Part 8 (1/2)

198. The third and last distinctive attribute is sensuality. This is a startling word, and requires some explanation. In the first place, every line is voluptuous, floating, and wavy in its form; deep, rich, and exquisitely soft in its color; drowsy in its effect; like slow wild music; letting the eye repose on it, as on a wreath of cloud, without one feature of harshness to hurt, or of contrast to awaken. In the second place, the cultivation, which, in the simple blue country, has the forced formality of growth which evidently is to supply the necessities of man, here seems to leap into the spontaneous luxuriance of life, which is fitted to minister to his pleasures. The surface of the earth exults with animation, especially tending to the gratification of the senses; and, without the artificialness which reminds man of the necessity of his own labor, without the opposing influences which call for his resistance, without the vast energies that remind him of his impotence, without the sublimity that can call his n.o.blest thoughts into action, yet, with every perfection that can tempt him to indolence of enjoyment, and with such abundant bestowal of natural gifts, as might seem to prevent that indolence from being its own punishment, the earth appears to have become a garden of delight, wherein the sweep of the bright hills, without chasm or crag, the flow of the bending rivers, without rock or rapid, and the fruitfulness of the fair earth, without care or labor on the part of its inhabitants, appeal to the most pleasant pa.s.sions of eye and sense, calling for no effort of body, and impressing no fear on the mind. In hill country we have a struggle to maintain with the elements; in simple blue, we have not the luxuriance of delight: here, and here only, all nature combines to breathe over us a lulling slumber, through which life degenerates into sensation.

199. These considerations are sufficient to explain what we mean by the epithet ”sensuality.” Now, taking these three distinctive attributes, the mysterious, the graceful, and the voluptuous, what is the whole character? Very nearly--the Greek: for these attributes, common to all picturesque blue country, are modified in the degree of their presence by every climate. In England they are all low in their tone; but as we go southward, the voluptuousness becomes deeper in feeling as the colors of the earth and the heaven become purer and more pa.s.sionate, and ”the purple of ocean deepest of dye;” the mystery becomes mightier, for the greater and more universal energy of the beautiful permits its features to come nearer, and to rise into the sublime, without causing fear. It is thus that we get the essence of the Greek feeling, as it was embodied in their finest imaginations, as it showed itself in the works of their sculptors and their poets, in which sensation was made almost equal with thought, and deified by its n.o.bility of a.s.sociation; at once voluptuous, refined, dreamily mysterious, infinitely beautiful. Hence, it appears that the spirit of this blue country is essentially Greek; though, in England and in other northern localities, that spirit is possessed by it in a diminished and degraded degree. It is also the natural dominion of the villa, possessing all the attributes which attracted the Romans, when, in their hours of idleness, they lifted the light arches along the echoing promontories of Tiber. It is especially suited to the expression of the edifice of pleasure; and, therefore, is most capable of being adorned by it.

200. The attention of every one about to raise himself a villa of any kind should, therefore, be directed to this kind of country; first, as that in which he will not be felt to be an intruder; secondly, as that which will, in all probability, afford him the greatest degree of continuous pleasure, when his eye has become accustomed to the features of the locality. To the human mind, as on the average const.i.tuted, the features of hill scenery will, by repet.i.tion, become tiresome, and of wood scenery, monotonous; while the simple blue can possess little interest of any kind. Powerful intellect will generally take perpetual delight in hill residence; but the general mind soon feels itself oppressed with a peculiar melancholy and weariness, which it is ashamed to own; and we hear our romantic gentlemen begin to call out about the want of society, while, if the animals were fit to live where they have forced themselves, they would never want more society than that of a gray stone, or of a clear pool of gus.h.i.+ng water. On the other hand, there are few minds so degraded as not to feel greater pleasure in the picturesque blue than in any other country. Its distance has generally grandeur enough to meet their moods of aspiration; its near aspect is that of a more human interest than that of hill country, and harmonizes more truly with the domestic feelings which are common to all mankind; so that, on the whole, it will be found to maintain its freshness of beauty to the habituated eye, in a greater degree than any other scenery.

201. As it thus persuades us to inhabit it, it becomes a point of honor not to make the attractiveness of its beauty its destruction; especially as, being the natural dominion of the villa, it affords great opportunity for the architect to exhibit variety of design.

Its spirit has been proved to be Greek; and therefore, though that spirit is slightly manifested in Britain, and though every good architect is shy of importation, villas on Greek and Roman models are admissible here. Still, as in all blue country there is much activity of life, the principle of utility should be kept in view, and the building should have as much simplicity as can be united with perfect gracefulness of line. It appears from the principles of composition alluded to in speaking of the Italian villa, that in undulating country the forms should be square and ma.s.sy; and, where the segments of curves are small, the buildings should be low and flat, while they may be prevented from appearing c.u.mbrous by some well-managed irregularity of design, which will be agreeable to the inhabitant as well as to the spectator; enabling him to change the aspect and size of his chamber, as temperature or employment may render such change desirable, without being foiled in his design, by finding the apartments of one wing matched, foot to foot, by those of the other.

202. For the color, it has been shown that white or pale tints are agreeable in all blue country: but there must be warmth in it, and a great deal too,--gray being comfortless and useless with a cold distance; but it must not be raw or glaring.[39] The roof and chimneys should be kept out of sight as much as possible; and therefore the one very flat, and the other very plain. We ought to revive the Greek custom of roofing with thin slabs of coa.r.s.e marble, cut into the form of tiles.

However, where the architect finds he has a very cool distance, and few trees about the building, and where it stands so high as to preclude the possibility of its being looked down upon, he will, if he be courageous, use a very flat roof of the dark Italian tile. The eaves, which are all that should be seen, will be peculiarly graceful; and the sharp contrast of color (for this tiling can only be admitted with white walls) may be altogether avoided, by letting them cast a strong shadow, and by running the walls up into a range of low garret windows, to break the horizontal line of the roof. He will thus obtain a bit of very strong color, which will impart a general glow of cheerfulness to the building, and which, if he manages it rightly, will not be glaring nor intrusive. It is to be observed, however, that he can only do this with villas of the most humble order, and that he will seldom find his employer possessed of so much common sense as to put up with a tile roof. When this is the case, the flat slabs of the upper limestone (ragstone) are usually better than slate.

[Footnote 39: The epithet ”raw,” by the by, is vague, and needs definition. Every tint is raw which is perfectly opaque, and has not all the three primitive colors in its composition. Thus, black is always raw, because it has no color; white never, because it has all colors. No tint can be raw which is not opaque; and opacity may be taken away, either by actual depth and transparency, as in the sky; by l.u.s.ter and texture, as in the case of silk and velvet, or by variety of shade as in forest verdure. Two instances will be sufficient to prove the truth of this. Brick, when first fired, is always raw; but when it has been a little weathered, it acquires a slight blue tint, a.s.sisted by the gray of the mortar: incipient vegetation affords it the yellow. It thus obtains an admixture of the three colors, and is raw no longer. An old woman's red cloak, though glaring, is never raw; for it must of necessity have folded shades: those shades are of a rich gray; no gray can exist without yellow and blue. We have then three colors, and no rawness. It must be observed however, that when any one of the colors is given in so slight a degree that it can be overpowered by certain effects of light, the united color, when opaque, will be raw. Thus many flesh-colors are raw; because, though they must have a little blue in their composition, it is too little to be efficiently visible in a strong light.]

203. For the rest, it is always to be kept in view, that the prevailing character of the whole is to be that of graceful simplicity; distinguished from the simplicity of the Italian edifice, by being that of utility instead of that of pride.[40] Consequently the building must _not_ be Gothic or Elizabethan: it may be as commonplace as the proprietor likes, provided its proportions be good; but nothing can ever excuse one acute angle, or one decorated pinnacle,--both being direct interruption of the repose with which the eye is indulged by the undulations of the surrounding scenery. Tower and fortress outlines are indeed agreeable, for their fine grouping and roundness; but we do not allude to them, because nothing can be more absurd than the humor prevailing at the present day among many of our peaceable old gentlemen, who never smelt powder in their lives, to eat their morning m.u.f.fin in a savage-looking round tower, and admit quiet old ladies to a tea-party under the range of twenty-six cannon, which--it is lucky for the china--are all wooden ones,--as they are, in all probability, accurately and awfully pointed into the drawing-room windows.

[Footnote 40: There must always be a difficulty in building in picturesque blue country in England; for the English character is opposed to that of the country: it is neither graceful, nor mysterious, nor voluptuous; therefore, what we cede to the country, we take from the nationality, and _vice versa_.]

So much then for our British blue country, to which it was necessary to devote some time, as occupying a considerable portion of the island, and being peculiarly well adapted for villa residences.

_C. The Woody or Green Country._

204. The woody, or green country, which is next in order, was spoken of before, and was shown to be especially our own. The Elizabethan was pointed out as the style peculiarly belonging to it; and farther criticism of that style was deferred until we came to the consideration of domestic buildings provided with the means of defense. We have therefore at present only to offer a few remarks on the principles to be observed in the erection of Elizabethan villas at the present day.

205. First. The building must be either quite chaste, or excessively rich in decoration. Every inch of ornament short of a certain quant.i.ty will render the whole effect poor and ridiculous; while the pure perpendicular lines of this architecture will always look well if left entirely alone. The architect therefore, when limited as to expense, should content himself with making his oriels project boldly, channeling their mullions richly, and, in general, rendering his vertical lines delicate and beautiful in their workmans.h.i.+p; but, if his estimate be unlimited, he should lay on his ornament richly, taking care never to confuse the eye.

Those parts to which, of necessity, observation is especially directed, must be finished so as to bear a close scrutiny, that the eye may rest on them with satisfaction: but their finish must not be of a character which would have attracted the eye by itself, without being placed in a conspicuous situation; for, if it were, the united attraction of form and detail would confine the contemplation altogether to the parts so distinguished, and render it impossible for the mind to receive any impression of general effect.

Consequently, the parts that project, and are to bear a strong light, must be chiseled with infinite delicacy; so that the ornament, though it would have remained un.o.bserved had the eye not been guided to it, when observed, may be of distinguished beauty and power; but those parts which are to be flat and in shade should be marked with great sharpness and boldness, that the impression may be equalized.

When, for instance, we have to do with oriels, to which attention is immediately attracted by their projection, we may run wreaths of the finest flower-work up the mullions, charge the terminations with s.h.i.+elds, and quarter them richly; but we must join the window to the wall, where its shadow falls, by means of more deep and decided decoration.

206. Secondly. In the choice and design of his ornaments, the architect should endeavor to be grotesque rather than graceful (though little bits of soft flower-work here and there will relieve the eye): but he must not imagine he can be grotesque by carving faces with holes for eyes and k.n.o.bs for noses; on the contrary, whenever he mimics grotesque life, there should be wit and humor in every feature, fun and frolic in every att.i.tude; every distortion should be anatomical, and every monster a studied combination. This is a question, however, relating more nearly to Gothic architecture and therefore we shall not enter into it at present.[41]

[Footnote 41: [See _Stones of Venice_, vol. III. chap. iii.]]

207. Thirdly. The gables must on no account be jagged into a succession of right angles, as if people were to be perpetually engaged in trotting up one side and down the other. This custom, though sanctioned by authority, has very little apology to offer for itself, based on any principle of composition. In street effect indeed it is occasionally useful; and where the verticals below are unbroken by ornament, may be used even in the detached Elizabethan, but not when decoration has been permitted below. They should then be carried up in curved lines, alternating with two angles, or three at the most, without pinnacles or hipk.n.o.bs. A hollow parapet is far better than a battlement, in the intermediate s.p.a.ces; the latter indeed is never allowable, except when the building has some appearance of being intended for defense, and therefore is generally barbarous in the villa; while the parapet admits of great variety of effect.

208. Lastly. Though the grotesque of Elizabethan architecture is adapted for wood country, the grotesque of the clipped garden, which frequently accompanies it, is not. The custom of clipping trees into fantastic forms is always to be reprehended: first, because it never can produce the true grotesque, for the material is not pa.s.sive, and, therefore, a perpetual sense of restraint is induced, while the great principle of the grotesque is action; again, because we have a distinct perception of two natures, the one neutralizing the other; for the vegetable organization is too palpable to let the animal form suggest its true idea; again, because the great beauty of all foliage is the energy of life and action, of which it loses the appearance by formal clipping; and again, because the hands of the gardener will never produce anything really spirited or graceful. Much, however, need not be said on this subject; for the taste of the public does not now prompt them to such fettering of fair freedom, and we should be as sorry to see the characteristic vestiges of it, which still remain in a few gardens, lost altogether, as to see the thing again becoming common.

209. The garden of the Elizabethan villa, then, should be laid out with a few simple terraces near the house, so as to unite it well with the ground; lines of bal.u.s.trade along the edges, guided away into the foliage of the taller trees of the garden, with the shadows falling at intervals. The bal.u.s.ters should be square rather than round, with the angles outward; and if the bal.u.s.trade looks unfinished at the corners, it may be surmounted by a grotesque bit of sculpture, of any kind; but it must be very strong and deep in its carved lines, and must not be large; and all graceful statues are to be avoided, for the reasons mentioned in speaking of the Italian villa: neither is the terraced part of the garden to extend to any distance from the house, nor to have deep flights of steps, for they are sure to get mossy and slippery, if not superintended with troublesome care; and the rest of the garden should have more trees than flowers in it. A flower-garden is an ugly thing, even when best managed: it is an a.s.sembly of unfortunate beings, pampered and bloated above their natural size, stewed and heated into diseased growth; corrupted by evil communication into speckled and inharmonious colors; torn from the soil which they loved, and of which they were the spirit and the glory, to glare away their term of tormented life among the mixed and incongruous essences of each other, in earth that they know not, and in air that is poison to them.

210. The florist may delight in this: the true lover of flowers never will. He who has taken lessons from nature, who has observed the real purpose and operation of flowers; how they flush forth from the brightness of the earth's being, as the melody rises up from among the moved strings of the instrument; how the wildness of their pale colors pa.s.ses over her, like the evidence of a various emotion; how the quick fire of their life and their delight glows along the green banks, where the dew falls the thickest, and the mists of incense pa.s.s slowly through the twilight of the leaves, and the intertwined roots make the earth tremble with strange joy at the feeling of their motion; he who has watched this will never take away the beauty of their being to mix into meretricious glare, or feed into an existence of disease. And the flower-garden is as ugly in effect as it is unnatural in feeling: it never will harmonize with anything, and if people will have it, should be kept out of sight till they get into it.

211. But, in laying out the garden which is to a.s.sist the effect of the building, we must observe, and exclusively use, the natural combinations of flowers.[42] Now, as far as we are aware, bluish purple is the only flower color which Nature ever uses in ma.s.ses of distant effect; this, however, she does in the case of most heathers, with the Rhododendron ferrugineum, and, less extensively, with the colder color of the wood hyacinth. Accordingly, the large rhododendron may be used to almost any extent, in ma.s.ses; the pale varieties of the rose more sparingly; and, on the turf, the wild violet and pansy should be sown by chance, so that they may grow in undulations of color, and should be relieved by a few primroses. All dahlias, tulips, ranunculi, and, in general, what are called florist's flowers, should be avoided like garlic.

[Footnote 42: Every one who is about to lay out a limited extent of garden, in which he wishes to introduce many flowers, should read and attentively study, first Sh.e.l.ley, and next Shakspeare. The latter indeed induces the most beautiful connections between thought and flower that can be found in the whole range of European literature; but he very often uses the symbolical effect of the flower, which it can only have on the educated mind, instead of the natural and true effect of the flower, which it must have, more or less, upon every mind. Thus, when Ophelia, presenting her wild flowers, says, ”There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts:” the infinite ”beauty of the pa.s.sage depends entirely upon the arbitrary meaning attached to the flowers. But, when Sh.e.l.ley speaks of