Of course, like all arts, especially those of a more directly spiritual tendency, architecture has suffered from caricatures, sometimes hostile, sometimes blunderingly friendly. The ancient Gregorian chant and the real “Pre-Raphaelite” school of Christian painting have likewise suffered in this way. One might quote the well-known saying, “Defend me from my friends!” Eastlake puts the same thought into these words: “The barbarous and absurd specimens of modern architecture which have been erected in this generation under the general name of Gothic, have done more to damage the cause of the Revival than all that has been said or written in disparagement of the style.”
Of the many buildings of merit hidden away in poor and remote localities, Eastlake makes cheering mention. He says:
“There are, perhaps, few professions, and certainly none within the realm of art, exposed to such unequal chances of that notoriety which should attend success, as the profession of architecture.... One man’s practice may take him for years of his life into remote rural parishes where, except by the squire or parson, his work may long remain unappreciated.... There are districts in London in which, if a new building is raised, it stands no more chance of being visited by people of taste than if it had been erected in Kamschatka. Yet those outlying regions ... contain some of the most remarkable and largest churches which have been built during the Revival.... It was required to make those structures the headquarters of mission-work in poor and populous localities. Mr. James Brooks had no easy task before him; there was but little money to spend on them, yet they were to be of ample size, and, for obvious reasons, dignified and impressive in their general effect.... It must be admitted that the effect in each case is extremely fine. There is much in the character of Mr. Brooks’ work which reminds one of Butterfield. An utter absence of conventionality, ... a studied simplicity of details, ... a tendency to quaint outlines and unusual subdivisions of parts—such are the chief characteristics which distinguish the design of both these architects, who manage to attain originality without condescending to extravagance, and to secure for their works a quiet grace, in which there is less of elegance than of dignity.”
A view of the interior of St. Chad’s, in one of the London suburbs, is given, in which one can trace even a certain richness of altar decoration allied to the noble proportions of the massive pillars and tall arches. This church seems to bear a monastic look about it.
The church of St. Columba, in the same neighborhood, presents many of the same characteristics, and Eastlake says of it that the “real excellence of this work consists in grand masses of roof and wall, planned and proportioned with true artistic ability.” It is curious—and ridiculously realistic—to see in the engraving given of this church the contrast of the grand abbey-like pile with the wooden walls of an enclosed but unoccupied piece of ground, covered with the obstreperous advertisements of popular London papers, of Horniman’s “best black tea,” of theatres and bill-posters, and contemplated by a few shabbily-dressed women, a mason carrying a hod of mortar, and a very old cart-horse standing with his ungainly vehicle at the door of the vestry.
These hidden churches have their touching meaning for Christian minds—a twofold meaning indeed—and one which is often overlooked in this utilitarian age. There they stand, beautiful and unvisited, built for the glory of God more than for the admiration of men, and no less solid, no less symbolical, no less perfect in proportion and distribution because the silent God is their only visitor. How much does this all-absorbing reference to the great Master of all art govern the work of the success-hunting generations of our day? Again, these beautiful churches stand as representatives of God’s sacraments, God’s graces, God’s invitations, unheeded by those to whom they are offered, unfelt even by many who live in their very shadow, and coldly received at best by those who grudgingly take advantage of them. Or, again, they are the symbol of the hidden soul, beauties scattered in seemingly desert places in the spiritual world, of the hearts that watch with God in the midst of the turmoil of earth, of hearts whose unbroken hymn of love is never silent, because of the babel of tongues that, to all but the ear of God, seems so resolutely to drown it.
There are two more remarks to be made, with which we will close this sketch, which we have perhaps prolonged beyond the bounds of the kind reader’s patience. It has been said—we know not with what technical truth, but certainly with a beautiful suggestiveness of truth—that one of the great principles in Gothic architecture is that every curve should be the perfect segment of a circle—that is, that every curve, if continued, should inevitably describe a perfect circle. If this be so—and we have always assumed that it is—is not this meaning deducible from it, that it is the mission of art to tend to the highest perfection, and the mission of grace—the heavenly art—to fashion every single insignificant action in such a mould that it should visibly be but a part in one grand perfect whole of heroic sanctity?
And the second remark is this:
The Gothic revivalists have been accused of retrogression towards so-called barbaric forms of art. Exactly the same reproach was once made to an eminent convert—we believe a German. “My dear friend,” said an anxious companion to him, “how could you abandon the religion of your fathers?” “Simply, my dear fellow,” was the quick and humorous response, “that I might embrace that of my grandfathers.”