William Burges quotes

What I set myself to do was this, to write a sort of grammar of thirteenth-century architecture, and to illustrate it with carefully measured details. I moreover resolved, when I did measure details or buildings, to do the part I wanted, and not to waste time by trying to make a finished drawing by means of the surroundings. The plan of the book fell through, for I had scarcely been at work two months before the advertisement of M. Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary appeared, and I then continued tho drawings for my own instruction and without any intention of publication. (William Burges)

If we copy, the thing never looks right [and] the same occurs with regard to those buildings which do not profess to be copies; both they and the copies want spirit. They are dead bodies... We are at our wits.

William Burges

We have no architecture to work from at all; indeed, we have not even settled the point de depart... our art... is domestic, and... the best way of advancing its progress is to do our best in our own houses... if we once manage to obtain a large amount of art and colour in our sitting-rooms... the improvement may gradually extend to our costume, and perhaps eventually to the architecture of our houses.

William Burges

Great praise must also be given to the Society of Arts for beginning the movement and carrying it on to the present time; and although the sphere of its action must necessarily be infinitely smaller than that of the Government Schools, yet we should always remember that the initiative of our great English exhibitions of industry came from the Society, and that it is to those exhibitions that we owe the stirring among the dry bones of industrial art which is now taking place.

William Burges

Pugin says in one of his works that had he a cathedral to build, one of the first things he would do would be to set up a lathe to turn the smaller columns.

William Burges

Use a good strong thick bold line so that we may get into the habit of leaving out those prettinesses which only cost money and spoil our design.

William Burges

The great feature of our medieval chamber is the furniture; this, in a rich apartment, would be covered with paintings, both ornaments and subjects; it not only did its duty as furniture, but spoke and told a story.

William Burges

It has been well observed that the world, more especially the English portion of it, during the last half century, has been in its working dress; that is to say, although we have done some very wonderful things in the way of mechanics, and have produced other things which are marvels of cheapness, yet as regards the production of really beautiful objects, particularly those required in every-day life, we have been behind most other epochs of civilization.

William Burges

Decidedly the best application of art to industry is when a great many copies are made from an exceedingly good pattern.

William Burges

There are two great uses of antiquarian studies. One of them is to enable us to conjure up as if by the magician's wand the dress, furniture, architecture, &c., of past ages, so that we can live, as it were, in many centuries almost at the same moment. This is a very great and a very pleasant species of knowledge, but it is not particularly useful in this work-a-day world; and it sometimes, like other knowledge, renders its possessor far from happy, more especially when he goes to the theatre, and sees all sorts of anachronisms and impossibilities a. The other use of antiquarian studies is to restore disused arts, and to get all the good we can out of them for our own improvement.

William Burges

The real mission of machinery is to reduce pounds to shillings and shillings to pence. (William Burges)

The civil engineer is the real 19th century architect.

William Burges

Since the great French Revolution all colour has been gradually dying out of the male costume, until we have got reduced to our present gamut of brown, black and neutral tint; which, combined with the chimney-pot hat and the swallow-tailed coat, form a costume by no means particularly adapted to refresh the eye seeking for form or colour.

William Burges

I have been brought up in the 13th century belief, and in that belief I intend to die.

William Burges

Of course there is no prima facie reason why cheap things should be ugly, for a die or mould of a good design costs no more than a bad one; but still the fact remains that the objects in use in every-day life are not beautiful, and it is to effect a change in this respect that the Government have established Schools of Design and the excellent Museum of which I shall have to speak hereafter.

William Burges

The thirteenth century, in particular, was Burges's chosen field, and he modelled his style of draughtsmanship on the famous sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

William Burges

We now come to a third evil, namely, our very unsatisfactory, not to say ugly, furniture. It may be objected that it does not much matter what may be the exact curve of the legs of the chair a man sits upon, or of the table off which he eats his dinner, provided the said articles of furniture answer their respective uses; but, unfortunately, what we see continually before our eyes is likely, indeed is quite sure, to exercise a very great influence upon our taste, and therefore the question of beautiful versus ugly furniture does become a matter of very great importance. I might easily enlarge upon the enormities, inconveniences, and extravagances of our modern upholsterers, but that has been so fully done in a recent number of the "Cornhill Magazine" that I may well dispense with the task.

William Burges

This may, perhaps, take place in the twentieth century, it certainly, as far as I can see, will not occur in the nineteenth.

William Burges

A want of a distinctive architecture, which is fatal to art generally.

William Burges

At present the fashion appears to have set in in favour of two very distinct styles. One is a very impure and bastard Italian, which is used in most large secular buildings; and the other is a variety of the architecture of the thirteenth century, often, I am sorry to say, not much purer than its rival, especially in the domestic examples, although its use is principally confined to ecclesiastical edifices. It is needless to say that the details of these two styles are as different from each other as light from darkness, but still we are expected to master both of them. But it is most sincerely to be hoped that in course of time one or both of them will disappear, and that we may get something of our own of which we need not be ashamed. This may, perhaps, take place in the twentieth century, it certainly, as far as I can see, will not occur in the nineteenth.

William Burges