The Bases of Design. Walter Crane
work of each, however individual and free in artistic expression, falling naturally into its due place in a harmonious scheme. Let us cultivate our technical skill and knowledge to the utmost, but let us not neglect our imagination, sense of beauty, and sympathy, or else we shall have nothing to express.
Through the thirteenth century onwards to the fifteenth Gothic architecture continued to develop, to pass through new phases, to take new forms, a living and growing style moving with the wants and ideals of men.
After the Early English comes the Decorated period, in which the mouldings and foliation become fuller, broader, and more ornate. To contrast decorated foliation and ornament with the earlier work, is like comparing the opening flower with the bud. The ogee arch was invented, the crockets of the pinnacles and canopies grew and increased and became finer in form, the finials larger and more varied. The carved canopies and tabernacle work grew richer and more intricate. The foliage followed nature more closely. The figure subjects of the carver were more freely treated, and dealt oftener with common life, with phantasy, or humour. The effigies of knight and lady, or priest, became more and more like portraits in stone or alabaster, the details of their dresses more rich, delicate, and beautiful. The maker of brasses showed a freer and more masterly hand, and greater sense of ornamental effect in the spacing and treatment of his figures. The work of the miniaturist and the scribe grew more and more delicate and exquisite in form, colour, and invention. The stained glass worker increased the scale of his figures, and varied the quality and treatment of his colours. The glazier invented new lead patterns; the wood carver revelled in stall work, screens, and misereres. The recessed and canopied tomb enriched the chantries of churches and cathedrals.
THE FIVE SISTERS OF YORK THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
DETAILS OF TOMB WINCHELSEA CH. 1303.
Finial.
Pinnacle.
Crocket.
Termination of Cusp.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY CANOPIED TOMB, WINCHELSEA CHURCH.
Wells Cathedral Architectural feeling & detail in iron work.
Wrought-Iron Railing.
Tomb of Bishop Thomas De Bekynton 1464-5.
Beauty and invention of extraordinary fertility and richness characterized every form of art and handicraft associated with Gothic architecture. We can trace in each variety the architectural influence in every department of work. In some instances reproduction of actual architectural details and characteristics, as, for instance, when the wrought-iron railing of a bishop's tomb (at Wells Cathedral, 1464-5) reproduced the battlement, buttress and pinnacle as motives, giving them, however, a free and fanciful rendering suited to the material.
DRESSOIR OR SIDE BOARD 15th CENT. FRENCH
(from L. Roger Milès)
CANOPIED SEAT FRENCH 15th CENT.
Abundant instances may be found of the fanciful treatment of architectural forms in furniture, textiles, in painting and carving, and metal work—the canopies over the heads of figures in stained glass, and inclosing figures upon brasses, are instances—shrines and caskets in the form of arcaded, and buttressed and pinnacled buildings, seats and chairs with canopied or arched backs, carved bench ends with "poppy head" finials and arched and foliated panels, censers in the form of shrines. The large gold brocaded stuffs used as hangings or coverings, and represented in miniatures and pictures of the period. Very beautiful specimens are to be seen in the pictures of Van Eyck and Memling for instance.
CARVED BENCH-ENDS, DENNINGTON CHURCH, SUFFOLK.
In all these things we find a re-echo, as it were, of the prevailing foliated forms of Gothic architecture, repeated through endless variations, the controlling and harmonizing element throughout the design work of the Gothic periods, the form by which all seem to be harmonized and related, as the branches are related to the main stem, and as the plan of the tree may be found in the veining of the leaf.
The fourteenth century saw the development of a new phase of Gothic called Perpendicular. It is found united with the Early English and Decorated, as well as Norman, in nearly all our cathedrals.
BROCADE HANGING, FROM THE ANNUNCIATION, BY MEMLING.
At St. David's, for instance, there is a remarkable instance of a late Perpendicular timber roof, richly moulded and carved, with pendants, covering a Norman nave of 1180. Yet the effect is fine, and one feels glad that the restoring architect could find no authority for a Norman stone vaulting, otherwise we might have lost the rich timber roof for a modern idea of a supposititious Norman vault. The sketch (from the south side of the choir at Canterbury, p. 45), too, shows how harmoniously structural lines of different periods compose.
The chief characteristics of the late period of Gothic (Perpendicular) are a lower pitched arch, an elongated shaft, many clustered; caps and bases angular; ribs of vaulting richly moulded, or the vault covered with fan-like foliation in late examples, as in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Pinnacles begin to take the cupular form, details become smaller, windows grow larger and are transversely divided by transoms or horizontal bars of stone, connecting and solidifying the many vertical mullions.
ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.
A certain refinement of detail and line with a feeling for emphatic horizontals and verticals comes in; and this feeling may be the indication of a reaction, as if the constructive and imaginative faculties of man were beginning to prepare for the next great change that was soon to sweep over the art of Europe.
STRUCTURAL LINES OF DIFFERENT PERIODS IN HARMONIOUS COMBINATION, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.
It might be said that gradually from that time architecture, as the supreme organic and controlling influence in the arts of design, gave up her prerogative of leadership, and since has rather been on the whole displaced in artistic interest by the other arts; or rather, with the change of the principle of organic growth out of use and constructive necessity in architecture for those of classical authority, archæology, or learned eclecticism, the different arts, more especially painting, began an independent existence, and, with the other arts of design, may be said to have been more individualized and less and less related both to them and to architecture ever since, reaching the extremest points of divergence perhaps in our own days.
It seems to me that, on the whole, there can be little doubt that architecture and the arts of design generally have suffered in consequence; and to bring them back to healthy and harmonious activity we must try to re-unite them all again upon the old basis.
I will terminate here my short sketch of architectural style and its influence, not attempting now to follow it in its later changes and adaptations to the increased complexities of human existence. My purpose has been rather to dwell upon the organic and typical forms of architecture, in my endeavour to trace the relationship between it and the art of design generally.
That relationship appears to me to consist chiefly in the control of constructive line and form, which all design, surface or