inside, its façade and outer dome has still to be supplied. This will entail a further cost of over £20,000. Its construction was followed with much interest by architects, owing to the fact that concrete, cast in situ, was used for the dome and arches of the nave and transept, a practice adopted by some of the old Italian architects.
The altar of Our Lady, in the right-hand transept, is really a most extraordinary prodigy in marble work, either for its vast dimensions or its elegance of florid treatment. The mixture of colours, the flowing grace of treatment, the blending of statuary with rare marbles, the exquisite easy manipulation, in times, too, before marble-machinery was known, all join to make it a most astonishing work. Not but that there is something meretricious in the composition, and severe critics would hold that it was of a “debased school.” It is believed that such a work could not be attempted now at a less cost than eighty or a hundred thousand pounds. The design, too, is original, that of a sort of pillared temple formed of exquisitely-tinted marbles. The columns are all fluted, and the flutings filled with inlaid marbles. Spirited statues to the number of eleven are grouped with the main fabric, and reposing figures and fluttering cherubs are disposed with all the ease and freedom of terra-cotta. We feel a sort of artistic pang as we think of the fate of this striking work, which was long the ornament of an Italian church at Brescia, erected by the family of a local architect, as an inscription records. Under the suppression of religious orders in Italy the church was levelled, and its altar sold for the bagatelle of £2,000. No doubt it looks a little out of keeping with the waste of bare unfurnished wall about it, and seems to be a stranger under our cold skies, exciting much the same feelings experienced when we look on the magnificent Rood-screen to be seen in the museum next door. This piece of ambitious rococo work did duty in the splendid cathedral of Bois-le-Duc, where only a few weeks ago we were looking at the
THE SANCTUARY, FARM STREET.
spot it filled, and where something seemed to be lacking. The scrapers and polishers and restorers had been at their fatal work, so execrated by Lord Grimthorpe; Renaissance work was pronounced unfit for a Gothic cathedral; and it was ruthlessly pulled down and sold for a song to our Government. It may be said that such opposing styles are not to be always condemned; they represent the form and pressure of their era; and there is often something piquant in the combination where the works are of merit. Our own cathedrals often present such contrasts. The apse of the Oratory is now being decorated with painting, gilding, and marbles, and when completed will no doubt present a rich appearance.
Some forty years ago the Jesuits obtained permission to build a church in the most fashionable quarter of London, a privilege that was obtained not without difficulties, and was subject to the condition that they should also take charge of a poor and impoverished chapel in the slums of Westminster. It was almost impossible to secure a suitable site in Mayfair or near Grosvenor Square, so the church was built in what is no more than a stable lane, then known as Berkeley Mews, at the back of Mount Street, but which has assumed the name and dignity of Farm Street. The church is a beautiful, well-designed Gothic building, built by Scholes, added to, and altered by Mr. Clutton. The coup d’œil, to one standing at the door, is striking and attractive, from the display of painted glass, which fills not only the great altar window, but all the clerestory, as well as from the rich garniture of the sanctuary. The sanctuary and chapel, close by, present a spectacle of costly enrichment, the walls being a mass of coloured marbles, deep green and mellow strawberry tint, encompassing elaborate mosaic pictures, and gilded carvings. There is a small arcade to the right which opens into the adjoining chapel: an organ picturesquely projects on the left; beneath are gilt grilles and gates, while the richly-carved altar, all pinnacles and niches and figures, fills the centre. The altar is the work of the elder Pugin, and is a fine specimen of his manner, suggesting much, but too crowded with details. The communion rails are his design also, the pulpit, we believe, is from the same “eminent hand.” The new organ is one of the richest and most powerful in London.