The Perpendicular Style by John HarveyReview by: GLEN CAVALIEROJournal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 127, No. 5273 (APRIL 1979), p. 311Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41372914 .

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NOTES ON BOOKS

The Perpendicular Style By John Harvey London , Batsfordy 1978. £12.50 With this book Dr. John Harvey's champion- ship of Perpendicular Gothic receives its definitive form: it completes and fills out the studies undertaken in Gothic England , Medieval Craftsmen and elsewhere. Readers of those books will be aware of the author's enthusiasm, scholarship and wide knowledge; they will be still further impressed here by his argued refuta- tion of the denigratory attitudes of Rickman and Puginto the Perpendicular style. Dr. Harvey has, no less than Sir J ohn Bet jeman (though less osten- tatiously), effected a change in architectural taste.

He has done this not only by asserting and demonstrating its peculiar merits, but also by attempting to chart its growth at the hands of the various architects and craftsmen who em- ployed it. He argues here that the style owed an untold amount to royal encouragement and patronage; and indeed not only Edward III but also Richard II, Henry VI and Edward IV were in their different ways benefactors of the arts. The rise and decline of English Perpendicular are bound up with the fortunes of the Plantagenet Kings, themselves the object of Dr. Harvey's enthusiastic research ; and the late and generally designated 'decadent' examples of the style are here labelled 'Tudor Gothic' and treated as a separate style, conditioned alike by changing building materials and a new Royal house.

As to the style's origin, Dr. Harvey modifies the usual tradition that this is to be seen in the remodelled choir of Gloucester Cathedral: for him its first appearance is in the Chapter House of Old St. Paul's, inevitably an influential building. He then proceeds to trace its growth through the several English regions, noting its numerous variations and demonstrating a variety far greater than is usually supposed. His account here is close-packed, and, as he himself admits, this makes it difficult at times to know the wood from the trees. The ascription of particular churches to particular architects and craftsmen, always a feature, and a controversial one, of Dr. Harvey's works, is much in evidence - too much, in view of the various cases of 'may have been', 'probably' and 'not impossible' which cumber the text as a result. The precaution is not always persuasive. That stunted spire at Shepton Mallet, for instance : is it really so easy to accept, as Dr. Harvey appears to do, that it 'was actually begun, but was not continued and remains as a stump, apparently in response to the new fashion' ? I suppose that in view of the newly-built fiat- topped south-west tower at Wells the argument is plausible ; but plausible is what it must remain.

In his treatment of the aesthetic side of his subject Dr, Harvey has much to say that is

illuminating. In Perpendicular, with the single exception of Salisbury, we have the first examples of completely planned English buildings extant. And the style is peculiarly English (it only really appears in the Anglicized parts of Wales and not at all, Melrose Abbey apart, in Scotland); and Dr. Harvey compares its most famous (and also fairly conservative) practitioner Henry Yeveley with his immediate contemporary, Chaucer: this is no narrowly architectural book. Yeveley at Canterbury and William Wynford at Winchester produced the two masterworks of the early period : at the end the climax is provided by St. George's, Windsor. Dr. Harvey stresses the quality of spatial unity in all three buildings, and the new style's functionalism, whereby ornament is subordinate to structure, and a unity of design matches a unifying of parts. His description of the nave vault at Winchester is a case in point: 'Fountains of stone jet upwards, crossing each other's paths with the effect of a cascade inverted. The strong shafts on which the vault is carried might even be pipes or conduits directing the concentrated vertical gush from some reservoir in the foundations.' This is not just rapture : it is analytical rapture.

But the book contains much also in the way of factual aids, diagrams by the author himself, and a sure grasp of the practical factors involved in building the great churches - cost of materials, wages, etc. On page 161 there is a fascinating account of the business side of church building. Despite the Wars of the Roses and the French wars that preceded them there was money to invest, and 'a large part of the investment was, quite exceptionally in English history, in works of architecture'. Moreover these works were for use and not designed, as they seem to be to-day, to stand empty.

Needless to say, the publishers being who they are, the illustrations are an important part of the text, and are most considerately arranged for the most part to accompany it. There is of course a glossary, for as Dr. Harvey ruefully points out, whereas musical or painting terms can be taken for granted, architectural ones can not. There is a useful list of buildings which can be confidently dated, and one or two growls at Professor Pevsner: even 'The Buildings of England' series is not immune from Dr. Harvey's crusading zeal. There are also a bibliography, and one or two photographs of churches and secular buildings not often enough recorded - the spire at Rotherham, for example , and the interior of Crosby Hall. The dust-wtapper portrays the Oxford Divinity Schools on the front and Gloucester Cathedral on the back - first study, then glory. It seems appropriate.

GLEN CAVALIERO

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