Study Aid #6:
English Palladianism, The Picturesque, and
French Neoclassicism
The eighteenth century was one of the most interesting and eventlful periods in
Western history. In fact, many historians date the beginning of our "modern"
era to the mid-century when contemporary attitudes toward nature, history, science,
politics, society, and the arts were developed and popularized. A century of great
intellectual ferment, it nurtured many different approaches to architectural design.
English Palladianism
Early in the eighteenth century, designers in England turned away from the Baroque
to the relative purity and clarity of the Renaissance embodied by the designs
of Palladio. This movement is called Palladianism and can be seen
as a precursor of the larger Neoclassical movement that would gain popularity
later in the century. Chiswick House, near London,
1723-9, Lord Burlington & William Kent architects; Holkham Hall, Norfolk,
England, 1743-, William Kent, Burlington, and Brettingham, architects. Books such as Cloin
Campbell's "Vitruvius Britannicus" and James Gibbs' "A Book of
Architecture" (1728) helped promote and spread Palladianism in Europe and
America. Palladian buildings erected in America are often called "Georgian."
Urban planning in eighteenth century Britain is best characterized by the privately-financed
development of uniform row houses arranged in streets or squares, e.g. Bedford
Square, London, 1775, Thomas Leverton architect (?); the Circus, Bath, 1754-,
John Wood the Elder architect; the Royal Crescent,
John Wood the Younger.
The Picturesque
The Palladians' search for a purer architecture also helped lead to a new kind
of landscape design that sought naturalistic effects rather than the rigorously
controlled image of nature seen in Baroque gardens. The landscape and architectural
designs of this new mode are grouped under the heading of "the Picturesque."
The Picturesque sought a certain romantic alliance with nature through irregularity
and naturalism. Gardens in this mode include: Stourhead,
Wiltshire, England (1743-76, Henry Hoare II patron and Planner), with its enchanting
collection of follies; and the redesign of the garden at Blenheim, Oxfordshire,
c. 1764, by landscaper Lancelot "Capability" Brown. While the appreciation for
the overwhelming or morbid aesthetic pleasures of the sublime were first given
architectural expression in follies like grottoes it also contributed to the birth
of the Gothic Revival. These buildings invoked associations with a romanticized
medieval spookiness and gloom, e.g. Strawberry Hill, near London, 1749-76, various
architects, Horace Walpole patron; Fonthill Abbey,
Wiltshire, 1796-1813, James Wyatt archtitect, William Beckford patron.
France
Partly a reaction to Rococo excess, French Neoclassicism was particularly stimulated
by the intellectual advances of the Enlightenment with its sometimes-contradictory
appreciation of rationalism and purity, freedom and emotion. Philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau extolled the latter principles, while the Abbe Laugier's Essai
sur l'architecture (1753) embodied the former. Jacques Soufflot's Pantheon
(Ste. Geneviéve, Paris, 1757-1790) represents a return to architectural purity,
as well as an interest in structural experimentation. Other buildings representing
this monumental simplicity include the Hotel de Salm (now the Legion of Honor),
Paris, 1783, Pierre Rousseau architect; and the School of Surgery, Paris, 1769-75,
Jacques Gondoin architect. In the last quarter of the century Etienne-Louis Boullée
and Claude-Louis Ledoux developed a "visionary" or "revolutionary"
neoclassicism where an attention to pure geometric form is often combined with
a suvlime sense of space and scale, e.g. Cenotaph for
Isaac Newton, c. 1784, Boullée architect; design for a museum, c. 1783,
Boullée arch; Barriere de la Villette, Paris, 1773-6, Ledoux arch; Royal Saltworks,
Arc-et-Senans, Ledoux arch; project for "Chaux",
1780-1804, Arc-et-Senans, Ledoux arch. Architecture (such as "visionary"
Neoclassicism) that seeks to communicate its use through form or symbol is described
by the French term architecture parlante.