Later English Renaissances
Artistic progress was hindered in England by the disturbed conditions at the time of the Civil War, and in consequence little change in style took place in this and the Commonwealth period.
With the Restoration came the influence of the French Court, and foreign furniture was imported, thus giving fresh models for the English workers.
One result of the Great Fire in 1666 was that a great impetus was given to architecture and to the crafts associated with it, and the influence of Wren and Grinling Gibbons produced a school of most efficient carvers and craftsmen.
Sir Christopher Wren
Wren was a worthy successor to Inigo Jones, and the general destruction wrought by the fire in the city gave him a fine field for his activity. He was employed not only to rebuild the churches, eighty-nine of which had been burnt, but also many of the city halls; and was commissioned by William and Mary to build the state-rooms at Hampton Court Palace.
No. 117. English Chair, period of Charles II.
The style of Wren, which, like that of Inigo Jones, was based rather upon the Venetian school, was perpetuated and found individual exponents in the works of his pupils and immediate successors. Among whom may be mentioned James Gibbs (1720 to 1754), architect of St. Martin’s in the Fields (1726) and St. Mary le Strand, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, who was responsible for the churches of St. George’s, Bloomsbury, and St. Mary, Woolnoth, the latter commenced in 1716 was finished in 1718.