|
Read Ebook: Anne of Avonlea by Montgomery L M Lucy Maud
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev PageEbook has 124 lines and 21041 words, and 3 pagesThe effect, of course, was to foster that style at the expense of the native Gothic. It is true that books were not widely distributed; there was not in those days the rapid dissemination of ideas that there is in our own. But if anyone wanted a book about building, he could only find such as dealt with classic architecture. Hence in a short time the operations which had hitherto been thought of as building, began to be thought of as Architecture, and the only architecture that was formulated was classic architecture. The idea of that art became inseparably connected in the minds of men with classic expressions of it. Thus it came about that in the course of half a century people of culture regarded all Gothic buildings--even the noblest--as barbarous, and not worthy the name of Architecture. The "Gothic order," as it was called, was merely a "fantastic and licentious manner of building." It was only a small proportion of the actual workmen who were able to study books; the rest picked up the new manner from such foreigners as they met, from work which they saw as they moved about, and occasionally, perhaps, from verbal description. Some worked all their lives on the old lines. One result of the difficulty of imbuing the workmen with the requisite knowledge was that some of the men whose duty it was to overlook buildings--the surveyors--made a point of studying the new style either through books or by foreign travel or both. They rendered themselves familiar with classic detail, and were thus enabled to give the desired character to the buildings under their charge. They gradually became more and more responsible for design in the various branches of the building trades, and thus grew to be architects as well as surveyors. The inevitable tendency was for architectural design to become more personal, and for its results to become less like a spontaneous growth of the land. But although we may perhaps see in the books of the sixteenth century the genesis of our own English architectural publications, their immediate interest lies in the fact that whatever was published about the beginning of the seventeenth century dealt with classic architecture, and that anyone who sought in books for information about building, found nothing about the old Gothic detail, but only instructions how to design in the classic style. Of Smithson, as of his predecessors in his calling, very little is actually known. He seems to have belonged to a family of architectural designers, the members of which have been rather confused by Walpole and other writers who have referred to them. The facts seem to be that of his parentage there are no records, although chronology would admit of Robert Smithson, of Wollaton, being his father; his own name was John, he had a son named Huntingdon, a grandson named John and a great-grandson named Huntingdon. He himself died in 1634, and his son Huntingdon in 1648. They were both buried at Bolsover, in Derbyshire, and an inscription over the grave of the son speaks of his "skill in architecture." The two have been confused with each other, but their separate identity has recently been made clear. According to Walpole, in his "Anecdotes of Painting," "John Smithson was an architect in the service of the Earls of Newcastle. He built part of Welbeck in 1604, the riding-house there in 1623, and the stables in 1625; and when William Cavendish, Earl and afterwards Duke of Newcastle, proposed to repair and make great additions to Bolsover Castle, Smithson, it is said, was sent to Italy to collect designs. From them I suppose it was that the noble apartment erected by that duke, and lately pulled down, was completed, Smithson dying in 1648. Many of Smithson's drawings were purchased by the late Lord Byron from his descendants who lived in Bolsover." On Lord Byron's death the drawings were purchased by the Rev. D'Ewes Coke, and they are now in the possession of his descendants at Brookhill Hall. Many of the drawings have no title or other means of identifying them; but such as have go to show that Smithson, who, it would seem, was not only buried but also lived at Bolsover on the north-east border of Derbyshire, had a considerable local practice, as well as a certain amount of work in London. The riding-house and stables at Welbeck, mentioned by Walpole, are both in the collection, and there are also several drawings relating to Bolsover Castle. The buildings which go to make the "castle" may be divided into three groups: First, there is the castellated portion, built on the site of the old keep and begun in 1613: this part is still in good repair. Then there is a long range on the terrace--the "noble apartment" mentioned by Walpole. This was built by Sir William Cavendish, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, who presumably found the older building too small. Its principal apartment was a magnificent gallery, but, so far as its ruinous state permits the other rooms to be made out , it would appear to have been a completely equipped residence. On the view of the castle which adorns the Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship, this building is called "La Gallerie." The third group comprises the riding-house and its adjuncts, which adjoin the gallery at its western end. The riding-house at Welbeck follows the established lines in its treatment; it has steep gables with finials, mullioned windows, and an open hammer-beam roof: the very heavy pediments over the doors are in keeping with those at Bolsover, and with many other details in the collection, and they show how crude Smithson was in his treatment of classic features. It is important to bear this in mind, because he may be considered as typical of the majority of English designers before the influence of Inigo Jones began to be felt. Smithson's house-plans are of great interest, inasmuch as they belong to the order of things which was shortly to pass away. Some of them follow the traditional lines which made the hall the principal apartment of the house, placing it between the family rooms and the servants' quarters. The plan "for My Lord Sheffield's house" is an example of this arrangement . It shows the rooms grouped in the old way round a courtyard, which had to be traversed in approaching the hall from the front door. The hall itself was entered through the screens at its lower end, and was flanked at its upper end by the parlour and other family rooms, and by the grand staircase. On the opposite side of the court were the kitchen, pantry, and other rooms for the service of the house. In the four corners of the court were square turrets containing subsidiary staircases. On the upper floor the chief rooms were the dining-chamber, placed as far from the kitchen as the limits of the house would allow, and the long gallery. The fact of a special room being set apart for dining itself indicates a fairly late date in respect of this ancient type of plan. As my Lord Sheffield was created Earl of Mulgrave in 1626, the plan must be prior to that year, but the house was probably not more than ten years old when the change of title took place. The other specimen of Smithson's planning is one of the H type, with the hall in one of the wings . This is a departure from the old arrangement, which would have placed the hall in the central block, and thus have brought the buttery into close touch with the kitchens. The hall becomes here more of a passage-room and less of a living-room than under the ancient disposition. There are no sitting-rooms for the family on the ground floor, but the principal staircase leads to the great chamber on the upper floor, thence to the long gallery and a distant "withdrawing-chamber," as well as to the chapel and several bedrooms. There are no elevations preserved which fit these plans, but Smithson has left a number of specimens of his way of dealing with the exterior of his buildings. The most important in size is illustrated in Fig. 17. It follows the usual lines of the period with its mullioned windows, large horizontal cornices, arcaded entrance, balustraded parapets, and curly central gable; but it is rather clumsy compared with most of John Thorpe's elevations. So, also, is the elevation of "My Ladye Cookes house in Houlborn" to which additional interest is lent by the fact that it is dated 1619. This front, with its large dominating pediment and circular-headed window has a later touch about it, and has lost most of the light-hearted piquancy which characterises the work of the preceding fifty years. The hankering after Italian detail which had affected English designers in an increasing degree for many years finds expression in the Smithson drawings, among which are several "Italyan" windows and doors, an "Italyan" gate , and one or two "pergulars." The Thorpe and Smithson drawings are closely allied both in architectural style and in methods of draughtsmanship, although the latter collection is obviously later in feeling. There is a vast difference in both respects between them and the drawings prepared by Inigo Jones and John Webb, which will presently be described. There are comparatively few details in the Thorpe and Smithson collections, especially in the former. The designers concerned themselves primarily with the mass of the building rather than with its particular features. The plans in all the collections, both early and late, are drawn with much care and many of them with singular neatness. But the elevations and perspective views are not of equal excellence. The latter are generally drawn by Thorpe as bird's-eye views. They are in the nature of diagrams. There are, it is true, hardly any perspectives among the architectural drawings of Jones and Webb, but in the one notable instance--the view of a front for Whitehall Palace, at the British Museum--the spectator is supposed to be standing on the ground and not floating in the air . In Jones's designs for the scenery of masques there are many interesting architectural compositions, and these are perforce drawn to satisfy the eye of a spectator on the floor of the theatre. They show great skill in perspective drawing. The difference between the two methods is best indicated by describing the earlier as archaic and the later as modern. Indeed with the advent of Inigo Jones we enter upon a new phase in architectural design; we are leaving the ancient ways and turning into the modern. INIGO JONES No doubt had Charles been blessed with leisure to gratify his refined tastes, and to devote himself to the encouragement of the arts, had he been in possession of funds commensurate with his artistic ambitions, the Italianising of English architecture would have been more rapid than it actually was. But his time was occupied with sterner matters, and the huge palace at Whitehall which he is said to have contemplated , but of which the true history will be presently outlined, never went further than to be committed to paper. What he did do, however, was to foster the seed which had been sown by his father, and which bore fruit later in the century. The love of Charles for the fine arts was shared by many of his court. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, caused not only the marbles which still bear his name, but many other fine relics of antiquity, to be brought to England. Inigo Jones was frequently employed by the nobility to purchase pictures and other treasures, and to see them suitably displayed in the houses they were to adorn. John Webb made it one of his claims to consideration that he had been commissioned by the "great nobility and eminent gentry" to acquire for them medals, statues, and other works of art. Meanwhile, in the country generally, and outside the circle influenced by Inigo Jones, the old habits still prevailed, and many houses were built, including such important buildings as Aston Hall, in Warwickshire, already mentioned, in which the old arrangements of plan were retained, and all the old devices for obtaining architectural effect were used--mullioned windows, steep or curved gables, large and lofty chimney-stacks, turrets and bay-windows, with a strong infusion of Italian detail in the form of cornices and pilasters; just such devices indeed as had been employed by John Smithson and his contemporaries. When this is borne in mind, when it is remembered what Smithson stands for, and that he lived until 1634; that Aston Hall, where Jacobean methods were still paramount, was not completed until 1635; it will be easier to grasp the significance of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House at Whitehall , designed in 1619 and finished in 1622, in which there is no trace of traditional English design, which in fact approaches nearer to Italian models than any building of the seventeenth century. No wonder, considering the goal at which all designers were more or less aiming, that it was quoted as a masterpiece, as the finest flower of modern architecture in England. This position it held all through the century, and indeed still holds in the opinion of many competent judges. At the time it was built it was unique, and for thirty years afterwards travellers might have searched England in vain for anything so thoroughly Italian in treatment, unless they happened to see the Queen's House at Greenwich, or one or two other buildings by the same architect, such as Sherborne, in Gloucestershire, between Northleach and Burford, which was described in 1634 as a "stately, rich, compacted Building all of Free-stone, flat, and couer'd with Lead, with Strong Battlements about, not much unlike to that goodly, and magnificent Building the Banquetting House at Whitehall." The Banqueting House must not be regarded as a step in the normal development of English design; it was something outside, the work of a specially trained and exceptionally gifted man, who achieved in 1619 what less learned and less skilful men were striving after, consciously or unconsciously, for nearly half a century afterwards. At whose expense he passed into foreign parts, or in what year he first did so, there is no record. But it is agreed that he paid two visits to Italy, the first somewhere about the year 1600; the second in 1613-14. Of the first visit little or nothing is known; but of the second there are definite records in the shape of his sketch-book preserved at Chatsworth, and of his marginal notes on a copy of Palladio which he carried with him from place to place, and which is now in Worcester College, Oxford. Soon after his return to England he was appointed surveyor to the queen , and in the year 1610 surveyor of the works to Henry, Prince of Wales, but there is no record of these appointments having resulted in any architectural work. Prince Henry died in 1612, and in 1613 Jones secured the reversion, after Simon Basil, of the office of surveyor of works to the king. In the same year he went to Italy for the second time, where he studied the work of celebrated painters and architects, as well as the splendid remains of ancient architecture which were even more abundant in those days than in these. His intercourse with living architects and painters shaped his own methods of study and design, and there can be no doubt that he returned not only fully equipped to undertake any work that might fall to his lot, but deeply imbued with the spirit of Italian art and the prevalent Italian methods of design. He walked on a high plane, his outlook was wider than that of any of his contemporaries at home. He had acquired conceptions of architecture nobler than those engendered by its application to the ordinary needs of daily life. He has left us very little record of his own opinions on any subject; it is all the more interesting, therefore, to find in his sketch-book, under the date, "Friday y^e 20 January 1614" , a page of reflections of which the following is the gist. "In all designing of ornament one must first design the ground plain as it is for use, and then adorn and compose it with decorum according to its use. To say true, all this composed ornament resulting from abundance of design, such as was brought in by Michael Angelo and his followers, does not in my opinion suit solid architecture but is more appropriate to gardens, the ornaments of chimneys, friezes and the inside of houses, where such things must of necessity be used. For as outwardly every wise man carries himself gravely in public places, yet inwardly has imagination and fire which sometimes flies out unrestrained, just as Nature sometimes flies out to delight or amuse us, to move us to laughter, contemplation, or even horror; so in architecture the outward ornament is to be solid, proportionable according to rule, masculine and unaffected." No epithets more suitable than the two last--masculine and unaffected--could be applied to Jones's own work. The amount of Jones's own work in architecture is scarcely so large as has hitherto been supposed. In regard to the various buildings with which he has been credited, some of the attributions are supported by contemporary evidence in the shape of drawings or of references in letters and documents; others by the direct enumeration of his staunch admirer, John Webb, who was his pupil and assistant, who married a kinswoman of his, and was the executor of his will. Others rest upon tradition or upon the opinions of critics. Tradition is not altogether reliable, owing partly to a natural tendency to attribute any outstanding piece of work to the most celebrated artist of the time, and partly to the natural desire of owners to attach a well-known name to their possessions. The value of a critic's opinion obviously depends upon that uncertain factor--the ability and equipment of the critic for his task, and although the opinion of a competent critic will always count for much, it cannot count for so much as direct evidence. The evidence in this case consists of allusions in contemporary letters, not very numerous or helpful; of architectural drawings by Jones, which are helpful but not numerous; and of the testimony of Webb, who was in the best position to know what his master actually designed. Webb has occasion in his "Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored," to mention Jones's principal works, which he thus enumerates: The west portico of St Paul's Cathedral, and the reducing-of the body of it "from the steeple to the west end, into that order and uniformity we now behold"; St Paul's, Covent Garden , "built likewise with the porticoes about the Piazza there by Mr. Jones" ; the royal chapels at Denmark House and St James's; the Banqueting House at Whitehall; the royal house at Newmarket; and the queen mother's new building at Greenwich. The inscription on Jones's monument which was put up by Webb, designated him as "architectus celeberrimus," and recorded merely that he built the Royal White Hall and restored the Cathedral of St Paul. This list need not necessarily be considered as complete, but Webb evidently regarded the buildings he mentions as the most noteworthy of Jones's productions, inasmuch as he advances them as proofs of his skill in architecture, upon which his fame would rest much more securely than upon his literary and antiquarian effort in "Stone-Heng Restored." The authority for the attribution to Jones of other buildings, such as the enlargement of Somerset House, the chirurgeon's theatre, and King Charles's block at Greenwich, rests upon the Worcester College and Burlington-Devonshire drawings, but these buildings should more properly be credited to Webb, by whose hand they were drawn. The largest design by far which has hitherto been ascribed to Jones is that for the great palace at Whitehall, but it will be presently shown that the ascription is wrong, and that here also the chief credit ought to be given to John Webb. But although in the interests of historical accuracy it is necessary to throw doubt upon much of the work with which Inigo Jones has been credited, what remains is sufficient to establish his fame, and it is beyond controversy that he was regarded as the "Vitruvius of his age." What he undoubtedly did was to introduce into England a refined and scholarly rendering of that Italian manner at which all designers had been aiming for half a century. As Webb says in addressing Dr Charleton, "I must tell you that what was truly meant by the Art of Design was scarcely known in this kingdom, until he, under the protection of his late Sacred Majesty, and that famous Moecenas of Arts, the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey, brought it in use and esteem among us here." We can also agree with him when he says that "Mr. Jones was generally learned, eminent for Architecture, a great geometrician, and in designing with his pen not to be equalled by whatever great masters in his time, for boldness, softness, sweetness, and sureness of his touches." Of the buildings ascribed by Webb to Inigo Jones there remain but three--the Banqueting House, St Paul's, Covent Garden, which has been much altered, and the Queen's House at Greenwich, which was begun in 1619 and finished in 1635. It is quite as far removed as the Banqueting House from the traditional type of English design. It is essentially Italian both in plan and elevation , and it indicates how completely Inigo Jones had departed from the old ways. The original drawings for the house itself have not been preserved, but there exist several sketches by Jones's hand of chimney-pieces and other details connected with it. Another house attributed to Jones on fairly good evidence is Coleshill, in Berkshire, which stands on a steep hillside facing westwards across the valley to Highworth. It is a striking embodiment of that cultivated manner in architecture which was begun by Jones, continued by Webb, and was destined gradually to supersede the traditional methods of the countryside. Although thoroughly English in feeling it could never have been devised without an intimate knowledge of Italian detail. It is simple, dignified, and regular, depending for its effect upon nice proportion and skilful detail, not at all upon picturesque variety or broken grouping. It is a plain oblong in plan, without wings or projections ; it is lofty in elevation, without gables or even a pediment ; the corners are emphasised with bold quoins, the roof springs from a widely projecting cornice, and is crowned with a stout balustrade surrounding a spacious lead-covered flat, out of which rises a large central cupola. The slopes of the roof are diversified with dormers; the massive chimney-stacks are accurately and symmetrically placed, each answering to each. There is nothing about it haphazard or unexpected, nothing quaint or piquant; everything is correct, regular, and stately. It cannot, however, be deemed, like Tennyson's Maud, "Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null," for its effect is both striking and attractive; it is noble without being oppressively grand. The simplicity of the exterior arises from the simplicity of the plan. The ground floor, which is mainly occupied by the reception rooms and the great staircase, is raised high above the ground, thus leaving space for the windows of the basement, which is devoted to the kitchens and servants' quarters. The upper floor contains the grand saloon and bedrooms; in the roof are commodious attics; a staircase in the cupola leads on to the flat roof, whence fine views are obtained of the distant Marlborough Downs. Although the house is of considerable size, the accommodation is not ample in proportion; the bedrooms are large and lofty, but few in number. Homeliness is somewhat sacrificed to stateliness. It is inevitable that these fine, regular houses should have the defects of their qualities. The plan is as different from the traditional plan of English houses as are those in Kent's "Designs of Inigo Jones," a collection which will be dealt with more particularly later on. There is no great hall connecting the parlours with the kitchens, and serving itself as one of the chief living-rooms. The servants are relegated to the basement, the whole of the ground floor is given up to the family, the hall is more of a vestibule than a living-room. In former times the staircase, although often handsomely treated, consisted of a single series of flights occupying a compact space. At Coleshill a vast hall is devoted to the staircase, or rather to two staircases, each equally eligible, starting from the same place and terminating at either end of the same landing . Although the servants were sent half underground, some of the stateliness followed them, and the approach to the back door is flanked by two massive pillars, each of which contains a coved niche. The building is attributed to Inigo Jones on the testimony of a tablet in the house, and its date, according to the same authority, is 1650. In the absence of any other evidence this assertion, although not contemporaneous with the building, may be accepted; but it should be remembered that Jones died in 1652, and that the last years of his life, or almost the last, were spent in the turmoil of the Civil War. So much did the unrest disturb his life that he appointed John Webb to be his deputy in the office of surveyor of the works. In any case it must have been either Jones or Webb who designed Coleshill, for there was nobody else who had at that time received the training necessary to produce it. There are several fine ceilings wrought in Jones's bold fashion, which was as different from that which produced the busy and slender patterns of Elizabethan work, as was the general treatment of plan and elevation from that of an Elizabethan mansion. It is interesting to find one of the smaller rooms panelled in an earlier style, Jacobean in character, with panelling designed for its position, not imported from elsewhere; and as it is difficult to suppose that Jones would have departed from his usual manner in this particular case, it is probable that the room was left to the unaided skill of some local craftsman, who relied on his own traditions. Of Jones's connection with Raynham Park, in Norfolk , there is no evidence beyond tradition and the style of the work itself; but much of this has touches about it which are quite in his manner. There are indications that the house was built at two periods, and these make it difficult to attribute the whole work to one designer. But the treatment of the front, with its two wings of decided though slight projection, and its rather heavily-curved gables, serves to make it a connecting link between the old and the new styles. The date of this house is generally stated to be 1636, but further investigation is required in order to arrive at its true history, and to account for the two periods of building. The double cube and such precise proportions were quite new in English architecture; so also were the careful proportions of the windows and their relation to the wall space, the pervading refinement of the mouldings, and the simplicity of the general treatment. These factors inevitably influenced the plan of the house, which became much less elastic than of old, and less adaptable to the wants of English life. They tended towards the glorification of the house at the expense of its inhabitants and to subordinate household comfort to architecture. York House was sold in 1672 by the second duke, the "chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon" of Dryden, to a syndicate who pulled down the house, and covered the site with new buildings, leaving the water-gate as practically the sole relic of the old palace. Its appearance, backed by its newer neighbours, is well indicated in a drawing by Thomas Sandby, made about 1760 . Inigo Jones died in June 1652. His will is dated the 22nd July 1650, when he was "aged seaventy-seaven yeares." He left in specified sums the amount of ?4,150, and he bequeathed the debt owing to him from the late king and queen, of which the amount is not stated, in equal shares to his executor, John Webb, and one Richard Gammon, a carpenter, after deducting ?50 for the paymaster of the works payable within a month after the discharge of the debt. He disposes of one half of his wearing apparel, but does not mention the other half, nor does he dispose of the residue of his estate. He mentions no collection of drawings nor any books. On the face of it he can hardly be considered a wealthy man at his death. A really exhaustive account of his life has yet to be written; one which shall be free from the undemonstrable attribution of work to him; free from baseless eulogy on the one hand and detraction on the other; one which shall fairly balance tradition and evidence; which shall take account of him as an artist and scene-painter, as a surveyor dealing from day to day with prosaic details, and as an architectural designer. It has been no part of the present purpose to enter minutely into these particulars; it was outside the scope of this work to marshal all the evidence for or against his authorship of every building with which he has been credited. The aim has been to indicate the general influence he had upon English architecture, particularly in respect of house design. He was the most notable figure that had hitherto appeared upon the stage of English architecture, the most refined and scholarly, with an exquisite sense of proportion. He was at heart an artist, just as Wren was at heart a man of science. THE DRAWINGS OF INIGO JONES AND JOHN WEBB WEBB'S OWN WORK Reference has been made more than once to the design for an immense palace at Whitehall. The drawings for this, which are, most of them, preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, were first introduced to the public by William Kent, the architect, in the year 1727, under the title of "Designs of Inigo Jones." There are two volumes of this book, the first occupied chiefly with the great palace; the second with miscellaneous designs, principally houses. The drawings used by Kent were in the possession of Lord Burlington, the well-known dilettante; at any rate, some of them were, while others seem to have belonged to Dr. Clarke of All Souls College, Oxford, who subsequently left them to Worcester College. The history of the drawings is not altogether free from obscurity, but it appears to be as follows. John Webb had in his possession a large number of drawings, mostly done by himself, but including some by his old master, Inigo Jones. At his death in 1672 Webb left all his "library and books, and all his prints and cuts and drawings of architecture" to his son William, with strict injunctions that they were to be kept together. This injunction was not respected, and it is said that the widow of William Webb disposed of the collection. John Aubrey, writing between 1669 and 1696, says that "Mr. Oliver, the City Surveyor, hath all his papers and designs, not only of St Paul's Cathedral, etc., and the Banqueting House, but his designs of all Whitehall suitable to the Banqueting House; a rare thing, which see." It is almost certain that the drawings mentioned by Aubrey were those left to William Webb by his father, for it is extremely unlikely that there would have been two collections of the kind. There is no record of how Mr. Oliver obtained them, nor of how he disposed of them; the next thing that is known is that Lord Burlington had acquired the larger half and Dr. Clarke the smaller, but in some respects the more important. Lord Burlington's portion descended to the Dukes of Devonshire, and the seventh duke made a gift of a great part to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in whose library they are preserved. Some, however, he retained at Chatsworth, including a series entitled "Designs for Whitehall," which are, as a matter of fact, mostly preliminary sketches by Webb for the various versions of the great palace; and a large number of designs by Jones for the scenery, setting, and costumes of masques, as well as some by Webb. Dr. Clarke bequeathed his portion to Worcester College, Oxford, on his death in 1736. It is practically certain that the Burlington collection and that at Worcester College were originally one collection, inasmuch as each contains drawings which supplement some of those in the other. At Worcester College are the "designs for all Whitehall suitable to the Banqueting House," together with a large number of miscellaneous drawings. At Chatsworth are designs of the Banqueting House itself, together with many preliminary drawings for the palace at Whitehall. At the Royal Institute of British Architects is a drawing of the west front of St Paul's, together with many others, notably those of the King Charles block at Greenwich, and almost the whole series which Kent used for his second volume of "Designs of Inigo Jones." Besides these drawings there are yet others attributed to Jones at the British Museum. Some of these are the originals of the design for Whitehall Palace published by Campbell in his "Vitruvius Britannicus," which is quite different from that published by Kent. Others are sketches of figures and drapery undoubtedly drawn by Jones. The drawings used by Campbell were in 1717 in the possession of William Emmett, of Bromley, an architect, but it is not known how he became possessed of them, nor whether they once formed part of Webb's collection, but their style links them up with the rest of the drawings of the palace. The whole of these drawings have until quite recently been regarded as the work of Jones himself. Aubrey mentions them as his; Kent published many of them as his; Campbell attributed to him those which he used, presumably on the authority of Emmett. All subsequent writers have taken the authorship for granted, although some have agreed that Jones's hand is not visible in the finished designs of the palace, preserved at Worcester College. This acquiescence in established opinion is not surprising. The drawings had not been thoroughly examined and catalogued, and in particular those at one library had not been collated with those at the others. But when recently the various collections came to be catalogued and definitely arranged, when, by the aid of photographs, they were brought together and compared one with another, very interesting results were obtained. It soon became easy to differentiate between Jones's draughtsmanship and Webb's. The result was that it became apparent that nearly the whole of the drawings should be assigned to Webb and very few to Jones. Nor would logic allow a halt to be called there, and suffer us to say that Webb may have been the draughtsman, but Jones was still the designer. For many of the drawings are sketches with notes in Webb's writing, which go to show how he developed his ideas as he went along. It would be impossible in the space at command to indicate fully which drawings are by Jones, which are by Webb inspired by Jones, and which are of Webb's own design. But in the latter category the evidence constrains us to place the designs for the palace at Whitehall, the designs in the second volume of Kent, and those for King Charles's block at Greenwich. Although the pursuit of truth compels us to credit Webb rather than Jones with the bulk of the designs in both of Kent's volumes, admirers of the great master will probably not only survive the shock, but will eventually be grateful to find that the indifferent pieces of design which mar many of those excellent conceptions need not be attributed to him. It would be impossible to pursue the subject fully here, but the branch of it which refers to the palace of Whitehall is sufficiently curious to justify a brief account. In the Smithson collection there is an interesting drawing which shows a plan of the old Banqueting House previous to its destruction, and an elevation of the ground story of the new Banqueting House . They are obviously not drawn to the same scale, inasmuch as the new building was 100 ft. long as against 120 ft. for the old. The fact that Smithson thought it worth while to draw the ground story, so far as then built, suggests that he was struck by its novel treatment. The rusticated stonework, the flat arched openings, and the unmoulded plinth and stringcourse were unfamiliar features. Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page |
Terms of Use Stock Market News! © gutenberg.org.in2025 All Rights reserved.