Rustication (architecture)
Rustication is a range of masonry techniques used in classical architecture giving visible surfaces a finish texture that contrasts with smooth, squared-block masonry called ashlar. The visible face of each individual block is cut back around the edges to make its size and placing very clear. In addition the central part of the face of each block may be given a deliberately rough or patterned surface.[1]
Rusticated masonry is usually "dressed", or squared off neatly, on all sides of the stones except the face that will be visible when the stone is put in place. This is given wide joints that emphasize the edges of each block, by angling the edges ("channel-jointed"), or dropping them back a little. The main part of the exposed face may be worked flat and smooth or left with, or worked, to give a more or less rough or patterned surface. Rustication is often used to give visual weight to the ground floor in contrast to smooth ashlar above. Though intended to convey a "rustic" simplicity, the finish is highly artificial, and the faces of the stones often carefully worked to achieve an appearance of a coarse finish.[2]
Rustication was used in ancient times, but became especially popular in the revived classical styles of
Similar finishes are very common in medieval architecture, especially in castles, walls and similar buildings, but here it merely arises from an unwillingness to spend the extra money required for ashlar masonry in a particular building, and lacks the deliberate emphasis on the joints between blocks. Though it often achieves a decorative effect, this is something of a by-product, and the exploitation for architectural effect within a single building of contrasts between rusticated and ashlar surfaces is rarely seen. In some buildings, such as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (begun 1298) something other than cost-saving is at play, and this may be the association of the technique with the display of power and strength, from its use in military architecture.[3] Rough finishes on stone are also very common in architecture outside the European tradition, but these too would generally not be called rustication. For example, the bases of Japanese castles and other fortifications usually use rough stone, often very attractively.
History
Although rustication is known from a few buildings of Greek and Roman antiquity, for example Rome's
Probably the earliest and most influential example is the
In Rome, Donato Bramante's Palazzo Caprini ("House of Raphael", by 1510, now destroyed) provided a standard model for the integration of rustication with the orders. Here the obvious strength of a blind arched arcade with emphatic voussoirs on the rusticated ground storey (in fact using stucco) gave reassuring support to the upper storey's paired Doric columns standing on rusticated piers, set against a smooth wall.[5] The first major Renaissance building in Spain, the Palace of Charles V in Granada (1527), had a deeply rusticated ground floor facade with regular rounded cushions.
The technique was enthusiastically taken up by the next generation of
The Italians brought in to expand the Palace of Fontainebleau introduced the technique to France. Its spread to Germany and England took longer, but by about the end of the 16th century it had reached all parts of Europe. In his Banqueting House in London (1619), Inigo Jones gave a lightly rusticated surface texture to emphasize the blocks on both storeys, and to unify them behind his orders of pilasters and columns.
During the 18th century, following the
Architectural books by authors such as James Gibbs and William Chambers set out detailed recommendations for the proportions of the blocks in relation to columns in the same facade, and the proportion of the block that a widened joint should occupy, though their prescriptions differ, and were not always followed by architects.[7]
Typically, rustication after 1700 is highly regular, with the front faces of blocks flat even when worked in patterns, as opposed to the real unevenness often seen in the 16th-century examples. Often the Palazzo Medici Riccardi model is followed; the ground floor has heavy rustication with textured faces, while above there is smooth-faced "V" rustication. Though such horizontal zones of rustication are the most common, vertical zones can often be used as highlights, as in the illustration from Catania above, or the Cour Napoleon in the Louvre Palace. The Baroque garden front of the Palazzo Pitti achieves a striking effect, not often copied, by using extensive "blocking", both rounded and rectangular, on the shafts of its columns and pilasters.
Although essentially a technique for stone masonry, rustication can be imitated in brick and stucco,
Variations
The most common variation of rustication is the smooth-faced, where the external face of the block is smooth, as in ashlar, and differs from that only by the cutting in at the joints; this became increasingly popular, and is now the most commonly seen type. If deeply cut-back edges are worked only to the horizontal joints, with the appearance of the vertical joints being minimised, the resulting effect is known as "banded rustication", mostly seen on the lowest levels of very large buildings like the
When the stone is left with a rough external surface, rough shapes may be drilled or chiselled in the somewhat smoothed face in a technique called "vermiculation" ("vermiculate rustication" or "vermicular rustication"), so called from the Latin vermiculus meaning "little worm",[3] because the shapes resemble worms, worm-casts or worm tracks in mud or wet sand. Carved vermiculation requires a good deal of careful mason's work, and is mostly used over limited areas to highlight them. Disparities between individual blocks are often seen, presumably as different carvers interpreted their patterns slightly differently, or had different levels of skill.[9] The small Turner Mausoleum at Kirkleatham by James Gibbs (1740) has an unusually large area vermiculated, over half of the main level. When the shapes join up to form a network, the style is called "reticulated".[9]
Often, especially from the Baroque onwards, the roughly flattened central areas of stones are indented in regular, but not too regular, patterns called "pecked" or "picked-work", and various other ways of patterning them may be found. In garden architecture, where water was to flow over or near the surface, a vertically oriented pattern evoking hanging pond-weed or
In "prismatic rustication" the blocks are dressed at an angle near each edge, giving a prism-like shape.[11] Where the faces rise to a single point, this is often known by terms using "diamond", and is covered below. They may also, usually in blocks that are oblong rather than square, rise to a ridge in the centre. Both types are illustrated, with several others, by Serlio.[12]
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"V" joints and roughened faces within a flat margin, Giulio Romano for his house in Mantua
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Vermiculation at 286 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris
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An unusual pattern book of effects in the Loggia di Giulio Romano in Mantua
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"Frost-work" on the Diana Fountain, London, c. 1690
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Smooth-faced rustication with the blocks dropping back to the wall at 90°, rather than a "V" chamfer
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Quoins only, with long and short strips, on a Czech railway station
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Banded, with "elbows" and very wide joints,Cleveland, Ohio
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Banded rustication in a wholly modern context, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Diamond rustication
Various types of other patterns in masonry surfaces are sometimes called rustication. These include "diamond point" or "diamond rustication" where the face of each stone is a low
The round towers at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan almost use diamonds, but their points are smoothed over. The illustration at right, from Catania in Sicily, alternates rows of three square "diamond" blocks with two oblong blocks, where the faces rise to a ridge rather than a point, showing both the main forms of "prismatic rustication".
The sharply pointed styles have really nothing to do with classical rustication, and are instead a development of styles of raised decoration of masonry that were popular in late
Later, in
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Late 15th-century gateway to the Palacio de Jabalquinto, with small "diamonds" erupting from ashlar at the sides
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"Diamond rustication" in Wernberg, Austria
Feigned rustication
The appearance of rustication, creating a rough, unfinished stone-like surface, can be worked on a wooden exterior. This process became popular in 18th century New England to translate the features of
Rustication of a wooden exterior consists of three basic steps. First, the wood is cut, sanded and prepared with beveled grooves that make each plank appear as if it were a series of stone blocks. Second, the wood is painted with a thick coat of paint. Third, while the paint is still wet, sand is thrown or air blasted onto the planks until no more sand will stick. After the paint dries the plank is ready for use.
In Central Europe, especially the Czech Republic, feigned rustication in sgraffito (decoration by scraping away one colour of coating on an exterior to show another beneath) is a feature from the late Renaissance onwards, continuing into the 20th century. Often "prismatic" or "diamond" rustication is imitated.
See also
Notes
- ^ Summerson, 45–47, 58–59, 132
- ^ Summerson, 45–47
- ^ a b c d Woodman
- ^ Summerson, 58; Woodman. There is much detail in Alfonso Acocella, "Greek and Roman rustication", online re-edit of his section in Stone architecture. Ancient and modern constructive skills, Milan, Skira-Lucense, 2006, pp. 624 ff.
- ^ Summerson, 53
- ^ Woodman, exaggerating somewhat
- ^ a b c Chitham, 126
- ^ Chitham, 127
- ^ a b McKay, 38
- ^ Looking at buildings, "Rustication"
- ^ "Prismatic", in Curl, James Stevens, Encyclopaedia of Architectural Terms, 1993, Donhead Publishing, London
- ^ Summerson, fig. 52
- ^ "George Washington's Mount Vernon - Rustication". Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-12-29. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
References
- ISBN 9780750661249, google books
- McKay, William Barr, McKay's Building Construction, 2015 (reprint), Routledge, ISBN 1317341090, 9781317341093, google books
- ISBN 0500201773
- Francis Woodman and Jacques Heyman, "Masonry, ii) Rustication and Vermiculation", Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 2 Apr. 2016, subscription required