Tides in English Taste (1619–1800): Volume 1 Tides in English Taste (1619-1800): A Background for the Study of Literature, Volume 1 [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9780674729865, 9780674729858

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T I D E S IN E N G L I S H TASTE VOLUME I

LONDON : H U M P H R E Y MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

TIDES IN ENGLISH TASTE (1619-1800) A B A C K G R O U N D FOR T H E S T U D Y OF L I T E R A T U R E "By B. S P R A G U E A L L E N VOLUME I

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Cambridge, -JhCassachusetts I

937

COPYRIGHT,

I937

B Y T H E P R E S I D E N T AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED AT T H E HARVARD U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U . S . A .

IN M E M O R Y OF

MY MOTHER

PREFACE book has grown out of my gradual realization of the extent to which the history of art constitutes a most vivid, enlightening commentary on the history of literature. Through a personal experience that has been enriching and replete with delightful surprises I have come to see how a knowledge of one supplements a knowledge of the other, and intensifies the response which the individual is able to give to both. As the forces, intellectual and emotional, that mold art also influence literature, they have in each period of culture imparted a common, characteristic quality to such apparently divergent manifestations of the sense of beauty as poetry, textile design, ceramic decoration, and garden and house planning. The recognition of these similarities is a deeply satisfying pleasure and an incalculable aid in the integration of one's impression of a past era. Indeed, that impression is much more likely to be soundly philosophical if it rests upon a wide acquaintance with the various modes in which the spirit of the bygone age has expressed itself. To make this statement is, to be sure, merely to repeat a platitude. However, this platitude, like many others, points to an ideal difficult of practical realization. In spite of the genuineness of their curiosity, many persons have scarcely time or energy to find out what has taken place in the long, slow development of the arts of design. Regretfully they may admit that they know nothing about Chippendale, for example, and are unable to identify even the distinguishing characteristics of the baroque and the rococo. On occasion a writer may reveal serious ignorance. In a recent and informing book on the Jacobean masque the author gives full credit to Inigo Jones for his design of stage-sets for court entertainments, but amusingly blunders in absurdly underrating his great achievement as a practical architect. Anyone has, moreover, a difficult task before him if, not wishing to be one of the thousands who visit museums, churches, and palaces with unseeing eyes, he sincerely tries to learn something about art. THIS

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PREFACE

The number of books that he may read is, of course, immense. If he has the good sense to avoid instinctively the writers — they should, as the Mikado suggests, be punished with boiling oil — who substitute sentimental rhapsody for the analysis of art, he must invade scholarly volumes written in technical language by specialists for specialists. He will find, too, that as authorities in particular fields rarely deal with their subjects in cross-section, that is, in correlation with other arts, they are, as is perfectly natural, content to trace the development of only interior woodwork, the fireplace, or the plaster decoration of walls and ceilings. Under the circumstances it is not extraordinary that many who are eager to secure a reliable knowledge and appreciation of the various arts are deterred from the undertaking. Encouraged by friends who have felt the need of such a volume, I have taken a corner of a vast field and discussed the most conspicuous phases of taste that developed in England between Inigo Jones's Banqueting House (1619) in the classic style and the close of the eighteenth century. The interval is obviously important historically because it witnessed the rise of classicism in art and in literature and its subsequent conflict with such romantic phenomena as Orientalism, Gothicism, and the rococo.' Unfortunately limits of space made the inclusion of music, painting, and sculpture out of the question. The book, nevertheless, constitutes a unit, as it embraces architecture, gardening, and arts that are most closely allied to them. As it is not, strictly speaking, a history of those arts, some matters, especially technical ones, have been omitted a consideration of which did not seem to be required in order to fulfil the intention of this book. On this account the chapter on Renaissance architecture, for example, stresses Palladianism as typical of classical ideals. T h a t would seem sufficient for our purpose; little would be gained by discussing either the small house of the Georgian era or the differing styles of Jones, Wren, and Vanbrugh and their respective followers. Other matters have been considered at length where the needs of the reader seemed to make a detailed comment desirable. This has been the procedure especially wherever design is under discussion, as acquaintance with

PREFACE

IX

its chief principles helps to synthesize ideas about art and is absolutely essential if appreciation is ever to advance beyond the stage of vague sentimental enjoyment. At the same time, I venture to believe that the specialist will find considerable material that will be new to him. He will, I hope, be interested in the correlation of literature and art, in the bulk and substance of the satire to which various aspects of English taste have been from time to time subjected, and in the amazingly abundant, entertaining, and frequently illuminating comment on art that is buried in works probably more or less unfamiliar to him: plays, essays, poems, treatises, and books of one kind or another. If the reader of literature is impressed by the influence of the Orient upon interior decoration and furniture, the specialist in those fields will be perhaps surprised at the influence of the Orient upon literature. The architectural historian may be interested in the curious history of the sashwindow, the new evidence of admiration for Gothic art during the era of classicism, and the part which chinoiserie played in undermining the authority of antiquity. In a book of this kind, covering such a wide territory, the writer must be heavily indebted to others. At the outset, I desire to record my appreciation of the generous spirit in which the administrators of New York University granted me a two years' leave of absence so that I might carry on my research in Europe. I am grateful to the authorities of the Metropolitan Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bodleian Library for permission to photograph objects in their collections and to reproduce prints in their possession. As any one who is familiar with this field will recognize, such scholars as Sir Reginald Blomfield, Mr. J. Alfred Gotch, and Mr. H. Avray Tipping — to name only a few — have given direction to my thought even when I have not followed them specifically. I also wish to acknowledge the stimulus I received at the beginning of my work from the conferences of Mr. Stewart Dick in the National Gallery, London, and from the lectures, delivered in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, by Mr. Bremer Pond, Chairman of the Harvard School of Landscape Architecture, and Mr. Fiske Kimball, Director of the Pennsylvania

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PREFACE

Museum. By their precision of statement and their clarity of presentation these three speakers have helped many hearers to a sounder understanding of what art means. I am also indebted to personal friends. Dean Archibald Bouton of New York University, Professor Benjamin Kurtz of the University of California, and Mr. William Main Schuyler, Associate Editor of The American Year Book, gave me helpful suggestions whenever I sought their advice. M y colleague, Professor Albert Borgman, undertook the laborious task of reading the book in manuscript, and to him I am under obligation for much painstaking and valuable criticism. In conclusion, I should state that a number of the quotations from older writers have been modernized, especially in the use of capitals and italics. No modernizations have been made, I trust, where either the sense or the flavor of the original could be affected. To tamper with the spelling and syntax of such a disarming narrator as Miss Celia Fiennes, for example, would be sacrilege. I have also made an effort to reduce the number of notes as far as possible by indicating the source of my material in the body of the text. B. S. A. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY February

io,

IQ32

The manuscript of 'Tides in English Taste was accepted for publication in October, 1934. It had been partly set up in galleys at the time of the author's death on March 11, 1935. Before typesetting was resumed, quotations and footnote references were verified by the Harvard University Press. The proof has been read by two of Dr. Allen's friends and colleagues. THE

EXECUTORS

E S T A T E OF B . October i,

içj6

OF THE

SPRAGUE

ALLEN

CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE

INTRODUCTION.

THE

WAYWARDNESS

OF E L I Z A B E T H A N

CLAS-

SICISM

3

CHAPTER

I.

T H E N E W V I S I O N OF O R D E R I. II. III.

II. III.

19

PALLADIO AND INIGO JONES

19

JOHN E V E L Y N AND THE CHANGING ARCHITECTURE T H E MODERNIZATION OF ANCIENT HOUSES

.

. . . .

47

T H E B U I L D I N G M A N I A OF T H E E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y THE

REFLECTION

OF

ARCHITECTURAL

IDEAS

I.

IV. V. VI.

78

POETS, PROSE WRITERS, AND B O O K ILLUSTRATORS SHAFTESBURY AND THE CENSORS OF LAUGHTER

.

.

. . .

S A T I R I C C R I T I C I S M OF C L A S S I C A L A R C H I T E C T U R E

.

VIII. IX. X.

.

T H E R E V O L U T I O N IN G A R D E N D E S I G N

114

NOTES

124

T H E F O R M A L G A R D E N I N T H E A G E OF D I S C I P L I N E T O W N P L A N N I N G I N T H E A G E OF D I S C I P L I N E

.

.

. . . .

T H E I N V A S I O N OF E N G L A N D B Y O R I E N T A L A R T

134 163

E U R O P E ' S D I S C O V E R Y OF T H E F A R E A S T

I.

XII.

97

T H E PROSPECT, THE F L O W E R G A R D E N , AND THE S T A G E

180 .

.

.

192

PORCELAIN

192

LACQUER

200

III.

WALLPAPER

206

IV.

FURNITURE

211

II.

XI.

78 84

G A R D E N IN THE S E V E N T E E N T H C E N T U R Y VII.

55

IN

LETTERS

II.

35

T H E R I V A L R Y B E T W E E N INDIAN C H I N T Z AND ENGLISH TEXTILES

218

C L A S S I C A L C R I T I C I S M OF O R I E N T A L A R T

234 257

CONTENTS

Xll

VOLUME

II

CHAPTER

XIII.

PAGE

T H E I N F L U E N C E OF T H E F A R E A S T U P O N L I T E R A T U R E I. II.

XIV.

T H E I N D I A N CONTRIBUTION T H E CHINESE CONTRIBUTION

17

T H E C H A L L E N G E OF T H E M I D D L E A G E S I.

THE

43

PERSISTING INTEREST IN GOTHIC

ARCHITECTURE

BEFORE WALPOLE II.

STRAWBERRY

HILL,

43 VAUXHALL,

AND

CHIPPENDALE'S

FURNITURE XV. XVI. XVII.

XVIII. XIX. X X . XXI. XXII. XXIII.

74

C L A S S I C A L C R I T I C I S M OF " G O T H I C T A S T E "

87

T H E C H A L L E N G E OF T H E R O C O C O

100

T H E SECOND R E V O L U T I O N IN G A R D E N D E S I G N I. E X P E R I M E N T S IN N A T U R A L I S M II.

.

.

.

T H E PAINTER AND THE GARDENER

S E N T I M E N T A L V A G A R I E S OF T H E FUROR

115 115 143

T H E A R T I F I C E OF T H E N A T U R A L G A R D E N THE

3 3

14G HORTENSIS

160

L I T E R A R Y A L L U S I O N S TO THE G A R D E N

186

T H E E M E R G E N C E OF T H E T O U R I S T

200

H O S T I L E C R I T I C I S M OF T H E N A T U R A L G A R D E N T H E R E S U R G E N C E OF T H E C L A S S I C

.

.

.

208 231

NOTES

243

INDEX

255

ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME I Figure

Facing Page

1. Oak Screen, Crewe Hall Studies from Old English Mansions Charles Harrison, 1842

8

2. Exteriors and House Plans by John Thorpe Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and fames I Charles James Richardson, 1840

9

3. Small Drawing Room at Levens Mansions of England Joseph Nash, 1872

12

4. Palazzo Valmarano, Vicenza Alinari

13 Photo

5. Palazzo Colleoni-Porto, Vicenza Alinari Photo

24

6. Moor Park

25 Department of Prints Metropolitan Museum of Art

7. Banqueting House, Whitehall

28

8. Plan of the Queen's House, Greenwich Vitruvius Britannicus Colin Campbell, 1731

29

9. Paneled Room (c. 1686-88) from Clifford's Inn, London Victoria and Albert Museum

32

10. Ceiling of Dining Room at Coleshill A Complete Body of Architecture Isaac Ware, 1756

33

11. Chimney-piece

38 Ibid.

12. Inigo Jones' Portico, St. Paul's, London The History of St. Paul's Cathedral William Dugdale, 1658

39

13. Villa Rotonda, Vicenza

60 Alinari

14. Chiswick House

Photo 61

xiv

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

Facing Page

15. Plan of Houghton

64 Vitruvius Britanniens Colin Campbell

16. Plan of Kedleston

65 Vitruvius Britanniens Woolfe and Gandon

17. Plan of Holkham

68 Vitruvius Britanniens Woolfe and Gandon

18. Plan of Duncomb Park Vitruvius Britanniens Colin Campbell

69

19. Plan of Buckland

72 Vitruvius Britannicus Woolfe and Gandon

20. The Grand Salon, Stowe, Buckinghamshire The Ducal Estate of Stowe, 1921 li.

Illustration of a scene in Riehard III from Hanmer's edition (1744) of Shakespeare

22. Garden of Villa d'Este Le Fontane del giardino estense in 'Tivoli Giovanni Venturini, 1691 (?) 23. The Annunciation

73

82 83

116 Fra Angelico Anderson Photo

24. General View of Versailles Nicolas (?) Perelle

117

25. Parterre de Broderie La Théorie du Jardinage A La Haye, 1739

122

26. Two Designs for Knots The English Husbandman Gervase Markham, 1635

123

27. Garden and Mount, Wadham College, Oxford Oxonia Illustrata David Loggan, 1675

132

28. Berkeley Castle

133 Britannia Illustrata J. Kip, 1709

ILLUSTRATIONS Figure

XV Facing Page

29. Dunham Massie, Cheshire

140 Ibid.

30. Brome Hall, Suffolk

I4I Ibid.

31. Gardens and Park of Wrest House, Bedfordshire Ibid.

144

32. Gardens and Park at Hampton Court Ibid.

145

33. Walks in the Garden of Chiswick House Rocque, 1736

150

34. Yauxhall Gardens

151 Gough Collection Bodleian Library

35. The Rotunda, Ranelagh

162 Ibid.

36. Wren's Plan for Rebuilding London London Edward Pugh, 1805

163

37. Evelyn's Plan for Rebuilding London Ibid.

166

38. A Prospect of Greenwich Hospital Department of Prints Victoria and Albert Museum

167

39. A New and Accurate Plan of the City of Bath to the Present Year, 1793

178

40. Chinese Porcelain Vase Salting Bequest Victoria and Albert Museum

179

41. Chinese Screen of Lacquered Wood Victoria and Albert Museum

198

42. Lacquered Cabinet on Carved Wooden Stand Ibid.

199

43. Cabinet in Marquetry (c. 1700) Ibid.

202

44. Garrick's Corner Cupboard (c. 1770) Ibid.

203

45. Chinese Wallpaper

206 Ibid.

46. Panel of Flock Wallpaper (c. 1735) Ibid.

207

xvi

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

Facing Page

47. Paneled Room from House (c. 1760) in Wotton-underEdge Ibid.

210

48. Chinese Chair in the Style of Chippendale Ibid.

211

49. Two Chairs, Period of William and Mary Metropolitan Museum of Art

214

50. Chinese Bedstead (c. 1760) Victoria and Albert Museum

215

51. Palampore of Indian Chintz Ibid.

218

52. Brocade, Period of Louis X I V Ibid.

219

VOLUME II 53. An Avenue with an Artificial Roman Ruin as a Terminary . New Principles of Gardening Batty Langley, 1728

74

54. Strawberry Hill 55. The Gallery, Strawberry Hill Department of Prints Victoria and Albert Museum

75 78

56. Pavilions, Vauxhall Gardens 57. Bookcase 'The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director Tho. Chippendale, 1754

79 82

58. Chair by Chippendale in the Gothic Style Victoria and Albert Museum

83

59. Ceiling in the Rococo Style, Chesterfield House A Complete Body of Architecture Isaac Ware, 1756

100

60. Silk Brocade, Period of Louis X V Victoria and Albert Museum

loi

61. Music Room, Vauxhall Gardens 62. Commode in the Rococo Style 'The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director Tho. Chippendale, 1754

104 105

63. Garden of Eden

118

L'Adamo Andreini, 1617

ILLUSTRATIONS

xvii

Figure

FaciDg Page

64. Garden of Eden Rubens and Jan Brueghel, Mauritshuis, The Hague

119

65. The Gravel Pit

126

Kensington Garden T. Tickell, 1722

66. Searle's Plan of Pope's Garden

127

67. Merlin's Cave, designed by Kent, 1735

136

Merlin, or, The British Inchanter, 1736 68. Bridgeman's Plan of Stowe, 1739

137

69. View of the Parterre from the Portico, Stowe

140

Published by S. Bridgeman, 1739 70. Plan of Stowe, 1753

141

7 1 . Present View The of the Gardens the House, Ducal Estatefrom of Stowe, 1921 Stowe . . .

I44

72. Present View of the House from the Gardens, Stowe Ibid.

145

. . .

73. Artificial Ruin of a Roman Arch, Kew Gardens Department of Prints Victoria and Albert Museum

170

74. A Roman Ruin as a Textile Motive Collins Woolmers, 1765 Metropolitan Museum of Art

171

75. Chinese Rotunda in the Canal at Ranelagh Department of Prints Victoria and Albert Museum

178

76. Portia's Garden, as painted by W. Hodges A Collection of Prints from Pictures painted for the purpose of Illustrating Shakespeare. By the Artists of Great Britain, 1803

179

77. Silk with Stripes Characteristic of the Period of Louis X V I Victoria and Albert Museum

234

78. Ceiling in the Adam Style A Book of Ceilings George Richardson, 1776

235

79. Fan in the Adam Style Department of Prints Victoria and Albert Museum

238

80. Two Armchairs, Sheraton Style Metropolitan Museum of Art

239

TIDES IN ENGLISH

TASTE

INTRODUCTION T H E W A Y W A R D N E S S OF

ELIZABETHAN

CLASSICISM READERS of English literature are aware of the profoundly complex changes in form, content, and whole spiritual outlook that were wrought in the prose and poetry of the sixteenth century as the result of contact with the literature of Greece and Rome and Renaissance Italy — changes that gradually but inevitably achieved the transition from medievalism to modern modes of thought and feeling. But they are frequently less vividly aware that during the same period architecture was also passing through a development equally significant and illuminative of the forces that were transforming the soul of European civilization. About 1550, almost at the very date during the reign of Edward V I when English schoolboys were playing Ralph Roister Doister, Udall's anglicized version of Plautus's Miles Gloriosus, the Duke of Northumberland sent John Shute to Italy to gain a first-hand knowledge of the monuments of Roman civilization and the architecture of contemporary Italy. B y that date the work of some of the greatest builders of the Renaissance was complete •— Bramante had died in 1514 and Peruzzi in 1536 — and Italy was rich in churches and palaces the design of which was gradually revolutionizing the architecture of Europe. T o Shute, coming from a country which was just emerging from medievalism, the art of Italy must have been a revelation; how long he remained there we do not know, but when he did return, he brought with him drawings of Italian paintings, sculpture, and architecture which were of sufficient merit to induce the Duke of Northumberland to submit them to the King's inspection. T h e subsequent fall of his patron probably interfered for a time with Shute's prospects, for it was not until 1563 that his Italian journey and his reverent study of Yitruvius and Serlio bore fruit in The First and Chief Grounds of Architecture. Republished in 1579 and 1584, this was the first English book to discuss the principles of classic architecture and

4

INTRODUCTION

to attempt an elucidation of the mysteries of the five orders. It reveals the limitation that marked all books on architecture during the next two hundred years: for Shute as for his successors no other architecture existed except that of antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Although writers had before their eyes countless monuments of Gothic architecture, they ignored them, or if they remembered them, they did so only to treat them with contempt. The novelty of Shute's undertaking is evident from his vocabulary. With the New English Dictionary as our guide we find that Shute was the first to employ in English the words architect and architecture, and such technical terms, denoting features of classical architecture, as pedestal, architrave, frieze, and cornice. He was the first to refer to the orders, and to specify their names, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite. Moreover, when, with an explanatory gesture, Shute spoke of "simetry" as "the accustomed terme of the arte of the fornamed columbes," he was making the initial English use of that word as descriptive of exact uniformity characteristic of Renaissance art. In the next sixty years the idea of symmetry gave birth in turn to a brood of derivative words. In the decade 1570-80 symmetrically and symmetrician entered the language. A few years later in Arcadia Sidney with humorous precision and perhaps with his eye on Lomazzo, the meticulous rulemaker of Italian painting, described the face of Erona, otherwise a lady of incomparable beauty, as " a thought longer then the exacte Symmetrians perhaps would allow." In this passage the word symmetrians was the innovation. By 1625 other writers had introduced symmetriated, symmetrial, and symmetrist. Shute, indeed, inaugurated an influx of architectural terms that were needed by Englishmen who wished to think and speak accurately about the architecture that was daily having more influence upon native building. The augmentation of the vocabulary is proof of their growing interest in Italian architecture. In 1575 model was first used for a building plan, and in the same year Laneham in his famous letter describing the festivities at Kenilworth made the earliest use of pilaster. In 1598 Richard Haydocke in his translation of Lomazzo introduced perspective to English readers. In 1605 Ben Jonson introduced

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N C L A S S I C I S M

ζ

portico. Volpone, having disguised himself as a mountebank and stationed himself before the house of Corvino, whose wife he wished to seduce, is represented as explaining to the assembled Venetians that his usual stand is "in the face of the public piazza near the shelter of the portico." Oddly enough, although Shute discussed the Corinthian capital and the three organic parts of the classic entablature, he managed to avoid using the terms acanthus and entablature. The first occurrence of the former word was in 1616 and of the latter in 1 6 1 1 . All these dates, of course, specify merely the earliest observed employment of the words in question. However, as it is probable that most new words circulate only a few years before they pass into print, it is a safe surmise that the dates in the New English Dictionary approximate by a relatively short time the first appearance of a word in the language. Consequently there is no occasion for hesitation in attaching the fullest significance to this sudden enrichment of English with a more adequate architectural terminology. John Shute's book on classic architecture and the subsequent increase of the architectural vocabulary were merely symptoms, and by no means the earliest symptoms, of the interest Italian art had excited in England. Under the patronage of Henry V I I I and Cardinal Wolsey, who were, like Francis I, true children of their time in their passion for luxury and splendor, Italian craftsmen first came to England, and in the alien atmosphere of the north practiced arts that in the south had already attained a rich maturity. In the chapel of Henry VII, under the fanvaulting in which the Perpendicular Gothic style came to full flowering, the tomb of the King is the earliest evidence of Renaissance art in England: the classic pilasters dividing the sides of the tomb into three panels are delicately enriched with a design in which the Tudor rose and portcullis are harmonized with the very typical Italian arabesque made up of the classic vase, the baluster, and foliage. The banded garlands occupying the panels are equally classic, and frame saints that are without Gothic formalism and reveal by their ease of pose an Italian hand practiced in the representation of the human figure. This tomb, designed by that Pietro Torrigiano for whom Cellini cherished such bitter hatred because he had disfigured Michael

6

INTRODUCTION

Angelo, was at the time of its construction remarkable in that its form and ornament were entirely Renaissance. It shares this distinction with the rood screen (1532-36) of King's College, Cambridge, where the exquisite sense of scale, the refinement of the decorative pattern, and the delicacy of the execution exhibit the Italian style in its purity. T h e medieval tradition of building was strong in England, and as it was the only tradition which the English workman intuitively understood, because it came to him as the accumulated result of generations of craftsmanship, Italian ornament made its way only gradually. Generally wherever it appeared, whether, as at first, on tombs and chantries, or, as later, on buildings, it is found in juxtaposition with Gothic motives and on structures that are essentially Gothic in design. It is, indeed, a condition of affairs that one might anticipate would be characteristic of a transitional period. When Wolsey's grandiose plans for his palace at Hampton Court were realized, the result was a Gothic edifice in which the decoration only here and there was in the new Italian taste. T h e hall and its noble open timber roof follow the medieval tradition of construction that was responsible for Westminster Hall centuries before; yet nearly all the details which the carver employed to ornament the overhanging timbers — the balusters, the animals, the winged children, and the sprays of acanthus — are of Italian origin. Moreover, in Cardinal Wolsey's closet at Hampton Court the panels in the ceiling are enriched with a pattern of Tudor roses, delicate classic cornucopias, and foliage. Indeed the elegance, even the subdued sumptuousness of effect, and the admirable adaptation of the scale of the panels and the ornament they contain to the small size of the room recall the famous cabinets of Isabella d'Este in the Castello at Mantua, and make this ceiling perhaps the finest in the building, possessing, as it does, positive artistic values never dreamed of by the painters of the vulgar, pompous frescos in Wren's additions to the palace. When the Italians drifted back to their own country after England's break with Rome and the death of Henry V I I I in 1547, the vogue of Italian ornament as interpreted in accord with the Italian sensibility to scale and refinement of relief rapidly declined. Such a beautiful and subtle adjustment of dec-

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N

CLASSICISM

7

orative detail to space as is exemplified on the rood screen of the chapel of K i n g ' s College, Cambridge, was lost upon the English workman to the detriment of his art for seventy-five years. T h e reason is not far to seek. W h e n finally in Elizabeth's reign religious and commercial interests induced German and D u t c h craftsmen to flock to England, English workmen succumbed to their influence, accepted their principles of design, and reproduced, for the most part uncritically, the Teutonic rendering of classic architecture. T h e u n h a p p y influence of the foreign workmen themselves was reinforced, moreover, b y D u t c h and German pattern-books published on the Continent and studied and copied in England. Wendel Dietterlin's Architectura (1598) is typical of its class: a storehouse of startling designs for windows, chimney-pieces, portals, well-heads, fountains, and tombs. Innumerable scrolls, curved pediments and broken pediments, columns and tapering pedestals banded with strapwork and studded with knobs, human figures and animals in contorted postures, fruit and flowers in clusters, in garlands, and in vases, all are combined in compositions which produce jagged, irregular silhouettes, a multiplicity of planes and projections, violent and abrupt contrasts in light and shade, and a pattern or arrangement of multitudinous details such as does not permit any space to remain bare or any line to pursue its course without the interruption of ornament. T h e result of employing these decorative elements without the control imposed b y a sense of scale or a knowledge of classic proportion is a phantasmagoria. A l t h o u g h the English workmen fortunately did not reproduce the worst absurdities they found in these foreign pattern-books, they did imitate their models with such a lack of discretion that more than one architectural critic has been amply justified in describing Elizabethan and Jacobean ornament as " b a r b a r o u s . " T h e carved oak screen (Fig. 1) from Crewe Hall, illustrated here, certainly deserves no such severe description, but it does admirably exemplify the t y p e of decorative taste for which Teutonic influence was responsible. B u t , after all, ornament, no matter how well conceived and executed, is not architecture; it never has been and it never will be. A f t e r the fall of W o l s e y and the death of H e n r y V I I I English art had to wait until Charles I was on the throne before it

8

INTRODUCTION

found a princely and discriminating patron. In the meantime, however, throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James I the nobility spent large sums on the erection of impressive houses in various parts of England. In the Middle Ages architectural effort had expressed itself in churches; it was characteristic of the Renaissance spirit that that effort should now express itself in private mansions. In spite of the increasing amount of classic ornament, whether interpreted in harmony with Italian or Teutonic ideals, with which these houses were adorned, their plan, like that at Hampton Court, remained in many respects medieval until the close of the Jacobean period. The quadrangular plan, formed by a group of buildings surrounding a central court and developed by the Middle Ages for defence, was retained long after the actual need for such a design ceased to exist. The great hall constituting one side of the court continued to be, as in the Middle Ages, the center of social life and the common meeting-place of the lord of the manor and his retainers. Lighted from both sides and extending upward through two stories to the roof, it divided the building into two parts: at one end of the hall was the dais where the master and his family dined; at its other end was the lofty carved screen; behind the latter was the passage leading from the entrance; and beyond this passage, in turn, were the pantry, the buttery, the kitchen, and the servants' quarters. John Thorpe's two small plans (Fig. a) given herewith illustrate this arrangement and show distinctly in each case the hall, the screen separating it from the passage, and the buttery ( " b u t " ) . As anyone can perceive, this is essentially the relationship of the dining-hall and kitchen in the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. One important characteristic of the medieval mansion must be stressed. In the Middle Ages the nature of the site, chosen for its inaccessibility, the planning of a house with the idea of defence constantly in mind, and the absence of any desire for uniformity for its own sake resulted in a building that generally was conspicuously unsymmetrical. The outer entrance to the court and that of the hall were rarely opposite each other. The windows and doors of the lodgings about the court were placed without regard to any mutual relationship, that is, wherever they happened to be needed. A similar principle of utility de-

FIG.

ι —

EXTERIORS

AND H O U S E

PLANS

BY J O H N

THORPE

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N C L A S S I C I S M

9

termined the erection of chimneys and defensive turrets. Thus medieval edifices like Compton Winyates and Haddon Hall, without the intention of their builders or their owners, came to embody all those qualities of irregularity, freedom, variety, and waywardness in which later, more sophisticated generations have discovered to their delight the purest essence of the picturesque. Now, Italian art of the Renaissance was profound in its understanding of the values of such a coordination of the elements of a design as would fuse all its parts into a pervasive, dominating unity. Such coordination expressed the artist's intellectual perception of the significance of order in a world where nature seemed haphazard and fortuitous if not actually chaotic. However, only slowly in the course of the sixteenth century did the English house yield to this disciplinary ideal of order as achieved by the way of symmetry. The result of this process is exemplified in the plan here given (Fig. 2, No. 3). The quadrangular design of the Middle Ages has been formalized: the portal of the court and the entrance to the house are on the same axial line, the doorways of the lodgings on either side of the court face each other, and the parlor ( " y l o r , " probably error for " P a r " ) is balanced by the kitchen ( " K y t " ) . The symmetry of the whole scheme is obvious even at the most cursory glance. During the second half of the century the more settled social conditions permitted the development of other distinguishing features of the Elizabethan and Jacobean house: the disappearance of the battlemented parapet, the increase of window space until the façade was pierced with long ranges of lights out of all proportion to the wall space, and the gradual abandonment of the quadrangular for an E or H plan (cf. Fig. 2, No. 4). But although these plans were treated with stricter and stricter symmetry, the medieval arrangement was still adhered to in the retention of the hall in the transverse building connecting the wings. But in time the hall was not allowed to remain unchanged: its height was reduced to that of an ordinary room by no longer building it up to the extent of two stories. But the greatest and most significant departure from the medieval plan took place probably in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when with the increase of supplementary rooms for special

IO

INTRODUCTION

purposes, such as the dining-parlor, the hall no longer functioned as the center of social life in the mansion, but became, as it remains to-day, a mere entry. A t Aston Hall (1618-35), Birmingham, now open to the public as a museum, the transformation is complete. The hall is in the center of the building between the two wings, but the carved screen has disappeared as well as the dais and bay-window which from medieval times had always provided light for that end of the room. W h a t is more significant is the fact that the hall itself has become only a spacious entrance room by which access is gained to the adjoining apartments. This change was important not only from the architectural point of view, but also from the social point of view: it meant that hospitality and the personal contacts between the lord of the manor and his followers which had always been possible as long as they ate together in the hall were destined to become a thing of the past — a fine tradition which succeeding generations when sentimentally inclined were to recall with regret. In attaining a greater coherence of design by which the architectural masses were established in a definite equilibrium and knit together by identity of form and regularity of distribution, the Elizabethan and Jacobean house did not, either externally or internally, lose picturesqueness. Within the prescribed limits imposed by the ideal of symmetry, it found numerous, and frequently, to its own detriment, too numerous opportunities for the operation of the principle of variety and surprise. It is these manifestations of taste typical of Renaissance England that I shall now consider in some detail, as a knowledge of them is necessary if one is to understand how the later classicists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries undertook to correct them. T h e façade of the central block of the Elizabethan mansion was, for example, frequently given conspicuous medial or axial emphasis by an ornate portal or frontispiece which, in many instances, extended upward through two or more stories and projected above the line of the roof to form a striking silhouette against the sky. T h e effect of this feature can be studied at Oxford in the well-known Schools Tower, and at St. John's, Merton, and Wadham. Furthermore, the Elizabethan façade was enlivened by the great size of the windows (Fig. 2),

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N C L A S S I C I S M

II

divided into tiers of oblong compartments by intersecting stone mullions and transoms. The incessant play of light on the innumerable segments of glass leaded together in each compartment — the great series of windows in the Long Gallery of Hardwick Hall are said to consist of 27,000 such small panes of glass — relieved the monotony of walls of timber and plaster or brick or stone. Here again the same irresponsible spirit — or shall I say the same ignorance? — that made the Elizabethan or Jacobean build his portals without due regard for congruity and structural relationship led him to ignore the proper apportionment of space to be devoted to windows and wall. But granting that the fenestration of the Elizabethan and Jacobean house is excessive, weakens the wall with too many voids, and defies proportion, such numerous great windows do give an abundant light within and brighten the façade with a sparkling cheerfulness. Finally, the skyline of the house of the period, as the illustration makes clear, was richly varied with contrasting masses, steep, curved gables, groups of lofty chimney-flues, and towers and turrets. It was by such devices that the English house of the early Renaissance escaped the aridity that is the potential danger of an uninspired obedience to symmetry. The interior decoration of the Elizabethan and Jacobean house exhibited a variety of features of such rich ornamental value that rooms in which these elements were successfully handled produce an impression of dignity, even sumptuousness. But as the prevailing characteristic of all these features was the multiplicity of their parts, the problem of their coordination was all the more difficult. When the walls were not hung with tapestries, they were dressed with wooden paneling (Fig. 3) which extended to a plaster frieze near the top of the wall or even to the ceiling itself. Generally the panels themselves were small oblongs echoing the form and size of the lights into which the great windows were divided. The panels were either plain, or were enriched by small arches and columns in low relief. Other panels of more complex design — for example, L-shaped, polygonal forms and diamonds, or lozenges — were combined with the oblong type in intricate patterns on doors, mantelpieces, screens (Fig. 1), and walls. When one realizes the number of these small panels covering the wall space of a room, the

11

INTRODUCTION

taste of the age for variety and multiplicity of decorative detail becomes very obvious. In the dining-hall of Magdalen College, Oxford, on the wall behind the Fellows' dais, there is a total of one hundred and eighty-two panels ranged in seven horizontal tiers, and in the Long Gallery of Aston Hall the total on the wall facing the windows does not fall far short of five hundred. On the whole, in large rooms and especially in the vast Long Galleries, the effect of these marshaled hosts of panels and the consequent breaking up of the wall space into small decorative units is tiring to the eye and unsatisfying to the mind, for the elements of design are of too frequent recurrence and create an unpleasant impression of going on in an unending series. After all, these shortcomings are due to the deficient sense of scale which marks most of the work of the period. It is significant of this limitation that the craftsman apparently never thought of varying the size of the panels according to the dimensions of a room. The art of the stuccoist, introduced into England by Italians who came to decorate Henry V I I I ' s palace of Nonesuch, adorned the ceilings of these paneled rooms with patterns in plaster (Fig. 3), formed by ribs in low relief which generally framed a coat of arms, a floral detail, or some other ornamental device. A t first simple, these designs became more elaborate as time went by, circular, oval, and other curved forms taking the place of straight-line patterns. These later patterns were indeed often extremely intricate and of genuine beauty and were modeled with sensitiveness. But the maze of interlacing lines which this pi aster-work introduced upon the ceiling was, in many instances, without regard for the straight lines of the wall-panels below. From this point of view the scrolled ceiling in the great drawing-room at Aston Hall and the serpentine pattern in the ceiling of the Cartoon Gallery at Knole produce a distracting impression because there is little or no linear relationship between walls and ceilings. On the other hand, the ceilings in the King Charles Bedroom at Aston and in the famous Fish Room at Audley End are most effectively coordinated with the walls because the dominant straight lines in the plaster ornament are parallel to the horizontal line formed by the intersection of the wall and ceiling.

FIG.

4 — PALAZZO VALMARANO, VICENZA

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N

CLASSICISM

I3

T h e neglect of linear harmony is shown elsewhere in the interior. N o t only are the two stages of the grandiose Elizabethan chimney-piece more or less disparate because of the difference of scale frequent in the ornamentation of the two sections, but the chimney-piece as a whole is not related to the lateral paneling; it appears to be placed against the panels rather than integrated with them. This is the impression created in the small drawing-room (Fig. 3) at Levens Hall the view of which is reproduced from Nash's sentimental versions of English mansions. As neither the lines nor carved ornaments of the chimney-piece link it to the paneling, it seems detached from the wall. Moreover, the failure to put the chimney-piece in the middle of the wall indicates that at the time it was constructed the demand for balance was not insistent. A few decades later such an oversight would have appeared as a defiance of good taste. T h e desire for the stimulus derivable from a varied silhouette also revealed itself in the interior as well as in the exterior of the Elizabethan and Jacobean house. T h e tops of many chimneypieces and hall-screens were crowned with strap-work of Dutch or German origin in the form of a triangular lattice (Figs. 1, 3) of interlocking scrolls. The zest imparted to a design by a decisively sharp, irregular outline was also present on the spacious Elizabethan staircase, where the height of the newel-posts was increased by lofty finials, heraldic animals, or human figures. Other evidence might be cited to illustrate the tendencies that informed the taste of the period. The same exuberance of feeling is seen in the furniture; the absence of a sense of proportion is conspicuous in the bulbous table-legs and bed-posts and in the restless desire to cover all available space with elaborate carving which envelops bed-heads, chair-backs, and court cupboards. Contemporary literature comments interestingly on architectural features that have just been discussed. When in Cymbeline Iachimo undertakes to prove to Posthumus his knowledge of Imogen's bed-chamber, Shakespeare, regardless of the anachronism, represents him as describing what is, in reality, a sumptuous Renaissance room. T h e motives of decoration which Shakespeare itemizes are classic. T h e walls are not paneled, but hung with a tapestry of silk and silver thread, which depicts with consummate art the meeting of Cleopatra and " h e r

14

INTRODUCTION

R o m a n " on the River Cydnus. 1 Of just such a character were the twenty-one sets of tapestry telling, among other stories, the adventures of Hercules and Jason, which Cardinal Wolsey commissioned Sir Richard Gresham to secure for him on the Continent. Contrasting with the story of passion unfolded on the tapestry was the sculptured decoration of the chimney-piece in Imogen's room; it delineated " Chaste Dian, bathing." Even so to-day in the state bedroom of Haddon Hall the overmantel in stucco represents a mythological incident: Orpheus entrancing the animals by his playing of the lyre. Imogen's fireplace was rendered more magnificent by the addition of silver andirons, with Cupids leaning upon their torches. With the paganism of these decorative motives the taste of the age had no difficulty in harmonizing the ornamental scheme of the ceiling: "golden cherubims" in r e l i e f — perhaps figures of gilded stucco such as Shakespeare might have seen when he and his fellow-players gave performances at court. If in Arcadia in his account of the house of Kalander Sidney has embodied his own architectural ideal, it is something of a criticism of the taste of his age. It implies that he was out of sympathy with ostentatious building and too elaborate decoration in which the craftsman was given a free hand at the sacrifice of the comfort of the guest. Sidney wished for dignity, convenience, durability, and a simplicity that was not to be identified with a repugnant barrenness of design. As the whole description is humanized by Sidney's solicitude for the claims of hospitality, and as any paraphrase of mine would fail to convey its spirit, I give the passage as it stands: The house it selfe was built of faire and strong stone, not affecting so much any extraordinarie kinde of finenes, as an honorable representing of a firme statelines. The lightes, doores, and staires, rather directed to the use of the guest, then to the eye of the Artificer: and yet as the one cheefly heeded, so the other not neglected; each place handsome without curiositie, and homely without lothsomnes: not so daintie as not to be trode on, nor yet slubberd up with good felowshippe: all more lasting then beautifull, but that the consideration of the exceeding lastingnesse made the eye beleeve it was exceeding beautifull.2 Bacon's essay Of Building, which first appeared in the edition of 1625, is at once a criticism and an acceptance of the archi-

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N CLASSICISM

15

tectural standards of his age. As suitable for the palace he has in mind, he adapts the older quadrangular plan, and as a good Elizabethan makes his hall not an entrance but the center of the household life. What is equally important is that he puts utility before symmetry, and in so doing takes an attitude that is out of accord with the growing tendency of the time to build houses of regular design. He dares to say that "Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had." This principle, so obviously the dictum of common sense that there would seem to be no occasion for stating it, was repeatedly ignored in the eighteenth century by rigid classicists like the Earl of Burlington, the builder of Chiswick House. At the same time that Bacon reveals his willingness to compromise with the standard of symmetry, he does favor a uniform façade. Moreover, he prizes the Renaissance ideal of centrality of emphasis in accord with which the axis of a building is made a focal point of interest. In the middle of his façade he would have a lofty tower rising two stories above the wings; and to throw this central tower into bolder relief, he specifies that the staircase turrets in the four corners of the court must be of lower elevation. Although Bacon has employed symmetry as an organizing principle in the disposition of his masses, he is sufficiently a child of his time to break the flat wall surfaces with projecting elements, for he likes bow-windows and directs that the corner staircases shall not be within the walls, but be carried up in external turrets. Guided again by his common sense, he sacrifices the enlivening effect of a series of great windows such as can be seen to-day at Longleat and Wollaton to the realities of the situation. He asserts that " you shall have sometimes fair houses so full of glass, that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or cold." In elaborating his plan Bacon does not forget the varied skyline: the central tower, the turrets, and the statues on the roof crown the compact body of his edifice with vertical masses of contrasting bulk and elevation. Within, the grand staircase, which was such an imposing feature in Jacobean houses, was to have the newel-posts, as in Bacon's own home at Gorhambury, surmounted by figures sculptured in wood, and his galleries were to glow with painted window-glass — "col-

l6

INTRODUCTION

umns, images of all kinds, flowers," as he says in the posthumous Latin edition of 1638. Bacon was, of course, visualizing a splendid building, but in its arrangements we have an interesting evidence of what at the time a man of cultivated taste thought was desirable in such a mansion. Bacon's description is infused with the Renaissance love of luxury and magnificence, and recalls great mansions like Sir Christopher Hatton's sumptuous house at Holdenby. In the period of approximately one hundred and fifteen years that stretched between the death of Henry V I I and that of James I, architecture gradually emancipated itself from medievalism and took on some of the outward trappings of classicism. The English workman had had placed at his disposal a generous number of new decorative motives and ornamental patterns derived from antiquity, but he had employed them without knowledge and combined them promiscuously with Gothic ornaments on buildings that were still medieval in conception. His earlier contact with experienced Italian craftsmen, who could have taught him scale and proportion in design, having failed to make any permanent impression upon his taste, he adopted the coarse and frequently bizarre architectural ideas of the Germans and the Dutch. The classic orders he employed freely, but as did his Teutonic teachers, that is, in ignorance of their proportions and purpose. He used columns for chimneyflues, or on elaborate portals piled them on top of one another, merely applying them to the surface of the wall as ornament, oblivious of any necessity to see to it that they functioned as supports to a weight. Symmetry had undoubtedly greatly altered the external appearance of the Elizabethan house, without the loss of those picturesque qualities which had been characteristic of the ensemble of the medieval building, but internally the plan, except at the very end of our period, remained fundamentally that of the Middle Ages with the hall as the heart of the architectural organization. In truth, the Elizabethan and Jacobean house, in spite of the dignity of its spaciousness and the compelling charm of its boldly conceived masses, was a hybrid, and its classicism a superficial covering through which the spirit of an earlier age was still visible. I am well aware of the danger that attends a foolhardy effort

W A Y W A R D N E S S OF E L I Z A B E T H A N CLASSICISM

17

to exploit an analogy between arts essentially different, especially if the parallelism be pushed too far. Nevertheless, I shall venture upon this perilous road to point out that the Elizabethan craftsman, it would appear, borrowed his classic ornament and architectural forms in much the same spirit as the Elizabethan poet rifled ancient literature and contemporary Italian books that had been nourished by the culture of the past. For both the craftsman and the man of letters the classic world was merely a new, vast emporium where they could secure material that had the powerful attraction of novelty. It was a matter of election, and they took at random, without feeling any responsibility toward the sources from which they borrowed. Unlike the classicists that followed them in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Elizabethans were not restrained in their employment of the ancient material by a reverence for it so profound that it checked the free play of their individuality by the imposition of artistic obligations which they dared not ignore. Udall, for example, did what he pleased with the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, only half assimilating his material to the English environment to which he chose to transfer the scene. Ralph remained the boasting soldier of Latin comedy, and Merygreeke kept many of the qualities of the parasite, while the harlot of the original became a sincere, faithful Englishwoman and her lover a sturdy Englishman, Gawyn Goodlucke. The result was an immensely amusing play in which, nevertheless, patent incongruities jostled one another. The writers of Gorboduc modeled their chill formal drama after the pattern of a Senecan tragedy, but they did not hesitate to incorporate in it characters that came directly from the morality: the good and the evil councilors between whom the princes vacillate are only in another form the familiar forces of virtue and vice that contended in the medieval didactic play. Even Shakespeare himself represented historical personages in Richard III as adepts in all the artificialities of Senecan stichomythia, and imposed upon three Englishwomen the task of uttering antiphonal dirges in the conventional Roman manner. Considered from this point of view the bulk of Elizabethan drama was, like the architecture, a hybrid, a composite of alien and native elements, a medley of characters, situations, styles,

18

INTRODUCTION

and technical devices fused into a sort of audacious unity according to the intensity of the poet's imagination. Was not the impulse that led the workman to cover surfaces with ornament, multiply the units of decoration, and startle the attention by sudden contrasts in form and scale likewise active in prose and poetry? The Elizabethan poet was capable of exquisite simplicity, but he as well as the prose writer also delighted in word-play, elaborate conceits, and involutions of style that appealed to a taste for the fantastic and ingenious just as much as the designs in a Dutch pattern-book. On entirely different levels of achievement Lyly's Euphues and Marlowe's Tamburlaine exhibit a love of excess that is equally characteristic of the decoration of furniture, screens, and paneling. Esthetic emotions that had been stirred by the richness and prodigality of imagery and by the sonorities of verbal magnificence in the verse of Marlowe and Shakespeare required a stimulus of similar intensity if they were to respond to the appeal of a decorative design or an architectural mass. The variety of visual impressions by which the Elizabethan house excited the attention and surprised the eye as it passed from one part of the edifice to another had its counterpart in the sudden emotional transitions of the drama, where the tragic and the comic followed each other in rapid succession and shocked the spectator into a state of agitated alertness. Although the architecture and literature possessed common qualities that were similarly expressive of the temper and the taste of the age, obviously no comparison can be made between the total accomplishment in each of the two arts. Not a single building in the whole era attained distinction parallel to that of the works of a Spenser, a Marlowe, or a Shakespeare. Even simple, brief Elizabethan lyrics, an innumerable host, achieve a perfection of detail and possess precious artistic values such as no worker ever secured in his special craft. While the poetry reached full maturity, the architecture progressed with only an uncertain realization of its standards and its destiny.

f x f x f x « f * f x f x f x f x f x f x f x f x f t · f x f x f x f x f x fC fC f x Κ f x f x « f x « K K K f x

CHAPTER I T H E N E W VISION OF O R D E R

I.

PALLADIO

AND I Ñ I G O

JONES

that the literature and the architecture of sixteenth-century England were affected in their development by antiquity, it cannot be said that either of them attained any of the qualities that are traditionally associated with classicism and are the outgrowth of the control of the imagination — austere simplicity, serenity, and reserve. T o be sure, Sidney with moderation and Jonson with bitterness protested against the vagaries and extravagances of Elizabethan literature, but theirs were voices that found only slight echoes among their contemporaries; it was not until the Restoration that English writers in any number concerned themselves with abstract principles of literary expression, studied criticism, and bowed their heads to the authority of Aristotle, Horace, and French and English commentators. B u t with architecture the case was very different. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, through the genius of Inigo Jones, new ideals of design introduced into architecture a disciplinary spirit that anticipated by nearly fifty years the advent of a similar phenomenon in literature. These ideals which Jones exemplified had nothing in common with the empirical methods of Elizabethan builders, but were the fruit of systematic scholarship grounded upon an exhaustive knowledge of the treatises of Vitruvius, Alberti, Serlio, Vignola, and Palladio, as well as a study, preferably at first hand, of the monuments of antiquity and the buildings of the Italian Renaissance. B y virtue of the sheer integrity of their creative power Jones and, in the last half of the century, Wren were not hampered by their scholarship and acquaintance with the principles and practice of classical architecture, for, as a matter of fact, the individuality of each was best able to express itself in and through the traditional forms inherited from antiquity and modified to meet modern needs by the great Italians. NOTWITHSTANDING

20

T H E N E W V I S I O N OF ORDER

But unfortunately in this imperfect world, as the men who erected the vast classical mansions of eighteenth-century England proved, an art organized and controlled by a profound respect for the past had its perils. Just as the poets and critics canonized Longinus, Horace, Rapin, and Le Bossu, eighteenthcentury architects, lacking the genius of a Jones or a Wren, accepted as dogmas the words of Vitruvius and his Italian successors, and like the minor writers of the age prided themselves on their obedience to " t h e rules." Thus it comes about that to-day, whereas even one who is temperamentally not in sympathy with classical poetry may read Dryden and Pope with admiration for the chiseled precision of their phrasing and turn with impatience from Armstrong, Somerville, and Young, so one may contemplate with deep satisfaction the repose of Jones and the majesty of Wren and be repelled by the buildings of such eighteenth-century architects as Kent and Colin Campbell. A knowledge of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders was no more able to make a man a good architect than a study of the unities could teach a poet how to write a good tragedy. It is regrettable, but true, that there is no safe way by which mediocrity can be saved from betraying itself. Indeed, the classical architects of the eighteenth century, in their cold, deliberate efforts to secure symmetry in their buildings at any price, often resorted, as we shall see, to acrobatics that wantonly sacrificed comfort and convenience to an absurd degree. In the work of Peruzzi, Sanmicheli, Jones, or Wren, symmetry as a principle organizing architectural masses ennobles a building, but in the work of Kent and Campbell, and sometimes of Gibbs and Hawksmoor, it frequently only exasperates. After all, whether he interpreted the principle he chose for his guidance with humanistic liberality or with academic pedantry depended upon the intelligence and artistic feeling of the architect himself. Nevertheless, if one is inclined to chafe at many specimens of eighteenth-century English architecture — its aridity is often only too evident —, it is well to remember the remark, made, I believe, with classical literature in mind, that the eighteenth century did " a great and necessary work." Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson deservedly chastised the puns, the word-

PALLADIO AND IÑIGO JONES

21

play, the involved conceits of the Elizabethans, and the premeditated, licensed obscurities of the metaphysical school, and established standards of form and of clarity and precision of expression that have been of abiding influence upon English literature ever since and constitute an authoritative court of appeal. Similarly the classical architects treated with pedantic harshness the work of their medieval and Elizabethan predecessors, but, in preoccupying themselves with proportion and scale, they handled problems that had to be faced if in England mere building was ever to rise to the dignity of genuine architecture. In one respect the historians of architecture have been more logical than the historians of literature. Regarding the three hundred years from 1500 to 1800 as the period of Renaissance influence, they have divided it, in turn, into two subordinate periods, the first that of the Early Renaissance, extending from 1500 to 1617, when Inigo Jones began the Queen's House, and the second that of the Later Renaissance, extending from 1617 to 1800. In other words, they have recognized that although the classical influence upon architecture manifested itself differently in the Early and Later Renaissance, yet, as that influence was operative in one form or another from 1500 to 1800, the whole interval possesses a fundamental unity the acknowledgment of which clarifies our understanding of architectural history. The historians of literature have been less accurate; they refer to the Renaissance and the classical period as if they were entirely disparate. But, in fact, in literature as in architecture the two periods have an essential identity which is obscured by the implication that the Renaissance was represented only in the literature that appeared before 1642. The critical spirit that entered architecture in the first half and literature in the second half of the seventeenth century was an expression of the intellectualism of the Renaissance and just as typical of it as the imaginative exuberance that informed the art of the reign of Elizabeth. Accordingly, Alberti and Serlio reasoned about architecture while Castelvetro and Robortello philosophized about the drama, providing seventeenth-century critics with the principles that were reflected in Boileau's L'Art Po-

22

THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

étique and in Dryden's essays. It is no more inconsistent to think of Marlowe's Or. Faustus and Pope's Essay on Criticism as revelations of two differing aspects of the Renaissance than to see Kirby Hall (1570-75), Northamptonshire, and Burlington's Palladian villa (1729) at Chiswick as representative of two contrasting phases of Italian architectural influence. It is, moreover, worth noting that in the middle of the eighteenth century when the romantic revolt came to a head, it was not directed against the spirit of the Renaissance as a whole. It was in the most cordial sympathy with the taste of the Elizabethans, but was opposed to that intellectualism which was the later phase of its development. As a result romantic writers, eulogists of the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, show hostility to classicism in both architecture and literature. Of the great Italian architects it was Palladio (1518-80) whose influence was most authoritative in England. His skill as an ecclesiastical designer is revealed in the beautiful churches of II Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, but it is only in Vicenza and its neighborhood that it is possible to study his conception of domestic architecture for town and country — the particular phases of his work which were admired and industriously copied by the English for nearly two hundred years. In the narrow streets of Vicenza one has an unusual opportunity to compare medieval and Renaissance architecture, for this Italian town, at present unimportant, possesses not only Palladio's town-houses but numerous impressive palaces of the late Middle Ages. T h e façades of the Gothic edifices, with their windows and balconies placed without regard for uniformity but with an exquisite sense for balance, are all the more conspicuous on account of the proximity of the completely symmetrical classical houses. On the whole, the medieval mansions show to better advantage in the narrow streets than do the Palladian façades, which require distance for the full appreciation of their proportions. On the other hand, the Gothic buildings are able to charm the beholder by some detail like a doorway or a balcony which, being small in scale, can be enjoyed without reference to the façade as a whole. It may be added that Vicenza has not been lax in commemorating its most famous citizen. Its most prominent moving-picture house

PALLADIO AND IÑIGO JONES

23

is called the Cinema Palladio. But this distinction falls short of the honor paid by a tradesman of Salzburg to musical genius; there beneath the shadow of Hohen-Salzburg is the Parfumerie Mozart. T h e famous dead have much to be thankful for. W h a t impresses one whose eye has been accustomed to the bold simplicity of Florentine palaces is the more formal dignity of Palladio's town-houses. This is due not only to his preoccupation with problems of proportion, but also to his studied and frequent use of the orders on the façade of his buildings. On this score, indeed, he has been criticized, and perhaps justly, for he does seem to underestimate the esthetic value of bare wall space. Although the colossal pilaster (Fig. 4) and column running through two stories has been associated with his style, the fact is that Palladio employs the orders in other ways no less frequently, sometimes confining them to one story (Fig. 5) and at other times superimposing them in successive stories. Moreover, instead of finishing off his building with a cornice as did so many other Italian architects, he prefers a low attic above the cornice as a crown for his façade. Almost invariably, as in the case of the Palazzo Colleoni-Porto, he creates a contrast between the windows of the ground floor and those of the first story by crowning the latter alternately with triangular and segmental pediments. Unlike the baroque architects who followed Michael Angelo, Palladio never breaks the pediment, for that is a license he abhors. B u t taking a cue from Michael Angelo's Medici tombs and yielding to the prevailing taste for figure decoration, he frequently represents reclining figures on the pediments and enriches his skyline with statues. He also favors balustrades before the windows and between the orders which divide the façade. If the Palladian façade leans to monotony, the fault is due to the symmetrical distribution of the architectural stress. As a rigid symmetrist Palladio does, of course, put the entrance in the middle of the house-front; yet he does not as a rule relieve the rhythmic disposition of the windows and the columns by a strong stress upon the axis. Upright statues in the attic story and reclining figures on the window-pediments of the corresponding bays give a moderate terminal and medial emphasis to the Palazzo Colleoni-Porto, but except for the figures over

24

T H E N E W V I S I O N OF ORDER

the portal the façade of the Palazzo Valmarano is without stress on the central bay. As for the interior, his plan always shows a vista from the street through the house to the court or garden beyond. With a similar interest in space composition Palladio carefully places the doors and windows of adjoining rooms as far as possible in line with one another, so that each apartment instead of being isolated by itself is conspicuously coordinated with its neighbors at the same time that the view through the suite imparts a feeling of spaciousness. This arrangement reveals the characteristic Renaissance instinct for organization •— the power to visualize the part in relation to the whole and to reduce a multiplicity of elements to a patent and dominating unity. It is this genius for composition which intellectualizes Renaissance design. It manifests itself as clearly in the decorative patterns of Italian velvet and in the grouping of figures in Raphael's cartoons for the Sistine tapestries as in the house-plans of Italian architects. As we shall see when we come to discuss the great classical mansions of England, Palladio's typical country-house, incorporating both the owner's dwelling and the subsidiary buildings of an estate in one architectural whole (cf. Fig. 6), met the same insistent demand for coordination. 1 Although Palladio rarely applied the orders to the façade of a country-house, he made repeated use of the monumental portico supporting a massive pediment to focus attention on the center of his design and to give distinction to the entrance. Such porticos, he justly claimed, imparted " a great air and nobleness to a building, making it appear higher in the middle than on the wings." I think that we are put more in sympathy with these plans of country-houses consisting of a central block connected by colonnades with the subsidiary buildings if we have in mind what Palladio, with a dash of rhetorical exaggeration, has to say in praise of the advantages of a country-house. In the country, as Palladio remarks, the mind being overlaboured by the fatigues of the City, will be singularly recruited and recreated: so that he [the owner] may then quietly apply himself to the study of Books, or the contemplation of Nature, in imitation of those ancient Sages, who, on such accounts, used fre-

FIG.

5 —

PALAZZO

COLLEONI-PORTO,

VICENZA

PALLADIO AND IÑIGO JONES

2ζ

quently to retire to the like places; where being visited by their virtuous Friends and Relations, and possessing Pleasure-houses, Gardens, Fountains, and such other Objects of diversion, but above all their own virtue, they could easily attain that highest pitch of a happy Life, that on this earth can be possibly enjoyed.2 Such comment is a revelation of the social and intellectual ideal of the age, enabling one to understand why the men of the Renaissance felt justified in building those luxurious villas that look out over the Campagna from the hillsides of Frascati. Like John Shute, who had written the first English book on the classic orders, Inigo Jones, the apostle of Palladianism in England, nourished his interest in architecture by two visits to Italy. During his second and probably longer sojourn (161314) he bought works of art as the agent of the Earl of Arundel, sought the acquaintance of Italian architects, examined Roman ruins, kept a sketch-book in which he recorded critical comments on buildings, and made in his copy of Palladio, now in Worcester College, Oxford, marginal observations that indicate the thoroughness of his scholarship. W e learn that he had minutely examined Palladio's principles of proportion, compared them with those of other masters, and checked them up by a study of extant antique edifices. On the occasion of his visit to Vicenza, Jones noted down that some gentleman "used me exceeding kindly and himself went with me all about," and when he mentions that he saw a capital which the masons informed him had been carved by Palladio himself, one can sense the deep interest that made him feel that such an incident deserved to be recorded. He deplored the destruction that was going on in Rome. His emotions may be imagined when he witnessed the pulling down of the remains of a temple to provide marble for the pedestal of a column that was to be set up before Santa Maria Maggiore. M a n y years later, when he heard that one of the popes had given permission for the destruction of the temple of Jupiter, Jones wrote feelingly: " T h i s was the noblest structure in Rome in m y time; so all the good of the ancients will be utterly ruined ere long." Inspired by his enthusiasm for the accomplishment of the Italians, Jones revolutionized the architecture of his native land and set up standards of beauty that marked a turning-point in

26

T H E NEW VISION OF ORDER

the history of English taste. B u t , u n f o r t u n a t e l y , because of the n a t u r e of m u c h of his w o r k o n l y a fraction of it has s u r v i v e d . F o r a period of t h i r t y - f i v e y e a r s , t h a t is, from 1605 to 1640, Jones w a s e n g a g e d in devising the scenery for e n t e r t a i n m e n t s t h a t e n j o y e d the f a v o r of the court. D u r i n g t h a t t i m e he w a s concerned w i t h n e a r l y t h i r t y m a s q u e s and pastoral p l a y s — the w o r k of v a r i o u s poets, Jonson, D a n i e l , C a m p i o n , C a r e w , T o w n shend, D a v e n a n t , and others whose a u t h o r s h i p has n o t been identified. Jones' cooperation w i t h Jonson w a s the m o s t significant. B o t h were classicists, scholarly in their a p p r o a c h to a n t i q u i t y , and between the t w o men should h a v e existed close intellectual s y m p a t h y . E a c h w a s e n d e a v o r i n g to rescue the art w h i c h he prized m o s t from w h a t seemed to him the formlessness and h a p h a z a r d practice of his contemporaries. E a c h resented the spacious freedom w i t h which his fellow-workers h a n d l e d the materials of his respective a r t , and wished to discipline the imagination b y logic, w h e t h e r in the construction of a p l a y or a building. In the m a t t e r of archeology Jonson's Catiline and Sejanus were as learned as Jones' B a n q u e t i n g H o u s e at Whitehall. T h e interests t h a t t h e y h a d in c o m m o n did n o t serve to k e e p the men together. A s it turned o u t , Jones pushed the claims of scenic decoration to the point w h e r e it b r o u g h t him into conflict w i t h Jonson, w h o protested b i t t e r l y against the subordination of the p o e t r y to the spectacle of the m a s q u e . In the u p s h o t Jonson lost the f a v o r of the c o u r t , and in A l'ale of a Tub (1633) u n d e r t o o k to satirize his former collaborator in the character of V i t r u v i u s H o o p . Jones intervened, and through his influence the p l a y was refused a license until the obnoxious p a r t w a s r e m o v e d . H o w e v e r , Jonson could not resist his desire for revenge, for even in its present form A "Tale of a Tub does n o t spare Jones. A s I n - a n d - i n M e d l a y , a cooper of Islington, he is ridiculed as stupid, o b s t i n a t e , and a b s u r d l y humorless — another B o t t o m w h o t a k e s his p e t t y concerns w i t h enormous seriousness, m a k e s slips in his L a t i n , and p o m p o u s l y asserts t h a t he is an Architectonicus professor, rather, T h a t is, as one would zay, an architect.

PALLADIO AND IÑIGO JONES

27

Jonson also hits at the classical builder's preoccupation with proportion. In-and-in argues in his southern dialect that A knight is six diameters, and a 'squire Is vive, zomewhat more. (Act IV, sc. ii) In the end, when it is proposed to Medlay to produce a masque for Squire T u b , he consents on one condition: that he be allowed an absolutely free hand to do as he pleases. T h e rupture between Jones and Jonson was complete and permanent. Although the talents of the one were the complement of those of the other, the two men found it as difficult to work in harmony as did that later pair of collaborators, Gilbert and Sullivan. It is a safe surmise that had so much of his artistic energy not been consumed in staging these ephemeral entertainments, the actual number of buildings left as permanent records of Jones' architectural genius would have been greater. As it was, for seventeen years before and for eighteen years after the completion of the Banqueting House, Jones as designer for the scenes of the masques was familiarizing his audience with the mood and the forms of classic architecture. Plainly out of sympathy with the hybrid style of Jacobean building, he seized every opportunity to embody in his stage designs his knowledge of Italian architecture gained by study and travel. It testifies to his judgment that in this work he was less influenced by the austere Palladio than by Giulio Parigi, a baroque architect who had secured a reputation as a stage designer in Italy. In seeking to employ only the forms which appealed to his Italianate taste, Jones did not trouble himself about anachronisms. In his scheme for the House of Fame in Jonson's Masque of Queens (1609) he professed to be following in part, at any rate, Chaucer's description, but the medieval poet never saw a building like that by Jones. W h a t would Chaucer have said if he had seen caryatids supporting an architrave? For the opening scene of Neptune's triumph (1624) Jones conceived the house of Oceanus as a massive edifice of rough-hewn rock pierced at intervals in both stories by round arches. These arches were flanked on each side by a pair of terms or nude male figures who, as was often the practice in baroque architecture, performed the structural function of the more classic column. A broken

28

THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

scrolled pediment Jones made one of the most conspicuous elements in Oberon's palace for another masque by Jonson. Terms, broken pediments, and rustication, that is, stone-work of exaggerated projection, were the marks of the baroque, but Jones was right in feeling that such features were not out of place in spectacular stage scenery. W h a t is much more to the point is the fact that, in general, the architecture which Jones presented to the eyes of the Englishman, especially the man who was untraveled, must have been something of a revelation. The opening scene of Carew's Coelum Britannicum (1634), for example, disclosed old arches, old palaces, decayed walls, parts of temples, theatres, basilicas, and thermae, with confused heaps of broken columns, bases, coronices, and statues, lying as under ground, and altogether resembling the ruins of some great city of the ancient Romans or civilized Britons. Townshend's Tempe Restored represented at one point what the quarto of 1631 describes as " a second order of gracious terms with women's faces which bear up the ornaments. Under this to a leaning height was a ballestrata enriched." The New English Dictionary specifies a passage from Evelyn's Diary of the year 1644 as containing the earliest instance of the word balustrade. T h e form ballestrata in Townshend's stage-direction, however, antedates that of the Dictionary by thirteen years — an indication of the novelty of the architectural features Jones was employing. T h e balustrade modeled after the shapes of classic vases was a creation of the Renaissance, and when it arrived from Italy the English, as they had no term to denote it, were obliged to adopt the Italian word. 3 In another masque Jones conceived a College of Augurs as " a domed temple with a portico resembling the Pantheon." In still other scenes of various masques he depicted the interior of a temple with a barrel-vaulted aisle, palaces with Doric colonnades, a Roman atrium, the interior of an amphitheatre with tiers of seats, and " a peristylium of two orders, Doric and Ionic, with their several ornaments seeming of white marble, the bases and capitals of gold." 4 In the eighteenth century people who pretended to taste were able to talk learnedly, and in general pedantically, about these ancient architectural forms, and indeed they took

FIG.

8—PLAN

OF T H E Q U E E N ' S

HOUSE,

GREENWICH

PALLADIO A N D IÑIGO J O N E S

29

pride in reproducing them in their own houses and gardens; but in Jones' lifetime these things were novelties, and except in the few buildings of his own design had been exemplified imperfectly and with little real understanding of their significance. So it is, perhaps, not fanciful to suggest that Jones' designs for court masques trained the eye, stimulated interest in classic architecture, and indirectly helped to form a taste for its appreciation. Unfortunately, however, the generation that saw these entertainments was demoralized and scattered by the Civil War, and it was not until after the Restoration that building in the classic style was undertaken on an extensive scale. However important Jones' work may be in the history of stage decoration, it alone would not have bent the course of architectural development in England and occasioned the flamboyant statement of an eighteenth-century critic quoted in Wren's Parentalia: "From the most profound Ignorance in Architecture, the most consummate Night of Knowledge, Inigo Jones started up, a Prodigy of Art, and vied even with his Master Palladio himself." 5 It was in such buildings as the Banqueting House (1619-22), Whitehall, the Queen's House (1617-35), Greenwich, and St. Paul's, Covent Garden, that Jones broke with the current fumbling Jacobean style and revealed how profoundly he had assimilated the spirit of Italian classicism: its dignity and repose, its sense of proportion, its feeling for organization, its resolve not to obscure or disturb the unity of design by an irresponsible use of ornament and distracting multiplicity of detail — in a word, its subordination of the creative energy to a clearly perceived ideal. In what respects is Jones' first completed building, the Banqueting House (Fig. 7), revolutionary? Why was it calculated to act as a corrective of the tendencies of previous English architecture? The façade, in the first place, symmetrically divided into seven bays by two superimposed orders, is virtually in one plane: that is, it presents an almost flat surface without any of the strong relief imparted to the Elizabethan mansion (Fig. 2) by projecting wings, turrets, entrance porches, oriels, and bay-windows running up through several stories. Jones' building relies for its effect on the sheer compactness of the unbroken architectural mass. Such relief as this ideal allows pos-

30

T H E N E W V I S I O N OF ORDER

sesses characteristic classic restraint. The center or axis of the façade is emphasized — this is scarcely perceptible in the photograph — by the slight projection of the three middle bays, and by the contrast between the four attached columns and the lateral pilasters. To offset this stress, a moderate and sufficient terminal emphasis is secured by grouping the end pilasters in pairs. Very significant is the treatment of the windows. They have undergone a process of simplification; instead of being, like the current type, broken up into numerous conspicuous compartments by massive stone mullions and transoms, each window has become a single large open space with panes of glass separated by wooden bars of reduced size. As the bars are relatively unobtrusive, the window is felt as a simple oblong aperture rather than as a void divided into small sections. Moreover, Jones has carefully proportioned the amount of window space to wall space and made clear that he had no liking for the great fields of glass that glittered in the Elizabethan and Jacobean façade. Finally he has simplified the skyline. It is not interrupted by turrets, high pointed gables, and clusters of chimney-flues, but the roof is flat and is bordered by a simple balustrade that presents to the eye a restful straight line instead of a startling silhouette. Obviously a single architectural feature like a balustrade was more to Jones' taste than a throng of picturesquely varied elements. In general, Elizabethan and Jacobean houses inherited from medieval architecture the tendency to stress the vertical phases of construction by means of bay-windows ascending from the ground to the roof as well as by lofty chimneys, towers, and pointed gables. As a result the observer was made acutely conscious of the height of the building. But Jones, seeking for repose, puts the greater stress on the horizontal line. The coping of the basement, the secondary cornice between the stories, the hoods over the upper range of windows, the rich festoons suspended across the frieze, the heavier uppermost cornice, and the crowning balustrade make up a series of bold horizontal lines that echo one another and stabilize the whole façade. Whereas the Elizabethan building was stimulating by the variety of its interest, here the effect is restful and all the architectural ele-

PALLADIO A N D IÑIGO J O N E S

3I

ments are in equilibrium. Yet it must be noted that this perfect balance has by no means excluded variety; indeed, within the symmetry of the whole Jones has, as I have said, introduced numerous contrasts, but the point is that these are kept under control and maintained in proper subordination to his architectural ideal. A distinguished English historian of architecture has said that the Banqueting House "is to this day the most accomplished piece of proportion in England, and not inferior to the finest work of Palladio and the great Italian masters." This is high praise, perhaps not entirely free from the pardonable bias of national pride. But while acknowledging that the Banqueting House was a remarkable achievement at the time and that it will always be evidence that Jones had genius of a high order, one may venture to think that its virtues are somewhat chilly and that it lacks that indefinable architectural power that instantaneously startles the beholder with a sense of its vibrant presence — that architectural power that informs such buildings as the interior of II Redentore, Sanmicheli's gates of Verona, and the beautiful unfinished church at Prato by Giuliano da San Gallo, Santa Maria delle Carceri. Smollett, in a passage that discloses insight into the subtler phases of esthetic experience, says that the "beauties" of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes "are, indeed, so exquisite, that you may return to them every day with a fresh appetite for seven years together." 6 This capacity of the greatest art to yield continual refreshment to the spirit, its blessed exemption from the penalties of slowly growing stale, its possession of the secret of eternal youth, is something that evades analysis, but lies at the heart of everyone's enjoyment of beauty. Is it too harsh a judgment to say that the Banqueting House lacks just this supreme power of renewing and maintaining at a high pitch the pleasurable emotions of first acquaintance? I have dwelt at length on the Banqueting House because it was the first, and a remarkable, example of its type in England. It was a criticism of the picturesque informality of the architecture in vogue and a model for the inspiration of subsequent architects who undertook to build in the classic manner. But as it is far from my intention to write a history of architecture,

32

THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

I shall, as I proceed, give less attention to individual houses than to the principles to which classicists strove to give expression until the close of the eighteenth century. Through the activity of Jones, his gifted pupil John Webb, his friend Sir Roger Pratt, and later Sir Christopher Wren, the eyes of Englishmen gradually became familiar with the new architectural forms. T h e interior of the house was no less than the exterior transformed fundamentally. Even though it was several decades before the word vista came into use, in his plan of the Queen's House (1617-35) (Fig- 8), Greenwich, Jones exhibited an unimpeded view through the edifice — a feature which became a sine qua non of classic design. In addition he secured a number of secondary vistas by placing doorways in line with each other. In harmony with the classic conviction that nothing should be left to chance in the practice of an art, Palladio had been meticulous about the proportions of rooms, specifying, for example, that in an apartment with a flat ceiling the height should be equal to the breadth, but in a square room with an arched ceiling the height should be a third more than the breadth. 7 Jones, no less strict, idealized similar abstract treatments of space. He made the salon of the Queen's House a single cube, that is, forty feet in its three dimensions, and the hall of the Banqueting House and the grand drawing-room at Wilton a double cube. A host of architects followed his clue, and as a consequence of their pedantry dimensions suitable for Italy, where the warm climate demanded high ceilings for coolness, were adopted by the English Palladiane to the discomfort of their fellow-countrymen, who for the sake of being in fashion were willing to shiver in lofty, grandiose apartments. This is an excellent example of what is at once the strength and the weakness of Renaissance classicism: the intellectualism that encouraged submission to the tyranny of an abstraction at the sacrifice of reality and human feeling. In England the cube and the double cube were set up as ideal forms for a room without consideration for the practical needs of the occupants. Ideas of beauty were put in the strait-jacket of dogma and given a corresponding infallibility. It was the same type of consistency that in pictorial art reduced painting to the representation

P A L L A D I O A N D IÑIGO J O N E S

33

of the human figure and in dramatic criticism insisted upon the observance of decorum and the unities of time and place even though that obedience entailed the distortion of experience and, in many plays, the actual misrepresentation of life. The simplification of the interior of the classical house was as complete as had been the treatment of the façade. The cohorts of small panels such as lined the walls of the small drawingroom (Fig. 3) at Levens, Jones and his successors abandoned for large rectangular panels frequently separated by pilasters. The handsome room (Fig. 9) from Clifford's Inn, paneled in oak and dating from 1686-88, makes plain the remarkable change that was brought about. In contrast to the fussiness of the earlier treatment the broad surfaces of the woodwork rest the eye, give the desired repose to the wall, and convey the dignity that we associate with classicism. The ceilings of the newer type expressed the same spirit. The nervous serpentine lines such as, for example, are conspicuous in the Cartoon Gallery at Knole, and the intersecting ribs of a room like that at Levens were superseded by designs of which the form and scale were carefully considered in order to coordinate the ceiling with the other parts of the room. Instead of the endless repetition of some small motive in low relief the ceiling, conceived as a unit, was now divided by massive ribs into a few large compartments. The ceiling (Fig. 10) at Coleshill exemplifies the characteristic pattern: a dominant central compartment — rectangular, oval, or polygonal — emphasizing the middle of the room, and a limited number of smaller subordinate compartments of straightline forms grouped about it.8 This style of pattern admirably achieved its purpose by binding together the ceiling and the sides of a room: the bold, straight ribs of the ceiling were parallel to the line of the wall and cornice, and the large compartments harmonized with the broad panels of the wall. In effect these imposing ribs were more static and much more architectural than the unpretentious Jacobean ribs, and the much greater depth of the compartments approved by classic taste produced a corresponding increase in the play of light and shade over the panels. Furthermore, the Elizabethan and Jacobean chimney-piece (Fig. 3) and its decorative elements (cf. Fig. 1) — herms, pilas-

34

THE N E W VISION OF ORDER

ters, columns, niches, strap-work, crest of interlacing scrolls, and excessively carved surfaces — had generally made up an ornate and distracting entity frequently poorly articulated and inadequately incorporated with the rest of the room. In too many instances the chimney-piece had appeared as if merely placed against the wall and not as part of it. Such shortcomings were intolerable to the classicist. The chimney-piece of Inigo Jones and his fellow-Palladians revealed a far greater unity. It is indicative of the conservatism of such men that in A Complete Body of Architecture (1756) Isaac Ware deplored that since the principles for the design of chimney-pieces formulated by the Italians as appropriate for a hot climate could be of no help to English architects, they must depend for assistance on their "fancy." T h a t Ware as a classicist should distrust " this wild guide " was the nature of his breed. He urged that the young architect should be instructed "on what occasions he is to give the reins to imagination; and when it is to be limited by method." 9 The illustration (Fig. 11) taken from Ware's bulky volume embodied his restrained taste. The upper and lower stages of the chimney-piece were effectively tied together. Whereas in innumerable examples the overmantel of the chimney-piece of the sixteenth century consisted of several subdivisions — in the drawing-room at Levens Hall, for instance, of six panels — Ware, like his master Jones, was properly satisfied with one large central panel serving frequently as a frame for a picture. As this panel was approximately of the same size as the fireplace below and repeated its rectangular form, the two halves of the chimney-piece were bound together in symmetrical agreement. The fireplace popularized by Inigo Jones was of marble; nevertheless, as the overmantel was of wood and painted and gilded like the paneled walls, the chimney-piece became in a real sense a part of the room. Moreover, coherence of design was secured by the fact that the horizontal lines of the overmantel continued similar lines in the wallpaneling. Generally this conformity of line was especially happy at the top of the overmantel where it met the roomcornice —• a point of danger for more than one Elizabethan designer. Then too, as Ware's design discloses, the crowning pediment, triangular, broken, or scrolled, was simpler in form

PALLADIO A N D IÑIGO J O N E S

35

and bolder in outline than the complicated crest of lattice-work. How magnificently Jones realized his ideals can be appreciated by anyone who has had the gratification of examining the chimney-pieces at Wilton. The chimney-pieces of Wren were much less decorative and much less architectural, but he also succeeded in merging them into the room by making the overmantel a continuation of the paneling of the wall. What is notable in this restrained, dignified, and yet often rich treatment of walls, ceiling, and chimney-piece is the controlling desire for large, simple, clear structural forms in preference to the multiplicity of engaging but unrelated details which delighted the exuberant Elizabethan. What is equally notable is the classicist's fusion of the forms that he has chosen into a lucid unity because he has conceived walls, ceiling, and chimney-piece not as detached from each other but as parts of a single room, capable of satisfying integration through continuity of line and through the application of exacting principles of scale and proportion. II.

JOHN E V E L Y N AND THE CHANGING

ARCHITECTURE

As the architectural ideals I have been describing gradually found their way to England and were fulfilled in a few buildings of distinction like the Banqueting House, Coleshill, and the newer parts of Wilton, it was inevitable that in the middle of the seventeenth century Englishmen who had traveled on the Continent, and as a result viewed the work of Inigo Jones and Sir Roger Pratt with critical appreciation, contemplated London with critical eyes. Their national pride was stung to the quick and they wished to remedy the congestion, disorder, and foulness of the English capital, which still remained in all respects an essentially medieval city. When Evelyn was in Paris, he was stirred to enthusiasm not only by the number and splendor of individual mansions, but also by the building of "whole streets" in a uniform style so that one could scarcely believe that he was "in a real city." Grimly Evelyn noted that London instead of palaces had an abundance of shops and taverns.10 Furthermore, in A Character of England (1659) he asserted that the remarkable buildings in the vast city of Lon-

36

T H E N E W VISION OF ORDER

don were only two in number, the Banqueting House and the portico of St. Paul's as reconstructed by Jones. Distressed in particular by the barbarous irregularity of the city, "its asymmetrie within the Walls," as he phrased it, he deplored that in the case of the destruction of a street by fire the municipal authorities had no power to compel the owners to rebuild with uniformity." What is significant is his concern for symmetry — evidence of his complete adoption of the Renaissance point of view. But Evelyn's ideas were too advanced for his time. They incited a reply from an enraged Englishman who resented these slurs cast upon the capital of his country. In his vehement pamphlet which he amiably called Gallus Castratus he frankly exulted in the irregularity of London and its varied façades, because, as he patriotically argued, they were proof of the freedom of the English, who were not forced to build in accordance with the will of a despotic prince. In the opinion of this defender of British taste uniformity "gluts" the eye and "chokes delight," and as for the symmetrical houses of Paris, they "seem to be only one continued magnificent wall loop-holed." The anonymous author of this tirade was not alone in his point of view. As a later discussion will make plain, more than one Englishman prided himself on his conservative preference for the older, haphazard way of building and resisted in spirit, if not in action, the invasion of Albion by Italian ideals of architectural excellence. Gallus Castratus and Evelyn's booklet present the conflict between the insular Englishman, satisfied with his own shortcomings and sensitive to criticism, and the cosmopolitan man of culture, appreciative of the accomplishment of foreign nations. Evelyn was undaunted, for his public spirit was always active, persistent, and intelligent. Indeed, in his sense of civic responsibility and his vision of social improvement he was exceptional in his generation and anticipated the attitude of the most valued citizens of our own age. It is pleasant, even if a bit sentimental, to imagine what informing letters he would have contributed to the Times. In Fumifugium (1661), in which he attacked the problem of the smoke nuisance of London, Evelyn returned to the question of the architecture of the city. He

JOHN E V E L Y N ; THE CHANGING A R C H I T E C T U R E

37

complained that "the Buildings should be compos'd of such a Congestion of mishapen and extravagant houses," and confessed his dissatisfaction at the backwardness of England as compared to other countries in the matter of civic progress. But now that the Restoration had taken place, Evelyn was in high hopes that England would come into her own and be the equal of foreign nations. What Evelyn had in mind were those advances in civilization, in art and architecture, those vast and magnificent improvements in material, physical surroundings for which the Renaissance was responsible. Through its influence Continental cities had been enriched with palaces and public buildings; indeed, royal and princely families had provided themselves with mansions designed and decorated with the sumptuousness of a great artistic epoch. Except the Double Cube Room at Wilton there were no rooms in England in the Renaissance style equal to the Salle de Henri II at Fontainebleau or the gallery of the Farnese Palace in Rome. How many London houses at the Restoration could compare with the private palaces built by Alessi on the Strada Nuova for the Genoese nobility? Although Evelyn's and Wren's dream that a glorified London would rise from its ashes after the destruction of much of the city in 1666 came to naught, nevertheless, in spite of the failure of their grandiose plans, the fire in other ways benefited London. The pestiferous medieval city was wiped out, and an opportunity was provided for the erection of private houses in accord with classic standards. Brick superseded timber as building material, and some effort was made to secure symmetry of design. A contemporary writer rejoiced in the difference between London before and London after the fire: The dwelling houses raised since the fire are generally very fair, and built much more convenient and uniform than heretofore. Before the fire they were most timber houses, built with little regard to uniformity; but since the fire building of bricks has been the general way, and that with so much art and skill in architecture that I have often wondered to see in well-compact houses so many conveniences. 12

In other respects the external aspect of London was changed. The parish churches which were inherited from Catholic England and the Middle Ages were pure Gothic in architecture.

38

THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

Had it not been for the fire, it is a fair surmise that on account of the expense and inconvenience these churches would have been replaced only very gradually by edifices in the classic style. But when after the fire, which destroyed no less than ninetythree parish churches and chapels, 13 ecclesiastical buildings had to be designed as soon as funds were available, it was natural that the classic style was adopted. Inigo Jones had already attempted church architecture in the Italian mode in St. Paul's, Covent Garden (1631-38), and in his reconstruction of the Cathedral. In his treatment of the latter he had unfortunately inaugurated the pernicious practice of restoring an essentially Gothic building by the incorporation of classic features. He and many after him, including Wren at Hampton Court, apparently acted on their dogmatic conviction that as classic architecture was intrinsically superior to every other type, the introduction of classical elements improved the appearance of a medieval building even though these elements were entirely out of harmony with its prevailing style. In fact, Jones amazed and delighted his contemporaries with his portico on the west front of St. Paul's. Dugdale lauded King Charles I for the restoration of " s o signal a monument of his renowned ancestors' piety . . . as may seem by that most magnificent and stately portico, with Corinthian pillars, which at his own charge he erected at the west end thereof." 1 4 Evelyn thought the portico was one of the two remarkable pieces of architecture in London; Sir Roger Pratt was of the same opinion. One is at liberty to suspect that some of this admiration, at any rate, was due to the novelty of the portico in England and to its pure classic parentage. T o judge by Hollar's print (Fig. ι a) in Dugdale, the façade of the new St. Paul's was by no means extraordinary; indeed, it is unimaginative and too reminiscent of Italian models. In Jones' judgment as in that of Palladio himself the orders and a magnificent portico were evidently a suitable means of giving the necessary dignity to a building dedicated to God. Very conspicuous also in Jones' design are the great scrolls, a coarse, cumbersome, and pompous device which Alberti was the first to employ at Santa Maria Novella, Florence, to make less abrupt the transition from the aisles to the walls of the nave.

FIG.

IL—CHIMNEY-PIECF.

FIG.

12 —

IÑIGO J O N E S '

PORTICO, ST.

P A U L ' S , LONDON

JOHN E V E L Y N ; THE CHANGING A R C H I T E C T U R E

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O f the fifty churches built b y Wren, six, exclusive of St. Paul's, were graced with a dome, another classic form, which like the portico was unfamiliar to English eyes. I t is not to depreciate W r e n ' s achievement to feel that in the opinion of the average classicist whose taste followed the fashion the primacy of the dome as an impressive architectural feature was not questioned, largely because a precedent for its employment could be found in both the Pantheon and St. Peter's. English travelers never tired of lauding the Pantheon. E v e l y n exclaimed in his Diary that it was the admiration of the world . . . still remaining the most entire antiquity of the city . . . the fabric, wholly covered with one cupola, seemingly suspended in the air. . . . In a word, 'tis of all the Roman antiquities the most worthy of notice. 15 In a dogmatic passage in the Spectator (no. 415) Addison, citing the Pantheon as a supreme example of " g r e a t n e s s of manner in architecture," magnified it at the expense of the G o t h i c style: Let any one reflect on the disposition of mind he finds in himself at his first entrance into the Pantheon at Rome, and how his imagination is filled with something great and amazing, and at the same time, consider how little in proportion he is affected with the inside of a Gothic cathedral, though it be five times larger than the other; which can arise from nothing else but the greatness of the manner in the one and the meanness in the other. Smollett alone raised a dissenting voice: I was much disappointed at sight of the Pantheon, which, after all that has been said of it, looks like a huge cockpit open at top. The portico . . . corresponds but ill with the simplicity of the edifice. With all my veneration for the ancients, I cannot see in what the beauty of the rotunda consists. It is no more than a plain unpierced cylinder, or circular wall, with two fillets and a cornice, having a vaulted roof or cupola, open in the centre. . . . Within side it has much the air of a mausoleum.16 Sterne m a y h a v e had such a heretical passage in mind when he sneered at Smollett as " t h e learned S m e l f u n g u s " whose fretful spirit had soured his j u d g m e n t of every object he saw upon his Continental tour. John D y e r , w h o had studied painting in I t a l y , described in The Ruins of Rome (1740) w h a t the orthodox classicist regarded

4θ

T H E N E W VISION OF ORDER

as the correct attitude a traveler, and especially an architect, should take in the presence of the Pantheon. He was urged to study and measure in a spirit of humility and veneration every meticulous detail of the building as the only means of his artistic salvation: With peculiar grace, Before it's ample orb, projected stands The many-pillar'd portal; noblest work Of human skill: Here, curious architect, If thou assay'st, ambitious, to surpass Palladius, Angelus, or British Jones; On these fair walls extend the certain scale, And turn th' instructive compass; Careful mark How far, in hidden art, the noble plain Extends, and where the lovely forms commence Of flowing sculpture; nor neglect to note How range the taper columns, and what weight Their leafy brows sustain: Fair Corinth first Boasted their order, which Callimachus (Reclining studious on Asopus' banks Beneath an urn of some lamented nymph) Haply compos'd; the urn with foliage curl'd Thinly conceal'd, the chapiter * inform'd.

Such a passage reveals the hypnosis to which every admirer of classical architecture became subject whenever he thought of antiquity. In its intellectual servility Dyer's advice to the architect is identical with Pope's exhortation to the epic poet: Be Homer's works your study and delight; Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring.

In 1708 the act authorizing the erection of fifty additional churches gave a fresh impetus to ecclesiastical architecture in the classic style. Gibbs and Hawksmoor built churches that took on the appearance of classic temples, for, following the practice of Jones and Wren in their treatment of the Cathedral, they made the monumental portico the characteristic feature even of their parish churches. St. Martin's-in-the-Fields (1720), St. George's, Hanover Square (1724), and St. George's, Bloomsbury (1731), are typical of the new fashion. Thus domes and * Capital.

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4I

porticos multiplied in London, but it is a question whether such echoes of the Pantheon have ever become completely naturalized in the climate of northern Europe. Moreover, the interior of all these classic churches built by Wren and his successors created an impression very different from that of the medieval churches. The dim religious light and the somber shadows lurking in the ribs of vaulted roofs and playing among the columns of narrow aisles were replaced by a "high visibility" that penetrated every part of the church and dissipated its mystery. One reason, indeed, why Wren approved of the windows of Salisbury Cathedral was that their area was not broken up by mullions and tracery — to him proof that their designer realized that "nothing could add beauty to light." For us Wren's remark is proof of the dislike of the classicist for the very obscurity which in a Gothic church impresses a romantic mind as spiritually expressive. Burke was prophetic of the modern attitude when he declared that all buildings which are calculated to produce an impression of sublimity "ought rather to be dark and gloomy." 17 Finally, the very boldness and clarity of the classic forms, the severe columns and massive entablatures, gave these ecclesiastical interiors an air of formality without increasing their solemnity. Thus as the years went by, classicism gradually modified the houses and the churches of London, and brought them into harmony with the architectural ideals of the Renaissance. The last quarter of the seventeenth century is marked by the appearance of another architectural feature which also had its share in transforming the English house. This new feature was the sliding sash-window. Although it had no Italian antecedents, it became associated with the classic house and was in harmony with its restrained style. Dispensing with both the heavy stone mullions (Fig. 1) that divided the medieval and Jacobean window into several compartments, and the small pieces of glass leaded together that filled those compartments, the sash made use of thinner, less conspicuous wooden frames and bars and larger panes of glass. The result was a simplicity of design that was in admirable accord with the classic façade. Oddly enough, the origin of the sash is a mystery. J. Alfred Gotch, stating that the earliest instance of a sash-window of

42

THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

which we can be absolutely certain occurs at Windsor Castle j u s t before the reign of K i n g William, points out that in 1686-88 a p a y m e n t was made for such a window in one of the offices of the Castle. 1 8 B u t much earlier, in 1681 to be exact, Charles C o t t o n in his long poem "the Wonders of the Peake not only definitely mentions the sash-window, but also contrasts it with the ancient casement. T h i s important reference occurs when, in his account of the picturesque marvels of Derbyshire, C o t t o n describes Chatsworth, the mansion of the D u k e of Devonshire. In comparing the old and the new house, he alludes to the windows: The glaziers work before substantial was I must confess, thrice as much lead, as glass, Which in the suns meridian, cast a light, As it had been within an hour of night. The windows now look like so many suns, Illustrating the noble room at once: The primitive casements modell'd were no doubt By that through which the pigeon was thrust out, Where now whole shashes are but one great eye, T'examine, and admire thy beauties by. Whimsically C o t t o n also indicates here how welcome to those who were familiar with the former dark interiors was the light that now streamed abundantly through the new windows. I t is to be noted, however, that even in this passage, which contains the earliest allusion to a sash-window which I h a v e been able to find, C o t t o n does not refer to it as if it were a recent and extraordinary innovation. E v i d e n t l y the actual invention of this t y p e of window antedates 1681 b y some years. O t h e r early precise references to the sash-window which I h a v e encountered m a k e clear that b y the time of the Windsor entry, 1686-88, it was in common use. In M a y , 1686, thζ London Gazette (no. 2135) contained this pertinent advertisement: These are to give notice that any person may be furnished with glasses for sash-windows much better than what is now used at Mr. Duke's shop, cabinet maker at the Artichoke near the New Exchange at reasonable rates. In the following year appeared John Smith's Τhe Art of Painting in Oyl. . . in which is also particularly laid down all the several Circumstances required in Painting of Sun-Dials, Printed Pic-

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tures, Shash-Windows, etc. In Oil Colours. This work, with its additions and modified title, is really the second edition of a book which appeared in 1676. W h a t is important is that in the earlier edition no mention is made of the sash-window. In the edition of 1687, however, a whole chapter is devoted to " t h e manner of painting cloth or sarsnet shash windows." According to the directions the frame of the window was to be filled not with glass, but with varnished cloth upon which one might paint " w h a t fancy you please, but landscape is most common and natural." This interesting information about the decoration of the window is confirmed by an advertisement in the London Gazette in 1688: A large collection of copper plates, engraven with great variety of statues and other curious ornaments for hangings, curtains, etc; also variety of landskips and small figures for sashes are to be sold at Mrs. Barret's in Three-Leg Court in Old Bedlam.19 As we might expect, the comic dramatist Thomas Shadwell, who was gifted with a sense for local color and capitalized in his plays very concrete phases of the life of the late seventeenth century, did not fail to observe the sash-window. In The Scowrers, written in 1690, a glazier calls upon the roisterer Sir William Rant to inform him that his glazier is dead. It appears that Sir William's uncontrollable impulse to smash sash-windows whenever he was " i n beer" had supplied the deceased glazier with so much employment that he had risen from poverty to affluence. With an admirably keen eye for business the new glazier has disposed of his rival by providing him with such unlimited quantities of liquor that he has died from his potations. N o w the enterprising glazier turns up to claim the vacant job and to enjoy the income from the repair of broken sashes. Five years after The Scowrers exploited the sash-window, it arrived in Bath, a humble chairman, Philip Taylor, being responsible for its introduction. His excellent example gave the cue to others, and shortly afterwards the sash was followed by other improvements which rapidly modernized the city; at this time the thatched roof was superseded by the more substantial tiled roof.20 Finally by 1698 the sash-window had found its way to France. A t that date Dr. Lister reported that a French nobleman, showing him over his mansion which was in course

44

THE N E W VISION OF ORDER

of construction, exhibited with pride his " g r e a t sash w i n d o w s " which had been copied from a small model sent over from England. 2 1 T h e obvious advantages of the sash-window led to its widespread adoption. E v e r y w h e r e in England innumerable owners of old mansions who could not afford or did not wish to build a new house in the classic style tore out mullioned windows of the medieval and Elizabethan period and replaced them b y the fashionable sash-window. In m a n y instances houses were only partially fitted with sashes, and these existed in the same house b y the side of the older casements. One m a y well suspect that a snobbish desire for display was frequently responsible for the installation of sashes, and that competition with one's neighbor doomed perhaps m a n y a Gothic window. In the account of her travels which Celia Fiennes made in E n g l a n d at the v e r y close of the seventeenth century occur numerous comments on houses. F r o m these comments it is clear that Miss Fiennes j u d g e d a building chiefly b y the presence or the absence of sashes, and in this respect she probably reflected contemporary taste. She thought L o r d Chesterfield's house, for example, fell short of being " a Compleate b u i l d i n g " because it lacked sashwindows. A t Euston Hall she noted that " the windows are L o w and not sashes Else y e roomes are of a good size and height." She liked the approach to M r . Dormer's residence because it disclosed " the front and building v e r y finely to view, being built w t h stone and Brick and m a n y sashes." Contrasting the old and the new fronts of M r . T h e t w i n ' s mansion, she observed that the older one with its excessive fenestration was " L i t t l e besides w i n d o w , " and that the more recent one on the garden side was " n e w building of y e new fashion and sash windows." 2 2 T h e editor of the 1742 edition of Defoe's 'Tour offered as evidence of the taste possessed b y the grandfather of the E a r l of Exeter the fact that at Burleigh House, Northamptonshire, he " t u r n e d the old G o t h i c windows into those spacious sashes which are now to be seen there." 2 3 I t is clear that even in the first quarter of the eighteenth century the sash represented the ultimate stride in the direction of comfort and convenience. W h e n it made its appearance in the shop-fronts of London, Addison noted it in the datier (no. 162)

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45

as another folly he must undertake to ridicule out of fashion. D e f o e lost his temper, his sense of thrift was shocked, and in the Review (no. 43) he railed at shopkeepers w h o spent so much money for mere show. T h e lighter-hearted G a y was troubled b y no such puritanic compunctions; he rejoiced in " the paths of fair Pall M a l l " where Shops breathe perfumes; through sashes ribbons glow, The mutual arms of ladies and the beau.24 N o r did G a y ' s friend S w i f t regard the sash as a convenience too luxurious for Gulliver; even the box, sixteen feet square, which the royal cabinet-maker constructed for the accommodation of Gulliver at the Brobdingnagian Queen's behest was equipped with sash-windows. H o w e v e r , whether a London house was sashed or not affected its value whenever it came into the m a r k e t for rental or for sale. O n this point the notices in the periodicals are v e r y precise. One advertisement in the datier (no. 178) describes " a v e r y good brick H o u s e " as " s a s h e d with 30 sash l i g h t s " ; another (no. 211) specifies that the house has only a " s a s h f r o n t . " O f the five houses advertised in one number (no. 334) of the Spectator four have the sash-window mentioned as one of the advantages in their favor. T w o of the houses were " c o m p l e t e l y s a s h e d " — evidence that the owners were anxious to stress w h a t made their property especially desirable. F o r the same excellent reason the landlord with lodgings to let did not overlook the sash in his enumeration of conveniences likely to appeal to anyone seeking rooms. 25 E v e n in the middle of the century it did not follow that because a house was new it would be provided with modern windows. In his New Designs for Farm Houses (1751-52) William H a l f p e n n y , itemizing the charges for construction, never mentions sash-windows, but repeatedly lists sums for " l e a d e d g l a s s " and " c a s e m e n t s . " A t the very close of the century the difference between the medieval casement and the sash associated w i t h the more aristocratic classic architecture was still a matter of comment. W h e n in The Task C o w p e r referred to the love of nature and green things which men revealed even in the fetid air of cities, he put over against one another the casement, adorned with its simple spray of herbs, and " t h e prouder

φ

T H E N E W VISION OF ORDER

sashes" with their refreshing clusters of orange, myrtle, and mignonette. 26 As a picture of the state of domestic architecture during the reign of William and Mary the Diary of Celia Fiennes is invaluable. For the sake of her health she traveled on horseback for hundreds of miles-—"a souveraign remedy" for "these Epidemick diseases of the vapours" and for " t h e evil Itch of overvalueing fforeign parts." Fortunately she kept a record of her journeys in which she described with the patience of a cataloguer houses, gardens, and furniture to be seen at the numerous seats that she visited. As a note-taker she was indefatigable, and had her virtue at any time been in danger, her account of her moral vicissitudes would, no doubt, have been as detailed as that of the incomparable and tireless Pamela. Wherever Miss Fiennes happened to be, her roving eye always lit upon any architectural feature in the latest taste. In several instances she observed that the wainscoting was in large panels such as Inigo Jones had introduced, and approvingly she recorded that in all the rooms of Sir Thomas Cook's house there were "Very good Pictures" above the chimneys and doors, "all fix'd into y e wanscoate." 27 Again a newspaper notice gives additional proof that such decorative elements were in demand. The London Gazette announces a sale of an excellent collection of pictures, drawings and prints, and several other rarities of the ancient and modern masters of Europe by way of public outcry according to the custom of foreign countries. There are several useful pieces for closets, chimneys, staircases, overdoors, etc.28 Coleshill, historically a house of great interest as one of the earliest private mansions in the pure classic style, has always been attributed to Inigo Jones, but as Dr. Gunther has very recently shown, the credit for its design evidently belongs to Sir Roger Pratt, who probably received merely informal, friendly assistance from Jones. The outstanding qualities of Coleshill did not escape Miss Fiennes, and even demoralized her syntax when she undertook to comment upon its symmetry: " Y e house being Leaded all over and the stone Chimney's in severall rows Comes up in them on each side y e Cupilow, it shewes exact and very uniform, as is y e whole Building." The

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loftiness of the entrance hall clearly impressed her as well as the vista through the center of the house. Indeed, this effective feature of Italian planning invariably elicited her admiration. She noted the vista at Stowe, Sir Richard Temple's palatial residence in Buckinghamshire, and at Chatsworth she was delighted because by means of a mirror artfully placed in a door of the dining-room the perspective was doubled and the sense of distance intensified. 2 ' In 1707, not long after these observations were recorded, the London Gazette (no. 4414) advertised Newington House as for rent, and among its advantages was enumerated the asset that it was " b u i l t with stone after the Italian manner, with a vista through." Such an item as this, giving prominence to the interior vista, and the entries in Miss Fiennes' Diary humanize these old dwellings and remind us that they were not dead things constructed of wood and stone for the delectation of future architectural historians, but houses built to be lived in for men and women to whom their style and modern improvements were matters of serious consideration.

III.

THE

M O D E R N I Z A T I O N OF A N C I E N T

HOUSES

It would be an error if it were inferred that classicism swept over England. T h e Gothic tradition did not die easily. T h e year 1637 saw at Oxford the erection of the portal of St. M a r y the Virgin, perhaps the most unqualified example of baroque architecture in England, in which classic motives were employed with a flamboyant disregard of conservative practice that must have shocked Inigo Jones. T h e twisted columns, the broken segmental pediment with each half terminating in a huge scroll and crowned with a reclining figure after the fashion of the Medici tombs, and the lofty niche projecting upward between the scrolls and combining with the figures to make a spirited silhouette contrary to the Palladian feeling for repose, constitute a composition that was a strangely incongruous addition to a Gothic church. Y e t three years after the erection of this portal, representing the most sophisticated phase of Italian classicism, the vestibule and staircase of Christ Church were constructed in Perpendicular Gothic with a knowledge and

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THE NEW VISION OF ORDER

appreciation of fan-vaulting that was extraordinary evidence of the vitality of the medieval style. During this period, when architecture was thus vacillating between medievalism and classicism, and before admiration for the buildings of Rome had paralyzed the power of enjoying the beauty of Gothic art and had established a canon from which there was no appeal, Milton's imagination responded to the glories of the two architectural styles. It is perhaps indicative of the development of taste that was taking place in his own lifetime that it is in his earlier poems that Milton discloses his vivid sense of the richness, color, and picturesqueness of medieval architecture. " T o w e r s and battlements . . . Bosom'd high in tufted trees" are his vision of what he had seen in many an English landscape. " T h e studious cloister's pale," " t h e highembowèd roof," the "antique pillars," and the "storied windows richly d i g h t " are his impressions of the ecclesiastical architecture that was the heritage of England from the Middle Ages. On the other hand, Milton's letter on Education, written after his Italian journey, records a change in attitude. In his outline of studies necessary for a cultivated man he included architecture and the work of Vitruvius in particular. This reveals his essentially Renaissance conviction that a knowledge of classical architecture was part of a gentleman's intellectual equipment, quite aside from any question as to whether he would ever put his knowledge to any practical use. In Paradise Lost, when Milton would make Pandemonium a fabric of extraordinary splendor, it is significant that his imagination, oblivious of the anachronism, conceived it as a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven. (1,713-716) T o this passage Addison objected in the Spectator (no. 297) on the ground that such words as " D o r i c pillars," "pilasters," "cornice," "frieze," and "architrave," being technical, were out of place in poetry, and his criticism has apparently been accepted by a recent writer on Milton's interest in art. 30 If his premise is valid, then Addison's censure would also hold

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good for Charles Cotton's delicate verses where he describes " a bower for my love": The polish'd walls of marble be Pillaster'd round with porphyry, Casements of crystal to transmit Night's sweets to thee, and thine to it.31 B u t is not Addison's comment pedantic? Has he not made a too literal application of a sound principle? W h a t is important is that neither Milton's nor Cotton's verses " f a l l flat" at those points. For the cultivated reader of the seventeenth century the architectural terms employed by the poets connoted splendor and luxury, and to-day these terms still have the power to stir the imagination of the sympathetic reader even if he cannot visualize with absolute precision the objects suggested by the words. Another passage — this instance from Paradise Regained — is also illuminative of Milton's more mature architectural taste. Satan tempts Christ with a vision of " g r e a t and glorious Rome, queen of the earth": On seven small hills, with palaces adorned, Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts, Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs, Gardens and groves . . . . . . and there Mount Palatine, The imperial palace, compass huge, and high The structure, skill of noblest architects, With gilded battlements, conspicuous far, Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires. (IV, 35-54) Battlements, turrets, and, above all, spires seem out of keeping with a Roman palace, spires indeed suggesting a Christian church. B u t again without stirring the mud in a critical puddle, let us confess that the passage achieves its poetic intention, conjuring up a glorious edifice as Milton wished to do. W h a t is clear is that Milton's imagination, nourished by classical culture and Italian travel, was now stored with images of Rome and the achievements of "noblest architects." He no longer acknowledged the power and the beauty of the medieval buildings that had enchanted his youth.

ξΟ

T H E N E W V I S I O N OF ORDER

As a poet Milton was privileged to build his temples and his porticos in imagination. But for the average Englishman, however great his enthusiasm for classical architecture, the problem was not so easy if he did not have the income to tear down his ancestral mansion in the Gothic or Elizabethan style and build in the new fashion. Not everyone had the means to follow the example of the Earl of Southampton, who shortly after the Restoration built Bedford House in Bloomsbury Square, and the Earl of Clarendon, who commissioned Sir Roger P r a t t to erect for him a magnificent mansion in Piccadilly. As it was, the Earl of Clarendon, when the cost of his house exceeded the estimate, found himself heavily in debt. When finally he left England in disgrace, he told his son that if his friends would forgive his folly in building such a great mansion, his other actions he could explain and justify. We have Bishop Burnet's word for it that Clarendon held his house, which Evelyn declared to be without an equal in England, largely responsible for the tide of envy that had risen against him.32 What happened in innumerable instances was that men who were dissatisfied with the inconveniences and old-fashioned planning of houses they had inherited, and who could not afford to run great financial risks, compromised their ideals and only partially reconditioned their houses, bringing a few rooms up to date according to the size of their pocketbooks. Indeed, the King set his subjects the example. Burnet sneered at Hampton Court as "so very old built, and so irregular" that it was determined to design new apartments for the King and Queen. 33 Hampton Court, as it stands to-day with Wren's classical additions, represents the old and the new architecture not in fusion but merely in juxtaposition. Many of the houses described by Miss Fiennes embodied like Hampton Court a conflict in taste. What is interesting is the fact that every house she visited was evaluated entirely by the extent to which it had been remodeled in the classic style. She was very keen in distinguishing between the older and the newer architecture, and we can infer what great store was set by the classic features which were being adopted wherever it was possible. For a person who esteemed modernity so highly Miss Fiennes

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was unfortunate in having relatives whose houses were either antiquated or a patchwork of the old and new styles. But she had no illusions, and bluntly stated the facts. The low rooms and great halls of the Middle Ages had no charm for her. When she visited the seat of her kinsman, Mr. Hendly(P), she observed that On the Left side of ye passage at y e Entrance is a Large old hall wth a Great hälfe pace at y e upper End with 2 Chimneys in the hall. . . . The roomes are low, out of ye passage Leads up a paire of staires to 3 or 4 roomes all Low and but one well furnished. Her uncle, Sir Charles Woolsley, was not much better off, for he lived in " a n old building and but Low, its built round a Court: there is a Large Lofty hall in y e Old fashion." With the exception of a few rooms "newer built w th Chambers over them, and a very good staircase . . . Y e Rest of the house is all old and Low and must be new built." But she did admire the " L a r g e parke 6 miles round full of stately woods and replenish'd w t h red and fallow deer, one part of it is pretty full of Billberryes w ch thrive under y e shade of y e oakes." As for her grandfather's seat, Normans Court, it had "good Gardens, but a very old house," and although she was " v e r y Civilly Entertained" by her relation, Mr. Boscawen, in Cornwall, Celia resolutely noted that his house was "Capable of being a fine place w th some Charge, the roomes above are new modell'd . . . There are two other good roomes unalter'd w th old hangings to y e bottom on wrought work of y® first Ladyes." One is not surprised that Miss Fiennes referred patronizingly to Haddon Hall as " a good old house all built of stone on a hill and behind it is a ffine grove of high trees and good Gardens, but nothing very Curious as y e mode now is." 3 4 Bacon had complained that the window space of many houses of his day was so extensive that it was difficult, if not impossible, to escape from the heat or cold.35 This feature of the Elizabethan mansion also came under the censure of Miss Fiennes. The front of Mr. Thetwin's house was old-fashioned: on each side and in the middle of the façade were two bow-windows that ran up through the various stories, and in addition was "much flatt window between, so that y e whole is Little besides window." Its compensating feature was the garden front, which was mod-

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ern. In the case of L o r d Chesterfield's house Miss Fiennes observed that " Y e R o o f e is not flatt as our Modern buildings." 36 T h i s liking for the flat, inconspicuous roof with a balustrade in the Italian style is strikingly confirmed b y an advertisement in the Spectator (no. 499) : T o be let, a very handsome new built brick house in Hoxton near London . . . all the rooms well wainscotted, marble hearths, and chimney-pieces, all the windows sashed, Japan locks and keys to the doors, the house flat at the top, with rails and banisters, an handsome courtyard, and other things suitable for a gentleman's family. T h a t m a n y ancient houses scattered over England remained unchanged or were only partially modernized suggests to w h a t an extent the progress of classicism was delayed b y economic necessity or preference for the old style of building. W h a t was true of isolated country-houses was equally true of provincial towns. A t the time when the indefatigable Miss Fiennes was employed in making dispassionate entries in her Diary, m a n y English towns were still surrounded b y their medieval walls: Carlisle, N e w c a s t l e , Shrewsbury, Worcester, Bristol, Exeter, Chichester, Winchester, and Norwich. T o - d a y these remains of the M i d d l e A g e s are the pride of Y o r k and Chester and attract thousands of tourists, but as classical architecture came into favor, they were treated with indifference if not contempt. T h e n too, whereas the fire of 1666 had made it possible for Londoners to rebuild the capital in conformity with the new architectural standards, the towns, having experienced no such blessing disguised as a catastrophe, did not have an opportunity to adopt the new style on an extensive scale. Moreover, they were poorer and more conservative than London. T h e i r streets were still medieval in appearance. O n l y here and there had timber and plaster been abandoned in favor of stone and brick as building materials. T h e sash-window, the sine qua non of progress, was a rarity. Carlisle, as described b y M i s s Fiennes, was evidently a typical provincial city of the time: The walls of the town and Battlements and towers are in very good Repaire and Looks well. Y® Cathedrall all built of stone which Looked stately but nothing Curious; there was some few houses . . . walled in with Little gardens, their fronts Looked Gracefully; Else I saw no house Except the present Majors house of brick and stone, and

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53

one house which was y° Chancellors built of stone very Lofty, 5 good sarshe windows in ye front. In Beckle, Suffolk, Sir Robert Rich had a fine house and gardens, but otherwise there were " no good buildings [in] the town, being old timber and plaister work Except his and one or two more." In Bury St. Edmunds the apothecary's house alone met modern requirements: Severall streetes but no good buildings Except this, the rest are great old houses of timber and mostly of ye old forme of ye Country wch a r e ] on g p e a k e ¿ roofes of tileing. This house is the new mode of building; 4 roomes of afloorepretty sizeable and high, well furnish'd, a drawing roome and Chamber full of China and a damaske bed Embroyder'd. Leicester is briefly disposed of: " Y e town is old timber building Except one or two of Brick." 37 John Macky wrote in a similar strain of the towns that he visited. He approved of Ludlow and Winchester, where many of the houses were "sashed" and in other respects completely modern, but less fortunate towns Macky mentioned only summarily. In Ipswich the houses were "after the ancient manner," and in York they were "generally of the old wood building, the same as Canterbury." 38 Nothing could more conclusively indicate the attitude of the age toward these antiquated towns than that houses of timber and plaster were repeatedly and sneeringly referred to as mere " paper buildings." It was evidently the current phrase to describe this kind of construction. In William King's 'The Art of Love a vain, silly creature comparing women's fashions in the past with those of the present exclaims scornfully: Dark paper buildings there stood thick, No palaces of stone or brick. Dr. Richard Pococke, the traveler, described the older parts of Knole in the same terms.3 In his 'Tour Defoe praised Edinburgh because it was so well built that there was no danger of accident from falling tiles and chimneys — a contrast to the "Paper built Cities in England." In London before the fire the houses, Defoe tells us, were " all built of Timber, Lath, and Plaister, or, as they were very properly call'd Paper Work, and

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one of the finest Range of Buildings in the 'Temple, are, to this Day, called the Paper Buildings, from that usual Expression." 40 When people were thus uncompromising in their scorn of the architecture of England's past, we recognize the justification of John Macky's picturesque statement: "If a man should wear the old bonnet, tunic, and vest of King Henry the VIII's days now, or build a palace after the Gothic style as it was then, he would be pointed at as a madman."

CHAPTER II T H E BUILDING MANIA OF THE

EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY

VASARI expatiates with the zest of his race on the enthusiasm with which a gifted and cultivated Venetian gentleman, Messer Luigi Cornaro, pursued the study of architecture merely for his own instruction and improvement. Cornaro, we are told, read Vitruvius, Alberti, and other great authorities, examined drawings of Roman antiquities, and finally, dissatisfied until he could see the original buildings with his own eyes, took into his service a competent architect and went to Rome, where the two inspected together the remains of the past with all the thoroughness of ardent interest vitalized by knowledge. On another occasion Vasari lauds a group of Roman gentlemen who devoted themselves to the study of Vitruvius and even enlisted the assistance of Vignola to measure ancient buildings and to execute some architectural fancies of their own. Such activities Vasari thought were not beneath even the greatest prince, and this opinion was in accord with the best Renaissance tradition. 1 Milton was too well stored with the riches of Renaissance learning not to feel the power of this tradition, and, as I pointed out, he enrolled architecture as one of the subjects in his ideal curriculum. As the appreciation of classical architecture developed in England, other writers followed Milton in their recommendation of architecture as a suitable, even necessary, branch of knowledge with which a well-born youth should be familiar. In A treatise concerning the Education of Youth (i 678) Gailhard urged the young traveler in Italy to seize the opportunity to learn the rules of architecture as well as those of painting and sculpture so that he would be able to make an intelligent criticism of works of art. In 'The Fine Gentleman, or, The Complete Education of a Young Nobleman (1732), Costeker advised that as there was such a great rivalry in building among

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English gentlemen, a nobleman should fit himself to judge architecture. This knowledge he would find " a delightful recreation," and if the opportunity arose he would be able to consult his own taste in designing a house that would adequately meet his own needs. When his nephew John Jackson was abroad on the grand tour at his uncle's expense, Pepys lamented — and his lament was shared by Jackson himself—• that he had never required him to learn drawing, an accomplishment which would have been to him a source of pleasure and profit on his travels. Thus equipped, the youthful tourist, Pepys believed, might sketch the palaces, public buildings, ruins, and other objects of interest, and upon his return home he could put his knowledge to practical use by planning buildings of his own or correcting the designs of others. 2 As one might expect, the Palladian buildings in Vicenza were for the cultivated traveler a school of architecture in themselves. Evelyn declared: "This sweet town has more well-built palaces than any of its dimensions in all Italy." 3 When his son was about to visit the Italian city, Chesterfield with characteristic thoroughness hastened to instruct young Stanhope how he could profit most by his sojourn there. Chesterfield's own taste is sufficiently disclosed by his opinion that the Maison Carrée at Nîmes was " t h e finest piece of architecture" he had ever seen and that Palladio's " t a s t e and style of buildings were truly antique." So he advised his son to read Palladio first and then in the company of some well-informed person to examine the principal houses in Vicenza in the light of the rules. In less than a week the youth should, in his father's opinion, acquire a knowledge of " the different proportions of the different orders, the several diameters of their columns, their intercolumniations, their several uses, etc." When he finally heard from Stanhope's tutor that some such plan was adopted, Chesterfield was much gratified. 4 However anxious he might be that his son should acquire correctness of taste, Chesterfield could not conceal his aristocratic prejudice. He took care to warn Stanhope against a too thorough knowledge of the practical problems of architecture. Lord Burlington, he thought, had lowered his dignity by his familiarity with what should have been left to masons and

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bricklayers. For the man of high birth the study of architecture should be a completely disinterested activity and only a means of developing his artistic appreciation. It was with such an end in view that William Beckford, who had a princely education, took lessons in architecture from no less a person than Sir William Chambers, the designer of Somerset House. In the light of such pursuits one realizes how completely a contemporary writer expressed the prevailing opinion when he asserted that " n o one can properly be styled a gentleman who has not made use of every opportunity to enrich his own capacity and settle the elements of taste, which he may improve at leisure." 5 It is not to be wondered at that when it was the fashion for many wealthy young men of rank to take the grand tour and to study architecture, the period became the age of the accomplished amateur, the gentleman-builder, and the man of taste. But however delightful as an amusement such a knowledge was to the person of means and leisure, it entailed the certain bedevilment of architecture when these would-be connoisseurs undertook either to give instructions to professional architects in their employ or to design their own buildings. I t was just such men, fashionable amateurs ignorant of the practical aspects of architecture, who were likely to be hypnotized by abstract formulas and to accept uncritically the dogmas of Vitruvius and the Italians in regard to symmetry and proportion. Professional architects like Kent, Campbell, and Gibbs were sufficiently guilty in this respect, but there can be no doubt that the wealthy, inexperienced, superficially educated amateur of the eighteenth century was responsible for the erection of many houses that obeyed " t h e rules" with inflexible consistency and sacrificed comfort on the high altar of logic and taste. Of these aristocratic amateurs no one enjoyed in his own time greater reputation than Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington. Such competent architectural historians as Sir Reginald Blomfield and J. Alfred Gotch have, however, after an examination of the evidence, come to substantially the same conclusion : for the designs of the principal buildings attributed to him — his own mansion in Piccadilly and his villa at Chis-

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wick, General Wade's house, the Westminster dormitory, and the Y o r k Assembly Rooms — Burlington probably deserves only nominal credit. The experienced professional men Burlington had under his patronage, Kent, Campbell, and Leoni, either made these designs or freely guided Burlington in the execution of his own ideas. Blomfield points out that no authentic drawings by the noble Earl have as yet been discovered, and Gotch justly argues that as, in fact, the designs do not exhibit any real originality — the plans of the villa at Chiswiçk and the Egyptian Hall at Y o r k were lifted almost bodily from Palladio, and the Westminster dormitory was a clumsy revision of one of Wren's schemes — they might easily be the work of a man who had no more practical knowledge of architecture than Burlington possessed. It was, however, especially in his role of generous patron of the arts that Burlington gained the praise of his contemporaries. He was the protector of Berkeley, Handel, and William Kent. Although the latter was a painter, architect, furniture designer, and garden planner, his talents were of a mediocre order, and probably the favor of Burlington, in whose house he lived for some time, gave him a prestige he scarcely deserved. In his enthusiasm for the ancients and for Palladio and Inigo Jones among the moderns, Burlington made possible sumptuous editions of important works that inevitably increased the authority of classicism among his contemporaries. He induced Giacomo Leoni to come to England to supervise the publication of the four books of Palladio's Architecture; it appeared in 1715, and subsequently in 1721 and 1742. In 1730 Burlington also published Palladio's work on ancient buildings. It was this enterprise which Pope had in mind when in his well-known epistle to the Earl he asserted: You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use. Burlington also secured what were then supposed to be the drawings of Inigo Jones — Mr. Gotch has proved that in all probability they were the work of Jones' gifted pupil John W e b b 6 — and at the same time enabled Kent to edit them in splendid style in 1727. His admiration for Jones also inspired Burling-

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ton to restore the portico of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and in 1728 The Villas of the Ancients by Robert Castell came out under his patronage. Such a book, describing in detail and reconstructing by means of ideal designs the two famous villas of Pliny, must have appealed to a generation that was caught up in a craze for building great country-houses. Men of taste who were anxious to reproduce in their homes the spirit of ancient architecture must have read with deference Castell's discussion of conditions of situation regarded by the Romans as essential for a rural estate. Castell eulogized Burlington for his interest in Jones and Palladio, and exclaimed that as a patron he excelled even the ancients: " T h e y cultivated the Arts while they yet flourish'd in their Glory, but you give them new Life when they languish, and even rescue them from Decay and Oblivion." In the same breathless strain Pope addressed Burlington: Y o u too proceed ! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before.

One must confess that in his Epistle to Methuen G a y impugned his own honesty or artistic judgment — in either case he is damned — when he exhorted such a second-rate craftsman as Kent to call all thy genius forth, For Burlington unbiased knows thy worth; His judgment in thy master-strokes can trace Titian's strong fire, and Guido's softer grace. But oh! consider, ere thy works appear, Canst thou unhurt the tongue of E n v y hear? Censure will blame, her breath was ever spent T o blast the laurels of the eminent. While Burlington's proportioned columns rise, Does not he stand the gaze of envious eyes? Doors, windows, are condemned by passing fools, Who know not that they damn Palladio's rules.

Thomson was another poet who added his voice to swell the chorus in praise of Burlington. This prejudice in favor of the noble Earl was inevitable. T h e author of The Seasons had toured Italy, and, having accused the medieval builders of op-

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pressing the earth "with labored heavy monuments of shame," he proceeded in Liberty to hymn the glories of the orders: "the manly Doric," the Ionic "with decent matron grace," and "the rich Corinthian." His judgment of Burlington was a sprig from the same tree: Lo ! numerous domes a Burlington confess — For kings and senates fit; the palace see! The temple breathing a religious awe; Even framed with elegance the plain retreat, The private dwelling. Certain in his aim, Taste, never idly working, saves expense.7 That Burlington should be saluted as the restorer of the arts was not without some justification. The more restrained architecture of Jones, Webb, and Pratt had suffered a temporary eclipse during the supremacy of Wren and Vanbrugh. Their work, and especially that of the latter, was inspired, more by the grandiose ideals of the Italian baroque than by Palladian simplicity and reticence. In such houses as Blenheim and Castle Howard, Vanbrugh sought for the spectacular effect, the overwhelming impression of sheer magnitude, that was characteristic of the baroque. At Blenheim the vast scale of the plan, the large, coarse details, the curved frontage, the marshaled array of colossal columns, the massive square towers and numerous finials that shatter the skyline, and, in general, the broken lines, the multiplied projections and varied planes that intensify the shadow, sound a clarion note of architectural excitement repeatedly heard in Sicily, Italy, and Bavaria, but rare indeed in the sober, if not sad, environment of England. So, undoubtedly, by the favor which he bestowed upon Inigo Jones and his Italian master, Burlington had his share in leading English architecture back into the path of Palladian rectitude in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. As the story is told in the World (no. 50), when he saw Wren's St. Paul's the memory of Jones' front and its destruction moved Burlington to exclaim: "When the Jews saw the second temple, they wept." Moreover, if one bears in mind that Michael Angelo is generally held unintentionally responsible for the audacities of the baroque, its passion for magnitude and its juggling with conventional forms, Burlington appears consistent with his ideals

BURLINGTON

6l

when, as Spence says in his Anecdotes, he habitually lauded Palladio at the expense of Michael Angelo. 8 As the apostle of Palladianism Burlington was not always appreciated among the unenlightened. In the course of a protest against the very human tendency to cherish public buildings and monuments merely because they were familiar and to sanctify their frequent ugliness as beautiful, " A t h e n i a n " Stuart inveighed against the popular prejudice which has often stood in the way of the improvement of London. M a n y worthy people, according to Stuart, had come to regard old London bridge and its decaying houses, " that heap of enormities," as second only to Solomon's temple in point of beauty. T h e y had even opposed the tearing down of the tradesmen's signs that choked the streets, and had often compared Cheapside to " t h e Medicean gallery for its choice collection of paintings: blue boars, green dragons, and kings' heads." When such persons of vulgar taste secured positions of authority, the situation was perilous. It appears from Stuart's account that when the city fathers were deliberating upon a new mansion house, Lord Burlington presented a design of Palladio's for consideration. Immediately the question arose — not unlike the problem of the cow's color in Gullivei whether this fellow Palladio was a freeman of the city. The wrangling that ensued was finally brought to an abrupt close by a statement from one of the guardians of the city's dignity. It was common knowledge, he claimed, that Palladio was a Papist, and on that account beyond the pale; forthwith these gentlemen in conclave rejected Burlington's plan and adopted that of a man whom they knew to be both a freeman and a Protestant.' The Palladian cult had some extreme manifestations, transplanting to England designs far better suited to the climate of Italy. For the cultivated and traveled Signor Paolo Almerico, Palladio had built in the outskirts of Vicenza the famous Villa Rotonda (Fig. 13), delightfully situated on an eminence, which was washed at its foot by a river and encircled by an amphitheatre of hills, orchards, and vineyards. T h e design was absolutely symmetrical: a compact square block surmounted by a central dome. T o enable the owner to enjoy the charming views over the countryside, Palladio says that he pro-

6l

BUILDING MANIA OF THE EIGHTEENTH C E N T U R Y

vided each of the four façades with an imposing portico. For an Italian this simple plan had its advantages: the lofty, imperfectly lighted domed hall in the middle was a pleasant refuge from the glare and heat of the sun, the porticos kept the entrances cool, and the door in each of the four fronts permitted the free circulation of air through the central hall from one side of the house to the other. Moreover, the massive porticos, approached in each case by a monumental flight of steps, gave such a degree of lateral extension to the building that it was wide in proportion to its height, and so absolutely balanced on each side by the projecting masses that there resulted an impression of extraordinary repose. A building with such an exceptional design did not escape the attention of traveling Englishmen. T o m Coryat visited the Rotonda, and Evelyn was greatly disappointed that because of the restlessness and dissipation of some members of his party he had to leave Vicenza sooner than he wished, and consequently missed seeing the famous villa. 10 The Palladiane were quick to reproduce this design in England, regardless of its lack of adaptability to the climate of northern Europe. Nor did such changes as the English made in the design improve the appearance of the house from the point of view of abstract beauty ; ins tead, they entailed the loss of some of the merits of the original. Of the four English houses on this plan none retained the four flights of monumental steps. A t Nuthall, Nottinghamshire, and at Foot's Cray, Kent, there is only one such flight, and at Mereworth Castle, although the four porticos are retained, only two are approached by steps, these having the grandiose width of forty-two feet. With the disappearance of the steps from two or more of the fronts, these English houses do not spread out over as much terrain as the Rotonda itself and consequently lose much of the noble repose characteristic of the Italian building. Moreover, whereas Palladio evidently strove to keep his central dome as flat and as unobtrusive as possible in order to allow the horizontal lines of the building to have their full effect, Mereworth Castle, Foot's Cray, and Chiswick House (Fig. 14) are crowned with lofty, conspicuous domes; the vertical line that thus results neutralizes the horizontal lines; and the feeling that the house is

CHISWICK HOUSE

63

deeply and permanently planted in the earth is proportionally less. Furthermore, the necessity of having adequate chimneys, forced upon the architects by the English climate, caused trouble. To avoid obscuring the form of the dome by the projection of chimneys, Colin Campbell devised at Mereworth Castle a dome of two shells, the inner one constituting the ceiling of the hall, the outer one the external roof, but he so conducted the twenty flues between the two shells to the central outlet on the top of the dome that the house smoked. At Foot's Cray the four chimneys were boldly grouped about the dome, to the detriment of its appearance; Dr. Pococke, the inveterate traveler, with cruel frankness called them "ugly." 11 Walpole declared that the domed hall at Mereworth, sixty feet in height, was " a dark well." However, he confessed that the mansion was such a perfect example of "Palladian taste" that when he viewed it he wavered a bit in his loyalty to Gothic." The most famous of these English copies of the Rotonda was Lord Burlington's villa, Chiswick House. The Earl's idolatries were manifested in the environment of the mansion. The monumental external staircase leading to the entrance portico was flanked on one side by a statue of Palladio and on the other by one of Inigo Jones. In the garden near the serpentine river was an exact reproduction of the portico of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and spanning one of the avenues was a gate originally designed by Jones for Beaufort House, Chelsea, but taken down and re-erected by Burlington at Chiswick. Contemplating Burlington's achievement, Shenstone, who had the cravings of a man of taste but lacked the means to indulge them, thought it was not for a poor poet to meddle with Palladio's rules or so much as " s u r v e y " the Earl's "learned art, in Chiswick's dome display'd." 13 This villa was evidently an object of curiosity, even in social circles where its noble owner was never known to appear. In A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adam's at the Royal Swan in Kingsland Road ( 1 7 5 6 ) is listed as item Number 5 0 8 a "Model of Lord Burlington's Seat at Chiswick in Baccopipe Clay by the same Hand in 4 days, curiously done." Here also vulgar eyes, after gazing in wonder at this aristocratic piece

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of architecture, might feed on other marvels: King Arthur's knife and fork, a huge battle-ax carried by Henry V, ostrich eggs, Adam's key of the front and back doors of the Garden of Eden, and a fragment of the pillar erected on the spot "where Jonah was cast out of the whale's belly." Another design that enjoyed immense vogue in the classical period was also directly derivable from Palladio. This was the winged block, a scheme which Palladio devised as suitable for a country-house, grouping together in one architectural whole the owner's dwelling and the supporting farm buildings, which were connected with the former by galleries or arcades. 14 This arrangement was for the convenience of the owner, as the stables, the granaries, and the wine-press were in these wings, and he was thus enabled to supervise more easily the steward, the laborers, and the equipment of the estate and its products. The design is thoroughly classical in the clarity of the architectural idea: unity is secured by the consolidation of the dwellinghouse and the offices, and the feeling for subordination is satisfied by the domination of the central block, containing the owner's dwelling, over the smaller attached buildings to which the offices are confined. Moreover, the architectural importance of the central block was emphasized not only by its greater elevation but also frequently by an imposing portico. Within the limits of the plan variations were possible: the wings might be connected with the central block by either straight or curved galleries, and they might be two or four in number. Stoke Bruerne, with which Inigo Jones seems to have had something to do, was the first house of this winged type in England. Although it was completed just before the Civil War, the design of which it was representative did not attain its extraordinary popularity until the eighteenth century, when it became all the fashion. The Palladian design, planned in the first instance as a home for a country gentleman who was concerned with the conduct of his estate, developed in England into a princely scheme (Fig. 6) which conceived the house with its attached pavilions as little less than a palace. The scale of these houses was immense: the frontage of Houghton (Fig. 15) is over five hundred feet in length, while that of Wentworth Woodhouse reaches nearly six hundred feet. The great four-

PALLADIAN HOUSES

65

winged plan which Palladio had designed for Signor Leonardo Mocenigo for a site he owned on the Brenta was to have been carried out at Kedleston (Fig. 16), but only two wings are actually complete. At Holkham (Fig. 17), built by Kent for Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, the plan with its four pavilions is realized. The other two plans here given, that of Duncomb Park (Fig. 18) and that of Buckland (Fig. 19), exemplify other versions of the Palladian design, in particular the straight galleries by which the wings were attached to the principal structure. Undoubtedly in all these winged houses the magnitude, the absolute symmetry, and the coordination of the design produced a façade that gave the desired impression of grandeur. The interior conveyed the same impression. The axial vista through the house was invariably present.* In addition, as an examination of the plans will readily disclose, numerous secondary vistas through adjoining rooms frequently capitalized the size of the house and made for spaciousness. Moreover, as windows were nearly always placed in line with the prospect through a series of rooms, the view was accordingly extended from the interior into the garden beyond, f The proportions of the rooms were in harmony with the scheme of the whole. At Houghton, designed by Colin Campbell for Sir Robert Walpole, the Great Hall is a cube of forty feet, and the salon is thirty feet in height; all the other four principal apartments are eighteen feet in height. Indeed the dimensions of a cube frequently determined the form of the hall and salon in these great mansions. With pedantic unction Campbell describes a plan which he drew up for Walpole — a plan which was calculated to fill with satisfaction a geometrician's heart. In this house, as Campbell informs us, he undertook " t o introduce the temple Beauties in a private Building." 1 5 It consisted of a central block one hundred feet square; at each of the four corners was a room twenty-four feet square, and in addition there was a salon, a single cube of forty feet. Four squares and a cube on one floor! The library in one wing was, moreover, balanced by the * At Holkham through rooms A - I ; at Kedleston through rooms A - B . t At Holkham through rooms M - M - M . Compare the long vista through rooms M - K - I - H - G and beyond.

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BUILDING MANIA OF THE EIGHTEENTH C E N T U R Y

chapel in the other wing, each being of exactly the same size, thirty-four by twenty-four feet. Architectural formalism could not go much further. Whether in view of the different purposes of a library and a chapel it might be desirable to have these apartments of different dimensions was a practical question that did not trouble a dogmatist like Campbell. In other ways the interiors of such houses aimed to produce an impression of coldly classic splendor. Everywhere classic motives were in evidence in the decoration. In the Cupola, or Cube Room,in Kensington Palace, Kent undertook to introduce a classic spirit. T h e partially domed ceiling, the heavy cornice, the Ionic pilasters with their absurd painted sham fluting, and the marble niches, chimney-piece, and doorways strive desperately at a splendor they do not attain. It is symptomatic of Kent's deficiency in artistic feeling that he should imagine that the cold white marble accessories, however classic in suggestion, would harmonize with the dark olive tones of the walls. I t would be difficult to find a better example of the unintelligent use of expensive materials. T h e ideal of classic taste is realized more consistently elsewhere. A t Stowe, Buckinghamshire, the grand salon (Fig. 20) is a circular domed room with massive supporting Doric columns of colored marble, and extending above the cornice is a magnificent band of sculptured figures representing a Roman triumphal procession; many of the figures, nearly four feet in height, are taken from the arches of Severus, Trajan, and Constantine. Between the columns are panels, decorated with Roman weapons of war and armor in high relief, and below these panels are statues in niches. For the decoration of Holkham the Earl of Leicester brought together a great collection of sculpture. As a young man he spent six years on the grand tour; in Italy he purchased classic statues, and indeed on one occasion he was actually arrested for attempting to smuggle a fine headless figure of Diana out of the country. Four other precious pieces of antique sculpture were lost at sea on their way to England. When Coke perceived that his collection was still insufficient to furnish Holkham as he wished, he dispatched an agent to Italy to buy additional works of art. Holkham was designed by Kent and completed by Brettingham; yet while

PALLADIAN

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its construction was going on, the Earl was in constant consultation with Burlington, with whom he had been on intimate terms in Italy. 1 6 So there was every reason why a mansion built under such direction and embellished with statuary should realize the classic ideal of formal magnificence. But in these huge Palladian houses comfort was forgotten in the desire for stateliness. In the wings, connected with the rectangular block by curved or straight colonnades or galleries, were generally situated the stables, the kitchen,* and possibly the library f and the chapel.$ T h e location of the kitchen so far from the dining-room, which was always in the central block, ignored the inconvenience of having to convey the food such a distance before it reached the apartment where it was to be served. Moreover, symmetry often made it necessary to employ the large windows suitable for the principal apartments of state in less lofty rooms where they were less desirable, or led to the introduction of sham windows to maintain the balance of voids in the façade. Similarly Robert Morris stipulated that within a room uniformity should determine the position and number of doors, and if real doors were out of the question false ones should be used to meet the demands of symmetrical arrangement. 17 T h e wish for splendid rooms for show and entertainment meant, furthermore, that the private apartments of the owner were frequently cramped, inconveniently situated, and insufficiently lighted. Campbell, typical for his time in his lack of compunction when the issue was between comfort and abstract beauty, rejoiced that in his design for the Duke of Argyle the rooms of the family received their light through the leads, "whereby the Majesty of the Front is preserved from the ill Effects of crowded Apertures." 18 Whether the family of the noble Duke shared in his satisfaction Campbell leaves us to surmise. T o preserve the simplicity of the skyline at Mereworth Castle, Campbell eliminated all projecting chimneys, but to bring about this desired result he devised a system of flues so complicated that they did not function properly. Conditions * Ρ at Kedleston (Fig. 16). f Ρ at Holkham (Fig. 17) and F at Buckland (Fig. 19). J E at Holkham, G at Buckland, and Ν at Kedleston.

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BUILDING MANIA OF THE EIGHTEENTH C E N T U R Y

were no better at H o l k h a m . T o the younger B r e t t i n g h a m the E a r l of Leicester remarked b i t t e r l y : " Y o u r chimneys smoke and cannot be c u r e d . " H o w widespread was this evil we can gather from an amazing contemporary advertisement of the year 1738 in Common Sense (no. 92) : Ralph Taylor, Bricklayer . . . cureth smoky chimneys, no purchase, no pay. He hath performed at several houses of note, viz. for his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, seven chimneys; the Right Hon. the Lord Abergavenny, thirty-three chimneys; the Right Hon. Mr. Doddington, Pall Mali, two chimneys; the Hon. Edward Carteret, Esq., Postmaster General, eleven chimneys; the Hon. Tho. Pelham, Esq., seven chimneys; the Hon. Col. Pelham, Charles Street, St. James's Square, one chimney; the Hon. Col. Schutz, at Sion Hill, near Brentford, seven chimneys; and several hundreds more, too tedious to insert here. Samuel Johnson's impression of Kedleston is an incisive s u m m a r y of the defects of these great mansions. In his Journey into North Wales, where he records his first visit, he describes the house as " v e r y costly, but ill c o n t r i v e d . " T h e pillars of the hall (A, Fig. 16) are very large and massy, and take up too much room; they were better away. Behind the hall is a circular saloon [B], useless, and therefore ill contrived. The corridors [C, K, K, K] that join the wings to the body are mere passages through segments of circles. . . . The grandeur was all below. The bed-chambers were small, low, dark, and fitter for a prison than a house of splendour. The kitchen [P] has an opening into the gallery [K], by which its heat and its fumes are dispersed over the house. There seemed in the whole more cost than judgment. On the occasion of his second visit with Boswell in 1777 Johnson was also sarcastic. H e then declared Kedleston " w o u l d do excellently for a town-hall. T h e large room with the pillars . . . would do for the Judges to sit in at the assizes; the circular room for a j u r y - c h a m b e r ; and the room above for prisoners." 19 Obviously the splendor of great halls and colonnades did not betray Johnson's j u d g m e n t ; his intellectual honesty would not permit him to shut his eyes to the patent m a l a d j u s t m e n t of plan to the daily needs of the occupants.

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