During the seventh and eighth decades Victorian Gothic reigned su preme in private dwellings and was extensively employed in public ones, yet the Renaissance and classic styles were not superseded by it. From the date of the classic revival at the beginning of the century until now various phases of the Renaissance, especially that more properly called Italian, have been largely practised in street-architecture, and have more than held their own in public buildings of a monumental character where symmetry—that bilateral symmetry which is almost universal throughout the animal world, and without which most animal forms would be pro nounced ugly—was considered essential. But with the revival of the Gothic came an increased love of the picturesque—a more pronounced rebellion against exact symmetry than had been allowed by the classic styles, though the Italian villa had already permitted considerable lati tude in that direction. Nor have the Gothic and classic styles, even with the addition of Victorian Gothic to the one and of various phases of Renaissance to the other, held the field exclusively during the last forty years. Various phases of Renaissance and Byzantine were from time to time imitated, and the dawnings of a tendency to mingle the various styles became pronounced.
The desire for something new, the growing love of asymmetry, and disgust with the comparative baldness of Victorian Gothic finally led to a break in the ranks of the medixvalists. A few prominent architects of the prevalent school decided to abandon pointed arches in domestic buildings, and to strive by the use of the lintel, while in other matters still clinging to mediaeval principles, to fulfil the requirements of modern city life. Symmetry was abandoned; details from every source were utilized; picturesqueness was the only avowed aim, and conventionalism was replaced by quaintness and whimsicality. Out of this medley arose the manner known as " Oueen Anne." Queen Anne Style.—Since every one of the older styles had been tried and abandoned in turn because of its inapplicability to modern requirements, a knot of young architects turned their attention to the later phases of the English Renaissance, especially to the dwellings erected during the reigns of William and Mary, Anne, and the first two Georges—structures built when the needs of life were nearer to those of the present age than were those of mediaeval, or even Early Renaissance, times. Notwithstanding their lack of external decoration, their monot ony of outline, and their almost complete negation of style, the dwell ings and public buildings of the end of the seventeenth and the first part of the eighteenth century were characterized by comfort, commo diousness, and internal fitness for their purpose.
R. Norman Shazc.—Prominent among these architects was R. Norman
Shaw, who had been trained in the pure Gothic of the school of Scott. Shaw, seizing on the ample oblong windows, the brick material, and making the most of such decoration as existed in the buildings of Queen Anne's time, succeeded, by imparting to his imitations a picturesqueness of outline which the originals did not possess, in producing effects which pleased the public taste. " Queen Anne " became the fashion, and was spoken of as a style instead of as a debased phase of the classic styles. The demand was equalled by the supply. Shaw was followed by hosts of others, many of whom lacked his artistic skill; and some of the vagaries of this manner will in a few years seem to us as amusingly grotesque as they would have seemed to an observer of Queen Anne's days.
Japanese Art.—Mingling with this eighteenth-century movement, and emphasizing the oddities and irregularities committed in its name, came the opening up of Japan and the widespread introduction of objects of Japanese art. No other people can produce a satisfactory result with so small an outlay as the Japanese: their art is the art of the little. Ceramics and bronzes, wood and lacquered ware, are decorated by them in such a way that they become pictures instead of, as too often is the case with us, simply pattern-covered surfaces. With bamboo and a few boards and mats the Japanese can make a house which is not devoid of 2?sthetie qualities. Their cottages are full of suggestions for us, as are all their household appliances. They teach us not to copy the large in the small, but to be original, and to take advantage of every peculiarity in the mate rial or in its position. Yet the Japanese, in common with all Mongolian nations, have DO Architecture worthy of the name, and their art has nothing of the grand or the sublime.
We will now glance over a few of the principal works executed in Great Britain during the last thirty years or thereabouts, endeavoring as far as possible to keep separate those belonging to the " Free Classic " m ovemen t.
Ecclesiastical the present time the Episcopalians of England are pretty well taxed to keep the cathedrals and grand old churches in repair. The Normans were bad builders, though they used an overplus of materials, and most of their work which did not fall down or was not pulled down in medimval times has had to be restored in the present generation. This restoration is essentially a rebuilding. The churches of the midland counties of England are built of red sandstone of the Triassic formation, similar to the various " brownstones" in use in the United States, and the friable nature of this material causes renovation to follow renovation. Lincoln, York, Salisbury, and other cathedrals in which red sandstone was not used, are in a far better state of preservation.