The Craftsman - 1902 - 03 - March

7/27/2019 The Craftsman - 1902 - 03 - March

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THE CRAFTSMANMARCH MDCCCCII

The Gothic Revival,The Art of Building

Review.93y Irene Sargent.

CONTENTSa Home, by Parker and Unwin : A

The Economic Foundation of Art.By A. M . Simons, edit or of The I nternat i onalSoci ali sf Revi ew .The Modern Craftsman: The Question of His Livelihood.

%y Helen R. Atbee.

PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCEMENTS&D

~SUBSCRIPTIONS : Subscription price $2.00 the year, inadvance, postpaid to any address in the United States orCanada, and to begin with any desired number.

TREMITTANCES : Remittances may be made by PostOffice money order, bank cheques, express order, or inpostage stamps.TCHANGE OF ADDRESS: When a change of addressis desired, both the old and the new address shouId begiven, and notice of the change should reach this officenot later than the fifteenth of the month, to affect thesucceeding issue. The publishers cannot be responsiblefor copies lost through failure to notify them of suchchanges.

The Unitkd Crafts, Publishers, Eastwood,New York

Copyright. 1901 br Gustave Stich1.r



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FOREWORD

T HE unvarying aim of The Craftsman is to placebefore its readers great examples of art allied to labor.It therefore offers in the current number some considera-tions upon those b&din principles of the Middle Ageswhich reached their hig a est development in the FrenchGothic cathedral, and which, disseminated throu houtNorthern Europe, produced the beautiful pointed arc tec-lture : a style long misapprehended and stigmatized as bar-baric, but which, during the nineteenth centu , receiveda measure of the admiration merited by it. To x ave @venan account of this revulsion of feeling, which is known as The Gothic Revival, without indicating the principlesfor which it stood, would have been to present a numberof isolated facts more or less interesting in themselves,Instead, an attempt has been made to show that the im-pulse toward mediaeval art which began in Horace Wal-pole and Walter Scott, and culminated in Ruskin andMorris, was much more than an aesthetic movement ; thatit was based on a desire for a simpler, truer and moreorganic social life. Among the authorities quotedin the leading article of the present month may be men-tioned Frederic Harrison, Victor Hugo, Viollet-le-Due,Vitet, and Professor Moore.It is hoped to return, later in theyear, to certain phases of the same subject, and to offer inone of the autumn numbers of The Craftsman both Iit-erary sketches and reproductions of photographs made atAmiens, Chartres, Paris, and in various cathedral cities ofEngland. The April number of the maga-zinewiflbe devoted to the art of making and binding beau-tiful books. The principal article will treat of the produc-



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iv FOREWORD

tions of the Kelmscott Press, as well as of the work of anumber of historic bookbinders. The contents will alsoinclude an account of The Life and Work of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, by Emily Preston, and a technical paperOn the Bindin of Books, by Florence Foote of theEvelyn Nordko B Bindery. The publishers of The Crafts-man atefully acknowledge the receipt of a photographtaken rom a bronze portrait medallion of Robert Owen.The medallion was found in 1899 beneath the floor of oneof the houses of the communiat New Harmony, Indiana. tK established by Mr. Owen,t is owned bDale Parke, of Avondale, Cincinnati, who o fered the pheMrs. Ninatograph for publication, and, at the same time, ex ressedRr .her appreciation of the sketch of the Enher relative, which appeared in The Iish philantE opist,raftsman for February. At the time of issue, it was retrait of the subject of the sketch could retted that no por-% found, and it isnow gratifying to announce that the want has been supplied through the interest of a reader.



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL

T 0 appreciate the scope and the significance of thisEnglish movement which had its weak, tentativebeginnings in the Georgian period, and which culminatedin the work of Ruskin and Morris, we must thoroughlyacquaint ourselves with the old artistic cause and princi-ples of which it was the modern representative. To dothis we must turn back the hands of time until we reachone of the most organic periods of the worlds history;when society was characterized b a crystalline structurewhich it had never before attaine cr and which it has neversince equaled. This study can best be confined to thethirteenth century : the mother-period of those f matcathedrals which make a single artistic country o thenorthern portion, or royal domain of France, thesouthern countries of En land, and the districts of Ger-many threaded by the & inc. The thirteenth century,although the last in the history of Europe when a highcivilization was devoted to a uniform creed, was not dis-tinctively religious. It was equally poetic, political, in-dustrial, artistic, practical, intellectual and devotional,And out of this consolidated, unified society, the Gothiccathedral rose, not merely as the hi hest expression ofspiritual aspiration and aesthetic impu%e, but also as thatof a corporate, civic life. During the time under consid-eration stron Iy centralized governments came into bein ;the people eveloped rapidly, acquiring wealth, int -&gence, and citizen-pride, and becoming a social power atonce beneficent and formidable. Then also, for the firsttime, the voice of the people was heard in parliaments,and politicalower was controlled by representative as-sembiies; while, as a consequence of the friendiy allianceof monarchs and people, arose the desire of the period to



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2 THE GOTHIC REVIVAL

ward civilization, internal peace and good government.Then, as the next followintion, both material and intei result, there ensued produc-ectual, on a colossal scale, atrapid rate, and from rich, virgin sources.The epoch being so stronglyorganic, its art, or spiritual expression, was necessarilystructural, The uniform creed, single social scheme,common system of education, and one accepted type ofbeauty, demanded a realization of the ideal which shouldepitomize and incarnate the tic, artistic, and devotionalspirit of the age, This rea zation was attained in thezoeGothic cathedral which embodies more perfectly and de-fines more clearly than any other medium the sentimentof the infinite, which, in the judgment of Michelet, wasthe greatest gift of the Middle Ages to humanity.To appreciate the imposingcharacter of the cathedral, as it rose the principal monu-ment, the spiritual, civic, and aesthetic center of the com-munity in which it was placed, we must first gain an ideaof the mediaeval city itself. Every such town in CentralEurope was primarily a fortress, and secondarily a placeof residence. Owing to the violence of the times, protec-tion was first considered, and afterwards convenience andcomfort. The city was surrounded with high walls,reaching, in the case of Florence at least, to the height offorty feet. Beyond the walls, were a broad moat and acorn licated series of drawbridges, barbicans and out-

KSor : which great apparatus of defence cramped thespace and excluded light, air and vista. Within the en-closure, this prison-like character was further accentuated.There were few open spaces,and the streets were-narrowpaths adaas we st find in the towns of Germany, and in Italian9ted to the maintenance of warfare : such streetscities like Genoa and Florence, where, in case of civicbroils, chains suspended from great iron rings fixed intothe masonry of the lower stories of opposite houses,proved an effectual barricade against invading enemies.



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 3

The area within the waIIs was IargeIy occupied bycastles, monasteries and other fortified enclosures, but, asa general rule, there was no citadel corresponding to thatof the ancient city, Iike the AcropoIis at Athens, or theCapitol at Rome. Instead, there rose a great cathedralor abbey, which, with its chapter houses and schools,often covered a tenth of the entire area, as in the cities ofYork and Amiens. Within these ecclesiastical struc-tures, everything rich and beautiful found its home;whether the thing was valuable in substance, or whetherit had been rendered precious by the application of art andcraftsmanship. To fashion such objects the artisans ofthe MiddIe Ages passed their Iives in darkened dwellings,and having infused their very spirit into the works oftheir hands, they deposited their finished productions at theshrine of some saint, and within the precincts of thecathedral sanctified by the presence of the sacrament. Soin the material edifice centered the Iife and work of theperiod. And when, at its high altar, mystic rites andsplendid ceremonies were in progress, the Gates of Heavenseemed to open, showing glorious visions of the Beyond.T~h~cathedral so became the anti-type of the Golden Jeru-

. It is thus that God and thePeople are felt to be the joint architects of these wonderfulstructures, which evoke awe and admiration alike fromthe believer and the infidel ; causing the one and the otherto know that something divine leaps up in the vaults andbuttresses, and cries out from the soaring spire and thesymbolism of the great portal.But the iant fabrics of stonehave their human as weIl as their ivine meaning. And,in common with aII other supreme works of art, they unitethe grotesque with the sublime. Their dual character hasnever, perhaps, received such adequate treatment as at thehands of Victor Hugo, in his Notre Dame de Paris, a



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book which is greatly misapprehended by English read-ers, who regard it simply as a fantastic tale heightened ineffect by an elaborate mediaeval backt!Cound Such isonly the envelope of the thought; for e genius of theromance-writer was joined in the great Frenchman withthe soul of an artist and the learning of an archaeologist.He conceived the Gothic cathedral such as later we shallshow it to be in a structural sense: that is, a vivified or-ganism, or being, made up of two intimately connected,yet sharply hostile forces. One of these forces, or ele-ments, he personifies in the archdeacon of Notre Dame:the representative of the churchly spirit, the learning, themysticism, in short, of the strength of the Middle Ages.To the other element he gives the form of a demon:*.__. _L_____..__dwarfish, with curved spine, projecting sternum and bowlegs ; half-blind, but lusty and aggressive; in short, agargoyle of the old cathedral, changed from stoneinto flesh and blood, clever1almosf, or as if man, and sym iConamed Quasimodo, theIizing the untamed animalpassions. One who reads the romancein the spirit in which it was written, cannot fail to appre-ciate the artistic instinct which apprehended so closely allthat is implied, as well as clearly denoted in the supremearchitectural expression of the Middle Ages. And apartfrom the unique characterization of that dualism peculiarto the times, which is recognized by all critics, there isyet in the romance an accuracy of description whichplaces before the reader a Gothic city and a Gothiccathedral with a vividness and force reKresenting periodand people, as if they belonged to us w o are now fret-ting away a short hour upon the stage of life.Further, in his judgment of theart of the Middle Ages, with special reference to its dual-ism, Victor Hugo coincides with other superior minds.Our own Lon ellow, in the introductory sonnet to histranslation of g antes Divina Commedia, compares the



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 5poem, with detailed accentuation of both sublime andgrotesque elements, to a great open cathedral, and thenproceeds to name it : the mediaeval miracle of song.Again, Robert Browning, in his Old Pictures in Flor-ence, makes one of the most brilliant contrasts ever yetinstituted between classic and Christian art; indicatingthe great beau and the limitations of the first ; and point-in8.l 1o the psyc ological power, as many sided as fife itself,w ch irradiates the homely, often rude, figures of theearly Italian masters. Another opinion of the same trendmay be found underlying the English critic Symonds appreciation of Michelangelo, in such passages in his life ofthat master as define the artistic terms, classic, and romantic. Finally, anrecognize the value of dual: student of the drama cansm in art-of the union of thesublime with the grotesque-by comparing So hockswith Shakespeare, and he will be ready to leave Ke pol-ished, somewhat monotonous perfection of the first, forscenes in which the fools bells mingle with the voice ofthe hero, and for lessons taumen and women, imperfect and rail, attractive because ofht by living examples oftheir personal faults, which render them at once conceiva-ble and companionable. And as the Greek drama, unified,complete, perfect as to its adaptation of parts to whole-is outweighed in the balance of art by the romanticdrama, in which form is secondary, and the laws of con-struction are subject to the impetuosity of the playwright;so the Greek temple-with its perfect proportions, itsmathematically calculated optical illusions, and its plancomprehensible at a glance-is less powerful, less sublimethan the Gothic cathedral whose giant structure teems withmystery, pulses with passion, and, in aff things, seems atype of life itself. Indeed, the farther it is pursued,the more fitting and comprehensive does this comparisonbetween the two great divisions of architecture and thetwo great types of the drama show itself to be. And as



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at the mention of each name of Shakspeares heroes, amighty personality leaps before our mental vision, so doesthe individuality of each cathedral impress our thought, aswe recall Amiens, Chartres, and Beauvais, or yet againYork, Lincoln, or Peterborou h,A&ough differing in what inthis connection, we may well call the cormtenance, allcathedrals of the Gothic type plainly show their sisterhood,since they were generated by the same thought and thesame spiritual impulse.unity of the age.

Structurally, they expressed theAnd their ornament, so rich in symbol-ism, so imitative of life, could only have been the work ofmen and artists just awakening to a sense of the power andmarvels ofLI__ C..__~~~.h:_natural world, and wholly differing from17_.---.-- _.-3 .~~_._ f -me ureeu, me nomans, ana even Irom the Italianslater than they, who looked upon nature only as abackground for mans action and as a mere foil for mansbeauty. It is not to speak rashly to saythat the structure of the cathedral expresses the unity ofthe age in which it attained its perfection ; for architecture,as the outward result of the uncontrollable impulse to ex-ternalize any dominant, constant thought, is one of thesurest indications of the spirit of any given age. Thethirteenth century was a period of unity in diversity, sincegreat minds and geniuses wholly different from oneanother accepted one common order of ideas, and felt thatthey were together working out the same task. One andthe same impulse toward the good, the true and the beau-

tiful animated Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury andthe principal author of Magna Charta; St. Francis theMendicant; Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of churchphilosophers ; Roger Bacon the scientist ; Dante andGiotto; St. Louis, kinEdward the First of , statesman and churchman; andB ngland,arch. This century was the jurist, genera1 and mon-commons: the two interdepenf olden age of kings andent elements of the new



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 7society. It was an age when all conditions forced outthe manhood and the genius of the hereditary ruler; andwhen those born to be ruled were by habit, religion andnecessity eager to wekome a great king and to aid him inhis task. And since it is recognized that the building artis the best exponent of the character of a period, it will beinteresting to observe how closely the constructive princi-ples of the Gothic cathedral coincide with the unity andthe interdependence which were the distinguishing featuresof the so&I system in force toward the end of the MiddleAges. Eve part of the typical Gothicstructure performs a useful an7 necessary function, andthe fundamental principle of building is the concentrationof weights and &u&s upn Ce&&i &ofig $i;iiciu&points-principally the buttresses. These, together withtheir later auxiliaries, the flying buttresses, were made toresist the vault thrusts, and, in this way, the nave wascarried high enough to aIlow the introduction beneath thevaults of windows that admitted li ht over the roofs ofthe aisles. To accompksh this resu t was the architect-ural problem of the Middle Ages, and the Gothic style wasevolved in the effort to solve it. The fully developedGothic cathedral has been characterized as a building witha roof of stone and walls of gIass, and, indeed the descrip-tion is not inaccurate, as the walIs between the buttresseshave no structural significance and play the part of merecurtains. This style of l&ding was no invention of acertain school of artists, but rather a gradual evolutionfrom the Roman through the Romanesque. It is a pecu-liar structural system in which the whole scheme, as ex-plained by ViolIet-Ie-Due, perhaps the greatest authoriKpon the subject-is determined by, and its whole strengtis made to reside in a finely organized and clearly con-fessed framework, rather than in walIs. This framework-as defined by the same French architect-composed ofpiers, arches, and buttresses, is freed from every unneces-



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8 THE GOTHIC REVIVAL -sary encumbrance of wall, and is rendered as lightin all its parts as is compatible with strength; thestability of the fabric depending not upon inert mass-iveness (except in the outermost abutments), butupon a logical adjustment of ac&e parts zvhose op-posing forces neut ra l ke one anot her and produce a per fectequifi brlum . It is a system of balanced thrustsin distinction from the ancient system of inert stability.And so fundamental and far-reaching in this peculiarmode of construction as the distinctive principle of Gothic,that it may be taken asa rule that wherever we find it de-veloped there we have a Gothic building, even though theornamental elements connected with it may retain many_f L l __m-.---.--_-01 me nomanesque characteristics ; whi le , on the otherhand, wherever a framework maintained on theof thrust and counterthrust i s wanting, there we Rrincipleave notGothic, however freely the ornamental elements may dif-fer from those of the Romanesque,In the foregoing definition wehave the thought of VioIIet-Ie-Due, commented upon andamplified by Professor Charles Moore of Harvard Univer-sity, author of one of the most valuable works in Englishu?p n the development and character of Gothic architecture.he same writer, who insists that the Gothic was not anindependent, although it was a distinct style, shows itsvery gradual evolution from the arched constructions ofthe Romans up to the point when it reached its highlyorganic state, in which every part of the structure per-formed some useful and necessary function. Accordingto the two authorities quoted, a correct preliminary ideaof the Gothic can be gained only by tracing the steps ofthe process by which the system was evolved. Theseauthorities cite the Roman builders as the first whoeffectively used the arch ; but it may be said in passingthat the credit of the invention is, without doubt, due tothe Assyrians, from whom architecture, engineering, and



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10 THE GOTHIC REVIVALthey imperfectly performed their task; the excessiveIystrong walls aiding them byresisting both the side thrusts jof the nave vaults and the in-ward thrusts of the ha&bar-rel vaults themselves.Another ste of devel-opment toward Ke Gothic :style was due to the Lombard ibuilders; who applied to thevault a system of stone ribs,which projecting below thevault surfaces in a measuresustained them, and, also, pre-vented any rupture occurringin one compartment fromspreadin to the others.-Fhe application of theribbed system of vaulting, to-gether with the functionalgrouping of supports,by slowlydoing away with the massivewalls, and by perfecting theskeleton composed of the roofof stone and the wall of glass,uItimateIy led to the Gothicsystem. Herein, contrary to the uIarimpression, the pointed arch was not originalIy emp oyedpfor aesthetic effect, but rather as a structural device, sinceit exerts a less powerful thrust or outward pressure thanthe round arch, and since its crown can be made to reachany level, Its introduction diminished the thrusts, didaway with the necessity of doming to the extent demand-ed by the round arch, and, by the structuraI possibilitieswhich it presented, gave a powerful impetus to invention.Then, the skeleton was perfected, the walls diminished



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in thickness, until they became, as we have before said,mere curtains between the abutments, and internally theclere-story and aisle openings entirely filled the spacesbetween the piers. Such are, most briefly stated,the structural principles of the developed Gothic cathedral.As to its plan, that also may be summarized in a fewwords, and the French cathedral may be taken as the type.First, there is a central nave,the eastern division of which forms the choir. Next, thereare aisles; sometimes one, and sometimes two on eitherside, The nave and the aisles are cut by a transversesection, also, usually provided with aisles, and the divi-sion of the nave called the choir terminates to the east-ward in a semi-circular, or polygonal apse or sanctuary,around which the aisles, now called ambulatories, arecontinued. From these aisles usually open a series ofsmall chapels, the central one being larger and more hon-ored than the others.angular ends, and The transept has commonly rect-therectangular. west front of the nave is alwaysThe nave is divided from the aisles by pierswhich support the superstructure, this last being dividedinto two stories: the triforium and the clere-story. Thevaults, by their forms and proportions, determine the num-ber an6 arrangement of the piers and buttresses, and theyare constructed upon a complete set of projecting ribs :transverse, diadependent onal and longitudinal, These ribs are in-iirc es; the transverse and longitudinal ones(the latter named in England the wall ribs) beinwhile the dia onal ones may remain round.

pointed,d % he ribsare sustaine by slender shafts, closely grouped, andunited by their bases and capitais with the massive pierswhich rise from the pavement through the successivestories of the building to the nave cornice. To the pieris added a rectangular buttress, which rises through thetriforium, and becomes an external feature in the clere-story. Each pier is therefore a compound member con-



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sisting of a great central column to which are joinedseveral smaller shafts and a buttress, and by these piersthe vaults are supported; the thrust being neutralized bythe external buttress system. The clere-story buttressesare reinforced by flying buttresses, which are segments ofarches rising from the outer abutments and springing overthe aisle roofs. The flying buttresses are themost distinctive feature of the Gothic exterior, and struct-urally theaisles wit

tell the story of the high nave and lower sidelcn . They introduced into the building art theacfi ve prhci pl e to which we have so often before alluded,and in connection with the pointed arch and the ribbedsystem of vaulting, they produced a concentration of suports and a resistance of thrusts, which made of t estructure into which they entered an organic body, com-posed of mutually helpful members, wholly different fromthe inert Roman pile, and truly expressive of the con-structive, unified and aspiring century which witnessedits development. The cathedral so constituted,permitted the exercise of the two arts subsidiary to archi-tecture : sculpture and painting. In the opinion of thecritics, sculpture assumed in the Gothic cathedral a vitalityunehg ualed in the same art of any other school or eF ch;w e the ornament, pure and simple, offers the ullestand most varied suggestion of nature ever attained, at thesame time that it remains entirely subservient to archi-tectural demands. This opinion of students can not fail

to convince the casual observer who wanders, even for aday, within the walls of any of the great churches ofNorth France or of the Rhineland; for portal, tower, capi-tal and mouldin . in their decoration, all tell the samestory of vital orce or vital beauty, and of perfectlyadapted monumental treatment.In the cathedral the art of paint-ing was limited to expression by means of one medium,



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The great openinB

sranted the name o

for the admission of light, which war-walls of glass, afforded opportunity forthe display of a peculiar craftsmanship in which the Frenchworkmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have neverbeen equaled. But these beautiful and brilliantly colored de-signs being subject to the demands made by both material,and architectural fitness, were necessarily deprived of pictor-ial qualities, restricted to decorative value, and reduced al-most to the condition of heraldic designs. But once theirlimitations confessed, it is difficult to over-estimate the ex-

quisite beauty of the old glass paintings. The greatmsace of Notre Dame, illuminated by the rays of the set-ting sun, is believed to have inspired in Dantes mind theidea of the rose of Paradise, with its lake of light,and no less splendid are the glasses of Amiens andChartres and Rheims. Today, hal-shorn of theirglories through the violence of revolutions, like the Terrorof 1793 in France, or the Puritan excesses of the seven-teenth century in En land, oreration of that van daL m whit Ket again through the opis called restoration,the Gothic cathedrals are still eloquent with an unappreachable, majestic and awful beauty. They have losttheir proper settin through the destruction of the medi-aeval towns and $ e citizen-bodies of which they were thepride and crown. We can form but a poor conception ofthe effect made by one of these structures a ainst theprofile of the Gothic city, which shot up on arHsides farinto heaven its spires, towns and gables; which wasdarkened by high enclosing walls; and which was subject to a fantastic play of lights and shadows cast over itscarven waiis, and along its narrow and tortuous streets.But enouand the o d interests, popular, municipal and ecclesiastic,h remains to shadow forth dimly the old beautywhich once radiated from the great creations of thename-less builders of the late Middle Ages. And as theGothicsystem of architecture is, without doubt, native to France,



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by a small circular window, placed between and abovethe divided compartments, and enclosed within an out-lined arch of great beauty of form. Then, still above,there runs a tall, exquisitely proportioned and open arcade,which carries the main cornice and the towers; the lastnamed being pierced with coupled pointed windows.Such is the face of the reat pile which, as expressed inthe quaint Latin of the %I iddle Ages, by its colossal size,struck terror to the hearts of spectators. This facadescheme developed as to certain features, and modified indetails is seen in principle throughout that series of cathe-drals and lesser churches of Northern France, which arestructurally so superb and so perfect that no correspond-ing group can be ound to cornT._ ?ete with!hem* - ___-- -m the Cididral of ihims,farther removed than Notre Dame of Paris from theRomanesque style, and less a structure of the transitionperiod, Gothic architecture attained, perhaps, its most beau-tiful and symmetrical development. Its facade most dif-fers from that of Paris in the construction of the portals,which are much more deeply recessed ; the depth beingobtained b increasin the projection of the buttresses onthe groun cr story levd The porches so formed, becameplaces of instruction, meditation, and rayer, For every-where within them-on the faces of tRe massive piers, onthe pillars dividing the arched doorways midway in theirbreadth, on the tympanums-are carven the personagesof the Old and the New Testament; the saints and mar-tyrs of the Church ; scenes chosen from the story of manscreation, fall, judgment and redemption. Here was a pic-torial Bible open constantly before the eyes of the people,with its inspirations and its awful warnings, and whereinthe most illiterate could draw their lessons for the conductof life. The door of the House of God as a means of re-ligious instruction long antedated the work of Wickliffe,and the art of printing.



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Students and scholars neces-sarily were these artists of the thirteenth century; laymenalso and quite distinct from the cowled builders of theRomanesque period who preceded them and who, strug-gling with difficulties and disadvantages, yet laid thefoun-dations for the greater glories of Gothic art, The tra-ditions of this learning descended far into the time of theRenascence, and Michelangelo did but continue on thewalls of the Sistine Chapel the study of sacred historywhich had been so effectively explained in the stones ofthe northern cathedrals. The open papictorial Bible still attract the people, an fies of the greatit is not infre-quent to see grouped about the west front of Notre Dameof Paris companies of workmen or peasants who listen tothe explanations of some black-robed priest. A meaningsecondary to the doctrines of the Christian faith is claimedto have been wrought into the facade sculptures, and in-deed into the entire figure ornament of the Gothic cathe-dral by the fraternities of builders-the free masons-whocarried their arts, crafts, and secrets, from town to town,and from country to country, as the people voted theerection of these giant houses of worship. Allusions tothis occult symbolism are made by Victor Hugo in hisgreat romance, wherein he pictures the archdeacon ClaudeFrolIo, as an adept in the mysteries displayed to the initiate inthe apparently simple stories in stone of prophet, saint, andmartyr. And much literature of varying value and inter-est has been written regarding the hermetic philoso-phers, the Rosicrucians, and other mystics who arebelieved to have been involved in the far-reaching build-ing fraternity. In taking leave of the subject offacade sculptures, as treated in the French cathedral it ismost fitting to recall the fervent admiration cherished forthem by two powerful movers in the English Gothic Re-vival: Ruskin and William Morris. The former devoteshis matchless eloquence to the praise of the Bible of



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Amiens, with special reference to that head of Our Lord,which is known as le beau Dieu, and which for majestyand superhuman beauty, almost alone among mediaevalsculptures, has been compared with the Greek type ofZeus. The second enthusiast, Morris, in the opinion ofcompetent jud es, has written upon the same cathedralwith a white i eat of enthusiasm and a wealth of detailedinsight never before lavished upon the subject. This isperhaps a partial and exaggerated statement, since thearticle so praised was composed in the authors earlyouth, and is wanting in that thorough and minute know -edge which is characteristic of his later work. But theessential qualities of good criticism can not be denied tothis piece of writing, which is unfortunately too littleknown. Every word came directly from the youngstudents heart, and he said simply and modestly:

I thought that even if I couldsay nothing else about these grand churches, I could atleast tell men how I loved them. For I will say here thatI think these same churches of North France the grandest,the most beautiful, the kindest and most loving of all thebuildings that the earth has ever borne.Near the beginning of the paperhe writes with happy and quaint expression : And those same builders, stillsurely living, still real men, and capable of receiving love,I love no less than the great men, poets and painters andsuch like, who are on earth now; no less than my breath-in friends whom I can see looking kindly on me now.Aa!dI tlno ove them with just cause, who certainlyloved me, thinking of me sometimes between the strokesof their chisels; and for this love of all men that they had,and moreover for the great love of God, which they cer-tainly had too ; for this, and for this work of theirs, theupraising of the great cathedral front with its beatin heartof the thoughts of men, wrought into the leavesan fi flow-ers of the fair earth ; wrought into the faces of good men



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 19and true, fighters against the wrong, of angels who upheld them, of God who rules all things, wrought throughthe lapse of years, and years, and years, by the dint ofchisel, and stroke of hammer, into stories of life and death,stories of Gods dealing in love and wrath with the nationsof the earth, stories of the faith and love of man that diesnot: for their love, and the deeds through which itworked, I think they will not lose their reward.The end, also, is worthy to bequoted, as here Morris, the poet, speaks:

And now farewell to thechurch that I love, to the carved temple-mountain thatrises so high above the water-meadows of the Somme,above the gray roofs of the good town. Farewell to the4,~. , ..___-_ f_?_L_.__ __:__. _Lsweep of the arches, from rne nronze ~isnops ryirig arthe west end, up to the belt of solemn windows, where,through the painted glass, the light comes solemnly.Farewell to the cavernous porches of the west front, sogrey under the fading August sun, grey with the wind-storms, grey with the rain-storms, grey with the heat ofmany days sun, from sunrise to sunset; showing whitesometimes, too, when the sun strikes it strong1 ; snowy-white, sometimes, when the moon is onit,and tLe shadowHrowing blacker ; but grey now, fretted into deeper grey,retted into black by the mitres of the bishops, by thesolemn covered heads of the prophets, by the company ofthe risen, and the long robes of the judgment angels, bhell-mouth and its flames gasping there, and the devi sythat feed it; by the saved souls and the crowning angels;by the resence of the Judge, and by the roses growingabove t! em all forever. Farewell to the spire, gilt allover with old once, and shining out there, very glor-iously ; du!l and grey now, alas; but still it catches,through its interlacement of arches, the intensest blue ofthe blue summer sky; and sometimes at night you maysee the stars shining through it.



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20 THE GOTHIC REVIVAL It is fair still, though the gold is

gone, the spire that seems to rock, when across it, in thewild February nights, the clouds go westward.Poetic and uplifting, indeed;valuable by what it connotes, rather than by what it de-scribes ; rendering theimpression made by thecathedral, rather thanjudginf it calmly andsevere y, this criticismmaintains for itself aplace apart. It serves auseful end equally withthat work which weighs,compares, probes anddecides. Its winged andfiery words pass wherethe key of pure intel-lectual effort fails tounlock. It is a worthy tribute to the temple-mountain of Amiens. From this digression towara theeffect of the French cathedral as a whole, we must returnonce more to remark certain of its prominent and mostbeautiful characteristics. These include, as we havealready seen, the upright or pyramidal tendenc of thelines of the facade and the recessed portal ; w Lch lastfeature joins to its valuable aesthetic functions its serviceas an open book of reli ious

Kand moral instruction, A

third characteristic is t e great rose, or wheel window,placed above the central portal ; in the case of Notre Damede Paris opening directly above the arcade or gallery ofthe kings, and flanked by two lateral, highly decoratedwindows : a position which gave rise to Victor Hugosfanciful comparison of the priest at the altar, served by hisdeacon and his subdeacon. In the cathedral of Amiens,the great rose pierces the wall at a much higher point



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than is the case with Notre Dame of Paris. It here againopens above an arcade of splendid statues, but this, inturn, runs above an elaborate open gallery of exquisiteeffect, so that the rose occupies the fourth of the fivedivisions of the facade counting from the ground level, Ofthe rose it must be said that it has lost its oriand that, together with the upper inal tracery,stoK of t 7, towers, itmarks a late period of the Gothic, w ch does not har-monize with the restrained, noble outlines of the earliergeneral desi

fn of the facade. The existing tracery of the

window an the forms of the towers are examples of theFlamboyant period in which ornament, like a parasiticplant, over-ran the French Gothic edifice, disguising itsadmirable constructive principles, and finally by its exces-sive demands for space and material in which to displayitself, sapping the life of the entire construction, as weshall find at a later point of our study.The Flamboyant period,marked by the predominence of the flamed-shaped, wavystone-defying line, is the third of the three great divis-ions of French Gothic. It is also known to architects andcritics simply as the Tertiary, just as the period just pre-cedin it is named the Rayonnant, or radiating (a nameequaiiy derived from the character of the outline employed),or et again the Secondary; while the first division iscaH d, without characterization, the Gothic Primary. TheFlamboyant corresponds quite closely in point of time tothe Perpendicular in England, which was an a e devotedto the vagaries of geometrical design, and whiti ended incomplete degeneration under the Tudor sovereigns.From the foregoing statementregarding the substitutions and restorations which oc-curred, centuries ago, in the facade of the cathedral ofAmiens, it is clear that we can form no idea of its firstbeauty, as it rose from the great square of the picturesquetown in the thirteenth century. But whatever it has lost,it is still perfect enough to serve as a type of the French



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22 THE GOTHIC REVIVALGothic western .facade, and in that capacity, perhaps, asan example of the culmination of all Gothic architecture.In view of its importance, therefore, it will be interestingto note the judgment of Professor Moore, more especiaaiiyas his is a mature and technical criticism, altogether re-moved from the rhapsody of the youthful WilliamMorris, This architectural authoritywrites : The typical form of the French facade, asexhibited in the cathedral of Amiens, is a marvel ofstructural beauty. With the given conditions it is hardtfi CD6 L-5, d Vnr\r+P, 4PPPc&J cPc' ** l tmv4l rl Ll 7. 3 L. mmC" YI " **"I v u AI L". " OUI YI . aUI UI aY"UaC k. "UAU I I LL"& UCCI I Ireached. The arch, the shaft, the buttress, and the stringare employed with the finest artistic judgment. The mainmasses are disposed and proportioned with subtle feelinand the myriads of ornamental details are distributed wit ,Ei,a sense of largeness and breadth of total effect, no lessthan of delicacy in minute elaboration. The men whodesigned and executed these facades were great artists ;and their work bespeaks an aesthetic culture comparablewith that manifest in the finest art of Greece. If -this isstill largely unrecognized, it is due, in great measure, tothe fact that our modern ideas have been formed underthe influence of aesthetic guides, who, in over-zealous andunenlightened regard for classic, and neo-classic art, havefailed to appreciate the real character of the arts of theMiddle Ages. From this carefully preparedanalysis it would appear that in the great mediaeval workunder consideration, the structural system has been car-ried out with the strictest logic and with a controllingsense of beauty ; that it is an accomplishment of the high-est art, in which sound mechanical principles serve as thesecure foundation for the exercise of the poetic imagina-tion. If now we turn momentarily tothose English churches which were least influenced by the



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builders of Amiens and Paris, Chartres, Reims, orBourges, we shall find their facades-as in case alreadynoted of Lincoln cathedral-to be mere screens of greatwidth of front, wanting o anic connection with the mainbody of the building, and fa n g to indicate by their contoursthe structural scheme of the interiors. Beside, in the absence of French influence, Gothic or pointed churches,wherever found, do not display the rose window above thecentral portal. This feature is one productive of greatbeauty in the exterior, since it offers forms and lines foundin no other element of the facade, which, with its presence,shows a structural and significant union of curved, up-right and horizontal lines in a combination most gratefulto the eye. Within the dark and lofty interior, the eatrose or wheel recalls and justifies the alreadyquote 8 ex-pression of Dante : a lake of light, as it is set a-flamewith the glow of noonday, or the fires of sunset. And itis safe to say that the pointed opening can afford no ade-quate substitute for its loveliness.A last comparison made be-tween the French and the Enas to the effect of the facade, w lish cathedral, considered8 convince the student thateach structure suits the site, surroundings, and specialpurpose of the people who developed it. The Frenchcathedral was built in the heart of a town, to serve thereligious needs of the people. It was therefore fitting thatits principal place of entrance should be strongly accen-tuated, and beautiful in design, in order that worshippersmi ht be attracted to enter its open portals.

aThe English

cat edral, on the contrary, is most often found within anenclosure of its own, quite removed from the thorough-fares of the city, and it was buik primarily for the chapterof the clergy who served it.Whereas, as we have seen, theGothic body, compressed for want of space, grew tall inFrance, and in other continental districts subject to Frenchinfluence, so, in England it lengthened laterally ; the tran-



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sept arms spreading out far beyond the nave and choir,At the junction of these two divisions, a heavy tower rose,to which all lines and parts led up, as to a common center.The nave, comparatively low, and terminatina square sanctuary, gave no opportunity for t lusually ine magnifi-cent circular sweep of the apse of the French cathedral,and did away with thelight but sinewy lines of the flying-buttresses which charm the eye, at the same time thatthey are structurally so important in their contribution tothat highly or anized-na , vitalized-framework whichis the essentis of true Gothyc.The flyin -buttress is the lastfeature of the French cathedral whit 1permit us to consider. our limits of spaceUpon this hard-working memberof the living Gothic body, the stability of the structure isabsolutely dependent. To effect a perfect resistance orcounter-thrust to the lateral pressure of the vaults of thehigh sanctuary was a serious and intricate problem, butone which was again and again solved by the mathe-matical ability always characteristic of the French people.The flying-buttress in its perfect development, consists oftwo superimposed arches which act to ether in resistance:springing from the sanctuary wall andgbuttress terminating in a pinnacle. running to a pier-This termination, ad-mirably combining constructive and ornamental functions,is a device for weighting the top of the buttress, and of soincreasing the resistance against the vault thrusts. Theflying-buttress system, instituted in France in thetwelfth century, attained its perfection in the thirteenth, inthe cathedrals of Amiens and Reims, and from theformer splendid monument was carried to the cathedral ofCologne, which is, in reality, a French church standingupon German soil. The perfected system which was, aswe have seen, the solution of an intricate problem inmathematics, served also the artistic purpose sought afterby all great builders: that of expressing by an externalfeature the design of the interior. And therefore, wherever



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we find the flyin -buttress,f

we shall not be disappointed inour expectation o a soarinarcaded stories, aisles & nave, with many-celled vaults,circ ng the sanctuary, and radiatingchapels ; the whole constituting the highest interior beautyof the French cathedral. And now enough has been saidto show how the strongly organic thirteenth century ex-pressed itseIf in the art which is the exponent of civiliza-tion, In France, architecture degenerated with the growthof the monarchy, the increase of despotism and the de-cline of communal freedom. In England, the beautifulpointed forms (which gave their name to the Lancet, orEarly English period) were, in the course of time, over-run and obscured by floriated decoration, until WiIIiam ofWykeham, in the Cathedral of Winchester, amended theluxuriant tracery by introducing vigorous, straight, verti-cal lines, by enclosing doorways and arches in squares,and by dividing walks by panelling into rectangular com-partments.fancy, and But once again, tempered reason yielded toas those o f eometric design, in combinations as changefulthe kaleidoscope, cut the vaultin -cell, thespandrel and the window-head into infinitesima f sections.This was the Perpendicular Age of which, perhaps, thebest known example is the Lady Chapel of WestminsterAbbey, which was erected in the latter part of thefifteenth century, by the first Tudor sovereign.It is therefore everywhere apparent in England, as well as in France, that the accentgiven to the structural elements marks the age as well asthe value of a Gothic monument ; that ornament unless itbe combined with function has no reason for existence,and that when it forced itself, as an intruder, into themathematical problems of the builder, it brought with itthe germ of decadence. Gothic architecture, as the ex-K,ression of one of the most organic ages of the worldsstory, was an art necessarily despised during the period



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of the Renascence ; since this was a time of negation,when religious belief, social life, education and art sufferedthe most radical of changes. The great edifices could notbe ignored, but they were threatened by the same fatewhich has overtaken the Colosseum at Rome ; a structurewhich BrowninFg, in his SordeIIo, calls the outworn shellof a world. or many these cathedrals and churchescame to represent a stage in social progress which hadpassed, yielding up to higher, or at least to freer conditionsof thought, Italian influence became dominant in art,through the medium of the Revival of Letters; since Italyby reason of her genius, her state of culture and her geo-graphical position, was the first to receive and the first topropagate the New Learning, derived from the classicGreeks. Italy thus stid matized the great art of the MiddleAges as barbaric, an in scorn gave it the name of one ofthe peoples who had overrun the peninsula and contribu-ted to the downfall of the ancient civilization. The wordGothic came to imply a11that was fantastic andin art. The active, organic H

rotesquebuilding-princip es wereabandoned, and a return made to the structure composedof inert masses. In church architecture, one great modelclaimed acceptance. This model named the Petrine, fromSt. Peters at Rome, was, in reality, based upon Pantheonof Agrippa, which, after having served as an inspirationto the architects of the sixth century, who built SantaSophia, at Constantinople, was copied on a magnificentscale in the great papal basilica, and afterward in smallerproportions throughout the two hemispheres.

In England, the country towhich we must now turn our attention, the Italian influ-ence, has, at different periods, been dominant; inspiringthe arts and literature, sometimes to the point of causingthem to produce works of great d enius, sometimes onlydwarfing or retarding the devnational characteristics. opment of fine strongIn the latter half of the seven-



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THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 27teenth century, Sir Christopher Wren, an acknowledgedf enius, designed St, Pauls London, while subject to theascination of the domed edifice. But gifted as he wasmathematically, he could not do otherwise than to under-stand, even in the unfavorable times of the Restoration,the artistic claims of the Gothic. As is evident in hisLondon work in the pointed style,-St, Michaels, Corn-hill, and St. Dunstans in the East, or yet again at AUSouls, Oxford,-he seized both the mechanical principlesand the picturesque forms of the Gothic, although heshowed a disregard of its details which can not be par-doned by the modern connoisseur andGreat Fire of London, he unsuccessfu Hurist. After they restored West-minster Abbey, with the unfortunate results which still marthe beauty of its facade. But the work was accepted bythe people whose ignorance of the beauty and meaning ofthe style was mingled with open contempt.By the middle of the followingcentury-the eighteenth-there were scattered throughoutEngland a number of historical scholars who interestedthemselves in the Gothic purely from the antiquarianpoint of v iew, since the philosophy of history was not yetsolved. Among these gentlemen was Horace Walpole,whose high place in politics and society lent importance tohis acts. And it was he who, perhaps the first in Eng-land, conceived the idea of the Gothic Revival, In hisfamous residence at Strawberry Hill, built in 1753, he em-bodied his ideas of the pointed style as he believed it to be.But to-day, critics are at a loss to understand how suchindifferent specimens as were furnished by this and otherstructures could have aroused enthusiasm, more especi;lllyas they could be easily compared with beautiful originals.Still the careless reproductive work resulted in good, inthat it carried attention from the modern to the ancientbuildings, and changed the fashion of a passin hour into areal impetus toward sincere and elevated art, + he charm ofcontrast, without doubt, drew many into sympathy with



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the Gothic Revival, for throughout the century the classicinfluence was stron a : in architecture, where the Georgianstyle produced muc that was attractive and harmonious;in painting, where to rival Sir Joshua was the height ofambition opening before every young artist of promise.With the early years of thenineteenth century, when the commons of England wereslowly gaining their citizen-rights, when political disabili-ties were being removed from Roman Catholics and Jews-in short, when a national sense long held in abeyance,was asserting itself throughout the Kingdom, then, as anatural consequence, the love of the Gothic-as the ex-pression of a whole people-grew stronger and stron-It was thought fitting that a gentlemans resi-%ice should reproduce or suggest some famousabbey, church, civic building, or even castle. Among themost remarkable of the works in architecture produced atthis time is Fonthill Park, which in spite of many tech-nical errors still remains beautiful and grand. Whenthrown open to the inspection of the public, as it was in1822, it caused a degree of enthusiasm difficult to describe.Its facade and towers, its interior gallery of excessivelength, its painted glass and tapestries were regarded al-most as ma f ic creations. But the most important and bestarchitectura work of the period was the reconstruction ofWindsor Castle by Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, which datesfrom 1826, and is a wise adaptation of old conditions tomodern requirements. It is a feudal dwelling of the periodof the Edwards and Henrys fitted to be a royal residenceof the present day, and the admiration which it first ex-cited, has never been lessened by subsequent judgments.With the year 1830 began thatrevival of zeal in the Anglican Church known as the Ox-ford Movement, which, in claiming an independent originfor the Established Church of England, entailed a new interest in church buildin and church service. The oldecclesiastical buildings oH the country-churches, abbeys



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and colleges- became the objects of a tender solicitudewhich resulted in a systematic and classified study of theirartistic qualities. Writings relative to the pointed archi-tecture of the Kingdom had indeed begun to appear in thelatest years of the eighteenth century, notably JohnCarters Architecture of En land, which bears the im-print of 1795. This was folF wed by the extensive andvery well-known works of John Britton andof Pugin theelder, the publication of which extended through the years18051838, Th ese writings had done much to diffuse awide-spread thou hGothic, but with ta indiscriminating admiration of thee inception of the Oxford Movement,a spiritual interest was added to antiquarian curiosity inall that related to the subject. The exponent of thesenewviews was Pugin the younger, in whom an in-tense nature unbalanced judgment, and whose longdevoted study of religious themes carried him into theChurch of Rome. In an outburst of the spirit which sothoroughly possessed him he wrote : Let us choose theglorious epoch before the Reformation as our type, and letus reproduce the gorgeous effects of the Middle Agesbefore the accursed light of reason had deluged the world.Pugin demanded that art shouldmake an uncompromising return to mediaevalism, and tostrengthen his position he appealed to the immutability ofhis new Church, the mother of all Christian art. But heforgot that in so far as architecture was concerned, therehad been a continuous, unresting change since the age ofConstantine. He clamored for truth of materials, truthof construction, truth of ornament. But in makingthese excessive demands, he lost the sense and proportionof the things to which he abandoned himself with so muchdevotion and ardor. He failed to understand that if hecould have succeeded in reproducing a Gothic building,perfect to the point of deceiving the critic, he would havebeen guilty of artistic forgery. In realizing the weaknessof the attempts until then made in the field of the New



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30 THE GOTHIC REVIVALGothic, he lost sight of all beside his desire to ensure per-fection of style.ignore all than He practically demanded that art shouldes, social and economic, which had oc-curred during ta e passage of four or five centuries. Inhis admiration for mediaeval Gothic architecture, whichwas unqualified and discriminating, he recognized that nostyle has ever had an equal value as bearing the impressof original genius and of the peculiar character of an age.But he ignored the process of evolution which works asincessantly in the immaterial as in the material world.He could not, or did not wish to understand that phasesof art are not to be revived, exhibited, obscured or changedat pleasure, and that it is impossible to recall what is past.His error lay in the fact that he sought to imitate, ratherthan to accept the lessons of mediaevalism, He did notlend his genius to promote conditions such as to foster thedevelopment of an art organic and expressive like that ofthe Middle Ages. He never penetrated to the full mean-ing of the great subject. His inspirations were nevercomparable and parallel with those of the builders whoseart and epoch he so fervently desired to recall and renew.In Pugins time, the Gothic Re-vival progressed in both the religious and the secularworld. Another writer, Rickman, as early as the yearI8 17, in an essay entitled : An Attempt to discriminatethe Styles of Architecture in England, had done much toclassify the hitherto misunderstood Gothic principles. Andalthough somewhat inadequate and imperfect as the be-ginnin

fs of criticism necessarily are, it served as a sub-

stantia basis for all subsequent study of pointed archi-tecture of England; so that later experts? like Sharp inhis Seven Periods of English Church Architecture,published in 1851, wrote nothing to invalidate the generalcorrectness of the earlier work.But it was not only in popular-izing the knowledge of artistic principles that the GothicRevival made progress. A very important work



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was added to the New Gothic structures of England,In 1836, the architect, SirCharles Barry, produced the plan for the Houses of Par-liament sometimes otherwise called the Palace of West-minster; a great structure whose impressiveness never leavesthe mind of even the most careless observer. It is knownthat the first drafts of this architect were the most inter-esting and meritorious portions of his work, and that hechanged to its detriment at least one important feature ofthe building which constitutes his great claim to remem-

brance, But in spite of the height of the towers whichdwarf the long stretches of wall, not only detracting fromtheir proportions, but also destroying the effect of theirbeautiful ornamentation; in spite of the unfortunate actionof the Thames and of London fog and smoke upon thestructural material, the Houses of Parliament occupy ahigh position among modern architectural works, and,furthermore,well represent the dignity of the bodies of whichthey are the seat and home. Less praise is given bycritics to a third important Gothic monument erected inEn land during the nineteenth century; that is, the museumat F3xford. Nevertheless, this building served an impor-tant aesthetic purpose, quite independent from its artisticmerits or demerits ; since the discussion of its features anddefects awakened interest and promoted knowledge andresearch among large bodies of young men who were tobecome arbiters of taste in England.As religion and art have everbeen allies, together flourishing in the organic ages ofsociety, together declining in the critical periods-so artis-tic movements in England have often proceeded directlyor indirectly from Oxford, the great school of reli iousthought. Midway in the nineteenth century, W m&aMorris and Edward Burne-Jones sat together at a matricu-lation examination on the benches of one of its colleges.And the friendship that day formed, wrought miracles forthe revival of,.a true mediaevalism and for the artistic re-



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generation of England. These two men neither advo-cated nor practiced imitation, if we may except their youth-ful efforts, when the spell of their new studies was strongupon them and their own individuality had not yet reachedmaturity. And the more virile of the two eniuses, Mor-ris, had carried with him since early boy a ood a love ofthe old churches of England, which he had studied in hischaracteristic way : not after the manner of an antiquarian,but as one who would understand the intention and spiritof a great system of art. Therefore, after being enlight-ened as to the nature of true Gothic, by his journey dur-ing his undergraduate days among the cathedrals andchurches of Northern France, he devoted himself to thecause of developing an art for the people, which shouldbecome a necessity, and not an ornament of life. He, likeRuskin, saw in the beautiful cathedral at Amiens, thesymbol of a time when art was a religion, and when laborwas allied to art in a fruitful union productive of civichonor and honesty in a development never since reached.And through the influence of Morris and Ruskin, theteachings of the Bible of Amiens has reached out to landsbeyond the sea. The final lesson of the Gothic Revivalhas not not yet been taught, for the influence of the move-ment is still felt wherever there is an impetus toward anart which shall be maintained by the encouragement, thewise criticism and the love of the whole body social.



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THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONOF ARTE ERY organism, whether it be social or biological, ifit is to survive, must seek pleasure and avoid pain,Without accepting any particular theory of ethics, it is safeat least to say that the things which give pleasure are bet-ter than those which give pain. The best social relationsare those securing the greatest amount of happiness to thosewho maintain them. Pleasure consists in the satisfac-tion of im

i?ses and desires. Hitherto the strug le for

existence s been so hard that the great majority o man-kind have found all their ener ies exhausted in the effortsimply to avoid hunger and co d, and the idea of a societythat would secure even these primal necessities to all itsmembers has been looked upon as Utopian.Our analysis of mans wants,instincts and impulses has usually been very imperfect;excluding some of the motive forces, which from the pointof view of the social student are fundamental, Prof.Jacques Loeb of the University of Chica o, in his work onthe comparative physiology of the brain, s expressed thisafact as follows : Human happiness is basedupon the possibility of a natural and harmonious satisfac-tion of the instincts. One of the most important instinctsis usuall not even recognized as such, namely: the in-stinct 0r workmanship. Lawyers, criminologists, andphilosophers frequently imagine that only want makes manwork. This is an erroneous view. We are forced to beactive in the same wa as ants or bees. The instinct ofworkmanship would ie the greatest source of happiness,if it were not for the fact that our present social and em



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94 THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ART

nomic organization allows only a few to gratify thisinstinctr The present social organizationhas divided the functions of the social body, and then failedto correlate them in such a manner as to obtain that unityand completeness which is essential to either human happiness or artistic beauty. Turn in whatever direction wewill, only disfigured fragments appear. Eve 7 humanfunction fails of any adequate healthful, natura gratifica-tion. None of them succeeds in ving any large, fullmeasure of pleasure, while nearly aFixand suffering. give rise to great painnot be overestimated. The importance of this fact can-The words artist and artistic havecome to be so much the playthings of certain coteries thatit is only when a Ruskin or a Morris uses them, and insome way correlates them with the whole of life that theyinterest any save the dilettanti, But if it be true that thatthing is artistic which gives the greatestminds most fitted to understand it, and if tRIeasure to thee chief end oflife is to seek pleasure, the conclusion follows that the chiefaim of social workers should be to make society artistic.Viewed in this way, the word artistic obtains a muchdeeper meaning than when spoken at an afternoon teaconcerning some elaborate piece of bric-a-brac.Artistic, in the sense in which Iwish to use it, (and I believe that it will bemitted that this is the true and best sense f enerafly ad-o the word),means possessing such a unity, and correlation of parts tothe whole, as tosible. Incidenta f ive the greatest amount of pleasure pos-y this implies a similar artistic wholenessand power of appreciation on the part of the persons whocome in contact with the object. It implies, that, if thegreatest possible pleasure is to be derived, both man andenvironment shouldcompletion and correC ssess this quality of symmetricaltion.Using the word artistic in this



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THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ART 35broad and true sense, let us lance for a moment to seewherein our present society ails of being artistic. In thefirst place, the word art has been stolen from this verysense and applied to something which is perhaps moreisolated and detached from the essential portions of lifethan almost any other one feature. The word is todayordinarily used only in speaking of painted canvases orhighly specialized tone combinations, which are not onlyutterly unrelated to the remainder of society, but whichdemand that both those who produce this art, and thosewho enjoy it, shall be isolated from all connection with thevital essential social processes. What the result has beenupon both art and the artistic public has been toldoften enough by those much more fitted than I to tell thestory, and need not detain us here. Very few of these ar-tistshave ever dreamed that they should seek to make all oflife artistic, rather than to produce something whose beautyis appreciable only because of contrast with the hideousugliness of the life by which it is surrounded. Isolatedart is never truly pleasurable.Other phases of society presentthis same inartistic isolation with its painful accom -ments. It is a fact of frequent observation by so& ptu-dents that the modern person does not know how to44play. Play, if it is to have any essential meaning,should signify the pleasurable exercise of human faculties.But it is true that the majority of mankind at the pres-ent time, even if they had the opportunity, would notknow how to obtain any intense pleasure from such anexercise, The classical example of thisignorance is the London cabman, whose idea of a holidayis to rent a friends cab and ride on the inside over thesame route that he follows, seated on the box, every otherday in the year. But how much wiser are the remainderof the population? Great buildings with expensive apparatus are constructed simply for the purpose of giving



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36 THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ARTan opportunity to move different muscles of the body in ahealthful manner, Even then, the gymnasium soon be-comes a bore, and the daily exercise a task. So,various games are invented, and the more completelythese can be isolated from all vital social relations, themore hi hIy they are valued, until golf, polo, steam-yacht-ing, an B automobile racing become the ideal of social rec-reation, But in every one of these fields, it soon becomesevident that the main element of enjoyment is the utterlyunsocial one of snobbishness. These games are princi-pally enjoyed because their practice conveys a certainbadge of respectabifi .x This is proven by the fact that thosewho can do these t ngs best : the professi onal s, "hepugilists, wrestlers, jockeys, chauffeurs, etc., not only donot find any enjoyment in their l work, but are despisedby those who claim to be aiming at the very goal whichthe others have attained. But it is when we come tostudy the amusements of the great mass of the peoplethat the painfulness of their pleasures becomes fully appar-ent. Their idea of enjoyment is generally based upon someform of eating or drinking : a most significant commen-taz in itself on the nature of the daily life of the greatto ng masses of mankind. The principal pleasurablethought connected with Thanksgiving and Christmas, inthe minds of millions of people, is the possibility of eatingand drinking to a condition of stu d satiety.idea of marking off one day from Jr The verye remainder of the yearto indicate the time when the sense of hunger and taste isfully satisfied, is enough to answer those who would caJlthe critics of our present society pig philosophers. Inci-~dentally it might-be worth while to notice another sithat commercialism has influenced nearly all so-calFndamusements by the introduction of a financial considera-tion in the form of gambling, This shows once morethe absolute impossibility of completely isolating any phaseof life from the industrial basis of society.



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THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ART 37Let us examine another social

function and observe how near it comes to meeting thetest which we have set up as artistic. Education, as wellas play and art, has been isolated from all social rela-tions. The result has beenas ineffectual in reaching t e end of instruction. Theainful to the child, as wellcramming process, especially when it deals with dryfacts isolated from all relation to the social whole, is nowrecognized to be a painful, and hence an injurious processto those who are subjected to it.We have thus seen that owingto their isolation from vital social relations, neither art,education, nor even amusement, as now understood, ivespleasure, and this just because all these interests are f efec-tive in those relations toward society as a whole, whichwould make them truly artistic.If we turn now to the actualsocial basis, the productive process, the creation of goods,what do we see ? Is there any pleasure for the great pro-ducing masses in their work? To ask the question is toanswer it. On every hand, performance of the essentiallabor of society is looked upon as an evil to be avoided,and few indeed who are actually concerned with it, everthink of looking there for something pleasurable, artistic,enjoyable; The production of goods has become anevil. Here we find the fundamental cause of the wholeinartistic, and hence painful, character of our presentsociety. Th is is one more witness to the truth of thephilosophy of economic determinism. Unless the roduc-

tion of the necessities of life can be made beautifu& pleas-urable and instructive, our whole society must remain dis-organized, disintegrated, productive of pain, and inartistic.A school, a factory, a studio, or a gymnasium, as a thingby itself, is an anomaly and must fail of its purpose.What is needed at thesis and correlation. ?p resent time is a process of synthe-olstoi has seen a portion of thistruth, but he becomes ridiculous in proposing his remedy.



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He can only rail at division of Iabor and specialization offunction. He demands that we go back to the period ofcumbersome individualistic labor, with its imperfect pro-duction, but better correlation, rather than that we push onto the possibilities of a higher, grander and more artisticcorrelation of the marvelously more perfect processes oftoday.seen by workers in man This truth has been partiallypartial attempts at corr eL fields and, in consequence, manytion have been made. One ofthe most interestinof education. In ta of these attempts is found in the fielde kindergarten movement an effort ismade to unite play and instruction, and in the manualtraining work to unite creative processes with instruction.But perhaps the most significant of the attempts as yetmade is the new handicrafts movement. There are tworeasons why this movement is more significant than theothers, In the first place, it aims at a somewhat tiidercorrelation than any of the other movements, since it in-cludes in its synthesis three factors, instead of two. Itaims at the correlation of productive work, beautiful forms,and to some extent, pleasurable exertion. Its representa-tives would unite workshop, studio and playroom. Moreimportant stiI.l, they have realized in an indefinite and asyet often very imperfect way, that the basis of any socialmovement must be the fundamental productive process.Therefore they have be n their work in connection withthat process, Neverth eYss, this movement, also, in manyways, is fundamentally defective. One of its defects isthat among the social factors which we have enumerated,(and our classification makes no pretense of being ex-haustive), the handicrafts movement ne lects the educa-tional factor. Save through occasional zi ctures, publica-tions, exhibitions, and a few apprentices, it does little edu-cational work. It bears littIe effective relation to the eatformative forces that are really determining the minr s offuture generations.



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THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ART 39

The problem before him whowould make modern society artistic, is so to synthesizeits activities as to make the work of those who performthe great productive processes at once pleasant and educa-tive. This sounds simple, but when once the people ofany society shall find their highest pleasure and fullesteducation in creating the necessities of that society, weshaII have come as close to a perfect system as the mindof man has yet been able to conceive.At the same time,any adequateexamination of our present social organization should con-vince anyone that such an ideal is utterly impossible ofeven approximate realization, without a complete revolu-tion. AII attempts to realize any portion of this idealr., l ., . -L-L-- _-.._A L_ ..____._$__-I __ f_.._._t_TTL__c__wnnm war socrerymusr Derecor as mTy uropn.Moreover unless these facts are uIIy compre ended, suchattempts are liable to become ludicrous. It is necessaryonly to study the movements already mentioned to showhow they deteriorate in present society. A kindergartenestabIished as an institution apart from the home be-comes a place where tired, over-worked mothers get rid of their children, and where maiden ladies d rived ofnormal family relationship, pIay at motherhood. 7 he veryphilosophy itself degenerates into a dilettante, parrot-likerepetition of phrases, and the whole thing becomes to agreat degree farcical. ManuaI training and domesticscience, kept apart from the productive sources of societyand directed by a arasitic class, become either fads, andburlesques upon tKe thing originally conceived, or, worse,they reverse the philosophy upon which they rest, andbecome training schools for servants and subordinates.Industrial handicraft shops cut off from aII connectionwith the actual creative productive social processes, be-come the pIaythin?s of dilettanti, and the generators of aesthetic crazes. AII such efforts are imperfect,unsymmetrical and inartistic, because they lack that



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wholeness and unity which artistic goodness and beautydemand. They only deal with a small portion of society,and, most important of all, not with the essenfial port ion.The only real, vital portion of present society, as indeedof every other society, is the portion which supplies wants,produces goods, and maintains life, Ail the movementsenumerated leave this portion of society untouched.Finding themselves shut outfrom the actual productive processes, too many of thesewould-be craftsmen play at production in private work-shops. Seeing no way to correlate the gigantic industrialforces of today, and to use them for their purposes, theylook backward to a simpler and inferior social sta e, andbecome reactionary+ Even Morris was not who H freefrom this defect. But one thing WiIliam Morris neverdid, (and in this he was unlike toomany of his imitators),and that was to cut himself off from ail the forces thatwere working to make his ideals possible. He was ableto see that the difficulties confronting him were inherentin the socie7 within which he was working, and that theonly hope o realizing his ideals Iay in overthrowin thatsociety, or rather in hastening its growth througa thecapitalist stage into the cooperative stage, the next step insocial evolution. Let me emphasize this point, since it isthe most vital one in this whole discussion. From a hun-dred points, Capitalism presents a hostile attitude towardall efforts to restore the conditions of healthful, pleasurable,beautiful workmanship, Competition denies the productentrance to the actual social market, and compels it to cir-culate within a limited, unnatural, subsidized market.Wage-&very deprives the producer of all desire to im-prove his product; or of the possibility of individual initia-tive did he desire it, Exploitation deprives the over-whekninof act J majority of the hope of ever possessing anythingbeauty or artistic merit. An environment ofeed develops the coarseness of the parvenu among theK rgeoisie and the coarseness of a debased animality



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THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF ART 41among the proletariat. Under these conditions any move-ment toward the revival of the beautiful, the pleasant, andthe good,-in short of the artistic,-which does not con-nect itself with the great revolutionary movement of theproletariat, has cut itself off from the only hoing its own ideal, It has condemned itse5e of realiz-to a nar-row, incomplete, and unsymmetrical synthesis, to a mostinartistic and uncraftsmanlike attitude, to a stultification inin fact of everything for which it claims to stand. Its fol-lowers can have no vital connection with society, no broadoutlook, unless they can connect themselves with the act-ual productive forces of society. But they cannot do thisin the privately-owned competitive factories of today.The only place in which they can come in contact withthe real producers of goods is in the political socialist move-ment. Here they can join hands with those who consti-tute the essential productive factor of the present society,and who must be the dominant factor in the comingsociety, and can work with them for a common end. Inthis way, they can really make their force felt upon thecoming generation and strengthen their influence with thepresent. The founders of the movementrecognized this, and William Morris is known fully as wellfor his activity in the political socialist movement, as forhis efforts in the revival of artistic work. But his followerstoday have very generally forgotten the most essentialportion of his teachings, and know absolutely nothing ofthe actual laborers and the labor movement. It would bean easy but ungracious task to point out specific instancesof the degradation of the movement brought about by thisisolation from what should be its foundation. Suffice tosay that separated from all fundamental connection withsocial life, it has lapsed into vagaries, and has oftenstrayed so far from its original paths as to be well-nigh lostin dilettantism and eccentricity. I am glad to see that thereare, at present, signs of a true revival of craftsmanship



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42 THE MODERN CRAFTSMAN_ __~ __ ~~~._ --~ _-which, by virtue of the fact that it will embrace a wider,fuller synthesis than any previous movement, shall be fullyentitled to call itself artistic.

THE MODERN CRAFTSMAN tThe Question of His Livelihood

I T remains to be seen whether the Arts and Craftsmovement, which is spreading so rapidly throu houtour country, will rove a er itmeans a revival oP a passing fancy, or whetthe true art spirit.The first society of Arts andCrafts is not more than five years old, and immediatelyfollowing its early exhibition there came announcementsfrom many cities, and then from the larger towns of simi-lar exhibitions by societies which had just sprung into ex-istence. From this fact, one is led to question whetherthis activity is an expression of genuine interest in handi-crafts, or whether it is prompted by a spirit of imitationand rivalry, For my own part, I am not in-clined to take these societies too seriously; as I believethat much of both these motives underlies their patronage,and that it rests with the craftsmen themselves whetherhandicrafts shall have a permanent place in American life,or whether the societies and the work shall ultimately failthrough want of support. The fact that it is a reawaken-ening of an old spirit brings with it peculiar difficultiesthat cannot be ignored. Both men and conditions have



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THE MODERN CRAFTSMAN 43

changed; yet I find a tendency in many quarters to re-strict and fetter the work of the present generation by thetraditions and conditions of craftsmanship several centur-ie;e;fe; This is a sentimental movement, and it cannot. To make my point clear, let meillustrate ! There are those who insist that handwork, ifit is to have integrity, must be done entirely by hand ; thatthe artist should create his raw materials, as well as deco-rate them; that he should avoid all machine-made products as the basis of his work, no matter how much theymight facilitate his efforts. When carried to extremes,this is utterly senseless. One might with as much reasonsay that no table, or chair can have integrity, or beautyof workmanship, unless the maker of it cut down the treeand hew out by hand the materials from which it is made ;or, that no potter can make a beautiful vase, if he doesnot dig with his own hands the kaolin from the earth,This antagonism to machinerythwarts artistic progress in two ways. It forces theartist to waste unnecessary time in his raw materials, andthus restricts his output ; it also refuses to encourage themanufacturer of these commodities to produce an artisticmaterial that can be wrought into its final shape by theartist. Manufacturers ever stand ready to furnish whatis demanded, and will carry out any suggestions whichartists may give them ; so that if there is a demand for aspecial texture, or finish, it is furnished at once. Thevalue of machinery thus working under the direction ofart, can not be overestimated, as it places at the commandof the general public products of superior quality.I have a special interest in thismatter ; since in my own industry,-the making ofAbnakee rugs,-1 have been criticised for my use of amachine-woven, all-wool material made to my specialorder. In the judgment of my critics, I should induce myneighbors to return to sheep raising and hand weaving of



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44 THE MODERN CRAFTSMAN

woolen yarns, both of which employments have beenlong abandoned in this region, because they were toounprofitable (owing to the soil and peculiar local condi-tions), to provide even the simple living which these people, Apart from the great responsibility of fostering~~~~dustries, in order to pay a living wage, I shouldbe forced to give a double, or even greater, price for whatwould not serve my uses nearly so well as the machine-made material, which can be obtained, in any quantity,and without a moments concern. This division of laborwith a manufacturer leaves me, as the promoter of theindustry, quite unhampered by outside problems, andfree to devote myself to the direct question of makingartistic use of the raw material.From sheer necessity the crafts-man must avail himself of every aid that he can derivefrom science and machinery. All is changed since thetime of the early gilds, when work was executed underalmost ideal conditions ; when living was simple andcheap, and when workmen strove to be recognized asartists ; when the master and the apprentice workedtogether with a common aim ; when there were notyrannical foremen, or walking delegates of labor unionsto sow seeds of indifference and distrust. It is not fromthe ranks of workmen who live humbly, that moderncraftsmen are drawn; for workmen are no longer in-spired with artistic feeling. This was killed, long since,by machinery, which reduces a man to its own levetThe modern craftsman is not one who can exist on a fewcents a day, and make up the deficit with the purple lightwhich is supposed to irradiate his work. On the con-trary, he is an art ist w ho w orhs. He is a man withcultivated tastes and many requirements. He has exceptional gifts, and represents long years of artistic training.He cannot use the laborious methods of mediaeval crafts-men, and-live. If he is to prosper in his work, he mustavail himself of aids undreamed of by former workmen.



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THE MODERN CRAFTSMAN 4s

If he persists in old ways too rigidly, his zeal will haveample opportunity to cool, for his craft will not supporthim; and, forced to abandon his noble enthusiasm tocombat machine-made things, he must seek some employ-ment that will pay his board. If, after a few years ofstruggling, he fails, his efforts are almost worse than lost,as he stands for an ineffectuai fight with necessity. In-stead of having helped to build up a great cause, he hascut away just as much ground as he stood upon, and he is awarning monument of defeat in his particular craft, as faras his influence extends. This problem of a livelihoodfor the craftsman was the chief topic discussed by thepresident of the Boston Arts and Crafts Society, at a re-cent meeting, and it is one which deserves the mostLL_..,_*-tuluI-uu~lland practical attention.I regard such failures as I havedescribed as an unnecessary waste of human energy,which can and must be avoided by an intelligent accept-ance of modern conditions, and I feel that the fate of theArts and Crafts movement depends largely upon the goodsense of its promoters. A serious responsibility is placedupon the pioneer workers in America ; for they are estab-lishing a precedent. Theceptionally high standar cr must not only reach an ex-of workmanship, in order tomake their work commensurate with the price which theymust demand for hand-work, but they must have execu-tive ability as well, and they must place their work on asound financial basis through the use of common businessjudgment. But let me not be misunderstood to commenda commercial s rit in these industries I That is far frommy mind. St8 one cannot ignore the fact that a handi-craft means more than the expression of an artistic tem-rament throu h some material object.ReIihood for af who engage in it. It must mean aAnother responsibility restingupon a craftsman is his duty to bring his work before the

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