ient mode of construction on a modern building with different requirements and character.
This new point of view was much assisted by the Decorative Art movement which gradually developed in England after the Crystal Palace Exposition of 1851. The leading idea of this movement under its original leaders was to make ornament the emphasis and exponent of construction. This idea had again been evolved principally from the study of the Gothic, but was seen to be equally supported by the principles of the original Greek monuments.
Whereas the Greek Revival had insisted on the constructional use of Greek forms as against the Renaissance, but had continued to regard the classic details as the exclusive models of imitation, the ultimate outcome of the Gothic revival was the tendency to abjure any use of historic style of any period which did not harmonize with the common-sense uses and purposes of the modern time. But it was difficult and impossible to create a modern style out of nothing, with no antecedents and no traditions. Such an out-and-out original creation was never known to history where evolution has always been the mode of change.
In this dilemma between the theories of the professors, who taught that constructive truth was the only standard of taste as applied to form, and the habits of the modern architect, who had never since 1500 done anything but borrow his details from historic styles the " Italian Gothic" and " Romanesque," for the time being, offered an obvious compromise. Both were styles in which the effects of masonry surface had been undisturbed by projecting but-tresses or projecting " engaged columns." As far as masonry construction was concerned, here were styles, so-called, which were adapted to any modern building. The decorative details were medieval, instead of classic this was a matter of indifference or of personal taste as long as they were not allowed to determine constructional forms.
In modern "Italian Gothic" and "Romanesque" we have had a compromise between the general dependence of modern architecture on past models, and the reaction against the purely literary and archaeologic imitation of Gothic cathedrals, or the expensive and generally wornout forms of the traditional Renaissance, or the expensive and frequently unnecessary colonnades of the Greeks.
Side by side with this movement and slightly later in time came the so-called "Queen Anne" and "Colonial" styles, which were especially applied to country houses and suburban residences, whereas the Italian Gothic and Romanesque, as exclusively masonry and not timber styles, had been more confined to the cities.
In these last revivals we see partly the swinging back of the pendulum toward the Renaissance under which "Colonial" and "Queen Anne" must be included, but Renaissance of a simpler class, less pretentious, and with details of greater beauty than had survived in the purely traditional forms of brownstone fronts and American government buildings. Recurrence to our remarks on Dutch buildings of the seventeenth century will assist this explanation (p. 104). Otherwise, "Queen Anne" and "Colonial" may be explained as an appreciation of fashion for the picturesque and common-sense construction of the given periods, and both styles, so-called, as well as Italian Gothic and Romanesque, have been convenient cloaks for architects intent on solving modern problems in their own way without caring to make martyrs of themselves by explaining to their patrons that it makes very little difference what old name may be given a modern building. In all these varying currents and eddies of the hour, we can still see in our own country the steady movement of a great nation toward the assertion of its own needs and character and the realization of its own opportunities.
( Originally Published 1894 )
16th Century German And Flemish Painting
17th Century Dutch Painting
Early Renaissance Sculpture
Early Renaissance Sculpture
Renaissance Sculpture - Philosophy Of Its Decline
Renaissance Sculpture - Michael Angelo
Renaissance Sculpture - Later Styles And Decade