Anglo-Jewish Architects, and Architecture in the 18Th and 19Th Centuries1
Anglo-Jewish Architects, and Architecture in the 18th and 19th Centuries1 By Edward Jamilly Introduction ENGLISH Architecture, like so many other facets of life and development in these Islands, is remarkable for the easy absorption of quite virile foreign elements. These alien influences have, in the course of time, become so assimilated into the native stream that their origin is forgotten and the results come to be accepted as peculiarly English. The successful export today of English tailoring products and quality textiles, the skills that are taught by the Royal School of Needlework and reach their highest expression in such works as Queen Mary's carpet may perhaps be traced to the weaving traditions brought by Huguenot refugees, like the Courtaulds, from France and the Low Countries. The national monuments ofWestminster Abbey give us the names of those who revived the art of sculpture in 18th century England, men such as Rysbrack, Schee makers, Roubiliac, Delvaux, leMarchand, names from Flanders and France; in the applied arts numerous English country houses pay tribute to the skill of Italian and French craftsmen and decorators?Tijou's lovely ironwork at Chatsworth and Hampton Court, the plasterwork and paintings of Cipriani, Zucchi, Angelica Kauffman and others. So it was in architecture?the essence of English Romanesque came with William the Norman, and many a Gothic church speaks the linguafranca; East Anglia owed much of its regional character to building styles imported with a king fromHolland and to the wool trade with Baltic and Hanseatic ports ; Renaissance in England was inspired by the earlier movement in Italy and later in its development took account of French models as well, whilst countless public buildings would lack their classical facades but for the rediscovery of Greek and Roman antiquities.
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