A Noble Style in Architecture

The art which endures is that which is greatly distinctive, besides being beautiful. Waiving the first endeavours of primitive man, for these doings are far too remote to be seen clearly, it may be asserted with complete assurance, that never yet did a school of artists ply their craft, who did not begin by relying on a senior school. A very long page would be needful, whereon to show forth the debts which France owed, on the one hand to Italy, on the other to the Low Countries. And if the Greek achievement was fully as individual as the French, in its early stages Hellenic art tells clearly of discipleship of Egypt and Assyria. The architecture called Scottish Baronial is notably among those things, which combine distinctiveness with beauty. But in approaching a tribute to this work, it behoves to remember that it could not have from the start its markedly idiosyncratic temper. Who were the preceptors of the initial artists in the formula?

There is widespread the idea that the Franco-Scottish alliance originated with the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin. But the league was ancient on that event, and it would seem to have been David I, crowned King of Scots in 1124, who first brought about intimate relations between his compatriots and the French. Caring before all else for things ecclesiastical, he was founder of most of the Scottish abbeys; and one of his actions was to bring to his dominions a group of French monks who were skilled in building. Thus it was normal that soon there should stand revealed, alike in churches and castles in Scotland, an affinity with French architecture.