The weather in the architecture: Soane, Turner and the ‘Big Smoke’

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes H. Dorey, John Soane & J M W Turner: Illuminating a Friendship (London, Sir John Soane's Museum, 2007), p.13. J. Evelyn, Fumifugium: Or, The Inconvenience of the Aer, and Smoake of London Dissipated (London, B. White, 1772; first published in 1661), p.18. Ibid., p.47. P. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London Since Medieval Times (London and New York, Routledge, 1988), pp.74–75. R. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, Penguin, 1991), p.187. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke, op. cit., p.66. L. Howard, The Climate of London, deduced from Meteorological Observations, made at different places in the Neighbourhood of the Metropolis, 2 vols (London, W. Phillips, 1818 and 1820). S. Pegge, in Evelyn, Fumifugium, op. cit., p.iii: refer to Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke, op. cit., pp.96, 113. Recognition did not immediately lead to action. London continued to be known for its polluted air until ‘The Great Smog’ of 1952 acted as a catalyst for the Clean Air Act of 1956, which was the first legislation to address pollution from domestic as well as industrial sources. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke, op. cit., p.113. Extract from a letter of 25th February, 1832, from Dorothea, Princess Lieven, to Lady Cowper. S. Palmer, The Soanes at Home: Domestic Life at Lincoln's Inn Fields (London, Sir John Soane's Museum, 1997), p.1. Anonymous letter, 1st November, 1790, quoted in S. Palmer, ‘From Fields to Gardens: The Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, The London Gardener or the Gardener's Intelligencer, vol. 10 (Journal of the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, 2004–2005), p.19. Quoted in J. Summerson and H. Dorey, A New Description of Sir John Soane's Museum (London, Trustees of Sir John Soane's Museum, 2001), p.126. M. Richardson, Building in Progress: Soane's View of Construction (London, Sir John Soane's Museum, 1995), p.2; P. Thornton and H. Dorey, A Miscellany of Objects from Sir John Soane's Museum (London, Laurence King, 1992), p.39. Richardson, Building in Progress: Soane's View of Construction, op. cit., p.7. J. Soane, Description of the House and Museum on the North Side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Residence of Sir John Soane (London, privately printed, 1832), p.17. Soane refers to Piranesi's etchings of imaginary prisons, the Carceri: J. Soane, ‘Crude Hints towards an History of My House in L(incoln's) I(nn) Fields’, in, C. Woodward, ed., Vision of Ruins: Architectural Fantasies and Designs for Garden Follies (London, Sir John Soane's Museum, 1999), p.63. Ibid., pp.61, 65. Ibid., p.73. Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, trs., M. H. Morgan (New York, Dover, 1960), pp.170–171, first published as De Architectura in the first century BC; M. A. Laugier, An Essay on Architecture, trs., W. and A. Herrmann (Los Angeles, Hennessey and Ingalls, 1977), p.84, first published as Essai sur l'Architecture in 1753; J. Soane, ‘Lecture I’, in D. Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.497. Soane mentions visits on 25th July, 1803, 7th August, 1818 and 29th April, 1827, but as the entries in his ‘Note Books’ are cursory, he may have visited more often: J. Soane, ‘Soane's Note Books’ (London, Sir John Soane's Museum, vol. 5, 1803–1804), p.34; (vol. 10, 1817–1819), p.63; (vol. 12, 1823–1828), p.70. Soane, Sir John Soane's Museum Archives, quoted in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., p.373. N. Le Camus de Mézières, The Genius of Architecture; or, the Analogy of That Art With Our Sensations, trs., D. Britt (Santa Monica, The Getty Center, 1992), p.88; first published as Le génie de I'architecture; ou, l'analogie de cet art avec nos sensations in 1780. Ibid., p.88; Soane, ‘Lecture VIII’, in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., p.598. Soane, ‘Lecture VIII’, in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., pp 595–598. Palmer, The Soanes at Home, op. cit., p.23. T. Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work: Lincoln's Inn Fields and Dulwich Picture Gallery’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 52, no. 1 (March, 1993), p.36. H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), p.249. Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work’, op. cit., pp.26–27. Ibid., pp.36–37. The ‘Soane Museum’ refers to the museum, offices and picture room. C. J. Richardson, A Popular Treatise on the Warming and Ventilating of Buildings: Showing the Advantage of the Improved System of Hot Water Circulation (London, John Weale Architectural Library, 1839), pp.51–52; first published in 1837. Refer to Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work’, op. cit., p.36. Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work’, op. cit., pp.26–36. Soane refers to Angier March Perkins, who worked with his father Jacob Perkins: J. Soane, Memoirs of the Professional Life of an Architect, between the Years 1768 and 1835. Written by Himself (London, privately printed, 1835), p.27. Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work’, op. cit., p.48. R. Breugmann, ‘Central Heating and Forced Ventilation: Origins and Effects on Architectural Design’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 37, no. 3 (October, 1978), pp.148, 154; Richardson, A Popular Treatise, p.51. Richardson, A Popular Treatise, op. cit., p.52; refer to Willmert, ‘Heating Methods and Their Impact on Soane's Work’, op. cit., p.48. Soane, ‘Lecture X’, in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., pp.627–628. Ibid., p.624. Le Camus de Mézières, The Genius of Architecture, op. cit., p.88. Soane, Sir John Soane's Museum Archives, quoted in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., p.228; refer to D. Watkin, ‘John Soane: Architecture and Enlightenment’, Casabella, vol. 62, no. 660 (1998), p.82. S. F. Millenson, Sir John Soane's Museum (Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1987), pp.109, 167. Soane, Sir John Soane's Museum Archives, quoted in Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., p.194. Identifying two devices available in the eighteenth century, Arnaud Maillet distinguishes between the Claude Mirror, a tinted convex mirror, and the Claude Glass, a flat filter of coloured glass sometimes presented as an array of separately tinted sheets. But I refer to the tinted convex mirror as the Claude Glass, which, as Maillet acknowledges, is an English convention. A. Maillet, The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art, trs., J. Fort (New York, Zone Books, 2004), pp.31–32. Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, op. cit., pp.414–415. Turner to James Lennox, 16th August, 1845, quoted in J. Gage, ed., Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner (Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1980), pp 209–210. J. D. Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., and London, The MIT Press, 1992), p.237. J. Ruskin, The Works of John Ruskin, eds, E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, vol. 35 (London, George Allen, 1903–1912), p.601. Then called natural philosophy. J. Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists (London, Tate Gallery Publishing, 1998), p.12. J. Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth (London, Studio Vista, 1969), p.107. While the romantics were often opposed to the more mechanistic sciences, they were fascinated by scientific developments that focused on the earth's forces and seemed appropriate to pantheism, such as magnetism; refer to A. Wiedman, Romantic Art Theories (Henley-on-Thames, Gresham Books, 1986), p.8. Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists, op. cit., p.128. Turner, in a conversation recorded by the Reverend William Kingsley and published in Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. 5 (London, George Allen, 1905), p.445; first published in 1860. Refer to W. S. Rodner, J.M.W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1997), pp.80–83. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke, op. cit., p.125. C. Dickens, Bleak House, ed., S. Gill (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1996), p.11; first published in nineteen instalments between 1852 and 1853. C. Powell, ‘Turner's Sketches: Purpose and Practice’, in, J. Townsend, ed., Turner's Painting Techniques In Context (London, UKIC, 1995), p.57. J. Gage, J.M.W. Turner: ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’ (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1987), p.68. Even after he constructed his own gallery, Turner continued to exhibit elsewhere, in more public venues. In 1809 the Royal Academy initiated Varnishing Days immediately before the annual exhibition, enabling the painter to select and apply a protective surface to complete a painting. Increasingly after 1818 Turner used this time to adjust and alter a painting, showing his speed and virtuosity. For example, he added the hare to Rain, Steam, Speed — The Great Western Railway, during the 1844 Varnishing Days. Refer to Gage, Colour in Turner, p.134; J. Townsend, Turner's Painting Techniques (London, Tate Publishing, 1993), p.58. A. J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961; first published in 1939), pp.267–269. Dorey, John Soane & J M W Turner: Illuminating a Friendship, op. cit., p.13. Kingsley, quoted by L.G. Fawkes in a letter to D.S. MacColl, in Gage, Colour in Turner, op. cit., p.162. J. Hamilton, Turner: A Life (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1997), p.213. A. MacGeorge, quoted in Gage, J.M.W. Turner: ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’, op. cit., pp.152–153. W. Thornbury, The Life of J M W Turner RA (London, Ward Lock Reprints, 1970; first published in 1861), p.362. Gage, Colour in Turner, op. cit., p.171. D. B. Brown, Romanticism (London and New York, Phaidon, 2001), p.161. J. Townsend, ‘Turner's Use of Materials, and Implications for Conservation’, in, J. Townsend, ed., Turner's Painting Techniques In Context (London, UKIC, 1995), p.6. S. Hackney, ‘The Condition of Turner's Oil Paintings’, in Townsend, Turner's Painting Techniques In Context, op. cit., pp.53–54. Townsend, ‘Turner's Use of Materials’, op. cit., p.5. Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. 4 (London, George Allen, 1904; first published in 1856), pp.21–22. Townsend, Turner's Painting Techniques, op. cit., p.70. He considered doing so in 1844. Turner, quoted in Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A, op. cit., p.397; refer to Gage, Colour in Turner, op. cit., p.171. Turner quoted in Gage, J.M.W. Turner: ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’, op. cit., p.108. Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, op. cit., pp.54–55. J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, op. cit., vol. 4, pp.24–26. J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, op. cit., vol. 4, p.23. Townsend, Turner's Painting Techniques, op. cit., p.39. Townsend, ‘Turner's Use of Materials’, op. cit., p.5.