It suffers also from a degree of capriciousness even among its abler and more art-loving followers, who, jealous, perhaps, or contemptuous of others, refuse to co-operate in any steady purpose, and who, morbidly keen in their perceptions of beauty, are apt to follow momentary fancies—now favouring one type, and now another, and, perhaps, reviving styles little allied to their purpose, as if the object of the age were to revive just for revival’s sake, rather than to gather in these extraneous beauties to enrich the resources and to widen the capabilities of one received style. This tendency seems to threaten the noble movement with premature decay, though I do trust that there remain earnestness and steadiness of heart enough to avert this danger, and to guide these artistic strivings into a healthy channel, and cause them to add new life to the general movement.
It is, in truth, as yet unsettled whether we should concentrate our revival on one phase of the old style, or whether, as the ancients did with their orders, we should use them ad libitum. The one seems somewhat artificial, the other somewhat too eclectic; but solvitur ambulando, and perhaps this discursiveness I have been regretting may promote that solution.
I have found, as I went on, that the scheme of my lecture was much too extensive for the time at my command. I had intended to say something of the application of the sister arts to architecture, as well as on the subordinate and allied arts. I must omit this; nor do I much regret it, as I trust I shall be succeeded by men better qualified to deal with the subject.
I will close my lecture,—itself the last of my long but disjected series,—with a few words of advice to architectural students.
First of all, I would repeat what I once heard from that accomplished artist who formerly graced this chair,—Professor Cockerell,—that the first rule for success in art is the same which the wise man laid down with reference to morals, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” If the inmost heart of the student is purely and earnestly devoted, with generous ardour and enthusiasm, to his work, you may make pretty sure of his success; but if he follows it up in a cold perfunctory spirit; from a sense of duty or self-interest rather than of earnest love; whatever may be his success in a merely professional point of view, he will never do any good in a higher and an artistic sense. The first thing, then, to encourage is a loving zeal for the art you have chosen.
The next aim is self-culture, and that of a twofold kind—the cultivation at once of an intimate knowledge of the form of art which you select as your groundwork, and of a personal artistic power to work in it.
In these days of miscellaneous distraction, it is difficult to give advice as to the choice of a groundwork of study. Having no actual style belonging to our age, you must choose between the two Renaissances,—the Classic and the Gothic,—as best you may.
It was my own lot, arising from the period at which I commenced, to have been trained in one (at its deadest period), and to have, from the love of it, trained myself in the other; but I will suppose, for simplicity’s sake, a single and simple choice. Nor is it for me to dictate, were it in my power to do so, what that choice should be.
What I have to say is that, your choice being made, you must study with all diligence, and with the most assiduous attention, the best and purest examples of the style you have chosen; making yourself thoroughly acquainted with it from its very root to its minutest details, and using every endeavour to catch the true artistic spirit of the style in its best phases.
If Classic architecture (whether antique or as revived) be your aim, you are at some disadvantage from not having within your reach its most authentic examples. Books and the works of our own best architects must supply the need till you have opportunity to study it in its native land.