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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

The great misfortune of the German transition was that it occurred so late that, before they could perfect it, the French had passed into the second stage of their developed Pointed, and had worked out the great problem of window tracery. The consequence was that German patience at length gave way;—they relinquished their transition just as they were perfecting a Pointed style of their own, and, throwing themselves almost wholly into the hands of the French, passed at one step from their own curious and characteristic art into the fully-developed style of Amiens and Beauvais.

Mr. Fergusson laments this as having prevented the development of a perfect round-arched style; but it must be recollected that the round-arched style of Germany had been almost entirely relinquished previously to the succumbing of their national architecture before the dominant star of France: the loss, then, we have to lament is not that it prevented a more perfect round-arched development, but that it suspended, when on the eve of being perfected, the formation of a really national German variety of the pointed-arched style; and though they did much to remedy this, it unquestionably rendered their architecture for the next century in some degree a German version of French style.

I have, however, dwelt so long upon the mere history of the transition that I have had no time to extract any useful practical lessons from the changes in art we have been tracing out. What, then, are the leading lessons they suggest?

Ist, They show us how absolute must have been the necessity in generating a perfect arcuated style, to cast away the slavery—I will not say of the round arch, for it is one of the most genuine and useful forms—but of the adherence to one unchanging form in the arch, admitting of no variation in its proportion of height to span, nor any change of form suited to its statical duties, or its geometrical or æsthetical position.

2d, They suggest encouragement in the task of working out a style suited to the exigencies of our day, by showing how vast are the results to be anticipated when not only the artists, but when the rulers, the nobles, the ecclesiastics of a country thoroughly set themselves to the task with one heart and one mind, and work on together with all their zeal, energy, and perseverance, till they have insured the great object of their designs. Would that we could see some equivalent effort in our own country and in our own day!

In the age we have been treating of, the previous architecture, though in a great degree original, retained elements derived from the degenerated Roman, and others belonging to the ages of darkness and barbarism which succeeded; but, by the effort we have been chronicling, both these elements were thrown off, and the style came forth like gold tried in the fire—pure and refined.

3d, We may learn a lesson of patience from what we have reviewed. Those of us who have been endeavouring to generate a style on the basis of the architecture of our own family of nations, have been often taunted with the slowness of our progress. Now, it is scarcely twenty years since we set earnestly about the task; and, rapid as the transition in the twelfth century appears, we have seen an interval of twenty years in its history in which we can trace no progress at all; which, with all our deficiencies, can hardly be said of us during a corresponding period. Let us, then, take courage, and press forward in spite of temporary discouragement, and in the end a like success may crown our labours.

4th, It has often been spoken of as a vice to be too fond of studying transitional styles. This may possibly be true as regards taking them as our models; but I hold the very contrary to be the case as to selecting them as special objects of study. They are the very periods of intellectual energy—the moments of the most intense effort of the human mind. From them we learn what zeal, what determination, what strength of will, what unity of purpose, what patient perseverance are required in working out a great good. The result of the mighty struggle was that, freed from every barbaric or lifeless element, our architects commenced the next century with their course clearly open before them, everything in their power, and no hindrance to the attainment of their object. Would that we could say this of ourselves, whatever may be our views as to style!

5th, Then, again, in the style itself of the buildings we have been considering there is much for us to learn. They possess a masculine grandeur, a noble sturdiness of character, an independence of ornament united with a grateful acceptance of its aid, which would supply a wholesome element to any style. A perfected style is often defective in these characteristics. It is toned down to too perfect a symmetry—a too nicely weighed balance of parts: the whole may suggest nothing but harmony, yet the parts are too much lost in the whole; there is too much of the satiety of attainment, and not enough of the excitement of the effort after perfection. The first developments of Pointed architecture produce an excitement on the mind which more perfected examples do not give rise to, and it seems to me that they contain elements which we should not do amiss to instil into our works, as I may have occasion to suggest more practically, if I should continue my course of lectures in this place.

6th, There is something to be learned from the curious history I have traced out of the re-introduction of one classic element—the Corinthian capital—at the moment when all other relics of the architecture of the old world were about to be thrown off. It is a kind of parallel to the revival of classic literature at the same period, on which M. Viollet le Duc remarks:—“It is precisely at the moment when the researches into antique letters, sciences, philosophy, and legislation were pursued with ardour—during the twelfth century—that architecture abandoned the last remnants of antique tradition, to found a new art whose principles are in manifest opposition to those of the arts of antiquity.” “Are we, then,” he proceeds, “to conclude from this that the men of the twelfth century were not consistent with themselves? Quite the contrary; but that which distinguishes the Renaissance of the twelfth from that of the sixteenth century, is this—that the former penetrates into the antique spirit, while the latter allows itself to be seduced by the form.”