CHAPTER VI.

CONTENTS.

Circular Churches—Church Furniture—Civil Architecture.

Inadopting the pointed style, the Germans almost wholly abandoned their old favourite circular form; the Liebfrauen Church at Trèves (Woodcut No.695) being almost the only really important example of a church in the style approaching to a rotunda. Chapter-houses are as rare in Germany as in France, and those that are found are not generally circular in either country. There is a baptistery attached to the cathedral at Meissen, and one or two other insignificant examples elsewhere; but the most pleasing object of this class is the Anna Chapel, attached to the principal church at Heiligenstadt. It is said that it always was dedicated to the sainted mother of the Virgin, but it would require more than tradition to prove that it was not originally designed as a baptistery or a tomb-house. Be this as it may, it is one of the most pleasing specimens of its class anywhere to be found, and so elegant as to make us regret the rarity of such structures.

761. Anna Chapel at Heiligenstadt. (From Puttrich, ‘Denkmäler.’)

The churches of Germany are not generally rich in architectural furniture. Few rood-lofts are found spanning from pillar to pillar of the choir like that at the Madeleine of Troyes (Woodcut No.669);and though some of the screens that separate the choirs of the churches are rich, they are seldom of good design. The two at Naumburg are perhaps as good as any of their class in Germany. Generally they were used as thelectorium—virtually the pulpit—of the churches. In most instances, however, the detached pulpit in the nave was substituted for these, and there are numerous examples of richly-carved pulpits, but none of beautiful design. In most instances they are overloaded with ornament, and many of them disfigured with quirks and quibbles, and all the vagaries of later German art.

The fonts are seldom good or deserving of attention, and the original altars have almost all been removed, either from having fallen to decay, or to make way for some more favourite arrangement of modern times.

The “Sacraments Häuschen” (the receptacle for the sacred elements of the Communion) is a peculiar article of furniture frequently found in German churches, and in some of those of Belgium, though very rare in France and unknown in England, but on which the German artists seem to have lavished more pains than on almost any other article of church decoration. Those in St. Lawrence’s Church at Nuremberg and at Ulm are perhaps the most extraordinary pieces of elaborate architecture ever executed in stone, and have always been looked on by the Germans as chefs-d’œuvre of art. Had they been able, they would have delighted in introducing the same extravagances into external art: fortunately the elements forced them to confine them to their interiors. Nothing, however, can show more clearly what was the tendency of their art, and to what they aspired, than these singular erections, which, notwithstanding their absurdity, considering their materials, must excite our wonder, like the concentric balls of the Chinese. To some extent also they claim our admiration for the lightness and the elegance of their structure. Simplicity is not the characteristic of the German mind. A difficulty conquered is what it glories in, and patient toil is not a means only, but an end, and its expression often excites in Germany more admiration than either loftier or purer art.

762. Sacraments Häuschen at Nuremberg. (From Chapuy.)

763. Doorway of Church at Chemnitz.

It can scarcely be doubted but that much of the extravagance which we find in later German architecture arose from the reaction ofthe glass-painters on the builders. When first painted glass was extensively introduced, the figures were grouped or separated by architectural details, such as niches or canopies, copied literally from the stone ornaments of the building itself. Before long, however, the painter, in Germany at least, spurned at being tied down to copy such mechanical and constructive exigencies; he attenuated his columns, bent and twisted his pinnacles, drew out his canopies, and soon invented for himself an architecture bearing the same relation to the stone Gothic around him that the architecture shown on the paintings of Pompeii bears to the temples and buildings from which it is derived. In Germany, painters and builders alike were striving after lightness, but in this the painter was enabled by his material easily to outstrip the mason. The essentially stone character of architecture was soon lost sight of. With the painter, the finials, the crockets, and the foliage of the capitals again became copies of leaves, instead of the conventional representations of nature which they are and must be in all true art. Like Sir James Hall in modern times, the speculative mind in Germany was not long, when advanced thus far, in suggesting a vegetable theory for the whole art. All these steps are easily to be traced in thesequence of German painted glass still preserved to us. The more extravagant and intricate the design, the more it was admired by the Germans. It was, therefore, only natural that the masons should strive after the same standard, and should try to realise in stone the ideas which the painters had so successfully started on the plain surface of the glass. The difficulty of the task was an incentive. Almost all the absurdities of the later styles may be traced more or less to this source, and were it worth while, or were this the place, it would be easy to trace the gradual decay of true art from this cause. One example, taken from the church at Chemnitz (Woodcut No.763), must suffice, where what was usual, perhaps admissible, in glass, is represented in stone as literally as is conceivable. When art came to this, its revival was impossible among a people with whom such absurdities could be admired, as their frequency proves to have been the case. What a fall does all this show in that people who invented the old Round-Gothic style of the Rhenish and Lombard churches, which still excite our admiration, as much from the simple majesty of their details as from the imposing grandeur of their whole design!

If the Germans failed in adapting the pointed style of architecture to the simple forms and purposes of ecclesiastical buildings, they were still less likely to be successful when dealing with the more complicated arrangements of civil buildings. It is seldom difficult to impart a certain amount of architectural character and magnificence to a single hall, especially when the dimensions are considerable, the materials good, and a certain amount of decoration admitted; but in grouping together as a whole a number of small apartments, to be applied to various uses, it requires great judgment to ensure that every part shall express its own purpose, and good taste to prevent the whole degenerating into a mere collection of disjointed fragments. These qualities the Germans of that age did not possess. Moreover, there seems to have been singularly little demand for civil edifices in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is probable that the free cities were not organised to the same extent as in Belgium, or had not the same amount of manufacturing industry that gave rise to the erection of the great halls in that country; for, with the exception of the Kauf Haus at Mayence, no example has come down to our days that can be said to be remarkable for architectural design. Even this no longer exists, having been pulled down in 1812. It was but a small building, 125 ft. in length by 92 in width at one end, and 75 at the other. It was built in the best time of German pointed architecture, and was a pleasing specimen of its class. At Cologne there is a sort of Guildhall, the Gürzenich, anda tower-like fragment of a town-hall, both built in the best age of architecture; and in some of the other Rhenish towns there are fragments of art more or less beautiful according to the age of their details, but none that will bear comparison with the Belgian edifices of the same class.

Some of the castles in which the feudal aristocracy of the day resided are certainly fine and picturesque buildings, but they are seldom remarkable for architectural beauty either of design or detail. The same remarks apply to the domestic residences. Many of the old high-gabled houses in the streets are most elaborately ornamented, and produce picturesque combinations in themselves and with one another; but as works of art, few have any claims to notice, and neither in form nor detail are they worthy of admiration.

764. Schöne Brunnen at Nuremberg. (From Chapuy.)

Among more miscellaneous monuments may be named the weigh-tower at Andernach, with its immense crane, showing how any object may be made architectural if designed with taste. The Schöne Brunnen, or “Beautiful Fountains,” in the market-place at Nuremberg, is one of the most unexceptionable pieces of German design in existence. It much resembles the contemporary crosses erected by our Edward I. to the memory of his beloved queen Eleanor, butit is larger and taller, the sculpture better, and better disposed, and the whole design perhaps unrivalled among monuments of its class. The lightness of the upper part and the breadth of the basin at its base give an appearance of stability which contributes greatly to its effect.

Scarcely less elegant than this is the cross or “Todtenleuchter,” Lanterne des Morts, in the cemetery of Kloster Neuberg, near Vienna. Its height is about 30 ft.; the date engraved upon it is 1381. There is a small door at a height of about 5 ft. from the ground, and near the summit a chamber with six glazed windows, in which the light was exhibited.

765. Todtenleuchter at Kloster Neuberg.

In France, some ten or twelve of these lanterns have recently been brought to light and described. In Germany about as many, besides numberless little niches in which lamps were placed in churches, showing a prevalence in Christian countries of a custom which now only prevails among Mahomedans, of placing lights at night in the tombs of saints or of relatives, so long as their memory is preserved. Perhaps, however, the greatest point of interest attached to their investigation arises from the light these foreign examples may be expected to throw on the origin of the Round Towers in Ireland. Their form is not unlike this at Kloster Neuberg. Their destination seems the same, though thedimensions of the Irish towers are greatly in excess of any similar monuments found on the continent of Europe.[80]

766. Bay Window from St. Sebald’s Parsonage, Nuremberg.

In the town of Nuremberg are several houses presenting very elegant specimens of art in their details, though few that now at least afford examples of complete designs worthy of attention. The two parsonages or residences attached to the churches of St. Sebald andSt. Lawrence are among the best. The bay window (Woodcut No.766) from the façade of the former is as pleasing a feature as is to be found of its class in any part of Germany.

A more characteristic specimen, however, is to be seen at Brück on the Mur, in Styria, where there still exists a large house, the front of which is ornamented with a verandah in several bays, one of which is represented in the annexed woodcut No.767. It is in two storeys, the upper containing twice the number of openings of the lower. The whole design is singularly elegant, but betrays the lateness of the date (1505) in every detail; and, more than this, exhibits those peculiarly German features which are so characteristic of the later Gothic in that country. In the lower storey, for instance, the ogee arch instead of being filled up with a decorative piece of construction, is made circular by a plain piece of stone, which completes the construction but violates the decoration. Above this we have a balustrade in stone, imitating wood in a manner the Germans were so fond of, but which is certainly wrong in principle, as it is in taste; but notwithstanding these defects, we cannot but regret that more examples of the same class have not come down to our time.

767. Façade of House at Brück-am-Mur.

The town-hall at Brunswick (Woodcut No.768) is one of the most picturesque and characteristic of these buildings, and perhaps also the most artistic. It is difficult, however, to reconcile our feelings to the light arch supporting the tracery of the upper part of the upper gallery. If the four mullions had been brought down, they would not have impeded either light or air to an appreciable extent, and ifmore space had been wanted for addressing people in the platz, the omission of the central mullion would have sufficed. Notwithstanding this, it is a picturesque and appropriate building, more so than any other known out of the Flandrian province. The fountain, too, on the right hand of the cut, is a pleasing specimen of its class; a little heavier at the base than quite comports with the style, though that is a fault quite on the right side.

768. Town-hall at Brunswick. (From Rosengarten.)

It is true that in all countries the specimens of domestic art are, from obvious causes, more liable to alteration and destruction than works of a more monumental class. Making every allowance for this, Germany still seems more deficient than its neighbouring countries in domestic architecture in the pointed style, and one can hardly escape the conviction that this form was never thoroughly adopted by the people of this country, and that it therefore, never having had much hold on their feelings or taste, died out early, leaving only some wonderful specimens of masonic skill in the more monumental buildings, but very few evidences of true art or of sound knowledge of the true principles of architectural effect.

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