New-York tribune., 1906-07-01
STANFORD WHITE.

Stanford White was beyond question the most
conspicuous American architect Of his day, ana
perhaps to him as much as 20 any one man we
owe the direction for good or evil which Ameri-
can architecture has taken in the last twenty
years. especially in that transformation of New
York from a wilderness Of brownstone and dry
goods boxes into the likeness of the Renaissance
which, in its scale and rapidity, suggests Cesar
conversion of Rome from city of brick TO a city
Of marble 1t is impossible to separate bis work
from that Of the firm of which he was. to the
public, the best known though not the ablest
member. While it is a familiar fact that his
talents were devoted to the decorative more than
to the structural side of his profession, in the
popular mind his name is and will be liaked
with great array of beautiful public buildings
and sumptuous private houses which are typical
of the new New York. Whatever may have
been bis individual part in those works, they at
least harmcnized with his artistic spirit, while
the structures which were recognized as pecul-
arly his own, like Madison Square Garden, at
once expressed and gave direction to the Ameri-
can desire for Old World beauty in luxurious
and exuberant forms. Beginning his work at a
moment when the influence Of Richardson was
widely prevalent, he helped to set another fash
ion and turn host of younger men once more
to the study of the Italian Renaissance, which
has been so predominantly the inspiration of cur
later architectural development.
Though pupil of Richardson, it was not in
Stanford Whites nature to work out a strik-
ingly original mode Of seIf-expression. He would
not have said. as Richardson once did, ut
would not cost me a bit of trouble to build
French buildings which would reach from here
to Philadelphia but that is not what want
to do" He was content rather to give Ameri-
cans the delight and the education of having put
before them skilful adaptations to their needs
Of what were to him the most perfect monu-
ments Of an age whose eager and luxurious life
made its palaces and pleasure houses approprl-
ate to our use. These adaptations We're carried
out with a frankneSs which discounted any crit
icism of the method, yet with a freedom and dis
tinction and fitness TO their setting which gave
each one vital entity. Whether he transplanted
the Giralda tower to overlook Madison Square,
or turned Veronese town hall into a newspaper
Office, or put a reminiscence of San Giorgio in
Velabro at the south side of Washington Square,
or suggested the gayeties of the Villa Medici
to the pleasure seekers at the Columbian Expo
sition, the effect never failed to be beautiful
and alluring if not convincing. This work did
not call for the expression of the highest type
of genius. but it did give to America a lesson in
scholarship and standards. 1t imposed itself
upon the architectural confusion of the day. and
did much to mitigate it. Stanford White turned
whole generation OF arcnltecLS from a search
for extravaganza and eccentricity to the desire
Of expressing themselves in forms of disciplined
and cultivated, if somewhat rOcOco, taste. His
conception left much to be desired in the devel-
opment of q school Of American architecture,
but such teaching as his was a necessary episode
in that MISUNDERSTANDING, considering the
conditions prevailing here, an initial work Of
prime Importance.
Stanford Whites particular taste admirably
fitted him to give to New York structures inter-
nally and externally suited to it's desires. He
derstoOd it, and met its wants so perfectly that
he won professionally a tremendous success, and
he fell artistically a victim to that successor,
shall we say, his limitations were themselves
conditions Of that success. He secured Europe
to lay at the feet OF his rich and not always cul
tivated patrons the spoil of palaces and auction
rooms, and made himself the master Of artistic
revels in sumptUous decoration. Who shall say
whether this was merely clever adaptation Of
his powers to his market or the natural flower
ing of his own pleasure loving and not too dis
eliminating taste? At any rate, the habit was
at war with pure creative genius, and, whatever
Stanford White might have been, he let himself
be harnessed to the service of an unrefined ap-
petite for snowy luxury so firmly that, while
what was best in him made powerfully for right
DEVELOPMENT in American art, what was worst
in him as an artist seems completely typical Of
the society whose mundane wants he more than
satisfied with the embodiment Of thoroughly
mundane ideals. He truly an artist i'm
mensely clever Of tireless energy, but without
the celestial vision.
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