Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861

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Through Schinkel, the pure Hellenic style, only hinted at previously in
the attempts of less inspired Germans, such as Langhaus, who embodied
his crude conceptions in the once celebrated Brandenburg Gate, was
fairly and grandly revived in the Hauptwache Theatre and the beautiful
Museum and the Bauschule and Observatory of Berlin. He competed with
Klenze in a series of designs for the new palace at Athens, rich with a
truly royal array of courts, corridors, saloons, and colonnades. But the
evil fate which ever hangs over the competitions of genius was baleful
even here, and the barrack-like edifice of Guetner was preferred. His
latest conception was a design of a summer palace at Orianda, in the
Crimea, for the Empress of Russia, where the purity of the old Greek
lines was developed into the poetry of terraces and hanging-gardens and
towers, far-looking over the Black Sea. Schinkel was called the Luther
of Architecture; and the spiritual serenity which he breathed into the
pomp and ceremonious luxury of the Art of his day seems to give him some
title to this distinction. Yet, with all the freedom and originality
with which he wrought out the new advent, he was perhaps rather too
timid than too bold in his reforms,--adhering too strictly to the
original letter of Greek examples, especially with regard to the orders.
He could not entirely shake off the old incubus of Rome.

And so, though in a less degree, with Klenze. When, in 1825, Louis of
Bavaria came to the throne, he was appointed Government Architect, and
in this capacity gave shape to the noble dreams of that monarch, in the
famous Glyptotheque, the Pinacotheque, the palace, and those civil and
ecclesiastical buildings which render Munich one of the most monumental
cities of Europe. It was his confessed aim to take up the work of the
Renaissance artists, having regard to our increased knowledge of that
antique civilization of which the masters of the sixteenth century could
study only the most complex developments, and those models of Rome which
were farthest removed from the pure fountain-head of Greece. "To-day,"
he said, "put in possession of the very principles of Hellenic Art,
we can apply them to all our actual needs,--learning from the Greeks
themselves to preserve our independence, and at the same time to be duly
novel and unrestrained according to circumstances." These are certainly
noble sentiments; and one cannot but wish, that, when, in 1830, Klenze
was called upon to prepare plans for the grand Walhalla of Bavaria, he
had remembered his sublime theory and worked up to its spirit, instead
of recalling the Parthenon in his exterior and the Olympian temple of
Agrigentum in his interior. The last effort of this distinguished artist
was the building of three superb palaces for the museum of the Emperor
at St. Petersburg, finished in 1851.

The seed thus planted fell upon good ground and brought forth a
hundred-fold. Then, throughout Germany, the scholastic formalism of the
old Renaissance began to fall into disrepute, and a finer feeling for
the eloquence of pure lines began to show itself. The strict limitations
of the classic orders were no longer recognized as impassable; a
sentiment of artistic freedom, a consciousness of enlarged resources,
a far wider range of form and expression, were evident in town and
country, in civil and ecclesiastical structures; and with all this
delightful and refreshing liberty was mingled that peculiar refinement
of line which was revived from Greece and was the secret of this change.
It was not over monumental edifices alone that this calm and thoughtful
spirit was breathed, but the most playful fancies of domestic
architecture derived from it an increased grace and purity, and the
study of Love moved over them, elegant and light-footed as Camilla.

"The flower she touched on dipped and rose,
And turned to look at her."

This revival of Hellenic principles is now infusing life into modern
German designs; and so well are these principles beginning to be
understood, that architects do not content themselves with the mere
reproduction of that narrow range of motives which was uttered in the
temples of heroic Greece, but, under these new impulses, they gather in
for their use all that has been done in ancient or modern Italy, in the
Romanesque of Europe, in the Gothic period, in Saracenic or Arabic Art,
in all the expressions of the old Renaissance. By the very necessity
of the Greek line, they are rendered catholic and unexcluding in their
choice of forms, but fastidious and hesitating in their interpretation
of them into this new language of Art. Thus the good work is going on in
Germany, and architecture _lives_ there, thanks to those two illustrious
pilgrims who brought back from the land of epics, not only the
scallop-shells upon their shoulders, but in their hearts the
consecration of Ideal Beauty.

According to the usual custom, in the year 1827, a scholar of the Ecole
des Beaux Arts in Paris, having achieved the distinguished honor of
being named _Grand Pensionnaire_ of Architecture for that year,--was
sent to the Academie Francaise in the Villa Medici at Rome, to pursue
his studies there for five years at the expense of the Government. This
scholar was Henri Labrouste. While in Italy, his attention was directed
to the Greek temples of Paestum. Trained, as he had been, in the
strictest academic architecture of the Renaissance, he was struck by
many points of difference between these temples and the Palladian
formulae which had hitherto held despotic sway over his studies. In
grand and minor proportions, in the disposition of triglyphs in the
frieze, in mouldings and general sentiment, he perceived a remarkable
freedom from the restraints of his school,--a freedom which, so far from
detracting from the grandeur of the architecture, gave to it a degree of
life and refinement which his appreciative eye now sought for in vain
among the approved models of the Academy. Studying these new revelations
with love and veneration, it was not long before the pure Hellenic
spirit, confined in the severe peristyles and cellas of the Paestum
temples, entered into his heart, with all its elastic capacities, all
its secret and mysterious sympathies for the new life which had sprung
up during its long imprisonment in those stained and shattered marbles.
Labrouste, on his return to Paris, in 1830, surprised the grave
professors of the Academy, Le Bas, Baltard, and the rest, by presenting
to them, as the result of his studies, carefully elaborated drawings
of the temples at Paestum. Witnessing, with pious horror, the grave
departures from their rules contained in the drawings of their former
favorite, they charged him with error, even as a copyist. True to their
prejudices, their eyes did not penetrate beyond the outward type, and
they at once began to find technical objections. They told him, never
did such an absurdity occur in classic architecture as a triglyph on a
corner! Palladio and the Italian masters never committed such an obvious
crime against propriety, nor could an instance of it be found in all
Roman antiquities. It was in vain that poor Labrouste upheld the
accuracy of his work, and reminded the Academy that among the Roman
models no instance had been found of a Doric corner,--that this order
occurred only so ruined that no corner was left for examination, or in
the grand circumferences of the Colosseum and the Theatre of Marcellus,
where, from the nature of the case, no corner could be. The professors
still maintained the integrity of their long-established ordinances,
and, to disprove the assertions of the young pretender, even sent
a commission to examine the temples in question. The result was a
confirmation of the fact, the ridicule of Paris, the consequent branding
of the young artist as an architectural heretic, and a continued
persecution of him by the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Undaunted, however,
Labrouste established an _atelier_ in Paris, to which flocked many
intelligent students, sympathizing with the courage which could be
so strong in the conviction of truth as to brave in its defence the
displeasure of the powerful hierarchy of the School.

Thus was founded the new Renaissance in France; and, in this genial
atmosphere, Greek lines began to exercise an influence far more thorough
and healthy than had hitherto been experienced in the whole history of
Art. To the lithe and elegant fancy of the French this Revelation was
especially grateful. For the youth of this nation soon learned that
in these newly opened paths, their invention and sentiment, so long
straitened and confined within the severe limits of the old system,
could move with the utmost freedom, and at the same time be preserved
from licentious excess by the delicate spirit of the new lines. Thus
natural fervor, grace, and fecundity of thought found here a most
welcome outlet.

For some time the designs of the new school were not recognized in the
competitions of the Ecole des Beaux Arts; but when, in the course of
Nature, some two or three of the more strenuous and bigoted professors
of Palladio's golden rules were removed from the scene of contest, the
_Romantique_ (for so the new system had been named) was received at
length into the bosom of the architectural church, and now it may be
justly deemed _the distinctive architectural expression of French Art_.

Labrouste was not alone in his efforts; but Duban and Constant Dufeux
seconded him with genius and energy. Most of the important buildings
which have been erected in France within the last six or eight years
have either been unreservedly and frankly in the new style, or been
refined by more limited applications of Hellenic principles. Even the
revived Mediaeval school, which, under the distinguished leadership of
M. Viollet le Duc and the lamented M. J.B.A. Lassus, has lately been
strengthened to a remarkable degree in France, and which shared with
the _Romantique_ the displeasure of the Academy,--even this has tacitly
acknowledged the power of Greek lines, and instinctively suffered them
to purify, to a certain degree, the old grotesque Gothic license. Most
of the modern buildings of Paris along the new Boulevards, around the
tower of St. Jacques, and wherever else the activity of the Emperor
has made itself felt in the improvements of the French capital, are by
masters or pupils of the _Romantique_ persuasion, and, in their design,
are distinguished by that tenderness of Love and earnestness of Thought
which are the fountains of living Art. One of the most remarkable
peculiarities of this school is, that it brings out of every mind which
studies and builds in it strong traits of individuality; so that every
work appears as if its author had something particular to express in
it,--something to say with especial grace and emphasis. The ordinary
decorations of windows and doors are not made in conventional shapes,
as of yore, but are highly idiosyncratic. The designer had a distinct
thought about this window or that door,--and when he would use his
thought to ornament these features, he idealized it with his Greek lines
to make it architectural, just as a poet attunes his thought to the
harmony and rhythm of verse. Antique prejudices, bent into rigid
conformity with antique rubrics, are often shocked at the strange
innovations of these new Dissenters from the faith of Palladio and
Philibert Delorme,--shocked at the naked humanity in the new works,
and would cover it with the conventional fig-leaves prescribed in the
homilies of Vignola. Laymen, accustomed to the cold architectural
proprieties of the old Renaissance, and habituated to the formalities
of the five orders, the prudish decorum of Italian window-dressings and
pediments and pilasters and scrolls, are apt to be surprised at such
strange dispositions of unprecedented and heretical features, that the
intention of the building in which they occur is at once patent to the
most casual observer, and the story of its destination told with the
eloquence of a poetical and monumental language. All great revolutions
have proved how hard it is to break through the crust of custom, and
this has been no exception to the rule; yet in justice it must be said
that every intelligent mind, every eye possessing the "gifted simplicity
of vision", to use a happy phrase of Hawthorne's, recognizes the truth
and wisdom there are in the blessed renovations of the _Romantique_,
and looks upon them as the sweeps of a besom clearing away the dust
and cobwebs which ages of prejudice have spread thickly around the
magnificent art of architecture.

Unlike the unwieldy and ponderous classic or Italian systems, whose
pride cannot stoop to anything beneath the haughtiest uses of life
without being broken into the whims of the grotesque and _Rococo_, the
_Romantique_ has already exhibited the graceful ease with which it may
be applied to the most playful as well as the most serious employments
of Art. It has decorated the perfumer's shop on the Boulevards with the
most delicate fancies woven out of the odor of flowers and the finest
fabrics of Nature, and, in the hands of Labrouste, has built the great
Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve, the most important work with pure Greek
lines, and perhaps the most exquisite, while it is one of the most
serious, of modern buildings. The lore of the classics and the knowledge
of the natural world, idealized and harmonized by affectionate study,
are built up in its walls, and, internally and externally, it is a work
of the highest Art. The _Romantique_ has also been used with especial
success in funereal monuments. Structures of this character, demanding
earnestly in their composition the expression of human sentiment, have
hitherto been in most cases unsatisfactory, as they have been built
out of a narrow range of Renaissance, Egyptian and Gothic _motives_,
originally invented for far different purposes, and, since then,
_classified_, as it were, for use, and reduced to that inflexible system
out of which have come the formal restrictions of modern architecture.
Hence these _motives_ have never come near enough to human life, in its
individual characteristics, to be plastic for the expression of those
emotions to which we desire to give the immortality of stone in memory
of departed friends. The _Romantique_, however, confined to no rigid
types of external form, out of its noble freedom is capable of giving
"a local habitation and a name" to a thousand affections which hitherto
have wandered unseen from heart to heart, or been palpable only in words
and gestures which disturb our sympathies for a while and then die.
Probably the most remarkable indication of this capacity, as yet shown,
is contained in a tomb erected by Constant Dufeux in the Cimetiere du
Sud, near Paris, for the late Admiral Dumont d'Urville. This structure
contains in its outlines a symbolic expression of human life, death,
and immortality, and in its details an architectural version of the
character and public services of the distinguished deceased. The finest
and most eloquent resources of color and the chisel are brought to bear
on the work; and the whole, combined by a very sensitive and delicate
feeling for proportion, thus embodies one of the most expressive elegies
ever written. The tomb of Madame Delaroche, _nee_ Vernet, in the
Cimetiere Montmartre, by Duban, is another remarkable instance of this
elastic capacity of Greek lines; and though taken frankly, in its
general form, from a common Gothic type, its chaste and graceful
freedom from Gothic restrictions in detail gives it a life and poetic
expressiveness which must be exceedingly grateful to the Love which
commanded its erection.

Paris thus affords us, in its modern architecture, a happy proof of the
inevitable reforming and refining tendencies of the abstract lines
of Greece, when properly understood and fairly applied. Under their
influence old things have been made new, and the coldness and hardness
of Academic Art have been warmed and softened into life. Through the
agency of the _Romantique_ school, perhaps more new and directly
symbolic architectural expressions have been uttered within the last
four years than within the last four centuries combined. Like the
gestures of pantomime, which constitute an instinctive and universal
language, these abstract lines, coming out of our humanity and rendered
elegant by the idealization of study, are restoring to architecture its
highest capacity of conveying thought in a monumental manner. One of the
most dangerous results of that eclecticism which the advanced state of
our archaeological knowledge has made the principal characteristic
of modern design consists in the fatal facility thus afforded us
of availing ourselves of vast resources of forms and combinations
ready-made to suit almost all the exigencies of composition, as we have
understood it. The public has thus been made so familiar with the set
variations of classic orders and Palladian windows and cornices, with
all manner of Gothic chamfers and cuspidations and foliations, and the
other conventional symbols of architecture, which undeniably have more
of _knowledge_ than _love_ in them,--so accustomed have the people
become to these things, that the great art of which these have been the
only language now almost invariably fails to strike any responsive chord
in the human heart or to do any of that work which it is the peculiar
province of the fine arts to accomplish. Instead of leading the age, it
seems to lag behind it, and to content itself with reflecting into our
eyes the splendor of the sun which has set, instead of facing the east
and foretelling the glory which is coming. Architecture, properly
conceived, should always contain within itself a direct appeal to the
sense of fitness and propriety, the common-sense of mankind, which is
ever ready to recognize reason, whether conveyed by the natural motions
of the mute or the no less natural motions of lines. Now history has
proved to us, as has been shown, how, when the eloquence of these
simple, instinctive lines has been used as the primary element of
design, great eras of Art have arisen, full of the sympathies of
humanity, immortal records of their age. It cannot be denied, on the
other hand, that our eclectic architecture, popularly speaking, is not
comprehended, even by the most intelligent of cultivated people; and
this is plainly because it is based on learning and archeology,
instead of that natural love which scorns the limitations of any other
_authorities and precedents_ than those which can be found in the human
heart, where the true architecture of our time is lying unsuspected,
save in those half-conscious Ideals which yearn for free expression in
Art.

Let our artists turn to Greece, and learn how, in the meditative repose
of that antiquity, these Ideals arose to life beneficent with the
baptism of grace, and became visible in the loveliness of a hundred
temples. Let them there learn how in our own humanity is the essence of
form as a language, and that _to create_, as true artists, we must
know ourselves and our own distinctive capacities for the utterance of
monumental history. After this sublime knowledge comes the necessity
of the knowledge of precedent. The great Past supplies us with the raw
material, with orders, colonnades and arcades, pediments, consoles,
cornices, friezes and architraves, buttresses, battlements, vaults,
pinnacles, arches, lintels, rustications, balustrades, piers, pilasters,
trefoils, and all the innumerable conventionalities of architecture. It
is plainly our duty not to revive and combine these in those cold and
weary changes which constitute modern design, but to make them live and
speak intelligibly to the people through the eloquent modifications of
our own instinctive lines of Life and Beauty.

The riddle of the modern Sphinx is, How to create a new architecture?
and we find the Oedipus who shall solve it concealed in our own hearts.

* * * * *

THE ORDEAL BY BATTLE.

Virginia, which began by volunteering as peacemaker in our civil
troubles, seems likely to end by being their battleground; as Mr.
Pickwick, interfering between the belligerent rival editors, only
brought upon his own head the united concussion of their carpet-bags.
And as Dickens declares that the warriors engaged far more eagerly in
that mimic strife, on discovering that all blows were to be received
by deputy, so there is evidently an increased willingness to deal hard
knocks on both sides, in the present case, so long as it is clear that
only Virginia will take them. Maryland, under protection of our army,
adroitly contrives to shift the scene of action farther South. The Gulf
States, with profuse courtesies for the Old Dominion, consent to shift
it farther North. The Southern Confederacy has talked about
paying Richmond the "compliment" of selecting it for the seat of
government;--as if a bully, about to be lynched in his own house by the
crowd, should compliment his next-door neighbor by climbing in at his
window. It is very pleasant to have a hospitable friend; but it is
counting on his hospitality rather too strongly, when you make choice of
his apartments to be tarred and feathered in.

Thus fades the fancy of an "independent neutrality" for the Old
Dominion. It ought to fade;--for neutrality is a crime, where one's
mother's life is at stake; and the Border theory of independence only
reminds one of Pitt's definition of an independent statesman, "a
statesman not to be depended on". How sad has been the decline of
Virginia! How strange, that in 1790, of the ten American post-offices
yielding more than a thousand dollars annually, that stately old
commonwealth held five! Now "a poverty-stricken State", by confession of
her own newspapers,--beleaguered, blockaded,--with no imports but
hungry and moneyless soldiers, and no exports save fugitives of all
colors,--what has she to hope from the present warfare? Elsewhere riches
have wings; in Virginia they are yet more transitory, having legs. Two
hundred million dollars' worth of her property has become unsalable, if
not worthless, within two months. She has but two great staples: tobacco
to send North, and slaves to send South. The slaves at present go only
to the wrong point of the compass, at rates remunerative to themselves
alone; and the tobacco-trade, for this season, will not even end in
smoke.

But that which is now the condition of Virginia must ultimately be
the condition of the other seceding States. The tide of Secession has
already turned, and such tides never turn twice. The conspirators in
Maryland and Missouri had but one opportunity, and it was lost; with it
also went the whole cause of the Secessionists. For one week the North
shuddered, knowing the defenceless condition of Washington. Now no
Northern man shudders, except those whose Southern female cousins have
not yet found a refuge with the household gods of the eminent Senator
from Texas.

The man who ever doubted that the first gun fired by the insurgents
would instantly unite the nation against them knew as little of the
American people as if he were editor of the London "Times." There is no
chemical solvent like gunpowder. Even the Mexican War, utterly opposed
to the moral convictions of the majority of Northern men, swept them
away in such a current that the very party which opposed it could find
no path to the Presidency but for its chief hero. Had the present
outbreak occurred far less favorably than it has, had the discretion of
President Lincoln been much less, or that of Mr. Davis much greater,
still the unanimity would have been merely a question of time, and
the danger of Washington would have reconciled all minor feuds. The
Democratic party would inevitably have embraced the war, when once
declared; Douglas would have made speeches for it, Buchanan subscribed
money for it, and Butler joined in it; Bennett would still have floated
triumphant on the tide of zeal, and Caleb Cushing still have offered to
the Government his cavalry company of one. It is a grace not given to
any American party, to stand out long against the enthusiasm of a war.

No doubt the Secession leaders have treated us very handsomely, as to
amount of provocation. It is rare that any great contest begins by a
blow so unequivocal as the bombardment of Fort Sumter; and rare in
recent days for any set of belligerents to risk the ignominy of
privateering. But, after all, it is the startling social theories
announced by the new "government" which form the chief strength of its
enemies. Either slavery is essential to a community, or it must be fatal
to it,--there is no middle ground; and the Secessionists have taken one
horn of the dilemma with so delightful a frankness as to leave us no
possible escape from taking the other. Never, in modern days, has there
been a conflict in which the contending principles were so clearly
antagonistic. The most bigoted royal house in Europe never dreamed of
throwing down the gauntlet for the actual ownership of man by man. Even
Russia never fought for serfdom, and Austria has only enslaved nations,
not individuals. In civil wars, especially, all historic divergences
have been trivial compared to ours, so far as concerned the avowed
principles of strife. In the French wars of the Fronde, the only
available motto for anybody was the _Tout arrive en France_, "Anything
may happen in France," which gayly recognized the absurd chaos of the
conflict. In the English civil wars, the contending factions first
disagreed upon a shade more or less of royal prerogative, and it took
years to stereotype the hostility into the solid forms with which we now
associate it. Even at the end of that contest, no one had ventured to
claim such a freedom as our Declaration of Independence asserts, on
the one side,--nor to recognize the possibility of such a barbarism
as Jefferson Davis glorifies, on the other. The more strongly the
Secessionists state their cause, the more glaringly it is seen to differ
from any cause for which any sane person has taken up arms since the
Roman servile wars. Their leaders may be exhibiting very sublime
qualities; all we can say is, as Richardson said of Fielding's heroes,
that their virtues are the vices of a decent man.

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