Early Renaissance Architecture in England (eBook)

J. Alfred Gotch (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
298 Seiten
Charles River Editors (Verlag)
978-1-5080-2678-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Paphos Publishers offers a wide catalog of rare classic titles, published for a new generation. 

Early Renaissance Architecture in England is an illustrated, comprehensive overview.

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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

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THE PROGRESS OF STYLE IN the mediæval architecture of England was regular and continuous: so much so, that any one thoroughly acquainted with its various phases can tell the date of a building within some ten years by merely examining the mouldings which embellish it. These successive phases, moreover, merge into one another so gradually, that although it has been possible to divide them into four great periods—called Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular—yet the transition from one to the other is unbroken, and the whole course of development can be traced as regularly as the change from the simplicity of the trunk of a tree to the multiplicity of its leaves. For about four centuries (A.D.1100-1500) this growth continued, English architecture finding within itself the power of progression. But about the beginning of the sixteenth century it began to feel the influence of an outside power—that of Italy—which acted upon it with increasing force until, after two centuries, its native characteristics had nearly disappeared, and Italian buildings were copied in England almost line for line.

The object of the following pages is to display the effect of this foreign influence upon our native architecture up to the point when it became predominant, and stamped our buildings with a character more Classic than Gothic. But it will be desirable first of all to glance shortly at the causes which led to Italy having this extraordinary influence, and at the general effect which that influence produced upon England.

England, in common with the rest of North-western Europe, was the home of Gothic architecture, instinct with the mystery and romantic spirit of the Middle Ages. Italy was the home of Classic architecture, which it had cherished since the great days of Rome. The Gothic manner was never thoroughly acquired in Italy, even in those parts which lay nearest to France and Germany, although it affected their buildings to a certain extent. The best examples of Italian Gothic hold a low rank in comparison with the masterpieces of the northern style. Classic forms were those in which the Italian designer naturally expressed himself, and it was these which he employed when that great revival of the Arts which took place in the fifteenth century, set him building. The earlier Renaissance in letters “the spring before the spring,” of which the great figures are Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, heralded a great awakening of architectural energy, and Italian architects, in solving their new problems, mingled the results of a deep study of ancient examples with much of mediæval spirit and tendency. They set themselves resolutely to revive the architecture which had been one of the glories of ancient Rome; but they could not, even had they wished it, free themselves from the spirit of their own age, and the result was the development of a kind of architecture which used old forms in new ways, and which has gained the distinguishing title of the Renaissance style.

But the awakening in architecture was only one manifestation of the spirit which was abroad: in painting, sculpture, and all the applied arts, as well as in literature, the same vivifying tendency was at work. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an event which flooded Western Europe with Greek scholars and Greek literature, a tremendous impulse was given to the new aspirations. A new world of history and poetry had been discovered, just as, forty years afterwards, a new world of fact and reality was discovered by Columbus and Cabot. The two events combined to excite men’s imagination to an extraordinary degree, and their stimulating effect was visible in all branches of mental activity. There was a marvellous mingling of the old and the new. In the past there was an inexhaustible well of knowledge and suggestion; in the present a boundless opening for enterprise and fresh experiences. Just at this juncture the invention of printing was being perfected, and it came at the precise time to help the dissemination of the new ideas. The result was that great movement of the human mind known as the Renaissance, which in the space of a century altered the life of Western Europe. In politics it shattered the international fabric of the Middle Ages; in religion it brought about the momentous change which we call the Reformation; in art it wedded faultless execution with an extraordinary fecundity of design. There followed an age richer, perhaps, than any other in original genius and fertility of mental products. Italy was at the centre of this upheaval. To her were attracted students from all parts of Europe, not excepting England. She herself was teeming with men of talent in all branches of learning and the arts. It was inevitable that she should part with some of her superfluous energy to the surrounding lands, touched as they were, though less intensely, with the new spirit. So general was the enthusiasm that her neighbours were only too glad to welcome whatever Italy could send, even if not of her very best. The new movement eventually reached the distant shores of England, but as the stream flowed across Europe it became tinged with the peculiarities of the various lands over which it passed, and each country can show its own version of the Italian Renaissance in architecture as well as in other matters. Spain has one version, France another, Germany another, and England yet another; and there is this peculiarity about the English version—that it is coloured by the two channels through which it came, France and the Netherlands.

The whole circumstances of the time being conducive to the spread of Italian ideas and forms (which are only the embodiment of ideas), how did they affect English architecture? They found in England a style long established, and still endowed with considerable vigour. At no period of its history had this style been so peculiarly English in its more elaborate efforts, the special development known as fan-vaulting, for instance—of which the finest examples are to be seen in the chapel at King’s College, Cambridge, and Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster (see Plate I.)—being found only in this country.

The Gothic style of England and the Classic style of Italy had next to nothing in common. Their modes of expression were essentially different. The former was elastic, informal, readily adapted to different needs. Like Cleopatra, it was of infinite variety; its component parts were small and manifold, its tendency was towards well-marked vertical lines. Its outward appearance expressed its inward arrangement: a window more or less, a buttress here, a chimney there—so long as they were wanted—offered no difficulty to the designer. Classic architecture, on the other hand, was formal and restricted by considerations of symmetry; its component parts were simple and less mobile than those of Gothic; its tendency was towards strong horizontal lines. The Gothic string-course, for instance, could jump up and down to adapt itself to a door or window; it broke round projecting piers or buttresses without hesitation. But the classic cornice continued in the same straight line, neither rising nor falling, and only breaking forward round a pier or column after due deliberation. Its projection was far greater than that of any similar feature in Gothic work: it was consequently much less ductile. Compared to Gothic detail, Classic was unwieldy, even that more pliant version of it which had recently been evolved in Italy. The ornament, however, with which the Italian designers so freely adorned their architectural work, unlike that of the ancients, was generally small in scale and elastic in character. Here, therefore, was a feature common to both styles, and we shall find that it is in the ornament of buildings that the change first took place. It will be seen that the progress of the new style was very gradual: it showed itself first in small objects, such as tombs and chantries, and in the unimportant detail of larger buildings; then it affected the more significant detail; and ultimately, after many years, it controlled the organic conception and expression: but this final development did not take place till after the close of the period which we are to consider. That which we are to watch is the struggle of the old and the new: the encounter of the new spirit steeped in classical learning, with the old Gothic traditions and methods.

The great monuments of English Gothic architecture are to be found in ecclesiastical buildings; those of the succeeding phase are domestic in character. The change of thought in religious matters, which was proceeding all through the sixteenth century, was not favourable to church building, and after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. no more churches were built. But the new nobility, rich with the spoils of the dissolved houses and the traffic of the Indies, had acquired a taste for grandeur and dignity in outward life that required great mansions for its display. It is therefore primarily in the Elizabethan mansion that we must watch the contest between the old style and the new—a contest rendered more piquant by the fact that the new style had no experience of this particular kind of building in the land of its origin. The English house had developed on lines widely different from the Italian; it had to meet other wants, it had to contend with a different climate, it was subject to other traditions. The new style when it came, had to harmonize these strange traditions as well as its own, derived from a far distant past, with the original and fertile spirit of the age. The...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Architektur
• Schlagworte: Abbey • Free • Illustrated • Pictures • Westminster
• ISBN-10: 1-5080-2678-5 / 1508026785
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5080-2678-5 / 9781508026785