Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
History
Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2
Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
Architecture, Gothic; Architecture, Medieval
It suffers also from a degree of capriciousness even among its abler and
more art-loving followers, who, jealous, perhaps, or contemptuous of
others, refuse to co-operate in any steady purpose, and who, morbidly
keen in their perceptions of beauty, are apt to follow momentary
fancies--now favouring one type, and now another, and, perhaps, reviving
styles little allied to their purpose, as if the object of the age were
to revive just for revival’s sake, rather than to gather in these
extraneous beauties to enrich the resources and to widen the
capabilities of one received style. This tendency seems to threaten the
noble movement with premature decay, though I do trust that there remain
earnestness and steadiness of heart enough to avert this danger, and to
guide these artistic strivings into a healthy channel, and cause them to
add new life to the general movement.
It is, in truth, as yet unsettled whether we should concentrate our
revival on one phase of the old style, or whether, as the ancients did
with their orders, we should use them _ad libitum_. The one seems
somewhat artificial, the other somewhat too eclectic; but _solvitur
ambulando_, and perhaps this discursiveness I have been regretting may
promote that solution.
I have found, as I went on, that the scheme of my lecture was much too
extensive for the time at my command. I had intended to say something of
the application of the sister arts to architecture, as well as on the
subordinate and allied arts. I must omit this; nor do I much regret it,
as I trust I shall be succeeded by men better qualified to deal with the
subject.
I will close my lecture,--itself the last of my long but disjected
series,--with a few words of advice to architectural students.
First of all, I would repeat what I once heard from that accomplished
artist who formerly graced this chair,--Professor Cockerell,--that the
first rule for success in art is the same which the wise man laid down
with reference to morals, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of
it are the issues of life.” If the inmost heart of the student is purely
and earnestly devoted, with generous ardour and enthusiasm, to his work,
you may make pretty sure of his success; but if he follows it up in a
cold perfunctory spirit; from a sense of duty or self-interest rather
than of earnest love; whatever may be his success in a merely
professional point of view, he will never do any good in a higher and
an artistic sense. The first thing, then, to encourage is a loving zeal
for the art you have chosen.
The next aim is self-culture, and that of a twofold kind--the
cultivation at once of an intimate knowledge of the form of art which
you select as your groundwork, and of a personal artistic power to work
in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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