Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/274

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
230
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE
chap.

tural reason for being) which the orders of the Banqueting Hall do not have. The only other feature of Whitehall that need be mentioned is the façade of the circular court enclosed by the king's apartments. This is a bizarre design in two stages, with a so-called Persian order below and an order of caryatids above. The bearing members of these orders stand out beyond the entablatures, and thus support nothing but ressauts, while a balustrade with statues crowns the whole.


Fig. 133.—Basement of a part of Whitehall.

With all his zeal for reform by a stricter conformity to classic models, the designs of Inigo Jones were never truly classical, and they often exhibit ludicrous aberrations. He had no true conception of the principles of classic art, as no architects of the Renaissance ever had. The Palladian architecture, which he mainly strove to follow, was itself, as we have seen, far from true to classic design. Some of these aberrations are strikingly shown in the west front which he built to the nave of old St. Paul's cathedral. In attempting to apply classic details to such a building he was obliged to depart widely from