DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1311#0265
224 THE GREAT EXHIBITION
"When Stuart and Revett returned from Athens, and published their work on Greece,
it generated a mania for Greek architecture, from which we are barely yet recovered.
Taylor and Cresy did as much for the architecture of Rome. The travels of Belzoni
and his successors produced the Egyptian Hall, and even Egyptian-faced railway tunnels.
The celebrated French work on the architecture of Tuscany, and Letarouilly's ' Modern
Rome/ have more recently inspired us with a desire for Italian palaces.
" The works of the elder Pugin and Britton, with a host of followers, have flooded
the country with Gothic buildings; with which, notwithstanding the learning and research
they exhibit, I must frankly avow I have but little sympathy. I admire and appreciate
the Gothic buildings, which were the expression of the feelings of the age in which
they were created; but I mourn over the loss which this age has suffered, and still con-
tinues to suffer, by so many fine minds devoting all their talents to the reproduction ot
a galvanised corpse. Instead of exhausting themselves in the vain attempt, who will
dare say that, had these same men of genius, as they certainly are, directed their steps
forward instead of backward, architecture would not have made some progress towards
becoming, as it is its office, the true expression of the wants, the faculties, and the
sentiments of the age in which we live? Could the new wants be supplied, the new
materials at command, the new sentiments to be expressed, find no echo to their
admonitions ? Alas ! iron has been forged in vain—the teachings of science disregarded
■—the voice of the poet has fallen upon ears like those of the deaf adder, which move
not, charm the musician never so wisely. More than this; instead of new materials
and processes suggesting to the artist new forms, more in harmony with them, he has
moulded them to his own will, and made them, so to speak, accomplices of his crime.
The tracery of Gothic windows, generated by the mason's art, have been reproduced in
cast-iron; the Doric or Greek temples, which owe their peculiar form and bulk to the
necessities of stone, have been but a hollow iron sham. We have gone on from bad to
worse: from the Gothic mania we fell into the Elizabethian; a malady, fortunately, of
shorter duration; for we then even worshipped not only a dead body, but a corrupt one.
We have had an Italian mania without an Italian sky; and we are even now threatened
with the importation of a Renaissance mania from Erance. It would be most unfortunate
if the attention which has been directed to the peculiar beauties of the East Indian
collection of the Great Exhibition should result in an Indian mania; but if this
disease, like measles, must come, the sooner it comes and goes the better. What
we want to be convinced of is, that there is good mixed with evil in all these styles;
and I trust, when each has strutted its brief hour on the stage, recording for posterity the
prevailing affectation of the day, we shall. We want to be convinced that all these
styles do but express the same eternal truth, though in a different language: let us
retain the ideas, but discard the language in which they are expressed, and endeavour
to employ our own for the same purpose. We have no more business to clothe ourselves
in mediaeval garments, than to shut ourselves in cloisters and talk Latin; to wrap
ourselves in Indian robes, than to sit all day on divans, leading a life of voluptuous
contemplation. After the expression of so much heresy, I must beg to say that the
fault does not at all lie with the architectural profession, to which I esteem it an honour
to belong. The fault lies with the public; the public must educate themselves on this
question. Architects, unfortunately, can but obey their clients; this one will have an
Elizabethian mansion; this clergyman can admit no other than a mediaeval church;
this club of gentlemen must be accommodated in an Italian palace; this mechanics'
institute committee must be located in a Greek temple, for there alone wisdom can be
found or philosophy taught; this railway director has a fancy for Moorish tunnels or
Doric termini; this company, again, an Egyptian suspension-bridge—the happy union of
"When Stuart and Revett returned from Athens, and published their work on Greece,
it generated a mania for Greek architecture, from which we are barely yet recovered.
Taylor and Cresy did as much for the architecture of Rome. The travels of Belzoni
and his successors produced the Egyptian Hall, and even Egyptian-faced railway tunnels.
The celebrated French work on the architecture of Tuscany, and Letarouilly's ' Modern
Rome/ have more recently inspired us with a desire for Italian palaces.
" The works of the elder Pugin and Britton, with a host of followers, have flooded
the country with Gothic buildings; with which, notwithstanding the learning and research
they exhibit, I must frankly avow I have but little sympathy. I admire and appreciate
the Gothic buildings, which were the expression of the feelings of the age in which
they were created; but I mourn over the loss which this age has suffered, and still con-
tinues to suffer, by so many fine minds devoting all their talents to the reproduction ot
a galvanised corpse. Instead of exhausting themselves in the vain attempt, who will
dare say that, had these same men of genius, as they certainly are, directed their steps
forward instead of backward, architecture would not have made some progress towards
becoming, as it is its office, the true expression of the wants, the faculties, and the
sentiments of the age in which we live? Could the new wants be supplied, the new
materials at command, the new sentiments to be expressed, find no echo to their
admonitions ? Alas ! iron has been forged in vain—the teachings of science disregarded
■—the voice of the poet has fallen upon ears like those of the deaf adder, which move
not, charm the musician never so wisely. More than this; instead of new materials
and processes suggesting to the artist new forms, more in harmony with them, he has
moulded them to his own will, and made them, so to speak, accomplices of his crime.
The tracery of Gothic windows, generated by the mason's art, have been reproduced in
cast-iron; the Doric or Greek temples, which owe their peculiar form and bulk to the
necessities of stone, have been but a hollow iron sham. We have gone on from bad to
worse: from the Gothic mania we fell into the Elizabethian; a malady, fortunately, of
shorter duration; for we then even worshipped not only a dead body, but a corrupt one.
We have had an Italian mania without an Italian sky; and we are even now threatened
with the importation of a Renaissance mania from Erance. It would be most unfortunate
if the attention which has been directed to the peculiar beauties of the East Indian
collection of the Great Exhibition should result in an Indian mania; but if this
disease, like measles, must come, the sooner it comes and goes the better. What
we want to be convinced of is, that there is good mixed with evil in all these styles;
and I trust, when each has strutted its brief hour on the stage, recording for posterity the
prevailing affectation of the day, we shall. We want to be convinced that all these
styles do but express the same eternal truth, though in a different language: let us
retain the ideas, but discard the language in which they are expressed, and endeavour
to employ our own for the same purpose. We have no more business to clothe ourselves
in mediaeval garments, than to shut ourselves in cloisters and talk Latin; to wrap
ourselves in Indian robes, than to sit all day on divans, leading a life of voluptuous
contemplation. After the expression of so much heresy, I must beg to say that the
fault does not at all lie with the architectural profession, to which I esteem it an honour
to belong. The fault lies with the public; the public must educate themselves on this
question. Architects, unfortunately, can but obey their clients; this one will have an
Elizabethian mansion; this clergyman can admit no other than a mediaeval church;
this club of gentlemen must be accommodated in an Italian palace; this mechanics'
institute committee must be located in a Greek temple, for there alone wisdom can be
found or philosophy taught; this railway director has a fancy for Moorish tunnels or
Doric termini; this company, again, an Egyptian suspension-bridge—the happy union of