John Ruskin - The Poetry of Architecture

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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN

VOLUME I

POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE

SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

[Illustration: J. Ruskin]

Library Edition

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN

POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE
SEVEN LAMPS
MODERN PAINTERS

VOLUME I

NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK, CHICAGO

THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE;

OR,

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE NATIONS OF EUROPE
CONSIDERED IN ITS ASSOCIATION WITH NATURAL SCENERY
AND NATIONAL CHARACTER.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1

_PART I._--THE COTTAGE.

I. THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ENGLAND AND FRANCE 7

II. THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ITALY 15

III. THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE--SWITZERLAND 25

IV. THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE--WESTMORELAND 35

V. A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS 45

VI. THE COTTAGE--CONCLUDING REMARKS 57

_PART II._--THE VILLA.

I. THE MOUNTAIN VILLA--LAGO DI COMO 67

II. THE MOUNTAIN VILLA--LAGO DI COMO (CONTINUED) 80

III. THE ITALIAN VILLA (CONCLUDED) 94

IV. THE LOWLAND VILLA--ENGLAND 104

V. THE ENGLISH VILLA--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION 113

VI. THE BRITISH VILLA.--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
(THE CULTIVATED, OR BLUE COUNTRY, AND THE
WOODED, OR GREEN COUNTRY) 126

VII. THE BRITISH VILLA.--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
(THE HILL, OR BROWN COUNTRY) 145

LIST OF PLATES.

Facing Page
Fig. 1. Old Windows; from an early sketch by the Author 13

" 2. Italian Cottage Gallery, 1846 20

Cottage near la Cite, Val d'Aosta, 1838 21

" 3. Swiss Cottage, 1837. (Reproduced from the
Architectural Magazine) 28

" 4. Cottage near Altorf, 1835 29

" 5. Swiss Chalet Balcony, 1842 32

" 6. The Highest House in England, at Malham 42

" 7. Chimneys. (Eighteen sketches redrawn from the
Architectural Magazine) 48

" 8. Coniston Hall, from the Lake near Brantwood, 1837.
(Reproduced from the Architectural Magazine) 50

" 9. Chimney at Neuchatel; Dent du Midi and Mont Blanc in
the distance 20

" 10. Petrarch's Villa, Arqua, 1837. (Redrawn from the
Architectural Magazine) 98

" 11. Broken Curves. (Three diagrams, redrawn from the
Architectural Magazine) 101

" 12. Old English Mansion, 1837. (Reproduced from the
Architectural Magazine) 116

" 13. Windows. (Three designs, reproduced from the
Architectural Magazine) 122

" 14. Leading Lines of Villa-Composition. (Diagram redrawn
from the Architectural Magazine) 164

PREFATORY NOTES.

Of this work Mr. RUSKIN says in his Autobiography:--"The idea had come
into my head in the summer of '37, and, I imagine, rose immediately out
of my sense of the contrast between the cottages of Westmoreland and
those of Italy. Anyhow, the November number of Loudon's _Architectural
Magazine_ for 1837 opens with 'Introduction to the Poetry of
Architecture; or the Architecture of the Nations of Europe considered in
its Association with Natural Scenery and National Character,' by Kata
Phusin. I could not have put in fewer, or more inclusive words, the
definition of what half my future life was to be spent in discoursing
of; while the _nom-de-plume_ I chose, 'ACCORDING TO NATURE,' was equally
expressive of the temper in which I was to discourse alike on that, and
every other subject. The adoption of a _nom-de-plume_ at all implied (as
also the concealment of name on the first publication of 'Modern
Painters') a sense of a power of judgment in myself, which it would not
have been becoming in a youth of eighteen to claim...."

"As it is, these youthful essays, though deformed by assumption, and
shallow in contents, are curiously right up to the points they reach;
and already distinguished above most of the literature of the time, for
the skill of language, which the public at once felt for a pleasant gift
in me." (_Praeterita_, vol. I. chap. 12.)

In a paper on "My First Editor," written in 1878, Mr. Ruskin says of
these essays that they "contain sentences nearly as well put together as
any I have done since."

The Conductor of the _Architectural Magazine_ in reviewing the year's
work said (December, 1838):--"One series of papers, commenced in the
last volume and concluded in the present one, we consider to be of
particular value to the young architect. We allude to the 'Essays on the
Poetry of Architecture,' by Kata Phusin. These essays will afford little
pleasure to the mere builder, or to the architect who has no principle
of guidance but precedent; but for such readers they were never
intended. They are addressed to the young and unprejudiced artist; and
their great object is to induce him to think and to exercise his
reason.... There are some, we trust, of the rising generation, who are
able to free themselves from the trammels and architectural bigotry of
Vitruvius and his followers; and it is to such alone that we look
forward for any real improvement in architecture as an art of design and
taste."

The essays are in two parts: the first describing the cottages of
England, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and giving hints and directions
for picturesque cottage-building. The second part treats of the villas
of Italy and England--with special reference to Como and Windermere; and
concludes with a discussion of the laws of artistic composition, and
practical suggestions of interest to the builders of country-houses.

It was the Author's original intention to have proceeded from the
cottage and the villa to the higher forms of Architecture; but the
Magazine to which he contributed was brought to a close shortly after
the completion of his chapters on the villa, and his promise of farther
studies was not redeemed until ten years later, by the publication of
_The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and still more completely in _The
Stones of Venice_.

Other papers contributed by Mr. Ruskin to the same Magazine, on
Perspective, and on the proposed monument to Sir Walter Scott at
Edinburgh, are not included in this volume, as they do not form any part
of the series on the Poetry of Architecture.

The text is carefully reprinted from the _Architectural Magazine_. A few
additional notes are distinguished by square brackets.

A few of the old cuts, necessary to the text, are reproduced, and some
are replaced by engravings from sketches by the Author. Possessors of
the _Architectural Magazine_, vol. V., will be interested in comparing
the wood-cut of the cottage in Val d'Aosta (p. 104 of that volume) with
the photogravure from the original pencil drawing, which faces p. 21 of
this work. It is much to be regretted that the original of the Coniston
Hall (fig. 8; p. 50 of this work) has disappeared, and that the Author's
youthful record of a scene so familiar to him in later years should be
represented only by the harsh lines of Mr. Loudon's engraver.

THE EDITOR.

INTRODUCTION.

1. The Science of Architecture, followed out to its full extent, is one
of the noblest of those which have reference only to the creations of
human minds. It is not merely a science of the rule and compass, it does
not consist only in the observation of just rule, or of fair proportion:
it is, or ought to be, a science of feeling more than of rule, a
ministry to the mind, more than to the eye. If we consider how much less
the beauty and majesty of a building depend upon its pleasing certain
prejudices of the eye, than upon its rousing certain trains of
meditation in the mind, it will show in a moment how many intricate
questions of feeling are involved in the raising of an edifice; it will
convince us of the truth of a proposition, which might at first have
appeared startling, that no man can be an architect, who is not a
metaphysician.

2. To the illustration of the department of this noble science which may
be designated the Poetry of Architecture, this and some future articles
will be dedicated. It is this peculiarity of the art which constitutes
its nationality; and it will be found as interesting as it is useful, to
trace in the distinctive characters of the architecture of nations, not
only its adaptation to the situation and climate in which it has arisen,
but its strong similarity to, and connection with, the prevailing turn
of mind by which the nation who first employed it is distinguished.

3. I consider the task I have imposed upon myself the more necessary,
because this department of the science, perhaps regarded by some who
have no ideas beyond stone and mortar as chimerical, and by others who
think nothing necessary but truth and proportion as useless, is at a
miserably low ebb in England. And what is the consequence? We have
Corinthian columns placed beside pilasters of no order at all,
surmounted by monstrosified pepper-boxes, Gothic in form and Grecian in
detail, in a building nominally and peculiarly "National"; we have Swiss
cottages, falsely and calumniously so entitled, dropped in the
brick-fields round the metropolis; and we have staring square-windowed,
flat-roofed gentlemen's seats, of the lath and plaster,
mock-magnificent, Regent's Park description, rising on the woody
promontories of Derwentwater.

4. How deeply is it to be regretted, how much is it to be wondered at,
that, in a country whose school of painting, though degraded by its
system of meretricious coloring, and disgraced by hosts of would-be
imitators of inimitable individuals, is yet raised by the distinguished
talent of those individuals to a place of well-deserved honor; and the
studios of whose sculptors are filled with designs of the most pure
simplicity, and most perfect animation; the school of architecture
should be so miserably debased!

5. There are, however, many reasons for a fact so lamentable. In the
first place, the patrons of architecture (I am speaking of all classes
of buildings, from the lowest to the highest), are a more numerous and
less capable class than those of painting. The general public, and I say
it with sorrow, because I know it from observation, have little to do
with the encouragement of the school of painting, beyond the power which
they unquestionably possess, and unmercifully use, of compelling our
artists to substitute glare for beauty. Observe the direction of public
taste at any of our exhibitions. We see visitors at that of the Society
of Painters in Water Colors, passing Tayler with anathemas and Lewis
with indifference, to remain in reverence and admiration before certain
amiable white lambs and water-lilies, whose artists shall be nameless.
We see them, in the Royal Academy, passing by Wilkie, Turner and
Callcott, with shrugs of doubt or of scorn, to fix in gazing and
enthusiastic crowds upon kettles-full of witches, and His Majesty's
ships so and so lying to in a gale, etc., etc. But these pictures attain
no celebrity because the public admire them, for it is not to the public
that the judgment is intrusted. It is by the chosen few, by our nobility
and men of taste and talent, that the decision is made, the fame
bestowed, and the artist encouraged.

6. Not so in architecture. There, the power is generally diffused. Every
citizen may box himself up in as barbarous a tenement as suits his taste
or inclination; the architect is his vassal, and must permit him not
only to criticise, but to perpetrate. The palace or the nobleman's seat
may be raised in good taste, and become the admiration of a nation; but
the influence of their owner is terminated by the boundary of his
estate: he has no command over the adjacent scenery, and the possessor
of every thirty acres around him has him at his mercy. The streets of
our cities are examples of the effects of this clashing of different
tastes; and they are either remarkable for the utter absence of all
attempt at embellishment, or disgraced by every variety of abomination.

7. Again, in a climate like ours, those few who have knowledge and
feeling to distinguish what is beautiful, are frequently prevented by
various circumstances from erecting it. John Bull's comfort perpetually
interferes with his good taste, and I should be the first to lament his
losing so much of his nationality, as to permit the latter to prevail.
He cannot put his windows into a recess, without darkening his rooms; he
cannot raise a narrow gable above his walls, without knocking his head
against the rafters; and, worst of all, he cannot do either, without
being stigmatized by the awful, inevitable epithet, of "a very odd man."
But, though much of the degradation of our present school of
architecture is owing to the want or the unfitness of patrons, surely it
is yet more attributable to a lamentable deficiency of taste and talent
among our architects themselves. It is true, that in a country affording
so little encouragement, and presenting so many causes for its absence,
it cannot be expected that we should have any Michael Angelo
Buonarottis. The energy of our architects is expended in raising "neat"
poor-houses, and "pretty" charity schools; and, if they ever enter upon
a work of higher rank, economy is the order of the day: plaster and
stucco are substituted for granite and marble; rods of splashed iron for
columns of verd-antique; and in the wild struggle after novelty, the
fantastic is mistaken for the graceful, the complicated for the
imposing, superfluity of ornament for beauty, and its total absence for
simplicity.

8. But all these disadvantages might in some degree be counteracted, all
these abuses in some degree prevented, were it not for the slight
attention paid by our architects to that branch of the art which I have
above designated as the Poetry of Architecture. All unity of feeling
(which is the first principle of good taste) is neglected; we see
nothing but incongruous combination: we have pinnacles without height,
windows without light, columns with nothing to sustain, and buttresses
with nothing to support. We have parish paupers smoking their pipes and
drinking their beer under Gothic arches and sculptured niches; and quiet
old English gentlemen reclining on crocodile stools, and peeping out of
the windows of Swiss chalets.

9. I shall attempt, therefore, to endeavor to illustrate the principle
from the neglect of which these abuses have arisen; that of unity of
feeling, the basis of all grace, the essence of all beauty. We shall
consider the architecture of nations as it is influenced by their
feelings and manners, as it is connected with the scenery in which it is
found, and with the skies under which it was erected; we shall be led as
much to the street and the cottage as to the temple and the tower; and
shall be more interested in buildings raised by feeling, than in those
corrected by rule. We shall commence with the lower class of edifices,
proceeding from the roadside to the village, and from the village to the
city; and, if we succeed in directing the attention of a single
individual more directly to this most interesting department of the
science of architecture, we shall not have written in vain.

_PART I._

The Cottage.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE:--ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY:

THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE:--SWITZERLAND AND WESTMORELAND:

A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS:

AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ON COTTAGE-BUILDING.

THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.

I.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

10. Of all embellishments by which the efforts of man can enhance the
beauty of natural scenery, those are the most effective which can give
animation to the scene, while the spirit which they bestow is in unison
with its general character. It is generally desirable to indicate the
presence of animated existence in a scene of natural beauty; but only of
such existence as shall be imbued with the spirit, and shall partake of
the essence, of the beauty, which, without it, would be dead. If our
object, therefore, is to embellish a scene the character of which is
peaceful and unpretending, we must not erect a building fit for the
abode of wealth or pride. However beautiful or imposing in itself, such
an object immediately indicates the presence of a kind of existence
unsuited to the scenery which it inhabits; and of a mind which, when it
sought retirement, was unacquainted with its own ruling feelings, and
which consequently excites no sympathy in ours: but, if we erect a
dwelling which may appear adapted to the wants, and sufficient for the
comfort, of a gentle heart and lowly mind, we have instantly attained
our object: we have bestowed animation, but we have not disturbed
repose.

11. It is for this reason that the cottage is one of the embellishments
of natural scenery which deserve attentive consideration. It is
beautiful always, and everywhere. Whether looking out of the woody
dingle with its eye-like window, and sending up the motion of azure
smoke between the silver trunks of aged trees; or grouped among the
bright cornfields of the fruitful plain; or forming gray clusters along
the slope of the mountain side, the cottage always gives the idea of a
thing to be beloved: a quiet life-giving voice, that is as peaceful as
silence itself.

12. With these feelings, we shall devote some time to the consideration
of the prevailing character, and national peculiarities, of European
cottages. The principal thing worthy of observation in the lowland
cottage of England is its finished neatness. The thatch is firmly pegged
down, and mathematically leveled at the edges; and, though the martin is
permitted to attach his humble domicile, in undisturbed security, to the
eaves, he may be considered as enhancing the effect of the cottage, by
increasing its usefulness, and making it contribute to the comfort of
more beings than one. The whitewash is stainless, and its rough surface
catches a side light as brightly as a front one: the luxuriant rose is
trained gracefully over the window; and the gleaming lattice, divided
not into heavy squares, but into small pointed diamonds, is thrown half
open, as is just discovered by its glance among the green leaves of the
sweetbrier, to admit the breeze, that, as it passes over the flowers,
becomes full of their fragrance. The light wooden porch breaks the flat
of the cottage face by its projection; and a branch or two of wandering
honeysuckle spread over the low hatch. A few square feet of garden and a
latched wicket, persuading the weary and dusty pedestrian, with
expressive eloquence, to lean upon it for an instant and request a drink
of water or milk, complete a picture, which, if it be far enough from
London to be unspoiled by town sophistications, is a very perfect thing
in its way.[1] The ideas it awakens are agreeable, and the architecture
is all that we want in such a situation. It is pretty and appropriate;
and if it boasted of any other perfection, it would be at the expense of
its propriety.

[Footnote 1: Compare _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, I. Sec. 16.]

13. Let us now cross the Channel, and endeavor to find a country cottage
on the other side, if we can; for it is a difficult matter. There are
many villages; but such a thing as an isolated cottage is extremely
rare. Let us try one or two of the green valleys among the chalk
eminences which sweep from Abbeville to Rouen. Here is a cottage at
last, and a picturesque one, which is more than we could say for the
English domicile. What then is the difference? There is a general air of
_nonchalance_ about the French peasant's habitation, which is aided by a
perfect want of everything like neatness; and rendered more conspicuous
by some points about the building which have a look of neglected beauty,
and obliterated ornament. Half of the whitewash is worn off, and the
other half colored by various mosses and wandering lichens, which have
been permitted to vegetate upon it, and which, though beautiful,
constitute a kind of beauty from which the ideas of age and decay are
inseparable. The tall roof of the garret window stands fantastically
out; and underneath it, where, in England, we had a plain double
lattice, is a deep recess, flatly arched at the top, built of solid
masses of gray stone, fluted on the edge; while the brightness of the
glass within (if there be any) is lost in shade, causing the recess to
appear to the observer like a dark eye. The door has the same character:
it is also of stone, which is so much broken and disguised as to prevent
it from giving any idea of strength or stability. The entrance is always
open; no roses, or anything else, are wreathed about it; several
outhouses, built in the same style, give the building extent; and the
group (in all probability, the dependency of some large old chateau in
the distance) does not peep out of copse, or thicket, or a group of tall
and beautiful trees, but stands comfortlessly between two individuals
of the columns of long-trunked facsimile elms, which keep guard along
the length of the public road.

14. Now, let it be observed how perfectly, how singularly, the
distinctive characters of these two cottages agree with those of the
countries in which they are built; and of the people for whose use they
are constructed. England is a country whose every scene is in
miniature.[2] Its green valleys are not wide; its dewy hills are not
high; its forests are of no extent, or, rather, it has nothing that can
pretend to a more sounding title than that of "wood." Its champaigns are
minutely checkered into fields; we can never see far at a time; and
there is a sense of something inexpressible, except by the truly English
word "snug," in every quiet nook and sheltered lane. The English
cottage, therefore, is equally small, equally sheltered, equally
invisible at a distance.

[Footnote 2: Compare with this chapter, _Modern Painters_, vol. iv.
chap. 1.]

15. But France is a country on a large scale. Low, but long, hills sweep
away for miles into vast uninterrupted champaigns; immense forests
shadow the country for hundreds of square miles, without once letting
through the light of day; its pastures and arable land are divided on
the same scale; there are no fences; we can hardly place ourselves in
any spot where we shall not see for leagues around; and there is a kind
of comfortless sublimity in the size of every scene. The French cottage,
therefore, is on the same scale, equally large and desolate looking;
but we shall see, presently, that it can arouse feelings which, though
they cannot be said to give it sublimity, yet are of a higher order than
any which can be awakened at the sight of the English cottage.

16. Again, every bit of cultivated ground in England has a finished
neatness; the fields are all divided by hedges or fences; the fruit
trees are neatly pruned; the roads beautifully made, etc. Everything is
the reverse in France: the fields are distinguished by the nature of the
crops they bear; the fruit trees are overgrown with moss and mistletoe;
and the roads immeasurably wide, and miserably made.

17. So much for the character of the two cottages, as they assimilate
with the countries in which they are found. Let us now see how they
assimilate with the character of the people by whom they are built.
England is a country of perpetually increasing prosperity and active
enterprise; but, for that very reason, nothing is allowed to remain till
it gets old. Large old trees are cut down for timber; old houses are
pulled down for the materials; and old furniture is laughed at and
neglected. Everything is perpetually altered and renewed by the activity
of invention and improvement. The cottage, consequently, has no
dilapidated look about it; it is never suffered to get old; it is used
as long as it is comfortable, and then taken down and rebuilt; for it
was originally raised in a style incapable of resisting the ravages of
time. But, in France, there prevail two opposite feelings, both in the
extreme; that of the old pedigreed population, which preserves
unlimitedly; and that of the modern revolutionists, which destroys
unmercifully. Every object has partly the appearance of having been
preserved with infinite care from an indefinite age, and partly exhibits
the evidence of recent ill-treatment and disfiguration. Primeval forests
rear their vast trunks over those of many younger generations growing up
beside them; the chateau or the palace, showing, by its style of
architecture, its venerable age, bears the marks of the cannon-ball,
and, from neglect, is withering into desolation. Little is renewed:
there is little spirit of improvement; and the customs which prevailed
centuries ago are still taught by the patriarchs of the families to
their grandchildren. The French cottage, therefore, is just such as we
should have expected from the disposition of its inhabitants; its
massive windows, its broken ornaments, its whole air and appearance, all
tell the same tale of venerable age, respected and preserved, till at
last its dilapidation wears an appearance of neglect.

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