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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

I would suggest two classes of sentiments as especially suited to our own studies, somewhat opposite in their character, and each calculated to temper and correct any tendency to undue excess in the other. On the one hand, I would urge that your studies should be the earnest following up of the genuine impulses of the heart;—that their primary characteristics should be warmth, enthusiasm, veneration, and love. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Never repress in yourselves, nor ridicule in others, the generous impulses of enthusiasm. They are the very soul of art; they are the fresh spring flowers of the youthful mind, the life-spring of every noble thought and action: without them art would cease to exist, and we should sink under the bondage of an iron age. Above all, cultivate these feelings now that you are young: guard and cherish them as you would the choicest and tenderest of flowers; for, depend upon it, the chilling blasts of advancing years, and the deadening contact of a hard and unsentimental world, will have sufficient tendency to nip the precious bud almost before it has time to burst into bloom. On the other hand, it is necessary that the exercise of this zeal, heartiness, and veneration, should be regulated by sound and discriminating judgment,—a perfect and unfettered freedom of thought, and an eye to real beauty of form and reasonableness of construction and design; so that our generous enthusiasm may not betray us into forming erroneous judgments.

However perfect a style of art may be, its productions are not all perfect nor all of equal merit; while every human art has had its period of rise, culmination, and decline; and, enthusiastic and heart-stirring as must be our feelings towards any art in which we hope to excel, and intense as may be our veneration for the skill and noble sentiment of its original masters, these feelings should in no degree be permitted to blunt the sensitiveness of our own instinctive perception of beauty, whether positive or relative, nor to bias the freedom of our judgment as in the comparative truthfulness, propriety, or genuineness of the works of different periods or of different hands. We must keep a constant balance between our zeal and our judgment—not repressing the exercise of either, but giving each its full play, and exercising each in its highest and noblest degree.

I now come to the manner in which Mediæval architecture should be studied.

In the first place, though books and prints are very useful in their degree, let me impress upon you, in the strongest manner, that all real study should be at the fountain head. You may derive information as to the history of art from books, but knowledge of art itself must be derived from works of art. The knowledge derived from books and prints comes to you at second hand—you are seeing through other men’s eyes; the really useful information is that which you obtain at the first hand, and through your own eyes. If you learn a fact from a book, be never satisfied till you have proved it by your own observation; if you are impressed with the beauty of a building from a drawing or a print, make sure of its being really beautiful by examining it for yourselves. Investigate every theory, however rudimental, by actual examination of the data on which it is founded, so that none of your knowledge shall be merely taken upon trust from others.

During a genuine and natural state of art, every one learned it from, and developed it upon, the works of his immediate predecessors. This natural course having been broken up, the most reasonable substitute for it is to study the actual works which surround us, and which were produced while art was still genuine and unbroken. We have not to visit distant shores, and to investigate obscure fragments,—the works of races which have vanished from the face of the earth: we are surrounded on every side by original examples of the arts which we would study; they are the productions of our own country and our own race. The temples from which our authorities are derived are not those of an ancient and bygone nation, but those in which we ourselves worship, and within and around whose hallowed walls sleep the remains of our own forefathers. We study no outlandish or exotic architecture, but that of buildings which from our infancy we have been taught to venerate. We have, then, no excuse if we neglect to obtain our knowledge from the fountain head.

The choice and order of the particular buildings which we select for our studies must depend much upon accidental circumstances; but, as a general rule, I would advise each student to begin with those which are readiest to his hand. If your home is in the country, visit, study, and sketch from your own parish church, and from those immediately surrounding you, widening your circle as you proceed; generally studying the simpler specimens before you venture upon the more magnificent. If you live in London the case is different. The humbler specimens have mostly perished, but the earnest student will still find out many of which the public are ignorant. Here, however, you must for the most part attend to the more magnificent works, and reserve the humbler for your rural excursions; and, above all, you must diligently study the glorious abbey church of Westminster—internally, perhaps, the finest in England, but which, from its proximity, is made nothing like so much use of as it ought to be. Though the village churches round London have suffered more than almost any others, you would still do well to make pedestrian excursions among them, and carefully sketch what remains of them; and by extending your excursions to Waltham and St. Alban’s, to Eltham and Hampton Court, you will find objects of study of the highest merit and the most thrilling interest. I would, however, recommend, as the most profitable mode of following up the subject, more lengthened excursions; as, for instance, pedestrian tours through particular counties or districts, walking from village to village, and carefully sketching everything worthy of note to be found in it, whether ecclesiastical or domestic. This should be repeated over and over again in different districts. If you wish to direct your attention to the nobler productions of architecture, you must seat yourselves down in some cathedral town, and follow it up patiently from day to day, till your time is exhausted. A hasty view to these noblest of structures is of but little use.

Especially would I entreat your attention to those beauteous but melancholy ruins which still mark the sites of ancient monastic institutions. You may find in them the finest and best studied examples of your art—works designed and carried out, not in the bustle and busy hum of cities, but under the quieting influence of learned retirement: they are the works of the most thoughtful spirits of their age, and have received their utmost study and consideration. Not only are they intrinsically among the most beautiful specimens you can visit, but their present condition is calculated to impress them the most deeply upon the imagination and memory.

It is well to visit these remains alone; to stay long at them; to study them thoroughly, and not to repress the emotions to which they are calculated to give rise. I would also plead for them on another ground. There are many of them fast mouldering away or tottering to their fall. A few years more, and many of them will have perished. Lend, then, a friendly hand while they still exist, and rescue from oblivion their noble details by making careful and measured drawings of every part; so that, when the reality is no more, the truthful representation at least will be preserved.

I need hardly say that no works of art can be really profitably studied without drawing from them. The memory will not retain its impressions by mere abstract study and observation. I would not advise hasty and careless sketching, unless your time is so short as to render more impossible, but would urge upon you the necessity of carefully and assiduously drawing whatever strikes you as worthy of it, making measured drawings whenever you can, and noting down your impressions as to the merits or the defects of the work. So study what you see as thoroughly to learn it,—as if no one had ever made drawings of it before. Never buy prints or photographs of it as substitutes for your own work; though they are most useful when you have done all you can for yourself. In this way you will in a few years obtain a good knowledge of the architecture of your own country, and this is the best preparation for studying the contemporary works of other lands.

I would never encourage a student to go too early abroad. Study well our own examples first, and follow up foreign ones later.