Masques[edit]
Jones worked as a producer and architect for Masques from 1605 to 1640, but his most known work in this field came from his collaboration with poet and playwright Ben Jonson. Having worked together for fifteen years, the two debated and had disagreements about their line of work and about what was most integral in a masque. While Jonson argued that the most important aspect of a masque was the written word that the audience heard, Jones argued that the visual spectacle was the most important aspect, and that what the audience saw was more important.[13] Jones also felt that the architect had just as much creative freedom and right as the writer or poet of the masque.[14] In defence of this Jones stated that masques were "nothing but pictures with light and motion," making little to note of the words spoken.[15]
Jones's work on masques with Jonson is credited to be one of the first instances of scenery introduced in theatre.[16] In his masques, curtains were used and placed in between the stage and the audience, and that they were to be opened to introduce a scene. Jones was also known for using the stage and theatre space in its entirety, putting his actors throughout different parts of the theatre, such as placing them below the stage, or elevating them onto a higher platform. Jones settings on the stage also incorporated different uses of light, experimenting with coloured glasses, screens and oiled paper to create a softer source of light on the stage.[13]
Jones is also known for introducing to English audiences moving scenery through what is called 'machina versatilis', helping to create motion among a stable scene without any noticeable Stagehands and of creating a representation of the ethereal.[15][13]
These elements of stage design and of theatre production would later have influence beyond the English court, as those working in the public stage would take up these ideas and apply them to the early modern stage and for its larger audience.[15]
Architecture[edit]
Queen's House was built for Anne of Denmark, the princess of James I, and was suspended due to her death, but construction was resumed for the next Queen of Charles I, Henrietta Maria of France.
Precins Lodges New Market
Banqueting House Whitehall Palace
Queen's Chapel St. James's Palace built for Anne of Denmark
Stoke Bruen Park
Wilton House Designed by his disciple Isaac de Caus and restored by John Webb
Lindsay House doubts about the involvement of Jones, a masterpiece of classical architecture in England
Somerset House
In September 1615, Jones was appointed Surveyor-General of the King's Works, marking the beginning of Jones's career in earnest. Fortunately, both James I and Charles I spent lavishly on their buildings, contrasting hugely with the economical court of Elizabeth I. As the King's Surveyor, Jones built some of his key buildings in London. In 1616, work began on the Queen's House, Greenwich, for James I's wife, Anne. With the foundations laid and the first storey built, work stopped suddenly when Anne died in 1619.[17] Jones provided a design for the queen's funeral hearse or catafalque, but it was not implemented.[18] Work at Greenwich resumed in 1629, this time for Charles I's Queen, Henrietta Maria. It was finished in 1635 as the first strictly classical building in England, employing ideas found in the architecture of Palladio and ancient Rome.[19] This is Jones's earliest-surviving work.
Interior of Banqueting House, with ceiling painted by Rubens
Between 1619 and 1622, the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall was built, a design derived from buildings by Scamozzi and Palladio, to which a ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens was added several years later. The Whitehall palace was one of several projects where Jones worked with his personal assistant and nephew by marriage John Webb.[20]
The Queen's Chapel, St. James's Palace, was built between 1623 and 1627, for Charles I's Roman Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. Parts of the design originate in the Pantheon of ancient Rome and Jones evidently intended the church to evoke the Roman temple. These buildings show the realisation of a mature architect with a confident grasp of classical principles and an intellectual understanding of how to implement them.
St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden
The other project in which Jones was involved is the design of Covent Garden square. He was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to build a residential square, which he did along the lines of the Italian piazza of Livorno.[21] It is the first regularly planned square in London. The Earl felt obliged to provide a church and he warned Jones that he wanted to economise. He told him to simply erect a "barn" and Jones's oft-quoted response was that his lordship would have "the finest barn in Europe". In the design of St Paul's, Jones faithfully adhered to Vitruvius's design for a Tuscan temple and it was the first wholly and authentically classical church built in England. The inside of St Paul's, Covent Garden was gutted by fire in 1795, but externally it remains much as Jones designed it and dominates the west side of the piazza.[22]
Jones also designed the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and a house in the square, the Lindsey House built in 1640, is often attributed to Jones.[23][24] Its design of a rusticated ground floor with giant pilasters above supporting the entablature and balustrade served as a model for other town houses in London such as John Nash's Regent's Park terraces, as well as in other English and Welsh towns such as Bath's Royal Crescent.[25]
Another large project Jones undertook was the repair and remodelling of St Paul's Cathedral. Between the years of 1634 and 1642, Jones wrestled with the dilapidated Gothicism of Old St Paul's, casing it in classical masonry and totally redesigning the west front. Jones incorporated the giant scrolls from Vignola and della Porta's Church of the Gesù with a giant Corinthian portico, the largest of its type north of the Alps, but was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Also around this time, circa 1638, Jones devised drawings completely redesigning the Palace of Whitehall, but the execution of these designs was frustrated by Charles I's financial and political difficulties.[26]
More than 1000 buildings have been attributed to Jones but only a very small number of those are certain to be his work. According to architecture historian John Summerson, the modern concept of an architect's artistic responsibility for a building did not exist at that time, and Jones's role in many instances may be that of a civil servant in getting things done rather than as an architect. Jones's contribution to a building may also simply be verbal instructions to a mason or bricklayer and providing an Italian engraving or two as a guide, or the correction of drafts.[27] In the 1630s, Jones was in high demand and, as Surveyor to the King, his services were only available to a very limited circle of people, so often projects were commissioned to other members of the Works. Stoke Bruerne Park in Northamptonshire was built by Sir Francis Crane, "receiving the assistance of Inigo Jones", between 1629 and 1635. Jones is also thought to have been involved in another country house, this time in Wiltshire. Wilton House was renovated from about 1630 onwards, at times worked on by Jones, then passed on to Isaac de Caus when Jones was too busy with royal clients. He then returned in 1646 with his student, John Webb, to try and complete the project.[22] : 130–132 Contemporary equivalent architects included Sir Balthazar Gerbier and Nicholas Stone.[28]
One of Jones's design work was "double cube" room, and it was also the foundation stone of his status as the father of British architecture. Jones, as the pioneer in his era, had strong influence during their time. His revolutionary ideas even effect beyond the Court circle, and today, many scholars believe that he also started the golden age of British architecture.[29]
Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant[1] architect in England and Wales in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings.[2] As the most notable architect in England[2] and Wales, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.
