State of the Fine Arts to the close of the Regency-Architecture-Imitation of Greek modelsSt. Pancras Church-Wyatt and Gothic restorations-Soane-Holland-Smirke-Wilkins-Nash-Regent-street and Regent's Park-Churches-Bridges-Telford-RennieSculpture-Banks-Bacon-Flaxman-Chantrey-Westmacott-The Townley, Phigaleian, and Elgin Marbles-British Institution-Dulwich Gallery-Painting-West-CopleyFuseli-Haydon-Lawrence-Wilkie-Turner-Painting in Water Colours-Engraving

Line Engravers-Wood Engraving-Bewick-Lithography.

Ir is the purpose of the present chapter to carry forward the survey of the state of the Fine Arts from 1783 to the end of the Regency.

Architecture in the last years of the eighteenth century was far from being in a flourishing condition. There was much building, but there was little Art. It was the epoch of the rise of that style of architecture which culminated during the Regency and then collapsed: the style of imitative Greek art. Towards the end of the century was commenced a publication that should be of service in the earlier stage of our inquiry.* It formed, when completed, two costly folio volumes, was addressed to "the Professor, the Student, and the Dilettante, in this noble branch of the Polite Arts," and professed to give " Plans and Elevations of Buildings, public and private, erected in Great Britain" during the past few years. Estimated simply from the examples in these volumes, the character of our architecture and the condition of architectural taste sixty years back must indeed have been at a low ebb. And evidently there was on the part of the author, himself an architect of position, the full intention to afford a favourable representation of the current architecture. He gives views and descriptions of a few

"The New Vitruvius Britannicus," by George Richardson, Architect, 2 vols. folio. London, 1797-1808.

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ARCHITECTURE-IMITATION OF GREEK MODELS. [1784-1820.

public buildings, many mansions, but no churches-an omission easily explained, for no churches were erected then with any pretensions to architectural character, nor indeed till the last years of the Regency. The buildings are by the leading architects of the time; by the Wyatts, Soane, Wilkins, Adams, Mylne, Holland, Nash, and others most in request with private employers, as well as public bodies. In looking over the examples, we see certain general characteristics, which are really the characteristics of the architecture of the period: a formal and symmetrical arrangement to which convenience is often made to give way; in the exterior design, poverty of thought and absence of imagination or invention; the general mass without grandeur or beauty; the ornamental details of the most meagre and common-place description. But it was a time when what we should now call poverty was regarded as purity. Dallaway, an authority in those days, writing at this very time, whilst speaking of the beauty of the newly erected Trinity House, complains that its "purity of style" is injured by the introduction of bas-reliefs on the façade. All the examples in the "New Vitruvius " are, or claim to be, Greek in character, except two or three which are professedly Gothic. With Chambers had ended the classical Italian style. His Somerset House had indeed not long been finished; yet not only is there no representation of it here, but in none of the buildings shown is any imitation of it traceable. Almost every building, whether public or private, has a Greek portico or pediment-usually Ionic affixed against a wall of the baldest and most un-Grecian character, pierced with plain holes for windows.

*

And this sort of thing went on nearly to the end of the period under review. In the latter part of it there was indeed improvement of a certain kind. Grecian travel, or a close acquaintance with Grecian models, came to be as regular a part of every architect's course of study, as a visit to Rome and the measurement of Roman remains had been a few years before. As a consequence, the Grecian orders were copied with greater accuracy, and Grecian mouldings were more or less liberally introduced. But the portico continued to be the grand feature. So that the portico was an exact copy, or followed strictly the proportions, of some extant example in Athens or Ionia, the body of the building was, externally at least, of comparatively little consequence. Nor was it by any means deemed essential that the portico should have any special adaptation to place or circumstance. An Ionic portico was made, during even these last and best years of Greek imitation, to grace indifferently the front of a lunatic asylum, a post-office, or a church; whilst the massive Doric was considered equally applicable to a theatre or a mint, a palace or a corn-market. The culminant example of this mechanical reproduction of a Greek type may be seen in the church of St. Pancras, by Euston-square, London, at once the latest, most "correct," and costliest of the semi-Greek churches. On the southern side of a temple dedicated to the Grecian nymph Pandrosus, which stood on the summit of the lofty Acropolis, and under the clear sky of Athens, was a porch the supports of which, instead of being the usual columns, were six exquisitely

'Anecdotes of the Arts in England, or Comparative Observations on Architecture," &c.,

4to., 1800.

1784-1820.]

ST. PANCRAS CHURCH.

141

sculptured female figures. This porch was copied exactly-except indeed
that its size was increased, and that the material of the structure was stone, and
of the figures "compo," instead of the bright Penthelic marble-and placed
against the side of a church in almost the lowest part of the flat and foggy New
Road. And, as though to push the solecism to its limit, whereas the original
stood on the south side of the temple under the full glare of a mid-day
Athenian sun, while a much larger Ionic portico occupied the corresponding
position on the north side, in the church the porch was reproduced in exact
counterpart on both sides; the northern porch, untouched by a gleam of
sunshine being that which is in full view of the entire stream of traffic,
while the southern porch is comparatively hidden. It only requires to be
added to complete the æsthetic conception, that these London porches were
made to serve as vestries, a chimney-pot being the crowning ornament of
each, whilst the basements are burial-places. With such evidence of mere
routine reproduction we can hardly be surprised to find, at the very close of
the period, one of the most distinguished architects of the time declaring it
to be "a melancholy fact that Architecture has not kept pace with our other
advances towards perfection-nay, that in that noble art we are at least a
century behind our neighbours on the continent." * This was too strongly
expressed, perhaps, but it is the fact that it was a time of cold conven-
tionalism and unreasoning imitation. Yet, palpable as now seems the
absurdity of merely copying Greek buildings or portions of buildings,
without regard to purpose, place, or climate, or to the entirely different cir-
cumstances of the age and the people for which the buildings were intended,
we must bear in mind that the copying from Greek temples only gave way
before the copying of Italian palaces and Gothic churches.
The really
"melancholy fact" is, that in all the forty years here passed in review,
probably not a building could fairly be quoted as an example of con-
siderate adaptation of style to purpose, or of thoughtful originality of
design.

Whilst, however, the architecture of this period claimed to be essentially
Greek, one of the most conspicuous of its professors secured a large measure
of his celebrity by the practice of Gothic. As we saw in a previous chapter,
James Wyatt sprung into fame by the erection, in 1772, of the Pantheon.
He had since been extensively employed in the erection of country mansions
of the set "classic" style, and he continued to be so employed to the end of
his days. But the death, in 1784, of Essex, the protégé of Horace Walpole,
who had long acted almost exclusively as the architect of cathedrals, colleges,
and other important Gothic buildings, left an opening which Wyatt hastened
to occupy.
Lee Priory, Kent (1784), his first essay in this style, was
praised by Walpole. He soon found grander opportunities for displaying his
capability of rivalling the medieval designers or improving on their designs.
Chief among his Gothic buildings were Fonthill, erected (1795, &c.) at an
almost fabulous cost for the celebrated Beckford; the palace at Kew, of
"castellated Gothic," which was left unfinished, and finally pulled down
without having ever been occupied; and Ashridge, Hertfordshire, built for
the earl of Bridgewater. Regarded as imitations of the Gothic of any

* Sir John Soane, "Civil Architecture," folio, 1829, p. 12.

142

WYATT-GOTHIC RESTORATIONS.

[1784-1820. period, or as what is now spoken of as a development of Gothic, these buildings would appear quite puerile. They are in fact an incongruous admixture of what may, perhaps, be called Gothic forms and details, though of the latest and most meagre description, adapted to structures which neither in plan nor elevation are in any sense Gothic. But about some of them, Ashridge in particular, there is a certain grandiose picturesqueness never seen in the architect's pseudo-classic mansions. And it must be remembered in mitigation of his Gothic heresies, that Gothic, when Wyatt began to practise it, had received no such searching investigation as that to which it has since been subjected. Not only were its principles undefined, but even its details had never been accurately represented. It was in fact to antiquaries as much as to architects an unknown language, and Wyatt was too busy a man to spend much time in deciphering its hieroglyphics. It is noticeable, however, as an illustration of the little genuine feeling he had for Gothic architecture, as well as of the little regard that was given to the subject generally, that at Oxford-where, if anywhere, Gothic would have seemed the appropriate style-when Wyatt was called in to construct a library for Oriel college, he, as we find it stated in an architectural work of a somewhat later time, " introduced a correct Ionic;" whilst for the gateway at Christchurch, he introduced "a beautiful Doric," though it is considerately added, "the columns, when compared with the Greek, appear too slender.” But his most indefensible Gothic misdeeds were his so-called "restorations." As the chief professor of Gothic architecture he was employed in repairing several of our noblest cathedrals, and in so doing altered or destroyed with reckless hand whatever seemed to him unnecessary or even unsymmetrical. Especially was this the case at Hereford, Litchfield, and Salisbury; at the last he altogether demolished among other things a bell tower, and several chapels of exquisite beauty. Magdalen, Merton, All Souls, Balliol and several other Oxford colleges, also suffered in different degrees from his unhappy restorations. Samuel Wyatt, a brother of James, had a considerable reputation, and his works are not wholly devoid of invention. Like his brother he was largely employed in constructing private residences. His best building of a public character was Trinity House, Tower Hill, of no great architectural merit, but noteworthy as having on the front rilievi by Bacon, and in the interior one of the latest of those allegorical ceiling paintings that once furnished such profitable occupation for the pencils of Verrio, and Laguerre. Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, the nephew, scholar, and faithful follower of James Wyatt, belongs only in part to this period; his great work, the alteration of Windsor Castle, was not commenced till 1824; whilst Sidney Sussex College was eight or ten years. later. His earlier works were chiefly private residences of the ordinary Wyatt type.

Sir John Soane ought to serve as the representative of the highest order of architectural ability of this period. On the death of Taylor, in 1788, he was appointed architect to the Bank of England. On the death of Chambers. (1796) he was made architect to the Woods and Forests. He was royal

academician, and professor of architecture in the Royal Academy; and he was knighted on account of his professional eminence. Soane's chief building is the Bank of England, which was greatly enlarged and entirely

1784-1820.]

SOANE BANK OF ENGLAND.

143

remodelled by him, the works extending over a period of thirty years (1788-1829). The interior, including the public rooms, has been much altered by Mr. Cockerell since Soane's time, which may be regarded as an evidence of inconvenient arrangement or of extended business; the exterior has also been altered, and improved in the alteration, by giving an increased elevation to the principal entrance-front; but the great portion of the exterior, on which Soane's reputation now mainly rests, is still nearly as he left it. At the time of its erection it was commonly regarded as a masterpiece. It is now as commonly condemmed. There can be no question that it is deficient in one of the grand requisites of good architecture-propriety. The columns have nothing to support; beneath the pediments are no doorways; there are the forms of windows, but they admit no light. The whole is a mask. The parts are for ornament, not use. They may please at the first glance, but the mind refuses to dwell with a continuous pleasure on objects which suggest a use they do not supply. Else, there are parts of this screen

of an elegant and even picturesque appearance. Such is the well-known north-west angle, Soane's own favourite composition, with its skilfully arranged and graceful Roman-Corinthian columns. Every one feels this to have been a happy conception of the architect, and it serves excellently to conceal the oblique meeting of the walls-a defect that if left apparent would have been an almost fatal injury to a building of classical character. So again some of the inner-courts are very elegant and effective. Soane had considerable ingenuity in these lesser matters. Wherever any irregularity of ground-plan