Palladian
It is vitally important, when considering the place of Inigo Jones within the overall history of English architecture, to recognise how prescient he was in chronological terms. As the renowned architectural historian John Summerson observed, ‘Inigo Jones was … thirty when Elizabeth died. He was only nine years younger than Shakespeare and the very near contemporary of all those lesser poets and dramatists whom we habitually call Elizabethan’
Frustratingly little is known about Jones’s background and early life. It is known that he was born in London in 1573, to a relatively humble mercantile background (his father was a cloth worker). By whatever means, he seems to have made early progress up the social scale: by 1603 he is mentioned as having received payment for his professional services as a ‘picture maker’ (stage-set designer) from the earl of Rutland. He also travelled in Europe at about this time (presumably as part of the earl’s entourage). It is also known that he came to early prominence as a stage designer for the numerous lavish court ‘masques’ which were such a feature of Jacobean society (he appears to have collaborated with Ben Johnson, and it has been claimed that his stage designs may have influenced some of Shakespeare’s dramatic imagery).
This background appears to have had two marked and significant effects on Jones’s professional abilities: first, he was able to experience Italian architecture (both classical and Renaissance) at first hand – this at a time when most Englishmen could only learn about such architecture by means of (often inaccurate) imported engravings and prints. Second, as a stage designer, Jones learnt to draw.
Summerson emphasises the importance of this latter point from the perspective of Jones’s later practice as an architect:
Jones’s very considerable capacity as a draughtsman at once marks him off from all his English contemporaries … It is not simply the ability to draw which is significant, but the state of mind, the sense of control of which that ability is the outward sign. It represents, indeed, a revolution in architectural vision, and when we meet with Inigo Jones’s earliest surviving sketches … we know that we have finally crossed the threshold from the medieval to the modern.
A tantalising glimpse into Jones’s practical technique of study whilst on his European travels is to be found in a surviving copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri, which Jones took with him on his travels, and which is preserved at Worcester College, Oxford. This volume is filled with copious notes in Jones’s own hand, which seem to indicate that his technique was to take his copy of Palladio to the actual classical remains which Palladio analysed – and there to make meticulous comparisons between text and building, so as to gain an even greater insight into the methods and styles of the classical builders themselves. As Summerson points out, ‘It is more than doubtful if any Englishman had attempted this method of study before, or paid any really close attention to antique buildings or antique sculpture’ (Summerson, p. 114).
Summerson makes the point that the advent of the Palladian style as the dominant force within English architecture during the eighteenth century has to be seen as a deliberate stylistic reaction against the architectural style of the previous generation. As he says, ‘The first point to note is that [the Palladian dominance] had nothing to do with Wren, Vanbrugh, [or] Hawksmoor’ (Summerson, p. 319; my emphasis). He then goes on to analyse this stylistic revolution in broad historical and political terms – in particular, he points to the political dominance, by the end of the eighteenth century, of the Whig party, which came to power after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. As he says, the generation of wealthy architectural patrons (and practitioners) who now held the purse-strings for major building projects, were unambiguous in their stylistic and intellectual allegiances: ‘This … Whig generation had strong beliefs and strong dislikes, conspicuous among the latter being the Stuart dynasty, the Roman church, and most things foreign’ (Summerson, p. 319).
In other words, Summerson argues, this newly powerful political élite consciously rejected the flamboyance of the Baroque of Wren and Vanbrugh, because they associated this style with its European cultural roots – that is to say, with Roman Catholicism – and with the Stuart dynasty which patronised such architecture (it is worth remembering that Charles II was a powerful ally to Wren in his struggles with the church over the rebuilding of St Paul’s).
It is fair to say that the ‘Palladian moment’ within English architecture was precipitated by the publication of two books. Firstly, by the progressive publication, during the early 1700s, of the first English translation of Palladio’s Quattro Libri. Secondly, by the publication, in 1717 and 1725 respectively, of an architectural treatise by the up-and-coming English architect Colen Campbell, entitled Vitruvius Britannicus. This latter work contained numerous engravings of the architect’s own work, and of examples of architecture which he considered to be appropriate for English society at that time.
Between them, these two publications set the stamp upon the architectural taste of the succeeding generation. After all, as Summerson explains, the style of architecture which they advocated by now had impeccable stylistic and political credentials:
These two books have certain things in common. Both are dedicated to George I and thus stamped as Whiggish products. Further, both evince the same distinct architectural loyalties – namely, to Palladio and Inigo Jones as the two modern masters to whom the British architect is to look for guidance, to the exclusion of all others
In his notebook entry for 20th January 1615, Inigo Jones wrote:
And to saie trew, all thes composed ornaments the wch Proceed out of ye aboundance of dessigners and wear brought in by Michill Angell and his followers in my oppignon do not well in sollid architecture … For as outwardly every wyse ma[n] carrieth a graviti in publicke places … so in architecture ye outward ornaments oft [ought] to be sollid, proporshionable according to the rules, masculine and unaffected. As a statement of classical purism over the distortions and lavish ornament of mannerism and the Baroque (the works of ‘Michill Angel and his followers’), and as an endorsement of ‘solid, proportionate, masculine, unaffected’ architecture, this paragraph seems eloquent. Indeed, it might be said to constitute a succinct manifesto for the English Palladian movement. The question which is raised, however (and which I shall leave for the moment unanswered) is that of just how truly masculine and unaffected, how wholly functional and unadorned, classical architecture – and the neo-classical style which derived from it – was
