Small Gothic House at Venice

H. W. Brewer, artist

WJY [?], engraver

c. 1880

Signed with initials lower left and right

Source: Stevenson’s House Architecture, I, 226

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“VENICE had a flourishing style of Gothic of her own, which, of all forms of Gothic, supplies the examples best suited for modern use. It does not affect the gloomy grandeur of the Florentine palaces, or the small barred windows of French and English mediaeval castles, for she was secure from foreign attack behind her 'streak of silver sea;' while the strong hand of her oligarchy rendered fighting among the nobles, inside the town, impossible. Her palaces therefore were never castles or fortresses, but from the earliest times, in their fronts to the canals, had more window than wall.” [continued below]

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Commentary by J. J. Stevenson

Her sea-girt position, like that of England, gave her colonies, and commerce, and wealth; in which others besides the great nobles were sharers, which she spent largely in building. Hence we find interesting specimens of architecture in moderately sized houses (fig. 70). Her Gothic style was not properly Italian, for Venice was not properly a part of Italy. Her people considered themselves Romans, and she coninued the traditions of the Roman empire which had been transferred to the East, which influenced the eastern co? of Italy long after it had lost the West. The shape of the Doge's cap, and the use on state occasions of umbrellas like Eastern potentates, are traces of this Eastern influence. Her Gothic has an Eastern character. Her treatment of the pointed arch and her pointed domes, recall those of the Saracens in their mosques or the Mohammedan tombs of India. It suggests a climate sunnier even than her own. When it has been introduced into this country, it shivers like a Hindoo in his white cotton dress in London streets. It is essentially a coloured architecture, delighting in broad surfaces bright with painting and coloured marble. The pointed arch was used more as a beautiful form than a necessity of construction; it was ornamented by coating it with marbles, not as in northern Gothic by cutting it into mouldings marking the lines of construction. Venetian Gothic was living and vigorous, and held its own against the Classic influence till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it was still strong enough to force a compromise” (I, 225-26).

Bibliography

Stevenson, J. J. House Architecture. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1880.

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Last modified 22 July 2017