Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

“We have the sanctity of the Monk, the meekness and abstraction of the supreme Pontiff; the Archbishop; the pious energy of the Bishop in the act of benediction; the prudent Abbot; the devoted Anchorite; the haughty and imposing King; the stark conqueror fiercely justifying his usurpation; the placid and impassible Confessor administering his good old laws ...; the inspired Evangelist or the malignant sprite;—each and all discovering a racy energy of conception which the informed artist may envy.”

Again: “The Mediæval artist appealed sometimes to the imagination, and sometimes to the conscience; and thus gave a degree of sentiment to his works, which the moderns can scarcely attempt,—much less attain....

“But it is the moral understanding of the artist which is most affected by the contemplation of so vast an assemblage of Christian art, as contrasted with the Classical, contained in our museums or in ancient monuments. Habituated to the Grecian model, in which the pride of life, the sensuality of beauty, a superhuman energy, or an unreal Elysium are assumed, deluding with a beau-ideal, and disappointing to all human experience, he is brought here to the full admission of the realities and true conditions of human existence—probation by the sweat of the brow, and the grand achievement of eternal life. Art is here employed to impress the great lessons of Truth, the warfare of the world, the subjugation of the natural to the spiritual man, the honest employment of the intellect in the great cause of religion.... No characters enter into this picture which have not been signalised by some great good to society, or some great triumph over all-absorbing self. Wisdom in its true sense, and varying energies of personal or intellectual strength, in a great cause, are the only passports to admission in these records.”

I need not apologise for quoting at so much length from him who has so often and so eloquently addressed you from this place, and cannot refrain from adding the following admirable reflections to which the work he was describing gave rise:—

“The poetic faculty, the fine sense of beauty, grace, and humour, are the gifts of nature: technical and mechanical skill may be acquired by academy and happy circumstances. The union of these qualifications, which is requisite to perfection in a work of art, is indeed a rare felicity: their separate existence is a melancholy fact, exhibited by the history of schools; in which, for the most part mechanism and technicality usurp the higher attainment, and the wide distinction between the professional practitioner and the inborn artist is made apparent to us. But the end of all sound criticism should be to recognise these distinctions; to seize the poetical conception, however encumbered with a faulty execution; and to appreciate in their true merit the more exalted and the rarer qualities; else the poet descends to the grammarian, and the intellectual artist to the handicraftsman.”

In foliated sculpture the Mediæval artists exceeded those of, perhaps, any other period. In their works you find the finest specimens of conventional or imaginary foliage,—founded on natural principles, yet not imitated from nature,—the best instances of the introduction of natural foliage, either wholly or united with the conventional,—and the most admirable examples of conventionalising nature, or, as Mr. Ruskin defines it, “bringing it into service,” so as to suit it to the material and to the forms, conditions, and purposes of architectural decoration, whether in relief or in painting. And not the least valuable of the lessons we learn from them is the acknowledgment of the mind and imagination of the art workman, who was not, as in classic architecture, employed to make for his capitals, or other features, an indefinite number of facsimiles of a single model, much less, as in most modern works, to copy in a hundred buildings a model which its author never meant to be used but in one; but after having acquired a due amount of skill in the arrangement and execution of his foliage, and a due knowledge of the general tone and feeling which the architect desired to express, was then left, under only general guidance, to the indulgence of his own inventive and artistic faculties, and thus rendered every capital, every boss, and every cusp a distinct and separate work of art, though all in harmony with the ideal of the whole design.

In variety of expression Gothic architecture is excelled by none, being equally capable of the sternest and most majestic severity, and the most exquisite and refined elegance, as well as of all the intermediate varieties.

In beauty of external outline no other style of architecture approaches it; and in the variety, depth, and refined delicacy of the profiles of its mouldings it stands unrivalled. Time would fail me to tell of the wonderful manner in which our style shapes itself to every accidental requirement; grapples with every difficulty, and converts it into a source of beauty; disdains, on the one hand, all artificially effected symmetry, nor, on the other, fears to submit to the most rigid uniformity, should the conditions of the case require it, being equally noble in the castle, where no two parts are alike or, as in the Hall at Ypres, where scarcely any two are different; how it meets every emergency with the utmost frankness and honesty; how it disdains all deception; thus contrasting itself, not with other genuine styles, for none really systematically admit of shams, but with the despicable trickiness which our modern architects have learned from their own plasterers and house-painters. Nor have I time to treat of the boldness, freedom, and originality of its conceptions. But, above all, its great glory is the solemnity of religious character which pervades the interior of its temples. To this all its other attributes must bend, as it is this which renders it so pre-eminently suited to the highest uses of the Christian Church. It was this probably which led Romney to exclaim, that if Grecian architecture was the work of glorious men, Gothic was the invention of gods.

Having—I fear at too great length—sketched out the claims of Mediæval architecture upon your study, I will conclude with a few remarks as to the spirit with which that study should be undertaken, the manner in which it should be pursued, and the practical objects for which it should be followed up.

In the first place, I will premise that your studies should not be undertaken in a spirit of mere antiquarianism. We owe very much to antiquaries, and far be it from me to depreciate the value of their researches; on the contrary, I think that the enlightened system on which they are followed up is one of the things of which our age has to be proud, and one for which, as lovers of art, we have great cause for gratitude; nor do I wish to discourage the pursuit of such investigations by architects. It is, in some degree, a necessary accompaniment to their studies, and will always add interest to them. What I wish to suggest is that our own proper subject is art rather than antiquity. The fact that the types from which we have to study have grown old is accidental: their merits and their value are perfectly irrespective of their age, and would have been as great had they been erected in our own day; nay, more so, for then we should be following up, as in former days, the works of our own immediate predecessors, and should not be suffering, as now, from a great and unnatural hiatus in the history of our art. In the second place, our studies should not be undertaken in a spirit of mere philosophical investigation: that, too, is very useful in its place, and is an important element in the study of art, though somewhat too cold to suit the feelings which belong to the true artist.