The rapid advance of architectural activity at Vienna extended into the provinces of the Austrian empire. Notwithstanding its political inde pendence, Hungary must in this connection be considered a province, since its impulses proceeded as directly from the Vienna art-movement as did those of Prague or any other city. The political independence of Hungary gave Pesth a series of problems which had not been given to any other provincial city, and in its palaces and in the dwellings of the newly-laid-out quarters it may vie with Vienna, to whose suburbs the majority of the structures would be as much an ornament as they are to the Hungarian capital. Next to Pesth, the impulse given by Vienna found the most active response first in Prague, and then in Gratz. But the Viennese architectural movement extended far beyond the bounds of Austria. Not only did some masters build abroad, as did Neumann the museum at Gotha, and as did Zitek, the architect of the Bohemian National Theatre at Prague, that at Weimar; all German architects have seen Vienna, as have also the patrons for whom edifices are to be con structed, and who will have whatever is built for them made precisely according to the impressions brought thence. It is through the impres sion made by the new buildings of Vienna that the Renaissance has gained so much ground in Munich and Berlin.
Berlin has during the last generation taken the direction of the Renais sance, and has partly cultivated a refinement which is a survival of the Schinkel school, but has at the same time inclined toward the baroque phase of the style. • In this the influence exerted by the great success of the Viennese architects manifested itself unmistakably. A number of clever young craftsmen—among whom it is difficult to name the most conspicuous—have in Berlin broken the classic fetters of the old school, and, overflowing in molr/..s to some extent fantastic, have made pictur esque effect the fundamental principle. Among these are Lucae, Bock mann and Elide, Heyclen and Kyllmann, and many others who partly fol low Italian Renaissance, partly German, and partly seek to surpass their Viennese colleagues in baroque conceits. In short, the rule of the new style was established everywhere—in England and Russia as well as in the New World—and we should implicitly believe in its suzerainty for • the future if the tendency toward the baroque had not made itself so prominent that a reaction must be foreseen as the inevitable result. Even though the new style does not proceed directly to the baroque, and even if the extensive employment of the German Renaissance—which has itself but slight connection with the Renaissance proper—were not considered, there is yet sufficient evidence manifest that the general feeling still favors the original Renaissance form.
Architectural Restorations.—The idea that, as the mediaeval ages gave expression to the Christian spirit, so medixval art must furnish the best models for churches, caused both Catholics and Protestants in Germany, England, and France to be until a few years ago unanimous in the belief that a Christian church could be built only in the Gothic, or perhaps in the Romanesque, style, and that an archaeologically-correct expression of that style must be wrought out. When the Renaissance began to domi
nate, it excluded from its influence the domain of church-architecture, which remained meacval. It was principally the necessity for a thorough restoration of all the still-extant churches of the Middle Ages, the desire to complete strictly in the spirit of the age in which they were founded those which had remained unfinished, that resulted in making the con temporaneous scientific studies available for practice. These restorations gave the opportunity to induct a number of young people, both architects and artisans, into the style with a thoroughness that had never been equalled save by the old masters.
In France, Viollet-le-Duc and Lassus displayed their talents in restora tions, and a number of other masters exhibited their ability in sterling new buildings. We may specially name the restoration of Notre Dame, together with the erection of a new sacristy and of the charming Pche, and the restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle, by these masters. After this all the other churches of Paris and a great part of those of France were restored by these architects or by others of the same class. Of the many new churches which were raised with more or less success in various parts of France, Ste. Clotilde at Paris, by Gau, may here be named.
England was filled with smaller new churches erected in this style, but England also proved clearly the working of a second factor which had contributed to the rehabilitation of the Gothic. We have already ex plained (p. 2S9) how in Germany as well as in France and England the abandonment of the antique and the return to the old national styles were demanded in the name of nationality. The French thus held to the French style of the thirteenth century, the English to the various stages of development of English Gothic, and, in fact, found therein the elements requisite for all their present needs, just as in former cen turies they had opposed the advances of the Renaissance by the tenacious adherence to this same style. While in France only quite isolated attempts were made to bring the medizeval style into use for other pur poses than churches, England was filled with Gothic castles and villas, schools, colleges, hospitals, stately dwellings, hotels, etc., which are linked to the past and form a national contrast to the buildings of other lauds. It was, therefore, quite natural that in the magnificent structure which was to give monumental expression to the national sentiment—the Par liament House, at Westminster (p7. 52, Jig. 1), built by Barry—the specific English Gothic should find application.