46 C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 Book reviews Transforming architecture Inigo Jones and the European Classicist Tradition GilesWorsley, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art,Yale University Press, London, 2007, 240 pp, 80 b&w, 120 colour illustrations, ISBN 978 0 300 11729 5, £40 Inigo Jones (1573-1652) was England’s first great classical architect. At a time when English architecture was characterised by an impressive but weird mannerism, Jones appeared with a shockingly fresh-looking style that bore the hallmarks of genius. In later life he was well-known and he rose to high office.Yet his formative years remain, as GilesWorsley remarks, ‘frustratingly obscure’. According to his pupil JohnWebb, Jones declared that he became an artist in his youth and in pursuit of his studies ‘I passed into foreign parts’.Where he travelled in these early years is not known. He ended up in Italy, where sunlit ruins and the serene architecture of Andrea Palladio struck deep into his soul. His copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri (apparently bought in Venice in 1601) has a page where Jones signed his own and Palladio’s name over and over again, as if by some sleight of hand he could take on the persona of the greatest classical architect of them all. Palladio was not the only influence on Jones, however. In this scholarly and sumptuous bookWorsley seeks to place him within the classicist tendency that was moving north through Europe in the first half of the 17th century. The book does not set out to be a definitive monograph on Jones, but it is densely written and covers the ground in fine fashion. The first five chapters explore the continental influences on Jones’ architecture and dwell on what Worsley refers to as ‘the most momentous event of his life’, his return trip to Italy with the Earl of Arundel in 161314. Here Jones threw himself into the study of Roman antiquity and of Italian classicism.Worsley points to the buildings Jones saw and the places he would have visited. Following this,Worsley takes the reader on a fascinating architectural tour of southern Germany, France and the Netherlands, providing much insightful analysis of architectural masterpieces. He uncovers some European rivalry too after Jones, apparently looking down his nose at contemporary Dutch architecture, stung Constantijn Huygens to respond testily that ‘Mr Inigo Jones will be able, if he pleases, to learn that the good Vitruvius is not totally excluded from Holland’. Such episodes are amusing, but beg the question: what was Inigo Jones really like, what made him tick? He certainly took himself seriously. After becoming Surveyor of the King’s Works in 1615 he set about transforming English architecture by designing a series of outstanding buildings. These ranged from stable blocks to palaces.Worsley shows how Jones developed his own brand of classicism, with its emphasis on ‘decorum’ in response to the different types and perceived status of buildings. Too many of Jones’ buildings have gone. Only a handful that are attributed to him survive, including the Banqueting House inWhitehall, the Queen’s House in Greenwich and the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s Palace, London, all built between 1616-1626. St Paul’s, Covent Garden, a plain Tuscan church, and the delightful pavilions at Stoke Park, Northamptonshire, were built in the 1630s. In the same years he built the giant portico for old St Paul’s Cathedral, the largest portico north of the Alps until the Great Fire claimed it. The culmination of Jones’s work in these busy years were his designs for the vast Whitehall Palace, a building truly worthy of Charles I, the king who ruled without Parliament. Worsley goes on to spend some time examining the influence of architectural treatises on Jones’s architecture. Over 40 of Jones’s books survive at Worcester College, Oxford. These include works by Alberti, Cataneo, Vignola, Scamozzi, Serlio, Zanini and of course Palladio, whose Quattro Libri was according to Worsley ‘probably the most important book in Jones’s library’. Jones revered Palladio, but Worsley reveals that he had a lot in common with Scamozzi. Jones’s designs for the Queen’s House and the Banqueting House both betray Scamozzi’s influence – especially the latter, where he adopted Scamozzi’s hierarchy of the orders. Hierarchy, or rather sovereignty, is the subject of the final part of the book. Worsley explores the recurring motifs of the portico and the Serliana (or Venetian window) as symbols of royal authority. Jones was after all the King’s man when it came to architecture. Nowhere is this more evident than in his megalomaniac designs for a newWhitehall Palace. Twice as big as Philip II of Spain’s Escorial, this would have been of a scale and ambition that England was not ready for.Whitehall Palace, with its wonderful circular courtyard based, according toWorsley, on the concept of Serlio’s ‘design… for an exceedingly illustrious prince’ was never built. In 1642 Charles I’s monarchy collapsed and England plunged into civil war. Parliament put an end to Jones’ official career, although he continued to make designs until he died in 1652 ‘through grief… for the fatal calamity of his dread master’, asWebb lugubriously tells us. Despite its association with the Royal court, Jones’ transforming architecture did not die with him. He was not, as Worsley shows, the isolated genius he is usually claimed to be. Jones virtually invented the architectural Grand Tour of Europe, andWorsley sees his legacy as continuing through JohnWebb and others like Nicholas Stone, Edward Carter, Isaac de Caus and Roger Pratt. These espoused the restrained classical style that Jones had developed in the wake of his European travels and which led on in turn to the simple, satisfying lines of Georgian architecture.Worsley sees this, ‘perhaps more than anything else’, as Jones’ greatest legacy. This is a well-written and superbly produced book, properly bound, with spacious pages, and excellent photographs and reproduced drawings.
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