How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

PLAN OF THE ESCORIÁL

Imitating the Gridiron on Which S. Lawrence Was Martyred. P. 403

Notwithstanding the close commercial relations that cities such as Augsburg and Nüremburg maintained with Northern Italy, especially with Venice, the Renaissance influences did not make much impression on German architecture until about the middle of the sixteenth century. It had, however, appeared in the paintings and engravings of Dürer and Burkmair and in the sculpture of Peter Vischer—as in his Tomb of S. Sebald in Nüremburg. But even in architecture there had been symptoms of the spread of Italian taste, Italian architects being employed on castle-building, as in the case already mentioned, of the Venetian, Scamozzi, in Prague. These, however, were only sporadic instances; for two reasons conspired to defer a general movement: the deep-rooted Gothic feeling and the political conditions.

Architecture depends largely upon conditions of social stability, making for wealth and ease, and these had been disturbed by Charles V’s long struggle to crush the nobility that upheld the Protestant faith. It was, therefore, not until security had been established by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, that a widespread activity of architecture was resumed. It lasted until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618. This covers the period of the Early and Later German Renaissance; the remainder of the seventeenth century being marked by a gradual decline into the extravagance of Rococo.

Characteristics.—Moreover, the German architects, after borrowing the Gothic style, had so fitted it, especially in the way of decorative details, to their own taste, that when at length they borrowed from the Renaissance, they preserved, except in rare instances, much of the Gothic feeling. The new style was employed chiefly in castles, domestic buildings, city halls, gild and corporation houses. In these the German love of irregularity, profusion, fantasticalness, and general picturesqueness still prevailed. It was displayed in the continued partiality for towers and turrets (octagonal, not circular, as in France), often containing spiral staircases; high-pitched roofs and decorated gables, carried up in steps; dormer windows, prolonged through several stories up to the height of the roof and emulating the effect of gables; oriel windows, curved or polygonal, projecting from the face of the façade or from the angles upon corbel-supports.

The German taste also showed itself in the character and distribution of the ornament. While this was apt to be spread freely over the façades and was used profusely in the decoration of the windows and doors, it was lavished especially on the gables and dormer gables, so that they are the distinctive feature of the design. To some extent the details of Italian ornament were introduced, but more generally the German carver followed his own taste for bold and deeply cut designs, showing a preference for rusticated masonry, including rusticated pilasters, and drawing on his fancy for grotesques, caryatids and the half-length figures, terminating in a pedestal, known as gaines. And the wood carver vied with the sculptor, especially in the interior decoration of ceilings and wall panelling, while the exteriors as well as the interiors afforded scope for the fancy of the painter.

The ornamental tendency increased until the purpose seemed to be to cover every available space with decoration; while as the latter grew less and less organic, it became less original. The carver ceased to invent his designs and was satisfied to copy them with tedious repetitions from the pattern books which, compiled apparently in the Netherlands—one of them by Cornelius de Vriendt—circulated through Germany and, as we shall see, found their way to England. They comprised a heterogeneous assortment of motives, for title pages and frontispieces of books as well as for doorheads and other architectural details, and introduced a variety of designs in bands and straps, borrowed from the work of locksmiths and leather-workers. The degradation reached its climax in the Rococo ornament of the early eighteenth century, especially in the Zwinger Palace, Dresden, “the most terrible Rococo work ever conceived, if we except some of the Churrigueresque work in Spain.”

In the neighbourhood of the Hartz Mountains, where forests abounded, timber was used with handsome effect in the design of the structure; beams, doors and window frames, corbels, and so forth being richly carved and often coloured. In the alluvial plain of the North, bounded roughly by a line drawn east and west through Berlin, the absence of stone and the abundance of clay encouraged the use of brick both for the structure and its decoration, and developed a skill in the handling of this material that could scarcely be surpassed. Elsewhere stone was plentiful and the main walls were constructed either of masonry or rubble covered with stucco.

Castle of Heidelberg.—Among the highest achievements of the German Renaissance is reckoned the Castle of Heidelberg, which affords a comparison of the early and later styles. For to the old Gothic fortress was added, in 1556, the wing known as the Heinrichsbau, which was supplemented in 1601 by the wing called Friedrichsbau. The latter is in good repair and used as a museum, but the earlier is a roofless shell, devastated, as was the Gothic part, by a fire which originated in a stroke of lightning in 1764. Consequently, to-day we view the façade of the Heinrichsbau without the dormer gables which are so marked a feature of the later design. And the loss, no doubt, helps to emphasise the horizontal character of the older façade. The design, in fact, throughout suggests a struggle to apply Italian principles and adjust them to German Gothic characteristics. Thus, orders of pilasters are employed in all three stories, but these are rusticated and alternately broken in upon by niches embellished with gaines. The windows have double lights separated by sculptured mullions and, although they are surmounted by pediments and cornices, the constructive simplicity of these details is interfered with by ornamental accessories.

The general conflict of effects becomes more perceptible when one compares this façade with that of the Friedrichsbau. Here the pilasters and entablatures are of bolder projection; the windows are well set back, their repetition is pleasantly varied by the traceried windows of the first story; the pediments are undisturbed by accessory carving. The walls present an agreeable balance between the horizontal and the perpendicular features; and then, above the cornice, the perpendicular asserts a final quiet predominance in the dormer gables. The whole façade, indeed, suggests that the architect had thoroughly mastered the principles of Italian design and could apply them freely; neither yielding to them unduly nor muddling them with the Gothic motive, but blending them flexibly in an ensemble that, while it has derived a certain orderliness from the Italian, preserves the essential spirit of German picturesqueness.

City Halls.—Out of the variety of City Halls space permits only a comparison of two famous ones—those of Cologne and Bremen. Both are Gothic buildings modified by Renaissance additions. In the case of Cologne the two-storied porch was added in 1571. In style and detail, it is more purely Italian than usual. So much so, that it presents a somewhat incongruous addition. On the other hand, the Renaissance façade of the Bremen Hall, is more in harmony with the original Gothic edifice. It is true the arches of the arcades are pointed instead of round; but the spacing, proportions, and treatment of the upper masonry are very Italian in feeling. Again, while the windows are capped with pediments, they retain the mullions and, which is more significant, the height of the older, purely Gothic lights. Finally, the façade is crowned by a cornice, markedly Italian in the depth of its projection, above which appears the characteristically German roof and dormer gables. This façade, in fact, erected in 1611, presents another example of intelligent combination of the two styles.

Domestic.—As an example of domestic architecture we may study the famous Pellershaus, of Nüremburg. The masonry of the wall is rusticated throughout. The treatment of the first story with its arched doorway and windows is as massively reposeful as that of a Florentine palace; while, except for the corbels alternating with the pilasters in the support of the entablature and the corbel-supported bay windows, the upper stories present a quite Italian orderliness. It is only in the huge dormer gable that the German feeling is allowed full play. The architect has utilised Italian principles of design; but he has emphasised the projection of the pilasters and of the entablatures that break around them; has exercised his German taste in the details of the pilasters; retained the German steps to the gable and embellished them with the characteristic ornament of obelisks, but has also filled in the angles with curving buttresses and, when he reached the summit, let himself go in the way of enrichments, using German gaines, the French bull’s-eye, and Italian pediment, on which, with a fine flourish of German independence, he props a statue! Note also the pilasters and curved pediments of the small dormer windows.

Here, as in most examples of the German Renaissance, the decorative emphasis is lavished above the cornice in the treatment of the roof. And the Pellershaus combines the two principles of German roof treatment. For in some cases the roof ridge is parallel to the street and the several stories into which the interior is divided are marked by tiers of dormers, while elsewhere the roof runs at right angles to the street and the gable-end is the imposing feature. In this instance, however, while the ridge is parallel and two small dormers are introduced, the main dormer feature is magnified to the importance of an actual gable, and thus the picturesqueness of the two methods are united in one effective design.

Fountains.—Among the smaller memorials of the Renaissance are the fountains which abound in German cities: some of the finest examples being those of Tübingen, Hildesheim, Mainz, Rothenburg, Ulm, and Nüremburg.

The election in 1492, of the Spaniard, Roderigo Borgia, to the