DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26747#0539
Chap. I.
INTRODUOTION.
475
generalization ancl ill-jndged attempts to apply a system of names
suited to preconceived ideas, instead of merely affixing siieh names as
serve best to describe the objects spoken of.
In speaking for instance of the styles that have already oecupied
onr attention, it has been snfficient to specify Egyptian, Assyrian,
Persian, or Grecian and Eoman architecture ; subdividing these, when
necessary, either by mentioning the age of the variety we wished to
particularize, or applying to it some dynastic or epochal name in
order to fix its age. Thus the varieties of Egyptian architecture are
identified by describing them as the styles of the 4th or of the 18th
dynasty, or of the Ptolemys or Eomans. These varieties too may be
farther marked by the names of kings to any extent required. The
ages of Pericles and Alexander were the two great epochs of Grecian
art, and names either before or after these may be taken to fix the
age and style of any work with the utmost precision. So in Eome
the names of Augustus, Nero, or Trajan; of the Antonines, of Cara-
calla, or of Constantine, subdivide their art without confusion or mis-
take, and without the necessity of any system. But after this age
these wise and simple principles of nomenclature have been aban-
doned. It has become, for instance, the fashion to apply the term
Byzantine to styles as unlike anything Byzantium ever saw as any
one style can be to another, and where it is impossible to trace any in-
fluence, direct or indirect, that capital had on the buildings in ques-
tiou. Eomanesque in like manner is applied to styles as essentially
Barbarian as the most pointed and most florid Gothic. It has been
attempted to apply the name Lombard to all the round arched styles
of Europe, and German and Teutonic to all the pointed arched styies,
all involving the assumption of theories whicli, so far from being
granted, are generally without the least foundation in fact.
In this country this predilection for the systematizing of styles has
been pursued with more assiduity than elsewhere, and one nomen-
ciature has succeeded another with a rapidity that has rendered con-
fusion worse confounded.
One of the earliest and best attempts was that of Eickman; he
divided our native art into four divisions: Norrnan, Early English or
Lancet, Decorated, and Perpendicular. Froxn the last it has been
found requisite to separate the Tudor, as a well-defined variety; and
the acknowledgment of Saxon has again entitled that style to rank
with the rest. We have here, therefore, three or four dynastic names,
and as rnany technical ones. Latterly several attempts liave been
made to improve on this, but generally by getting lid of the dynastic
names and substituting for them technical oixes—derived either from
the wixxdow traoery, or soxne subordinate peculiarity which the names
assigned always describe briefly, oftexx incorrectly, and after all convey
no information. The terms Saxon, Norman, Tudor, Elizabethan, and
such like, however, maintain their ground, and I believe a far nxore
philosophical course would be to extend tlxese, leaving the technical
names merely as descriptive affixes. Thus EngJSsh architecture might
be divided into Saxon, Norman, Plantagenet, Edwardian, Lancas-
INTRODUOTION.
475
generalization ancl ill-jndged attempts to apply a system of names
suited to preconceived ideas, instead of merely affixing siieh names as
serve best to describe the objects spoken of.
In speaking for instance of the styles that have already oecupied
onr attention, it has been snfficient to specify Egyptian, Assyrian,
Persian, or Grecian and Eoman architecture ; subdividing these, when
necessary, either by mentioning the age of the variety we wished to
particularize, or applying to it some dynastic or epochal name in
order to fix its age. Thus the varieties of Egyptian architecture are
identified by describing them as the styles of the 4th or of the 18th
dynasty, or of the Ptolemys or Eomans. These varieties too may be
farther marked by the names of kings to any extent required. The
ages of Pericles and Alexander were the two great epochs of Grecian
art, and names either before or after these may be taken to fix the
age and style of any work with the utmost precision. So in Eome
the names of Augustus, Nero, or Trajan; of the Antonines, of Cara-
calla, or of Constantine, subdivide their art without confusion or mis-
take, and without the necessity of any system. But after this age
these wise and simple principles of nomenclature have been aban-
doned. It has become, for instance, the fashion to apply the term
Byzantine to styles as unlike anything Byzantium ever saw as any
one style can be to another, and where it is impossible to trace any in-
fluence, direct or indirect, that capital had on the buildings in ques-
tiou. Eomanesque in like manner is applied to styles as essentially
Barbarian as the most pointed and most florid Gothic. It has been
attempted to apply the name Lombard to all the round arched styles
of Europe, and German and Teutonic to all the pointed arched styies,
all involving the assumption of theories whicli, so far from being
granted, are generally without the least foundation in fact.
In this country this predilection for the systematizing of styles has
been pursued with more assiduity than elsewhere, and one nomen-
ciature has succeeded another with a rapidity that has rendered con-
fusion worse confounded.
One of the earliest and best attempts was that of Eickman; he
divided our native art into four divisions: Norrnan, Early English or
Lancet, Decorated, and Perpendicular. Froxn the last it has been
found requisite to separate the Tudor, as a well-defined variety; and
the acknowledgment of Saxon has again entitled that style to rank
with the rest. We have here, therefore, three or four dynastic names,
and as rnany technical ones. Latterly several attempts liave been
made to improve on this, but generally by getting lid of the dynastic
names and substituting for them technical oixes—derived either from
the wixxdow traoery, or soxne subordinate peculiarity which the names
assigned always describe briefly, oftexx incorrectly, and after all convey
no information. The terms Saxon, Norman, Tudor, Elizabethan, and
such like, however, maintain their ground, and I believe a far nxore
philosophical course would be to extend tlxese, leaving the technical
names merely as descriptive affixes. Thus EngJSsh architecture might
be divided into Saxon, Norman, Plantagenet, Edwardian, Lancas-