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Antient Practice of Designing.

and I shall have more to say of it as a theory presently. For the former one, as to the master-builders, which has been denied by some architects, there is sufficient proof, though both parties have failed equally in proving either the universality of that practice, or, on the other hand, the universal employment of mere designers such as architects now are. Monks and bishops frequently designed their own buildings, which however is far more like a gentleman now designing his own house than the employment of a stranger called an architect. And perhaps in a few cases special designers or architects were called in for that purpose only; but I cannot say that all the research of the authors of several papers on this subject at the R.I.B.A. in the winter of 1874-5 succeeded in producing many unquestionable proofs of that, though I am not at all anxious to deny it. The general result of the evidence produced is that the great majority of old buildings were designed either by the ecclesiastics on the spot or by what we should call the contractors. The looseness of some of the old contracts which have been preserved shows that a vast deal more was left to the discretion of the contractor or master-builder than ever is now.

But (as I said at the R.I.B.A. on that occasion), what then? There is no magic in a building being designed by one man rather than another, provided he is competent and master of his work in a larger sense than being the mere hirer of workmen. No builder of any large work has time to work at it with his own hands, and what better would it be if he did? There is an old saying, that 'the eye of a master is worth more than both his hands.' It does of course make an infinite difference whether the designer or director of a work thoroughly understands it and looks after it, or not.

The two real Requirements.

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But so long as he does, it does not signify the least how he has learnt his business, whether by working or by looking on. And as to the taste which is necessary to design good architecture, it signifies still less, if possible, whether the designer is a workman besides. People may talk and write fine language about the philosophy of art and theories of architecture, and may call it 'the expression of a people's wants' and many other things which sound well and mean anything or nothing; but the long and short of the matter is (as I said just now) that architecture or architects want only two things, expressible in two short words, taste and knowledge. Taste can no more be defined than taught, and the only test of it is that things in good taste are admired in the long run permanently, and that those who have seen them once desire to see them again. Moreover it is odd that taste does not follow education, but sometimes the reverse; for there seems no doubt that people far below us in civilisation and knowledge, working entirely by themselves, display an instinctive taste which they actually lose on becoming more civilised. But the other essential quality of an architect, practical and scientific knowledge of building and all that belongs to it, can be taught and ought to be possessed more completely now than ever, as there never were such facilities for acquiring it.

Now one of the points in the Quarterly Review of October 1874, on 'the Hope of Architecture,' which gave rise to that discussion at the R.I.B.A., was that the superintendence by the designer is very far short of what it used to be in old times, when the designer was on the work continually and seeing the effect of everything as it went on, besides seeing that the work was done properly. And I must say that does not seem to

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Insufficient Superintendence.

me very easy to answer, beyond saying that architects in great practice have too much to do to be able to superintend their work properly, and that clerks of the works are substituted for them, or rather added to them, and paid by the employer in addition to the 2 per cent. paid to the architect expressly for superintendence. But though that is true as a fact, I was glad to hear it admitted there that it is not satisfactory. It is indeed no answer at all to the charge that this is one cause of the great quantity of bad building that we suffer from, and I must add bad designing too; because I am sure no man can design details satisfactorily without trying them as the work goes on, in the only way in which they can be tried, viz. by models. I never saw any details so tried without some improve· ment being suggested; and I see Mr. Burges lately said the same to the Architectural Association.

It is amusing to see the different views taken by architectural theorists of the value of an architect being also an artist. Mr. Ruskin asserted long ago in effect that that was the cause of the great architectural success of Giotto and Michael Angelo; and I answered at the beginning of my book on Church Building that we had a painter architect named Kent in England in the last century; and I think he was a musician into the bargain. But though he was very much in fashion for the time he is now chiefly remembered by one of Hogarth's caricatures. But we have now had another answer, from the anonymous critic who has written a series of architectural articles in the Quarterly Review in a tone no less dogmatical than even Mr. Ruskin himself. He tells us that Michael Angelo and Giotto failed utterly when they set up for architects, and Mr. Fergusson agrees with him in calling Mr. Ruskin's

Are Architects Artists?'

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praise of Giotto's tower at Florence very much exaggerated. I am not concerned to express an opinion one way or other about that just now; but I am satisfied there is no foundation whatever in history or experience for the proposition that a designer of buildings is a bit the better for being an artist of any kind, i.e. for being able to work with his hands at any art whatever. And I am sure that architecture has not been and will not be advanced one bit by all the writing and talking about the philosophy of it, of which we seem only to have the more the worse it becomes. In the days when there was real architecture there was no architectural philosophy. Men designed and built well simply because they understood it and had naturally good taste, and were not always striving to appear original, or to do something striking, or to be just ahead of the fashion and yet in it, as fine ladies like to be, and they had no vulgar tastes to play up to in competitions or for ostentatious private employers.

Architects are particularly fond of telling us that they are to be regarded as artists.' Why they should want to be considered anything else than what they are I cannot understand, except that, for one reason or another, nearly everybody does now-a-days. But generally the title coveted is something distinctly superior to what we have. An artist is one who executes his designs, and the carvers employed by an architect are artists when left to carve from nature or out of their own head, as they are in all good work, especially Gothic. Singers, dancers, hairdressers, dressmakers, cooks, no less than the greatest painters and sculptors, all manage to get called artists, and I suppose rightly, so far as they execute their own designs, or exercise any discretion

as

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Pictorial Architects.

to their mode of execution. Architects are artists, if they think it worth their while to say so, in respect of the drawings and pictures which they make, but no farther; and experience has proved abundantly that there is no connection between the power of drawing pretty architectural pictures and designing fine buildings. Few, or more probably none, of the old Gothic builders could have drawn a picture of their own buildings which would have had the least chance of a prize either in an architectural or pictorial competition now; and on the other hand some who practise architecture now are really good artists in the proper (pictorial) sense, but never designed a decent building yet and probably never will; and though they can copy old ones well enough for pictures on paper they seem quite unable to get them copied in stone, or even to see where the copies fail. And again, some of the very best architectural artists have never attempted to design, i.e. do not profess to be architects.

Another fact which I would rather introduce on the authority of an architect than my own, was dwelt on by Mr. Boult of Liverpool in a lecture to the Architectural Society there on the same subject, reported in the Builder of 5 December 1874: Who will say that any of the distinguished men who designed the monuments of the Renaissance period was a trained architect? Neither Leonardo da Vinci nor Michael Angelo, nor Wren, nor Inigo Jones can be included in that category. Later still, turn to Dance of the Mansion House, Chambers of Somerset House, or Fowke of Kensington (and the Albert Hall, a really grand building), and where are the credentials which authorised them to practise as architects?' It was in answer to some complaint of the London architects