As is well known, William Morris began training
with architect George Edmund Street in Oxford in 1855, where he met Philip Webb. Morris’s time in Street’s office was short – in less than a year he
changed direction in favour of painting
and then in 1858 he published his first book of poetry. But during his time with Street, Morris
imbibed the Gothick Revival passion that
Street held to be superior to all
others, and the correct model for his own time, not only for churches but also
public buildings, as he would demonstrate with London’s Law Courts in the 1870s.
Among
other writings on architectural principles, in 1855 Street had published a book
of architectural and travel notes chronicling a tour of northern Italy, which
Morris no doubt read and absorbed.
Following Pugin and Ruskin, Street was already a believer in Northern
Gothic or ‘pointed’ principles. ‘As in
the pointed arch we have not only the most beautiful, but at the same time the
most convenient feature in construction which has ever been, or which, I firmly
believe, ever can be invented, we should not be true artists if we neglected to
use it,’ he wrote. The work of Italian
Renaissance architects showed ‘the same falseness of construction, and
heaviness, coarseness, and bad grotesqueness of ornamentation … together with
the same contempt of simplicity, repose and delicacy which we are so accustomed
to connect with them.’
As a result, even when medieval, many buildings
described in Street’s book failed to meet ‘true’ Gothic standards, almost as if
they were exam candidates. Some passed the test, others were found wanting. This
was not chauvinism, for the great cathedrals of northern France and Germany
were deemed as excellent as Lincoln, Canterbury and the like, but it was distinctly partisan, and above all
romantic, as is clear in Street’s closing paragraphs:
The principle which artists now have mainly to
contend for is that of TRUTH; forgotten, trodden under foot, despised, if not
hated for ages, this must be their watchword.’
Whether architects, sculptors or painters, ‘let them remember how
all-important a return to first principles and truth in the delineation of
nature and natural forms is, if they are ever to create a school of art by which
they may be remembered in another age.
Finally, I wish that all artists would remember
the one great fact which separates by so wide
a gap the architects, sculptors and painters of the best days of the
Middle Ages from us now – their earnestness and their thorough self-sacrifice
in the pursuit of art, and in the exaltation of their faith. They were men who had a faith, and hearts
earnestly bent on the propagation of that faith; and were it not for this,
their work would never have had the life, vigour, and freshness which even now
they so remarkably retain. Why should we
not be equally remembered three centuries hence? Have we less to contend for,
less faith to exhibit, or less self-sacrifice to offer than they, because we live
in later days? Or is it true that the
temper of men is so much changed, and that the vocation of art has changed with
it? I believe not.
This chimed with Morris’s youthful idealism,
even if he had already cast off a good
deal of Street’s religious faith. And it
certainly coloured his own response to medieval buildings when he came to
defend them against restoration in the 1870s.
In like manner, Street’s critical assessment of
Italian architecture surely fed into Morris’s prejudice, no doubt later augmented in
reaction to Janey’s predilection for the land and the language during her
infatuation with Rossetti. When obliged
to escort his family home from Italy, Morris developed a severe attack of gout,
which prevented him from sightseeing, and no doubt soured his mood also.
As a coda to his Italian survey, Street wrote
positively of the use of brickwork and polychrome, two features seldom seen or
admired in Britain. 'It has been by far
too much the fashion of late years to look upon brick as a very inferior
material, fit only to be covered with compo, and never fit to be used in church
building, or indeed in any buildings of any architectural pretension’, he declared. In the Netherlands, south--west France,
Northern Germany, large tracts of Spain and
throughout northern Italy, however, brick was ‘everywhere and most fearlessly used.’ And as a result of his observations, Street
hoped that ‘the ignorant prejudice which made many good people regard stone as
a sort of sacred material, and red brick as one fit only for the commonest and
meanest purposes, is fast wearing out, and that what now mainly remains to be
done is to shew how it may most effectively be used, not only in external, but
also in internal works.’
This sounds
like the challenge taken up by Webb, designing Red House for Morris, all in
fearless red brick, including internal arches, window surrounds and fireplaces.
Street remained a friend to Morris and Webb,
and one would love to know if he ever passed an opinion on his proteges’
building in Bexley.
