Sir George Gilbert Scott

“ I am, however, only urging this as a claim which our old architecture has upon our own study. If we investigate the architecture of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Persia, we find that it tells of races with whom we have no national or personal sympathy. If we go to the classic shores of Greece, though there we should be viewing the work of a race whose arts and literature are, more than those of any other people, the property of the world, we nevertheless fail to find anything to connect them in any special sense with ourselves. ”

“ It would be unjust to father the contemptible and endless fallacies of our own day upon Classic architecture. It is true that they pervade and saturate many of the modern productions of that style, and that the revival of Gothic architecture has somehow led to their exposure; but the truthfulness which we are proud to claim as one of its great and leading stars, we freely yield as the property, not of one style, but of all noble architecture. ”

“ Their great point of difference is that the choir of one has been vaulted, and that of the other has shown its timber roof; but in glorious architecture they are equal, and almost unequalled. As you go from York to Whitby you pass a small fragment of the Abbey of Kirkham: stop and look at it: small as it is, it is one of the best designed pieces of work I ever saw. If from Whitby you cross the moors to Guisborough, you will see what was probably the work of the very end of the century—the stupendous east end of that abbey, with its east window exceeding even that at Lincoln in height. ”

“ Nor are its later portions unworthy of your study: its brick chimneys have a beauty about them which modern architects have striven in vain to emulate; the half-timber gable fronts are models of timber construction; within there are remnants of oak panelled ceilings, of wall linings, of doors perhaps with moulded oak door-cases, of simple but well-designed chimney-piers, and all sorts of little odds and ends, all worthy of being carefully and minutely noted, whatever may be their age; for our old house architecture is often most valuably suggestive, even down to very late periods. ”

“ Every necessity becomes a motive of decoration. The roofs, the leading off of the water, the introduction of light, the means of access and circulation to the different stages of the building—even less important matters, such as iron-work, lead-work, ties, props, the means of warming and ventilation, not only are not concealed, as is so often done in our buildings since the sixteenth century, but are, on the contrary, frankly acknowledged, and contribute, by their ingenious combination and the taste which ever presides over their execution, to the enrichment of the architecture. ”

“ Strongly as I appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the monuments of classic antiquity, and the merits of very many works of the Revival, I should doubt whether it were possible for any unsophisticated youth, before studying their architecture as a science, to entertain towards its productions in this country any feelings bordering upon real affection. He may see in them much to admire—much to lead him to study the art which has produced them; and this study will, no doubt, often kindle those warmer feelings which ripen into love. ”

“ I will not, however, weary you with barren bills of fare and outline tours, but will content myself with saying that the same course of close all-gathering study must be followed up wherever you go, whether making a tour of village churches or of the great northern abbeys, or seating yourselves down before a majestic cathedral.
Architecture properly so called, wood-work, metal-work, decorations, stained glass, and every form of art and workmanship, must be studied as if you had to perform like work for yourselves; and you must make yourselves perfect masters of it in every way ”

“ On the other hand, it is necessary that the exercise of this zeal, heartiness, and veneration, should be regulated by sound and discriminating judgment,—a perfect and unfettered freedom of thought, and an eye to real beauty of form and reasonableness of construction and design; so that our generous enthusiasm may not betray us into forming erroneous judgments.
However perfect a style of art may be, its productions are not all perfect nor all of equal merit; while every human art has had its period of rise, culmination, and decline ”

“ I now come to the manner in which Mediæval architecture should be studied.
In the first place, though books and prints are very useful in their degree, let me impress upon you, in the strongest manner, that all real study should be at the fountain head. You may derive information as to the history of art from books, but knowledge of art itself must be derived from works of art. The knowledge derived from books and prints comes to you at second hand—you are seeing through other men’s eyes ”

“ Why, then, should we imagine that because our ideas of family comfort are more perfect than in the days of our forefathers, the style of architecture which they so successfully applied to purposes differing so widely one from another will refuse to accommodate itself to a more complete form of one of the same purposes? Yet people continually tell us that Gothic architecture is feudal and monkish! ”

“ We love Gothic architecture in the first instance, not because of the buildings we have heard of or seen pictures of as existing in foreign countries, but from those which we see around us—our own village churches, our own cathedrals, and a hundred objects which we have known from our childhood. From these we learn the native language of the art, and it behoves us to pursue the study of that language, and to perfect ourselves in it, before we turn our attention to foreign dialects, even though they may be of older date than our own. ”

“ The capitals which prevailed during this century form the most magnificent series which any style of architecture can boast. Whether the foliage is natural, conventional, or both united, the artistic power evinced is truly delightful; and when it is recollected that no two capitals are ever found exactly alike, the fertility of invention they display is perfectly wonderful. ”

“ Firstly, that, though we are in the habit of considering it antiquated, it is in fact the architecture of the modern as distinguished from the ancient world—that, just as the architecture of the earlier half of the world’s history culminated in that of Greece, which must ever be viewed as its most perfect and most glorious representative, so did the indigenous architecture of the newer world reach its culminating point in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries among the nations of Western Europe—the depositaries of a new civilisation. ”

“ Nor was it to architecture alone that the arts of the period were devoted: we find the same art expended on stained glass, on metal-work of all sorts, on enamels of the most magnificent character, on the illumination of manuscripts, the painted decoration of the buildings, on jewellery, on ivory-carving, on embroidery, on{204} woven fabrics, tapestry, seal-engraving—in fact, on every branch of decoration; every one of which arts were carried out with a degree of skill and instinctive taste truly amazing. ”

“ The arch, its normal feature, supplies to it an endless store of beauty. The vault supplies another inexhaustible fund, and assumes forms unrivalled in any other style. The window, comparatively neglected by the ancient architects, and even hated by the Greeks, was, in the hands of the Gothic builders, a perfect treasury of architectural loveliness; and the introduction of window-glass, an invention nearly unknown to the ancients, became the source of an entirely new and most enchanting art, and one which exercised the most surprising influence upon architecture. ”

“ It seems necessary that it should not be a country already so thoroughly provided with noble churches as to preclude the probability of a great architectural movement, nor one which had already made so determined an effort in perfecting its national style as to have become too much enamoured of its successes to be in a position to strike out boldly in a new line: indeed, it should be a people of so active a spirit, and with so strong a tendency to progress and to change, as to render it improbable that they should ever settle down in quiet contentment with their own attainments. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the principle is pre-eminently in harmony with the genius of Gothic architecture; more so, probably, than with any other; and if those who think it a vice desire to saddle it exclusively on our style, they cannot complain if we, who hold it to be a virtue, at the least, claim for that style the lion’s share of the credit. ”

“ The Corinthian capital stood alone among the details of ancient architecture, as being founded on principles of beauty common to all ages. It was foreshadowed in the works of their earliest predecessors, the Egyptians, and had suggested the forms for the capitals used in all succeeding styles, whether by the Byzantines, the Sassanians, the Saracens, or the Gothic conquerors of Rome. It was, then, consistent that, while about to purge their arts of mere dead rudimental relics of ancient art, this one feature should be revived as a nucleus for development. ”

“ The facilities it offers are quite marvellous in the eyes of the modern practical man when once they are opened to them. I have myself found one of the most practical men I ever met with, who had for years taken the leading management of the business of the greatest builder of our day, though hitherto uninitiated in Gothic construction, almost in ecstasies at finding a difficult problem in vaulting he had been puzzled over for days and making models of in vain, solved in an instant by seeing the absolute liberty of action exercised in a similar case in Westminster Abbey. ”

“ I fear that we older architects shall not succeed, but we may claim aid of you who have better opportunities; and I would, as a help, suggest a course of study from the finest and purest Greek side by side with the best Gothic sculpture, endeavouring to unite their qualities, and to add to them what is to be gathered from the study of nature—not only the usual study of the human figure, but rather the importing into sculpture touches of nature and fact as they come before us. ”

“ In variety of expression Gothic architecture is excelled by none, being equally capable of the sternest and most majestic severity, and the most exquisite and refined elegance, as well as of all the intermediate varieties.{26}
In beauty of external outline no other style of architecture approaches it; and in the variety, depth, and refined delicacy of the profiles of its mouldings it stands unrivalled. Time would fail me to tell of the wonderful manner in which our style shapes itself to every accidental requirement; grapples with every difficulty, and converts it into a source of beauty ”

“ I believe that most of those we see in modern works are pure inventions for the sake of novelty and apparent cleverness. The little stumpy columns with gigantic capitals, and all the thousand-and-one pieces of quirkiness which one sees, are things which, I confess, I have rarely if ever found in old work in any country or of any period. We have really become so French of late, in our own imagination, that no Frenchman would recognise his native style as seen in our exaggerations of it. ”

“ Sometimes, indeed, we find them rejoicing so much in their freedom as to set themselves needless puzzles for the very luxury of solving them. There is a most remarkable instance of this in the crypt under Glasgow Cathedral, where the pillars which support the floor have been placed in a variety of intricate positions for no reason, apparently, but to produce curious perplexities in the vaulting and create strange problems, for the mere pleasure to be derived from their solution and the beauty of the puzzle when solved. ”

“ Now, it is scarcely possible for a building of the Middle Ages and one for a kindred purpose at the present day to differ more widely in their requirements than did different buildings of the same age; and if the most varied demands of one period are equally met by a given style, why should we fear that the same style would fail to meet variations proceeding from a change of manners and habits? ”

“ It is absolutely necessary, too, that you should understand and be familiar with all the varieties of our old architecture, because, though you may not follow them in your own works, you may be frequently called upon to restore them, though this reason is hardly necessary to lead you to master the whole range of Mediæval art.
Still, however, you cannot choose but follow more lovingly the works of the periods which most approve themselves to your minds as the days when art was the most vigorous, noble, and full of deep and true sentiment. ”

“ And let us not imagine that the architecture of the age developed itself only in cathedrals, abbeys, or churches of any kind; all other buildings evince the same spirit: a barn of the thirteenth century shows the nobleness of the pervading style as clearly as even the cathedral itself, and what remains of their domestic architecture tells the same tale. Everything was done well, in good taste, and in accordance with reasonable and practical requirements and the means at command. ”

“ But this is a very different feeling from that deep and filial affection which many a youth, untaught in art, but gifted by nature with a perception of its beauties, has entertained from his tenderest years towards the old churches of his neighbourhood,{3} and which has impelled him to walk from village to village, not only under the balmy influences of summer, but along muddy roads or snowy paths, and, with glowing heart but shivering hand, to sketch the humble porch, the unaspiring steeple, and the mutilated though venerable monument, with feelings of indescribable delight. ”

“ I did not follow out the history of Gothic architecture in its succeeding stages, as my object was rather moral than merely historical, and I desired rather to exhibit the glorious earnestness of a people, who, while developing a new civilisation, pressed ardently forward,{292} side by side with it, the generation of a new style of architecture, than to give a history of the successive changes through which that architecture passed. ”