J. Alfred Gotch

“ Another picturesque but, strictly speaking, intolerable effort at design is to be seen at The Martins, Chipping Campden (Fig. 261) . The great truncated corner pilaster, the porch with its cornice running into the window, can be defended on no grounds save that there they are. But so imperfect is our nature that this bit of haphazard composition gives more pleasure than many a more correct attempt at design; a pleasure allied, perhaps, to that cynical satisfaction we experience in watching shortcomings in our friends from which we ourselves are free. ”

“ In the interior there is a fine saloon (Fig. 180) , which recalls Campbell’s stone hall at Houghton. Its variety of treatment is in strong contrast to the cold-looking hall which contains the staircase (Fig. 181) . Both these apartments have the defect of their qualities. There is so much architecture that there is scarcely room for those homely touches which endear a house to its occupants. The architect is more in evidence than the family. The splendour which stimulates the admiration of the stranger palls upon the eye that sees it daily; the feelings cease to answer to the stimulus. ”

“ He mentions no collection of drawings (as did John Webb) nor any books. On the face of it he can hardly be considered a wealthy man at his death. A really exhaustive account of his life has yet to be written; one which shall be free from the undemonstrable attribution of work to him; free from baseless eulogy on the one hand and detraction on the other; one which shall fairly balance tradition and evidence; which shall take account of him as an artist and scene-painter, as a surveyor dealing from day to day with prosaic details, and as an architectural designer. ”

“ The new St Paul’s is one of the finest and most impressive buildings of its kind in Europe; its dome is unrivalled for purity of outline and aptness of composition. How did a man, who had no practical acquaintance with architecture until he was thirty years old, conceive such a masterpiece within a few years from that time? Probably nobody but Wren could have done it: he had an extraordinary aptitude for mastering any subject to which he turned his attention. ”

“ Since the beginning of the eighteenth century the course of domestic architecture has been conditioned partly by the nation becoming too large and complex to admit of a single expression in national architecture; partly by the tendency, common to all the arts, for ideas to pass into excess in one direction and into tenuity in the other. A wider outlook over the civilised world, a greater knowledge of the achievements of foreign countries, led inevitably to the disappearance of a truly national style, such as that which we call Gothic. ”

“ Although the whole of Vanbrugh’s design was not carried out the house is of great size and of palatial magnificence (Fig. 150) . Indeed no modern person can be incessantly as grand as the grandeur of the building demands. It requires innumerable servants to keep it in order, innumerable guests to make it cheerful. It involves a great drain upon the owner’s resources, both of temperament and of purse, to fill it with enough people to prevent its being dull, and to maintain it in suitable repair and tidiness. ”

“ But the shafts are fashioned into classic pilasters; the cornice not only breaks round them, but jumps up to make way for a door. The traceried windows have a novel disposition of curves, and the rose window is not a mere travesty of ancient methods, but has a vigorous individuality of its own, and is set in a classic framework. The whole work is consistent throughout, and the detail is refined and carefully handled. It is the successful attempt of a clever designer to solve old problems in new ways, and it is a pity that neither his name nor any other work from his hand is known. ”

“ In making the circuit of its walls, the visitor knows exactly what he is likely to find. The appeal is to narrower sympathies than of old, to sympathies which spring from an acquired feeling for proportion, and are not merely roused by quaint personal incidents attractive to all alike, whether trained in architecture or not. The dignified effect is produced by the stone base, the proportion of the windows in relation to the wall space, and the bold cornice at the eaves. The chimneys are symmetrically placed, but they have had no design worthy of the name bestowed upon them. ”

“ Vanbrugh’s houses may be taken as the highest manifestation of the spirit of the age in house building; the exaltation of social grandeur, the scenic magnificence of architecture. That they rather missed the mark in respect of comfort and convenience, as we understand those qualities, was not held to be a great drawback. ”

“ In due course will come the great homes of the great nobles of William and Mary, of Anne and the Georges; homes which express in a vivid way the social distinctions of the times, and indicate the vast interval which lay between the duke and the merchant—more particularly in the opinion of the duke. It was at this period that domestic architecture reached the zenith of its splendour, aided, as it was, not only by the patronage of noblemen like Lord Burlington, but by their participation in the work of design. ”

“ To us the architect is the individual who not only provides the plan, not only puts into practicable form the ideas of the employer, but also designs most of the details. He not only informs the various artificers that particular work is required in particular places, but he also provides them with drawings showing what the work is to be, and how it is to be fashioned. ”

“ But all through the eighteenth century the artificiality which marks much of its sentiment becomes every now and then apparent in its houses and their lay outs, wherein are sometimes to be found manufactured ruins and strange attempts at Gothic temples. Yet always is perceptible an earnest attempt at design. If in architecture itself the sense of design became somewhat dulled, it was still acute in the smaller matters of decoration, of furniture, and of articles for household use ”

“ It was not until they were published that the public generally knew anything about them, and it was accordingly not till then that they affected architectural design. Walpole makes this quite clear: “It was in this reign,” he says—that of George II.—“that architecture resumed all her rights. Noble publications of Palladio, Jones, and the antique recalled her to true principles and correct taste; she found men of genius to execute her rules, and patrons to countenance their labours.” ”

“ In all designing of ornament one must first design the ground plain as it is for use, and then adorn and compose it with decorum according to its use. To say true, all this composed ornament resulting from abundance of design, such as was brought in by Michael Angelo and his followers, does not in my opinion suit solid architecture but is more appropriate to gardens, the ornaments of chimneys, friezes and the inside of houses, where such things must of necessity be used. ”

“ It is rather to the great nobles, or at least to aristocratic and wealthy families, that we owe the most notable specimens of domestic architecture of the time. At this period the gulf between the upper and lower classes was wide and deep: its widening was perhaps one of the reactions from the conditions of the Commonwealth when many persons of humble origin fought their way to eminence. The distance between the heads of a great household and their retainers had been increasing all through the century; the increase has already been indicated in the type of plan adopted by Jones and Webb. ”

“ A house in St James’s Square (Fig. 193) and another in Portland Place (Fig. 194) are characteristic examples of his work. At first sight they appear insipid, and might easily escape the eye; but when the attention is once caught it is arrested by the detail which appeals to the cultivated taste; the intellect is charmed with the extreme care bestowed upon every part of the ornament, or rather, considering the enormous amount of work which occupied Adam’s time, by the wonderful intuition which produced such harmonious results.
Fig. 196.—Doorway in Mansfield Street, London. ”

“ The value of a critic’s opinion obviously depends upon that uncertain factor—the ability and equipment of the critic for his task, and although the opinion of a competent critic will always count for much, it cannot count for so much as direct evidence. The evidence in this case consists of allusions in contemporary letters, not very numerous or helpful; of architectural drawings by Jones, which are helpful but not numerous; and of the testimony of Webb, who was in the best position to know what his master actually designed. ”

“ But bearing this state of things in mind, it will be more readily understood that the influence of the king in relation to architecture, for instance, would be very considerable; vastly more so than the influence of any individual in the present day. Charles was a man of culture, and without crediting him with an intimate knowledge of architectural design, we may well believe that he would foster the growth of a refined and scholarly version of the style at which English designers had been aiming for many years. ”

“ It is at least doubtful whether the designer of the lower part, which is the original Gothic work, would have been satisfied with Wren’s completion. The scale is different, the detail is different; the whole conception is out of harmony with Gothic ideas. Yet it is still less allied to anything classic; the fact is that Wren was working in a style which he did not understand, and which he frankly disliked. We get much nearer to the heart of the man by studying another aspect of his work at Oxford, his drawings preserved in the library at All Souls. ”

“ Nothing illustrates this change more aptly than a comparison between Smithson’s drawings and those of Inigo Jones and John Webb. The first are Jacobean, the second are classic. In the Jacobean are seen efforts to sever the ties which ancient traditions still imposed; a striving after Italian detail, which was never thoroughly achieved; a mixture of a little old-fashioned romance, with a little new-fashioned learning. In the classic are seen an ignoring of tradition; a mastery of Italian methods; a mixture of sound knowledge with a feeling for good proportion. ”

“ Stateliness, not homeliness, was now the keynote. The nobleman stood on a pedestal of grandeur, round which his dependants grouped themselves as best they could, and among them struggled the parson, the poet, and the man of letters. The glorification of the individual found expression in his house and his gardens which were all designed with theatric magnificence. ”

“ It is evident that here, at any rate, more rooms have fireplaces than those at the ends of the house. There is another house at Oxford, in the High Street (Fig. 203) , of a later date, which is quite admirable in its simplicity and careful proportions, and the front is relieved from baldness by the slight projections at each end. Compared with the more famous pieces of architecture by which it is surrounded, this house is insignificant, and may well escape the attention it deserves. ”

“ But although we may perhaps see in the books of the sixteenth century the genesis of our own English architectural publications, their immediate interest lies in the fact that whatever was published about the beginning of the seventeenth century dealt with classic architecture, and that anyone who sought in books for information about building, found nothing about the old Gothic detail, but only instructions how to design in the classic style. ”

“ Castle Howard was a private undertaking. Immense though it was—its total length was to have been 660 ft. had both its courts been built—it was exceeded in size by the palace of Blenheim, which was a national monument to the glory of the British arms, although actually a gift to the Duke of Marlborough. Here Vanbrugh must have been in his element. There was presumably to be no unreasonable limit to the cost; the result was to be monumental. Convenience of arrangement, internal effect, the amenities of daily life were minor considerations. ”

“ His advice to persons contemplating building, that they should employ an architect and should not be constantly interfering with him, is undoubtedly sound: and one reason advanced for employing an architect, namely, that “the several Master-workmen may receive instructions by way of Draughts, Models, Frames, etc.,” is interesting as showing that architects were now accustomed to provide more minute details than in the time of Elizabeth and James. ”

“ The general proportion, the size and shape of the windows, and the shadow of the eaves will be found on examination to be the chief causes of the pleasure which many of the old houses arouse.
The past has not only its suggestions, but also its warnings, and of these the most obvious is against the impairing of comfort and convenience for the sake of appearance. The first canon of utilitarian art is that an object should answer its purpose well. ”

“ From a practical standpoint the corridors are too many and are out of all proportion to the rooms they serve. There are indeed no rooms of a size commensurate with the outside grandeur; most of them appear small and narrow, their height is as great as their width (Fig. 152) , and this must have tended, before the introduction of modern heating, to make them cold. The finest apartment is the hall (Fig. 151) , so large and lofty as to occupy an undue proportion of space compared with what is devoted to domestic use. ”

“ The pursuit of the most technical and utilitarian of the arts was thus taken up by amateurs. Wren himself was an amateur when he first began to design. His chief, Sir John Denham, was reckoned by Evelyn “a better poet than architect,” but to do Sir John justice, he does not appear to have advanced a claim to be an architect of any kind. Evelyn was a patron of the arts, and especially of architecture, about which he wrote a book. After him, in the eighteenth century, came Lord Burlington, the most distinguished patron of architecture of that age. ”

“ On the one hand the homes [394] of the wealthy grew in splendour and in fidelity to theories of architecture expounded in books, with the result that use and convenience were largely subordinated to grandiose effects. On the other hand, richness of architectural thought declined in smaller houses through the stages of dignity and comfort down either to a consistent plainness of character or one only marked by individual caprice. ”

“ It had become a fashionable resort early in the eighteenth century, largely owing to the exertions of Beau Nash, and it is a fortunate circumstance that when it had to expand there was so accomplished a man as John Wood on the spot to control the expansion. He it was who first designed streets and squares and rows of houses as definite architectural conceptions. There is much to be said for this idea, especially when the work is new and the design still retains the colour and disposition intended by the architect, and while the buildings are occupied for the purposes for which they were built. ”

“ There grandeur itself was homely. The difference cannot be attributed to increase in size; the absence of homeliness springs not even from the inevitable difference between a palace and a manor house. It is inherent in the changed views prevalent both as to life and as to architecture. ”

“ The ironwork of the early eighteenth century is one of its most remarkable productions. In England ironwork design seems to have burst suddenly into full splendour, without any gradual preparation. There are no elaborate specimens to be found throughout the seventeenth century until its close, nor are there any drawings by Thorpe, Smithson, Jones, or Webb, which lead one to suppose that they treated ironwork in any but the simplest way. ”

“ The brothers Adam, who were busy during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, have given their name to a particular style of decoration, marked by much delicacy and refinement, but they did nothing of first-rate importance in architecture itself, nothing that set men building in a fresh way. ”