vanbrugh: citadels in danger

Sir John Vanbrugh, soldier, dramatist, and architect, carried stateliness to its furthest extreme in buildings like Belnheim Palace and Castle Howard. A critic wrote: “Such noble ruins every pile would make, I wish they’d tumble for the prospect’s sake.”

—Sir John Vanbrugh was an English dramatist and architect. His best known plays, The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) are imbued with Restoration wit and cynicism.
As his repute as an architect grew, he turned away from the stage, becoming Sir Christopher Wren’s principal colleague.—Read More:http://www.takus.com/architecture/vanbrugh.html

ADDENDUM:

(see link at end)…McCormick’s study is the first to show the interrelation of Vanbrugh’s seemingly disparate careers as architect and dramatist. Perhaps because his talent embraced two diverse disciplines, Sir John Vanbrugh has received less critical attention that his achievements deserve. Vanbrugh wrote or adapted ten comedies (The Relapse and The Provoked Wife proving the most successful) and designed a host of country houses of which the best known are Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. In fact, no one built grander or more controversial country homes than Vanbrugh.McCormick challenges the previous critical studies of Vanbrugh that have concentrated on either his architectural of his playwriting career to the exclusion of the other. He reveals the role of Vanbrugh’s life in his works, especially his experience as a hostage in France, arguing that Blenheim Palace and The Relapse and many other of his buildings and plays are linked by their creator’s preoccupation with the notion of the “citadel in danger.” He examines the sources of Vanbrugh’s building style and demonstrates the essential continuity of his dramatic and architectural practice, a continuity stemming from his use of a distinctive body of combat and siege imagery in both his dramatic and architectural vocabularies. Read More:http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00723-0.html

This entry was posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>