'HE THAT ... DOTH NOT MASTER THE HUMAN FIGURE': SIR JOHN VANBRUGH AND THE VITRUVIAN LANDSCAPE

摘要

In a Letter to an Unknown Prelate of about IS60, Michelangelo Buonarroti wrote of architecture: 'He that hath not mastered, or doth not master the human figure, and in especial its anatomy, may never comprehend it.' His statement demonstrates the importance to Renaissance architecture of both geometrical forms based upon human proportion, founded on the work of the Roman Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (known as Vitruvius), and of a humanist aesthetic. During the English Enlightenment at the end of the seventeenth century, a revival of classical science, literature and philosophy was again associated with a humanist discourse. Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) was the architect of many notable buildings of the early eighteenth century including Castle Howard inNorth Yorkshire, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Claremont in Surrey, and Eastbury in Dorset. His work as a landscape architect has, however, been somewhat neglected. This paper argues that the landscapes surrounding many of Vanbrugh's country houses were also of his conception, and that his dramatic military gardens have concealed his synthesis of Vitruvian rules with an innate understanding of site and topography, which was strongly influenced by the writings of the Renaissance architects Leon Battista Alberti and Andrea Palladio. This theory and its consequent impact on the later work of Charles Bridgeman will be examined through the evaluation of research findings on some of the estates where Vanbrugh was employed.