The same, but in a less degree, may be said of Webb. Immersed though he seems to have been in his endeavours to saturate himself with the true rules of proportion, when he came to put his ideas into execution, he showed a pretty play of natural fancy, and much of his detail has a freshness and individuality sadly lacking in the work of fifty years later.
Apart entirely from the question as to the authorship of the Inigo Jones drawings, the ideas embodied in them are of the first importance. For the purpose of grasping these, the second volume of Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones” will answer almost as well as the originals. Comparing them with Elizabethan or Jacobean houses, a complete change will be seen to have taken place, both in the plans and the elevations (Fig. [44]). There is no resemblance to the older manner. The time-honoured arrangement which placed the great hall centrally between the family wing and the servants’ wing has been superseded by one which places the kitchens in a basement, devotes the ground floor to the principal living-rooms, abolishes the great hall as a living-room, and substitutes for it a central saloon of great height, which not infrequently reaches from the ground floor to the roof. The orderly straggling of the ancient plan has given way to a trim compactness in the new. The plan, of course, controls the elevation, which is more precise and far less picturesque than of old. There are few, if any, gables; the chimneys are solid and staid; the windows consist each of one large opening, instead of being a group of small lights formed by mullions and transoms. It does not need an examination of the elaborate proportions tabulated by Webb on many of the original drawings to realise that here the old instinctive and even haphazard methods have been superseded by a system of carefully calculated design. The change is apparent at a glance, and one feels at once that the source of inspiration is not English but Italian. Very few of these designs appear to have been actually carried out, but they had a considerable influence on domestic architecture after their publication. They include practically none of the houses attributed to Jones or Webb which still exist.
John Webb has hardly received his due as an architect, either from his contemporaries or from posterity. Evelyn spoke of him as “Inigo Jones’s man.” Most modern writers have regarded him as merely a pale shadow of his master. But from what has just been said about his share in the “Inigo Jones” drawings, this estimate of his position ought to be revised, for there can be no doubt that he was the actual draughtsman of the designs for the palace at Whitehall; of nearly all those in the second volume of Kent inscribed “Inigo Jones, architectus”; and of King Charles’s block at Greenwich (Fig. [45]). It may be said, indeed it has been said, that even if that be so, he was only carrying out ideas which had been already devised in the rough by the older man. To which the reply is that there is no evidence of this among the drawings themselves, and that the evidence of contemporary documents, preserved among the State Papers, confirms the presumption that Webb was the designer of the Whitehall Palace and of the Greenwich block. With regard to the series of house designs in Kent’s second volume, no extraneous evidence is likely to be found, for they can only be regarded as exercises in design; to transfer these works from Jones’s account to Webb’s is to do no injustice to the former’s reputation, it is rather to enhance it. It relieves a first-rate artist from the weight of work which is not quite first-rate: and the same may be said, as already pointed out, of the Whitehall drawings. With regard to the Greenwich design, it has, with justice, been highly extolled; but this is the less surprising when it is remembered that it is a clever adaptation of an excellent Italian design to be found in the pages of Palladio.[36]
Webb’s drawings of the Greenwich designs are fairly numerous, and they include a plan for a complete scheme, as well as plans, elevations and many details of King Charles’s block. They are dated 1663, 1665, 1666, and one 1669–70. It is interesting, therefore, to find in the Audit Office Enrolments[37] a warrant dated “the 21st day of November 1666,” and directed “To Our Trusty and Wellbeloved John Webb, of Butleigh, in Our County of Somerset, Esqre,” which begins thus: “Charles R. Trusty and wellbeloved, wee greet you well. Whereas wee have thought fit to employ you for the erecting and building of Our palace at Greenwich, Wee doe hereby require and authorize you to execute, act, and proceed there, according to your best skill and judgment in Architecture, as our Surveyor Assistant unto Sr. John Denham, Knt. of the Bath, Surveyor General of Our Works, with the same power of executing, acting, proceeding therein, and graunting of Warrants for stones to be had from Portland, to all intents and purposes, as the said Sir John Denham have or might have....” The salary is to be £200 per annum with travelling charges. This appointment, together with Webb’s drawings and the absence of any preliminary drawings or sketches by Jones, seems to establish Webb as the actual designer.
It is not at all probable that Webb destroyed any sketches that might have been in existence, with a view to his own reputation. For he preserved several slight sketches by Jones, and whereas he nowhere publicly pushes himself, he was extremely jealous of Jones’s fame, as appears on page after page of his “Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored.” Indeed, he subordinates himself completely to his old master, and posterity appears to have taken him at his own valuation.
He must have been, nevertheless, a very clever man, an apt pupil, and a most painstaking student, judging by the voluminous notes as to proportions, and so forth, which he wrote on his drawings. He went to Jones in 1628 at the age of seventeen; and according to the brief attached to his petition, already mentioned, “he was brought up by his Unckle Mr. Inigo Jones upon his late Maiestyes command in the study of Architecture, as well that wch relates to building as for masques Tryumphs and the like.” It will be remembered that Mr. John Denham, as he then was in the year 1660, had been granted the post of surveyor of the king’s works, although he had received no suitable training; the brief concludes with the following apt remarks: “That Mr. Denham may possibly, as most gentry in England at this day have some knowledge in the Theory of Architecture; but nothing of ye practique soe that he must of necessity have another at his Maities charge to doe his business; whereas Mr. Webb himself designes, orders, and directs, whatever given in command wth out any other man’s assistance. His Maitie may please to grant some other place more proper for Mr. Denham’s abilityes and confirme unto Mr. Webb the Surveyors place wherein he hath consumed 30 years study, there being scarce any of the greate Nobility or eminent gentry of England but he hath done service for in matter of building, ordering of meddalls, statues and the like.”
Fig. 45.—ELEVATION OF THE RIVER FRONT, GREENWICH PALACE, by John Webb.
From the original Drawing in the Library of the R.I.B.A.
