According to the usual custom, in the year 1827, a scholar of the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, having achieved the distinguished honor of being named Grand Pensionnaire of Architecture for that year,—was sent to the Académie Française in the Villa Medici at Rome, to pursue his studies there for five years at the expense of the Government. This scholar was Henri Labrouste. While in Italy, his attention was directed to the Greek temples of Paestum. Trained, as he had been, in the strictest academic architecture of the Renaissance, he was struck by many points of difference between these temples and the Palladian formulae which had hitherto held despotic sway over his studies. In grand and minor proportions, in the disposition of triglyphs in the frieze, in mouldings and general sentiment, he perceived a remarkable freedom from the restraints of his school,—a freedom which, so far from detracting from the grandeur of the architecture, gave to it a degree of life and refinement which his appreciative eye now sought for in vain among the approved models of the Academy. Studying these new revelations with love and veneration, it was not long before the pure Hellenic spirit, confined in the severe peristyles and cellas of the Paestum temples, entered into his heart, with all its elastic capacities, all its secret and mysterious sympathies for the new life which had sprung up during its long imprisonment in those stained and shattered marbles. Labrouste, on his return to Paris, in 1830, surprised the grave professors of the Academy, Le Bas, Baltard, and the rest, by presenting to them, as the result of his studies, carefully elaborated drawings of the temples at Paestum. Witnessing, with pious horror, the grave departures from their rules contained in the drawings of their former favorite, they charged him with error, even as a copyist. True to their prejudices, their eyes did not penetrate beyond the outward type, and they at once began to find technical objections. They told him, never did such an absurdity occur in classic architecture as a triglyph on a corner! Palladio and the Italian masters never committed such an obvious crime against propriety, nor could an instance of it be found in all Roman antiquities. It was in vain that poor Labrouste upheld the accuracy of his work, and reminded the Academy that among the Roman models no instance had been found of a Doric corner,—that this order occurred only so ruined that no corner was left for examination, or in the grand circumferences of the Colosseum and the Theatre of Marcellus, where, from the nature of the case, no corner could be. The professors still maintained the integrity of their long-established ordinances, and, to disprove the assertions of the young pretender, even sent a commission to examine the temples in question. The result was a confirmation of the fact, the ridicule of Paris, the consequent branding of the young artist as an architectural heretic, and a continued persecution of him by the École des Beaux Arts. Undaunted, however, Labrouste established an atelier in Paris, to which flocked many intelligent students, sympathizing with the courage which could be so strong in the conviction of truth as to brave in its defence the displeasure of the powerful hierarchy of the School.
Thus was founded the new Renaissance in France; and, in this genial atmosphere, Greek lines began to exercise an influence far more thorough and healthy than had hitherto been experienced in the whole history of Art. To the lithe and elegant fancy of the French this Revelation was especially grateful. For the youth of this nation soon learned that in these newly opened paths, their invention and sentiment, so long straitened and confined within the severe limits of the old system, could move with the utmost freedom, and at the same time be preserved from licentious excess by the delicate spirit of the new lines. Thus natural fervor, grace, and fecundity of thought found here a most welcome outlet.
For some time the designs of the new school were not recognized in the competitions of the École des Beaux Arts; but when, in the course of Nature, some two or three of the more strenuous and bigoted professors of Palladio's golden rules were removed from the scene of contest, the Romantique (for so the new system had been named) was received at length into the bosom of the architectural church, and now it may be justly deemed the distinctive architectural expression of French Art.
Labrouste was not alone in his efforts; but Duban and Constant Dufeux seconded him with genius and energy. Most of the important buildings which have been erected in France within the last six or eight years have either been unreservedly and frankly in the new style, or been refined by more limited applications of Hellenic principles. Even the revived Mediaeval school, which, under the distinguished leadership of M. Viollet le Duc and the lamented M. J.B.A. Lassus, has lately been strengthened to a remarkable degree in France, and which shared with the Romantique the displeasure of the Academy,—even this has tacitly acknowledged the power of Greek lines, and instinctively suffered them to purify, to a certain degree, the old grotesque Gothic license. Most of the modern buildings of Paris along the new Boulevards, around the tower of St. Jacques, and wherever else the activity of the Emperor has made itself felt in the improvements of the French capital, are by masters or pupils of the Romantique persuasion, and, in their design, are distinguished by that tenderness of Love and earnestness of Thought which are the fountains of living Art. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this school is, that it brings out of every mind which studies and builds in it strong traits of individuality; so that every work appears as if its author had something particular to express in it,—something to say with especial grace and emphasis. The ordinary decorations of windows and doors are not made in conventional shapes, as of yore, but are highly idiosyncratic. The designer had a distinct thought about this window or that door,—and when he would use his thought to ornament these features, he idealized it with his Greek lines to make it architectural, just as a poet attunes his thought to the harmony and rhythm of verse. Antique prejudices, bent into rigid conformity with antique rubrics, are often shocked at the strange innovations of these new Dissenters from the faith of Palladio and Philibert Delorme,—shocked at the naked humanity in the new works, and would cover it with the conventional fig-leaves prescribed in the homilies of Vignola. Laymen, accustomed to the cold architectural proprieties of the old Renaissance, and habituated to the formalities of the five orders, the prudish decorum of Italian window-dressings and pediments and pilasters and scrolls, are apt to be surprised at such strange dispositions of unprecedented and heretical features, that the intention of the building in which they occur is at once patent to the most casual observer, and the story of its destination told with the eloquence of a poetical and monumental language. All great revolutions have proved how hard it is to break through the crust of custom, and this has been no exception to the rule; yet in justice it must be said that every intelligent mind, every eye possessing the "gifted simplicity of vision", to use a happy phrase of Hawthorne's, recognizes the truth and wisdom there are in the blessed renovations of the Romantique, and looks upon them as the sweeps of a besom clearing away the dust and cobwebs which ages of prejudice have spread thickly around the magnificent art of architecture.
Unlike the unwieldy and ponderous classic or Italian systems, whose pride cannot stoop to anything beneath the haughtiest uses of life without being broken into the whims of the grotesque and Rococo, the Romantique has already exhibited the graceful ease with which it may be applied to the most playful as well as the most serious employments of Art. It has decorated the perfumer's shop on the Boulevards with the most delicate fancies woven out of the odor of flowers and the finest fabrics of Nature, and, in the hands of Labrouste, has built the great Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève, the most important work with pure Greek lines, and perhaps the most exquisite, while it is one of the most serious, of modern buildings. The lore of the classics and the knowledge of the natural world, idealized and harmonized by affectionate study, are built up in its walls, and, internally and externally, it is a work of the highest Art. The Romantique has also been used with especial success in funereal monuments. Structures of this character, demanding earnestly in their composition the expression of human sentiment, have hitherto been in most cases unsatisfactory, as they have been built out of a narrow range of Renaissance, Egyptian and Gothic motives, originally invented for far different purposes, and, since then, classified, as it were, for use, and reduced to that inflexible system out of which have come the formal restrictions of modern architecture. Hence these motives have never come near enough to human life, in its individual characteristics, to be plastic for the expression of those emotions to which we desire to give the immortality of stone in memory of departed friends. The Romantique, however, confined to no rigid types of external form, out of its noble freedom is capable of giving "a local habitation and a name" to a thousand affections which hitherto have wandered unseen from heart to heart, or been palpable only in words and gestures which disturb our sympathies for a while and then die. Probably the most remarkable indication of this capacity, as yet shown, is contained in a tomb erected by Constant Dufeux in the Cimetière du Sud, near Paris, for the late Admiral Dumont d'Urville. This structure contains in its outlines a symbolic expression of human life, death, and immortality, and in its details an architectural version of the character and public services of the distinguished deceased. The finest and most eloquent resources of color and the chisel are brought to bear on the work; and the whole, combined by a very sensitive and delicate feeling for proportion, thus embodies one of the most expressive elegies ever written. The tomb of Madame Delaroche, née Vernet, in the Cimetière Montmartre, by Duban, is another remarkable instance of this elastic capacity of Greek lines; and though taken frankly, in its general form, from a common Gothic type, its chaste and graceful freedom from Gothic restrictions in detail gives it a life and poetic expressiveness which must be exceedingly grateful to the Love which commanded its erection.
Paris thus affords us, in its modern architecture, a happy proof of the inevitable reforming and refining tendencies of the abstract lines of Greece, when properly understood and fairly applied. Under their influence old things have been made new, and the coldness and hardness of Academic Art have been warmed and softened into life. Through the agency of the Romantique school, perhaps more new and directly symbolic architectural expressions have been uttered within the last four years than within the last four centuries combined. Like the gestures of pantomime, which constitute an instinctive and universal language, these abstract lines, coming out of our humanity and rendered elegant by the idealization of study, are restoring to architecture its highest capacity of conveying thought in a monumental manner. One of the most dangerous results of that eclecticism which the advanced state of our archaeological knowledge has made the principal characteristic of modern design consists in the fatal facility thus afforded us of availing ourselves of vast resources of forms and combinations ready-made to suit almost all the exigencies of composition, as we have understood it. The public has thus been made so familiar with the set variations of classic orders and Palladian windows and cornices, with all manner of Gothic chamfers and cuspidations and foliations, and the other conventional symbols of architecture, which undeniably have more of knowledge than love in them,—so accustomed have the people become to these things, that the great art of which these have been the only language now almost invariably fails to strike any responsive chord in the human heart or to do any of that work which it is the peculiar province of the fine arts to accomplish. Instead of leading the age, it seems to lag behind it, and to content itself with reflecting into our eyes the splendor of the sun which has set, instead of facing the east and foretelling the glory which is coming. Architecture, properly conceived, should always contain within itself a direct appeal to the sense of fitness and propriety, the common-sense of mankind, which is ever ready to recognize reason, whether conveyed by the natural motions of the mute or the no less natural motions of lines. Now history has proved to us, as has been shown, how, when the eloquence of these simple, instinctive lines has been used as the primary element of design, great eras of Art have arisen, full of the sympathies of humanity, immortal records of their age. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that our eclectic architecture, popularly speaking, is not comprehended, even by the most intelligent of cultivated people; and this is plainly because it is based on learning and archeology, instead of that natural love which scorns the limitations of any other authorities and precedents than those which can be found in the human heart, where the true architecture of our time is lying unsuspected, save in those half-conscious Ideals which yearn for free expression in Art.
Let our artists turn to Greece, and learn how, in the meditative repose of that antiquity, these Ideals arose to life beneficent with the baptism of grace, and became visible in the loveliness of a hundred temples. Let them there learn how in our own humanity is the essence of form as a language, and that to create, as true artists, we must know ourselves and our own distinctive capacities for the utterance of monumental history. After this sublime knowledge comes the necessity of the knowledge of precedent. The great Past supplies us with the raw material, with orders, colonnades and arcades, pediments, consoles, cornices, friezes and architraves, buttresses, battlements, vaults, pinnacles, arches, lintels, rustications, balustrades, piers, pilasters, trefoils, and all the innumerable conventionalities of architecture. It is plainly our duty not to revive and combine these in those cold and weary changes which constitute modern design, but to make them live and speak intelligibly to the people through the eloquent modifications of our own instinctive lines of Life and Beauty.
The riddle of the modern Sphinx is, How to create a new architecture? and we find the Oedipus who shall solve it concealed in our own hearts.
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