Fig. 165.—DESIGN FOR A HOUSE, by Gibbs.
From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library, Oxford.
But the outlook of the eighteenth century being what it was, the designers were successful in compassing their object, and they produced many charming houses, often stately and always dignified. This result was owing in a large degree to a study of Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones.”
Campbell’s “Vitruvius Britannicus” is an epitome of the more important houses of the last twenty years of the seventeenth century and first twenty of the eighteenth.[70] The ideas underlying it are those which have already been mentioned. There is a short descriptive account of each subject. In these, Campbell dwells on the proportions of his rooms, on the truly classic treatment of the elevations; he explains how one subject is treated in the “palatial” style, another in the “temple” style; another in the “theatrical.” The principal rooms are all stately, the family rooms in some cases are in the attics, lighted from the leads. In one design he plumes himself on not having his windows “crowded”; and indeed the amount of wall space between the lower and upper windows is so ample that either the lower must be far below the ceiling, or the upper far above the floor. It would be tedious to multiply instances; anyone can find them for himself by looking through his volumes. The point is that many important houses of that time were built for state and show, rather than for comfort and convenience; and they afford a striking commentary on the difference in outlook on daily life between that period and our own among the wealthy classes.
Fig. 166.—DESIGN FOR THE FOUR SIDES OF A ROOM.
From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.
Fig. 167.—DESIGN FOR THE FOUR SIDES OF A ROOM.
From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.