Is Architecture A Lost Art?

IS ARCHITECTURE A LOST ART ?

IT is not many years since Mr . Buskin published the first edition of " The Stones of Venice , " but already that wonderful work has done much to influence the tastes and habits of thought of the English people . The Gothic revival , which is one of the remarkable phenomena of the

age , may indeed be traced to other sources , and so far as English architects are concerned they have not followed Mr . Ruskin in his enthusiastic admiration of the foreign styles . His great work , however , helped the English public to understand something of the " motive " of true

architecture , and some of the members of the profession are slowly beginning to unlearn many of the absurd ideas with reference to the dignity of their branch of the art , and are learning to feel a little respect for the man who has been called by fortune to handle the trowel . If we venture

to assert that Architecture is a lost art , many of our readers will possibly be inclined to join issue with us . Yet many men in these clays , whose genius has helped to rear numerous imposing piles , would be ready enough to agree with us . We have a host of so-called architects , men who are versed

in the " styles " and " orders , " who are skilled in mathematics , who are familiar with the strength of the materials , and could as readily prepare plans for a Gothic Cathedral (!) as for a pile of waterside warehouses . We do not deny that the art of using the drawing board and the "T" square

has reached a very high pitch of perfection . The walls of the Royal Academy are covered each season with elevations and prospective views of projected works , and these are always so pretty and " picture like" that they usually excite a buzz of admiration from the well dressed visitors

who crowd around to examine them . We are rapidly rebuilding London in substantial stone , and the great provincial towns are following our example . Yet , with all this activity , and all these signs of life and apparent vigour , we are constrained to say that Architecture is still in the

days of its decline and fall , and , so far as we know , the master mind , or rather the master mason , has not yet arisen who can teach us its true secret . Buildings are designed without motive or feeling ; a certain space has to be roofed over , and a certain style has to be selected . The architect

knows nothing practically of masonry , and he would stare if any one were to ask if he had ever laid one stone upon another . He is an advocate for the dignity , or rather the gentility of art . Practical masonry is , he thinks , the mere business of the working man . He is to elaborate

upon paper , while the builder puts his ideas into solid stone or brick . The result of this modern system is seen in the acres of perfectly lifeless structures which are supposed to adorn our streets . The real master mason has vanished from the building world , or he has been turned by our

wonderful modern civilisation into a kid-gloved dandy who occasionally condescends to examine the progress of the work he has designed , and who goes back to his ofBce to draw up a builder ' s certificate . Now we venture to say that it was not in this way that the great buildings of the

ancient world were erected . If we examine any of the old churches which have escaped the cruel hands of restoration committees , we are at once struck by the marks of character which they exhibit . The very stones seem to be

alive . The carved work may seem rude , but it bears conspicuous marks of individuality about it . We see at once that the figures which adorn the capitals of the columns came hot , so to speak , from the mind of the artist , and were at once transferred by his chisel to the stone . We know that

Is Architecture A Lost Art?

the master mason must have had a hand in the business , and that he was a skilled workman , who knew how to handle the mallet and level , and was proud of his skill . We know that the men who planned these ancient buildings worked at them with their own hands , and this fact at

once enables us to understand why they interest us so deeply . We read the mind of the workman in the record of stone he has left behind him . His thought is in it , and he loved his work . He , perhaps , knew nothing of theories , and was entirely ignorant of the so-called

" styles , but built , as it were , by instinct . He knew nothing of the archseology of his business , and was never troubled with the vague fear , that a window here or a moulding there were not quite in harmony with the rest of his plans . However far back we may examine the history of architecture , we find evident traces of the master

mason . The early Gothic churches were , in all probability , built without the aid of any elaborate plans . The buildei's understood perfectly what they were about , and piled their stones on each other much as a bird builds its nest . Later in the history of the style the influence of the drawing

board and "T" square is plainly visible . The simple forms of the art workmen were elaborated and " improved . " All sorts of structural devices were added to support vaulted roofs without the aid of solid wood " veils , " as Mr . Ruskin calls them , and the Gothic church in the florid period

became a sort of elaborate stone frame for the display of acres of stained glass . That wonderful contrivance , the flying buttress , was carried to such excess , in the clays of the decadence of Gothic art , that many Continental buildings , when viewed at a distance , actually seem as if

the scaffolding had not been removed from the walls . . It was the master mason who invented the pinnacle , but he had no idea of making this a mere ornamental feature , Its original office was to give , by its downward pressure , additional stability to the buttress which supported the

roof . The original " motive " of the pinnacle has , however , been forgotten or ignored , and we now find it perched upon conspicuous points of a building where it can have no structural function to perform , and it is commonly covered with unmeaning ornament , and degraded to the rank of a

mere decorative feature . The ancient master mason , in all probability , did not know how to draw at all . He was a constructor in the true sense of the word , and such decoration as he was pleased to place upon his buildings was , as we have said , struck at once from the mind and transferred

to the stone . No thoughtful man can examine medieval sculpture without becoming conscious of this fact . The wild grace of the work , its evident carelessness aiid the wonderful variety it exhibits , all tend to show that the sculptor was putting his mind into it . In these days ,

however , we manage to decorate our buildings on a different principle . The architect first of all draws his design upon paper , and from this a clay model is prepared , from which a plaster cast is taken . A so-called sculptor is now called in , for the purpose of

transferring the design to the stone . His work is merely mechanical ; he has no sympathy with the ideas he is called upon to interpret , and in place of trying to give life and individuality to the design , he aims at mere literal accuracy . The result of course is , as every one conversant with the

subject knows , that the decorative features of our modern buildings are utterly uninteresting , and generally unmeaning . The very perfection of mechanical skill possessed by the sculptor is injurious to his work . The elder Pugin , who was one of the few modern masters of Gothic , had infinite difficulty , in the earl y days , of the revival , in