Rudimentary Architecture for the Use of Beginners / The Orders and Their Æsthetic Principles

by W. H. Leeds

Of the Romans it may be said, “Mutant quadrata rotundis,”—circular forms and curves displaying themselves not only in elevation and section, but in plan; and while, among the Greeks, Architecture was confined almost exclusively to external appearance and effect, in the hands of the Romans it was made to minister to internal display of the most enchantingly picturesque kind, as would be amply attested by the Pantheon alone. In that edifice, and Hadrian’s Mausoleum (now barbarized into the Castello di S. Angelo), the cylindrical form was exhibited upon an imposing scale; in the Temple at Tivoli, in far lesser dimensions, but with most captivating taste; and again in the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, we have a fine example of an unbroken astylar circular mass. In such structures as the Colosseum and other Roman Amphitheatres, a different form of curvature, namely, the ellipsis, was employed with admirable propriety and effect. In interiors, again, we find the hemicycle or concave semicircular form both frequently and variously applied by the Romans in such edifices as their Baths, which afford many excellent studies for combinations of plan.

To enter into the system of Roman Architecture as the subject itself would require, would very far exceed our present purpose and limits; much less can we pretend to treat here of the still more varied and complex Italian or Modern-European system, into which fenestration so largely enters, columniation being, more frequently than not, subordinate. Were we to touch upon the last-mentioned style and its various elements, it could be only so superficially as to be more disappointing than instructive. Better that the reader should admire our forbearance than complain of our unsatisfactory jejuneness. We may, however, permit ourselves to throw out one or two general remarks; the first of which is, that it is a great error to confound with the Italian the two Ancient Classical styles, applying to them alike the epithet ‘Grecian,’ merely in contradistinction to Gothic or Mediæval Architecture. It is absurd, too, to pretend to test by the Greek style, one so totally differently constituted as the Italian; an error that could hardly have been fallen into but for the practice of applying the same names to very different things. The term ‘Order’ has quite a different meaning, as applied to the original classical mode of the Art, from what it has in the other. In Italian composition, an Order is more frequently than not, mere decoration in the shape of columns and entablatures, fashioned secundum artem (a very different thing from artistically), so as to resemble in detail and certain conventional distinctions those of the Ancients. Infinitely better would it have been, if, instead of allowing themselves to be misled by the pedantry of Vitruvius, the Architects of the so-called Revival, who showed much happiness of invention in other respects, had treated the Orders freely; or perhaps still better, had they worked out ideas of their own for columns and entablatures, whenever they had occasion for them either as matters of necessity, or as mere decoration. Had the Italians allowed themselves greater latitude in that respect, they would, in all probability, have been far less licentious upon the whole than they frequently were, and their buildings would have been more homogeneous—more of a piece. But they must, forsooth, be Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian, ofttimes all the three at once, and a very great deal else into the bargain. Therefore the affecting to retain the ancient Orders in their purity served no other purpose than that of making all the more evident how completely their first intention and character had been lost sight of.

The clinging with scrupulous punctilio to what had become dead-letter forms after the system which had produced them had been abandoned and exchanged for another and widely different one, was merely superstition and pedantry. It might show acquaintance with traditional learning and the writings of Vitruvius; but it also showed dulness of æsthetic feeling, or, what is not much better, deficiency of æsthetic power. There was, however, one mode of applying columns, which, although generally regarded as the most licentious and unorthodox,—nay, even preposterous, because quite contrary to all classical practice and precedent,—has at least one propriety, that of being rational, since columns there officiate as columns—as real supports; whereas in a great deal of Modern Architecture that is admired for the correct taste it displays, columns and their entablatures are mere expletives, instead of actual component parts of the fabric, and simulate a mode of construction neither required for nor practised in the fabric itself. The particular mode here alluded to is that in which arches are not only introduced together with columns, but the arches and columns are so indissolubly married together that they cannot be divorced, inasmuch as the arches are supported by the columns themselves, the former springing immediately from the capitals of the latter.[7] Such combination, it might be supposed, would be gladly admitted as sufficiently legitimate, both because in accordance with rational architectonic principles, and because it greatly extends the resources of the Art; nevertheless, such is the omnipotence of prejudice, that instead of being welcomed and adopted by us, it has been decried as a barbarism. As an irresistible and crushing argument against it, we are told that columns were not originally intended to be so applied;—admirable logic, truly! There are a great many other things besides columns which have in course of time come to be applied to uses not originally contemplated. In regard to that combination of columns and arches according to which the latter spring immediately from the others, and are supported by them, there are two questions: the first and practical one is; Do the columns afford sufficient support?—the second and æsthetic one is; Is there also appearance of sufficient support; or, is there any thing contradictory to principle, to judgment, and good taste? The first question needs no answer, since it answers itself, it being an indisputable fact that columns so employed do answer the purpose to which they are turned. The other question is not so easily answered: the prejudiced will of course answer it according to their own contracted taste and narrow notions, condemning the mode alluded to, without any inquiry into its merits and advantages, merely on the ground of its being quite at variance with the classical system of trabeated columniation, that is, with columns supporting a horizontal architrave and entablature, or general horizontal trabeation. That by the substitution of arches for architraves, the character of the Greek system is forfeited, cannot be denied; but then another character is established, whose difference from the original one ought not to be made its condemnation. To demand of a different mode that it should resemble and conform to the laws of that from which it differs, is absurdity in the extreme, for it is requiring that it should be at once a different one and the same. To compare different styles is a very useful sort of study; but to make any one style the criterion or standard by which others are to be judged, is preposterous.

The style in which the arch and column enter into direct combination with each other, and for which there is no specific name, has at all events some economical recommendations, inasmuch as shorter columns, and fewer of them, are required, than would be necessary for the same height and length according to the trabeated mode. In itself, too, it possesses much ‘capability;’ yet, as is the case with every other style, the merit of the works produced in it depends upon the manner in which it is treated, and the talent brought to it. There is no style of the Art so poetical that the flattest prose may not be made out of it; and hardly any so utterly prosaic as to be incapable of being kindled into poetry by the Promethean torch of geniality—artistic treatment, and, con amore, æsthetic feeling.

INTERCOLUMNIATION.

Although Intercolumniation consists only in regulating and determining the spaces between the columns, and consequently does not affect the nature of the composition,—for a tetrastyle, hexastyle, &c., would still be such, no matter how narrow or wide the intercolumns or intervals between the columns may be,—very much depends upon it, with regard to expression and effect. How intercolumniation is regulated in the Doric Order has been already explained at page 20: in that, the distances between the columns is governed entirely by the triglyphs of the frieze, so that there can be no medium between monotriglyphic and ditriglyphic intercolumniation, accordingly as there is either one or two triglyphs over each intercolumn. But in the other Orders there is no such restriction; in them the intercolumns may be made wider or narrower, as circumstances require, but of course under the guidance of judgment and good taste; for what is left à discrétion is not always very discreetly used. Vitruvius and his followers, however, have not cared to trust to individual discretion or indiscretion, but have fixed certain positive and distinct modes of intercolumniation, viz. five,—perhaps out of compliment to the five Orders, to wit:

Pycnostyle, or closely set, in which the intercolumns are one diameter and a quarter, or a half, in width.

Systyle, in which they are two diameters wide.

Eustyle, or well spaced, in which they are two diameters and a half.

Diastyle, in which they are three diameters.