Review

Reviewed Work(s): Country House Baroque. Photographs of Eighteenth Century Ornament,

Mostly Stucco-Work in English and Irish Country Houses and in Some Dublin Houses by
Anthony Ayscough
Review by: W. A. T.
Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 78, No. 454 (Jan., 1941), p. 34
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/868162
Accessed: 15-01-2017 15:17 UTC

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The Literature of Art

Haileybury College, one of Wilkin's early successes. during its erection. For some reason not stat
Smirke's Covent Garden Theatre, of Greek doric supplanted as architect by Thomas Archer (1
design (page 88) was burnt, and the present one is a Warwickshire man (trained by Sir John V
that of E. M. Barry (1859). This might not seem who is best known as the designer of St. Joh
necessary to be stated, if experience did not show how minster, and of the fine tower of St. Philip's, B
easily mistaken identifications get into circulation, and Archer was at Chatsworth in 1704-5, and th
how hard it is to correct them once they have been wing of the house was carried out from his des
started. There is a full and useful catalogue of the Other miscellaneous details in the Introduction relate
monuments in the crypt of St. Martin's Church. The to James Gibbs, Lord Burlington, Thornhill, and various
volume is attractively produced with four water-colour other artists of the post-Wren period. One effect of a
sketches, reproduced in colour, I Io photographic plates study of the plates is the revelation of the predominating
and drawings, and 44 blocks in the text. The price is influence of the Baroque movement on architects,
only a guinea. A. T. BOLTON. sculptors and painters of the time. Much of the work
The Seventeenth Volume of Wren Society, of Gibbs,
1940.Archer,
Designs William
and Talman, Gibber and Thornhill
Drawings supplementary to Vol. XII. Frontispiece + 86
is as essentially pp.and Baroque in character as that
Italian
+ 66 p.p. (Oxford University Press.) of Vanbrugh, generally, if grudgingly recognized as the
With the publication of its seventeenth volume,
chief English exponenttheof that much maligned style.
Wren Society is within sight of completing its ambitious MARTIN S. BRIGGS.
task, and announces that it hopes to publish in 1943 the
final volume, which will contain " the Country
much House Baroque. Photographs of Eighteenth Ce
needed
Ornament, mostly Stucco-Work in English and Irish Cou
Indices to the whole set." The contents Houses
of the present
and in some Dublin Houses. By Anthony Ayscou
volume abundantly prove the need of such
With indices.
a foreword by Sacheverell Sitwell and a descriptive
Any serious student who has had to consultby M.the multi-I8 pp. + 45 pl. (Heywood Hill, L
Jourdain.
12s. 6d.
tudinous letters and despatches of some famous man,
The late Anthony Ayscough's shots are admirable as criticism
e.g., of Napoleon, Richelieu, or Horace
and asWalpole, finds
record, though perhaps they do not always possess the clarity
himself largely dependant upon the skill of aof
trade the indexer,
photo. Mr. Sitwell gracefully expresses appreciation of
and is grateful for a careful classification underinsubjects
his collaborator German Baroque Sculpture (1938), but regrets that
as well as under persons and places. here he " tried to make a composite of baroque and rococo in the
British Isles." It is certainly difficult to know on what principle the
The corpus of documents, drawings subjects
and photographs
have been selected. The golden age of English baroque
printed by the Wren Society is bewildering
after the Restoration isin
not its
represented, and the reader is thus left
arrangement as much as in its variety.
withSomething
what Bankart calledmore
" The Eighteenth Century Degeneration."
than an ordinary index will be required, and
Here he may wander the
inconsequently from plaster to woodcarvings,
Editors will have a herculean task infrom stiff late baroquea[PLATE
providing
English key37]
rococo, from Georgian
to the brilliant incompetence of
country houses to Miss Maxwell's
to their vast accumulation of material bearing
Dublin. directlyremains unvisited, and there is
Scottish plasterwork
or indirectly upon the work of Wren, nothing his pupils
about Wales. Theand
meat of the book is in the descriptive
associates. This seventeenth volume,text,for where Miss Margaret Jourdain
example, is writes of the " gentlemen plas-
terers'" with her customary erudition; but reference to Mrs.
not related to a particular building orEsdaile's
period or person.
popular Country Life article on Stanley is preferred to the
It is a miscellany of new finds, unearthed as thebibliography
Pander-Esdaile Editorsin Thieme. The feature of this work
approach the bottom of their bag. is the combination of photographer, critic, scholar, between the
Out of the whole book, with its 86 pages
same
of covers.
text and W. A. T.

its 66 fine plates, the only buildings described

Hungarian which are Pageant
the work of Wren himself are Fawley Court, Henley-on-
Peasantry. By Alexander F. Karolyi. 114 pp. + 16 pl.
Thames (1684-8) ; Winslow Hall, Bucks. Budapest (Vajna & ;Co.)
(170o) and
This is one of the many publications with which Hungarian
the Library of Lincoln Cathedral propaganda
(1674). Of these
has achieved what no other central European country
three examples, the first two, well illustrated byinmeasured
has succeeded doing: made Hungary, Hungarian folk-lore,
drawings and photographs, are of considerable
Hungarian customs impor-
and the Hungarian country really known and
extremely
tance as authentic specimens of Wren's popular inwork,
domestic the Western countries. It contains well-
written chapters on dance, music, calendar customs, accompanied
to be compared with Marlborough House (already
by excellent photographs of a folk-lore which, if not exclusively
illustrated in Vol. VII). Innumerable houses
Hungarian, all picturesque
is the most over in Europe. The very richly
England are attributed to Wren on slender grounds,
embroidered, full skirted costumes, which are irresistibly attractive
hence the value of dated examples whosein colours and appear to great advantage even in these black-and-
authenticity
white plates, have become famous as Hungarian ; but they are also
is not questioned. worn by the Slovaks of what was Czechoslovakia and therefore
Of the remaining four-fifths of the miscellany,
belong to the Slav world the
as much as to the Hungarian folk-lore.
outstanding feature is the set of illustrations and
The same refers to docu-
the domestic decorations described and to some
ments describing the work of William of theTalman
dances analysed and represented as unique. The existence
(1650-
of similar art forms in Bohemia, Bulgaria, Roumania and parts of
1719), who rebuilt most of Chatsworth Russia
at the end of the
is ignored all through the book. As it is not the writer's
seventeenth century. Some informationambition,is alsotogiven
however, give a scientific analysis of the peasant art
about his son John Talman (1677-1716), who
of central Europetravelled
with all its inter-relations, but rather to praise
the beauties
extensively in Italy and elsewhere, made an of Hungarian peasant life, it would be unjust to be
enormous
too critical. It must be gratefully acknowledged that he has avoided
collection of architectural drawings-unfortunately dis-
the false romanticism of gipsy music, puszta landscape and Tokayer
persed after his death-and became thewine. first
His text isDirector
agreeably matter-of-fact; when dealing with
of the Society of Antiquaries in 1717. His father,
music he describes the instruments used, the part played by music
according to a contract published ininfacsimile
the life of the people;
in the his description of dances must interest
specialists. as
volume under review, acted as contractor All sentimentality
well as is saved up for the last chapter
which is dedicated to Bela Paulini, the patron of Hungarian folk-lore.
architect for Chatsworth, residing on the building E. H.

34

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