The art of the possible
Hermione Hobhouse
Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century Nikolaus Pevsner (Oxford £8.50)
"In what style of architecture shall you build your house?" . . . " Sir, you are paymaster, and must therefore be pattern-master; you choose the style of your house just as you choose the build of your hat; you can have Classical; either columnar or non-columnar, either arcuated or trabeated, either rural or civic, or inded palatial; you can have Elizabethan in equal variety; Renaissance ditto; or . . Medieval—the Gothic which is now so much the rage—in any one of its multifarious forms—of the eleventh century, twelfth century, thirteenth, fourteenth, whichever you please,—feudalistic, monastic, scholastic, ecclesiastic, archaeologistic, ecclesiologistic, and so on."
This ironic description by Robert Kerr, in The English Gentleman's House (1864) epitomizes the dilemma of members of the architectural fraternity and their clients throughout the nineteenth centry, particularly after the development of the so-called Battle of the Styles. It is one of the many well-chosen and apt quotations Which Sir Nikolaus Pevsner employs in drawing a Vivid picture of architectural dissensions and attitudes in the nineteenth century.
He analyses the profession's attitude to antiquity, its discovery of the past, both classical and gothic, and its increasing expertise in reproducing those styles accurately, often however, with the help of new materials and in a spirit and for a purpose very different from that for which the original style had been developed. He begins With Strawberry Hill, designed for Horace Walpole by James Essex, a professional architect, who "more than anyone else represents the incipient passion for Gothic accuracy ", and continues via English and French antiquaries to such publicists of Gothic as John Britton in England and Arcisse Caumont in France. He conjures up the period in which the nomenclature for Gothic, as well as the relative merits of the different styles was under discussion. It is chastening to remember, however much we deplore — with William Morris — some of the uses to which the Victorians put their new-found knowledge, to remember that without their scholarship and inventiveness we would lack even the vocabulary to describe some of the churches which they restored ' so mercilessly. As, Buildings of England in hand, we wander in to see the village church, " E.E. with Dec. east window, and Perp. tower ", do we ever wonder why it is not, for instance, "Simple Gothic with Absolute Gothic window and a Florid Gothic tower "?
John Britton's great series of Beauties of England and Wales published between 1801 and 1814, and the later Voyages pittoresques en France were not only the coffee table books of their generation but also working tools of great significance to architects who lacked the time and re sources to travel and sketch for themselves. They were supplemented by a host of more specialised works, whose importance is carefully analysed in a number of the most valuable chapters.
It is somewhat unnerving to plunge from the cosy antiquarianism of the early part of the century into the controversial middle decades when " . . . Beneath a surface of seeming quiet and prosperity is concealed a secret smouldering volcano. Greek and Goth, two giant powers, divide the world . . . itching for war." Heinrich Hilbsch was the first architect to ask which style was correct. In Welchem Style wollen wir bauen? appeared in 1828, and the cry was taken up in France between Hittorf and the Academy des Beaux Arts on one side, and Viollet-le-Duc on the other; and in England between George Gilbert and the Gothicists, and such exponents of the new 'architectural professionalism' as Professor T. L. Donaldson and George Aitchison. Because the practice of architecture is, like policies, the art of the possible ', necessity sometimes triumphed over conviction.
Sir Nikolaus points out that we often owe most to the more obscure writers like Edward Lac Garbett, author of a Rudimentary Treatise on the Principles of Design in Architecture (1850), "the most intelligent, most rational, the most farseeing of the prophets of an original style of the future . . . " He does not, of course, neglect the great Goths, Pugin, Ruskin and Scott, and quotations from their works and those of their opponents make it clear what a mealy-mouthed generation we belong to. The Ecclesiologist published one volume with a section devoted to 'Architects Con demned ' and Architects Approved' while Thomson described Scott's business as "so enormous that to expect him to bestow more than the most casual consideration upon the work which passes through the office, is altogether unreasonable."
This collection of lectures, expanded and enriched with elaborate and invaluable footnotes, is admittedly a 'mosaic' and has the merits and defects of such treatment. Because each subject stands on its own, the theme of each chapter is clearly stated, and thought-provoking. The links between them are however often irritatingly tenuous, and the argument is decidedly weakened by the treatment.
This is nevertheless an enormously, valuable reference-book, and indeed a quarry, in the best sense, for the nineteenth century speCialist. For the general reader the chapter on Morris, whose Revival of Architecture is printed as an apprendix, is perhaps the most interesting. The midcentury squabbles leave one with a feeling of an epoch, in which to borrow Reynaud's words, " tous les esprits flottent irresolus dans toutes directions ". As Sir Nikolaus makes clear, Morris is aware of where the future problems will lie. He is already speaking of making sacrifices of comfort for art, of the conservation of trees and buildings, of avoiding pollution by smoke and by litter, and it is with Morris that We wait, though no longer with his great optimism, for the new architectural solution's "which must be the work, not of the leisure and taste of a few scholars, authors and artists, but of the necessities and aspirations, of the workmen throughout the civilised world."
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