How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (free reads .txt) 📕

PLAN OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

P. 451

more than the combination of architecture and sculpture in a Gothic cathedral, because more deliberately, as a result of reasoned logic as well as of feeling, Greek sculpture and architecture were constituent parts of one design. To divorce the architecture from its sculptural enrichments, is to reduce the temperature of feeling in a building, to make it cold and too severe in its refinement. Moreover, the exterior design of a Greek building was so calculated to its plan, which was usually that of a temple, that to attempt to adapt it to the different needs of modern planning is not only a violation of its logic but also an attenuation—a stretching out to thinness—of its expressiveness.

Adaptation Limited.—In fact, a Greek façade cannot be an integral part of a modern building. Instead of growing out of the interior conditions it is merely a screen, as arbitrary in its separation from what is behind it, as was the old painted act-drop of a theatre. The realisation of this has influenced architects to emulate or imitate, as the case may be, the Roman rather than the Greek style. And, so far as Roman architecture was an adaptation of Greek particulars to the new problems of the basilica, palace, public bath, triumphal arch, amphitheatre and so forth, the model may be judiciously followed. But, when the architect essays to adapt the colossal orders of a Roman temple to the front of a bank, library, museum, or railroad station he may display a feeling for impressiveness that gives little proof of intelligent comprehension of design. He commits the same error that he is fond of charging to the layman, who, he says, thinks of the design of a building only as an exterior effect and not also in relation to the plan and internal structure. For, to take but one point, that of the lighting. Windows are an essential of a modern building, while in a Roman temple they played only a subordinate part; so that the pedimented, columned porch at the entrance and the colonnades at the sides were not employed at any sacrifice to the internal requirements.

Greek Model.—The window problem did not enter into the earliest example of the Classical Revival in England—the Greek design of the Bank of England (1788) by Sir John Soane. For, as the building was for the safe-keeping of gold and securities, the walls behind the colonnades and porch could appropriately be solid. Yet, even so, the character of the principal façade is not carried round to the side of the building and the design of the façade is merely a frontispiece. Still more so is the Greek façade of the British Museum, erected (1823-47) by Soane’s pupil, Sir Robert Smirke (1780-1867), which not only has no co-ordination with the interior arrangement, but also obstructs the needed light.

George Basevi, another pupil of Soane’s, contrived a more appropriate use of the Greek style in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, because he was able to avoid the incongruity of windows. H. W. Inwood (1794-1843) applied the results of his study of the Erechtheion to the design of S. Pancras Church; while among the examples of William Wilkins (1778-1839) are the University of London and the National Gallery. The design of the latter, which is very inferior to that of the University, was unhappily fettered with conditions. Most fortunate of all the buildings of this Classical revival in England is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, by H. L. Elmes (1815-1847). It is lifted well above the level on a stylobate-terrace and the design presents a stately treatment of Greek porticoes and colonnades; but the Greek is abandoned on the threshold, the interior being an adaptation of the Roman thermæ.

The incongruity of the Greek style with modern requirements led to a reaction in favour of astylar or columnless buildings; a return, in fact, to Renaissance design, which was started by Sir Charles Barry, whom we shall meet again in the Gothic Revival.

In Germany the classical revival in architecture was intimately related to the thought-movement of the time, especially as it expressed itself in literature. We have already noted the almost simultaneous publication of Stuart and Revett’s “Antiquities of Athens” and Winckelmann’s “History of Art,” and the welcome which the former received in Germany. It was stimulated by the appearance in 1765 of Lessing’s “Laokoon,” a critical treatise on painting, sculpture, and poetry. He based it upon the Classic Canons; by which he meant not the canons of French pseudo-classicalism, which had hitherto stood for classic in Germany, but the Greek canons of art and literature as laid down by Aristotle. Indeed, he affirmed that Shakespeare, despite the irregularities of his style, was nearer to the spirit of Aristotle than Racine.

Goethe’s Influence.—Goethe, at the court of Weimar, where French pseudo-classicalism was the vogue, espoused the new movement. He had visited Italy and confirmed for himself the studies of Winckelmann and Lessing’s attitude. Being director of the Ducal Theatre, he was able in a large measure to control the dramatic taste of Germany, and encouraged Schiller to write his classical dramas. The aim of both Goethe and Schiller was to reconcile the cultural ideals of the eighteenth century with the models of ancient Greece.

The zeal of this movement spread to architecture. The earliest example is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (1784); but the actual revival did not begin till some thirty years later, when its leaders were Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) and Leo von Klenze (1784-1864). The scene of Schinkel’s achievements is mainly Berlin, where he is responsible for the fine design of the Old Museum and the Royal Theatre. The New Museum of Berlin was erected later (1843-55) by Stühler.

Klenze’s opportunity came with the ambition of Louis I of Bavaria to increase the architectural magnificence of Munich and make it the rival of Berlin and Dresden as an artistic centre. Among the chief works of Klenze are the Glyptothek (Sculpture Gallery), the Pinacothek (Picture Gallery), and the Propylæa. Associated with him in the decoration of these and other buildings were the painters Peter von Cornelius and Wilhelm von Kaulbach and the sculptor, Ludwig Schwanthaler.

To this period belongs the Parliament House (Reichsrathgebande) at Vienna (1843) by Theophil Hansen.

Philosophic and Social Movement.—In France also the Classical revival was due to the momentum of writers and thinkers, impelled, however, in the first place, not so much by æsthetic considerations as by philosophic. It represented a revolution against the degradation of individual and national life, the corruption of the ruling forces of Church and State, the soulless frippery of courtiers and the abject destitution of the masses of the proletariat. The last term was revived from the vocabulary of Imperial Rome and designated the peasantry and labourers of all kinds, whose duty was to labour for the benefit of the privileged classes and whose sole right was that of propagating their species.

The protest against this social rottenness was voiced by Jean Jacques Rousseau in treatises on