Transitional " Geometrical Gothic" never attained favor as a style for commercial buildings or private dwellings. Repeated failure to adapt it or any other phase of pure English or French Gothic, such as was in vogue during the thirteenth or fourteenth century, to the requirements of modern city or domestic buildings soon led to the adoption of various late phases of the original style, and of transitional and mixed styles such as the English Elizabethan. Pointed windows with traceried heads were not only found too expensive, but were also incon venient and inimical to the proper diffusion of light in buildings horizon tally divided into storeys of moderate height and vertically into rooms of medium size. The light was diminished where it was most required—in the upper part of the window—ancl no satisfactory method of opening and closing such mullioned windows could be found. The Tudor phase of the Gothic lent itself to square-headed mullioned windows and horizontal bands of moulding and ornament, while the Italian Gothic not only per mated the prevalence of horizontal lines, but also adapted itself to endless variations of outline and admitted the existence of extensive flat surfaces.
By almost common consent, therefore, the styles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Early English and French and Decorated, as well as the "Flamboyant" phase of French Gothic, were restricted to churches and to such public buildings as contained large interior halls, for the light ing of which traceried windows of many lights could be used with advan tage, while the latest phase of the Tudor—in which, as at Hampton Court and in \Volsey's work at Oxford, the pointed arch is dispensed with, and square hood-mouldings with returned ends surround the rectangular openings of the doors and mullioned windows—came into favor along with various mixed manners which permitted the use of bays, oriels, and mullioned windows of ample size.
Mullioned IHndows, however, with square heads, though they furnish abundant light, do not fulfil modern requirements: they do not, except under protest, allow the use of the sash, which, therefore, some lovers of the antique would have us abandon; but no modern invention has been so thoroughly favored as this form of window. Though it cannot be con sidered perfect, as the exterior can be reached only from the outside, as but one sash can be thrown open at a time, and as it is with difficulty detached from its frame, still the sash-window is on the whole so incomparably superior in convenience and weather-tight qualities to any form of case ment that any style which does not permit of its use inevitably fails to take hold of popular favor. An attempt was made, therefore, to adapt the Gothic style to the sash-window. This involved the absence of mul
lions, and, as the hood-moulding without the mullion was felt to be a solecism, it disappeared also. The problem now was to be Gothic without tracery, without mullions or hood-moulds, without buttresses—without, in fact, any of the characteristics of medieval Gothic except some of its mouldings and smaller details. Vet the Gothicists were equal to the occasion, and invented Victorian Gothic.
Ficlorian relieving-arch came to the rescue. The true window-head was made square, while above it rose a pointed arch whose face was flush, or nearly so, with that of the wall. The tympanum or space intervening between the relieving-arch and the window-head was then filled in with ornamental brick- or stone-work carved or disposed in patterns. This expedient answered very well in schools, halls, and public buildings of moderate size, where the height of the storey was sufficient to permit the introduction of conspicuous and tolerably high-pitched reliev ing-arches without too great loss of height in the windows. But private dwellings and offices, though the fashion was at the time in favor of rather high ceilings, cannot spare space enough between two tiers of windows for the introduction of a pointed arch equal or superior in height to an equi lateral triangle of the same base.
Other expedients were, therefore, resorted to, while all along the admixture of brick and stone or of various-colored bricks was adopted iu order to atone for lack of detail. Relieving-arches were pitched low and made of brick between skewbacks of stone; the window-head itself was formed of a low-pitched yet pointed arch; the upper part of the window was narrowed by incurved stones, as though a trefoil were thought of and abandoned for a lintel; or finally a segmental arch with perhaps a Gothic moulding or two upon it was thrown across the opening as though in sheer despair. With such treatment of the openings the Gothic element of the structures was necessarily somewhat subdued, yet gables, finials, panelling, etc., enabled the designers to proclaim the non-Renaissance character of their conceptions, and the entrance-door usually gave an opportunity for pronounced Gothic fqrms." Polychromy became very decided, and the use of bands of brick, red or black on a buff ground, or buff on white or red, became so general that the manner was commonly dubbed the "streaky bacon style." There is no doubt that the teachings of Ruskin, his unqualified admi ration of the ducal palace at Venice and of Italian Gothic generally, were factors in the promotion of the Victorian phases of the pointed style, while Street's Brick and Marble Architecture of the North of Italy con duced to the same result.