T. Roger Smith

“ Design in Renaissance buildings may be said to be directed towards producing a telling result by the effect of the buildings taken as a whole, rather than by the intricacy or the beauty of individual parts; and herein lies one of the great contrasts between Renaissance and Gothic architecture. A Renaissance building which fails to produce an impression as a whole is rarely felt to be successful. No better example of this can be given than the straggling, unsatisfactory Palace of Versailles, magnificent as it is in dimensions and rich in treatment. ”

“ The cathedral [Pg 98] is built of stone, without much variation in colour; it is vaulted throughout, and a forest of flying buttresses surrounds it on all sides. The beauty of the tracery, the magnificent boldness of the scale of the whole building, and its orderly regularity, are very imposing, and give it a high rank among the greatest works of European architecture; but it is almost too majestic to be lovely, and somewhat cold and uninteresting from its uniform colour, and perhaps from its great regularity. ”

“ French fifteenth century architecture, or third pointed, is far from being so dignified or so scientific as English perpendicular, and differs from it considerably. Exuberant richness in decoration was the rage, and shows itself both in sculpture, tracery, and general design. Much of the later work of this period has received the name of flamboyant, because of the flame-like shapes into which the tracery of the heads of windows was thrown. In flamboyant buildings we often meet with art which, though certainly over-florid, is brilliant, rich, and full of true feeling for decoration. ”

“ A building with no irregularities, none of those charming additions which add individual character to Gothic churches, and none of the isolated features which the principle of subordination permits the architect to employ, has missed one of the chief qualities of the style. It is here that unskilled architects mostly fail when they attempt Gothic designs; they either hold on to symmetry as though they were designing a Greek temple, and they are unaware that the spirit of the style in which they are trying to work not only permits, but requires some irregular features ”

“ Renaissance architecture is so familiar in its general features, and these have been so constantly repeated, that we may not easily recognise the great need for skill and taste which exists if they are to be designed so as to produce the most refined effect possible. Many of the successful buildings of the style owe their excellence to the great delicacy and elegance of the mode in which the details have been studied, rather than to the vigour and boldness with which the masses have been shaped and disposed ”

“ Some of the characteristics of German Gothic design have been already alluded to. The German architects display an exuberant fancy, a great love of the picturesque, and even the grotesque, and a strong predilection for creating artificial difficulties in order to enjoy the pleasure of surmounting them. Their work is full of unrest; they attach small value to the artistic quality of breadth, and destroy the value of the plain surfaces of their buildings as contrasts to the openings, by cutting them up by mouldings and enrichments of various sorts. ”

“ Outside the great central space, an aisle, not quite like the ordinary aisle of a church, exists, and there are two side chapels. It can be well understood that if the largest church in Christendom is divided into so few parts, these must be themselves of colossal dimensions, and the truth is that the piers are masses of masonry which can be called nothing else than vast, while the spaces spanned by the arches and vaults are prodigious. ”

“ No secular building exists in Rome so early or so simple as the severe Florentine palaces; but Bramante, who belongs to the early period, erected there the fine Cancelleria palace; and the Palazzo Giraud (Fig. 66) . These buildings resemble one another very closely; each bears the impress of refined taste, but delicacy has been carried almost to timidity. The pilasters and cornices which are employed have the very slightest projection, but the large mass of the wall as compared with the openings, secures an appearance of solidity, and hence of dignity. ”

“ Proportion plays an important part in the design of Renaissance buildings. The actual shape of openings, the proportion which they bear to voids, the proportion of storeys to one another; and, going into details, the proportions which the different features—e.g., cornice, and the columns supporting it—should bear to one another, have to be carefully studied. It is to the possession of a keen sense of what makes a pleasing proportion and one satisfactory to the eye, that the great architects of Italy owed the greater part of their success. ”

“ THE architecture of Germany, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, can be divided into an early, a middle, and a late period, with tolerable distinctness. Of these, the early period possesses the greatest interest, and the peculiarities of its buildings are the most marked and most beautiful. In the middle period, German Gothic bore a very close general resemblance to the Gothic of the same time in France; and, as a rule, such points of difference as exist are not in favour of the German work. Late Gothic work in Germany is very fantastic and unattractive. ”

“ The finest architectural work left behind by Palladio in this city are, however, the great arcades with which he surrounded the Basilica, a vast building of the middle ages already alluded to. These arcades are two storeys high, and are rich, yet vigorous; they ornament the great structure, the roof of which may be seen rising behind, without overpowering it. ”

“ Even in the interiors of great churches which, as a rule, are far more regular than the exteriors, the contrast between the comparative plainness of the nave and the richness of the choir was an essential element of design.
External design in Gothic buildings depends almost entirely upon contrast for its power of charming the eye, and it is this circumstance which has left the successive generations of men who toiled at our great Gothic cathedrals so free to follow the bent of their own taste in their additions, rather than that of their forerunners. ”

“ In roofs, including vaults and domes, we meet with a divergence of practice between Italy and France. In Italy low-pitched roofs were the rule: the parapet alone often formed the sky-line, and the dome and pediment are usually the only telling features of the outline. France, on the other hand, revived a most picturesque feature of Gothic days, namely, the high-pitched roof, employing it in the shape commonly known as the Mansard [30] roof. Nothing adds more to the effectiveness of the great French Renaissance buildings than these lofty terminals. ”

“ The student who desires to obtain anything beyond the most superficial acquaintance with architecture must endeavour to obtain enough familiarity with ground plans, to be able to sketch, measure, and lay down a plan to scale and to read one. The plan shows to the experienced architect the nature, arrangement, and qualities of a building better than any other drawing, and a better memorandum of a building is preserved if a fairly correct sketch of its plan, or of the plan of important parts of it, is preserved than if written notes are alone relied upon. ”

“ This is completely in contrast to the Gothic principle of displaying frankly on the outside the arrangement of what is within; but it must be remembered that art often works most happily and successfully when limited by apparently strict and difficult conditions, and these rules have not prevented the great architects of the Renaissance from accomplishing works where both the exterior and the interior are thoroughly successful, and are brought into such happy harmony that the difficulties have clearly been no bar to success. ”

“ It was not uncommon to cover doorways with a lintel, the whole being under an archway; this left a space above the head of the door which was occupied by carving often of great beauty. Ornamental gables are often formed over the entrances of churches, and are richly sculptured; but though beautiful, these features rarely attained magnificence. The most remarkable entrance to an English cathedral is the west portal of Peterborough—a composition of lofty and richly moulded arches built in front of the original west wall. ”

“ The gables are crowned by a deep and heavy cornice of moulded brick and the openings are grouped with but little skill. Individually, however, the features of this front are very beautiful, and the great wheel-window, full of tracery, and the two-light windows flanking it, may be quoted as remarkable specimens of the ornamental elaboration which can be accomplished in brickwork.
The campanile of this church, like the one just described, is a plain square tower. It rises by successive stages, each taller than the last, each stage being marked by a rich brick cornice. ”

“ Apparent size was imparted to almost every Gothic building by the smallness, great number, and variety of its features, and by the small size of the stones employed. The effect of strength is generally, though not perhaps so uniformly, also obtained, and dignity, beauty, and harmony are rarely wanting.
Symmetry, though not altogether overlooked, has but a slender hold upon Gothic architects. It is far more observed in the interior than in the exterior of the buildings ”

“ Buildings of pure Renaissance architecture, anterior to the nineteenth century, are scarce in Germany, or indeed in North-east Europe; but a transitional style, resembling our own Elizabethan, grew up and long held its ground, so that many picturesque buildings can be met with, of which the design indicates a fusion of the ideas and features of Gothic with those of classic art. ”

“ On the other hand the subordination of a multitude of small features to one dominant one enters largely into the design of every good Gothic building; with the result that if the great governing feature or mass has been carried out in its entirety, almost any feature, no matter how irregular or unsymmetrical, may be safely introduced, and will only add picturesqueness and piquancy to the design. ”

“ Sculpture is employed to adorn every part that is near the eye, and especially the portal, which is flanked by pilasters with their faces panelled and occupied by splendid alti relievi. The upper part is enriched by inlays of costly marbles, but the two systems of decoration do not thoroughly harmonise; for the upper half looks coarse, which it in reality is not, in contrast with the delicate richness of the carving near the eye. ”

“ The finest Roman palace is the [Pg 180] Farnese, begun by San Gallo in 1530, continued by Michelangelo, and completed by Giacomo della Porta, each architect having altered the design. This building, notwithstanding its chequered history, is a dignified, impressive mass. It has only three storeys and a scarcely marked basement, and is nearly square, with a large quadrangle in its heart. It is very lofty, and has a great height of unpierced wall over each storey of windows, and is crowned by a bold and highly-enriched cornice—an unusual thing for Rome. ”

“ Mouldings play a prominent part in Gothic architecture, and from the first to the last they varied so constantly that their profiles and grouping may be constantly made use of as a kind of architectural calendar, to point out the time, to within a few years, when the building in which they occur was erected.
A moulding is the architect’s means of drawing a line on his building. If he desires to mark on the exterior the position of an internal floor, or in any other way to suggest a division into storeys, a moulded string-course is introduced. ”

“ Repetition, like symmetry, is recognised by Gothic architecture, but not adhered to in a rigid way. No buildings gain more from the repetition of parts than Gothic churches and cathedrals; the series of pillars or [Pg 149] piers and arches inside, the series of buttresses and windows outside, add scale to the general effect. But so long as it was in the main a series of features which broadly resembled one another, the Gothic architect was satisfied, and did not feel bound to exact repetition. ”

“ The columns and piers of a building virtually form portions of its walls, so far as aiding to support the weight of the roof is concerned, and are appropriately considered in connection with them. In Gothic architecture very little use is made of columns on the outside of a building, and the porticoes and external rows of columns proper to the classic styles are quite unknown. On the other hand the series of piers, or columns, from which spring the arches which separate the central avenues of nave, transepts and choir from the aisles, are among the most prominent features in every church. ”

“ The tracery became towards the latter part of the time intricate and unmeaning, and the interpenetrating mouldings already described, though of course intended to be ornamental, are more perplexing and confusing than pleasing: the carving exaggerates the natural markings of the foliage represented, and being thin, and very boldly undercut, resembles leaves beaten out in metal, rather than foliage happily and easily imitated in stone, which is what good architectural carving should be. ”