English Architecture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

ENGLISH architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the subject of my paper to-day, was essentially national and autochthonous in the sense that the characteristic qualities of the English people were written on its architecture as unmistakeably as those of the French, or Italians, or of any other people with a great historic past were written on theirs, and it is not possible to understand and appreciate the value of the art of any country, unless it is read by the light of the character of the people who produced it. This is peculiarly the case in countries with a long tradition of uninterrupted civilization, such as France and England, and in regard to our own country it is necessary to insist on this point, because there is always a tendency to regard our architecture as merely derivative. If it is Gothic, it is supposed to be an inferior reflection of French Gothic, and if it is neo-Classic, it is supposed to be the blundering effort of North Sea Islanders to reproduce the elegance of the Italian Renaissance. In fact, the art of this country, of which our continental neighbours are almost wholly ignorant, is supposed to be an insignificant affair, hardly worthy of serious study. The representation of English painting in the great continental galleries is absurdly inadequate. In Vienna there are some half a dozen bad examples; at Berlin a good Gainsborough and Raeburn; at Dresden a moderate Raeburn; at Munich, in the Prado, in the Ryks Museum, and at the Hague, there are no English pictures at all.