The Crown of Wild Olive
called 'The Seven Lamps' was to show that certain right states of temper
and moral feeling were the magic powers by which all good architecture,
without exception, had been produced. 'The Stones of Venice,' had, from
beginning to end, no other aim than to show that the Gothic architecture
of Venice had arisen out of, and indicated in all its features, a state
of pure national faith, and of domestic virtue; and that its Renaissance
architecture had arisen out of, and in all its features indicated, a
state of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic corruption. And
now, you ask me what style is best to build in; and how can I answer,
knowing the meaning of the two styles, but by another question--do you
mean to build as Christians or as Infidels? And still more--do you mean
to build as honest Christians or as honest Infidels? as thoroughly and
confessedly either one or the other? You don't like to be asked such
rude questions. I cannot help it; they are of much more importance than
this Exchange business; and if they can be at once answered, the
Exchange business settles itself in a moment. But, before I press them
farther, I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. In all my past
work, my endeavour has been to show that good architecture is
essentially religious--the production of a faithful and virtuous, not of
an infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I have
had also to show that good architecture is not _ecclesiastical_. People
are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, not
their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on
'religion,' they think it must also have depended on the priesthood; and
I have had to take what place was to be occupied between these two
errors, and fight both, often with seeming contradiction. Good
architecture is the work of good and believing men; therefore, you say,
at least some people say, 'Good architecture must essentially have been
the work of the clergy, not of the laity.' No--a thousand times no; good
architecture has always been the work of the commonalty, _not_ of the
clergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals--the pride of
Europe--did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; they
corrupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron's castle,
and the burgher's street. It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and
powers of free citizens and soldier kings. By the monk it was used as an
instrument for the aid of his superstition; when that superstition
became a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed
and pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in the
crusade--through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothic
rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolish
dreams; and, in those dreams, was lost.
I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunderstanding me when I
come to the gist of what I want to say to-night--when I repeat, that
every great national architecture has been the result and exponent of a
great national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there--you
must have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a
clerical company--it is not the exponent of a theological dogma--it is
not the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priesthood; it is the manly
language of a people inspired by resolute and common purpose, and
rendering resolute and common fidelity to the legible laws of an
undoubted God.
Now, there have as yet been three distinct schools of European
architecture. I say, European, because Asiatic and African architectures
belong so entirely to other races and climates, that there is no
question of them here; only, in passing, I will simply assure you that
whatever is good or great in Egypt, and Syria, and India, is just good
or great for the same reasons as the buildings on our side of the
Bosphorus. We Europeans, then, have had three great religions: the
Greek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and Power; the
Mediaeval, which was the Worship of the God of Judgment and Consolation;
the Renaissance, which was the worship of the God of Pride and Beauty;
these three we have had--they are past,--and now, at last, we English
have got a fourth religion, and a God of our own, about which I want to
ask you. But I must explain these three old ones first.
I repeat, first, the Greeks essentially worshipped the God of Wisdom; so
that whatever contended against their religion,--to the Jews a stumbling
block,--was, to the Greeks--_Foolishness_.
The first Greek idea of Deity was that expressed in the word, of which
we keep the remnant in our words '_Di_-urnal' and '_Di_-vine'--the god
of _Day_, Jupiter the revealer. Athena is his daughter, but especially
daughter of the Intellect, springing armed from the head. We are only
with the help of recent investigation beginning to penetrate the depth
of meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols: but I may note rapidly,
that her aegis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often,
in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand for
better guard, and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representative
mainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone, as it
were,) of the outmost and superficial spheres of knowledge--that
knowledge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, the
heart of the full-grown man from the heart of the child. For out of
imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger, and disdain; but
from perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength and
peace, in sign of which she is crowned with the olive spray, and bears
the resistless spear.
This, then, was the Greek conception of purest Deity, and every habit of
life, and every form of his art developed themselves from the seeking
this bright, serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a man,
to do things evermore rightly and strongly;[3] not with any ardent
affection or ultimate hope; but with a resolute and continent energy of
will, as knowing that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin
there was no remission. And the Greek architecture rose unerring,
bright, clearly defined, and self-contained.
Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, which was essentially
the religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is the remission of sins;
for which cause it happens, too often, in certain phases of
Christianity, that sin and sickness themselves are partly glorified, as
if, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing.
The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual
contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of
purification from them; thus we have an architecture conceived in a
mingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partly
luxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and every
one of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong or
weak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, when base people
build it--of all, the noblest, when built by the noble.
And now note that both these religions--Greek and Mediaeval--perished by
falsehood in their own main purpose. The Greek religion of Wisdom
perished in a false philosophy--'Oppositions of science, falsely so
called.' The Mediaeval religion of Consolation perished in false comfort;
in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolution
that ended the Mediaeval faith; and I can tell you more, it is the
selling of absolution which, to the end of time, will mark false
Christianity. Pure Christianity gives her remission of sins only by
_ending_ them; but false Christianity gets her remission of sins by
_compounding for_ them. And there are many ways of compounding for them.
We English have beautiful little quiet ways of buying absolution,
whether in low Church or high, far more cunning than any of Tetzel's
trading.
Then, thirdly, there followed the religion of Pleasure, in which all
Europe gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, _bals masques_ in
every saloon, and then guillotines in every square. And all these three
worships issue in vast temple building. Your Greek worshipped Wisdom,
and built you the Parthenon--the Virgin's temple. The Mediaeval
worshipped Consolation, and built you Virgin temples also--but to our
Lady of Salvation. Then the Revivalist worshipped beauty, of a sort, and
built you Versailles, and the Vatican. Now, lastly, will you tell me
what _we_ worship, and what _we_ build?
You know we are speaking always of the real, active, continual, national
worship; that by which men act while they live; not that which they talk
of when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we
pay tithes of property, and sevenths of time; but we have also a
practical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of our
property and six-sevenths of our time. And we dispute a great deal about
the nominal religion; but we are all unanimous about this practical one,
of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be best
generally described as the 'Goddess of Getting-on,' or 'Britannia of the
Market.' The Athenians had an 'Athena Agoraia,' or Minerva of the
Market: but she was a subordinate type of their goddess, while our
Britannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all your great
architectural works, are, of course, built to her. It is long since you
built a great cathedral; and how you would laugh at me, if I proposed
building a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of yours, taking
it for an Acropolis! But your railroad mounds, prolonged masses of
Acropolis; your railroad stations, vaster than the Parthenon, and
innumerable; your chimneys, how much more mighty and costly than
cathedral spires! your harbour-piers; your warehouses; your
exchanges!--all these are built to your great Goddess of 'Getting-on;'
and she has formed, and will continue to form, your architecture, as
long as you worship her; and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you how
to build to _her_; you know far better than I.
There might indeed, on some theories, be a conceivably good architecture
for Exchanges--that is to say if there were any heroism in the fact or
deed of exchange, which might be typically carved on the outside of your
building. For, you know, all beautiful architecture must be adorned with
sculpture or painting; and for sculpture or painting, you must have a
subject. And hitherto it has been a received opinion among the nations
of the world that the only right subjects for either, were _heroisms_ of
some sort. Even on his pots and his flagons, the Greek put a Hercules
slaying lions, or an Apollo slaying serpents, or Bacchus slaying
melancholy giants, and earth-born despondencies. On his temples, the
Greek put contests of great warriors in founding states, or of gods with
evil spirits. On his houses and temples alike, the Christian put
carvings of angels conquering devils; or of hero-martyrs exchanging this
world for another; subject inappropriate, I think, to our manner of
exchange here. And the Master of Christians not only left his followers
without any orders as to the sculpture of affairs of exchange on the
outside of buildings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike of
affairs of exchange within them. And yet there might surely be a heroism
in such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, not
impious. The wonder has always been great to me, that heroism has never
been supposed to be in anywise consistent with the practice of
supplying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that of
quartering oneself upon them for food, and stripping them of their
clothes. Spoiling of armour is an heroic deed in all ages; but the