FOUR BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE.* THE four books the titles of
which are given below cover between them nearly the whole field of the historic styles of architecture, and before considering them at greater length, it is worth while to view each in the light of the personality of the author, and his own explanation of the scope of his work.
Mr. Simpson is Professor of Architecture at University College, London, and formerly held the corresponding Chair in the University of Liverpool ; and in the preface to this volume—the first of three—he describes it as "an introduc- tion," and hopes it will be of interest "to students of architec- ture and those interested in the art." In the present volume he begins with Egyptian and ends with Byzantine; and after him the burden may be said to be taken up by Mr. Bond, one of the first authorities on his subject. His work is exhaustive and almost monumental, though not so comprehensive as its title, Gothic Architecture in England, for its scope and limits are more properly defined by the sub-title, "an Analysis of the Origin and Development of English Church Architecture from the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of the Monasteries." It is, in fact, confined purely to ecclesiastical work, to the exclusion even of such monastic buildings as are not churches, and, as such, cannot truly be said to be a history of Gothic architecture in this country. He is followed in our list by an American writer, Mr. Moore, who is the author of a well- known book, The. Development and Character of Gothic Architecture, and with • whom Mr. Bond has broken a lance more than once, for Mr. Moore's great contention—to which he refers in a note to his introduction to The Character of
• (1) A History of Architectural Development. By F. W. Simpson. Vol. I. "The Architects' Library." London : Longmans and Co. [12s. ed. net.1—
1,12) Gothic Archttecture in England. By Francis Bond. London; B. T. Batsford. 'Ms. ed. liet]—(S) The Character of Renaissance Architecture. By Charles' . Moore. London :. Macmillan. and Co. fl2s, gd, net.]—(4) Studies in Architecture. By Reginald Blomileld, A.B.A. Same publishers. [1O3. net.]
Renaissance Architecture—is that the Gothic of Northern France of the twelfth and early thirteenth 'Centuries is the only true Gothic art; and he will not admit any merit, and barely a distinction of style, to the Gothic of this country. It may be added that it is much from this standpoint he has chosen to criticise Renaissance work. Finally, the Studies in Architecture, written as reviews by Mr. Blomfield, who is neither a Professor nor an archaeologist, but a practising architect of distinction and enthusiasm, send a side-glance at Byzantium and Lombardy, but are chiefly occupied with the architecture (and architects) of the French and Italian Renaissance.
Professor Simpson's book, as has been said, is the first of three volumes destined to treat of all the historic styles from Egyptian to the Renaissance, and they are intended to form part of a new series of books on architecture to be published by Messrs. Longmans and Co. under his editorship. His writing is lucid and concise : the illustrations are clear and well chosen. He deals exclusively with the great historic styles, wisely leaving aside the 'mazes of .Hindoo, Chinese, and other exotic art. His work is an excellent example of the modern method of regarding architectural history as a continuous whole ; less is said of differences between styles than of what they have in common, or have inherited from one another ; construction, planning, the influence of material, and geographical and historical influences are dealt with rather than points of style or details of ornament. The chapters on Early Christian and Byzantine architecture show what students have gained in the list quarter of a century from the researches of archaeologists. • It is a book which should prove stimulating to an intelligent student, and lead him to a desire to widen his knowledge, in aid of which desire a good bibliography precedes the text. It is a pity, however, that no plan is given of a Roman house, except as exemplified in the palaces of the Palatine, and the author might very well, while recording (p. 180) the fact of the change in the orientation of the early churches in Italy, have added the reason for the change.
Mr. Bond's Gothic Art in England is extraordinarily full, extraordinarily minute, and enriched by a wealth of illus- trations, as well as most elaborate indexes, a very full bibliography, a chronological table, and many sheets of com- parative mouldings drawn (he cannot be too highly praised for this) to a uniform scale. Nor should thanks be omitted for the fact that he refers to his illustrations by the number of the page on which they occur, instead of numbering them separately. The book is divided into two parts. Part I. is introductory, and covers the whole origin and development of mediaeval church architecture in this country; while Part II. is an analysis in which the whole ground is gone over again in detail, piece by piece, with a surprising—for any one who undertakes to read the whole work straight through, almost a bewildering—wealth of named examples of buildings where each detail is to be found. The whole book, in fact, is very full—in detail, in example, in reiteration, and in illustration—and must stand for many years to come as the book of reference on the subject of ecclesiasti- cal Gothic in England for all architects and archaeologists; and it will also be the book that the learner can study with most profit. High praise must be given to the definitions in the first chapter—especially that as to what constitutes Gothic art—and the chapters on vaulting, which close (this is cited as only one of many pregnant observations occurring throughout the work) with the remark that, in its latest development of fan-vaulting, the English builders had suc- ceeded in eliminating the thrust of the vault, and were on the point of producing a method of vault construction that called for no external buttresses ! Truly the wheel had turned full circle and, after pushing logic to its extremes to an extent which made every Late Gothic church carry in its structural system the seeds of decay and made of it an organism with all its vitals exposed, had returned to a point next to that from which it had started.
The book by Mr. Moore—whose opponent in more than one question concerning Gothic art Mr. Bond has on several occasions been—is of a very different character, and may well be considered in connection with Mr. Blomfield's studies, some of which treat of the subjects which Mr. Moore touches, and in a less querulous and saner spirit. Not only is there between them the difference which exists between an amateur writing on the aesthetics of architecture, and an architect
Writing on the art which he studies and practises, but Mr.
Moore makes a bad start in his introduction by his somewhat vague definitions (how different in this from Mr. Bond!) He all but falls, does fall in part, into, and lamely extracts himself
from, the Ruskinian fallacies of art and morality, and only recovers himself by confining his criticism (and here again he takes too narrow a view) to the changes brought about in . building methods by the change from communal to individual effort. Now the change which has taken place in the methods of production do, it is true, furnish the clue to the causes of the death of art during the last century, or century and a half : methods devised to ensure the most economical output of goods on a large scale have been applied to the production of works of art—and naturally fail to produce them—but in the days of the Renaissance this state of affairs was far distant, and the change in the character of architecture resulting from the Renaissance must be sought for in different causes from this. The architecture of the Renaissance, after having long been considered the only type worth the attention of cultivated men, has recently by many writers been relegated to the opposite pole, and treated as the only style unworthy of
'serious attention. And if Mr. Moore thinks it so far worthy of attention that he has determined to inquire into its -character, he seems equally determined that that character shall be a bad one. In his eya, as has already been said, 'French Gothic of a most limited period is the only style worth serious consideration, and it is on this bed of Procreates that he proceeds to stretch the Renaissance architects. He only half recognises, or recognises without knowing the importance of the fact, that the two styles spring from principles of growth as different as those of endogenous and exogenous trees, and he blames the endogen because it is not an exogen.
The Italians never abandoned the building traditions of the Romans—the simple vaulting, the internal buttressing, wide spacing, and straightforward planning—and the first Renais- sance buildings grew directly and naturally out of the mediaeval palaces of Tuscany, or such churches as the Santi Apostoli at Florence. In this way they produced a con- tinuously developing art, and it is carping and not criticism to blame them, as Mr. Moore does, on the one hand for departing from classical examples, and on the other for pedantry. Magnificent staircases and the balustrade are among the gifts of the Renaissance to architecture, but of this Mr. Moore says nothing. Interesting are his chapters on domes, though here, again, his criticisms are unjust. Men who find no fault with the huge roofs that tower above the vaults of Gothic cathedrals, or have no word of blame for the external domes of St. Mark's, fall foul of the Renaissance architect because in his work the shape of the external and internal dome do not correspond. He, in fact, solved the problem, which had baffled previous architects, of producing a dome equally satisfactory to the eye from without and within, and did it in the only possible way, by giving each the form best suited to its position.
A merit Mr. Moore's book has which should not be passed over. He does not overweight what is not an historical Work by too many examples, but refers for his criticisms to a limited number of well-chosen buildings. This book, in fact, should be read with a vigilant judgment, and Mr. Blomfield's admirable essays on the architecture of the French Renaissance and on Palladio (also a very interesting article on Newgate Prison) should be taken as a corrective immediately afterwards. As Mr. Blomfield says in his preface, "Architecture is a difficult art, and it is less popular in England than in other countries. The reason is, I believe, that writers have dealt with architecture either as an affair of dates and tech- nicalities or as a vehicle for moral disquisition. The first method has little interest for the layman, and the latter none at all for the artist. The result has been that architecture, considered as an art, has dropped out of the main stream of educated thought and has lost touch of that intelligent interest which is freely accorded to the sister arts."
Mr. Blomfield has not fallen into the faults be denounces : what he writes is full of interest because of his standpoint (and standing) as an architect, his personal knowledge of the buildings of which be writes, and his researches into their history. Above all, he has great enthusiasm for his art, a passion which archaeology (while admitting others) tends, it would seem, to exclude. For in all his writing on English Gothic Mr. Bond makes no mention of what was perhaps the most remarkable and potent factor in its production : that exalted spirit which led the founders of Seville Cathedral to exclaim : "Let us raise a monument which will make posterity think that we were mad."
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