I HUMANIST ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. BY PAUL WATERHOUSE [F.], M.A.Oxon. A History of Renaissance Architecture in England, 1500-1800. By Reginald Blomfield, M.A. SUPPOSE that if it were possible, by some process of absolute and unquestionable appraisement, to select, from among the buildings of the past, two examples of equal merit, the one Gothic and the other of the style which, for lack of a name, we call Renaissance, human interest among persons of proper qualifications would centre more readily on the latter. My supposition applies of course to the present age, which, in the matter of architectural vision, is fairly free from the prejudices of the "battle of the styles." There are men among us who can appreciate with equal discernment (which means with equal knowledge) the products either of the mediæval or of the revived classic styles, and it is in the judgment of such men that I venture to think the difficulty of choice between a Gothic and a Renaissance building of closely competing merits would, after a tottering of the scale, end in the bending of the balance towards the Renaissance work. The reason of this is a thing, accidental, as one might say, yet so persistent in its accidence, that its common inherence on the one side, and its general absence on the other, have become almost qualitative. This thing I had almost described as the attachment to, or absence from, a building of the name of its designer. But this is only half the truth, and if it were true would result in the diminution of our interest in a building by the mere accidental loss of the architect's name. The something which differentiates a Renaissance building from a Gothic one, far more intrinsically than the outward quality of style, is the fact that, speaking generally, and with great and notable exceptions, a Renaissance work is primarily a composition, in fact a work of art, while a Gothic building as often as not is a congeries of detail, perhaps even a congeries of compositions, the total beauty of which may be due as much to good luck and old age as to human effort, or may even be absent. I say advisedly I say advisedly" with great and notable exceptions," for there are in our own country many monsters of the Renaissance, and not a few medieval buildings, in which there is evidence of single purpose and complete design. In some cases our Cathedrals have architects' names attached to them, a surprising addition to our interest in any building; and in some there are actually visible those signs of harmonious and unaltered purpose which I have been speaking of as the private honour of the buildings created under the Humanist revival. Mr. Blomfield has done well in his preface to draw our attention to this word "Humanist," a word which people avoid, being ignorant, for the most part, of its special meaning. But take it to mean what you will, its many aspects of significance have mostly an appropriate bearing on the architectural work of the Renaissance. Indeed, this very fact, that a Renaissance building is generally, in its whole effect, as well as in its parts, the product of a single human brain, gives the opportunity for at least a secondary and not very far-fetched application of the term. It is a snobbish thing to attempt a comparison between Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral; but if one chooses to analyse one's feelings upon the two buildings the result is I think inevitable. I assume that the critic who sets about the task will kindly divest the Abbey of historical association, which is not architecture, and will divest his mind of the narcotic influence of antiquity, which is not architecture either, though it may be an evidence of good masonry. Strip the Abbey of these accessories, and of such of the tombs as are not additions to its beauty, and you get, for purposes of comparison with St. Paul's, a piece of very beautiful agglomerate. Both buildings you will admit have faults, both have marvellous beauties. In the case of the Abbey you are forced to acknowledge that the building both gains and suffers from the fact that its general effect is due not to an individual's intent, but to the ebb and flow of circumstance. Looking at St. Paul's, you say the faults are the faults of a man, and of the same man who was great enough to conceive the whole. In the creation of a Gothic cathedral man takes the place of the coral insect. One is awed by an immense sense of the effort-corporate, religious, continuous, and traditional-which has produced by accident, or more likely by inspiration, so beautiful a result. In face of a St. Paul's one is astounded at the greatness of individual man. Possibly the former is the higher sentiment; but I do not think the latter need be antichristian: it certainly has its humbling as well as its inflating effect; and I only know of two living architects, not our greatest, who have invited comparison of themselves with Wren. Let these thoughts pass as prefatory welcome to a book on the English Renaissance. It will perhaps be granted, by those who understand these things, that no man is capable of worthily criticising architecture who has not to some extent agonised over a drawing-board. This is not by any means an admission by way of corollary that the effusions of an architect's leisure are usually sound reading; indeed, so far is this from being the case, that it is well to lose no time in allaying all apprehension on this score. Let me say at once that Mr. Blomfield, though we know him to be no idler in architectural practice (I use the word in an Aristotelian, not in a mercantile, sense), has produced a book which is at once sound, historical, systematic, and, as far as need be, complete. That it should include every example that anyone can imagine as appropriate to the subject and period is alike impossible and unnecessary. Outwardly and bibliographically the work calls for high praise. It is in two volumes, a necessary tribute to the laws of gravitation and human dynamics, each volume being as big as one can conveniently handle. The illustrations, of which more is to be said, are for the most part good, and in many cases of high merit; the print is excellent, and there are no frontispieces, nor have two of the plates been singled out for the negative favour of being printed in gold (that is in reversed chiaroscuro) on the outside of the volumes. In other words, Mr. Blomfield's publisher has not insisted on his making a technical treatise into a "gift-book." On the other hand, there is a good deal in the clearness of the writing and the picturesqueness of the original illustrations which will make for the book's popularity among laymen, and add encouragement to the ever green but ever rotten hope that we are going to educate the public into a right understanding of our craft. Mr. Blomfield, to do him justice, makes no such pretence; and probably shares the view that architectural knowledge is not for the million; but he will not be sorry to think that he is opening the eyes of many who are not architects to the existence of design in buildings which they had previously taken for granted as uninteresting and unspeaking facts. This, at least, is a service that an architectural writer may do for the public without attempting the longer and probably futile task of planting knowledge in plots where there literally is not room for it, even if the soil be good. I only mean that architecture is too big a thing to be any man's by-work. For the amateurs, past and present, who, not content to be lovers only, have proceeded to do violence to the object of their affection, Mr. Blomfield has some hard raps. He goes so far, and many will go so far with him, as to assert that "if buildings of good proportions and correct detail are assigned to amateurs, one may be pretty nearly certain that the name of the real architect has been withheld. It is certain," he says, "that such knowledge as may be acquired by travel and the admiration of buildings, even when joined to a real interest in the art, will not enable the most gifted amateur to design and successfully execute even a correct academical exercise in building. The amount of practical and technical knowledge necessary to such a comparatively simple matter as this is very much greater than the layman imagines." It will be easily understood that these general strictures have, in Mr. Blomfield's book, a particular application to the architectural claims of Lord Burlington, and, in a less degree, to other noble amateurs of the eighteenth century. The author takes, as the limits of his subject, the three hundred years which start from 1500. He begins by giving some amount of orderly arrangement to the rather chaotic period which preceded Inigo Jones. This he effects by introducing a national classification among the early workers of the English Renaissance. First come the Italians-Giovanni de Majano with his "rotundæ imagines" at Hampton Court; Peter Torrysany (Torrigiano), whom we used to know in the Rolls Chapel; Rovezzano, Englished into Rovesham, who worked at Wolsey's tomb; John of Padua, whose fame may be spurious, and the many artists whose names are forgotten though their works remain. With Elizabeth's reign came the Germans, whose influence is sometimes overlooked; not only in practice, but in precept, was the work of her reign controlled by Germany, or by the designers and writers of the Low Countries. The Architectura of J. V. Frisius, published in 1563 at Antwerp, assumed, as Mr. Blomfield points out, the importance which in other periods has been accorded to Palladio and Vignola. The succeeding chapter, which treats of Englishmen's own efforts in the direction of the new style, is better reading for patriotic students, who will find that the author has conscientiously but not tediously lifted the controversial mists which surround the persons of John Thorpe and his contemporaries. After an interlude devoted to the topic of house-planning in the sixteenth century, and to the state of architectural literature, Mr. Blomfield raises the curtain on his great hero, the immortal Inigo Jones. His hero-worship is warm but not extravagant; and if some of us have a blinder admiration for Wren than Mr. Blomfield can accord to him, we shall still be unprepared to find fault with the supreme influence which he attributes to the earlier artist. There is room for both men in our grateful affections, and few will deny to Jones's memory the tribute which the author pays him of being "one of the most accomplished artists that this country |