Part 2 (1/2)
I believe the quiet admission which we are all of us so ready to , it is iht, is one of the most fatal sources of misery and crime fro you froround that perfection is ”Utopian;”
beware of that ether
There is no need for it Things are either possible or iiven state of hu is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it It is very Utopian to hope for the entire doing aith drunkenness and ate; but the Utopianism is not our business--the _work_ is It is Utopian to hope to give every child in this kingdoe of God from its youth; but the Utopianism is not our business--the _work_ is
34 I have delayed you by the consideration of these tords, only in the fear that theyto lay before you; for, though they were Utopian, and though they were roht be none the worse for that But they are neither
Utopian they are not; for they are ain what has been done for hundreds of years by people whose wealth and poere as nothing compared to ours;--and ro or eminently virtuous, for they are merely the proposal to each of you that he should live in a handso a cheap mode of ornamentation for a costly one You perhaps fancied that architectural beauty was a very costly thing Far froliness that is costly
In the modern system of architecture, decoration is ily placed and wrongly finished I say first, wrongly placed Modern architects decorate the tops of their buildings Mediaeval ones decorated the botto the ornaht some pictures to decorate such a room as this, where would you put them?
On a level with the eye, I suppose, or nearly so? Not on a level with the chandelier? If you were determined to put them up there, round the cornice, it would be better for you not to buy them at all You would merely throw yourthroay continually, by wholesale; and while you are dissuaded, on the ground of expense, fro beautiful s and beautiful doors, you are continually made to pay for ornaments at the tops of your houses, which, for all the use they are of, ht as well be in the moon For instance, there is not, on the whole, a h than the street in which so many of your excellent physicians live--Rutland Street I do not know if you have observed its architecture; but if you will look at it to-morrow, you will see that a heavy and close balustrade is put all along the eaves of the houses Your physicians are not, I suppose, in the habit of taking academic and meditative walks on the roofs of their houses; and, if not, this balustrade is altogether useless,--nor merely useless, for you will find it runs directly in front of all the garret s, thus interfering with their light, and blocking out their view of the street All that the parapet is ive some finish to the facades, and the inhabitants have thus been e sum for a piece of mere decoration Whether it _does_ finish the facades satisfactorily, or whether the physicians resident in the street, or their patients, are in anywise edified by the succession of pear-shaped knobs of stone on their house-tops, I leave then, whatever its success, is an economical one
[Footnote 16: For farther confirmation of this statement see the Addenda at the end of this Lecture]
35 But this is a very slight waste ofcareful sculpture at the tops of houses A temple of luxury has just been built in London for the Arround It has upon it an enorentleentlemen of the army--I couldn't see as what--nor can anybody; for all this sculpture is put up at the top of the house, where the gutter should be, under the cornice I know that this was a Greek way of doing things I can't help it; that does notto pay for what they couldn't see, but Scotchlishmen shouldn't
36 Not that the Greeks threw their work away as we do As far as I know Greek buildings, their ornae enough to be visible in its place It is not putting orna it too fine to be seen, wherever it is This is the great modern mistake: you are actually at twice the cost which would produce an impressive ornament, to produce a contes by one-half, in order to h your streets, and try to make out the ornas--(there are none at the botto, or you will all come home with infla but confusion in ornas a foot
[Illustration: PLATE VIII (Fig 13, Fig 14)]
37 Now, the Gothic builders placed their decoration on a precisely contrary principle, and on the only rational principle All their best and , close to the spectator, and on the upper parts of the walls they put orna plainly seen at the necessary distance A single example will enable you to understand this method of adaptation perfectly The lower part of the facade of the cathedral of Lyons, built either late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century, is decorated with a series of niches, filled by statues of considerable size, which are supported upon pedestals within about eight feet of the ground In general, pedestals of this kind are supported on so to other arrangements of the architecture into which I have no ti tablets, or flat-botto from the wall Each bracket is about a foot and a half square, and is shaped thus (_fig_ 13), showing to the spectator, as he walks beneath, the flat bottom of each bracket, quite in the shade, but within a couple of feet of the eye, and lighted by the reflected light from the pavereat entrance is covered with bas-relief, as a matter of course; but the architect appears to have been jealous of the sht; and the _bottohtly, but decorated with no fewer than _six figures each, besides a flower border_, in a space, as I said, _not quite a foot and a half square_ The shape of the field to be decorated being a kind of quatre-foil, as shown in _fig_ 13, four ser ones in the center I had only ti of one of the angles of these pedestals; that sketch I have enlarged, in order that you may have soeles of the bottom of a pedestal, not two feet broad, on the outside of a Gothic building; it contains only one of the four little figures which forles; and it shows you the head only of one of the larger figures in the center Yet just observe how n, how er than a school-boy could strike off in wantonness with a stick: and yet I cannot tell you how much care has been spent--not so much on the execution, for it does not take much trouble to execute well on so sment You see it is composed of a branch of wild roses, which switches round at the angle, eure of the bishop, and tere figure You will observe how beautifully that figure is thus _pointed to_ by the spray of rose, and how all the leaves around it in the sarace of its action Look, if I hide one line, or one rosebud, how the whole is injured, and how much there is to study in the detail of it Look at this little dia from beneath it; and at the beautiful way in which the tiny leaf at _a_, is set in the angle to prevent its harshness; and having exaht there is in a cathedral front, a hundred feet wide, every inch of which is wrought with sculpture like this! And every front of our thirteenth century cathedrals is inwrought with sculpture of this quality! And yet you quietly allow yourselves to be told that the ht were barbarians, and that your architects are wiser and better in covering your walls with sculpture of this kind (_fig_ 14, Plate VIII)
[Illustration: PLATE IX (Fig 15)]
[Illustration: PLATE X (Fig 16)]
38 Walk round your Edinburgh buildings, and look at the height of your eye, what you will get fro but square-cut stone--square-cut stone--a wilderness of square-cut stone forever and forever; so that your houses look like prisons, and truly are so; for the worst feature of Greek architecture is, indeed, not its costliness, but its tyranny These square stones are not prisons of the body, but graves of the soul; for the very men who could do sculpture like this of Lyons for you are here! still here, in your despised workenerated, it is you who have bound them down, and buried them beneath your Greek stones There would be a resurrection of theht of these weary walls from off their hearts[17]
[Footnote 17: This subject is farther pursued in the Addenda at the end of this Lecture]
39 But I a the point immediately in question, which, you will remember, was the proper adaptation of ornaiven you one exaive you one of Gothic orna_ 16) is a sketch of a niche at Ah on the facade, and seven or eight feet wide Now observe, in the ornaures_ and a whole wreath of roses in the space of _a foot and a half_ square; but in the ornament sixty feet froe _leaves_ in a space of _eight feet square_! and note also that now there is no attee which there was in the other exaht of this niche, people would not attend to the delicate lines, and that the broad shadoould catch the eye instead
He has therefore left, as you see, rude square edges to his niche, and carved his leaves as massively and broadly as possible: and yet, observe how dexterously he has given you a sense of delicacy andthe large ones I raph, and the spot in which these leaves occurred was obscure; I have, therefore, used those of the Oxalis acetosella, of which the quaint for
40 And you see by this exa, that our own ornaly FINISHED
The very qualities which _fit_ this leaf-decoration for due effect upon the eye, are those which would _conduce to economy_ in its execution A more expensive ornament would be less effective; and it is the very price we pay for finishi+ng our decorations which spoils our architecture And the curious thing is, that while you all appreciate, and that far too highly, what is called ”the bold style” in painting, you cannot appreciate it in sculpture You like a hurried, broad, dashi+ng h that may be seen as near as you choose, and yet you refuse to ad stroke of the chisel in hich is to be seen forty fatho ina masterly effect with few touches is as essential in an architect as in a draughtsh indeed that power is never perfectly attained except by those who possess the power of giving the highest finish when there is occasion
41 But there is yet another and a weightier charge to be brought against our ly placed; secondly, wrongly finished; and, thirdly, utterly _without _ Observe in these two Gothic ornaments, and in every other ornareat Gothic times, there is a definite ai_ 15 you have an exquisite group of rose-ste_ 16, various eeds, especially the Geranium pratense; in every case you have an approxiestion But how s? I will show you, taking for an exa so, I trust that nothing that I say will be thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect of the building in question will forgive ood example of the style that I think itwere a bad one of the kind, it would not be a fair instance; and I hope, therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the Mound, just in progress, I shall be understood asrather a compliment to its architect than otherwise It is not his fault that we force hi to the orthodox practice in modern architecture, theare at the very top of it, just under its gutter You cannot see them in a dark day, and perhaps may never, to this hour, have noticed them at all But there they are: sixty-six finished heads of lions, all exactly the same; and, therefore, I suppose, executed on some noble Greek type, too noble to allow anyupon it But whether executed on a Greek type or no, it is to be presumed that, as there are sixty-six of the as that which is to contain your school of design, and which is the principal example of the Athenian style inespecially ad your most attentive conteht have a fair opportunity of esti a sketch of a real lion's head to compare with them, and my friend Mr Millais kindly offered to draw both the one and the other for ical collection; and it being, as you are probably aware, the first principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, as well as essential toshould be ed to be content with a tiger's head, which, however, will answeryou to compare a piece of true, faithful, and natural ith modern architectural sculpture Here, in the first place, is Mr Millais'
drawing fro_ 17, frontispiece) I have not the least fear but that you will at once acknowledge its truth and feel its power Prepare yourselves next for the Grecian sublimity of the _ideal_ beast, fro_ 18)
43 Noe call ourselves civilized and refined in matters of art, but I assure you it is seldorotesques of the inferior Gothic work so contemptible as this head can be ever found _They_ only sink into such a failure accidentally, and in a single instance; and we, in our civilization, repeat this noble piece of work threescore and six tiood! Do not think Mr Millais has caricatured it It is draith the strictest fidelity; photograph one of the heads to-raph tell you the saine that this is an unusual example of modern work Your banks and public offices are covered with ideal lions' heads in every direction, and you will find them all just as bad as this And, farther, note that the admission of such barbarous types of sculpture is not _merely_ ridiculous; it is seriously har truth or beauty of any kind or at any ti such representations of a lion's head as this thrust upon theht be produced upon them if, instead of this barren and insipid absurdity, every boss on your buildings were, according to the work of the for anies of natural history And, finally, consider the difference, with respect to thekept all his life carving, by sixties, and forties, and thirties, repetitions of one false and futilesent, for every piece of work he had to execute, tocreature of God
[Illustration: PLATE XI (Fig 17, Fig 18)]
44 And this last consideration enables rounds than I have done yet
I have hitherto appealed only to your national pride, or to your common sense; but surely I should treat a Scottish audience with indignity if I appealed not finally to soious principles