On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (6)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    %nttfnliit.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    was sent as a member of the Peace Congress ) are recounted in a modest , ffenuino , very agreeable style . Mr . Brown has received many kind attentions from people of distinction , and one cannot fail to sympathise with him when he describes the pleasure he has felt at the courteous treatment which he has every where received .. One is amused by well-told anecdotes , and charmed with painter-like description of towns , cities , and natural scenery . Indeed , our author gives , many very recognisable sketches of " the places he has seen and the people he has met . " His three years of freedom and manhood have been well spent . Though not profound , he is an acute observer , and , if he sometimes errs , it is in matters for which his previous life had altogether left him unfitted to judge . We are at once reconciled to the harmless errors of judgment by the unobtrusiveness which everywhere prevails . The work , which has passages both humorous and pathetic , is of interest on independent grounds , and will be specially welcomed by all who are friendly to the cause of the oppressed African .

    Untitled Article

    BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Reminiscences of a Yachting Cruise . By Mrs . N . M . Condy . ¦ , „ „> . ¦ , Ackerman and Co ., Strand . This little waif of memory lays no claim to criticism . No doubt , to our heroes of Cowes , Plymouth , and Byde , the characters of the story of a Channel cruise will be familiar enough ; but the drawings which the unpretending narrative accompanies , are from sketches by Nicholas Matthews Condy , the lamented marine artist , snatched away too early from the ungarnered harvest of his graceful genius . He was the Vandervelde of yachts , or , rather let us say , he was to our " pleasure-navy" what Horace Vernet is to the French army : the rap id and brilliant lories drew those rakish

    improvisatore of its episodes , incidents , and g . He _ schooners that slum the Solent—like a lover ! scarcely robbing them of life and motion , as he dashed them on his canvass with a felicity and insouciance to which conscientious minuteness was never sacrificed . Indeed , his sketch of a darling craft was ever like the miniature po rtrait of some loved and living beauty , touched at once with so prodigal a freedom , so caressing a delicacy , so fond and subtle an abandon . His loss in the peculiar branch of art he cultivated with so much success ( his pencil was never idle ) cannot easily be replaced . Her Majesty ' s albums , we believe , contain many of the gems of his art . If only for the sake of the illustrations , these " Reminiscences" deserve a nook in the library of every yachtsman , ashore and afloat .

    Untitled Article

    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethb .

    Untitled Article

    THE HA ¥ TH@ifiE P&PEKS , No . Ill * ORIGIN OF AECHITECTURAL TYPES . § NE day during the summer , whilst saunter ing through the gallery of the Old 'Water-Colour Society , I was struck with the incongruity 1 produced by putting regular architecture into irregular scenery . In one ease where the artist had introduced a perfectly symmetrical Grecian edifice into a mountainous and somewhat wild landscape , the discordant effect was particularly marked . " How very unpicturesque , " said a lady to her friend , as they passed ; showing that 1 was not alone in my opinion . Her phrase , however , set me speculating . Why unpieturesque ? Picturesque means—like a picture—like what men choose for pictures . Why then should this be not lit for : i picture ? Pondering the matter over , it seemed to me that the artist had sinned against that fundamental unity which is the first essential of a good picture . When the other constituents of a landscape have irregular forms , any artificial structure introduced must have an irregular form , that it may saempart of the landscape . The same general character must pervade it and surrounding objects , otherwise it and the scene amid which it stands become not our thing but two things ; and we say that it looks out of place . Or , speaking psychologically , the associated ideas called up by a building with its wings , windows , ami all its parts symmetrically disposed , differ widely from the ulesis associated with an entirely irregular landscape , and the one set of ideas tends to banish the other . I sat down to pursue the train of thought ,, and soon called to mind sundry illustrative facts . I reniemlicred that , a castle , which is more irregular in its outlines than any other kind of building , pleases us most when seated aunidst crags and precipices ; whilst a castle on a plain seems an incongruity . The partially regular and partially irregular forms of our old farmhouses und our gabled golhic manors and abbeys appear quite in harmony with au undulating , wooded country . In towns we prefer symmetrical architecture and in towns it produces in us no feeling of incongruity

    because all surrounding things- —men , horses , vehicles—are symmetrical also . And here I was reminded of" u notion that has frequently recurred to me v j z tli-it then "! is some relationship between the several kinds of architecture and the several classes of natural objects . Buildings in the Greek and Roman styles seem to me , in virtue of their symmetry , to take their type from imimaljife . Jn the partially irregular Gothic , ideas derived from the vegetable world appear to predominate . And wholly irregular buildings , such as castl e * , may be considered us having inorganic forms for their basis . Whimsical as this speculation looks ait first sight it . is countenanced by numerous facts . Tim relationship between symmetrical architecture and animal forms may be inferred from the A * W of symmetry we expect and arc satisfied with in regular buildings . Thus in u Greek temple we reqnirc that

    the front shall be symmetrical in itself , and that the two sides shall be alike but we do not look for uniformity between the sides and the front nor between the front and the back . ^ The identity of this symmetry with that found in animals is obvious . Again , why is it that a building making any pretension to symmetry displeases us if not quite symmetrical ? Probably the reply will be—because we see that the designer ' s idea is not full y carried out , and that hence our love of completeness is offended . But then there conies the further questions—How do we know that the architect ' s conception was symmetrical ? Whence conies this notion of symmetry which we have , and which we attribute to him ? Unless we fall back upon the old doctrine of innate ideas , we must admit that the idea of bilateral symmetry is derived from without ; and to admit this is to admit that it is derived from the higher animals .

    That there is some relationship between Gothic architecture and vegetable forms , is a position that will be generally admitted . The often-remarked analogy between a groined nave and an avenue of trees with interlacing branches , shows that the fact has forced itself on men ' s observation . It is not only in this analogy , however , that the kinship is seen . It ig seen still better in the essential characteristic of Gothic ; namely , what is termed its aspiring tendency . That predominance of vertical lines which so strongly distinguishes Gothic from other styles , is the most marked peculiarity of trees , when compared with animals or rocks ; a fact which cannot fail to strike every one on walking through a wood . Moreover , to persons of active imagination , a tall Gothic tower , with its elongated apertures , and clusters of thin projections running from bottom to top , suggests a vague

    notion of growth . Of the alleged connexion between inorganic forms and the wholly irregular and the castellated styles of building , we have , I think , some proof in the fact that when an edifice is irregular , the more irregular it is , the more it pleases us . I see no way of accounting for this fact , save by supposing that the greater the irregularity the more strongly are we reminded of the inorganic forms typified , and the more vividly are aroused the agreeable ideas of rugged and romantic scenery associated with those forms .

    Further evidence of these several relationships of styles of architecture to classes of natural objects , is supplied by the kinds of decoration they respectively present . The public buildings of Greece , whilst characterized in their outlines by the bi-lateral symmetry seen in the higher animals , have their pediments and entablatures covered with sculptured men and beasts . Egyptian temples and Assyrian palaces , whilst similarly symmetrical in their general plan , are similarly ornamented on their walls and at their doors . In Gothic , again , with its grove-like ranges of clustered columns , we find rich foliated ornaments abundantly employed . Whilst accompanying the totally irregular inorganic outlines of old castles , we see neither vegetable nor animal decorations . The bare rock-like walls are surmounted by battlements , consisting of almost plain blocks , which remind us of the projections on the edge of a rugged cliff .

    But perhaps the most significant fact is the harmony that may be observed between each type of architecture and the scenes in which it is indigenous . For what is the explanation of this harmony , unless it be that the predominant character of surrounding things has , in some way , determined the mode of building adopted ? That the harmony exists is clear . Equally in the cases of Egypt , Assyria , Greece , and Rome , town life preceded the construction of the symmetrical buildings that have come down to us . And town life is one in which , as already observed , the majority of familiar objects arc symmetrical . We instinctively feel the naturalness of this association . Out amidst the fields , a formal house , with a central door , flanked by an equal number o windows to riht and leftstrikes us as unrural—looks as though

    transg , planted from a street ; and we cannot look lit one of those stuccoed villa ** , with mock windows carefully arranged to balance the real ones , withou being reminded of the suburban residence of a retired tradesman . In styles indigenous in the country , we not only find the general lrregularity characteristic of surrounding things , but we may trace some kins up between each kind of irregularity and the local circumstances . We see \< - broken rocky masses amidst which castles are commonly p laced , nnrrore * wlni

    in their stern , inorganic forms . In abbeys , und sueh-like buildings , - are commonly found in comparatively sheltered districts , we find no sum violent dislocations of masses and outlines ; and the nakedness upproj > n"J to the fortress is replaced by decorations reflecting the neig hbouring woim *• Between a Swiss cottage and a Swiss view there is an evident relations »!>• The angular roof , so bold und so disproportionately large , when col "j ""| | l to other roofs , reminds one of the adjacent mountain peaks ; und the \\^ overhanging eaves have a sweep and inclination like those of the <>\ ^ brunches of n pine tree . Consider , too , the apparent kinship between ^ flat roofs that prevail in Eastern cities and the plains that cominoiily <^ round them . You cannot contemplate a picture of one of these p «^ - without being struck by the predominance of horizontal Iiucb , >»»<

    harmony with the wide stretch of the landscape . t That Urn congruity here pointed out should not hold in every case ^ he expected . The Pyramids , for example , do not seem to come un . lei ^ generalization . Their repeated horizontal lines do indeed conform i llatncas of the neighbouring desert , but their general contour seems to no adjacent analogue . Considering , however , that migrating races , eu y their architectural byutcma with them , would naturally produce duuuu-b

    Untitled Article

    • Heo Loader , Woo . 03 , lw .

    %Nttfnliit.

    % nttfnliit .

    Untitled Article

    1024 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1852, page 1024, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1957/page/20/