XVI century art English architecture of the XVI century

1. Introduction

The church and semi-church architecture of England throughout the XVI century firmly kept the "perpendicular" late Gothic. Even the most brilliant color of this coldly calculated and together fantastically spectacular style, the banner of Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey, was completed only in the light of the new century (1502-1520). Not less famous Kings College Chapel in Cambridge, a miracle of the English late Gothic, was completed only under Henry VIII. Christ Church College, Oxford, the creation of Cardinal Wolsey, was started in this style as early as 1525, and Trinity College in Cambridge, founded by Henry VIII, as early as 1546. Christ Church has one of the most beautiful perpendicular galleries , and Trinity College in Cambridge has already received a Renaissance chapel.

Fig. 95. Trinity College Cambridge

Gradual changes in style, which in England led to the fullest Italianism only after 1600, occurred here mainly in residential buildings of the nobility. Already Cardinal Walsay began building the castles of Whitehall (then York-House) and Hampton Court, typical palaces of the first half of the 16th century. After the fall of Wolsey, both were ended by Henry VIII, who on their part built the Palace of Saint-Jem and Nonsach. There is nothing left of Nonsach; something from Whitehall; St. Jem's Palace gave way to a new building. Only the widely stretched Hampton Court remained in its strict grandeur.

The English palaces and estates in terms of and methods of construction developed into new formations of themselves with English hands, responding to the English needs of life. This development, well outlined recently by Blomfield, is perhaps the only part of the actual English history of art of the XVI century. Former castles, fortified and adapted to uneven soil, gave way to castles with extensive, quadrangular courtyards that were closed on all sides, then, with increased security and an increasing need for light and air, these courtyards began to open on one side so that their plan with a ledge the middle gate took the shape of the letter E, and when this process is repeated on the back side, the shape H; the former middle hall gradually lost its meaning of living space, and along with the stairs, significantly modified in wooden style, became the front; the former halls were replaced by huge, long "galleries", and at the same time, separate rooms, previously communicated only to each other, began to connect corridors: all these changes can be traced particularly clearly in England, where they were uniquely formed. The building system with closed quadrangular courtyards is represented in majestic sizes by Nonsach and Hampton Court, and in smaller sizes with more strict and clean decoration of the Leyer-Marney estate in Essex and Catton Place (1521–1527). Charlton House in Wiltshire in its previous form, Corsham Court near Bath and North Mimms in Hertfordshire (about 1600) for the plan in the form of E, among others, and for the H form of Shaw-House in Berkshire (1581 ) and Holland House (1607) in Kensington. Longford Castle near Salisbury (1580) stands on a triangular base, which, apparently, should symbolize the Trinity. The earliest example of a large gallery was in Hampton Court; its luxurious gallery, completed in 1536, perished during the later restructuring. Such a room extended in length was preserved, for example, in Hardwick Hall (1590–1597) near Mansfield.

The old plans of these and many other castles are in the Soane Museum in London. As some of them go back to John Thorpe, the architect of the Elizabethan era, they assume that all the big English houses of that time can be attributed to him. Moreover, in general, in artistic sense, the names of English architects of this time are extremely rare. Still, the architect of the late Elizabethan time, Robert Smithson (died in 1614), who built Longlet in Wiltshire (1567) and Wollaton near Nottingham (1580), should be called. The first motifs in the Renaissance style of some of these dwellings of churches and college chapels of the first half of the 16th century owe their origin to mainly Italian artists, drafted into England by Henry VIII. Masters like Pietro Torredzhani, Benedetto Rovezzano (1474–1552) and Giovanni da Mayano brought to England, along with early Renaissance ornaments and terracotta plastics, as a result of which the decoration of brick structures with terracotta ornaments was one of the first works of the English early Renaissance. These terracotta pieces, with their Italian ornaments, are extremely suited to the perpendicular style with its gables and window jambs in the unfinished house of Meir Marney (1500–1525) in Essex and in the beautiful, later deprived of the northern courtyard Outhouse of Cötton Place (1521–1527), renowned Dellem as a representative of the most sophisticated flourishing of pure English art of the time. The terracotta Giovanni da Mayano on Hampton-Corte brick (1515) seem less suitable. The terracotta coat of arms of Yolsey, placed above the courtyard entrance with a clock, adorned with naked “putti” and Corinthian half-columns, together with the neighboring terracotta relief busts of the Roman emperors in wreath-shaped medallions belong to the earliest works of the pure Renaissance in England. In churches and chapels, however, the most sophisticated Italian ornaments very poorly fit into the forms of perpendicular late Gothic, which is clearly visible in the Salisbury Chapel (1520), Christ Church in Hampshire, in the gravestone chapel of the Bishops of Fox and Gardiner (1528–35). the cathedral and the tomb chapel of Bishop West (circa 1533) in the cathedral at Ile.

The influence of Holbein, the great German master who lived in London with short breaks in 1526–1528, joined the Italian influence. and from 1532 to 1543, it is generally claimed that Holbein influenced English architecture; but, apart from the great strength of the fireplace in the British Museum, it is impossible to indicate other construction projects of his hand.

Behind the Italians and Holbein were the Germans and the Netherlands of the second half of the XVI century. They brought with them their pompous, rolling high Baroque renaissance. They also did not act as real architects, but were limited mainly to staging portals, fireplaces and similar decorated pieces; however, thanks to them, the English castles began to be decorated inside and outside pilasters and semi-columns of ancient orders in random processing. The bombast of this architecture is equal to the bombast of the Elizabethan era pre-shakespeare poetry. It came from the outside, which is shown by the English buildings of this time, as it was proved that they arose without foreign help, show simply decorated and beautifully shaped collegiate houses like Saint-Jos College, Oxford, simple, well-proportioned manor houses, such as Nol (Knole) in Kent with its older parts, Littlecote (1580) and Liveden Buildings in Northamptonshire.

Regarding Burgley-House, in which the forms of the Renaissance clearly appear, it is known that he (after 1561) was trimmed by the Germans. Longlet (after 1567) is already enriched with three kinds of pilasters. The Germans also consider the rather baroque middle protrusion of Longford Castle and the so-called Porta Honoris in Oxford, previously mistakenly attributed to a certain Theodore Gaveus of Cleves. Zero has the most beautiful fireplaces of this Dutch rather than the German style itself; The Kobgam in Kent also possesses a magnificent specimen of this kind of fireplace, the hearth of which is covered by Corinthian columns with belts, and above it, on the sides of the field with the coat of arms, are the Atlanteans and the Caryatids. This German influence was replaced by the classicism of Inigo Jones (1572–1651), in which the average Englishman sees the triumph of English architecture, and people who look deeper regret that English architecture did not continue to develop independently on the basis of such buildings as Catton Place.