Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts

Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts

6These chapters were first printed in The Builder during the year 1921. For that reason, and because the earlier records of Roman discoveries in London given in this Journal seemed to have been less worked over than other sources, a large number of references are given to its pages. The account of Roman London in the Victoria County History, C. Roach Smiths Illustrations of Roman London, and Mr. T. Wards Roman Era in Britain, and Roman British Buildings, may be specially mentioned among the works consulted. The first named is cited as V.C.H. Mr. A. H. Lyells Bibliographical List of Romano-British Remains (1912) is indispensable to the student. IT is curious that Roman buildings and crafts in Britain have hardly been studied as part of the story of our national art. The subject has been neglected by architects and left aside for antiquaries. Yet when this story is fully written, it will appear how important it is as history, and how suggestive in the fields of practice. This provincial Roman art was, in fact, very different from the classical style of ordinary architectural treatises. M. Louis Gillet in the latest history of French art considers this phenomenon. It is very difficult to measure exactly the part of the Gauls in the works of the Roman epoch which cover the land, such, for instance, as the Maison Carre and the Mausoleum at St. Remy. There is in these chefs duvre something not of Rome. The elements are used with liberty and delicacy more like the work of the Renaissance than of Vitruvius. In three centuries Gaul had become educated: these Gallo-Roman works, like certain verses of Ausonius, show little of Rome, they are already French. We should hesitate to say just this in Britain, although the Brito-Roman arts were intimately allied 8to those of Gaul. In fuller truth and wider fact, they were closely related to the provincial Roman art as practised in Spain, North Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor. Alexandria was probably the chief centre from which the new experimenting spirit radiated. We may agree, however, that in the centuries of the Roman occupation, Britain like Gaul became educated and absorbed the foreign culture with some national difference. In attempting to give some account of Roman building and minor arts in London, I wish to bring out and deepen our sense of the antiquity and dignity of the City, so as to suggest an historical background against which we may see our modern ways and works in proper perspective and proportion. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 66260
Author: Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English