ON METAL WORKS.(From Pugin’s principles of Pointed Architecture.)
(From Pugin’s principles of Pointed Architecture.)
We now come to the consideration of works in metal; and I shall be able to shew that the same principles of suiting the design to the material and decorating construction, were strictly adhered to by the artists of the middle ages, in all their productions in metal, whether precious or common.
In the first place, hinges, locks, bolts, nails, &c., which are alwaysconcealed in modern designs, were rendered in Pointed Architecture,rich and beautiful decorations; and this, not only in the doors and fittings of buildings, but in cabinet and small articles of furniture. The early hinges covered the whole face of the door with varied and flowing scroll-work. Of this description are those of Notre Dame at Paris, St. Elizabeth’s church at Marburg, the western doors of Litchfield cathedral, the Chapter House at York, and hundreds of other churches, both in England and on the Continent.
Hinges of this kind are not only beautiful in design, but they arepractically good. We all know that on the principle of a lever, a door may be easily torn off its modern hinges, by a strain applied at its outward edge. This could not be the case with the ancient hinges, which extended the whole width of the door, and were bolted through in various places. In barn doors and gates these hinges are still used, although devoid of any elegance of form; but they have been most religiously banished from all public edifices as unsightly, merely on account of our present race of artists not exercising the same ingenuity as those of ancient times, in rendering theusefula vehicle for the beautiful. The same remarks will apply to locks which are now concealed, and let into the styles of doors, which are often more than half cut away to receive them.
A lock was a subject on which the ancient smiths delighted to exercise the utmost resources of their art. The locks of chests were generally of a most elaborate and beautiful description. A splendid example of an old lock still remains at Beddington Manor House, Surrey, and is engraved in my father’s work of examples. In churches we not unfrequently find locks with sacred subjects chased upon them, with the most ingenious mechanical contrivances to conceal the keyhole. Keys were also highly ornamented with appropriate decorations referring to the locks towhich they belonged; and even the wards turned into beautiful devices and initial letters. Railings were notcasts of meagre stone tracery, but elegant combinations of metal bars, adjusted with a due regard to strength and resistance.
There were many fine specimens of this style of railing round tombs, and Westminster Abbey was rich in such examples, but they were actually pulled down and sold for old iron by the order of the then dean, and even the exquisite scroll-work belonging to the tomb of Queen Eleanor was not respected. The iron screen of King Edward the Fourth’s tomb, at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, is a splendid example of ancient iron-work. The fire-dogs or Andirons, as they were called, which supported either the fuel-logs where wood was burnt, or grates for coal, were frequently of splendid design. The ornaments were generally heraldic, and it was not unusual to work the finer parts in brass, for relief of colour and richness of effect. These form a striking contrast with the inconsistencies of modern grates, which are not unfrequently made to represent diminutive fronts of castellated or ecclesiastical buildings with turrets, loopholes, windows, and doorways, all in the space of forty inches. The fender is a sort of embattled parapet, with a lodge-gate at each end; the end of the poker is a sharp pointed finial; and at the summit of the tongs is a saint. It is impossible to enumerate half the absurdities of modern metal-workers; but all these proceed from the false notion ofdisguisinginstead ofbeautifyingarticles of utility. How many objects of ordinary use are rendered monstrous and ridiculous because the artist, instead of seeking themost convenient form and then decorating it, has embodied some extravaganciesto conceal the real purpose for which the article was made! If a clock is required it is not unusual to cast a Roman warrior in a flying chariot, round one of the wheels of which, on close inspection, the hours may be descried; or the whole of a cathedral church reduced to a few inches in height, with the clock-face occupying the position of a magnificent rose window. Surely the inventor of this patent clock-case could never have reflected that according to the scale on which the edifice was reduced, his clock would be about 200 feet in circumference, and that such a monster of a dial would crush the proportions of any building that could be raised. But this is nothing when compared to what we see continually produced from those inexhaustible mines of bad taste, Birmingham and Sheffield; staircase turrets for inkstands, monumental crosses for light shades, gable ends hung on handles for door porters, and four doorways and a cluster of pillars to support a French lamp; while a pair ofpinnaclessupporting an arch is called a Gothic-pattern scraper, and a wiry compound of quatrefoils and fan tracery an abbey garden seat. Neither relative scale, form, purpose, nor unity of style, is ever considered by those who design these abominations; if they only introduce a quatrefoil or an acute arch, be the outline and style of the article ever so modern and debased, it is at once denominated and sold as Gothic.