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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

We are all too apt to run into extremes. We run wildly into early or late, foreign or English work, according to the rage of the moment; and perhaps hate that which we last doted on, and despise in their turn all who hold opinions we once held ourselves or shall soon entertain. I do not condemn in toto a little of this tendency to mania, as it keeps up our zeal, but I would wish to restrain it and bring it within the range of reason; and I think that such a broad and liberal rule as I have suggested will tend to this end, without imposing a galling restraint or narrowing either our range of study or the wholesome variety of our practice.

In our own earliest style, and in the French examples down to a far later date, there is one feature which I confess I have a great love for—I mean the square and angular abacus. I think it is probably the feeling for this feature which has, more than any other, led to our tendency to follow French types. I would mention, however, that it is not necessarily a foreign feature, as it is found in our own earlier style, and sometimes (as in the side chapels of the nave at Chichester) is continued later; nor is it necessarily a very early form, as it was in France continued to a comparatively late date. I do not, therefore, see that we need deny ourselves its use. I would only moderate it, and use it and our own more typical round abacus, and our own moulded capital, as frequently as, and on at least equal terms with, the other.

In the form of arches, though keeping to typical forms as a rule, I would not deny myself the use of the round arch nor the plain segment where there is any practical reason for their introduction, only I would not use the abnormal forms frivolously or without a reason. I would assert the greatest liberty in such matters, yet restrain myself by common sense in the exercise of the liberty I claim.

I would again advise (particularly in the use you make of your foreign studies) the avoiding of queer, odd-looking features, for which there has of late been so eager an appetite. I believe that most of those we see in modern works are pure inventions for the sake of novelty and apparent cleverness. The little stumpy columns with gigantic capitals, and all the thousand-and-one pieces of quirkiness which one sees, are things which, I confess, I have rarely if ever found in old work in any country or of any period. We have really become so French of late, in our own imagination, that no Frenchman would recognise his native style as seen in our exaggerations of it. All this is a vulgar vice, and should be repudiated as a person of taste would all that is loud and vulgar in dress or in anything else.[90]

All this has led to much neglect of our own examples, and, when we use them, to our going too much in the contrary direction; and, from want of familiarity with the endless variety they contain, we have got into the way of confining ourselves to their most typical forms, whereas a careful study of our old examples would supply us with an infinity of varieties of the most charming kind.

It has for years been a question sub judice, whether architectural foliated carving, etc., ought to represent natural or purely conventional forms. I am not going to open up this controversy, but I think it right to urge upon you in your studies to follow up both, and to aid them by careful study of the actual objects of nature which are suggestive either of one or the other. The period I have recommended as our central rallying-point was just that at which the two kinds of foliage were used together and on equal terms. My own opinion is that no art can be a living one which founds its ornamentation wholly upon a bygone conventionalism. This does not, however, prove that we ought directly to copy nature as it comes before us. If we demand conventionalisms, though we may adopt those of our predecessors, we ought to be able to conventionalise for ourselves.

For my own part, as I equally admire several of the forms of foliated ornament I find in the range of works I claim as our types, I am content to use them each in their turn; but I cannot reject nature as the great guide, though the more we are able so far to conventionalise her productions and to “bring into service,” and suit them to the uses to be made of them, the better will our work be.

In sculpture I hold that we ought to be able to follow what is good and noble in the form of that art which belonged to the finest period of our architecture, and yet to unite it with the most perfect art which can be produced. Greek art unites perfectly with Gothic, but both demand the spirit and soul of the true artist, aided by the use of what he sees in actual life. I confess, however, that so little opportunity is allowed us for cultivating this art in connection with architecture, and so small the funds at our disposal, that we have fallen into the sin of putting our sculpture into the hands of men of a very inferior class—extemporised, in fact, from amongst our ordinary carvers; and the only wonder to me is, not that they do so badly, but so well as they do. This is a noble subject on which to follow out a new and higher aim, and the students of the Royal Academy might especially devote themselves to its realisation. I fear that we older architects shall not succeed, but we may claim aid of you who have better opportunities; and I would, as a help, suggest a course of study from the finest and purest Greek side by side with the best Gothic sculpture, endeavouring to unite their qualities, and to add to them what is to be gathered from the study of nature—not only the usual study of the human figure, but rather the importing into sculpture touches of nature and fact as they come before us.

To this also we need to add the study of animal sculpture, a point in which such artists as we are able to employ are usually, though not always, equally behind-hand.

Much the same may be said of figure painting when used in connection with architecture. We ought only to employ those who are really artists, but these should train themselves especially for the subject; and if the architect could fit himself for the work, so much the better, if he really does it well; though this can never become again the general practice.