tlbe

VOL. IV. OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1894. NO. 2.

COMPETITIONS THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE.

OCTOR, did I ever tell sician he feared a good mechanic was you what I know about spoiled. medicine ?" And so I liked the Doctor's " claret No," responded the and cigars, and for that matter also the a Doctor, dryly, taking Doctor himself, for he was a kindly old of and sip claret, open- gentleman who loved St. Mary's, archi- his in ing eyes my direction as much as tecture and mechanics, and who never to ' I wonder what say, you know about hated anyone or anything. medicine.' I give up all claim to popular sym- You the Doctor and I see, had con- pathy, but many of my professional tracted a sort of acquaintance; not to brethren doubtless know what a ter- say friendship, while I was building St. rible thorn in the side of the architect Mary's, and he, next to the is a man of the Doctor's Rector, fig- description ; ured as the and most strongest influen- and then you see I cannot fight him any tial member of the Building Committee. more than I could a woman or a child. After our morning inspection of the And if I try it by gentle logic or scien- works, he often invited me to his frugal tific or artistic reasoning, it is of no lunch, which included a glass of wine earthly use, for the Doctor does not and a cigar. know when he is down in an argument, On these occasions the Doctor gave and no man of courage can kick a me his reminiscences of the English fellow when he is down whether he cathedrals, nearly all of which he had knows it or not. visited in flighty summer trips to So I made up my mind I would tell Europe, and quoted Ruskin and Fergu- him some day what I knew of medicine, son when our architectural discussions and when I saw him open his eyes wide, seemed to need reference to authority I plunged into it at once. " on his part. To begin with, Doctor, I inherit The Doctor enjoyed quite a reputa- medical knowledge from my grand- tion as a critic of architectural art, also father, who was a physician, and so as an expert mechanic, because he were my uncles for that matter. It's spent many of his leisure hours in a in the blood, you see, on my mother's workshop attached to his house, where side. We must grant that there is he was known to perfect a machine for something in heredity and environ- stamping pill boxes out of sheet metal ment and early training. Darwin does ' on a Japanese principle of two elliptic as much " " cups of slight eccentricity fitted over Fiddlesticks," said the Doctor, you each other. The Doctor often told me may inherit from your grandfather when I praised his mechanical in- mental and physical vigor or defects, medical and let me genuity, that when he was made a phy- but not knowledge ;

Copyright, 1894, by CLINTON W. SWEBT. All rights reserved.

Vol. IV. 2. 1. 148 THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. tell that if did, would be "My dear fellow," said the Doctor, you you you " worse off than if he had been a shoe- your conceit is not incompatible with maker, for you would inherit the medi- common honesty. It may be explained cal errors of the times, i venture to as the result of profound ignorance. For I have devoted say your grandfather bled, cupped forty years myself and leechdd his 1 patients copiously, to the study 'and practice of medicine. and suffocated persons suffering from Forty years ago I graduated with fever in closed rooms. If your honors, and then I spent five years in mind is in any sense affected by Vienna and Berlin at clinical lectures. this sort of heredity, it must be disin- Since that time I have had a large and fected before it can be said to be re- lucrative practice, and acquired, as you It a not ceptive of true knowledge. some- know, respectable reputation, only times occurs that the ancestors of with laymen, but also among my eminent men in various walks of life professional brethren. During these were of the same profession and more forty years I have devoted much of my as a time to I will not boast of or less distinguished ; but, rule, reading. but I that I con- great men develop spontaneously with- native genius, may say out a grain of heredity to show for scientiously applied myself to the study themselves. So, if you want to show of medicine. And what is the result ? me what you know about medicine I am now convinced, and have been begin with yourself, and don't talk so convinced for the last ten years, that about your ancestors." to study medicine with success a man " Well, Doctor, my parents being poor should devote himself to some specialty they boarded a number of medical stu- in order to keep abreast with modern dents, and I may say that I was brought progress, and if possible add something up in an atmosphere of anatomy." to its acquisitions. How can you talk 41 Good," said the Doctor, "you doubt- of what you know of medicine, you who with the bones but will have life in archi- less played ; spent your studying you tell me what you know of the os tecture, and never had the time to in a of tibia, and what is its condition a child acquire even smattering anything and in a grown person ?" else. I might as well talk of what I " Well, Doctor, I must confess that it know of architecture." " has slipped from my mind, if I ever That is just what you do talk about. I to knew it; but then think of the practical That is just the point desired bring experience I gathered as one of a large you to by my impudent assertion of family of children, who all went through what I know of medicine. Please the measles, and the whooping cough, accept it as a compliment, a profound broke their arms and ribs walking on trust in your sense of justice, a thorough picket fences and swinging on gates, conviction of your love of fair play, and of the large family of children I and my utter despair to make you have brought up myself, to say nothing understand the case by any other of my personal sufferings with dyspepsia method. I trust you will forgive me and rheumatism. Why, I have tried when you realize the enormity of the experimentally on my own person most case. You talk to me of Ruskin and medicines to be found in the * Materia Ferguson, why the Humors of Hip- Medica.' And then I have read much on parchus are exact science compared the Humors of Hipparchus and the with the speculations of Ruskin on con- Methodism of Gallen, to say nothing struction, and the ravings of Ferguson of the practice of Sangrado, of modern on the subject of beauty. If you will Water Cures, of the Faith, and Walking be good enough to consider that the Cures. I have visited many of the cele- anatomy of architecture involves the brated baths, and have swallowed many whole range of mathematics in its ap- waters from Saratoga to Carlsbad. I plication to statical mechanics, that its should think you might admit that I physiology comprehends a philosophic, know something of medicine without historical and ideal conception of the doing violence to your professional functions of monuments, that its technic pride." in structural combinations and decor- THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. '49

ative expression demands a laborious head and legs, not from malice to the training, to be hard acquired only by hod-carrier, nor for the it will work and self-denial of money many years, and bring him, but purely from a desire to that to compose buildings means a show to the world that he can heal the of which mastery organisms, have no sick and mend the broken of limb. model in nature, but must be scientifi- Now this young doctor has and spent years cally artistically developed on in the study of medicine, he has walked natural laws and not collected, as lay- the hospitals, and he knows that he men always suppose, from the surface can render services to society as a phy- of existing monuments which almost sician. But to be employed it is neces- never an answer to the express problem sary that society shall know what he before the architect, you will admit at can do in he ; fact, must have a repu- once that the suggestions of laymen in tation. architecture are not " unlike those of the It is not so with the young archi- dear old ladies who are found around tect. He is not content to hang out the sick bed. And yet the doctor may his sign and wait for clients humble listen to them and them ignore when he clients at first, and others more im- writes the while prescription, the archi- portant afterwards, for very good rea- tect is asked to submit his design to sons. In the first place his announce- the judgment of just such a court and ment to the world that he will hence- jury." forth do the work of an architect does The Doctor was evidently ruffled. not imply that he knows how to do it. He looked at straight his wine glass There is no law which compels him to for a minute or two and puffed great pass through a prescribed course of volumes of smoke from his then studies cigar ; before he presents himself for he raised his head, and looked at me in professional employment, as is the case a dazed sort of way, and then gradually with the young physician. Jn the next melted into a smile. place, both he and his clients imagine "Why! you applied to me what we that his merits may be determined doctors call a heroic but when from his his remedy ; designs, drawings, sketches, I come to think I of it, have no right etc., which is a radical error." to be offended, because I am cured. But "You mean to say," the Doctor here pray tell me how you architects got in- interrupted, "that a layman cannot to this slough of despond ?" tell the nature and architectural merit " Architectural and lay human weak- of a building from a design of it ?" " " ness," said I. To begin with, there No more than they can the merit is the weakness of the young architect. of a physician from his prescriptions. I wish I could describe to you the A physician's prescription is an empiri- mental porosity and effervescence of the cal formula intended to alleviate ab- immature architectural brain, its illogi- normal physical conditions indicated cal gyrations around an axis which is by a scientific diagnosis. The prescrip- purely a mathematical line and has no tion being written in characters incom- foundation in fact, its gymnastics and prehensible to the layman, he is con- attitudes, its gaseous inflations and it's tent, in his avowed ignorance, to abstain pyrotechnic explosions. But then it from an attempt to inquire into the would be of no practical use, the whole rationale of the diagnosis. An archi- thing is so visionary you would not be- tectural design is a scientific, logical, lieve it. But I can try it from your deduction from certain fundamental standpoint. What is the process by facts unfortunately presented in a more which the young physician gets into or less artistic form. This form con- practice ? He works among the poor. veys an idea to the uneducated as well A child filled with green apples is a as to the intelligent mind of varying godsend to him. He gets up nights artistic merit. The more obtuse the to visit the woman suffering from com- observer the better he will like it. To re- pound hysterics and strong drink, and critically place it at its true value he hopes for the hod-carrier who may quires analytical acumen of the highest their fall from the third story and break his order. Hence it is that men select THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE.

to physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc., by National Discount Bank is going consulting the opinion of experts as to build a seventeen-story fire-proof their professional merit, or, what is building.' " ' equivalent to this, by their reputation, Well, John, have you been em- but they think they can judge of -the ployed as the architect?' merits of an architect by their likes and "'Why, no, it is to be a com- dislikes of his drawings. petition ?' ** There are architects who have a "'Then I presume you have been fair technical training, know something invited to compete and are to be paid of aesthetics, have passed through an for your sketches?' " ' academic course of architecture at Nothing of the kind. Really, I some respectable institution, have seen cannot make you out.' " ' as well as read of the monuments of Well, John, let me explain. You the world and have in addition to this know that in most competitions mem- some practice under the guidance of bers of the committee are bent upon an architect of reputation. Their employing architects in whom they number, however, is small; I should have a personal interest. The only say not more than three per cent of possible guarantee I can have on enter- the architectural population of the. ing the lists in a competition is in the country." fact that I am invited to compete, " What of the other ninety-seven which shows that someone on the com- per cent?" asks the Doctor. mittee desires that I should ultimately " To answer this question let me ob- be employed as the architect of the serve briefly that all knowledge begins building, and in order to make sure with a cursory observation of the ap- that the invitation is not an empty pearance ot things. Take astronomy compliment, I insist upon being paid for instance. Antiquity contemplated for my sketches.' " ' the stars as aggregations resembling There I differ with you entirely. animate and inanimate forms. The I prefer that no one should be paid for not what is the his sketches it out the question was magnitude, ; keeps strongest distance, motion, constituent matter men in the profession and makes my of these stars; but what is the physiog- chances of success all the better. What ' nomy of the starry heavens. Alchemy is more,' continues John, slyly, sup- attempted to produce a metal that pose there is a committee of five, there should look like gold. From Aristotle certainly is not more than one in the to Lavater endless volumes have been five who cares for architecture per se, written to show how physical and men- the other four are bent upon employing tal conditions of men may be determined their friends. This one man may be by their external appearance. in favor of paying for sketches, but he ' Architecture to the ninety-seven is overruled by the other four who per cent is at this day only the more or agree with me that architects of rep- less critical examination of the ap- utation must be kept out at all haz- pearance and feature of monuments. ards. Hence it is that you are but Mr. Shandy's account of Slawkenber- rarely invited to compete, and lose geus, if mythical, is nevertheless alle- your opportunities.' " ' gorically applicable to modern popular I presume you have secured an in- notions on architecture; it is very vitation from one of the five ?' " ' much a study of noses. Not as yet, but I expect to do so. " Let me tell you a story of my I have made a formal application in young friend, John, as an object-lesson writing to the committee as a whole, of architectural human weakness. John requesting permission to submit plans, visits me at my office from time to specifications and estimates of costs of .time, to get my advice, as he says, to the proposed building for the consider- follow his own, as I know. ation of the committee. letter con- "' My What is it this morning, John, you tains references to respectable parties are radiant ?' which will not be disregarded, more es- "'I don't mind telling you. The pecially as such a permission involves no THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. 15*

In addition to I expense. this, have invite me to dinner saw meat his office, called four out of upon the five to re- where he showered upon me his views their in the without quest personal patronage giving me an opportunity to matter. I have told each of them that put in a word edgewise. These views I his influence related rely upon acknowledged mainly to heating, lighting, with the and his committee, superior ventilation and general economy of judgment in matters of building to construction. He said he did not care out the intrinsic merits bring of my much about architecture as long as the which without his would design, help building was sufficiently showey to probably not be properly understood, command tenants.' " l and I asked each of them for his per- Well, John, it seems to me now sonal views of what the building ought that your chances of success are pretty to be architecturally, constructively slim. What is the use of going into a and economically. I told them that competition without pay when you without being in possession of these have no friends on the committee?' " ' personal views I should not attempt to True, but you make no allowance enter the competition at all. One of for the merits of my design. I propose the four said that the committee would to carry the day on the bottom rock of probably issue a programme of require- merit.' ments to all the architects, and that he "'But I thought you told me that did not intend to anticipate this by four of the gentlemen of the committee giving his private views. The other did not know or care about architecture three, however, were greatly pleased in the abstract.' with and of that is so I my suggestions, two them "'Yes, ; but intend to invited me to dinner to talk the matter other outstrip every plan proposed, over at leisure.' and make my design an education to are in I said the an in "'You clover, John,' ; committee, object-lesson 'you will probably be proposed by architecture. I have some ideas, and three of the committee, and find your- that is just what I intend to talk to you self in a majority at the start.' about. What do you think of the Tem- " ' So I thought at first, but I since ple of Jupiter Stator?' found out that one of the gentlemen "'Shades of Phidias, John, you do who invited me to dinner has a nephew not propose, I hope, to build a temple just returned from the Ecole des Beaux forty feet wide and two hundred and Arts. He intends him to be employed twenty feet high and fill it on the in- as the architect of the building. I did side with offices.' "' not know this when I dined with him. Not quite so bad as that. I propose He seemed frank in his conversation; a temple at the top, to contain the but interspersed it with perplexing three uppermost stories, as the crown- of the questions such as : Which of the five ing glory building.' do with the orders will you select for your design ? "'And what will you What is the relative cost of granite fourteen stories below the temple ?' and terra cotta? How far would you "'That is what I called to consult go in the matter of ventilation in an you upon. What do you say ?' better than office building ? What are the proper "'I can suggest nothing of proportions of a room ? Do you deem a dead wall cyclopean masonry.' that is it essential that all carving shall be "'Well, I am so glad, just once. If I could done after the building is up? What what struck me at on a is the relative cost per cubic foot of build such a wall Broadway, feet wide and one brickwork here and in Paris ? How cyclopean wall forty for- do you like the American factor of hundred and seventy feet high my be made. think of the safety ? I subsequently discovered tune would Just of the when the wall that these questions tended to elicit excitement press hundred feet in proof that I did not know much of reaches a height, stone of from ten to architecture in general and of archi- built of huge forty and from two to eight tecture as practiced in Paris in particu- feet, in length stone- lar. The gentleman who did not feet in height, say quarry-faced THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE.

work twenty feet high and then a pol- unanswered : How am 1 to treat the ished course of granite, with bas-reliefs fourteen stories below my temple of of the War of the Rebellion (Sheridan's Jupiter?' ride through the Shenandoah Valley), "'If you set yourself the problem of then again a bulk of rough quarry stone balancing a full-fledged temple one of more or less heights, and another hundred and seventy feet above the band course of polished stone. Think sidewalk of Broadway and cannot use of the trucks with six to twelve horses a cyclopean wall, I can suggest nothing unloading single stones in front of the that will answer the purpose/ u ' building, of the immense cranes, tackle, 1 have been thinking that a great gear and steam engines raising this arch might do it. '1 he arch is expres- gigantic material to its place on the sive of strength. What do you think think of the crowds of of an arch with voussoirs ten wall ; people or twelve watching the progress of the work from feet high ?' " the street and opposite windows and 'That would do well enough if you roofs think of the that would be had room for abutments to sustain the ; papers read before learned societies on the lateral pressure indicated by such an probable use of such a structure, of the arch. There is not room enough in inquiries by foreign associations of forty feet for an arch such as you have architects; think of the orders for new in mind, and also for its abutments, buildings that would flow into my office; considering the height. You would and, mind you, it is all so perfectly find upon due calculation that your practicable. I should light the rooms arch will be ridiculously small.' " with minute incandescent lamps spread 'Of course you know,' said John, ' in ornamental groups over the walls that the end piers are tied together at and ceilings. I should pump air of every story with iron beams, and there into the is no lateral, be- any required temperature practically pressure ; offices, air permeated with the es- sides, the arch is supported vertically by sence of new-mown hay, of the sea- the piers between windows at short in- weed or the mountain fir. I should sup- tervals.' " ' ply each tenant with just the season he In that case, John, you need no summer or autumn he arch at but if to the prefers spring, ; all, you present shall be at the shores of the sea to-day, public a great arch, as you say, with an or at the top of the mountain to-mor- expression of great strength, then the row, or, if he likes tropical heat, with public is entitled to proper and suffi- the dry atmosphere of Egypt, flavored cient abutments, or else you are not with just a suggestion of the essential pursuing architecture as a fine art.' oil of the lotus, all he wijl have to do "'We cannot have everything in is to touch a button and the janitor this world; I shall have to stick to the would change his atmosphere in a few arch and abandon the abutments. I minutes. 1 ask you would not offices thought you might help me out of this of this description be in demand and dilemma, but now I see that I shall bring high rents ? Why, the occupants have to shift for myself. Wait till you would be overwhelmed with clients just see my drawings, I think you will ad- from motives of curiosity to see how mit that I have done my best under the the thing works. -If I could talk to circumstances, and no man can do " that committee for an hour or two more.' twice a week during the next month I "And with this John left in a huff, am sure I could convince them of the and I saw nothing of him until after of brilliancy my scheme. As it is, they the competition had been decided. He are doubtless prepossessed in favor of came into the office in a great state of windows, a common prejudice which excitement, dashed his hat upon the so far has prevented a true revival of an- floor, and dropped into a chair. I tique architecture. Schinkel, the great- knew at once that his sanguine expect- est of modern Greeks, had to succumb ations regarding the Discount Bank to the window mania, and so must I no competition had not been realized, a doubt, and the question still remains blow which involved disappointment THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. *53 in various and a directions, pecuniary spending the rest of my waking hours loss which poor John could not well in thinking how the effect of the draw- afford. ings may be enhanced here and there " ' I would not mind being beaten by and the cost of construction decreased a better but this is too he man, bad,' everywhere, for this was not merely a bursted out after a while, with tears in question of who could produce the best his eyes. to answer a design given purpose ; but '"Tell me all about it. I John,' sug- also, who could execute it cheaper gested, in order to divert his mind. than anyone else. The matter of He straightened up a bit and told ventilation being seemingly uppermost me this story: in the minds of the committee, for "'You know when I saw last I you they talked about it constantly, I was full of the idea of a cyclopean wall, made this my special study and worked as and, an alternative, of the great upon it nights after all 'others had re- arch. The arch and the tired and I do think I great temple ; developed it to I concluded must be the card a winning ; degree heretofore unparalleled in but the wall had such a cyclopean hold business buildings. I devised two great on my mind that I would have been fans, sixteen feet in diameter, to be willing to barter a year of my life for placed one in front and the other near its success. So 1 made up my mind to the rear of the building to supply fresh a for either present plan scheme. Of air to each of the separate offices; air course, you know what it means to pre- heated in winter and cooled in summer pare two sets of plans in a quarter so that the inmates could regulate its inch scale within the prescribed time. temperature by simply touching a but- Then there was the matter of perspec- ton which, by an electric contrivance tives of the exterior. The programme governed the ingress of air by means was silent on the subject of scale, point of ingeniously-constructed valves, A of view, picturesque treatment, color- 'system of this magnitude is necessarily ing, etc. It was important that my costly; and I spent many nights in sim- perspectives should be the largest pre- plifying the apparatus and reducing sented and highly colored. I engaged the cost to twenty-five thousand dol- the services of an eminent colorist to lars, a sum so small when you consider do the coloring at the rate of one hun- the work accomplished and its great dred and twenty dollars apiece ($150 importance in the minds of the com- is the current price). Then there was mittee that I felt sure of success on the work of preparing specifications this ground alone. At times, however, and detailed estimates, consultations I got very blue, thinking of the many with contractors and experts in steam- possibilities outside of the merit of my heating, ventilating, plumbing, electric design which might operate against me, lighting, manufacturers of elevators, and one morning after I had been etc. It is not necessary to detail working on my plans for nearly a month to you the immense work involved in I awoke in a cold perspiration from a preparing completed plans and specifi- horrible dream. You see I intended to cations for a building of the magnitude ask permission to explain my plans per- in before a final decision and at of the Discount Bank the short space sonally ; of six weeks as you are familiar with stray moments I rehearsed in my mind the subject. I commenced with four what I would say on that occasion. I at the end of a was so full of the I to draughtsmen ; fortnight subject expected I had six, and we talked seriously of command the attention and interest of working overtime in order to get the committee for hours and finally through with the perspectives to give elicit unanimous applause. So I dreamt the colorist an opportunity to do his that I was standing before a green work with leisure sufficient to do it baize-covered table in the directors' well. While buoyed up with hope of room of the Discount Bank, the members success a man can do much work in a of the committee on either side and the and of short space of time, and so I did in the chairman at the head, I, course, foot of the table hours between eight A. M. and six p. M., at the ; my drawings 154 THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE.

pinned up on the wall behind me. the bank who said the directors' meet- Now, the directors' table, which I had ing was opened, and I occupied his seen many times, was large enough to place. The janitor rushed in with a accommodate twenty-three directors couple of chairs upon his shoulders, comfortably, besides the president and and tore a great hole in one of my per- cashier who acts as secretary. It is spectives, and the president of the about twenty-four feet long. In my bank jumped upon the table, stamped dream, however, the table seemed his foot three times, and called out in " the a loud voice the board is in session one hundred feet long with ; committee sitting away off at the clear out, all architects ;" and I awoke it nearest mem- with a shiver. other end of ; the ber being no less than ninety-six feet Whether this horrible dream was away from me. This discouraged me owing to overwork, want of sleep, were or a late I cannot but ever so much ; but while they supper, say, consulting at the other end in low I do know that it left me in a tones I endeavored to collect my dreadful nervous condition. Arrived thoughts, and when the chairman said at the office, I found everything drag- to hear and the men that the committee was ready ging ; nothing finished, my explanations, and have me answer tired and discouraged. Instead of try- some questions, I proceeded at once ing to get matters into shape in the with a well-studied description of the office I felt that I could do nothing Erechteum, touched lightly upon the definite until I had made the rounds of invasion by Xerxes, the defense at the committee, to learn something of the Thermopylae, the subsequent federa- prevailing state of mind. When I now tion of the Greek states, the vast con- look back upon this visit it seems to tributions accumulated under Pericles, me that they questioned me exten- the building of the outer harbor, the sively as to what I was doing, and told artistic triumphs of Phidias, etc., me little of what they were thinking I was one of the about but a clerk of the a when interrupted by ; chairman, members of the committee by the schoolmate of mine, who noticed my statement that a directors' meeting nervous state, told me that nothing within half an hour necessitated that I would succeed in the competition but should confine myself to the subject of the plainest sort of a building, a plain my plans, and that I should be as brief wall with as many and as large as possible as the committee would windows as are needed to light up the probably want to ask me a few ques- offices. This information upset all tions. Upon this 1 plunged into a my plans and I reluctantly came description of my plans, and dwelled to the conclusion to prepare a at some length upon my system of third design, retaining the idea ventilation, which seemed to interest of the temple for the upper stories, the committee somewhat, until inter- but supporting the temple with a plain " rupted by the question what this wall pierced with the necessary open- matter of ventilation would cost." I ings. If the openings were not made answered, "not more than $25,000." too large, I felt that the aesthetic result This seemed but one must be fair and to satisfactory ; reasonably pleasing question being asked it opened a the committee, probably inferior only flood-gate of them, and I was not to the cyclopean wall. I engaged three permitted to say another word regard- more draughtsmen, you were good ing my plans, and the interview rapidly enough to lend me one of yours (many tended to a conversation a man and between the thanks) ; he was high-priced members of the committee, of which I worked very leisurely, certainly with now and then heard a word, or a sen- much repose (no snap), but in the end tence such as "Ridiculous." "Phidias his work was perfect, and also abund- is not one of the competitors, is he?" ant as he never had to do any of it " There seems very little business about over again. A new set of estimates had him." "Humbug, etc.," and then I was to be prepared for the third design. gently pushed aside by the cashier of This was essentially my work, and I THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. 155 can assure you I worked hard. I hurry. At the curbstone a number of should not like to live over again those drays were backed up. from which last two weeks prior to in the handing specie and ingots of silver were in the plans, which i did at the of punctually process being discharged. The time I appointed ; but can only say ingots were loaded upon an elevator that the moment the were drawings intended to run down to the basement. out of the office I fell into a in An heap apple-stand and a few policemen my office chair and rushed home finally completed the picture. 1 saw all this and went to bed. m a very few moments, and when I I heard nothing from the com- looked towards the committee they mittee for a when I week, received were still engaged at the other end of a short note from the the secretary room in examining something which that no would be had stating meeting stood on the floor. This gave me in less than a month from date, and plenty of time to rehearse a resolution that I further notice of might expect a not to say one word upon architecture hearing to be granted to architects or art in general, but to confine myself to a decision. At the end of a to prior matters practical, such as the month I was notified to for a appear arrangement of the offices, of the ac- hearing at three P. M. of a certain cess to of day, them, light and ventilation, and when I arrived at the office of the heating, etc. I repeated once more my chairman, 1 met one of the competitors speech, which commenced somewhat coming out of his private room, and in this way: ' " three others outside. As of waiting Evidently men business, eminently prac- the process of giving a to the of the hearing tical, gentlemen committee, J competing architects was to be dis- will not detain you by a dissertation on at one session of the patched com- the aesthetic motives which generated mittee. Called in the by secretary of my designs, but will at once proceed to the committee I found the members practical results attained, which you in close conversation, evidently inter- will permit me to speak of as matters to as did of interest to esting themselves, they yo^, .ra^er than as not notice my advent. I looked achievements of mine.' u around the room where I saw i the var- was saved all trouble of saying a ious perspectives pinned up against the single word of all this, for suddenly the walls (no ground plans or other geo- chairman turned round and mem- metrical drawing). One of the pros- bers took their seats at the table struck as pectives me hideously bad. which disclosed to my view a plaster It a Corinthian represented temple two model of precisely the same thing I stories high and on the top of this fif- saw in the megalethoscope. teen stories of plain box with windows "The chairman at once addressed * distributed : indiscriminately over the me as follows Ah ! Mr. X, we are surface without to construction. to see here regard very glad you ; we have In the corner of the room next to me looked with interest at your drawings. stood a megalethoscope on a tressel. Admirable! We all like them ! Great I had just time to peep into it when I industry and enterprise. You need not saw a of that same one word on the representation say subject ; we know the a it all and I ugly perspective on wall, tem- ; express the conviction of ple with the great ugly box on the members of the committee when I top of it. The temple was evidently say we appreciate your efforts. Our meant to represent the banking rooms, secretary had prepared a synopsis of for in front of it, on the side- your specifications, description and es- walk, there was painted a crowd of timates, and I may say without conceit gentlemen, clerks and bank messengers we are perfectly familiar with them. in the act of rushing in and out of the We especially value your remarks upon ' building. The bank messengers car- ventilation. So pertinent, without ried heavy satchels; the bank clerks' oxygen, you say, we cannot exist." But portfolios and large pocket-books, and let me ask you. Are you aware that a the in their of ventilation has been invented gentlemen jostled everyone system ,

Vol. IV. 2. 2. THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE.

inexpensive, simple, a series of flues to have seen you again. I can only say with a gas-burner or two at the bottom your drawings are most beautiful. (To of each which a draught of the Secretary.) Call in Mr. Y.' produce U fresh air into the respective rooms?' 'I have since learned from my ' that of "'No,' I said, I am not.' friend, the clerk, Z, the author "'I presume,' proceeded the chair- the design of the plaster model, has man, ' you do not read the papers, and been employed as the architect of the are not familiar with the latest progress new bank. His paper on ventilation of science ?' contained the statement that the use of " ' Pardon, I am aware that such a steam engines and fans is obsolete, I not aware that and their work is now done a few notion exists ; but am by it answers the purpose.' gas jets. This statement he supported 1 " And why not, pray ?" with a guarantee of the inventor, who " * Because the number of cubic feet therein agrees to return half the cost of air to be moved through a given of the apparatus if within six months space represents a mechanical force, from the time it is put in the building the equivalent of which in units of it fails to answer the purpose. The heat cannot be produced by less than total cost not to exceed fifteen hundred twelve hundred times the number of dollars.' " burners contemplated by the invention Now, Doctor, I am done. I am you speak of.' heartily sorry for John. He is a poor " * Who says so ?' man of business, illogical, visionary, "'I have gone through the compu- sanguine and idiotic at times, not tation on the theoretical principle of thorough in construction and aesthetics, the correlation of forces and this is my but as architects go far superior moral- result. Practically, the number of ly and intellectually to men like Z, for burners required are greater by reason instance. This unfortunate competi- of inevitable losses by friction, radia- tion has cost him all his little savings, tion, etc.; but if these losses by the in- and has materially impaired his health genuity of man were reduced to nil and spirits." then my calculation would be cor- The committee was doubtless pleased rect.' with the pictorial illustration of the " 'And pray who guarantees the prin- business rush in front of their future ciple of the correlation of forces ?' bank, impressed upon their minds re- "'Such men as Joule and Meyer.' peatedly by the plaster model and the "'Are they in the ventilating busi- wonders of the megalethoscope. ness? I never heard of the firm.' This pleasure led them to like the "They are in no business whatever. perspective, hence the architectural Mr. a scientist in the it admired Meyer, German design represented ; they fore part of this century, deduced the the businesslike facility with which Z value of the unit of heat in terms of condemned an obsolete method of ven- mechanical work and tilation. took it for mathematically ; They granted Mr. Joule, an English scientist, de- that it was obsolete because he said monstrated it by a well-known experi- so, and because he promptly supported ment soon afterwards.' his assertion with a guarantee from a " ' You say, Mr. X, that Mr. Joule known business house. They liked Z lived in England and Mr. Meyer in as an artist, and as a business man, and Germany in the fore part of this it is not surprising that they intrusted century ?' him with the charge of their new build- "'Yes.' ing, and men like John had to go to " ' We now count the year of our Lord the wall. The next time we meet, 1894. What did those gentlemen know Doctor, I should like to have a talk of the requirements and construction with you on the human weakness of of business buildings in this country building committees and the vicissi- and at the present day ?' He expected tudes of architecture arising from the ' no answer, but continued : I am glad same. Leopold Eidlitz. (TO BE CONTINUED.) INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN TIME OF PEACE. (A fresco by Sir F. Leighton.) (No. 33.)

THE INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING.

HE attitude of painting, standard of development in any coun- as an art allied to archi- try without some roots in the past. tecture, towards the de- It appears, then, that as far as velopment of the early churches are concerned, fresco painting Renaissance movement was early employed in England on in English art of the Byzantine lines, and some such early present day is fully as and rude work in our churches has been worthy of our attention as that of deciphered by the aid of the instruc- sculpture, which in these pages we tions issued by the Councils of the have already considered. Moreover, Eastern Church for the guidance of the subject requires to be treated sacred painters. These instructions, on somewhat similar lines, for as resulting from the Iconoclastic move- we said that pedestal sculpture is a ment, were so thorough in prescribing branch of the art usurping to-day the treatment of saints, their relative too prominent a position, as compared rank, colors, etc., that one of the Fathers with sculpture applied to architecture, urges that painters could not be fairly so to a still greater degree we shall accused of heresy, seeing that they find that easel pictures have all but painted according to the principles and destroyed decorative painting. instructions of the Church. As an architect writing in an archi- Modern artists would have a good tectural magazine we must consider the deal to say as to such restrictions, but, subject from our point of view, which is as a fact, such a priest-regulated art is a decorative one, and entreat our not unfavorable to decorative effect in painting friends to lend us their ears architecture, as may be seen not only in all tolerance and good-fellowship, in Egyptian work, but also in modern while we tell them what we think and Greek churches, which often have a want. solemn and dignified aspect as com- Regarding our subject, then, however pared with many modern Roman briefly from the historical side, let us Catholic interiors. This is due to the observed first consider what has been the line of traditional lines having been ; development of the art in the past, so for the severe lines and straight atti- as to be able to judge what we may tudes, the simple coloring and conven- expect in the future, for it appears to tional backgrounds and also the absence be true that no art attains to a high of all perspective are all character- SOUTH LEIGH, OXFORD (OLD).

(No. i. INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. 159

istics of this often early style. Though land, raise the question of the limit of unappreciated by the modern color in painter, the Gothic style, for if a church they are elements that harmonize with is to be painted to the extent practiced the inevitable of the archi- in severity these restorations it might as well tecture. For architecture is the most be built in plaster as in stone, seeing restrained of the arts ; and that atmosphere, the surface is entirely covered, foreshortening, the perspective, etc., and the colors themselves, crude reds, of modern triumphs art, are, when in blues and greens used on the shafts excess, elements destructive of archi- and in the imitated wall hangings, tectural Our grandeur. friends, how- destroy the plain architectural effect need not be ever, alarmed, they may of the natural stone. Moreover, the continue to talk of dead Byzantine art, attempt thus made to rival the glass in and we will content ourselves with a strength of color is one which the na- wish that they may learn to combine ture of the materials renders a certain a decorative element with their modern failure. A somewhat similar question improvements. is a difficulty in St. Paul's, London, and In at no England, however, period indeed in any stone-built interior, were the fresco decorations of import- namely, what material is most likely to ance compared, for example, with those harmonize with the stone which will of There are in Italy. churches, Nor- darken and perhaps look dirty com- folk and Suffolk especially, where color pared with the painted surface, when if is admirably applied to screens and all the stone work be painted there is and saints are roofs, painted on the a loss of dignity, the effect being that but even panels, allowing for all pos- of a plaster instead of a stone interior. sible Puritan destruction, it is difficult Jn St. Paul's Cathedral, an opaque to that the art had a de- imagine great glass (a sectile mosaic), is being used velopment. The most important work which it is expected will harmonize seems to have been in the palace at with the stone surface, and a trial at- Westminster, where a room, called from tempt at painting the same in cream its " decorations, the painted chamber," color with gilding in parts, has fortun- had tiers of subjects of a highly ately been abandoned. Some people decorative character, the gold em- are bold enough to declare that painted ployed having a roughened ground, a architecture is a relic of barbarism and detail of much importance too often that it has decreased with the increase neglected in modern work. The use of art perception, that as in Greek of stamps to form patterns on which temples, the latest had the least color. this gold was to be applied was com- But, to return, at Westminster the mon in Italy, as in Cimabue's work employment of French or even Italian at Assisi, and very likely a somewhat artists explains the superior character of similar method was employed in the what was done, and we doubt if the chamber mentioned. Some churches state of the country was such as to al- in England are distempered in color all low of a grand art at that stage of its over, and have diaper patterns painted development. Consequently, Charles I. upon the surface, producing a somewhat must be considered as the introducer of gloomy effect, unless we suppose that decorative painting on a grand modern the original colors were glazed over scale by his employment of Rubens, and that this glaze has subsequently then on an embassy to his court, to been destroyed by damp and white- paint the ceiling of his new Banqueting wash. The supposition of glazing is Hall. Thus, this building was not only, the be- advanced to explain the crudeness of as we saw in our first article, classic much mediaeval coloring, too often ginning of the Anglo-Italian copied in restoration of modern Gothic school but was also probably the first of the interiors, producing a rawness of color example of decorative painting the that one cannot imagine to have been epoch in England. If, however, a the product of an artistic taste. Whitehall palace remains grand this branch of the These restored interiors, fortunately dream, not less so was more common in France than in Eng- sister art checked at its commencement. GRAND STAIRCASE, EATtTN TTAXL. ^OlO Me^T6N^ Nich- las Havvksmoor, Architect. (No 4.) INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. 161

Our next example is the ceiling some hue, and which deserves to be at Greenwich, 1708-1727, the work admired by the school which affects a of Sir James Thornhill, the father-in- sombre if somewhat muddy style of law of Sir Christopher Wren. In con- decoration. The staircase of Eaten t^-roK of this connection we find sequence him Hall, built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, the of his son-in- Wren's^ best decorating buildings known pupil (illustration law and his the chief works of No. is pupils, 4), a restrained example, the the such as the hall at Blen- age, great frescoes being confined to the panels the staircase at Eaton and heim, the formed by the strongly marked archi- dome at St. Paul's. tectural features. The well-known staircase and saloon Sir John Vanbrugh, also a pupil of at Court Hampton Palace, painted by Wren, and one of the most original of Verrio for William III., also display classic architects, was unable, through the characteristics of the style espe- his quarrels with his lady-client, the in the treatment of cially the cove, Duchess of Marlborough, to complete the central supporting circular paint- the interior of his masterpiece, Blen- ing. It is true, this type of work heim Palace, according to his own is in no favor in the and present day wishes, but probably the result (see was denounced some as years ago illustration No. 5) does not greatly sham. It all is, the same, extremely differ from his ideas, being decorated characteristic of its age and is in close in the style of the day, as may be seen union with its architecture. by the illustration of the characteristic We find this Chiaroscuro work in the saloon of the palace. Vatican forming the base of the fresco This effort at the grand art was,: work of Raphael, and from being however, short lived in England. merely the imitation of a sculpture Apartments became French gold-and- panel occupying a vacant space, it white rococo, with Watteau panels in advanced to be the sole occupant of color at the most, and at a later period the walls, and adding imitations of were hung with silk, on which easel architectural forms, transformed walls pictures were displayed in heavily gilt and ceilings into columned perspectives frames, the ceilings being treated in a crowned by receding domes. It has corresponding style (see illustration of been well said that Paolo Veronese Grosvenor House No. 7). The churches painted the surfaces of Palladio's sa- of the epoch remained clad in puritan loons, and in return borrowed his archi- whitewash. St. Paul's, alone, remained tecture for the background of his the crux of would-be decorators, am- pictures. bitious to complete the work of Wren. So close a union of painter and The most hopeful of these attempts, architect must be good, although the due to Sir Joshua Reynolds, was result is vitiated to our eyes by faults crushed by a bishop as a Roman inno- of style. This scheme of decoration vation, and nothing came of it but the is praised as extending the apparent acquisition of an easel picture or two, capacity of the apartments and trans- regarded then as the only safe scheme forming the enclosing walls into agree- of decoration for a church. The great able distant views, a result to be ob- artist was to have been assisted by tained in the succeeding age by the several others, including Angelica employment of gigantic mirrors which, Kauffmann, the Swiss-born lady artist, perhaps, illustrates as well as anything who was one of the original forty- In the futility of the end proposed. As members of the Royal Academy. far as the ceilings are concerned, we decorative work she executed panels in are invited to admire the art whereby the gold-and-white saloons of the day, a flat ceiling becomes a lofty cupola the subjects being of the sham pastoral and not to forget to notice the people or sentimental type. looking at us from a balcony, with a What her contributions to St. Paul's are left to background of blue sky. Decoratively would have been we we have shades of brown, which age imagine. As a strong admirer of the has often rendered of cool and hand- Italian school, and of Michael Angelo BLENHEIM SALON.

(No. 5.) GROSVENOR HOUSE.

(\o. 7.) I ISK vno PirniR.f. TN FORNKK TFWL1

S ION ATI I

CEILING PAINTING.

(No. 8.) INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. 165 in particular, Reynold's scheme would it may appear, it is true that Sir Chas. doubtless have been one of a full and Barry was excluded from the commis- of complete use color, though. we may sion, and the resulting work hence lacks that expect he would not have been that unity which it would have had if uninfluenced by the evil features of there had been a leader to control the his own age. We fear that the various works undertaken. As it was, would style have had more of the a number of more or less isolated pic- characteristics of the Carracci school tures were executed by Watts, Tenniel, of Bologna than of the Sistine Chapel. Cope and others in the various halls Angels on clouds, after Correggio, and corridors of the palace, the great- correctly foreshortened, visions of the est unity being obtained in the House upper heavens in yellow, with ascend- of Lords, where the architect employing ing and descending nymphs in blue and gilding in harmony with the six fres- white would, we fear, have detracted coes by three R.A.'s, Horsley, Dyce and from the grandeur of the church, un- Maclise, placed, three at each end of less we suppose a genius, rising above the oblong chamber in arcaded recesses, the level of his age, and impressing ranging with the side windows filled on his work the character of religion with stained glass and constituting the and the grandeur desired by the archi- sole pictorial decoration of the interior. tect. As we have practically no ex- To-day it is known as the gilded chamber; amples of this style in England, it is a title suggesting the aim of the archi- not worth while to dwell on the extra- tect, who, it is recorded, desired to treat ordinary errors of the mannerists of the roof with solid gilding as in the Michael Angelo, by whom architecture Basilicas at Rome. This leads us to was subordinated to be the provider of the question of stained glass and surfaces large enough for their drop mosaic, which, with gilding, form a scenes (see illustration of Italian ceiling strictly architectonic style of treat- No. 8). An instance of decoration due ment. a to a single artist, James Barry (born in Stained glass has exercised potent Cork in 1741 and a student in Rome influence on the development of paint- for five years) is the large Hall of the ing, which it has undoubtedly checked, Society ot Arts in the Adelphi, where if not destroyed, in northern countries. six large panels as much as 42 feet Fergusson makes a striking and just long and n feet high were executed comparison between King's College the by him at the price of the materials. Chapel, Cambridge, and Sistine The impetus towards a new depart- Chapel at Rome, hesitating to decide ure was due to the Prince Consort who between the architecture and painting suggested that the Houses of Parlia- predominant in the one and the other if there is an ment should be suitably decorated, respectively. We doubt and a commission was appointed to example of a satisfactory interior in and are study the subject of fresco painting, which painted glass paintings and a grand competition was held used together. St. Peter's, at Rome, in Westminster Hall in which Sir owes much to its clear glass And, if must choose be- John Tenniel, hereafter to be the this is so, naturally we our friends great Punch artist and Maclise, Cope, tween the two, and painter Dyse, Herbert and others were prize must, in an interior predominantly be content to winners, and Haydon, the man who architectural, paint glass of decoration had preached the necessity of a and to adopt some style a and architectural character grand style of historical painting was of rough for the wall surfaces. For beaten by his own pupils. Mr. Frith, adjacent at Albi are some notable R. A., records, in his reminiscences, instance on the that he saw the unhappy artist on the mediaeval frescoes painted of the award day in a restaurant at West- rough brick-work interior, pro- at a of the minster, and he was shedding tears in ducing, distance, something of a mosaic. the bitterness of defeat. The suicide low-toned decorative effect R. has been trying of the ill-starred apostle is a blot in Mr. Pearson, A., the same method in the chapel of St. English art history. Strange though i6f> INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING

influence John's, Red Lion Square, London, the ough College chapel shows the key note being to preserve the continu- of Rosetti. The Prince Consort's on this ity of the wall effect both in the wall efforts were not only exerted paintings and the stained glass, and in occasion, but also on several others, him the grand early mosaic interiors the with more or less success, and by idea is the same. some German artists were encouraged Attempts have been made to place in this country, Gruner, the author of the fresco over the chancel arch painted some works on Italian decorative on the rough brick-work. It is idle to work being employed at the Mauso- deny that this is a sacrifice for the leum at Frogmore. A glance at painter, but it is in harmony with the Griiner's representations of Italian Gothic style. work in his books will give a good idea Probably Sir Charles Barry's ideas of the dry formal character of his work. were in the same direction, and unity It had little of the Italian grace and would have been obtained as thor- beauty. One of this group of painters oughly as in an Egyptian temple or a was employed at Bridgewater House, Sicilian Basilica. However, it was not one of Sir Chas. Barry's most import- to be at Westminster, and the method ant works in the Italian style, without of the fresco painters proving little his concurrence, and on the termination durable, the attempt was left unfinished of the work the architect being asked and a few faded wall paintings remain to advise upon it, found himself unable as the result of a grand idea. to accept the responsibility of suggest- As an influence, however, in English ing any alteration, the second case in art the competition referred to, proved which he had no opportunity allowed most salutary. It was the break-up of him to give effect to his own ideas. the old school and the pre-Raphaelite Meantime, however, another force movement was a step in advance. was springing up and Thackeray's say- The decorative side of this romantic" ing to Sir John Millais was a true " " effort of Holman Hunt, Rosetti, and prophesy. I have met," he said, in Millais has been much overlooked. Rome a versatile young dog, named Holman Hunt records as the starting Leighton, who will run you hard some of the movement, a study by them of day for the Presidency of the Royal the Pisan frescoes, then newly pub- Academy." In fact, starting a few lished. Surely nothing could be years later in style than the brethern, more significant, for this early Italian the "young dog" came to the front in school is nothing if not decorative and England, with a picture, significantly in close alliance with the architecture chosen, of Cimabue's triumph in Flor- of the age right up to the time of ence. Here, in fact, was decorative Raphael. The misfortune was that painting of early-Raphael rather than for reasons we shall, discuss later, there pre-Raphael style and the effect was is no scope in England for decorative gained without what could be called work on a large scale and the style of archaic drawing. If then, we had the the Pisan frescoes is another thing history and tendency of a national when applied to easel pictures. Hence historical school, the artist would have " " the efforts of the brethren struck painted in the important churches, the English public with amazement. mansions and public buildings of this Nothing of the kind pre-existed in our country, employing a style of perfect midst, and architects lent no aid. In drawing with gorgeous color, harmon- spite of the desire of the late Mr. izing in effect with the best architecture Street and a few others to do so, the of the epoch, but in place of which we movement, decoratively considered, have nothing else to show you, but the fell short of its promise and the best two frescoes at South Kensington known of the three developed only into Museum, besides which there are only an easel painter necessarily reverting the unexecuted scheme for St. Paul's to the traditional modern style for the Cathedral and some minor work. purpose. Illustration No. 12, one of a It is to be feared that in this country series of decorative panels in Marlbor- the easel picture reigns supreme. True, ~ I 3 ~ MEDALLION FOR ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. By Sir F. Leighton.

(No. 15.) SCHEME OF DECORATION FOR THE DOME OF ST. PAULS.

(No. 16.) Detail by E. J. Poynter. SCHEME FOR DECORATION OF THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

(No. 17 ) Details by E. J. Poynter. INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. it is often treated and is of decoratively figures round the base without any so in the decoration of an ribs at far, pleasing all. That is certainly in accord while interior, satisfying our idea of with the constructional idea of a dome. still it can never be portable property, The dome of St. Paul's, at present, is the same as thing fresco work proper, the most majestic in internal effect of both as to decoration and in a forming any in the style, having a spacious and school of artists able to work on a crowning character, seeming to cover large scale. in the great octagon without effort and Alfred Stevens came later with the without the excessive and detrimental ideas of Michael Angelo. rather than of height of its rivals. Of Stevens' work his scheme fo'r Raphael, the dome of one pendentive exists, executed in mo- St. Paul's remains in a model impressed saic a grand figure of Jsaiah being with the unmistakeable stamp of genius the best of the eight that have been far and above any scheme yet proposed finished, in the execution of which for that subject. various artists have been employed. the Sistine Inspired by Chapel roof, No doubt from the strictly archi- it consists of a series of ribs and grand tectural point of view, these pen- circles containing subjects between. dentives are open to the same The ribs are formed by tiers of men in criticism as the late Italian school in couples, supporting entablatures piled general, and cannot pretend to have the above each other, and these bold fig- same harmony as the Sistine ceiling ures, nude or semi-nude, were not calcu- which we should like to regard as the lated to please the clergy, and would limit of freedom allowable for work in certainly have to be the work of a conjunction with architecture. It is a great artist, if the necessary sublime fact that the Byzantine style of which character of the religious edifice were parts remain in St. Mark's, Venice, at to be maintained. Ravenna, and in Sicily, possesses a Our illustrations of four trial cartoons dignity that is most in accord with the (No. 14) hung in the dome itself, form strong lines of architecture. This dig- a modification of this scheme by Sir F. nity is, perhaps, among living artists in Leighton and Mr. E. J. Poynter R. A., England niDst closely attained by the former contributing the lower Burne-Jones. His mosaics, glass and medallion of the rising of the dead from tapestry are full of that harmony of line the sea (No. 15), the decorative frame- and severity of treatment that the dec- work being by the latter. The details oration of an interior demands. Their given Nos. 16 and 17 will enable our style is one allied to early Italian Re- readers to form a good idea of the naissance, though there is much of whole, which was found to be some- Byzantine and Gothic character in it. what less effective in position than had For its due appreciation it requires been expected. something more than a knowledge of Apart from this scheme, the question the modern schools of painting. Hence of the treatment of the dome with ribs the alleged incomprehensibility of his is one for very serious consideration. work, which is quite natural to those St. Peter's at Rome and many Italian unacquainted with its basis (No. 18). churches of the age are so treated, William Morris, a pupil of the late most of them having constructed ribs G. E. Street, and thus learned in Gothic to start from which, however, do not art, has powerfully helped decorative exist at St. Paul's, and are not the art in England, executing the designs of natural method of constructing the Mr. Burne-Jones and carrying out dome. Moreover, however large the work in which a similar feeling prevails. ribs are at the base they taper to a Our illustration (No. 19) of a room in most unpleasant extent towards the Eaton Hall, of not much architectural to the top, and the usual intervening circles merit, owes its charm entirely executed which are are not suggestive of stability. A decorations by him, plausible concentric scheme was pro- of a strongly conventional character, posed for St. Paul's by Mr. T. P. Ted- as will be seen. similar in is the inte- don, F. R. I. B. A., consisting of rings Somewhat style

Vol. IV. 2. 3. :HE ANNUNCIATION. By E. Burne-Jones..

(No. 18 ) s. F. BODLEY'S DECORATION.

rior (illustration No. 20) by Mr. ter be Bodley may seen in All Saints, Mar- A. R. A., whose churches and houses garet street, by Mr. William Butter- numberless of inter- present examples field, whose interior is one of the decoration of this character. Mr. esting most highly- decorated examples of the G. F. Watts, R. A. another represents epoch.* The grand chapel of Keble type of us often Renaissance, reminding College, Oxford, by the same architect, of Titian in the of the dec- has large style a similar style of decoration only orative work which he affects. His pen- that the subjects are in ceramic mosaic, dentive in St. Paul's represents a flying the material not being favorable to their a angel holding scroll and has a move- effect. The new mosaic decorations of ment that recalls the of rape Ganymede the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral by Mr. in the at Venice Titian. ceiling by He W. B. Richmond, A. R. A., promise to be was one of those employed at the one of the most important schemes of Houses of where there is a Parliament, modern times. I have had the pleasure fresco of St. and the George Dragon of visiting these, the scaffolding being and one can by him, only regret that still up, and perhaps on some future several of his well known canvasses so occasion the subject may be taken up strongly decorative in character were with proper illustrations. Mr. Butter- not executed in some such public build- field has been one of the most con- There is a that on the ing. story, com- sistent advocates of the use of color, of pletion, many years ago. the grand his work taking generally the strongly hall of Euston Station, he volunteered architectural form. to decorate its walls at the price of the A recent article in this journal has materials, an offer which, incredible as given an account of the use of mosaic it will sound, was actually refused. Mr. in England, so that it is unnecessary to T. D. Grace was an energetic exponent say more on this head, which could not, of color decoration, and his son con- however, be entirely passed by without tinues his work having been employed notice. in recent additions to the National Gal- In that article reference was made to lery, which however is no instance of Mr. Walter Crane and a frieze by him decorative art on a grand scale. was illustrated and the general charac- Mr. Stacey Marks, R. A., should ter of his work is so well known that it have been mentioned before. The fine is needless to speak of it. We give, frieze of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, however, an illustration (No. 24) of a in shown our illustration (No. 21), is a fine interior by Mr. Norman Shaw, hav- good example of his work, though ing a painted frieze by him. Mr. Crane's such a would be name the perhaps to-day subject suggests, moreover, import- ^ considered too literary for decorative ant element of wall paper, as affecting painting. The interior is by Mr. the subject of color in houses and Waterhouse, R. A., and illustrates a which in England has taken such a great domestic interior of the Gothic revi- and almost exclusive share in the dec- val. In the Gothic revival the ideas oration of our houses. The use of of color decoration were influenced paper in France and Italy is not nearly unduly by stained glass and much of so important and the character of the the work executed reminds us of non- work not nearly so good. transparent glass by its strong out- To-day, wall-papering occupies the line and flat treatment and general place of the tapestry of the mediaeval conventional character. One class of and early Renaissance ages and in so this work was executed in brown en much is detrimental to the extension of the plaster surface without any color painting. in a common vil- at all, or only perhaps gilding in parts, One may see Italy being considered a cheap and effective lage inn with an elaborate attempt at form of decoration for a church. Some- a fresco ceiling, in which figures are in- what similar in style was the painting on * The effect here is obtained the over nu- (Illustration No. 23.) by tiles, subject extending the use of natural-colored materials and is, as will he the to the seen, very architectonic in character. The painting of merous squares without regard same reredos panels is by the late Mr. Dyce, R. A. (the joints. The best examples of this lat- who was employed in the House of Lords.)

DECORATION IN ALL SAINTS* CHURCH, MARGARET STREET (GOTHIC REVIVAL.)

(No. 23.) a i I

u. o o INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. 17? troduced and it is un- freely, though furniture an element hostile to paint- still the doubtedly bad, fact of its ing, other than in easel form, the best existence is significant. From such solution may be found in the treatment rude the works of beginnings the great to be seen in early Renaissance inte- artists have their origin, and the latter riors in Venice, where a deep frieze is are but the final of a perfection long formed by well-detailed pilasters and series of previous efforts. If then in cornices framing the canvases. The England it has not been and is not ceilings are paneled and have suit- common to have decorative painting on able paintings. The whole upper por- any large scale in either houses or the tion of the room forms a rich and smaller public buildings, how is it pos- suitable covering to domestic interiors. sible all of a sudden to be able to suc- In Venetian interiors of the Renais- cessfully decorate a great building. sance, the canvas surface, from the Obviously both the experience and the point of view of the grand style of men will be lacking. Tapestry, in the Florence and Rome, whose frescos are with its decorative on the past, cool, pleasant, wall itself, is, no doubt a defect ; tones, formed a surface satisfying the but it is equally certain that it is more eye while it protected the inhabitants in accord with modern feeling, which of the apartment from cold and damp, prefers interiors relatively small but both inherent in this country and both rich and whose luxury takes the form fatal to fresco work. Tapestry, again, of high finish in surfaces and ornament. combined admirably with the ordinary The interior illustrated (No. 30) at woodwork used in paneling and doors Hewell Grange, by Bodley & Garner, is and while enhancing the furniture, it an effective instance, only that here the left its rivals far behind in comfort and canvases are exceptionally long and effect. Illustration No. 25 shows the not sub-divided by pilasters, nor are the mediaeval hall of Hampton Court Pal- panels of the ceiling decorated. ace with tapestry dado, and No. 26, There is a feature in French life the council chamber of Hardwick Hall, which does not exist with us, namely, " " and No. 27, the state bedroom, show- the Mairie or small town hall, where ing how exclusively the tapestry covers the Salle des Manages and the Salle with the surface. The interior (No. 28) from des Fetes are elaborately frescoed Holland House has tapestry panels appropriate subjects. with a fine plaster ceiling of Jacobean Political feeling, tending on one side this form date, while the example (No. 29) from to exalt civil marriage, takes Blenheim Palace show tapestry com- of increasing the effect of the cere- bined with the coves and wood dados mony, a state of things having no of the of the later epoch. Herein, too, to-day counterpart with us. Certain should be a field for artists able in dec- larger towns or cities as they mostly orative design, for tapestry well treated are, or aspire to be, have recently in accordance with the good periods attempted to decorate their public is and not in foolish imitations of paint- halls. Of these, the best known the work of ings, is a material worthy of the best Manchester Town Hall, which efforts of any artist. Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R. A., The fault of the exclusive easel form is decorated by a series of large Madox Brown. of painting is that so many artists seem frescos by the late Ford also unable to work in any other medium, They are executed in spirit fresco, at and though all forms of art have their employed by Sir Frederic Leighton it is a method in- restrictions, they cry out against the South Kensington Gambier and limits of mosaic, glass, or tapestry, in vented by Mr. Parry, withstand the all of which their predecessors did which it is hoped will are notable work. English climate. The subjects of Manchester his- With regard to the position of deco- suitable passages with Roman soldiers rative painting in domestic interiors, tory, leading off walls of the first a seeing that there is a rooted objection building the city, treatment of the to paintings on the ceiling, forming bold and vigorous of with the obtrusive character of modern theme. Another subject is worthy

O o fc

3-ja f> a* 186 INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING.

remark for its curious coloring of pur- An idea which we might borrow from ple and yellow, a key rather affected by the early Renaissance is the use of these the introduced here intersected which so pre-Raphaelstes, large coves, were by the quaint costume of the boys' common in Italy at that epoch, and school, the long coats being purple and whose surfaces are often admirably the stockings yellow. Perhaps the occupied by single figures in vary- most successful of these subjects is the ing altitudes. No doubt the sur- local astronomer observing the transit face presents great difficulties to any with rude contrivances of his own artist unused to such work but as a make. A strong ray of light is passing master of his craft, he should be equal through his instrument across the dark to it. garret, which the astronomer is just These coves have the advantage of about to enter. As to his scheme, Mr. being well placed and easily lighted, Madox Brown says that he kept the both of consideration in modern in- colors light, with the idea of suiting teriors. the style of the hall. A curious idea of to-day, just worth At Birmingham, a bold attempt has mentioning is to execute a grand fly- been made to employ native and youth- away subject like one of the frescos of ful talent, the students of the munici- the late Renaissance, in leaded and pal art school being the executants, highly colored glass in the day-light of under the general direction of the head a hall or staircase, that method of master. lighting having become almost indis- Other towns will probably proceed pensible in modern buildings. Such a to rival these great undertakings with, work involves of course as much skill we may hope, increased success. Cer- in perspective and foreshortening as tainly such work requires to be thorough was employed in the previous age. We and proposed from the outset. The hardly venture to express any opinion forms of the surfaces, of the ceiling, the as to the advisability of such a proceed- method of lighting the floor surface and ing. all the details require to be fully con- One thing we can condemn, and that sidered between architect and painter. is the common use of the heavens as a For color decoration on a grand decorative adjunct in our ceilings. scale is not a matter of one or two iso- This is a phase of work executed by a lated pictures, but is the complete ex- class of Italians over here, who delight pression of the whole interior. In the in such features as the rising of the sun, most recent large church in London, or the gathering of clouds for a storm, that of Holy Trinity in Sloane square, as the suitable covering in for an apart- it was the hope of the late T. D. Sed- ment, but although such ideas are as ding, its architect, to employ the tal- old as the Romans we find it hard to ents of numerous decorative craftsmen accept them as forms of artistic expres- and especially to have the powerful sion. aid of Mr. Burne-Jones in painting a The utter inanities of restaurant grand frieze round the church and also decoration in London are often due to in decorating the chancel roof. It is to these workmen who decorate such be hoped that in spite of the architects' places with sickly cupids, wreaths of death some part of the scheme may yet flowers and other trappings. The res- be executed. taurant of the South Kensington Mu- We referred to the last of our public seum is in strong contrast to such buildings, viz, the Imperial Institute, places, the "grill room," due to Mr. in the previous articles on architecture William Morris, is decorated with and sculpture, but in regard to paint- large panels of tiles painted in blue ing it presents us at present with no and white varied with pale reds and more than a few single-figure panels on yellows, set in a paneling of polished the elaborate vaulted roof of the stair- walnut, and the whole scheme forms an case, which must be considered only as admirable interior for such a purpose a beginning which will, we hope, be (No. 32). The subject of these panels, extended in the future. which are from the designs of Mr. E. South Kensington Museum. PANEL IN GLAZED TILE. By E. J. Poynter.

(No. 32.) Vol. IV.-2. 4.

OF INFLUENCE EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. i89

J. Poynter, R. A., is the Seasons, and fancy that easel painting more or less the style is that of early Renaissance decorative in character will continue in of to glass France, consisting figures hold the only place in spite of the decoratively treated in conventional isolated efforts of artists in each architectural tabernacles. The room generation. adjoining is more purely architectonic, While town halls are bare and having a ceiling of enamelled iron churches are thought complete when treated in early Italian style, and hav- the last window has been filled with ing windows of Renaissance glass with stained glass and private houses are in color set in a subjects strong general fields for wall-papers and tapestries, surface of pale glass. The walls and col- the fresco artist is likely to remain umns are lined with glazed faience with without any scope for the exercise of detailed friezes and bands modelled by his talents. Messrs. Moody & Sykes. Is it to be wondered at, then, that The two frescos in the same museum men of ability turn their thoughts, by Sir Frederic Leighton, already re- either at once to easel painting or else ferred to, constitute perhaps the most to such forms of art as mosaics, stained important work of the kind in England glass, tapestry, or wall papers, fields of to-day. In point of color, the one of art in which there is much to be " representing war," which is mediaeval done by giving to our architecture that in character, has purple and red and adjunct of figure work and color which dark colors generally, while the com- it lacks, forming interiors of a home- u panion fresco, peace," which is Greek like character. One form of painting in character, is yellow and white, with common in early Renaissance times blue for sea and sky, contrasted by remains, but is little followed and that angle groups of brown-skinned men. is the painting in a decorative manner (Illustration No. 33.) These two of smaller objects, as in cabinets, fur- frescos are thus extremely interesting niture, etc. For, except some pianos to compare, being at opposite ends of and such articles, decorated by artists the same hall. The latter unfortu- of name, we hear of little of such work nately is only of decorated iron and which however is a promising field for glass and thus no general effect is further effort. produced as of some grand renaissance Alfred Stevens painted some chim- interior. ney pieces with figure work, and also Those who wish to pursue the sub- other panels belonging to a general ject of English fresco art further will scheme, and though the work sounds find at South Kensington the chief unimportant to an ambitious artist, the cartoons from the Westminster com- renaissance examples show that it petition alluded to above, together affords admirable opportunities for with one of a mosaic by Mr. E. J. good work. Allied to such work are Poynter and some for stained glass by the reredos in our churches, too Mr. Burne-Jones. often treated only as easel pictures, There is also here a series o: ceramic while from the Renaissance in Spain mosaic single-figure subjects in a wall we might borrow the idea of those im- arcade, contributed by various artists mense retablos which would afford of the age more or less valuable or panels of sufficient scale for good a interesting. Here, too, are the Raphael figure work. We illustrate modern a cartoons, a priceless standard of decor- example of reredos from church by ative work, and pne to which the decor- Mr. Norman Shaw (No. 34), the ative painters of to-day seem wholly The influence of early Renais- unable to attain. sance is essentially decorative, for color are allied with architectural In summing up, it may be remem- and form bered that we were not very hopeful detail in close union, and dissolved in the later when such detail on the sculpture side, still less we fear only age can we be on the side of decorative was ignored to give room for an ex- of painting on a large scale. Unless the cessive development anatomy, per- then and future prove different to the past we spective, and other, new, ipo INFLUENCE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE ON PAINTING. progressing resources of the painters the arts, with painting, under the in- art. Now that these have become fluence of the early Renaissance, while more or less commonplaces, it is at the same time striving for a style in surely the time to renew the alliance harmony with the best aims of modern of architecture, the centre point of all civilization and artistic development.

Banister F. Fletcher, A. R. I. B. A. A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGAWA AT NIKKO.

O not use the word magni- seem to emanate from the temples ficent until you have seen themselves. * the old Nikko," says Honda Kadzusa no Suke may justly Japanese proverb, Nikko be styled the architect of this great being used comprehen- masterpiece, superintendent of works sively for the temples of being the term actually employed in that fair For Nikko has the spot.f though archives ; for the like the " Japanese, ever furnished the "mise-en-scene for French before the days of Pierre Les- all Japanese fairy tales, fairyland cot and Philibert de L'Orme, had no materializes when one stands before word exactly corresponding to our her shrines, and reaches its climax in own term of architect. the mausoleum of lyeyasu. J Of Kadzusa, personally, little is posi- This temple, like all others in Japan, tively known, save that he was an is not a single building, but a collec- adherent of the Shogun Tokugawa tion situated on the terraced slope of a Hidetada, but any question regarding hill, and treated in regard to distribu- his ability may be answered by quoting tion as a feature of the landscape. High the epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren : " above the waters of the Daiyagawa it Si monumentum requaeris, circum- rises, with tier on tier of crimson lac- spice !" quer and gold set jewel-like in grooves Architecturally speaking, the temple of giant criptomerias born two thou- of lyeyasu is for the most part Bud- sand while over all and from to 1868 was ruled years ago ; hangs dhist, 1654 that violet cathedral light one learns by a Buddhist Abbot chosen from to love in the land of the Mikado. For among the princes of the Imperial in is in house but after the revolution it was distance Japan not rendered ; Payne's gray or dirty white, but by stripped of much artistic treasure, and all a decree of the converted violet, that gentlest of solar lights ; (by Mikado) and at Nikko (with the exception of an into a Shinto place of worship.* occasional after-glow on sacred Nan- This change, however, was less radi- taisan at the western vanishing point) cal than would at first appear, for in the all the warm colors of the perspective early part of the ninth century, after Kobo Daishi had made his master- " * Nikko wo minai uchi wa, Kekko to iuna." t Nikko means Sun's brightness or splendor. * Shinto was the indigenous religion of Japan before the and is at in $ lyeyasu Shugun, statesman, lawgiver and patron of introduction of Buddhism, practised present in the of Satsuma. It is a art, was born in the year 1542 and died in 1616. He was its greatest purity province and ancestor- the founder of the great Tokugawa dynasty which con- combination of nature-worship, hero-worship trolled the destinies of Japan through two hundred and worship, and numbers eight million deities in its calendar, of have been in the of fifty years of unbroken peace, and started a renaissance all whom incorporated pantheon moral is in art only rivaled perhaps by the Medicis in the cinque Japanese Buddhism. Its teaching usually the words: "Follow and cento. The period of the lyeyasu Shogunate is often summed up in your impulses, called the Periclean Age of Japanese art. obey the Mikado !"

I94 A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGA WA AT NIKKO. stroke of reconciling Buddhism with The pagoda in question is composed Shintoism by teaching that Shinto of five stories, each set a little back deities were only varied manifestations within the lower, and girt about with of Buddha, the art forms of Buddhism, galleries and overhanging eaves. A which had been imported from Corea, twisted spire forms the culmination, became in like manner grafted upon and the whole is lacquered in dull red,, those of the rival faith, until each be- save the lower story, where the painted came so absorbed in the other, that it carvings of the bull, tiger, hare, etc.,, is difficult to-day to find more than of the duodenery cycle disport them- two or three temples throughout the selves in pleasing distribution. land that are not hybrid in this respect. To ascend in to the first terraced Even the temple of. lyeyasu is no court of the temple, the worshiper is exception to the rule, as is declared at compelled to pass through "Mio-mon"" the first the or of the two so called approach by granite gate kings ; " torii,'. a sort of Japanese propylaea from the statues of two heroes origin- composed of two columns, a lintel with ally occupying the niches on either projecting ends and a tie-beam, a hand. The mode of worshipping these thing of purely Shinto origin and sym- was to chew up a prayer printed on bolical of the early faith. a small bit of tissue paper and then In old time the torii was always of throw it or spit it at the god. If the wood and used (as the name would paper adhered to the image owing to- imply)* for a bird-rest, whereon the saliva, it was thought that the fowls offered to be answered.* perched the temple ; petition would These but in later days, when the Buddhist statues have now been removed to the cult grew more universal, its true sig- temple of lyemitsu and in their place u " nificance and use was forgotten, and stand the bronze Ama-Inu and " beauty of form commending it as a Koma-lnu" or Japanese and Korean gateway, it was ever after employed dog, which are believed to guard the for that purpose. temple against demons. A typical bronze gateway or arch of It has been the usual custom for the kind, inlaid with the crests of the critics to make only a slight allusion " " Tokugawa in gold, stands in the first to Nio-mon and pass hurriedly on court. (Fig. I.) to the more elaborately executed gate Before entering what may be termed of "Yomeimon." But the former, like the close of the temple, a pagoda given all things Japanese, is not without its " " by Sakai Wakasa-no-Kami (a own individuality, and (what is more stanch adherent of the Tokugawa important) comprises many of those clan), claims attention. qualities peculiarly characteristic of all TheGojin-no-to, orpdgodasof Japan the better class of Japanese buildings. " differ from those of China in that they Like the Yomeimon" (Fig. IV.), " '" are almost invariably square, those in it is a species of arc-de-triomphe other countries being octagonal or surmounted by a roof, without a single round. Within stands what at first nail used in its construction. No founda- to a sight appears be column passing tion (in the American or European the centre as a a it to the earth for through support ; sense) hugs ; Jap- careful examination, however, reveals it anese houses are not built in the ground to be no column at all, but a heavy but on the ground, so that in case of beam hung from the apex of the roof, typhoons or other convulsions of nature, like the of a tongue bell, so that in they avoid being snapped off, and tend case of or typhoons earthquakes the rather to slide. f centre of gravity is automatically Twelve columns with lions and tapirs raised or lowered according to the de- for capitals support and embellish flection of the building from the verti- cal, the whole in thereby preserving *This performance is still practised by the faithful. equilibrium. *f Mr. Y. Tsumaki, the government architect, informed the author that the Great Temple of Nara shifted its posi- tion a foot during a recent earthquake, and yet retained, * Torii from tori, meaning a fowl. its strength and stability. A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGA WA AT NIKKO. *95

" " Nio-mon above or externally; which, holy water cistern (Fig. II.), where in lieu of cornice, springs a riot of the piers supporting the pavilion are of a " complicated corbelling ; nightmare granite from the quarries of Naga- of complexity to the inquisitive en- hata ;" but these carry very little gineer. weight, are not built /// the ground, and Other such as batter in the fashion a animals, unicorns, Egyptian ; pre- tigers and elephants, carved with con- caution usually taken throughout the ventional freedom, contribute their island of Hondo. quota to the scheme of decoration, to The water-basin itself (a gift of the which must be added the fabulous Prince of Hizen) likewise engages at- "takuju," who are said to visit the tention through being a single block of earth only when a virtuous lord occu- granite so delicate in adjustment that pies the throne. But when everything the water pours over all sides simul- is said, the real touch of genius (archi- taneously. Its purpose is for purifica- tecturally) is the roof. Not on account tion before prayers, and in old days of its graceful curve, nor the manner the Mikado personally performed the in which the overhanging eaves blend ceremony of ablution for his subjects, and soften the tones of color but from as a of the nation ; symbolic cleansing the dignity and distinction which it from sin. This custom no longer ob- sheds over the whole mass, like the tains, and at present each penitent per- Renaissance top of the Giralda tower forms his own lustration for himself.. designed by Fernan Ruiz. A small ladle is employed for rinsing " A fence thrown right and left of Nio- out the mouth and pouring water over mon," and painted in deep vermilion, the hands, after which the believer goes the first court and here a to attract encircles ; to the shrine, rings gong within, the mausoleum of lyeyasti may the Deity's attention, and bowing low,. be said to properly begin. silently offers prayer and supplication. " To the right stand the store and Above the On-chozu-ya" springs a of treasure houses, disposed in picturesque roof of graceful^ curve, composed the ends irregularity, rich with the carvings of bamboo sheathe^; in copper, with Hidari Jingoro (the Grinling Gibbons of the rafters bfejng embossed of the Toku- of Japan); to the left, the stable of the the three Asarum leaves sacred white pony, the "On-chozuya," gawa crest. Flowers and winged- and the Library of Buddhist Manu- dragons carved in relief fill the pedi- in crimson all so tinted that the color scripts clothed lacquer ; ment, softly while through the "torii," before men- seems breathed on, rather than painted ; cun- tioned, tiers of architectural loveliness while plates of burnished bronze, intervals rise in limitless perspective. ningly wrought, flash at One fault is prone to present itself to throughout the design in rays of golden all the Occidental mind, namely : that brown. these are of wood. But when A leads by the Library buildings pebbly path " " it is understood that this choice of of Buddhist scriptures called Kyodo its stone lanterns material is not from motives of economy (Fig. III.) (with pre- and at a but from necessity,* and that lacquer sented by the daimios)* stops to the second covering if renewed preserves wood to flight of steps climbing further is still in crescendo. an age equal to that of stone, f court, where beauty on either objection simply relapses into pre- Here two belfries rise of one judice. hand, suggestive palanquins, other a drum One exception to the wooden theory containing a bell, the in the declares itself in the "On-chozuya" which plays so important a part " " ritual of the Nichiren sect. Behind " ot Yakushi Nio- * In the great earthquake at Nagoya the stone buildings stands the temple " were reduced to the loss of life within " practically powder, and straight before, Yomeimon them being almost unprecedented, while on the other hand rai," many of the lighter wooden houses successfully resisted the shock. + wooden temples of Japan are a thousand years no Many " various members of the nobility %Ta^When has been in sented^^^^.^^S^S^M^ old and the Great Temple of Kwannon by a^ of blemanble committed a sin, he gave a existence twelve centuries.. The lacquercquer covering and felt more comfortable. these buildings is renewed every twenty years.

A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGAVVA AT N1KKO.

the double raftered (Fig. IV.) the masterpiece of glyptic belling support " into art, guarded by the lanterns of Sat- roof, which, twisted graceful " " * suma and Sendai." curves, dominates the whole and makes To give a true impression of Yomei- the picture more distinctly etched upon mon in words is quite impossi- the mind. (Fig IV.) " ble, since it is a thing to be described But who can convince of charm by with colors or music rather than nouns, enumerating the features of a face." attributive adjuncts and verbs. One These are the several component parts can only catalogue its several parts, and their synopsis, minus the color scheme which latter Percival Lowell and leave synthesis to the patient ; reader. has aptly described as "a jewel of a Four columns form the principal con- thousand rays, yet whose beauties structive features of each fagade. blend into one, as the prismatic tints These, like everything about the build- combine to white ;" to give the true are but with a conven- impression in words which "Yomei- ing, carved, " tional design in such low relief as to mon exerts upon a beholder is artist- preserve a certain severity and punctu- ically impossible, it can only be felt. " ate the architectural of the The third court to which Yomei- hyperbole " rest. On one of these shafts (known as mon gives access, is bounded on the " " the Mayoke-no hashira or evil avert- north by a stone wall (on which rests of " ing column), the design has been re- the gate Karamon "), and on the versed, lest the too great perfection of other three sides by a cloister, in whose the building should incur divine jeal- panels one sees the Buddhist love of ousy. On another, a tiger (chiseled birds, insects and all living things mag- with Genoese delicacy) is so cleverly nificently portrayed in sculpture. In- disposed that an illusion of fur is deed, it is this religious reverence for effected by means of the natural grain- all things created that has probably ing of the wood. All bear capitals of brought Japanese sculpture to its pres- " " carven kirin (hybrid monsters born ent perfection and made it realistic ot dragons and cows), and support a when not decoratively conventional. bracketed cornice, in which a row of Its birth is said to have been about 3 the same beasts grimace at equal inter- A. D., when the custom of burying vals above sculptured groups of Chinese alive* the wife and two or more ser- sages. Over the heads of these rises a vants with the deceased lord was still balustrade, suggesting a cameo linked- in vogue. For tradition tells us that bracelet of Florentine workmanship, on one of these occasions a courtier " " with panels pictorially prescious named Izumo made clay images and wrought with birds, tangled leafage got them substituted for the human and children at play, and accentuated article, which stroke of ingenuity with points of light and shade like the served the double purpose of ever after work of Gabriel Rovezzano. This doing away with "Junshi" (or burial forms the perimeter of a second story with the master), and of bringing about gallery, on which give archways some- the evolution of plastic art. what Saracenic in shape, flanked with A good example of Japanese wooden columns crowned with white dragons. sculpture was formerly to be seen on Another of these latter monsters in- the gate at the right of the court. This dulges in picturesque contortions upon was a cat, carved by Hidari Jingoro, in each architrave, his province of useful- such perfection (we are told) that it ness being here limited to the orna- used to go off on nocturnal expeditions mental, though Japanese legend tells and not return until morning. On one " us that when the white dragon breathes, of these occasions it remained away the breath of his lungs goes into the altogether, wherefore it has now been earth and turns to gold." replaced by another of more seden- More dragons and complicated cor- tary habits, but less artistic worth.

* The bronze lanterns to the right were given by the Prince of Sendai in 1641, those to the left by the Prince of *Sometimes the wife and servants were permitted to Satsuma. commit suicide before being buried. A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGAWA AT NIKKO. i99

Two of medium architect- had a buildings passion for strong drink, and ural merit share the right of the court decorates in consequence the handles with the one is the cat-gate ; theatre of wine But the a " cups. ninth-dragon, in which the or sacred dance sort of kagura," Japanese atlas, enjoyed most is a native performed by virgin of the the bearing of great weights, which house the other covers an useful Imperial ; "penchant" has caused his .altar whereon aromatic woods are image to be perpetuated upon the legs burned during prayer. Directly oppo- of tables and all kinds of constructive site rises a building inlaid against a features. dark green of called Other fac-similes of this " ground foliage, patient mem- a " Kura or "store-house," for the ber of the dragon family serve as sacred chariots but none of in ; these, brackets the porch of the temple " whether purposely or otherwise, detract proper, situated back of Karamon," the from masterful brilliancy of the which building easily holds the first sacred inclosure called "tamagaki,"* rank in Japanese architecture. containing the oratory and chapel. A The plan includes an oratory with trellis (Fig. V.), divided into panels and adjacent ante-rooms in the foreground; roofed, surrounds this feature, which in a sanctuary at the back, and an inter- itself is a work of art, each front com- vening apartment uniting the whole partment being webbed in the centre together. and framed above and below with bands Externally a certain simplicity rules of conventional decoration and poly- (save in the case of doors which were " chromatic The Gate of Kara- and a railed " carving. richly arabesque), gal- mon (Fig. VI.) clasps it together in lery, composed of columns* welded the middle, tricked out in all the bravery together with horizontal beams,f of carved and inlaid the whole. Chinese woods ; girdles The architrave sug- rare importations in Japan, where the gests the panels of Squarciont of Padua " " Keyaki (a native elm) and camphor wrought in painted sculpture, and sup- wood are the favorite materials for the usual bracketed cornice ports ; over temples. all of which broods the great double- " Gilt is used here and there in Kara- raftered roof, with tile-crested gables, " mon as well as in the adjacent walls, and overhanging eaves, warming the but sparingly for elegance, not lavishly whole with rich contralto tones of pur- for splendor as in the interior of the ple shadow. Oratory, the only two ways in which But within (Fig. VII.) splendor should ever used for that me- not so much as gilt be ; reigns supreme, regards dium occidental use of gilt, which only size and quantity, as material and qual- a is unknown for Orientals never mistake begets tawdry monotony ity ; big- in the Far East. ness for greatness. Statuettes, flower-carving and em- Nevertheless one thing is always a bossed bronze, dispute the prestige of source of conjecture to the average beauty on the door and lintel of foreigner, namely : how an entire con- " Karamon," while a sort of pterodac- gregation can be collected for service tyl known as the ninth-dragon coils it- in the oratory, which though the largest self picturesquely around the columns. room in the house, still measures only The name ninth-dragon is given to this 42 by 27 feet. But it must be borne in particular animal to distinguish him mind that all the worshipers do not female- arrive nor remain from his brethren ; for the together, throughout believed to the whole ceremonial, and that even a dragon was always bring " " of forth litters of nine, each member of large mat suri partakes rather which had some especial passion or the nature of a social gathering outside in the than a attribute ; thus one delighted music, building, religious ceremony and hence is to be found on the usually " * Intercolumniations are almost one Ken," carved ornamentation of the "koto," " invariably" which unit is composed of six Shaku or Japanese feet to or other musical instrument ; another (a Shaku being equal 11.93 inches.) " i A Ken" is also subdivided into 22 minutes, and each minute into 22 seconds. " " is unknown in * The tama-gaki is 50 feet square. Diagonal bracing Japan.

ONE SIDE OF THE DOOR OF KARAMON.

FIG. VI. ] Vol. IV. ?. 5. 204 A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGAWA AT NJKKO.

it it is a rare to see The decorations of the two ante- within ; hence thing are more than forty praying at a time inside rooms (Figs. VIII. and IX.) even the temple proper. Besides whatever more splendid in detail than those of the con- Japanese religion was in the days of the oratory, though general ~Kobo Daishi, Shinran or Nichiren, to- structive distribution is the same. And day it is little more than a form this brings us to the very practical Indeed it is the commonest sight in question of price, a thing of great im- the world to see a young girl leave portance with us, but much simplified some laughing, frolicsome party at the in Japan through the ingenuity of the gate, and (after clapping her hands pious priests. herself, and holding a mo- A native proverb supplies the clue prostrating " ment or two of serious converse with when it states that the tortures of hell to of the Deity), trip gaily back to join in are graded according the amount the or meet her lover at the tea- one has."* For masses are sold romp, money " are at to the rich " matsuri house. For about the temples high prices ; always grouped a number of tea- or temple festivals bring in money to houses, where, as Mitford expresses it : the amount of twenty-five thousand " Mademoiselles Sugar, Wave of the dollars at a time, while at ceremonies Sea, Flower, Seashore and Chysanthe- attending the casting of bronze bells or mum are pressing in their invitations statues of Buddha the high-born dames " " to enter and rest." of "kuge" and daimio throw their But though religion is not taken as jewels and gold ornaments into the seriously as it might be in Japan,* crucible and pay huge sums for stamped there is no apathy shown in regard to handkerchiefs certifying to their pres- art (whether it be ecclesiastical or sec- ence on the occasion. of ular), as maybe seen in the scheme of Perhaps the most picturesque the " " decoration used within the heiclen many little ruses is the Nagarc kaajo. or oratory (Fig. VII.). Gold is the neu- or flowing invocation, a familiar sight tral of the walls on which "kirin" to every visitor in Japan, and first in- painted by old masters of the Tosa troduced by the Nichiren sect. To school perform decorative gambols. clearly understand this it must first be Two bands of inlay and two of open- borne in mind that when a woman dies work carving form the frieze, which is in child-birth it is held to be a punish- pierced at intervals with columns gold- ment for some sin committed either in lacquered and capped with embossed this life or some previous existence, and bronze. Japanese brackets support a that her soul remains in purgatory un- coved and coffered ceiling with til released by the prayers of relatives, dragons, magnificently involved, posing friends or others upon earth. To this in each compartment on a blue ground; end a napkin is stretched upon four and the whole room is reflected like a stakes near some stream or runnel, ac- monochrome in the black floor of pol- companied by a wooden dipper, and ished lacquer. every pious wayfarer is expected to Soft silk bordered mats, about six by pour a ladleful of water upon the bit of three feet, protect the latter on ordi- cloth and offer up prayer for as long a nary occasions, and by their number time as it takes the liquid to strain declare the size of the room, for the through. When the centre of the nap- mat is the unit of square-measure in kin becomes so worn away that the Japanese architecture, it being custom- water flows through without hindrance ary to speak of a room of six, eight, the soul of the poor lady is believed to or four and a-half mats, according to its be free. square contents. The pecuniary gain to the church arises from the fact that these napkins * It has been advanced that is less needed in religion can only be purchased from the priests, Japan than in other lands. And the fact that there is not a word in the that there are that whereas those woven in profane Japanese language ; and only that there is little dis- no strikes or unemployed ; or no the coarsest material can be obtained content ; that the men do nor yet drunk like the Euro- or smoke like the Chinese and that it is the peans opium ; rarest thing in the world to see a Japanese los his tem- all far to render this * no sata kane shid;i'. per ; g<"es possibility prorahle. Jikogu mo, ; ;V-V-2> ; \ ,s|

A CEILING IN THE TEMl'Lli.

FIG. XI.

A TEMPLE OF THE TOKUGAWA AT NIKKO. 209

the ; thin by poor others, scraped in the great lyeyasu, the founder of Yedo, and of " centre, consisting little more and hero of Sekigahara."* Far than be paper, may bought at high away, on crest of the sacred hill of the rich. But " prices by to return to Hotoke Iwa," far from the fret and

the and its ante-rooms : temple bustle of the world, rises the bronze The most unique feature in each of tomb of the great "Shogun," bathed the latter VIII. and is (Fig. IX.) the in the purple light distilled from frieze of carved where cer- open-work, Heaven alone (Fig. XII). tain " panels are placed back to back with A where one dreamy place, may' muse. of those the oratory, and where every On all that nvght have been." detail the same area occupies exactly Stone galleries on flights of steps, as the corresponding detail of the bordered with giant trees three hun- frieze on the side of the wall oratory ; dred feet high, lead to the little ora- the as a whole designs being totally tory standing before the grave. Up different and "sui generis" in each. these steps in 1617 wound the funeral (jilt in various shades is used with "cortege" of all the great lords and great prodigality throughout, and is captains of the realm bearing the laid over red surfaces for of the sake deified hero to his last resting place. The ante-room to the left brilliancy. For three whole days a choir of priests dedicated to being the Mikado, each chanted the sacred hymn, repeating it ceiling coffer bristles with unconven- ten thousand times, and from that day " tional carvings of the imperial chrysan- lyeyasu, Noble of the first degree of themum, while eagles decorate the the first rank, Light of the East, and oaken panels of the' walls (Fig. IX.). Incarnation of Buddha," has been Its "pendan" (Fig. X.) being sacred to worshiped by the faithful throughout lyeyasu, bears for the same reason the the land of the Mikado. Tokugawa crest in the centre of its The simplicity of the tomb itself ceiling, with phenixes and flowers fill- strikes pleasantly on the mind after the other of ing compartments, no two the tumultuous splendor preceding it, which are alike (see Fig. XL). Carved like the dreamy melody which follows phenixes are likewise to be found the bursts of sonorous grandeur in emblazoned on the wall-panels, and Wagnerian music. But when every- were they executed in relief would be thing is said, the greatest achievement marvels of glyptic skill, but unfor- of the whole mausoleum lies in the tunately these designs are for the most artistic distribution of the buildings. part only carving applique. Great splashes of crimson and gold The two remaining rooms of the light up the dark green neutral of the temple are treated architecturally in mountain side, mellowed by the pur- much the same style as the foregoing, ples of the air, while the beauty of save that the chapel has three sub-di- abstract proportion is ever present to " " visions : the heiden (where hangs govern and control all, and furnish an gilt -"gohei" or cut paper, which is additional proof of how nature, art and said to keep away evil); the sanctuary refinement go ever hand in hand " (where none but "bonzes"' or priests throughout the far away Land of the may enter), and the reliquary shrine. Morning." considered But none of these are * Sekigahara'was the most decisive battle in Japanese appropriate to hold the remains of the history. C. T. Matthews, M. A. tit.:U

Faubourg, St. Denis, Paris. ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, M. Gouny, Architect.

(Chenim de Fer de 1'Est ) INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL ON ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

'HE influence of the French cans who have been at the school has school upon our archi- often been commented upon and has tecture, or more prop- generally been ascribed to the different erly, the influence of the conditions which confront them when men who have been edu- they return. That certain conditions cated there, has already here are different cannot be denied, but been very considerable, the great principles of the art are al- and in the future this ways the same, and it is these very influence will doubtless be greater principles which are so often aban- than in the past, but it will manifest doned by our young men after they re- itself in a different way. The school turn from Paris. When they come herself and her methods will be felt back they usually enter some prom- rather than the personality of the indi- inent office here for a time to learn vidual who has been trained there. what is regarded as the practical side In the past, the men who have been of architecture. There they are soon educated in Paris have been pretty given to understand that French ways much the only ones in this country are not our ways; they see certain who have received any training in architects of the best standing and the architecture, excepting such as might be greatest reputation making a business picked up in the offices of men who had of the profession and designing in had no special training themselves. ways that will yield them the greatest In the future this will not be so, and financial return with the least expendi- the power of the individual to set the ture of thought, some even reproduc- fashion will be lessened. Our students ing European buildings as their own who go to Paris will not be satisfied creation. In time these young men with the superficial training heretofore come to the conclusion that if they are received will and to succeed must themselves ; they stay longer they adapt not be content with a mere smattering to circumstances and give what the peo- national of what may be learned there. ple seem to prefer. They find no kind. The fact that so little of French feel- style and no restraints of any ing is to be seen in the work of Ameri- Each man is permitted to erect on his o Rue Fortuny, Pat RESIDENCE, M. Gouny, Architect. M. Pascal, Architect. Rue Notre-Dame-Des Champs, Pa is. RESIDENCE, 2I4 INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. own property whatever suits his fancy After these curious productions came without regard to any consideration as the brownstone fronts and iron fronts to whether or no the structure may for the city, while the so called French tend to the perversion of public taste. roof and cupola flourished in the They find few people who know or care country. much about architecture except when The people were busy developing a they have a house to build for them- continent and cared little for the in have aesthetics all love for and selves, which case they must ; appreciation something odd, which is what gener- of art had died out as completely as ally stands for picturesque, or else sim- they ever have died or can die out ple and chaste, which as often means among people who are not savages. dry. In the midst of such surroundings we Our traditions are few and our history could scarcely be expected to produce of architecture is short. any great works of architecture. In colonial times architecture here After the civil war Americans began was generally good. In those days to travel abroad in considerable num- common sense was a factor in design. bers and a renewed interest in archi- Suitable buildings were required rather tecture soon became apparent, mani- than picturesque ones. The country festing itself in precisely the way which had recently been wrested from the might have been expected under the savages, and the colonists, as prosperity circumstances. increased, were desirous of erecting The so-called Queen Anne style was buildings which should appear to be introduced. designed for the occupancy of civil- Architecture in the time of Queen ized creatures. Anne, having reached probably the The materials for building were col- lowest state of debasement and degra- lected with difficulty and were often dation ever known in a civilized even brought from Europe. The country, appealed strongly to our builders endeavored to obtain the most tastes, and upon it was founded the for their pains in the comforts and style with which we are all familiar. refinements of civilization and they Some original characteristics might be worked straight to that end without claimed for the American variety which affectation, for professional architects do not appear in the genuine article. were scarce. Classic architecture was The buildings are for the most part far in vogue at home, as England was more illogical. Probably no such called, so classic details were used ridiculous structures were ever erected here, but modified and refined in the before. The guiding idea seems to most naive and natural way to adapt have been, or one may say, seems to them to wood. The result of all this be, to pile together in an unstudied was generally a building symmetrical heap, roofs, gables, towers, bay win- in plan, bold in outline and stamped dows, projections, etc., with the ut- with a character of refinement and most degree of confusion, in order to originality which goes to make our secure what is regarded as a pictur- architecture of this epoch compare esque result. The success in this line favorably, in its humble way, with any has been very considerable, and is architecture of the same date in the something of which most Americans old world. are extremely proud. Architecture After the war these traditions soon is regarded as the one fine art which has died out, very little interest was taken made real progress among us. in architecture until it began to show The advent of the elevator opened a itself again some time in the thirties, new field to American genius, and out- following what was known in England architects for some years have been as the classic revival, when we too, in trying to solve the impossible problem our turn, discovered that the Grecian of building structures all out of pro- temple was the correct model for every portion to the width of the streets and class of building, from a church to a which at the same time shall be suc- wooden cottage. cessful as works of art. In a more INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. civilized community where the arts are the fact that French architecture of to- such on the of fostered, greed part day is more distinctly national than the land owners to secure more than any other, and not so easy to acquire their share of and as legitimate light the Vignolesque styles of Austria space at the expense of their neighbors and Italy and the semi-Dutch archi- and the public in general, would have tecture of England. Our students do been not so not promptly suppressed ; stay long enough at the school to here. With us it is allowed to go on acquire the style or to become thor- without let or hindrance until some day oughly imbued with the French spirit, we shall awake to the fact that to con- neither are they of French blood, so tinue in this course means the conver- the work of Frenchifying architecture sion our streets into of dismal ravines in America, so much dreaded by certain and the of in congestion traffic ignorant writers on the subject, has not thoroughfares already too contracted. yet begun. Even now an irreparable evil has been Among the first Americans to be re- committed and the city has been per- ceived at the school was Mr. Richard- manently disfigured by these monstrous son, who subsequently exercised a most overgrown structures, which, ugly in extraordinary influence upon the art in themselves, dwarf into insignificance this country. and injuriously affect in appearance and It was unfortunate that Mr. Rich- value all neighboring buildings of ardson drew his inspiration from the more modest and reasonable pro- source he did. He was a man of abil- portions. ity and could doubtless have done What then has been the influence of quite as well, if not better, had he the French school as exercised through adopted a more refined and suitable our men who have been educated style. there, and how far are they responsible The Romanesque architecture of the for this state of affairs? south of France was the work of bar- This influence has certainly not been barians as they were slowly working what one might have expected, for not their way out of the night which suc- only are the final results often far re- ceeded the fall of the Roman Empire, moved from the teachings of the school, and however well suited it was to those but what is perhaps more remarkable, people, it is entirely out of accord with the modern French style of architect- the spirit and thought of this century, ure is not imitated here. We have no and totally unsuited to the manners, structures which resemble the modern customs and climate of our country. It buildings of France. Even in the work was out of date and abandoned in of those of our men who have received France itself before the end of the their training in France, one can find twelfth century, and unless we have but little trace of French influence so gone backwards it cannot be suited far as style is concerned. In general to this. the work of these men shows perhaps Mr. Richardson's work was popular, more refinement and sobriety, a greater but the very fact of his having chosen facility and more careful study, than such a parti for this country and time that of those who have not received shows, I think all critics must concede, similar advantages, but in other re- that his ability as an architect was mis- spects there is little difference. Their directed, to say the least. His own designs sometimes indicate a leaning work was often good, if work can be towards archaeology and again often called good which was fundamentally his followers bear a striking resemblance to modern wrong, but of the work of ? have covered English, Italian and Austrian work, what can be said They but not to that of the French, which is this fair land with structures which Mr. Richard- the more strange as almost all of these will appal future ages. stimulated them to ex- men profess great fondness and admira- son's example his tion for French architecture of the ploit the mine from which he drew and a rich field present day. The explanation of this ideas, wonderfully they full of and curious seeming inconsistency doubtless lies in found it, strange :^"' -' - -:- ~_^ . ; , ..

36 Boulevard des Invalides, Paris. RESIDENCE, C. Mewes, Architect. Cours-la-Reine and La Rue Paris. Bayard, RESIDENCE C. Mewes, Architect. 218 INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. things, interesting and instructive, too, her principles, and it was in France in their way, and highly creditable to that they were most vigorously de- the semi-barbarous people who made nounced. them, for their work, though generally The French mind and method of lumsy and savage, is almost always thought is pre-eminently logical. Good interesting and impressive. The taste contains a large admixture of builders, under the influence of a common sense. A thing which is not gloomy superstition, were working out reasonable, suitable, convenient, proper the problems before them in the best and right for the purposes to which it way they could, with the means at is to be applied cannot be very good. their disposal, but the problems were This is the most severe and searching not those of the nineteenth century, test which can be applied to works of nor of the United States of America. architecture, and only the greatest These considerations seem to have buildings in every age can stand it. had small weight with Mr. Richard- Perhaps we can point to no better son's followers. Indeed the most un- illustration of this logical quality of the suitable features were the most ad- French mind as applied to design and mired and the most exaggerated. We construction, than the buildings for " - have fairly out heroded Herod ;" their last Paris Exhibition. These our work is more barbarous than that buildings were in themselves an illus- of the barbarians themselves. We tration of the discoveries and resources glory in conceits which cannot be which modern science has placed at justified on any reasonable grounds. the disposal of the architect, and a most Buildings in cities have rough hewn successful attempt at the application walls like those of a fortress or a town. of these discoveries to the science of Towers are used ad nauseam and on building and the fine art architecture. kind of have had two chief characteristics: every building ; profiles They lost all pretense at refinement and are First They were strictly modern in often simply rough hewn rolls of design and construction. stone are used Second were what ; grotesque figures They honestly without rhyme or reason, porches are they pretended to be, buildings for a carried on columns fit to bear the fair in the last years of the nineteenth nave of a great church, doorways of century. dwellings are made to look like the Neither of these characteristics were entrances to caverns, and their win- to be found in the buildings of the dows like those of columns are and it was jails ; Chicago Exhibition, pre- swollen and often appear ready to cisely for this reason that they were burst, and the combination would be not admired by the French and not on -comical were it not painful to behold. account of any absurd feeling of jeal- In short, millions are sunk yearly in ousy. At present we are no more able erecting monuments to perpetuate the to compete with the French in archi- want of taste and the folly of this tecture, than we are in painting or generation. sculpture. We could, and did make a To the French school are ascribed larger exhibition than the last French many things which are not justly her one, just as we could, if we felt dis- due. Many of our architects have an posed, make a larger picture than any entirely erroneous idea of her methods which they have thought it worth and aims. She is often judged by the while to make, but farther than this works of those of us who have been we are not at present able to go. received there, and many of our sins It is asserted by people who ought are visited upon her head. To her has to know better, that the French school been ascribed much of the responsibil- teaches only a dry classicism, that it ity for the buildings of the late Chicago is bound hand and foot to the doc- Exhibition, nor can it be denied that trines of Palladio or Vignola. Could they were due in a great measure to anything be farther from the truth ? her influence, yet these buildings Let any impartial man compare the were as far as possible removed from designs for the two exhibitions above 61 Rue Ampere, Paris. A PAINTER'S RESIDENCE, E. Sauvestre, Architect.

Vol. IV. 2. 6. Architect. 96 Boulevard des Batignolles, Paris. RESIDENCE, P. Heneux, 63 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris. 222 1NFL UENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. referred to and say which nation of the Arabian fantasy, the gravity of seems to have the strongest leaning the Roman style, or the pathetic elo- towards dry classical architecture. quence of the Gothic. But her regen- It is true that in French work one eration can only be accomplished upon sees the classic feeling strongly de- one condition, that she will not be led veloped, indeed pervading almost by the way of archaeology into the pure every design, be the motive inspired imitation, but on the contrary seize the from the Gothic or any other style,, spirit of things, separating from such a but this feeling is the spirit of classic mass of relics the many and grand work, not its dry bores. It is a spirit ideas which can be disengaged from of refinement, of study, a searching for them." the purity of line, scale, proportion, A great work of architecture, like any and for the fitness of it stands other work of is val- things ; great art, chiefly for vigor and originality, founded on uable for the seal of personality which sound principles of good taste and it receives from its author. Thus a education. It is architecture not by picture by Vandyke is valuable, not so the rule of thumb, nor is it servile much because it is well done as because of ancient and modern. it reflects himself he has copies buildings Vandyke ; It has not, in short, the characteristics sealed it with his seal, stamped it with of our attempts at classic architecture, his personality. The personality of which may well be called dry. Vandyke was high, noble and refined, It ill becomes us to criticise the therefore his works are priceless. They French in matters of art. Let us are the productions of an exalted rather cultivate humility in speaking genius. So the productions of other of our betters, and learn from them men are valuable as works of art just that honesty is a quality in design. If in proportion as the authors are great architecture in this country is to be themselves and show themselves in elevated to a high plane, we must their work. adopt the same honest methods and Take the Paris Opera House as a noble aims which are encouraged at case in point. The work is stamped the French school. all over with the personality of Charles What the school does teach is a Garnier, and although opinions may glorious Renaissance of the nineteenth differ in regard to matters of detail, all century. She has already entered will agree that its author is a man of upon the course prescribed for her genius; his production will always rank by Charles Blanc some fifteen or as a work of art. twenty years ago, when, after sum- If a man of inferior parts attempts ming up the wealth of documents to imitate this quality, he falls short of and the resources of science now the mark, and instead of a work of placed at the disposal of the architect, genius we have simply a display of " he says: How can one despair of our affectation or mannerism, which is as architecture now, when we remember distressing as the other is interesting. that the knowledge of these beautiful Such are the characteristics which we models is entirely recent and that the see in the works of Mignard, Borromini true Renaissance does not date beyond and Prospero Bresciano. thirty years. Guided by an intelligent None better than the men who pre- study and luminous criticism armed at side over the French school know how all points, our school has before her to appreciate genius and originality in the most illustrious career. She can architectural design, for many of them henceforth, reconciling the rivalries, have these talents to a greater or lesser cover the most immense voids, sustain degree themselves. Moreover they are vaults at prodigious heights, employ ever on the alert to discover and stim- for* the future needs of an advancing ulate such gifts in their pupils, but humanity either the sublime effects of they are not foolish enough to suppose the Egyptian art, the expressions of that even the most talented, were he strength, grace and magnificence in- endowed with the gifts of Michael vented by the Grecians, the richness Angelo himself, could bring those gifts INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. 223

Avenue 19 Marceau, Paris. RESIDENCE, P. Dechard, Architect. to their true and perfect development architects who had been educated there without long study and practice. raised a fund of six thousand dollars to Thus the school not only does not found what is known as the "Prix encourage that dry classicism which Americain," a prize open only to would reduce the most noble of the Frenchmen. It was a graceful act of fine arts to a mathematical science, recognition on their part and was but her teaching is of a directly oppo- highly appreciated by the French with site nature. She desires of her pupils whom it has done much to confirm and Ehat they know everything, then for- strengthen the feeling of friendship all and be themselves such teach- and for get ; good-will our students which ing is inconsistent with anything but has always existed at the school. the most free and liberal spirit, and At the time the prize was founded the such a spirit pervades the Ecole. records showed that there were only We are already under a deep debt of about twenty Americans who had ever gratitude to France and the obligation entered the school, recently the list had increases yearly. With unparalleled grown to nearly two hundred. There generosity she opens the dcors of her are twenty-five Americans there at the matchless school and invites Americans present time and probably as many to come there and be educated at the ex- more seeking admission. The move- pense of the French taxpayer. Nor are ment is a growing one and likely to be our young men blind to the opportu- fraught with great good for the cause nities thus afforded, for each year an of architecture in this country. Our increasing number of Americans are students are staying longer than for- found seeking admission. merly, and we shall soon see the day Five or six years ago those of our when the first American will receive his 107 Avenue Henri Martin, Pari:- RESIDENCE, [>. Magne, Architect. M. Sansboeuf, Architect. 226 INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. diploma from the French government. sion, provoking rivalries and con- If this movement continues it will stantly working for the advancement surely result in the foundation of a of art. national school of architecture in this What we need here is artistic educa- after the Ecole des tion education of the kind country, modeled ; thorough be at the French school. Beaux Arts. Nor need any one dispensed When alarmed, for such a school will not be we have that we shall have a founda- trench, but American. If our students tion on which to build, and will event- have learned well the lesson taught ually evolve a national style. The them in France, our school will appro- time is now ripe for such a movement. priate the principles and spirit of the Already the public is beginning to look French school and be no slavish imi- askance at what has heretofore pleased. tation. It will study the parti for The vapid imaginings of uneducated America, and that /#/-//' will not be the and tasteless men, calling themselves imitation of French architecture, but architects, cannot much longer mas- the principles which the French apply querade as works of art. The experi- to art. Principles \ hich are universal, ment of trying to create architectural the same which guided the Grecians style on a basis of ignorance has not and all others who have achieved dis- been a success we have been con- ; tinction in art. F'orm will be preferred stantly sinking deeper in the mire. to color, as is always the case in a high Soon a halt will be called. A true civilization, and reason will guide in American can have no doubts as to design. The foundation of such a the final result. Education will tri- school will be the first step towards a umph in this country. national style, and in time America will Before long Americans will discover take her place among the nations fore- that education is needed in the most most in art. That we have the requi- difficult of the professions as well as sites of greatness is often made mani- in the others. They will cease to tol- fest in individual cases, but two stum- erate ignorant architects just as they bling blocks here lie in our path. Our have ceased to tolerate ignorant doc- young men are in too much of a hurry tors or lawyers. to make money, and we have a leaning Is the taste of the nation a matter of towards ideas both are fatal no ? English ; importance to architectural art, and success can Should everyone be allowed to dis- only be accomplished when these are figure our cities with structures no removed. matter how hideous ? Let our young men continue to go If a man makes a bad statue or a to Paris. Even if they cannot stay poor picture, little harm is done; people long they will still receive great bene- need not look at them, they can be re- fits. They will see architecture in a moved, but this is not so with works of new light, occupying her proper architecture. The building must be place as chief of the fine arts, and they seen, and the structure, if bad, wars will come back with higher aims and continually against public taste. In ideas. Each one who goes is a gain communities which persist in disre- to the cause of art in this country, for garding this danger, the sense of and upon one matter at least they will all appreciation for the beautiful becomes be agreed. Having seen the immense blunted so that the public do not know advantages to be derived from such a the good from the bad. Such matters school as the Ecole des Beaux Arts, are regulated by law in France, and they will most earnestly desire the should be, and in time doubtless will foundation of such a school in the be, so regulated here. United States, a school established and Let us license our architects just as continued upon sound principles of we license our physicians or lawyers. common sense, where education is Let us solve the high building problem thorough, where the best men teach, by laws limiting the height in propor- where advancement is based on results, tion to the width of the streets. a school closely allied to the profes- Let us appoint our most distinguished 35 Avenue de Paris. Neuilly, RESIDENCE, Paul Sedille, Architect.

Vol. IV. 2. 7. 228 INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. architect, City Architect, and let it be France learned these lessons years his duty to pass upon all proposed ago, and we would do well to follow " structures in regard to their artistic her example. They order these mat- fitness for the place they are to ters better in France." The results of occupy. such legislation can be seen on the When this is done we will have made banks of the Seine, and if we are wise an immense step towards civilization future generations will see and glory in art. in a city no less beautiful here.

Ernest Flagg.

I ThE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

HE University of Education Society through its repre- Chicago owes its sentative, Mr. Gates, assisted by a Col- foundation to the lege Committee in Chicago represented munificence of by Dr. Goodspeed. A block and a-half Mr. John D. of land was secured by the gift of Mr. Rockefeller and Marshall Field, and two and a-half ad- the energy and ditional blocks were purchased, giving faith of the Amer- the University a campus of four blocks ican Baptist Education Society repre- on the Midway Plaisance, between Ellis sented by Reverend F. T. Gates and Lexington avenues. A more ap- and Reverend T. W. Goodspeed, the propriate situation could scarcely have present secretary of the University. been found. The plans for the new University The next step of importance in the of Chicago date from 1886, the year history of the University was the elec- of the final extinction of the older tion of Professor Harper, who had institution bearing that name. In from the first been intimately con- 1888 occurred the first conference be- nected with Mr. Rockefeller's plans, to tween Mr. Rockefeller and Professor the presidency of the institution, and Harper, and in the same year the Board his acceptance of the same in the of the American Baptist Education spring of 1891. Before this Mr. Society gave its hearty approval to the Rockefeller had added a million dol- effort to establish the University. In lars to his former subscription, and May, 1889, the society at its anniver- the Theological Seminary at Morgan sary meeting in Boston ratified the ac- Park had been incorporated with the tion of its board, and Mr. Rockefeller University as its Divinity School, and pledged his first subscription of preparations were at once made for its $600,000, on condition that $400,000 removal from its old quarters at Mor- .should be raised before July, 1890. This gan Park to the University campus. condition was""complied "with by "the After President Harper entered upon

232 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. the duties of his office in July 1891, $50,000, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Kelly the work of organizing the institution $50.000. was rapidly pushed foward. The After these additions to its resources trustees of the Ogden fund had already the University proceeded rapidly with offered to appropriate seventy per cent the construction of its buildings, which of the estate, amounting to about $i,- had been begun in November, 1891,. 500,000, for the founding of a Graduate until at present there are ten struc- School of Science. This offer was tures on the campus, excluding the accepted. Mr. Rockefeller added temporary library and gymnasium during the year 1892 two further sub- building. These are : Cobb Lecture

FRONT OF KENT CHEMICAL LABORATORY. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect, scriptions to the endowment fund, each Hall, Graduate Dormitory, Divinity of $1,000,000. Mr. S. A. Kent under- Dormitory, Foster, Kelly and Beecher took to provide the University with a Halls for women, the Kent Labora- Chemical Laboratory at a cost of tory, the Ryerson Physical Labora- about $200,000. Mr. Marshall Field tory, Snell Hall and the Walker Mu- offered $100,000 as the basis of a mill- seum. In the construction of the ion dollar building fund, to which Mr. dormitories, the requirements of the S. B. Cobb subscribed $150,000, Mr. M. social as well as the individual' life of A. Ryerson $150,000, Mr. G. C. Wal- the students have been considered. ker : $130,000, Mrs. N. S. Foster $60,000, The Univers ty system has also in- Mr. H. A. Rust $50,000. Mrs. Henri- fluenced the construction of the reci- etta Snell $50,000, Mrs. Mary Beecher tation buildings. As that system OF REAR KENT CHEMICAL LABORATORY. Henry I ves Cobb, Architect,

AN INTERIOR, KENT CHEMICAL LABORATORY Henry I ves Cobb, Architect. KNTRANCK To KENT CHKMICAI, LABORATORY. He.iry Ives Cobb, Architect. LARGE LECTURE HALL, KENT CHEMICAL LABORATORY. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect. CEILING OF THE LARGE LECTURE HALL, KENT CHEMICAL LABORATORY. Henrv Ives Cobb, Architect. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 237

other small requires, among things, University Building, at the same time classes, there is an absence of the large Board had accepted and given con- lecture halls. small class-rooms sideration Many to all that had been presented, take their place. and as the subject of the new Univer- After well estab- having thoroughly sity Building had been brought well lished the financial condition of the before the architects of the country it became to con- University necessary there was no lack of plans to select sider the architectural conditions which from. were to in likely arise carrying this Mr. Henry Ives Cobb was chosen great undertaking through. The Board as the architect to carr-/ out the wishes

I A \, A ' 1

SNELL HALL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect. of Trustees was composed of many of and plans of the Board, and to him in the prominent business men of Chicago. a large measure may be attributed They had at considerable trouble and the good taste and thoughtful work expense gone very carefully into the exhibited in the present University matter of col-lege building and the re- Building. quirements needed to cover the field. As we notice by the ground plan the Intelligent people had been sent abroad, entire plot is surrounded by a series of and much thought, time and money ex- buildings which form a complete bar- pended to give them the information rier to the outer world. The four needed. Although no general competi- quadrangles at either corner are tion was offered to the architects of the faced on two sides by dormitory build- United States to submit plans for the ings and the inner portion of the col-

_.

REAR VIEW OF WALKER MUSEUM. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect.

MAIN HALL, WALKER MUSEUM. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect. 240 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

II 1.1 II .

KELLY HALL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect.

lege grounds are occupied by reci- conditions of Chicago and surround him tation, lecture and educational build- by a peculiar air of quiet dignity which ings, with the main University hall and is so noticeable in old university build- library and the chapel forming the ings. When the quadrangles are com- central group. The museum and pleted this will be very marked and, as gymnasium are so located that they this style of English Gothic architect- are accessible from the outside with- ure easily takes on an air of age by the out entering the college grounds help of a few vines and weather stains, but all other effect will most restful proper ; buildings receive the certainly be their entrances direct from the college and suggestive of university conditions. grounds, and to reach these one has to The illustrations show us most plainly pass through one of the seven main how the buildings all harmonize, and entrances. the entrance doorway to Kent Chemical The reason for this arrangement was Hall serves as an excellent example of to, as far as possible, exclude all out- the ornamentation which has been used side conditions from the student when throughout. The interiors in most he had once entered the University instances are very plain. More grounds and so, likewise, was the style thought and care having been given of architecture selected made as far as to sanitary conditions, ventilating possible to remind one of the old Eng- and hygenic conditions. In the lish Universities of Cambridge and interior of the present buildings there in Oxford ; fact, to remove the mind of is an absolute absence of ornamenta- the student from the busv mercantile tion of any kind, except perhaps in the FOSTER HALL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect.

LECTURE ROOM IN COBB HALL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect. firm :: rmr r ~i r- t r Vol. 1V.-2. 8. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

large lecture hall of Kent Chemical numerous kind friends of the University Hall, where the arched ceiling, although saw fit to purchase at the late exhibition simple in its way, still by comparison in Chicago. Although at present it is in with the severity of the rest of the a state of chaos, in fact few specimens building gives one the feeling of being are unpacked and almost none can be quite elaborate. In most instances, in said to be in place, still there is enough the lecture-rooms and public-rooms the to make some little showing, and by walls are finely finished brick in soft the end of the year the museum will tones of red and yellow. The ceilings be quite filled. It is hardly necessary are generally finished in bright wood, to enter into any considerable descrip-

te^f

RYERSON HALL. Henry Ives Cobh, Architect.

and the whole effect is cool and rest- tion of the buildings. The illustrations ful, quite suggestive of thoughtful and show quite plainly what they are. Ryer- studious conditions. The laboratories son Hall is perhaps generally con- in Kent Chemical Hall are very finely sidered the handsomest building so fax- appointed. There are some dozen erected, but Cobb Hall with the Grad- similar to the one represented here, and uate Dormitory and two Divinity Dor- every modern appliance that could be mitories connected makes a very procured to add to their perfection of imposing effect. In Foster Hall, which equipment can be found there. The is part of the Women's Dormitory, Walker Museum, although very simple there is a fairly-good carved oak stair- in its interior, affords an excellent space way and some little elaboration of to exhibit the very rare collection the entrance hall and drawing-room effect, 1.111111 LLI 246 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

i

BEECHER HALL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect. but nothing worthy of any special men- and laying it out in charming manner. tion. Landscape architects and many The foundations for Professor Harper's workmen are preparing the grounds, house are completed and it is expected laying out tennis courts, arranging that his residence a sketch of which flower beds and grouping foliage is shown will be finished by January so that the campus is rapidly im- I St. proving in appearance, and what The house of Professor J. L. Laugh- was three years ago a piece of lin which faces the college grounds is western prairie land without house a noticeable example of the class of and hardly without street is fast be- architecture which is fast springing up coming a thoroughly well equipped in the neighborhood, and no doubt by University. All around it handsome the time the University buildings are are into existence all available buildings springing ; completed space surround- beautiful residences are being erected, ing them will be occupied by delightful the streets and avenues are finely paved residences. When we think that the and the southern end of the grounds, first contract for the erection of any which face the Midway Plaisance, will of the University buildings was let soon look out on a beautifully appointed November 2oth, 1891, it is no great park, as the South Park Commissioners stretch of the imagination to picture are redeeming this strip of pleasure the completion of the present plans in ground from its turmoil of last year the near future. Chas. E. Jenkins. ARCHITECTURAL ABERRATIONS.

No. XII. COLLEGE OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.

E may reasonably expect Certainly the speculative builder in to see educated archi- his maddest moments has done nothing tecture in a place of worse than the new buildings for the education, even if it college of St. Francis Xavier. In the be not a place of spe- first place, since one must begin some- cifically architectural where and thus establish an order of education. There is a precedency among its vices, it has noth- particular incongruity in crude and ing whatever to do with the other illiterate collegiate architecture. For buildings of the same institution. The which reason, among others, the new church on Sixteenth street and the buildings of the College of St. Francis schools in Fifteenth street, are all parts Xavier, in West Fifteenth street, New of the same scheme, one may assume, York, are especially striking and pain- since they are all called after the same ful, and clamor for rebuke. If this pile name. The church and the schools to- of gamboge and grey were a factory, or gether might have formed an imposing a tenement house, it would still be and interesting architectural group, and lamentable and painful, but it would one would have supposed that the first not be worth talking about. The effort of their projectors would have speculative builder or the contract been to make of them an architectural builder does not pretend to be engaged group of some kind. A quarter of a in inculcating morals or aesthetics. His century ago the buildings consisted of humble aim is to make as much money a church in the style that is known in as he can, subject only to the Build- Europe as Jesuit architecture, and was ing Department and the Board of indeed an imitation of the Jesuit Health, and his monstrosities are only Church in Rome, and a school build- what are to be expected of him. But ing in the rear, still standing, in Ger- when the most reckless and thought- man Romanesque, pretty evidently imi- less performance of the speculative tated, not with great skill or success, builder are recalled by the work of from those familiar examples of that Bank what calls itself a college, the case style, the American Exchange executed becomes one for public protest. and the Continental Bank, and 248 ARCHITECTURAL ABERRATIONS. in the same material, New Brunswick the curtain walls are so huddled and sandstone, while the church, if we re- the arches at the ends so devoid of member aright, was in Caen stone or visible abutment that even this base- possibly in stucco "to that effect." ment, strong and quiet compared with When the old church was burned the the superstructure, looks weak and un- present edifice was erected in grey stone easy. But for all that it is the most and in a sumptuous Roman style. The tolerable piece of work in the building. designer is not to be blamed, very The next story is of brick with flat likely for not conforming in any respect arches over the openings, of brick in to the subordinate school building, the curtain walls and of terra cotta at which did not form an architectural the centre and terminal pavilions. The appendage to the church of which it third division is of two stories in one, adjoined the rear. But the latest de- its vertical dimension emphasized by signer, if it be not absurd to call him brick pilasters with terra cotta capitals, so, had an opportunity to enhance the the openings covered with round arches effect of his own work, not indeed by in terra cotta, and this is surmounted conforming to the church, of which the by a tin frieze and parapet. The cen- part visible from Fifteenth street was tral pavilion, it is evident, has been the only a brick back without pretense chief object of design, and accordingly of architecture but by conforming to it is the chief terror of the front. The the existing school building either in basement shows two pairs of square- material, or design, or at any rate by headed and very lanky openings, flank- prolonging some principal lines, and ing pairs of granite columns standing getting the advantage of the unusual free and all projected from the wall, frontage of something like 300 feet. with which they are connected by pieces No consideration of this character, it is of entablature, but not connected at all evident, has ever entered his pure mind. with each other, so that the waiter at He had to do a new school building the door is entirely exposed to the of 150 feet fro'nt, and a connecting link, weather and disabused of any notion in the form of a quadrangle-gateway he might rashly have entertained that and lodge, of 75 feet front between this the feature was a porch and not a and the existing building. He not only purely monumental fantasia. The did not make his works conform in any opening that forms the doorway is respect to the existing building, but he closed by a very depressed three- did not make them conform to each centred arch, between the pseudo classic other. His large four-story school is orders, that is Gothic if it be anything built of grey stone and the hottest though furnished with a foliated key- colored bricks he could find, a brick so stone. Over this in the next story is a hot in color and so uniform that it large bull's eye at the centre, in a terra seems to have been painted instead of cotta frame, that is quite inexplicable. being the unsophisticated product of One would imagine it to be a staircase the kiln. In the two story central build- light if he did not see the stairway ing he has used the same brick, but has cheerfully cutting with its diagonal line substituted a sandstone of the color of the adjoining window, a square-headed, the old building for the greystone of the lanky, flat-arched opening. The upper new, so that the architectural relation division of this centre is, if possible, between the three buildings is reduced more awful than what is below. The to its minimum, and no one of them has fluted bases of the lanky two-story the effect of belonging to either of the pilasters run through one of the stories, others. or nearly half way up, the ridiculous The big building, "surprised by it- bull's eye is repeated, and there is a self," is about as bad in design as bad double-arched opening above it. can be. The grey stone basement is What we have called the quadrangle comparatively quiet, being at least gateway shows a diversity of detail but in monochromatic color and simple in the same spirit. It is flanked by pilas- form. But even this derives a restless- ters', with a vertical slit ingeniously ness from its design. The openings in gouged out of the centre so as effectu- ARCHITECTURAL ABERRATIONS. ally to deprive them of the aspect of towel ornament of a festoon hung up strength or of repose. The openings of by the ends. All this detail looks so the upper story are round arches with mean that one is apt to suppose it to protruding keystones carrying crosses. be of sheet-metal and it takes close The prevailing expression of the new inspection to determine that it is in buildings is one of extreme meanness. fact of terra-cotta. Nay, such is the This is due in great part to the hud- lifelessness of the design that the dling of the windows. Seventeen arches of the two-story building openings, some of them quite large, seem to be of cast-iron though they cannot be arranged in a front of 150 are really of cut stone. To make feet without giving the front a very sheet-metal look like cut stone or pinched appearance. This appearance moulded clay is a feat beyond the is greatly aggravated by the union of reach of the constructor of shams. the upper two stories into one architec- The converse feat of vulgarizing tural division. This union would in any moulded clay or cut stone to look like case preclude the establishment of sheet-metal does not seem very easy between the either but it has here ac- a harmonious proportion ; been united stories and the two single and complished. separated stories below. In this case There are many audacities in this it emphasizes the pinched and huddled preposterous erection, but the boldest appearance of the openings, which is thing that has been done in it is to in- still further emphasized by the per- scribe the sheet-metal monument over " fectly wanton introduction of the two- the centre of the school building A. story pilasters. Again, the character M. D. G," which, lest the wayfaring of meanness is necessarily imparted by man might not understand it, is re- the use in the crowning member of peated and spelt out, also in tin, over sheet-metal, and it is unnecessarily the gateway: Ad majorem Dei gloriam. imparted by the mechanical and life- To dedicate a signally illiterate build- less design and execution of the detail. ing to educational purposes is bad consists but to dedicate with an exhi- This in the larger building enough ; mainly of the archivolts of the win- bition of sham and meanness and vul- dows, and the panels that sub-divide garity to the greater glory of the the two-story openings, and that are Creator is impudence that borders upon decorated with the well-known dish- blasphemy. CORRESPONDENCE.

" " CHICAGO, August 27, 1894. elevators in the as it should be plan occupying the less of Editor ARCHITECTURAL RECORD : same length, and width than three I notice in your Quarterly of June 3Oth, the those constructed. Experience in the building paper entitled," Wasted Opportunities, No. Ill," indicates that their elevator system is correct. referring to office building, northeast corner La Cars run very rapidly and at busy times quite Salle and Monroe streets, Chicago. The author full. No diminution can be accepted. gives an alternative plan, which he designates "as Entire omission of the freight elevator, which is " it should be." dismissed by your author as wholly unnecessary " It is to be regretted that he chooses such in an office building. Evidently he is not familiar " arbitrary phrases as wasted opportunities" and with the Chicago office building. For example, "as it should be." for there is at least ample in the building in question, an entire upper story opportunity for differing with him very radi- and a portion of the roof space is leased for the cally. General Western office of a large Insurance It is safe to say that the alternative plan he Company. Their business of receiving all the presents would not have been accepted by the blanks and stationery for their extensive Western owners. An office building must be planned to department, re-boxing it and distributing it to the satisfy the requirements of the city where it is many local offices, alone demands a freight built and the class of tenants for which it is elevator. The in and out of tenants the moving ; designed. It is safe to say that had the alternative receipt of samples, models, etc., by the different plan been used instead of the one carried out, the offices representing manufacturers, etc.; the building would not have been rented to the same taking up of ice and drinking water to the differ- class of nor to the same nor ent offices removal of and a tenants, extent, ; sweepings, long would it have produced as large a revenue. list besides, make a freight elevator one of the The building in question is located in the very essentials, only to be omitted when it cannot " center of what is known as the Insurance find a location without very serious damage. district." There is no location for an office The long, narrow, dark halls is another very building superior to it in the city of Chicago, and serious objection to the alternative plan, and the it was built with the expectation that it would be one that enables your author to get the additional occupied by the most desirable tenants in the city. space, and is so serious that it would reduce the The plan was only adopted after an exhaustive building at once to second or third class in the study, many experimental plans having been character of the tenants and the rental per square made, some of them containing features of the foot. " plan designated by your author as, as it should What we can understand of his schedule of be." differences reduced to dollars is not in accord The objections to his alternative plan for the with our views and is not sustained by the facts. building in question, however good it might be in It is quite impracticable for a person at a some cities and some situations, are as follows : distance, how well informed generally, to criti- Large wastage of the Monroe street frontage, cise correctly a building erected in another city for where the ground is worth, for interior lots, a purpose and for a class of tenants with which he $5,000 per front foot, and advancing. The ob- is not familiar. The alternative plan your author jections of your author to south frontage for offices proposes would have ruined that building, which is not sustained by the facts in Chicago. has the reputation to-day of being the best Passenger elevators inadequate and located too general office building in the city. far from the Monroe street entrance, the five W. L. B. J.