Robert Morris, Isaac

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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MASTERS THESIS M-6200 PFISTER, Harold Francis, 1947- ROBERT MORRIS, ISAAC WARE, AND JOHN GWYNN: STUDIES IN ENGLISH ARCHITECTURAL THEORY, 1715-1759. University of Delaware, M.A., 1974 Fine Arts Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1974 HAROLD FRANCIS PFISTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ftCSERT MORRIS , ISAAC WAK2, AI-'iD JOHN GWYivN: STUDIES IN Eir.'iuT.SH /.KCrJlTSCTOllAL THSCA1, AY Harold Francis Pfisfrr A thesis submitted to the Faculty of tea University o f D 3 laware in partial fulfillm ent of the requirements for the degr©? of Master of Arts in 3arly American Culture,. May, 197- Copyright ilavold Francis Pfistor 19?'4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. R033RT MORRIS, ISAAC WARM, AND JOHN GWYNN: STUDIES IN ENGLISH ARCHITECTURAL THEORY, 1715-1759 3Y Harold Francis Pfister Approved Professtu 4 in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved Coorainatorydi the Pro ararn■r.nur iar±y .amerxcan Culture Approved Dean of the College o Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dr. George 3. Tatum has been a conscientious and astute advisor during the course of preparation. The staff of the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur >:useun Library, and p a rticu la rly those in the Rare Books Division, have been of cordial assistance throughout the process of my research. Dr. Frank H. Sommer has given generously of his time and friendly advice to help a neophyte in a suoject area that has long been one aspect of his own research activities. I am indebted to them all. It is a source of sincere regret that Professo Rudolf l/ittkower1s posthumously published book, Palladio and English Palladianism, was not available at the time of this writing. Its contents would undoubtedly have been invaluable in clarifying many of the issues raised by my own limited approach. But the learning process is never completed; if the beginnings of knowledge in these pages reflect to any degree the profound quality of the examples set by V/ittkower, Sunmerson, Ackerman, and others, I am well content. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................. iii INTRODUCTION ........................................ ............ 1 CHAPTER OMR SHAFTBS3URY AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ARCHITECTURAL THOUGHT . ........................... 27 CHAPTER TWO TIE IDEA OF THE WHOLE....................................................................................................... ...50 CHAPTER THREE 1 Hxi* x1 OROr* Or 1 xiTi I.D&A • iii* <1 HUSI.-vSi'*.................................... (\ CHAPTER FOUR THE A PPE3K SH 3IO N OF BEAUTY AMD THE EDUCATION OF T A S T E ................... .8 3 CHAPTER FIFE Tni. Cr I HE P j^ACi!. .............. ............ CHAPTER SIX NATURAL AFFECTION: MORAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AMD SOCIETY., i '/A CHAPTER SEVEN THE STATE OF THE ARTS IN BRITAIN ................................................ 1 5 3 CHAPTER EIGHT CjJA juLHC a TIC i^ A:mD CONCLUSIONS . 1 ^3 CHAPTER NINE REMARKS ON THEORY IN AMERICA ...........................................................................................1 7 6 A I I oT 01 >iOAKS GONoULI -IV- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ORIGINS OF THE STUDY The idea for this study grew out of a survey of architectural literature available in America before the Revolution. The books to be read, in many cases, were products of the first half of the eighteenth century, a period long recognized by historians of English architecture as being of particular importance for the character of its buildings and numerous a rch itectu ra l publications."' P o lit ic a lly , the years 1 ? i ?60 are considered a period of Whig supremacy in England; architecturally, they are frequently characterized as a "rule" or "dictatorship" of the taste called neo-Palladianism, advocated most influentially by Richard Boyle, Third Earl of Burlington (1 69A-I7 5 3), and instanced most clearly in the large country houses built during the "extraordinary boom" that followed the most important English architectural publications of Taken togeth er, the houses and lite r a tu r e are ample evidence o f a wide spread popular interest in architectural matters, but Lord Burlington is personally placed at the- center of the picture with considerable justification.3 By virtue of his own designs, his purposeful employment of protege artists and his deliberate, propagandistic patronage and pub lic a tio n o f the printed book, Burlingtonrs name has become synonymous with English neo-palladianism .The dedication of James Ralph's A New and Critical Review of the. Public Buildings. Statues and Ornaments. in - 1- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and about London and Westminster (London: 173^)s indicates the position held by Boyle: You, my Lord, have, in a manner, a natural right to a ll aeknowldegements of this kind; ‘tis owing to you that taste and elegance are so much the fashion, and so well understood; your example has given a sanction to science; and even the vanity of being like you, has made as many corn/arts to its cause, as a thorough love, and veneration for its excellencies,5 Critical studies of the period have dealt more fully with the evident quality of Burlington's influence than the particulars of his personal historical character. The tendency ms been to generalise his age and its architectural style into a monolithic whole, identified by grim sobriety, humorless pomposity, and an abject, doctrinaire servility £ before the specter of the authority of "the ancients," Some scholars suggest that this critical disapproval of neo-Paliadianism among late nineteenth and earlier twentieth-century historians was less an abhor rence of austere formalism than "the antipathy of . proud profession- a ls to a movement led by men not only amateurs but a r isto c r a tic , ' But, even where reactions are more favorable, the generalizations are seldom more s a tis fa c to r y , John Steegman's The Rule o f Taste from George I_ to George V contains the following passage, almost every single implication of which is misleading, as the body of this thesis w ill demonstrate: The new century was to show a new spirit, the spirit of order; the reason, not the heart, was to govern man in a ll his works, for there had been enough exuberance and excitem ent; i t was time to check th a t now, to retard if possible the rate of production in order to heighten the standard of achievement. Man felt that he was begin ning to grow out of his Renaissance youth, and that it was time for him to begin collecting and arranging the experi ences of his adolescence, and from them to formulate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rules that night enable him to live in future as a qualified Citizen of the ’World .3 In an attempt to probe beneath the placid superficialities of such generalizing criticism and history, this thesis consists of a series of comparative analyses, each of which deals objectively with a major aspect of architectural theory as published in the books written by the circle

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