What meanings did contemporaries attach to styles fashionable in the eighteenth century

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What meanings did contemporaries attach to styles fashionable in the eighteenth century

The eighteenth century was a period of change as much for the architectural world as for the world of the architect. The Glorious Revolution marked the beginning of great stability, vast economic growth and population growth; factors that would lead to a massive growth in the amount of building going on in Britain. At the same time, London, the hub of England, was transformed from a medieval city into a bustling stone metropolis following the destruction of the old city during the Great Fire. The resulting boom in building led to a popularisation of interest in architecture and the publication of books detailing new fads and moulding patterns for use by builders in order that they would be able to make their creations more fashionable without any great effort. The concept of taste as something that was “right” or “wrong” (Shaftesbury saw taste as “founded on truth, or veri similitudae at the least”) meant that reactions against styles of architecture were usually tacit or tepid, as disagreeing with the panels of virtuosos in such establishments as the Dilettanti or Antiquarians dictated the fashionable and the unfashionable

A powerful new national bank (introduced by William III who had seen such a system operate with great success in his native Netherlands), combined with the gradual industrialisation of Britain, the growth of Empire and the development of the modern capitalist system led to a growth of British affluence. By the end of the eighteenth century, Britain had swept from being at the edge of European affairs to being the arbiter of them, mostly due to her economic maturity. The physical result of this for the average Briton would have been the massive growth in public works. Financed by Queen Anne’s Coal Tax, the British government was capable of raising huge funds for the building of tremendous buildings.

The economic power of the government at the beginning of the eighteenth century was manifest from the new St. Paul’s Cathedral. One of the largest churches in Christendom, the famous domed cathedral of the new metropolis was just one of the hundreds of churches built by Wren in the late seventeenth century in London alone. This prolific master was seen in the early eighteenth century as a great ‘modern’ to rival the ‘ancients’ and his work was everywhere to be seen. The result was a proliferation of the baroque style. The baroque style was developed as a variation on the classical style during the seventeenth century. Abandoning the classical rules of architecture as developed by Brunelleschi and Alberti (a movement encouraged by the humanist movement who amongst other things advocated study for its own sake, a point of philosophy that lead amongst other things to a proliferation of interest in the classical works, including classical art and architecture) whilst retaining the classical motifs, the baroque style was replete with pilasters, columns, friezes and other obviously ‘classical’ motifs and yet these were deliberately ‘mismatched’. For example, St. Paul’s columns are paired together so that although the pairs maintain equidistance, there is not equidistance between each column. Equally the wanton placement of Doric, Corinthian and Ionic columns would have been upsetting to the classical architect. The abandonment of the strict rules governing the use of columns allowed stylisation in a way impossible in the strictly classical mode.

The rebuilding of London in the modern mode made the old gothic buildings stand out to such an extent that many were retraced or remoulded according to the new fashion. The Palladian school, based on Palladio’s famous treatise, was the emergent fashion from the Wren era and as the government renewed the fabric of London, a city that held more than twenty times as many citizens as the next largest of England’s cities, the baroque and Palladian fad was transmitted across the country.

These affluent people would also contribute in great measure to the boom in building. The growth ...

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These affluent people would also contribute in great measure to the boom in building. The growth of capitalism, catalysed by such events as William III’s wars, which led to the growth of the powerful London banking network developed a tremendous “moneyed interest”. Wealth poured in from colonies and trading posts, and the British foreign policy became one of ensuring the safety of British global trade. This growth in commerce led to a greater pool of disposable income available to a greater number of people, and as such it led to a growth in the number of people building their homes according to their tastes. As the gentry and lesser nobility grew in financial power, the agrarian revolution led to an increase in the profits of the older landed class. The corruption, contacts and bribery of politics let such people as Walpole, born a lowly country squire, become one of the richest men in Europe.

The fad for building resulting from the proliferation of disposable income and the new architectural trends that led to such celebrated creations as Blenheim Palace, Houghton, Castle Howard, Chatsworth and Woburn. Old houses were retraced and refitted, and landscaped gardens were built across the country. The result of all of this building was a massive increase in the demand for architects; a demand that would lead to an increase in their status and to a new type of architect emerging. Whereas John Vanburgh, Burlington and Boyle were aristocrats who turned to architecture after a series of other jobs, the profession of architect was becoming a profession in itself. Although Burlington’s Palladian creations would bring him a reputation amongst contemporaries to compete with Wren, the next generation of architects would be known as architects alone. Sir William Chambers spent nine years travelling in the Orient, a year studying in Paris and five years in Italy. Robert Adam had been a student at Edinburgh before France, Italy and Dalmatia all imposed their styles on his consciousness.

The fad for travelling led to the import of many ideas, examples and styles. The improvement in the technology of copper etching led to a new ability to convey new styles, ancient styles and non European architecture in such publications as “The Gentleman’s Magazine.’ Styles such as the Palladian, as pioneered by Burlington were disseminated by such books as Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” Castell’s “Villas of the Ancients,” and Ware’s translation of Palladio’s treatise. It is notable that in Marriage a la Mode, Lord Squander’s desired palace is a Palladian mansion.

Hogarth wrote that it is in nature that one ought to find forms, such as the Corinthian column having its origins in a basket of dock leaves and that Palladio’s book was of such importance that no architect should “stir a step” without it. He also notes that extravagance inside a church is not really a good thing, (despite his admiration of the building of St. Peter’s) as it is offensive to his Anglican sentiments, and this aversion to extravagance and luxuria seems to have spread. The Dillettanti sponsored the study of Palladian “The Antiquities of Athens measured and delineated”. The Palladian Hogarth complimented St. Paul’s Cathedral for its “variety without confusion, simplicity without nakedness, richness without tawdriness, distinctness without hardness, and quantity without excess”. The importance of excess as a vice (a ‘luxuria’ to be avoided) within the Palladian school’s ranks is clear from Vanburgh’s letters, where he defends one of his creations claiming that it could be lit by a small number of candles, and that the hall, despite contrary reports, did not cause drafts to blow through the building, blowing out candles as they went.

Palladio was not universally popular. Adams’ time in Dalmatia was recorded in his “Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalato.” Palladio was much undermined by this book as by Adam’s later work, “The Works in Architecture of R. and J. Adam.” Isaac Ware’s “A Complete Body of Architecture” criticised the concurrent trend for “transfer[ing] the buildings of Italy right or wrong, suited or unsuited to the purpose into England.” Ware urged the architect instead to “think, as well as to practise” and to consider the “purpose” of the building, despite the urgings of Palladio to think in terms of lengths and breadths. There were more weighty reasons for disliking the new architectural mode of Palladian frontages and the Romanesque mode.

“Stucco’d walls, Mosaic floors,

Palladian windows and Venetian doors”

were erected in England “careless… of climate soil and place” and were often viewed as inappropriate for the English world. Despite the support of the Dillettanti for the school, and the obvious confirmation of the good taste of the style, James Cawthorn wrote that it was not only ridiculous to build Mediterranean buildings in Britain, but in certain cases sacrilegious. The copying of Greek or Roman temples, circuses or “Cyprian shrines” for use as churches he sees as blasphemous and dangerous.

Cawthorn goes on to attack the trend for Chinese architecture, noting how the “farms and seats” of England were trying to match the “villas of Pekin”. Chamber’s “Design of Chinese Buildings” along with prints produced by Jesuit missionaries and wandering artists proliferated the cult of Chinese architecture as the pavilion of Hyde Park will testify. The fad for the east was most evident in gardening where landscape artists such as Brown or Repton would, in Hogarth’s words, install “a serpentine river and a wood” as desired, based upon the popularly circulated images of Chinese gardens. Mrs. Delany speaks at length of how a traditional English estate was transformed by landscaping so that they had “opened a view to the river” and turning the deer out. Although Mrs. Delany sees the deer as “beautiful enliveners” of a view, she seems to approve in general of the changes to the house which although “not entirely finished according to the plan, is very handsome and convenient.” It is notable that in “Humphry Clinker,” Mrs Baynard’s crippling attempts at landscaping included the (disastrous) installation of a stream. The mode for Chinese architecture was popular enough for Lord Kames to bitterly declare it the preferred mode of building before “the Gothic” or the “Greek” schools. Attacking the Chinese style, Shebbeare’s “Letters on the English Nation” criticises the proliferation of the school that encouraged “little bits of wood standing in all directions.” Morris’ “The Architectural Remembrancer” claims that the Chinese school “…consists in mere whim and chimera, without rules or order…” and regards the whole school as a “novelty,” much like the eighteenth century Gothic school.

The eighteenth century Gothic resurgence, led by Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill villa near Twickenham. Taking the opportunity to “exhibit specimens of Gothic architecture,” the resurgence of the Gothic style quickly overtook the Palladian school. Shebbeare’s “Letters on the English Nation” demonstrate some hostility to the Gothic school although this likely to be more of an aesthetic hostility as opposed to anything deeper, as he reflects on the “minute unmeaning carvings which are found in the Gothic chapels of a thousand years standing” and the hundreds of houses with “porches in that taste.”

The “novelty” styles (Gothic/Chinese) physically contrast well with the Palladian buildings of the eighteenth century, yet all were “tasteful” and approved of. Although the novelty fads belong more to Regency England and people of the echelon of the Macaroni, the age of the great town house brought out these absurdly different styles. The Palladian school, although the height of traditional good taste, was criticised for its ignorance of life in Britain. Open atria and mosaic flooring in halls are never advisable in wet climates, and it was for such inadequacies of the school that it was condemned.