The Corinthian capital stood alone among the details of ancient architecture, as being founded on principles of beauty common to all ages. It was foreshadowed in the works of their earliest predecessors, the Egyptians, and had suggested the forms for the capitals used in all succeeding styles, whether by the Byzantines, the Sassanians, the Saracens, or the Gothic conquerors of Rome. It was, then, consistent that, while about to purge their arts of mere dead rudimental relics of ancient art, this one feature should be revived as a nucleus for development. The same may be said of the pointed arch, if the theory be true of its Saracenic suggestion. It had been invented in very early times, perhaps earlier than even the round arch, though its uses were not then appreciated. The Romanesque builders had adopted many dead forms of ornament from Saracenic and Persian manufactures, and the introduction of this one really living feature at the moment when the exigencies of the style demanded it (whether the idea occurred to them spontaneously or by suggestion) was the signal for throwing off, as effete and useless, all the Orientalisms which they already had in use.
From this we may learn not to shrink from adopting into our developments external suggestions from whatever source, provided only that they approve themselves to our eye and our intellect as legitimate sources of beauty, or aids to construction, and as capable of being harmonised with the style we are working out. Let us throw them boldly into the fining-pot, and if we are skilful manipulators, the gold will remain and the dross be thrown off.
Another thing we may learn is, that the mere precedence of one nation in the working out of a style does not deprive the developments of neighbouring countries of the claims of nationality. The English transition began a little later than the French, and it is, as we have seen, distinctly marked in its character and its results, so that no one can ever mistake an English building for a French one.
The German transition came on after the English and French were perfected, yet is (if anything) even more national than our own; while the Italian Gothic, though an absolute importation, and often defective in detail, has more strongly-marked national characteristics than any other.[34]
When, however, we use the term “national,” we do not usually refer to these local varieties, but rather wish to express the general fact that, in our own country and amidst the family of European nations, those styles which were generated during the rise of our own civilisation are more national than the revived architecture of the ancient world. Each country has its own local variety; but the whole is one style, and that style is our own. While reviving this style, then, though we make in each country our own phase of it our groundwork, we must not permit either the narrow prejudices of friends, or the taunts of critics, to lead us into the folly of rejecting any of the really noble and valuable elements of our style, in whatever country they may have been generated.
I will close my too protracted lecture with a quotation from that admirable writer and accomplished architect I have so often referred to.
He thus describes the leading practical principles of the architecture to which the transition we have been tracing out was the pioneer:—
“From the commencement of the thirteenth century architecture developed itself after a method completely new, in which all the parts deduced themselves—the one from the other—with an imperious rigour. Now, it is by the change of method that revolutions in sciences and arts commence. The construction commands the form; the piers destined to bear several arches divide themselves into as many columns as there are arches; these columns are of a diameter more or less substantial, according to the load which will rest upon them, rising side by side with them to the vaults which they have to sustain, their capitals assuming an importance proportioned to this charge. The arches are slight or thick, composed of one or more ranges of voussoirs, as dictated by their function. The walls, becoming unnecessary, in great structures disappear completely, and are replaced by window-openings decorated with stained glass. Every necessity becomes a motive of decoration. The roofs, the leading off of the water, the introduction of light, the means of access and circulation to the different stages of the building—even less important matters, such as iron-work, lead-work, ties, props, the means of warming and ventilation, not only are not concealed, as is so often done in our buildings since the sixteenth century, but are, on the contrary, frankly acknowledged, and contribute, by their ingenious combination and the taste which ever presides over their execution, to the enrichment of the architecture.[35] In a beautiful edifice of the commencement of the thirteenth century, splendid as we may think it, there is not an ornament to be spared, for each ornament is but the consequence of requirement satisfied.”
LECTURE IV.
The Thirteenth Century.
Mediæval architecture usually classified under heads of centuries—Actual points of change do not coincide with these divisions—Auspices for the development of the Early Pointed style—Great works in England and France—Artistic disturbance in Germany—Progress in Italy—Energy pervades every branch of art—Perfected Early Pointed a natural growth from Romanesque—Leading characteristics—Columns—Bases of Columns—Capitals—Plan of the abacus—Circular plan—Whence this arose—Moulded capitals—Windows—Bases of buildings—Cornices and foliated bands—Doorways—French and English compared.