W. H. Leeds

“ So far from being unæsthetic, it possesses much that recommends it artistically, for it gives colour, and produces richness of surface where there would else be blankness. A wall whose face is so decorated forms an admirable ground to columns or pilasters, which it serves to relieve very effectively, as is exemplified in the screen façade of Dover House, that little architectural gem by Holland, which, though by no means faultless, has more of genuine artistic quality than any other building of its time in the whole Metropolis. ”

“ We do not find any thing like such marked streakings on columns even in this rainy English climate of ours; much less would they have been at all visible in such a climate as that of Greece. Others have supposed that these channels were at first intended to hold spears! that is, to prevent them from slipping and falling down when set up against a column; than which idea it is hardly possible for the utmost stretch of ingenuity to go farther in absurdity. ”

“ It is not possible to have precise rules for every thing, neither is it desirable; for if every thing in it could be done by rule, Architecture would forfeit its nature as one of the Fine Arts, and be reduced to a merely mechanical one. ”

“ We, who are less ambitious, content ourselves with supposing that the fluting of columns was introduced and adopted principally for the sake of effect. If other motives for doing so existed, we know them not, nor need we care, since study of effect alone suffices to account for such mode of decoration. By multiplying its surfaces, it gives variety to the shaft of the column, and prevents it from showing as a mere mass. ”

“ For a pediment, however, such form would be truly monstrous; and yet even the equilateral triangle, or even one of still loftier pitch, may, under some circumstances, become a pleasing architectural form, as we may perceive from pyramids and Gothic gables. How, then, is this seeming inconsistency or contradiction to be explained? It explains itself, if we merely reflect, as we ought to do, that in architecture, forms and proportions are beautiful not positively but only relatively. ”

“ But we cannot enter into such niceties in a mere rudimentary work. Even in the best Roman and modern examples, the volutes are decidedly inferior to Greek, being comparatively tame and meagre, yet coarse also. Italian Architects have sometimes made them so small and insignificant that they give scarcely any character to the capital, or render it distinguishable, at a little distance, from the Doric, its general mass being no greater. ”

“ Although this little treatise is limited to the consideration of Ancient and Classic Architecture, we may be allowed to explain briefly what is to be understood by Architecture in its quality of one of the so-called Fine Arts, if only to guard against confused and erroneous notions and misconceptions. It will therefore not be deemed superfluous to state that there is a wide difference between Building and Architecture,—one which is apparently so very obvious that it is difficult to conceive how it can have been overlooked, as it generally has been, by those who have written upon the subject. ”

“ Infinitely more correct and rational would it be to say that architecture is building greatly refined upon,—elevated to the rank of art by being treated æsthetically, that is to say, artistically. In short, architecture is building with something more than a view to mere utility and convenience ”

“ His English copyist has therefore sufficient authority for it,—not so, Sansovino himself: whence, then, did he get his precedent? Well, he dispensed with precedent, and using the privilege of a Master in his Art, ventured beyond its written rules and conventionalities,—ventured where he might have failed, and exposed himself to derision,—but succeeded, and has been crowned by applause. In Art, as in other things, success sanctifies enterprize: if you fail, the world calls you a madman or fool; if you succeed, it bows down to you as a genius. ”

“ Frieze.—The middle one of the three divisions of an entablature. It derives its name from the Italian Fregio, ornament, as being that part of the entablature especially appropriate for sculptural embellishment, yet, in contradiction to such signification, the frieze is all but invariably made a mere plain surface by Modern Architects; except the Order employed happens to be Doric, and then triglyphs are introduced as matter of course, but the metopes left blank, even though ornateness is studied in other respects, and in parts not comprehended in the Order itself. ”

“ No excellence of proportions can atone for disproportion in regard to consistency of embellishment, and for the general disharmony of the whole composition. Italian Architects not unfrequently either overload their compositions with ornament, or leave them quite bare, and make no scruple of putting a cornice of the most meagre description, without either dentels or modillions, to an Order whose capitals denote it to be intended for Ionic or Corinthian. ”

“ Between several examples, all decidedly referable to one and the same Order, very great special differences occur, and there might easily be a very great many more. Although the capital itself is indispensable, it is so only æsthetically, and not out of positive necessity. The necessity is only artistic: decoration of the kind there must be, but the express mode of it is one of those matters which should be left to design, to which it properly belongs. ”

“ Let us repudiate for Architecture all such formal act-of-parliament legislation, and take pycnostyle and aræostyle as the greatest allowable degree of closeness or of distance at which the columns can be placed; and it follows that between such maximum and minimum any intermediate measure is admissible, and that there is no occasion to fix it positively and arithmetically, and make distinctions which are, after all, only arbitrary. There are a great many matters in design which must be left to the Architect, and intercolumniation is one of them. ”

“ The very dissimilar varieties to be met with, all belonging to one and the same Order, show plainly enough that the Architects of antiquity considered themselves at liberty to design their own detail, and to treat an Order as a composition marked out for them in its leading forms and general proportions, but which they might fashion nearly ad libitum in other respects. ”

“ Not having detailed drawings, or any drawings at all to assist us, we cannot pretend to enter into description, but can only say that base, shaft, and capital are unlike all received examples, and at the same time so well adapted to each other as to produce artistic unity and consistency of character; and that character is stamped by breadth and simplicity. With respect to the fluting, it partakes of what may be called striating, the fillets showing themselves rather as narrow surfaces raised upon the shaft, than the channels as positive hollows between them. ”

“ Although modern Architects vary from these proportions, and some of them make the frieze equal to or more than the architrave, they all agree—in doctrine at least, if not in practice—in making the cornice the largest division of the entablature; and as the projection is usually equal to its height, or thereabouts, the cornice thus gains in importance both ways, and, as far as its mere proportions are concerned, becomes an adequate finishing to the entire Order. ”

“ To confine instruction to bare matter-of-fact is not to simplify, much less to popularize it; since such mode entirely withholds all that explanation which is so necessary for a beginner, who will else probably feel more disheartened than interested. Any study which is presented in its very driest form by being divested of all that imparts interest to the subject, will soon become dry and uninteresting in itself, and prejudice may thus be excited against it at the very outset. ”

“ What remains to be observed is, that owing to its complexity, that capital admits of very great diversity of character and decoration. It is sometimes without, and sometimes has a necking to it, which may either be plain or decorated, as may best accord with the particular expression, either as to richness or quiet simplicity, which is aimed at as the characteristic of the entire design. The capital may be modified almost infinitely in its proportions ”

“ On this account we hold the cornice of the Erechtheum example to be very unsatisfactory, and to derogate from what is the character of the Order in all other respects: while the capital is particularly ornate, luxuriant, and complicated in design, the cornice, which, as has been before remarked, is to be considered as the capital of the entire Order, is particularly simple and severe; and owing to the want of a sufficiency of bed-mouldings beneath it, the corona appears to jut out too abruptly immediately over the frieze, without due preparation for it. ”

“ Others neither will nor even can do so. If the public are ever to become acquainted with Architecture,—not, indeed, with its scientific and mechanical processes of construction, but in its character of Fine Art and Design,—other methods of study [Pg 2] than those hitherto provided must be furnished, as it appears to have been assumed that those alone who have been educated to it professionally can properly understand any thing of even the Art of Architecture,—a fatal mistake, which, had it clearly perceived its own interest, the Profession itself would long since have attempted to remove ”

“ Modern Architects adopt a contrary course, which, if not particularly artistic, or even rational, is certainly convenient; although in spite of all precaution to secure conformity and maintain architectural orthodoxy, grievous licentiousness will creep in. It is something to get what is only a faithful copy of an ancient example, but it is only very rarely we get even that. For instance, fluting is omitted for the columns where such decoration may be required, in order to make them correspond with the degree of richness given to the entablature ”

“ Passing over several particulars which our confined limits will not permit us to notice, we may remark, that if greatly altered, not to say corrupted, from its primitive character, the Doric Order, as treated by the moderns, has been assimilated to the other Orders,—so much so as, though still differing from them in its details, to belong to the same general style. ”

“ Almost every antique example is marked by something peculiar to itself; wherefore, properly to analyze them and compare them all, would require not only some scores, but some hundreds of drawings, and hundreds might be multiplied into thousands, were we to collect together all the varieties of the descendants of the Corinthian or foliaged-capital column that are to be found in buildings of the so-called Byzantine style, when the original idea of an Order had been entirely lost sight of. ”

“ To define it more exactly,—a plan is a horizontal section supposed to be taken on the level of the floor through the solid parts of the fabric—walls, columns, &c., so as to show their various thicknesses and situations, the dimensions of the several spaces or rooms, the position of the doors by which they communicate with each other, and various particulars that cannot otherwise be explained. Studying buildings without plans is like studying geography without maps. ”