First and reproductive systems of Europe.

301

itself alternately with bald classicalities, with lifeless mediævalisms, or meretricious Italian fripperies.

"In the first period," says Mr. Fergusson, "the art of architecture consisted in designing a building so as to be most suitable and convenient for the purposes it was wanted for, in arranging the parts so as to produce the most stately and ornamental effect consistent with its uses, and applying to it such ornament as should express and harmonise with the construction, and be appropriate to the purposes of the building; while at the same time the architects took care that the ornament should be the most elegant in itself, which it was in their power to design.

66

Following this system, not only the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Gothic architects, but even the indolent and half civilised inhabitants of India, the stolid Tartars of Thibet and China, and the savage Mexicans, succeeded in producing great and beautiful buildings. No race, however rude or remote, has failed, when working on this system, to produce buildings which are admired by all who behold them, and are well worthy of the most attentive consideration."

The second or reproductive system of architecture, on the contrary, which has prevailed, according to our author's view, since the Reformation in the sixteenth century-at least in Europe, and wherever European influence has established itself-has produced, he truly states, "not one building that is admitted to be entirely satisfactory, or which permanently retains a hold on general admiration." The reason is of course obvious, the whole thing is a feebly-sustained sham. "It is literally impossible that we should reproduce either the circumstances or the feelings which gave rise to classical art, and made it a real thing; and though Gothic art was a thing of our own country and of our own race, it belongs to a state of society so totally different from anything that now exists, that any attempt to reproduce it now must at best be a masquerade, and never can be a real or an earnest form of

art."

Most of us are ready to smile at the incongruities of an Eglintoun tournament, of those peculiarities in which mediæval ladies of the Anglo-Catholic school delight, or of the strangely hybrid procession in which Garter-king-at-arms amuses the urchinhood of London, and displays his nineteenth century costume beneath a tabard such as might, in bloody significance, have graced the fields of Shrewsbury or of Barnet; but most of us fail to perceive the at least equally great absurdity of erecting temples of Minerva to witness the esoteric rites of the disciples of Rowland

Hill, or of building "Norman" churches to accommodate the rugged feudal chivalry of Paddington or of Barnsbury.

India itself, as regards at least the few specimens which have been vouchsafed to it of the architecture of its rulers, is far from having escaped this strangely affected revivalism. In our own artistical Bombay we delight, Episcopalians and Presbyterians alike, to worship the God of the Christians in meagre imitations of heathen temples. We cherish also Zoroastro-Elizabethan hospitals and colleges, half churches, half castles. Not only our literati, but sundry of the most prosaic of our Government officials, have perforce become Stoics-dwellers in Dorian porticoes; nor they alone, for Dorian also are the grim warriors whose Parthenic guardroom frowns upon the rival idolatries of Walkeshwur; and Dorian too is the very bull which raises waters of (who shall say how vivid) classic inspiration from the Castalian reservior of Cowasjee Patel.*

The modern architect is in fact oppressed by his learning: his Chambers, his Stuart, his Palladio, his Pugin, not only encumber his shelves, but weigh down his very soul. Instead of ambition to improve, there is permitted to him merely carefulness to observe precedent. It is so much easier for the tasteful public to admire that which has already been admitted to be admirable, than to employ their own judgment upon what remains as yet unsanctioned by the critics; and it is so much easier as well as safer for the architect to shine in the reflected light of other men's abilities than to exercise his own ;-above all it pays so much better. And the architect's tendency to stereotype is encouraged by the necessity under which he labours of employing materials which admit of, or rather compel, cheap reproduction—his artificial stone, his "compo," his plaster of Paris, with whose aid he may achieve columns per ton and friezes and cornices per yard. It must moreover be added that he has in the matter of finance far greater difficulties to contend with than those which obstruct his brethren, the sculptor or the painter. Turner may glow in colour, or Raphael revel in divinest form upon canvas or even upon cartoon; a few tons of metal or of marble may furnish materials for the polished talent of Canova, or the sublimer genius of our own great Flaxman; but it is not at so little cost as this that a Wykeham raises a cathedral, or an Angelo hangs the Pantheon in the air. Now though a Peel or an Ellesmere may do something to encourage the painter, the means of even such men

* The edifice in which this interesting animal performs its evolutions has lately been wittily compared to the Augean stable.

as these avail but little for the support of the architect; and as to public works, it would seem that emperors, as a rule, confine themselves to routine, and imperial publics to-jobbing.

One of the most active causes in producing the modern inferiority in architecture is discovered by Mr. Fergusson in the system of entrusting to a single mind not only the general design, but also the whole of the details of a building, whether artistic or scientific. Without the knowledge of construction an architect cannot design, "but," says our author, "it would be well if in most instances he could delegate the mechanical part of his taste to the engineer, and so restrict himself entirely to the artistic arrangement and ornamentation of his design. This division of labour is essential to success, and was always practised when art was a reality; and no great work should be undertaken without the union of the two. Perfect artistic and perfect mechanical skill can hardly be found combined in one person, but it is only by their joint assistance that a great work of architecture can be produced."

Mr. Fergusson works out this point in more detail when replying to the inquiries-" Can we ever again have a new and original style of architecture?" and "Can any one invent a new style?"

66

Reasoning from experience alone," he says, "it is easy to answer these questions. No individual has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the world. No one can even be named who, during the prevalence of a true style of art, materially advanced its progress, or by his individual exertion did much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that as this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will

ever occur now.

If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other may as certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation in any age, or in any part of the globe, has failed to invent for itself a true and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set about it in the right way; and there certainly can be no great difficulty in our doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to work in a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process which others have followed, to obtain this result.

66

What that process is may perhaps be best explained by an example; and as one of a building character, though totally distinct, let us take ship-building.

Let us take a series of ships, beginning with those in which William the Conqueror invaded our shores, or the fleet with

VOL. V.-NO. II.

39