English Renaissance

Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723)
a 17th century English designer, astronomer, geometrician, and the greatest English architect of his time.
designed 53 London churches, including St.Paul’s Cathedral, as well as many notable secular buildings.

Sheldonian Theatre

Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court

St Paul's Cathedral from the south

Old St. Paul’s

Old St Paul's Cathedral in flames, 1666

Wren's Greek Cross design

Wren's warrant design

Wren's cathedral as built

Wren's cathedral
The clock tower on the west side of the cathedral
The cathedral was completed on 20.10.1708, Wren's 76th birthday (although the first service was held on 02.12.1697).

St Paul’s Cathedral
The cathedral is built of Portland stone in a late Renaissance style that is England's sober Baroque.
It’s dome rises 108 metres (365 feet) to the cross at its summit, making it a famous London landmark

St Paul's from across the Thames

St Paul’s Cathedral
The nave has three small chapels in the two adjoining aisles – All Souls and St Dunstan's in the north aisle and the Chapel of the Order of St Michael and St Georde in the south aisle.
The main space of the cathedral is centred under the Dome; it rises 108.4 metres from the cathedral floor and holds three circular galleries – the internal Whispering Gallery, the external Stone Gallery, and the external Golden Gallery.

St Paul’s Cathedral
The organ was first commissioned in 1694 and the current instrument is the third biggest in Britain with 7,189 pipes and 138 stops
The north west tower contains 13 bells, while the south west tower contains 4 bells including Great Paul, which was cast in 1881, and Great Tom (the hour bell), which has been recast twice, after being moved from the old Palace of Westminster

Memorials
The cathedral has a crypt holding over 200 memorials
Christopher Wren was the first person to be buried (1723)
"Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice"
(Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you).

Memorials
The Duke of Wellington
Admiral Nelson
Henry Moore
Sir Winston Churchill
T.E.Lawrence whise bust Nelson's sarchofagus

Memorials
Sir Alexander Flemming
Sir Arthur Sullivan
Florence Nightingale
J.M.W.Turner
Sir Joshua Reynolds

Monument to the Great Fire of London
1670s - Wren received significant secular commissions which manifest both the maturity and the variety of his architecture

The Greenwich Hospital from the bank of the Thames

The Greenwich Hospital
The Greenwich Hospital in London was founded in 1694 as the Royal Naval Hospital for Seamen.
It is a Royal Charity for the benefit of seafarers and their dependents, with the Secretary of State for Defence acting as the Crown’s sole Trustee.

The Greenwich Hospital
The hospital was established as a residential home for injured sailors
Was taken over by the Royal Naval College in 1873, and remained a military education establishment until 1998 when passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation of the Royal Naval College. The new Foundation has University of Greenwhich and Trinity College of Music.

The Greenwich Hospital

English Renaissance art
the adoption of Protestantism by Henry VIII of England in 1536 and the seizure of property belonging to the Catholic church church by the state (Dissolution of the Monasteries) - destruction of much of England and Wales’ art tradition, which had previously been under the patronage of the church.

English Renaissance art
Isolation from the trends of catholic Europe, the centre of the Renaissance.
Painters from the continent continued to find work in Britain, and brought the new styles with them, especially the Flemish and Italian Renaissance styles.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543)
a German artist who painted in the Northern Renaissance style
first learned painting from his father Hans Holbein the Elder, was influenced by the Dutch humanist Ersmus
Designed stained glass windows and painted portraits. The Reformation made it difficult for Holbein to support himself as an artist in Basel and he set out for London in 1526.

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger
many portraits at the court of Henry VIII, designed state robes for the king.
designed many of the extravagant monuments and decorations for the coronation of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, 1533
painted Henry's third wife, Jane; also painted Jane's sister, Elizabeth Seymour

Henry VIII
Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537

Jane and Elizabeth Seymour

Mary Watton, Lady Guildenford.
Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527

Hans Holbein the Younger, Man with a Lute, 1535

Portrait of Sir Thomas More, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527

Hans Holbein the Younger
Holbein always made a highly detailed portrait of his subject using pencil, often supplemented with ink and coloured chalk;
although the drawings were made as referential studies for paintings, they stand as independent works of art.
The original drawings emphasized facial detail, but in general did not include the hands. Clothing was only indicated schematically. The original drawings thus had the same scale as the final paintings.

Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (1516-1604)
a Flemish engraver, illustrator and painter; most often associated with the English Royal C ourt of the mid-16th cent;
the illustrator of the 1567 edition of Aesop’s Fables.
Fled to England in 1568 due to religious persecutions

Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder
There are no identifiable color portraits or paintings done by Gheeraerts as he did never sign them
He is most noteworthy as an illustrator and engraver; his sketches and drawings were used for engravings
he is well noted for his illustrations of animals and his birdseye view of the town of Brugges

Gheeraert's birdseye view of Brugges, Flanders in 1562

Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619)
the first true English miniature painter born in England
He was appointed goldsmith, carver and portrait painter to Elizabeth I and engraved the Great Seal of England in 1586
was in high favour with James I as well as with Elizabeth, receiving from the king a special patent of appointment

Self-portrait, 1577

Alice Brandon, his wife, 1578

Samuel Cooper (1609-1672)
the greatest English painter of portrait miniatures
Also was an excellent musician, playing well the lute, and also a good linguist, speaking French with ease.

is known to have painted also the portrait of John Aubrey, 1609

Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell, 1657.

Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677)
known Wenceslaus Hollar or sometimes Wenzel, was a Bohemian etcher. He was born in Prague, and died in London, being buried at St Margaret's church, Westminster
Studied the art in Germany; was attracted by the famous amateur Thomas, earl of Arundel, then on an embassy to the imperial court
in 1637 finally came to England

Wenceslas Hollar

Godfrey Kneller
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (1646-1723) -the leading portrait painter in ( late 17th and early 18th cent), court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I.
major works: The Chinese Convert (1687); a series of ten reigning European monarchs, including King Louis XIV of Frnace; over 40 “Kit-cat portraits" of members of the Kit-Cat Club; and ten "beauties" of the court of William III

Godfrey Kneller
Gottfried Kniller in Lübeck, Germany; studied in Leiden, but became a pupil of Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt in Amsterdam.
worked in Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits, and later moved to Hamburg.
came to England in 1674, at the invitation of the Duke of Monmouth, accompanied by his brother, John Zacharias Kneller, who was an ornamental painter.

Godfrey Kneller
founded a studio which churned out portraits on an almost industrial scale, relyed on a brief sketch of the face with details added to a formulaic model, aided by the fashion for gentlemen to wear full wigs.
His portraits set a pattern that was followed until William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds.
Nevertheless, he established himself as a leading portrait artist in England.

The Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club was an early 18th century club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to Whig objectives.
It was founded in 1699 by the book seller Jacob Tonson and met at the Trumpet pub in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.
it may have been a secret society active in furthering the Glorious Revolution of 1689

The Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club is known today as an early 18th century social gathering-point in London for culturally andpolitically prominent Whigs
Kit (= Christopher) Cat (= Catling), the keeper of the pie-house in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar, where the club originally met

The Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Kat series of chocolate bars is believed to be named after the Kit-Cat Club.
The musical Cabaret takes place at a fictional Berlin nightclub also called the Kit-Kat Klub.
The Kit-Cat club name was revived in London in the 1980s and is now used by an exclusive women's club which meets monthly at the Lanesborough Hotel
A Kit-Cat portrait – a middle-sized portrait

Joseph Addison, the “Kit-cat portrait”, 1703–1712,
by Godfrey Kneller

William Congreve

Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Kneller's Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Kneller's finest portraits.

The Rt Hon. Sir Robert Walpole

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlboroughin his Garter robes

James Thornhill (1675-1734)
an English painter of historical subjects, in the Italian baroque tradition
successfully worked for the upper class as a history painter
court painter
decorated palace interiors with large-scale compositions

James Thornhill (1675-1734)
The figures of wall paintings are commonly shown in idealized and rhetorical postures:
the allegorical wall and ceiling decorations of the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital (1707-27) depicting the Protestant succession of English monarchs from William and Mary to George I;
the eight scenes from the Life of St. Paul in the cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral (1716-19); etc.

James Thornhill (1675-1734)
1711 - Thornhill was one of the 12 original directors of Sir Godfrey Kneller’s academy at Great Queen Street.
1716 - succeeded Kneller as Governor there and held the post until 1720.
Then established his own private drawing school at Covent Garden, but this was soon closed.

Potrait of Sir Isaac Newton in old age by James Thornhill, 1709-12.

Age of Enlightenment
refers to either the 18th cnt in European philosophy, or the longer period including the seventeenth century and the Age of Reason.
the historical intellectual movement The Enlightenment advocated Reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government and logic which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the universe.

Age of Enlightenment
Enlightenment thinkers argued that the systematic thinking could apply to all forms of human activity
The intellectual leaders - would lead the world into progress from a long period of doubtful tradition, irrationality, superstition, and tyranny, which they imputed to the Dark Ages.

Age of Enlightenment
Revolutions - the rise of classical liberalism and capitalism.
matched with the high baroque and classical eras in music, and the neo-classical period in the arts;
receives contemporary attention as being one of the central models for many movements in the modern period.

Creation of a Middle Class
After Elizabeth’s death (1603) England changed from aristocratic society to a society dominated by the middle class.
Glorious Revolution 1688 – the victory of Parliament
New culture and world view – individual man became the centre of the world; optimistic belief in human reason and progress

Political Life
1642-1648 – The English Civil War
1649 – execution of Charles I; republic under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell
The Restoration (1660) brought back the monarchy as a reaction against Puritan and military control – Charles II.
1688 – a Dutch prince, William of Orange, was invited to become King of England

Anthony van Dyck, "Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles", commonly known as the "Triple Portrait“ (1636). It was created in order that Bernini, could create a marble bust of Charles.

German print depicts Charles I's decapitation

An unfinished miniature portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1657.

Statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Palace of Westminster, London

The Glorious Revolution
1689 – William III signed the Bill of Rights.
Reduced royal power and civil and political rights (e.g. freedom of speech) to the people
Parliament – power to make laws.
New dynamic world picture with an individual man at the centre.
John Locke (1632-1704) – ideas about tolerance, freedom and the value of human reason.

17th-century philosophy
the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the medieval approach, especially scholasticism
the "Age of Reason" is considered to succeed the Renaissance and precede the Age of Enlightenment.

17th-century philosophy
The period in Europe - the great system-builders — philosophers who present unified systems of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and ethics, and often politics and the physical sciences too
I. Kant classified his predecessors into two schools: the Rationalists and the Empiricists
Early Modern Philosophy (17th-18th cent) is often characterised in terms of a supposed conflict between these schools

17th-century philosophy
The three main Rationalists are Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
Building upon their English predecessors Fr.Bacon and Th.Hobbes, the three main Empiricists were John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume.

George Berkeley
an influential Irish philosopher whose philosophical achievement is the advancement of subjective idealism, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi" (“To be is to be percieved").

George Berkeley
Berkeley theorized that individuals cannot know if an object is, individuals can only know if an object is perceived by a mind.
individuals cannot think or talk about an object's being but rather think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone
all that individuals know about an object is their perception of it.

Metaphysical poets
a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them
Their rigorous verse appeals to the reader’s intellect rather than emotions. Their style was characterised by wit, subtle argumentations and the "metaphysical conceits", an unusual simile or metaphor

Metaphysical poets
Their writings reflected the disturbances of the period
Metaphysical poetry means showing clever tricks of style and unlikely comparisons.
Use of symbols, pictures and metaphors are taken from all parts of existence and dramatically and surprisingly mixed
Poems are short and concentrated, built up around one idea or line of argument.

Metaphysical poets
Some metaphysical poets, (John Donne), were influenced by neo-Platonism.
One of the primary Platonic concepts was the idea that the perfection of beauty in the beloved acted as a remembrance of perfect beauty in the eternal realm.
The first mention of "metaphysical poets" comes in Samuel Johnson's The Lives of the Poets (1744).

John Donne (1572-1631)
was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the metaphysical poets of the period
Sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satirical verses and sermons.

John Donne
His works were notable for their realistic and sensual style
His poetry is noted for the vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor
many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons (Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul, (1612))

John Donne
1610 and 1611 - two anti-Catholic polemics, Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave.
After a long period of financial uncertainty and difficulty, Donne finally was ordained into the Church of England in 1615.
1621 - Donne was made Dean of St Paul’s, a leading position in the Church of England

John Milton (1608-1674)
was originally destined for a ministerial career, but independent spirit led him to give this up
Milton is considered to be among the most learned of all English poets

John Milton
Unsuccessful experience of his own married life pushed him into writing a series of pamphlets arguing for the legality and morality of divorce (The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce), in which he attacked the English marriage law

John Milton
wrote propaganda for the English Republic in the early 1650s, in attempts to justify the execution of Charles I; got caught and arrested in October 1659
1667 - published Paradise Lost, the epic brought him universal fame (he sold the publishing rights for £10), to be followed by Paradise Regained, together with Samson Agonistes, a drama on the Greek model, in 1671.

Paradise Lost
the poem depicts the creation of the universe, earth, and humanity;
conveys the origin of sin, death, and evil;
imagines events in Hell, the Kingdom of Heaven, the garden of Eden, and the sacred history of Israel;
engages with political ideas of tyranny, liberty and justice; and
defends theological positions on predestination, free will, and salvation.

Milton's influence
Keats felt that Paradise Lost was a "beautiful and grand curiosity"
Mary Shelley’s work Frankenstein draws heavily on Paradise Lost: the relationship between the Creature and Dr. Frankenstein is often seen as a metaphor for the relationship between God and Man in Paradise Lost
George Eliot and Thomas Hardy were particularly inspired by Milton's poetry and biography

Milton's influence
Milton coined many familiar modern words: dreary, acclaim, rebuff, self-esteem, unaided, impassive, enslaved, jubilant, solaced, and satanic
In terms of politics, Milton's Areopagitica and republican writings were consulted during the drafting of the Constitution of the USA.

Classicism
Contrast to metaphysical poets; influence of old aristocracy with its intellectual and elegantly witty taste
Neo-classicist poets thought that the aim of poetry was to give new and perfect expression and form to old truths.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) – the need to follow the classical rules of poetry (Roman poets).

the greatest English poet of the early 18th cent, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. Pope was a master of the heroic couplet.

The Rise of Novel
Middle class – sales of books big enough to earn writers a living
Middle class – ever-growing interest in literature; market for writers
Middle-class values; psychological description of individuals and realistic description of places
New genre – the novel

The Rise of Novel
Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Robinson – an optimistic symbol of the new middle-class man, who triumphs over nature and creates prosperity, security, law and order out of nothing.
Practical middle-class virtues
The manifesto of a young nation

The Rise of Novel
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) - an Anglo-Irish priest, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, and poet, famous for works like Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella

The Rise of Novel
Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1744)
Tom Jones – a panoramic commentary on England in 1745 as well as the story of Tom Jones’ life.
Carefully planned plot, un-idealized hero, descriptions given by the narrator

The Renaissance
The queen was a powerful monarch; she didn’t have absolute power, but she decided when to call Parliament.
A development from subsistence farming to capitalist farming.
Land fencing – villages were depopulated, peasants tried to find employment in the cities – urbanization started

The Renaissance
The Poor Laws (1553, revised in 1601) – the parishes were responsible for their inhabitants
New men of power – merchants. England began to manufacture and export cloth.
Henry VII – commercial treaties with other European countries.

Development of Trade
Trade – new routes and new trading partners. It resulted in discoveries and geographical expansion.
Trading companies – new colonies. Africa companies in Morocco (1585) and Guinea (1588) developed the slave trade
The East India Company (1600) set up silk, cotton, china and carpet factories in India (Surat, Madras, Calcutta, Bombay)

Emigration
The extreme Protestants – Puritans – emigrated to America (persecution or dissatisfaction with the church affairs at home)
Plymouth was founded by Pilgrim Fathers (1584)
1607 – the first colony, Virginia; areas north of Virginia – Puritans, southern states – English nobility who ran cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations (slaves)

The Elizabethan World Picture
Understanding of the world was closely linked to the tradition of the Middle Ages.
Earth was seen as the centre of the universe; corresponding to the hierarchy in heaven, the same kind of hierarchy could be found on earth.
Reflection in arts and literature.

Sir Isaac Newton at 46 in Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, abd natural philosopher, regarded as the greatest figure in the history of science
His treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics.

Sir Isaac Newton
was the first to show that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws.
The unifying and deterministic power of his laws was integral to the scientific revolution and the advancement of heliocentrism.

Sir Isaac Newton
In mechanics - enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum.
In optics - invented the reflecting telescope and discovered that the spectrum of colours observed when white light passes through a prism is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as Roger Bacon had claimed in the 13th cent).

Sir Isaac Newton
argued that light is composed of particles.
formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and proposed a theory of the origin of stars.
In mathematics - shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus; demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called “Newton’s method” for approximating the zeroes of a function

Sir Isaac Newton
English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.

Engraving after Enoch Seeman's 1726 portrait of Newton

A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society

Newton's own copy of his Principia

Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey

Newton's laws of motion
Newton's First Law is known as the Law of Inertia
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F, on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p. F = ma
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton's apple
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge, England

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan set the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy.

Thomas Hobbes
contributed to diverse fields, including history, geometry, ethics, general philosophy and what would now be called political science.
Hobbes's account of human nature as self-interested cooperation has proved to be an enduring theory in the field of philosophical anthripology

Leviathan
Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of societies and legitimate governments.

Thomas Hobbes
One of the first scholarly works on Social contrct theory.
In the natural condition of mankind, while some men may be stronger or more intelligent than others, none is so strong and smart as to be beyond a fear of violent death.
When threatened with death, man in his natural state cannot help but defend himself in any way possible - self-defense against violent death

John Locke
1632-1704
School/tradition: British empirism
Main interests: metaphysics, political philosophy; philosophy of mind; education

John Locke
Notable ideas: tabula rasa, "government with the consent of the governed"; state of nature; rights of life, liberty and property;
Influenced: Hume, Kant, and many political philosophers after him, especially the American Founding Fathers, Arthur Schopenhauer