Chapter XX · GENERAL SUMMARY. (continued 2)

I think, too, that the occasional study of any ancient school of architecture is always attended with the best possible results to those who are themselves attempting to practise the same art. It recalls us, when necessary, to the consideration of the points of difference between their work and ours; and thus, by obliging us to reconsider our position, may enable us to see where it is defective, and where the course we are pursuing is evidently erroneous. I have already noticed incidentally, in more than one place in this work, the noble air of solidity which so often marks the early Spanish buildings; I need hardly say that in these days none of us err on this side, and that in truth our buildings only too often lack even that amount of solidity which is necessary to their stability. And this leads me naturally to another questionable feature in modern work, which is to a great extent the cause of our failing in the matter of solidity. These noble Spanish buildings were usually solid and simple; their mouldings were not very many, and their sculptures were few, precious, and delicate. There was little in them of mere ornament, and never any lavish display of it. Sculpture of the human figure was but rarely introduced, and whatever sculpture there was, was thoroughly architectural in its character. How different is the case now! Hardly a church or public building of any kind is built, which—whatever its poverty elsewhere—has not sculpture of foliage and flowers, birds and beasts, scattered broadcast and with profusion all over it. However bad the work, it is sure to be admired, and as it is evidently almost always done without any, or with but little interference of the architect, he is often tempted to secure popularity for his work in this easiest of ways. I know buildings of great cost which have been absolutely ruined in effect by this miserable practice; and I know none in the middle ages in which so much carved work has been introduced, as has been in some of those which have recently been erected. I believe it to be a fact that more carving—if the vulgar hacking and hewing of stone we see is to be called carving—has been done in England within the last twenty years than our forefathers accomplished in any fifty years between A.D. 1100 and 1500! And I believe equally that, if we limited ourselves to one-tenth of the amount, there would be more chance of our having time to think about it and to design it ourselves.

The same misfortune that has befallen us with foliage will soon befal us with figures. It has suddenly been discovered that every architect ought to be able to draw the human figure, and soon, I fear, we shall see it become the fashion to introduce figures without thought or value everywhere. If men would but look at some of our own old buildings, they would see how great is still the work which has to be done before we understand how to emulate the merits of those even among them which have no sculpture of any kind in their composition, and how great the architect may be who despises and rejects this cheap kind of popularity.[432] And they ought to take warning, by the comparison of old work and old ways of working with new, of those too attractive but most dangerous schemes for seducing them from the real study of their art into other paths, certain, it is true, of popularity, but full of snares and pitfalls, which, as we see on all sides, entrap some of those even who ought to have been aware of their danger.

Sculpture in moderation is above everything beautiful. Sculpture in excess is very offensive. These Spanish churches teach us this most unmistakably if they teach us anything at all; and as the main object of the study of ancient art—the main object of those who wish to “stand in the old ways where is the truth”—is to derive lessons for the present and future from the practice of the past, I am sure that, in applying the results of my study of Spanish art in the warning which I here very gravely give, I am only doing that which as an artist I am bound to do, if I care at all for my art.