Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular WarAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular War
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
During this period, St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, was built
by Thomas Archer. The churches of Greenwich, of St. George's, Hanover
Square, and St. Luke's, Middlesex, were designed by John James. To this
time likewise belong St. Giles's-in-the-Fields; St. Olave's, Southwark,
and Woburn Abbey, by Flitcroft; Chatsworth House and Thoresby, by
Salmon; Montagu House, by the French architect, Pouget; All Saints'
Church, and the Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, by Dean
Aldrich; and the library of Christ Church, designed by Dr. George
Clarke, M.P. for Oxford, in the reign of Anne. After these the Earl of
Burlington, a worshipper of Palladio and Inigo Jones, became a very
fashionable architect, and built the dormitory at Westminster School;
Petersham House, and other noblemen's mansions. The fine colonnade in
the courtyard of Burlington House is also his work. Burlington was
essentially a copyist, as was his protégé Kent, who built Holkham,
in Norfolk, and the Horse Guards, but acquired as much reputation
by his landscape gardening as he gained little by his architecture.
Towards the end of this period several foreign artists were employed in
England. We have already named Pouget; Giacomo Leoni was much employed;
and Labelye, a Swiss, built Westminster Bridge, which was completed in
1747. Thomas Ripley, originally a carpenter, built the Admiralty.
Painting, like architecture, was at a very low ebb during this period,
with one or two brilliant exceptions. Foreign artists were in demand,
and there was no native talent, except that of Thornhill and Hogarth,
which could claim to be unjustly overlooked in that preference.
Sir Peter Lely was still living, but Sir Godfrey Kneller, another
foreigner, was already taking his place. Kneller was a German, born
at Lübeck, and educated under the best Flemish masters of the day. As
he had chosen portrait-painting as his department, he hastened over
to England after a visit to Rome and Venice, as the most profitable
field for his practice, and being introduced to Charles II. by the
Duke of Monmouth, he became at once the fashion. Kneller had talents
of the highest order, and, had not his passion for money-making been
still greater, he would have taken rank with the great masters; but,
having painted a few truly fine pictures, he relied on them to secure
his fame, and commenced an actual manufacture of portraits for the
accumulation of money. Like Rubens, he sketched out the main figure,
and painted the head and face, leaving his pupils to fill in all the
rest. He worked with wonderful rapidity, and had figures often prepared
beforehand, on which he fitted heads as they were commissioned. Sir
John Medina, a Fleming, was the chief manufacturer of ready-made
figures and postures for him, the rest filled in the draperies and
backgrounds. Kneller had a bold, free, and vigorous hand, painting with
wonderful rapidity, and much of the grace of Vandyck, but only a few
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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