Styles of the 17th century - a world turned upside down

With the exception of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), whose confident handling of classical detail and proportion set him apart from all other architects of the period, most early 17th century buildings tended to take the innocent exuberance of late Tudor work one step further. Traditional planning was cloaked in the splendidly overblown ornament - the sort of details described at the time as 'a heap of craziness of decorations... very disgusting to see'.

But during the 1640s and 50s the Civil War and its aftermath sent many gentlemen and nobles to the Continent either to escape the fighting or, when the war was lost, to follow Charles II into exile. There they came into contact with French, Dutch and Italian architecture and, with Charles's restoration in 1660, there was a flurry of building activity as royalists reclaimed their property and built themselves houses reflecting the latest European trends.

The style is heavy and rich, sometimes overblown and melodramatic.

As the century wore on, this resolved itself into a passion for the Baroque grandeur which Louis XIV had turned into an instrument of statecraft at Versailles. Formal, geometrical and symmetrical planning meant that a great lord could sit in his dining chamber, at the physical as well as the metaphorical centre of his world, with suites of rooms radiating out in straight lines to either side. His gardens would reflect those lines in long, straight walks and avenues.

The British Baroque was a reassertion of authority, an expression of absolutist ideology by men who remembered a world turned upside down during the Civil War. The style is heavy and rich, sometimes overblown and melodramatic. The politics which underpin it are questionable, but its products are breathtaking.

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Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1300