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On ‘Whether a man could see before him and behind him both at once’: The role of drawing in the design of interior space in England c. 1600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Laura Jacobus
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Extract

This article considers the history of a particular architectural drawing convention, the so-called ‘laid-out wall elevation’, which first becomes significant in English practice in the early eighteenth century and was to become a standard form of interior drawing for much of the century and beyond. Concentrating on one drawing-type the discussion will raise wider considerations about the nature and role of drawings in the design process.

It is necessary to begin by defining the essential characteristics of the drawing-type under discussion and it will help in this task if the usual term ‘laid-out wall elevation’ is rejected. Drawings thus termed frequently contain no true elevations at all, but they may well combine sections, ground plans, floor and/or ceiling plans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 31 , 1988 , pp. 148 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1988

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References

Notes

1 See Airs, M., The Making of the English Country House 1500–1640 (London, 1975) for detailed discussion of early design practices (especially ch. 3 pp. 21–45).Google Scholar

2 Lotz, W. ‘Das Raumbild in der Architekturzeichnung der italienischen Renaissance’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, 7 (1956), 193–226 Google Scholar, translated into English and published with a postcript as ‘The Rendering of the Interior in Architectural Drawings of the Renaissance’ in W. Lotz, Studies in Italian Renaissance Architecture (1977).

3 See Schaefer, H., Principles of Egyptian Art, eds Brunner-Traut, E. and Baines, J. (Oxford, 1986) for discussion of the parallels between Egyptian art and children's art.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Bowie, T. (ed.) The Sketchbook ofVillard de Honnecourt (Bloomington, 1959)Google Scholar and Shelby, L. R., Gothic Design Techniques: the fifteenth century design booklets of Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer (Southern Illinois University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

5 Evelyn, J., An Account of Architects and Architecture together with an Historical, Etymological Explanation of certain Terms particularly affected by Architects (London, 1664), p. 122.Google Scholar

6 Assuming (as seems reasonable) that the drawings all relate to the same project and that no sheets are missing.

7 Dated c. 1625 by Harris, J., Lever, J. and Richardson, M., Great Drawings from the Collection of the RIBA (1984), p. 31.Google Scholar

8 This unusual drawing-type was probably taken from a continental source such as Perret, J., Des Fortifications et Artifices: Architecture et Perspective (Paris, 1601), which has several plates in this formatGoogle Scholar.

9 In addition to the example illustrated, other drawings of this type include London, British Library Add. MS 23005 fols 2, 4 and 12.

10 There exist some sixteenth-century Italian examples of similar solutions being adopted to record schemes of decoration, eg. Hippolito Andreasi's drawing c. 1567 of the decoration of the Sala delle Aquile in the Palazzo del Te (Dusseldorf, Kunstmuseum, inv. no. FP 10906, illustrated in Verheyen, E., The Palazzo del Te in Mantua (Baltimore 1977)Google Scholar), or Jacopo Sansovino's drawing of the vault of the Tempio di Sibilla (Florence, Uffizi). These appear to be independent solutions to similar problems; there is no evidence of any continuous tradition of such drawings in Italy or elsewhere before the eighteenth century.

11 Other examples in this album include fols 49, 51 and 56. Many of the drawings commissioned by Talman were sold to English collectors and so drawings of this type would probably have been widely dispersed.

12 Oxford, All Souls, vol. IV 7, 8 and 9. Wren Society Publications VII, 254 Google Scholar (illustrated on PI. XXVI), suggests that the drawings relate to work under Wren or Vanbrugh in the reign of Queen Anne or George I.

13 There are exceptions. Two highly schematic line drawings in a laid-out format do survive on the versos of large, finished drawings (Oxford, Queen's College, Muniment 106, Downes cat. 242V and 196V). They were possibly used to calculate rough estimates of the area of wall surface before being cut up and/or glued to other sheets. Being topographic in nature, laid-out interior drawings are a useful basis for quantity surveys (of ashlar, plaster, paint etc.) and may have been used by Hawksmoor in this way. My point is that he did not favour them for design purposes.

14 London, Sir John Soane's Museum, Pennant 11, 193, 194, 195, 198.