Inigo Jones And The Classical Tradition

Publisher description

An examination of Inigo Jones's work within the context of the European early seventeenth century classicist movement. Includes a broad survey of contemporary architecture in Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands, as well as a close examination of Jones's buildings.

The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science.

Giles Worsley notes that architectural styles do not always supersede one another but can co-exist, although one style may be dominant. Focusing on the Palladian classical tradition, introduced by Inigo Jones in the 1610s, he shows that this tradition did not die out with Jones's death and revive only during the first half of the eighteenth century, as is commonly assumed, but remained viable until the end of the eighteenth century, rivalling the baroque and rococo styles. Worsley argues that neo-classicism, generally seen as a generic description of architecture in the late eighteenth century, was actually prevalent in British architecture in varying degrees of strength as early as 1615. He examines the architecture of Scotland, Ireland and North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and shows how styles were influenced by English Palladianism. He also places Palladianism in a European context, pointing out that it was not an isolated phenomenon but was an important feature of Italian, French, Dutch and German architecture during this time. The book thus not only sheds fresh light on British architecture but also provides a new outlook on European and American architecture as a whole.

Inigo Jones (1573-1652) is widely acknowledged to have been England's most important architect. As court designer to the Stuart kings James I and Charles I, he is credited with introducing the classical language of architecture to the country. He famously traveled to Italy and studied firsthand the buildings of the Italian masters, particularly admiring those by Andrea Palladio. Much less well known is the profound influence of native British arts and crafts on Jones's architecture. Likewise, his hostility to the more opulent forms of Italian architecture he saw on his travels has largely gone unnoted. This book examines both of these overlooked issues. Vaughan Hart identifies well-established links between the classical column and the crown prior to Jones, in early Stuart masques, processions, heraldry, paintings, and poems. He goes on to discuss Jones's preference for a masculine and unaffected architecture, demonstrating that this plain style was consistent with the Puritan artistic sensitivities of Stuart England. For the first time, the work of Inigo Jones is understood in its national religious and political context. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

The story of how the country house, historically a site of violent disruption, came to symbolize English stability during the eighteenth century. Country houses are quintessentially English, not only architecturally but also in that they embody national values of continuity and insularity. The English country house, however, has more often been the site of violent disruption than continuous peace. So how is it that the country how came to represent an uncomplicated, nostalgic vision of English history? This book explores the evolution of the country house, beginning with the Reformation and Civil War, and shows how the political events of the eighteenth century, which culminated in the reaction against the French Revolution, led to country houses being recast as symbols of England’s political stability.

This ground-breaking collection explores the assumptions behind and practices for performance implicit in the manuscripts and playtexts of the medieval and early modern eras, focusing on work which engages with performance-oriented research.

Winner, 2022 Outstanding Academic Title, CHOICE Awards A room’s acoustic character seems at once the most technical and the most mystical of concerns. Since the early Enlightenment, European architects have systematically endeavored to represent and control the propagation of sound in large interior spaces. Their work has been informed by the science of sound but has also been entangled with debates on style, visualization techniques, performance practices, and the expansion of the listening public. Echo’s Chambers explores how architectural experimentation from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for concepts of acoustic space that are widely embraced in contemporary culture. It focuses on the role of echo and reverberation in the architecture of Pierre Patte, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Carl Ferdinand Langhans, and Le Corbusier, as well as the influential acoustic ideas of Athanasius Kircher, Richard Wagner, and Marshall McLuhan. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories of media and auditory culture, Joseph L. Clarke reveals how architecture has impacted the ways we continue to listen to, talk about, and creatively manipulate sound in the physical environment.