Michael J. Lewis The Gothic Revival 181 illustrations, 33 in olor @® Thames a Hudson world of art UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGas 20°~ LIBRARYIntroduction ‘When Kenneth Clark wrote his splendid Gothic Revivalin 1088, hae subtitled it‘An Essay in the History of Taste’. Indeed, in the history of taste and fashion, the revival forms an astonishing chapter. A style of architecture that stood condetnned for three ‘centuries as the apex of barbarism and irrationality was rehabili- tated ~at frst playfully, chen seriously and finally dogmatically Within a lifetime, a semi-ludicrous garden novelty was solemnly sn, then the governing centre of the world's most powerful economicand iged as the styleof the English Houses of Parla politcal power. But the Gothic Revivalisrather more than afash- jon craze for pointed arches and pinnacles. During its years of greatest influence, it subjected every aspect of art, belief, society andlabour tointense intellectual scrutiny, using the Middle Ages, asaplatform from which to judge the modern worl. “This seems a considerable burden toplaceon the back of what as, aftr all, just a atyle of architecture, But the Gothic always stood for ideas larger than itself The eighteenth century admired itfor its suggestive quality of decay and melancholy the early nineteenth century for the religious piety it expressed, the late nineteenth for its superb engineering, In the course of the revival the Gothic was attached to social movements of every sort ~ from political Liberalism to patriotic nationalism, from Roman Catholic solidarity to labour reform, Like Marxist, Which also drew lessons from medieval society, the Gothic Revival offered a comprehensi eresponse (othedislocations and traumas ofthe Industrial Revolution. In the broadest view, its, 2 Trim abtey Monmouth, thestory of Western civilization's confrontation with modernity. tralian; HeGonetad” ——‘Ttiseasy tosee why the Gothicexerted such alasting hold on sec cikilmenane™ ane Western mind fr theres no architectural experience om- ceeivittangecsiupes parable to that of stepping into a High Gothic cathedral, an ‘yymorastres. Their looed. intricate eanopy of stone vaults suspended far overhead, morning cumaughuecamed® ght blaring through its colored glass windows fn structural ‘Stterbemapratontetit terms-in thesbiltytoencloseamaximum amount of space with the least amount of material - it is the most efficient system of stone masonry ever devised. The C thie originated in the Te-de- vou France, in northwestern France, inthe years around 1140, atime 7 TEU UUUEEIEIEIIEE ESEseries of discrete structural improve 1e prevailing Romanesque style of ure, The round arch ofthe Romanesque was raised toa point, which was both more widely applicable (there are an inf more efficient structurally ‘The Romanesque groin vault was replaced by the much lighter Gothic ribbed vault, In place of the ponderous walls needed to supporta groin vault, lying buttresses were aligned on the exte- rior to press against the ribbed vaults of the interior, match nite number of pointed shapes) a the thrust with countervailing pressure, These channelled structural load ofthe lofty vaults directionally, carrying it away from the building as efficiently as drainpipes might carry away ructural members were placed only where they coducing a truly skeletal architecture, TThe highest development ot this principle took place in the turban cathedrals of Christ rope. In them the expressive potential of the new technology was fully realized, the wall dis- solving into shin slenderestof piers. In the High Gothic churches of the thir ‘century, such as the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, Paris 1242-47), the ng screens of glass, separated by the its of Gothic lightness were reached. The Gothic was more than bold engineering: structural elements, Ure anjes on omarental seratonbey, 1735 Perhaps the ost ‘st tintin bewoan Gath Ison apraton. fo, thon Istohe Wen peop ence may agee with he figal cham took tales tees owes, ET were embellished with ll the colour and surface enrichment that the decorative artscould provide In these cathedrals, the orches- tration of light, sound and space brought Christian worship tow pitch of spiritual reverie, This style reigned supreme for nearly four centuries, until the Italian Renaissance revived the architecture of classical ant- aquity. Then the Gothic eame to be disparaged as irregular and savage, mocked by Vasari as the maniera tedesca, the ‘German style, He and like-minded critics ignored the invisible logie of Gothic structure, Although it was supremely rationalina techni cal sense, it did not logkrational; the sixteenth-century mind saw only the grotesque water-spewing gargoyle. By 1460 pointed arches were out of ashion in Florence, generation later Paris, and by the middle of the sixteenth century fashionable Englishmen were building themselves classical manor houses Still, the Gothic died hard, and Gothic churches were built well into the seventeenth century in parts of Germany and England. Gothic vaulting also persisted for a time, although it was often masked with the decorative forms ofthe Renaissance. This phe- nomenon is called Gothic Survival, whose latest examples ‘overlap with the ist examples ofthe revival In some cases, Gothic Survival was not mere provincial back- swardness, but a matter of dolierate intellectual chaice. During thelate sixteenth century following a wave of experimental clas- ism, Gothic buldings began to appear again in Elizabethan England, and at thehighestlevels of society. Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer o° England, remodelled Burghley House along medieval lines, even giving himeelfa great hall under aloftyham- rmer-beamed ceiling. Gothic sentiment was strong among the nobility, the church and the universities, such as Cambridge, ‘whose StJohn’s College built a Gothielibraryin 1624, That these fundamentally conservative institutions were drawn to medieval imagery isnot surprising, Bach had recently undergone ajolting break with the pas the protestant Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries and the radical reshaping of England's socal ‘order — and desired emblems of continuity, legitimacy and national identity, Such were the great preoccupations of Elizabethan England, and they flare through the historical dra- ‘mas of Shakespeare ‘The religious aspect, mingled with the national, complicated the issue. Classical architecture suggested Ital, France and Spain, all Catholic territories and potential rivals, During the ‘years when fear of Catholicism blazed most strongly the century between the Spanish Armada of 1688 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Gothic provided a pleasing emblem of Englishness. Even Christopher Wren's Oflice of Works, a cockpit of classicism, was able to draw on this living Gothic tradition. As late as 1681 it produced the church of St Mary Aldermary, London, a Gothic basilica complete with a clerestory, traceried windows and fan vaults—alas,asham construction of plaster: Notevery use ofthe Gothic was a matter of ideology. In some cases it was used innocently’ simply to maintain visual continu uity with existing buildings. Wren felt that ‘to deviatefrom theold Form, would be toturn Cabuilding] into adisagreesble Mixture, ‘Which no Person ofa good Taste could relish’ At Christ Church Oxford, he built Tom Tower, a rather florid Gothic gatehouse For the restoration of Westminster Abbey he made designs for y Pec, Wee dno rede! th second cheno al Goble At Felt Lain, te corny chine cinskim henge’ tc grembanwstef Sonesta Ticcegn ror ir tered Dag Supa coors pa nt Wid glsad Gale a Santina hey SET oa eins eevasapen ca eee eer dain SER eree one Tim waco roves on unt eared foca alco, ool aca pea sais prema 6 LAAT Aad te gallate Sa aciyups araisha eajaeannaniotes a castartntouspaek Abner Attn oer diaoChcops he Oadinea a ying Aba (risa) aac < taay Womcra ea dl withering ot he wu Gomes altaya nal cane as has aiaage eter trove a Neo Zand Bers a te Co Repl >) Tea ed cress jl cas ea aes ee oie Thess orks ond oho WH TgaDEAT soe Tray cen Renae age a iti sent drg ate Esa Ths rea pt (Seti aly esas Srila shecvaymmaaiie Literature [My study holds three thousand volumes And et Isigh or Gothiccohumns ‘Sanderson Miller, 1750 Iisa leap to go from writing poems about ruins to making ruins ‘to represent poems, butin the early eighteenth century England did just this. The Gothic Revival began asa literary movement, drawing its impulses from poetry and drama, and translating them into architecture. It was swept into existence in Georgian England by anew literary appetite for melancholy horror, gloom. and decay. It revelled in the exalted psychological states of ‘Shakespeare's characters, the love ofthe fantastic and the super- natural in Edmund Spenser and, later, the morbid graveyard poetry of Thomas Gray. All these themes, which stood in opposi- tion to the classical values of clarity and orderliness, came to be associated with the crumbling Gothiclandscape of England, ‘The medieval landscape of England hadlong been the focus of powerful cultural associations. It was exceptionally rich in its heritage ofmedieval monasteries and abbeys. Although dissolved and looted by Henry VIII during the protestant Reformation, these decaying monasteries were an essential component of the landscape. The English attitude toward this landscape was unusually reverent. Because of the social history of England —a Norman aristocracy arriving in 1068 to supplant an Anglo- Saxon kingdom ~pedigree and dynastic continuity were matters of great symbolic weight. At the same time, England's aristoc- racy wasrural,not urban, and enjoyed an intimate relationship to the land as it does to this day. When the Puritans ruled England from 1646 to 1660, Tory aristocrats were exiled to their rural ‘estates; barred from public lif, many took refuge in antiquari ism, a favourite aristocratic diversion in troubled times. Most estates were built on or near the ruins of monasteries, whose antiquity seemed to offer historical legitimacy to their upstart possessors, albeit of a rather spurious sort. Such is the back- ‘ground to William Dugdale's Monastcon Anglicanum (1656), an extravagant compendium of these monasteries produced during. 8the Puritan interregnum. Wenzel Hollar's superb plates formed ’ Fetes cine theGulicRavva, cena Pugerdey | MaMa ae Tewas one thing todraw and research medieval monasteries,it 14) eagm@abllam@e© S00 was quite another to build copies of them. For this to happen gaia mes ota start of the eighteenth century it was stil taken for granted thata Sear ror vulaingnu be bot wlookt Themeate dame ach, eso? teotuetan nev by the. Rensianene and. proportoned | Mumamenigs=se™ othe aiteturehad- no plce To admit ewe of Cote a architecture, either ne of two things must occu: Fither the def nition of beauty could be stretched so that the Gothic could be defined as beautiful, orthe merit of a building could be seen to reside in values other than beauty. ‘The eighteenth century, though it struggled todo the first, chose the second course. The consequences of this were not restricted to the Gothic Revival and.ame to affect mich of Western culture ‘The doctrine which came to compete with beauty asthe fun damental end of artwas that of associationism. According to this doctrine, a work of art should be judged not by such intrinsic {qualities as proporton or form, butby the mental sensations they ‘conjure in the minds of viewers. Such an idea has long pedigree and i ultimately stetches back to John Locke's Essay Concerning “Human Understanding (1689), which treated sensory experience as the source of human knowledge. The relationship of this con- cept to art was stated most succinctly by Richard Payne Knight (1780-1824), whose Analytical Inquiry into the Picturesque pro- claimed that ‘all the pleasure of intellect arise from the association of ideas. For Knight, the real richness ofa workof art .vas notin the opulence ofits materials or elegance ofits form but in its limitless capacity to induce thoughts and impressions: almost every object of nature or art, that presents itself to the senses either excites fresh trains and combinations of ideas, or Vivifles and strengthens those which existed before’ A wooded landscape might summon agreeable thoughts and memories of childhood picnics; ruined abbey might call to mind melancholy reflections of the vislence ofthe Middle Ages or reflections onits piety: Payne Knight's book did not appear until1805 but it only patinto words what had long since become common practice. TThe playground for indulging associations was the pic- turesquely landscaped garden, that essential creation of cighteenth-century English culture, These gardens recreated the rambling irregularity and contrasting scenery found in the \d Salvator Rosa. In their painted landscapes of laude Lorrain paintings melancholy ruins were indispensable, serving to estab- Tih acale and perspectival depth, and in landscaped gardens they did the same. Of course, while Claude's ruins were classical, those of the English countryside were medieval ‘Thus from an early ‘Gate the English landscaped garden introduced medieval ‘ignettesmongii classical pavilions Some of these consisted of Femodelled or altered monastic ruins while others consisted of cntrely new buildings in the ‘Gothic’ style. Such lighthearted Structures posed no menace to the classical tradition, which “always tolerated grotesqueness in the Saturnalia of the garden. ly replaced by “Gothic'in the (Che spelling ‘Gothick’ was gra 170s In the nineteenth century. ’Gothiek’ came to stand for any Gothic Revivel building that was particularly naive, imsy oF his- torically incorrect.) ‘One of the first ofthese new buildings was the solitary Gothic ‘Temple built for Colonel James Tyrrell at Shotover Parl, 15 aOxfordshire, in 1716. This was a modest arcaded loggia, which faced Tyrrel's manor house across a small lake, each structure offering a view of the other. ts function was purely scenographic: a flat frontispiece set among the trees a a picturesque accent. Its rose window lit no usable space and ts crenellations sheltered no crouching archers, Only its Gothie details were novel while in every other respect, even in name it was classical. With such ami able works the Gothic tiptoed back into Western culture through that most unguarded aperture, the garden Many of these early Gothic garden buildings were shoddy builtin impermanent materials; they were fashioned by amateurs who knew litle of design and even less of archaeology. But to rock these pavilions, gazebos and artificial ruins as architecture, as the nineteenth century came to do, misses the point. In them, ‘composition, formal coherence and structural solidity were sub- ‘ordinated tothe desired associations, Except for the fact that they were made of brick and stood on the ground, they were closer to book illustration than architecture, with the quality ofa rechand sketch, Inthe communication of ideas their slapdash design was, no obstacle; on the contrary it helped. The worse a building was, in architectural terms ‘oversized pointed arches, buttresses and pinnacles legible it would beas illustration. In someinstances this thinking produced mere cartoons, a mouldering tower or a ruined abbey, ‘often built out of eanvas and board as eyecatchers on the fringe of a garden, Such manufactured stage scenery did not yet constitute a Gothic Revival. When they were built there was nomoreinten- tion of reviving the Middle Ages than the building of a Greek temple meant return to the worship of Zeus, TThe growing costopolitanism of the day also castanew light ‘on Gothic architecture, England's trade tiesto the Near and Far East revealed a wealth of architectural traditions that had little to do with the classical orders. Room for these styles was found in landscaped gardens, particularly at Kew, which inthe late eigh- teenth century b hinese pavilion its formal repertoire reduced to a few the more Such seructures were often orgie ie a didacti programme in ‘garden, which presented the viewer with achoreographed set of views and objects that unfolded sequentially. While these alien pavilions would have exotic associations, medieval structures often conveyed a distinctive political meaning. Tyrrell's Gothic ‘Temple was built just after the Hanoverian king George I ascended the throne in 1714, an event which caused England to brood over questions of national identity. A German-speaking, 16 £8 Te Goce Pani Sure. 1745, aroused be reo Hara Wie The Ga never alse ous reps ‘ney but pete ra git retored) protestant now reigned, while the Catholic Stuarts threatened invasion and rebellion from Scotland: this could not help but, throw into doubt every aspect of English religion, nationality and cultura. The Gothie asouaged thece doubts, providing an assertive and haughty symbol of national independence, untainted by any association with the Roman Catholic courts of Burope, where Baroque taste reigned. The effectiveness of such symbolism depended largely on historical ignorance, of course ignorance of the French origin ofthe Gothic andignorance ofits intimate relationship with medieval Catholicism, And a century ‘would pass before thisignorance was dispelled, a19 Wiliam Kents Mesie'sCave, Remand (0723) was an rare mascara, Speusy connetng tie Heroveran kgs thuian {Ergon at ave whon te Sus pretense tpn a ato {hathvona, Th pln war 35 ‘much an ete nstapert Theor om ‘and King Arr the Bish ‘Genin av Given this lack of basic historical knowledge, English pedants could cheerfully associate the Gothic with semilegendary fig- tures such as King Alfred or King Arthur. Likewise, they ‘connected it not with Catholic cathedrals but with secular build. ings, above all sturdy castles. Such imagery was entertained at the highest levels, up to the throne itself. In 1785 Queen Caroline commissioned tle bizarre Merlin’s Cave for Richmond Park in Surrey. This rustic little pavilion was a sort of subterranean ‘grotto, whose Gathie arches and vaults were made of unshaped boulders, bark-covered tree trunks and thatched roof. Here wasa Gothic for a protestant queen, suggesting nothing of Catholic cathedrals but evoking the Druideal origin of Gothie. Light &l- tered in from high windows above to fall upon a. didactic exhibition of wax figures taken from English history ~ associat- ing the newly arrived German court with the most ancient of English monarchs Merlin’s Cave was built by William Kent, the painter and architect to Lord Burlington, the patron of Englan Palladians. It is ironic that the first champions of the Gothie should have come from Burlington's circle, which practised a rather narrow and bookish classicism and which cherished the sober and decorous Renaissance classicism of Andree Palladio Nonetheless, the same trait that made them susceptible to Palladio ~ the connoisseur’s craving for fashionable novelty ~ made them sympathetic to the Gothic. At the same time Burlington's cirde consisted of Whigs, who upheld theauthority ante te Tale 2D eo eac, Artal an eer’ te Teg vn cao near in aces acabe wo a ‘pete. 11 Roherthan lasting he ‘tere tempat be, Gots asta maszny tora, aig geste in Sector sone rehire gm ne resi pve tering tearoom wou pass of Parliament in its struggles with the monarchy. They could argue that the Gothic was just as much a Whig style as a Tory style. The Tory could say thatthe Gothio was the style of tradi- tion and legitimacy, the Whig could retort that it was also the style of the thirteenth century and the Magna Cart power of the king was checked, Here, at the very outset of the revival, was the first indication of the infinite elasticity of the Gothic, which could be twisted by literary argument into justify- ing any cause ~ church or state, people or king, aristocrat or democrat. For the moment, however, it conveyed Englishness, « {quality to hich both parties were busily staking out aclaim, Kent became the favourite architect for medieval-minded ‘Whigs, most of his work consisting of carefree garden follies, such as those in the garden at Rousham, Oxfordshire (1787-40). AtStowe something more serious was built. This was the Temple ‘of Liberty, built for Richard Temple, the Viscount Cobham. 1¢ marks the culmination of the Whig Gothic. Cobham was the ‘champion of the Whig faction in Parliament, standing up for the parliamentary tradition in defiance of continental absolutism. At the peak of his political struggle he built for himself a garden when the 1912 Sonderon Miler, Tower Radway Wau, tetas ea rte sis fomulsl progam the tntorertd os he ome, lower vlimeto fet he Vera anda spur of rans ‘el that ale om an id Sy The wa the mini ‘Shor sy ate ined cae ‘ierthan an ep, 13,14 Baty Lane The ith Oder of Goth cic ‘nd An Une frthe ante Gomi renter impo 1741-42) Lares impeccable Aitemanenp st the sng fora entry of papa Gatien pavilion that represented his postion in symbolic terms Unlike other examples, where afew contrived buttresses braced a rick ety tower, the Temple of Liberty was a substantial piece of architecture, Its designer was James Gibbs, who had trained in, the Baroque of Rome and who had far more feling for the move ment and massing of the Gothic than his paper-bound 1neo-Palladian rivals, who kept their noses in books, He gave the ‘Temple of Liberty a compact triangular form with robust polyg. ‘onal bays and richly sculpted blind arches, all executed in hhandsome sandstone. Its interior was perhaps more impressive, forming a dramatic well of space surmounted by a gallery and a glittering domeat theapex. ‘Temple's iconography was literary; it included statues of | seven Saxon worthies, the motto ‘I thank God that I am not a Roman’, and even its punning tile, ‘the Temple of Liberty’. The imagery was a delirious swirl of ideas, mixed metaphor in which Saxon freedom, Protestantism and the Gothic style were con flated to stand against Catholicism, Roman absolutism and Classicism, Its complex and interlocking programme like that of anallegorical painting, was just the sort of witty performance the Enlightenment loved. Gothic nostalgia burned brightly during the reign of the Hanoverian Georgian era. When Squire Sanderson Miller ‘acquired the site at Radway, Warwickshire, overlooking Edge Fill, the culminating battle of the English Civil War ~ where (Charles I was decisively beaten he treateditas a national shrine. Key and Thomas Lingle Suv sod Sealy.He raised an octagonal tower, whose form was loosely based on that of Guy's Tower of Warwick Castle, one ofthe first instances ‘of an actual historical model being followed for a ruin, Miller's building was built on an agglutinative plan, in which parts were added by accretion and without regard for formal symmetry ‘This was probably happenstance rather than design. He added a section of wal tothe original tower, along with a smaller square tower and a spurious draw-bridge, and clearly Iked the results Soon he was repeating the scheme for his neighbours. One of these was the Tower at Hagley, Worcestershire 1748), one of the first to feature an arcaded wall, fuiliar sight from abandoned abbeys and now an essential component of the artificial run, Another was designed for the grounds of Lord Hardwicke's ‘state, Wimpole (although this was built to revised plans in 1768, apparently by thearchitect James Essex). ‘With the growing popularity of Gothic houses, correspond ing architectural literature arose The most notorious entry was bby Butty Langley.the enterprising landscape gardener and archi- tectural publicist, In 1742 Langley brought out his eccentric “Ancient Architects Restored and Improved by a Great Variety of Grand and Useful Designs, entirely New in the Gothick Mode for the Ornamentng of Buildings and Gardens, reissued five years later as Gothic Architecture, Improved by Rules and Proportions Deepite the ‘customary bombastic ttle, the book was a prim attempt to sub- ject Gothic forms to classical discipline, Langley was a great foe of Palladian architecture but he was nonetheless a classicist through and through, who believed that any architecture worthy of the name was based on ‘geometrical rules. I'no Gothic trea- tises on proportion survived and there was no medieval equivalent of Vituvius, this was only because the ravages of his tory had obliterated them. Surely ‘there were many ingenious ‘Saxon architectsin those times who composed manuscripts ofall their valuable rules, which with themselves were destroyed and buried in ruins. To reconstruct those rules was the burden of Langley’s book. He presented five Gothic orders in analogy to the five Vitruvian orders, arranged from mostrobust to most del- jeate, He also showed that the proportions of the tiniest ‘mouldings and subdivisions of parts were generated by thediam- eter of thecoluma base, again like Vitruvius, making the design of 4 Gothic building a fussy matter of adjusting modules and pro- portions. This was hardly the Gothic of the great cathedrals, and infact Langley'sproportions were more classical than medieval Like classe columns, the relationship of height to width was 15 Howe Walp, Stawbery i cena 1750-77 (mene around tat Hamebrg tala tle Gothic Saag hy itu alo Hott inow ts te ase pest ely am sy ight or nine toone, while genuine Gothic shaft might easily be several times that For all of his painstaking work with compass and dividers, Langley did not propose to rehabilitate the Gothic as « monu- ‘mental style. His ambition ran no higher than the making of merry ‘Umbrellos for the Centre or Intersection of Walks’ His Gothie range was limited, consisting of buttresses, crenelations and his ubiquitous ogee arch. This was a rather late Gothic fea- ture, hallinark of fourteenth-century English design, and it comprised a four-centred arch each of whose sides traces a deli- cate S-curve. Langley appreciated the form for its decorative lightness and used it repeatedly, making the feature an essential clement of anything purporting to be Gothic. So indelibly did the public associate the ogee with Langley that when he fell rom favourahalf century passed before anyone used the feature again. Far more influential than Langley's quaint book was Strawberry Hil, the rambling and eccentric plaything of Horace Walpole (1717-97), youngest son of prime minister Robert ‘Walpole. Unlike Langley, Walpole had no desire to domesticate the Gothic or to remove its gloom; he cherished it for the melan- holy tales it told, In 1750 Walpole bought a cottage at ‘Twickenham, on the Thames near London, which he altered and gS16 Stowe Hila lt rom isto west neecesty beer ‘ampaips The xg cotage athe too the pan was, ‘ode and ven test ad petal bays in 1750-53.In ‘hecampain of 1758 be on Room ane ha eat Sexton font were 203 Immediate came rote massive south cote Sra above thoreund ‘apa ce cle re ‘rue 8y 1763 vistes wee ‘mit, aoogh as ite 8 177 Walt was link, aidrg re Boucle ower the ‘expanded repeatedly over the next three decades. Is strongest point was its gradual growth by accretion, improvisation build. ing upon improvisation, giving it a rich complexity which distinguished it from the schematic quality of most examples of early Gothic Revival, ‘Walpole designed his house as he had amassed his art collec- idual treasures. To design the house he formed a Committee of Taste, comprising John Chute, Richard Bentley, Johann Heintich Mantz and others, with Walpole as the controlling mind. He himself selected the Gothic models which they fitted to their new functions. The change in use was often extraordinary: the tomb ‘of Archbishop Bourchier at Canterbury Cathedral, for example, became the fireplace in the long gallery; the screen at the high altar of Rouen Cathedral, the Holbein Chamber screen; the vaults of King Henry VIl's chapel at Westminster Abbey, the plaster ceiling of the gallery; and the choir screen of old St Paul's Cathedral, the arched and erocketed bookshelves ofthe library. Scarcely any element ~ carpets, chairs or wallpaper ~ lacked an authenticated pedigree. These imaginative leaps across archi- tectural categories are not surprising, if one considers that Walpole often worked from books and prints, where motifs were already flatzned into outline form, and where a tomb wass useful amotif asa window, or even an entire facade ‘That his motifs came from different countries and centuries tion: as a connoisseur, by scrupulous selection of indi i © 7 Srentary ston aaley as orga ih ions | pte! Wap caletn eatdswtig his acy ‘il wes plod th Jon Dress, eps is ' fa ah dt How he deel you conaiveto iets opertor? You wi tal ve a the women ith Suis cometo yous casen Ni ase shes oe. 18 ote Sante Hl von Walrad ns ‘alata were generay inde qstons of | ett andr imade te ‘hes buts ad rs ot Pista ware ems hat a Stusurtmeaning when adect soe turnonein wood caused Walpole no distress. He demanded the precise copying of ‘medieval models indeed, he was the ist todo so~—but historical accuracy mattered discretely. So long as each detail had a Gothic source, so he seems to have believed, the overall ensemble would take care of itself. Walpole had no wish to build a dank medieval keep; he wanted to livein Georgian comfort,in warm rooms with high ceilings and sash windows. His ‘Gothic’ house was a witty sham, an immense curiosity cabinet of architectural fragments heaped up into building. There is no artistic unity other than that provided by Walpole's whimsical personality, much as a great art collection can evoke the taste behind it. The interior details, however, are ofa piece. Most were by Bentley and show a similarly playful treatment, and a love of graceful, elegant lines. (On his wainscoted walls and panelled ceilings Bentley draped filigree of delicate, gossamer-thin detail whose spitit was as much rococo as it was Gothic, which was in keeping with his materials of choice: plaster and papier maché 25If the Gothic Revival was originally inspired by literature, Strawherry Hill took the process full cirele. In June 1764 Walpole dreamed ofa gigantic armoured hand hovering at the top of his staircase and he immediately elaborated his dream into a nove the Castle of Otranto: Gothic Story, which appeared in 1765."The story was overwrought and ridiculous: King Manfred, seeking to marry the intended bride of his dead son, imprisons her in his ‘gloomy castle; she escapes, braves underground passages replete with spectral voices and the occasional skeleton, finds her true love at which time the castle collapses spectacularly. The mix. ture of horror and romance strikes us as conventional but these are the conventions Walpole himself created, ‘The Castle of Otrantobegat anew and durable literary genre, the Gothic nove, ‘whose pedigree extends from Walpole through Walter Scat nd Bulgar Allan Poe tothe Stephen King novels of our own day. Iisa more lasting achievement than Walpole's house. Even before Strawberry Hill was finished, it was widely copied. Walpole’s ‘Committee of Taste, his happy band of Gothic draftsmen and artisans, tookits forms and lessons to other clients. By the 17603 ‘there wasa considerable numberof self-styled Gothic architects, including Sanderson Miller, Henry Keene and the talented ama teur Sir Roger Newdigate. A charming English eccentric, [Newgate insisted on making his own architectural drawings and designed a far-reaching series of additions to his sixteenth- : i ssa ene te century house, Arbury Hall, Warwickshire. Almost all ofthese =) mer continued to work on the Walpole method, composing ech i room aditvely out of features coped from approved Gothic ap rode Bat the quality of workimproved rapidly spurred bythe rivalry offshion and the rapid movement of architectural ideas, ‘Already by 1768 we fed « Gothic design whore contretion, detalland pata character weealthe productof4 cng) unfed conception This was the Chapelat Audley End, Essex of 1768, Jevelfrococolightnes whose authorship remaineamystry "The Gothic Revival oka diferent courein Scotland, where shemedival pat we not qutesodatant Conditonswerequite feudal in some of the more rugged, less hospitable regions, where |__19 Alveotawing ofthe Chapel st ay End, Essox chieftains stil held sway by personal authority, ensconced in ata pani corenircn peal their reotasneeia Unie England whore teary fer Met eres mratan aea® turesofacaste had become purely symbol the Scottish case | nny otagas ecru ts ea et pedal plerofreent when warfreerupsdas itd Mmbistinka api pe thring the Jacobite ebelions of 171 and 1748, Many estates ff Scnsbuchanysatnieswestar soe! te were rebut and reinforced during these upheavals wing the |) S¥epbfutet Ad, ta wot rey Ex atte tough granite masonry of Seni triton. Nothing could be ‘torJames Hob the Landon epee alt 2 afurther removed from the dainty affectations of Walpole’ Strawberry Hill The overlap of Gothic Revival and Gothic Survival in Scotland is showtn at Inveraray Caste, Argyll Sometime before his desth in 1726, John Vanbrugh made plans for an abstractly Gothic castle to replace the original medieval structure. This wen Arhibaldampbel (188-1701) bsae Dok of gy Hecho ober Morte 110) he oglsh Palade = Vani Th bul Seager rer nna proigy os yegun in 1746 and completed around ttish masonry. Four round tow Hal Worse 1782). Foe aieert 2Y cope ie potecnet practioner of cals Gothic Scans was James is ent Cuteo Caste, Prt (1810) snowed a ove fuged at, ot Grotans work He was the frst resize te areca talent of oung A WW ui whem he rity used ass rs with battlements marked the corners of the square caste which rose atthe centre toformamighty towered block, exprene ing the great hall within, Its medie entirely on sizeand the severity ofits construction, for other thay the traveried windows of the great hall and the arched porta there was no ornament at all. The walls were taut ashlar plane, without any projection or recession to create aplay of shadows sensible omission given Scotland's eimate Strawberry Hill and Inveraray represent two distinct types of eighteenth-century Gothic One was the self-conscious creation of fashionable antiquarianism, the other the adaptation of @ local tradition that was sustained by a warring nobility f great antiquity Strawberry Hill was an instrument for comuun. cating associations, literary in its programme and pictorial jn its execution, It was a pastiche, although a learned one. Tt mixed its sources indiscriminately: twelfth-century lancet arches fourteenth-century crenellatons and sixteenth-century Tudor indow labels. Inveraray was also an invented Gothic, but as the work ofa trained architect it had the unity ofa single eon ception, Robert Morris's imagination was disciplined by two lively traditions, that of Palladian planning and of Scottish stone; there was nothing frivolous or calligraphic about it And yet Inveraray was as much an intellectual creation as Strawberry Hill, a carefully orchestrated work of ancestral symbolism, Built during. the Jacobite troubles, its immense stone mass stood for a desired dynastic stability that was in reality all 00 precarious, TThe masons who built Inveraray Castle were William Adam and his sons John and Robert, who took its style throughout Bebsmncasie 777-20) Scotland and beyond. In fact, Robert Adam worked at both Betessnmits feat Atoms | Inveraray and Strawberry Hill~for which he designed a ceiling, Pea nok Rexacingtat y ttre inane inet Givnavssreteppozisaina form his own personal variant of the castle type. OF this there fireplace and some furni¢ure~and he drew on both buildings to Mpsloe temnaied ere many, including Dalquharran Castle, Ayrshire (1788), iareosens” Seton Castle, East Lothian (1760) and. Airthrey Cactl, inbred owes, Stirlingshire (1790) Because of his training asa stone mason, Beda comet (imeem, castings ‘Adar : Sein pourcave other early Revivalist. In part this came from his predilection for building around an existing medieval building, exploiting itshis- torical associations. The most splendid of these was Culzean Castle (1777-90), superbly sited above a craggy promontory Like many Scottish castles the character is late medieval, with ‘castles were more solidly architectonic than those of any25 Rena Payne ent (0778-78), asaninegule ie, The experience heed hn rea contved regu round oF flat-headed windows. Only in the interior di Ay Italian study. 4 "The Adam brothers were not the only architects to imiay Inveraray which serve ax the model for acenty of caxcall Scotsh Houwes. es catellted style had two grest meri evoked hereditary legitimacy and it did so cheaply without i cont of raising a classical portico. Carved ornament was eld gg ‘minimumand etch rambling volume inthe picturesque compog tion contzined serviceable rooms within, The style ail immediately popular. Even Richard Payne Knight, the author the Anaya gir int the Pitre, built himsel a cana Inted house: Downton Castle, Ludiow. Knight had no ancestral nobility to celebrate His stately caste was built by the wealth the family iron foundry in Shropshire. Perhaps fr that rent Knight took pane to explain thatthe ‘aseocation of le aroused by a building wat a purely mental proces an id nl ned torefletany actual stateofasirs or historical ruth Such Me Mueggsie tet, slight changes ~ to minke prisons terrifying. ohn Havilants doctrine could not help but be embraced at a time of colossal praia (1821-36) 925 Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia (182)—36), with its ci d san Haviond WYO nnovative radial plan and system of solitary confinement, was social upheaval ee enc tive radial plan and sy y Its ionic that Knight’ doctrine should have produced so SR Blanes the word's most progressive prison. And yet its exterior was sat tntehanefied Ovdicestten bo hecoceitine dat mata HEI ophing more than an autre version of Downton Cast the the Middle Ages conjured were still primarily ones of melan- MMB pocetncons windows narrowed and the playfl iregulaity made rigidly choy and gloom In fact, thecatellatel styl lived a double ig J guasounshonrent symmetrical and the sami forms that m cle mansions clegant served with ugimowembeatd=ee® By che end of the eighteenth century, the Gothic had pro- ooo gressed along way toward rehabilitation. It was now an essential eer ofthe architects repertoire, an indispensable mede fo , lighter commissions, Nonetheless, the rehabilitation was only partial, There was still only the mostimperfect understanding of Feal Gothic architecture ithad yet tobe attached to more serious Cultural ideas than affections of melancholy and gloom. While itwashandy forcountryhouse or inherently gloomy objectlike prisons, it was not yet fit for the most important civic commis- ions In short, the Gothic had sill not gathered the iresstible ‘altura momentum tata true revival require. Tis would hap- pen only with the twin forees of Romanticism and the Industrial Revolution, which liberated the Gothic from the quarantine of the picturesque garden and placed it in the centre of public ieChapter 2: oat auing vets eo, ps sbi var Indio at otis | esoustizon acon Romanticism Some people drink to forget their unhappiness; donot drink, Fld William Beckford Theliterary Gothic of the eighteenth century had the limitations of literature as well as the merits. [¢ was intelligent and varie gated but at best it was the nature of hook illustration, filing to exploit those abstract properties that are essential to architee ture the sculptural and the spatial In the late eighteenth century this state of affairs changed, the Gothic at last being treated in architectural terms, and with an eye towards artistic unity. This was the achievement of that glib and overworked designer James ‘Wyatt (1746-1819), the first of the Gothic romantics. Wyatt showed that building might thrill by its sheer scale, confronting, the imagination rather than merely ttllating the intellect. In ‘other words,abuilding might be sublime. The concept of the sublime was the peculiar contribution of| the philosopher Edmund Burke, whose Philosophical Enguiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime ond Beautif appeared in1767, when its author was twenty-seven, Burke noted that there were aspects of nature that were neither agreeable nor pleasan, but which exereized a powerful effect on the mind. Phenomeng such as ocean tempests or glaciers suggested the menacing vas. ness of nature and the seething, implacable forces within her, rather different view of nature than that of Claude's benign land_ scapes. Burke sussumed these phenomena under the rubric of the sublime, which was not only apsychological butan aestheticeate. ory, tobe set alongside beauty. Artists were invited to explore the sublime, to cll forth infinity and to plumb the emotions of dread and terrorthat this induced. Burke wrotein thespiritof the Enlightenment, seeking to analyze a misunderstood aspect of Jhuman experience, but his doctrine confronted something that ‘was itselfanti-rational. Inadvertently hehelped plant theseedsof Romanticism. In short order architecture would not be judged according to thecool and dispassionate standards of Walpole but. by its ability to inspire reverie and delirium. This entailed colos- sal scale but also contrast and the manipulation of darkness and shadow. According to Burke, ‘all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the sublime ought to be dark and glooray’. By the turn of ‘the century this dea became the common coin of romantic artists and architects, and to Wyatt it was especially congenial Anartistofrarelmagination, Wyattknew what the plous anti ‘quaries didnot, that the most potent aspect of the Gothiclay nis sublime and overwhelming vistas and not in its repertoire of crockets and pinnacles He foundhisideal clientin the millionaire ‘William Beckford, the tragiceccentrie whobuilt the most fantas- ticof Gothic predigies. If Walpole lived at Strawberry Hill in an imaginary world of Gothic dreams, Beckford lived them, He fled England to escape charges of pederasty and while overseas wrote his novel Fathek an Arabian tale of a eruel caliph living in his tower and flirting with the temptations of demonic geni Beckford wrote ais novel in French, perhaps to put at a dista ‘what was otherwise a parable of his own life, Upon his return he buile Fonthill Abbey (1796-1819) in Wiltshire an appropriate setting for playing the part ofthe capricious despot. Beckford’ first idea was to create fiction of a ruined abbey, with afew wings and fragments of cloister huddled at the base of his tower. The improvisation grew more elaborate over time, as 28 Fen Abbey, 1796-1807, by Jaes Wa was temponed mich he psig spout pyri ok more wings were added and the abbey turned from plaything to lac feldssed wings re vera stove! permanent residence. Its hub was a 278-foot-high tower which Ee eter cared oun sboys's lof etapa fall eh Which Wir wings Faded afer Wyatt's architectural tastes were in keeping with Beckford's EERE!ears cot reo os colle Bie er rmegalomania; he appreciated absolute magnitude and the power fa long axial procession, and he treated the western hall asa and solemn nave, surmounted by an intricate hammer- beamed ceiling and leading to a flight of stairs allegedly wide enough to drive carriage up. The stunning complex effectively ended the Georgian phase of the Gothic Revival. Compared to ‘Wyatt's performance, Strawberry Hill looked prim and polite No longer did it suffice to equip a Georgian parlour wit medieva Palla Beckford's abbey recalls the biblical parable of the man who himneypieces and erocketed panelling or to furnish a an facade with a matched pair ofbay windows built his foundations on sand, Wyatt's builders, working day and night by torchlight, skimped on foundations, « fact belatedly revealed by the builder on his deathbed. But no heed was taken and in December 1886 his mournful tower collapsed spectacu larly. For Beckford’s architectural folly this was an appropriate end, lke thestriking of forharsher historical ju been vireu after aplay But Wyatt has comein ent. His romantic impulses may have in his imaginative work but they were vies in his architectural restorations, the most notorious aspect of his career. His freewheeling restorations of Durham, Salisbury and Hereford cathedrals, as well as Westminster Abbey, earned him aan indelible reputation for ruthlessness, ‘Wyatt the destroyer’ in Pugin’s epithet, And indeed, his habitual destruction of medieval chapels, tombs and rood screens in the name of architectural purification is lamentable Salisbury (begun 1789) is typical of the lot. There his charge was to ‘clean and colour the Chureh, to ‘clean and varnish the stalls’ and to remove the rood screen that divided the choir from the Lady Chapel. But Wyatt was operating upon firm aesthetic principle as at Fonthill Abbey. His controlling idea was to treat the cathedral its disp otional effect, touching an artistic whole, to uni partsinto ‘one overwhelming space The stirring ‘nthe sublime, was one that Burke himself might have endorsed, even though a good deal of historical evidence was moved or lost in the process. Move Wyatt's restorsticnn Sed ‘lan excessively tidy eliminating the sense of congealed time that is the principal charm of cluttered old buildings. Nonetheless, his were the first systematic reconstructions, where historical and aesthetic considerations were consciously at the forefront, ‘Wyatt's self-consciously artistic restorations showed how speedily pictorial values had become ascendant. OF course, painters were now discovering Gothic architecture as subject‘eon com usualy Sandy (1721-98) wae oro Georan nee Ieicenee, ign andwe (peemos pollens. Unione hue, 2 1790 tm the UsesyoPemayanis matter, but inversely, a building was now more likely tobe ca, ceived asa painting, its features organized pitorially it lines ang contours arranged for visual effec. This meant a great increase in the amount of ricturesque interest of adesign, and in general» irregularity and movement A sign ofthis shift in values was the sudden emergence of the picturesque rendering, Architectural drawings were heretofore simply ameans toan end. Thisisnot tp say that there were not attractive renderings of Strawberry Hil for example, but tnese were made after the fact; the architectural amateurs who corceived these buildings and the carpenters why assisted them made no ravishing drawings. But in the middle of the eighteenth century the Italian architect and artist Piranesi had shown that architectural drawings might themselves be objects of intrinsic aesthetic interest —an idea that was intensely exciting to Gothicarchitects. Soon they deviseda rendering style befitting their architecture, Atmospheric watercolour dravings depicted the buildings in wooded or mountainous settings whose jagged lines echoed the towered forms of the churches them: ‘selves. Thomas Sandby (1721-98), professor of architecture to the Royal Academy, was exceptionally adept atthe romantic ren- dering, integratng building and landscape in a seamless 9 ensemble ‘The relationship of architecture to landscape was something. to which English designers gave much thought. Since the 1730s the picturesquely landscaped park had arisen in opposition tothe stiff formality of the French and Dutch tradition, with its insis “7 4g jan ceso pant L tence on subjecting nature to geometric order: The chieFapostes 4 siusyGxsalin 18264 hy of the new style were first William Kent and then the proliie | BMMBnI iss: (or clumps of tres and meandering lakes. Brown applied his studied a neclot (‘Capability’) Brown, who tormented gardens and parks ighout England into serpentine lines punctuated with Felicia eh 178itbecamefshionbleto deploreisighy arial i Gee eroceanee irregularity without much variation or subtlety and ater bis ben Pietrenqu emerged the 1790s chit advocates ~ Richard Payne Knight, Uvedale Price and Richard Gilpin ~ argued that the inherent qualities of lndacape must lays be taken int tecount and that any proces of landscaping should work to strengthen these quaies through a proces of intelligent or- rection and pruning, The optimistic era termed the procs Smproverent The greatest of the improvers was Humphry: Repton (0160-1818), the author of ‘Slates and Hints on Land Gardening (1798) and Ohseratons om the Terry end Prac of andicpe Gardening (1809) Repton made is fame with is Red Books ports of recommended alterations which he wouldPepe ar hs evs, prt utrae by befell ter wewn tn hod in oder at» bo ie aa Preeti cng va flyin esprit et logically and inevitably from the natural traits of the lindsey ise Often Gothic buildings were proposed, whose ramblig wings complemented the undulations of the setting. Reptoyg reassuring landscapes hinted at permanence and stability ang were dearly valued during an age when the landscape was rol by immense physical changes, brought on by the Indust Revolution and the disruptive enclosure movement which way bringing unpartitioned common land under cultivation a acon, siderable human cost, dislodging countless thousands af agricultural labourers from their homes and livelihoods ‘The reat theme of Repton’s landscapes was the continuity of English culture and life, a theme expressed in the architecture as well y the planting. Here he found an ideal complement in John Nash, his architectural partner. Nash had a particular knack forthe ‘making of picturesque castles, which evoked the same associn. tions of hereditary continuity and legitimacy as did Reptons parks, From 1796 to 1802 they worked together, the summit of the Gothic Revival in its pictorial mode the counterpart tothe blithe and graceful world of Jane Austen, although it maske) forces and socal pressures that were convulsiveand terrifying [Nash was a genius at architectural pastiche, untroubled by qualins about historical accuracy. Nonetheless, during, these _years the archaeological quality of neo-Gothie work made a sud- den and remarkable leap. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, the Gothic Revival did not seruple to distinguish between military, ecclesinstic and domestic Gothic, nor between the various epochs of medieval architecture, There was no great advance beyond Wren’s division of medieval architecture intoan colder Saracenie style and Gothic (that is between Romanesque and Gothic). In fat, according to associational theory it was no violation to place a sixteenth-century Tudor window above a ‘welth-century archway. AIL the better, If such a juxtaposition heightened the aura of chivalry, romance and gloom, But there now came into being a growing corpus of documented buildings, plans and elevations reproduced in accurate line drawings, largely achieved through the patient spadework of local anti- ‘quaries. The key figure was the industrious architect John Carter, who produced Fiews of Ancient Buildings in England(1786-05):he systematically measured and drew the nation's cathedrals and 7 Bato and is prope aerators Hissin prose is uty Red Books We sonshing spe. Beloung that te Fatt amin enh wrdscapeshoulsbe Seog a esata na ay od ad Netiasat veins Some ofthese sling casaton most ose he Tinea opens the taps of Rpts ravines.np ia ro gas rt them forthe Society of Antiquarey ;). These books established the mould for all subsequent compendia of Gothic architecture, such as foi abbeys, subsequent Cathedral Sores (1 Bricton’s Architectural Antiquities of G in, which appear in forty lavish instalments from 1806 to 1814s Carter wasn ential in another respect, for as the chief architectural writer for the Gentlema’s Magazine he brought learned and intel not dispassionate ~ discussion of Gothic architecture to a wid popular audience. Frequently he commented on Wyatt's fre: ‘wheeling restorations which toCarter, the best-nformed Gothie painful. His diatribes against these scholar ofhisday, ‘were conducted on a plane of furious invective, injecting int the Gothic polemic a dogmatic, almost theological tone that woul resound in the works of Pugin, Ruskin and the Beelesiologists. E Ty to sens ase. ow fences wee tne Hert, sto: gone esata ‘Through theefforts of Carter, Britton and others it gradually became possible tidentify the various phases ofthe Gothic style and to classify them in terms of their internal process of develop ‘ment, When this firsthappened in the years around 1800, it was inevitable that the whole mental framework of the classification be borrowed from classical scholarship. There the concept of stylistic development was a that time @ novel insight. Until the third quarter ofthe eighteenth century, the classical heritage was commonly seen as one long unchanging afternoon of perfection, ‘This understanding was shaken by recent archaeological discov- cries at either end of classical antiquity, which could not be reconciled with the seemingly timeless proportions of Vitruvius. Rather, they seemed to show an unfolding archaic Doricof Paestum tothe ate Imperial style of Diocletian's2 Cail Maca iil tication, In 1798 he was the first Englishman to argue tha hy pointed arch itself was the fundamental element of all Goth architecture, in distinction to its various decorative feature, ie claborated the concept in his Treatite on the Reclesiitia) uncouth vitality to corruption. This suggested that an ideal Gothic might be found, midway between the periods of birth and decay, in which the properties of vigour and refinement were exactly counterbalanced, neither too brutal nor too decorative, ‘This was the ‘chaste grandeur’ of the Middle or Second Pointed, | which Miller illustrated by the forms of York Minster, which dated from about 1800, Here was a fateful turn for the Gothic Revival, for this way of categorizing Gothic architecture simulte neously permitted the making of moral judgments about it. Like Carter, Milner's ability to recognize the period styles made him an indignant critic of contemporary restoration practice. He came toenjoy the accumulated stylistic phases ofthe great eathe- drals. Beneath the visual disorder he saw the orderly and poetic ‘arch of time, each successive building campaign contributing clements in its distinctive stylistic voice. Wyatt’s crime was the attempt to give these parts aspurious unity which led unfailingly to ‘the destruction of the proportions, and of the relation ofthe different parts ofthe Cathedral Miller's chronology was further refined by Thomas Rickanan (1776-1841), who in 1819 published his Attempt to Discriminate ‘the Styles of English Architecture, a practical handbook intended to rake cleries more capable of deciding on the various designs for ‘churches in imitation of the English styles. Rickman accepted Milner’s three ‘pointed orders’ but he renamed them Early English, Decorated English and Perpendicular English To these he added an earlier fourth order to describe the Romanesque architecture that followed the Norman conquest. Recognizingits imported quality, he gave it the term Norman rather than English, Rickman’s terms, coming after the long isolation of, Architecture of England during the Middle Ages (1811), which | divided the Gothie into three orders of ‘Pointed Architecturs which, like the architecture of antiquity, progressed from | [BP TneGottne asa cloak that i, a Geesen ews titre | Gvenatnt sve J ‘Boys esa ‘eure England during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, inevitably assumed a patriotic cast, Once applied to the Gothic, this patriotic voeabulary and the associations it aroused — like ‘Milner’s moral ones~would be difficult to extirpate. Unlike Milner, Rickman was no moralist but @ practising architect who worked happily in the Perpendicular ~ the first to know consciously that he was doing so. Never before had an architect conceived his Gothie designs as stylistic unities, based ‘on aspecificmoment ofistorial development. His notion ofhis- torical fidelity ended at the walls, however, and hs interiors were ‘modern creations in both the spatial and technical sense Rickanan was a Quaker and he gave hisinteriors something ofthe open spatial sense ofa Quaker meeting house, using spindly cast iron columns to supportbritde galleries ‘The early efforts won acceptance forthe use ofthe Gothic in Anglican churches, The trickle af essays soon ose toa torrent as, shown by the Chureh Building Act of 1818. This sought to meet the demand for new churches brought about by the dramatic op tlation spurt that coincided with the Industrial Revolution and the consequent enormous urban overcrowding, In the initial campaign, 214 churches were built, the vast majority of them Gothic. The increase in medieval knowledge was also palpable although most architects continued to use the Gothic as a ‘cladding, as did John Soane, not taking into account its peculiar spatial and structural qualities. There was one notable exception, 0iia 1213-14. Cha ef ea ac vith being pens be Ct these Chueh lig O18, Ofte 214 chenes uti carpi, eas reopen and wells teors St Lake's, Chelsea (1880-24) was a true basilica, with low sige, and a lofty nave, instead of the customary barn-ike auditor, Iewasalso vaulted in stone, a radical ah snce over the plaster an lath vaults of the eighteenth century. This gave the church gy even to the flying bat tresses of the exterior, no affectation but structurally necessary its designer was a bridge builder James Savage 1779-1859), Hereat last, afteracenturygp paper Gothic by draftsmen, was a building whose artistic ;ructural system were ¢ unmistakable sense of structural reality, Biss, a ore oa es yezeting fussy wood lrg Trea Gohc lements Perhaps not surprising! ye work of the same mind. I, and st instantly made Wyat’s work look like sham and gimerack, rai ing both the eesthetic and teehnical standards of the Gothic, Thenew fi fr pecs period aciracy was nparent not | eet ay er ecisonny arts, especially literature, The novels of Walter Scott's Maven series, such as Ivanhoe (1819) and Kenilworth (1821), depend on theaccuracy of ther setting, language, costume and over tal atmosphere; they can rightly be called the first historical novels in the modern sense. (In comparis o their vivid reere ation of medieval life, The Castle of Otranio and Fathek were no tore than fairy tales) His instant financial success showed that there was a thirst for medieval romance in England ~ and in France as well, where he was wildly popular and where Vietor Hugo copied both the technique and the medieval subject matter Scott was one of the revival's most influential propagandists, ‘whose readers carried away avast mental storehouse of charac- tere and eves which was agreeably activated whenever they {gazed on a Gothic building. Surely many of the Gothic houses and churches builein increasing mural xs from the 18908 onward trace their origin toa happy encounter with Scot. The pursuit of period accuracy also characterized Seott's own house, Abbotsford, which followed the baronial style ofthe six teenth and seventeenth centuries. tis unfortunate that Scott did not choose as his architect William Burn (1789-18 0), the: practitioner of the baronial style, for this would have brought together the two greatest artists of Scottish medievalism, Burn had the strongly architectonic senseof ottish architecture, and the memory of the quarry. His favourite sources were Jacobean(1816-18) was nol generically Sten Baers orament,Esnbuh 184046 @ emp, was treat Gt pum or Holand Ippon 12-2. van eects cea ener eine Seely Aisne tite expects Hapot otet Se, end se, 0 Shah te Awl am sot the froma, oary freer etary was fata endo pte Sessa oghatccomices end ‘hogs toa fc dered lures. Bu’ huh as an ety ample! and Elizabethan ~ merged by him into a solid an “Jacobethan’ synthe earlier revivalists deployed their irregular rambling wings in order tomanufacture pictorial drama, Burn's compositions were sober and stately. in which the occasional asymmetrical wing was motivated by function, His greatest importance was in planning, andhedesigned theera's most efficient and con interiors, becoming one of the most brilliant centie revival. He intelligently wove together three types spaces ~ the family’s private dwelling quarters, the servat rooms and the principal public chambers ~ which in chilly Scotland might only periodically beheated for use. By making the family’s priv nating the rest of the plan to them, Burn singlehandedly ‘without Nash's dainty flourishes. While abledomestic ners of the of rooms the spatial heart ofthe house, and subordi- abolished the tyranny of the Palladian plan, with its compulsory symmetry and its obligatory formal salons, This revolution ‘would long outlive the Gothic Revival itselfDept rdopesoes, [Ergun aie leads. The eri Bensamin ae abe (1766-182 ‘ed he 1790s, bg Saher nd eta ‘Wan Canmend See 1790, ovat eb ‘he Suit Pad, pes ee Chelsie During the rst quarterof thenineteenth century the tastelor Gothic had become a mille class phenomenon. The landscape gardener John Claudius Loudon (1785-1848), yet_ another Edinburgh-trained product of the Scottish Enlightenment defy served this market. His Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architctre (1888) democratized the taste of Nash and Repton, transposing their castles and landscaped parks to the {format of cottages and gardens suitable tothe smallest budget~ ‘appropriate to every Class of Purchasers, as he termed i, The success of the hook led him to launch the Architectural Magasin, which heedite from 1834 to 1858. A lury ofillustrated pattern books now appeared. Loudon was even more influential in the United States, where tere were few ancestral estates to speak of and where modern villa and cottage design was a matter of great public interest. In ‘America, the aristocratic symbolism of the castle was suspect, anda different picturesque doctrine was required, Here there was little sympathy for the Tory view of landscape promulgated by Repton and Knight, with its reverence for continuity of owner ship; in nature and the improvement of the landscape was America's providential destiny. Nonetheless, the unfolding of this destiny ‘was traumatic. In 1826 the Brie Canal opened, connecting New 45 Gla (1852, ayn Folawing hie ec, Re Gere cammisne Gobi hose, Ieteinpatant we thi Toe. Btn me ar Bn nial apy at Gen bene rade dapaves tcad a universal consensus held that the conquest of t fii i t iYork City to the American interior and transforming the tic Hudson River into something ofan industrial corridon fy event, coupled withthe rapid deforestation ofthe settled resign unleashed a great wave of nostalgia for America’s van forests In painting thisled tothe Hudson River Schoolin iy ture to the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cig (who admired Walter Seott so much that he visited Abbot and modelled his own ee : ‘The new mode was introduced, strangely enough, in sevg rural cemeteries ~ Mount Auburn, near Boston (14), Laurel Hill, Philadelphia (1856)— where the conventional cla cal monument now competed wit arising tide of Gothic tom andchapels (1803-2) and his friend Andrew Jackson Downing (116 were the leading figures of the movement, the former its no imaginative designer and the latter its oustanding theory Dovning’s influence was sensational. Like Loudon, his moda he too was a landscape architect who was inevitably drawn in architectural matters, He produced a torrent of gardening ‘manuals and pattern books which culminated in Tie Archit of Country Houser (1850), America’s fist great work ofarchitee | tural theory: Downing brilliantly presented English landsa theory and ts fashionable Gothicarcitecture— which hadarisen in a nation whose understanding of history and landscape was almost diametrically opposed to prevailing American views ina ‘way that was acceptable to American patrons, Downing recaye nized that American attitudes towards art were stil coloured by the Puritan heritage. Art was still perilously close to being a | ‘graven image’, disallowed by the Second Commandment, lthoughe it was tolerated iit was useful. Here Downing found. 5 his opening, repeatedly stressing the utility ofthe picturesque cottage, not only in crassy functional terms but in moral | terms as well. For him the eottage was an instrument of moral Improvement. Rather than evoking medieval nostalgia and symbol of Republican simplicity, unaffected natural hfe and an absence of pretence 56 Downing created the foundation for the picturesque ‘American suburb, of which Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, with its Gothic houses and picturesque wooden ‘ramble’, was the first ‘example. This was the democratization of the picturesque land scaped garden of Uvedale Price and Humphry Repton, its visual irregularity and continuity preserved even as it was carved into ‘saleable parcels. These picturesque suburbs remain the preferred model for American living tothe present. Although their specii-g 7” cally Gothie features have been abandoned, modern suburban ‘tracts continue to be characterized by architectural informality, winding serpentine roads and continuous swaths of lawn. Probably no other contribution of the Gothic Revival o the form cof themodern world was so sweeping, ori solittle recognized, ee oa. a”