56 C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 Book reviews A likeable genius William Kent: designing Georgian Britain SusanWeber (editor),Yale University Press for Bard Graduate Center, NewYork, 688pp, 624 colour illustrations, hardback, ISBN 978 0 300 19618 4, £60 In any age the productivity of William Kent would have been truly astonishing but, given his humble background, his influence on aristocratic taste in the first half of the 18th century is even more extraordinary. Born in 1685 in theYorkshire town of Bridlington, his father was a joiner andWilliam himself is said to have been apprenticed to a coach painter in Hull, although there is no firm evidence to confirm this. He was clearly an intelligent and likeable young man who attracted the attention and sponsorship of some influential members of the Yorkshire gentry, which enabled him to travel to Italy in 1709 to study painting. During the 10 years that he lived in Rome he was befriended by many of the young English aristocrats who passed through on their Grand Tour, acting both as their agent in establishing their collections and as an informed guide on their travels around the country. It was here that he met Richard Boyle, third earl of Burlington, who brought him back to England in 1719. He was admitted as a permanent member of his household and became a collaborator in Burlington’s crusade to establish the new aesthetic of Anglo-Palladianism. He remained a much-loved member of the family for the rest of his life, living first at Burlington House in Piccadilly and then at Chiswick, where he was buried in the family vault in the parish church. The patronage of Burlington and that of other aristocrats whom he had met in Italy was crucial in securing the commissions that established his reputation as an artist, and later as an architect and a designer. His output was prodigious. It embraced painting, sculpture, architecture, interior decoration, furniture design, metalwork, book illustration, theatrical design, costume and landscape gardening. For more than 20 years he played a dominant role in the shaping of English taste. He was patronised by both the king and the rival household of the Prince of Wales, and held prestigious posts in the Office of Works. He has even been claimed as one of the first conservation architects for his sympathetic approach to the adaptation and restoration of existing Tudor and Jacobean buildings. And yet, even by the time of his death in 1748, his reputation had begun to wane, partly due to the hostile assessment of his achievements by George Vertue which HoraceWalpole incorporated in his Anecdotes of Painting, but also because of the belief that he was merely the amanuensis for the talents of Burlington. Largely neglected in the 19th century, it was only in our time that his creative genius began to be rescued from the shadow of his influential patron. The first full-length biography by Timothy Mowl was published as recently as 2006, but even that was coloured by the author’s perverse belief that Palladianism was disastrous for English classical architecture. This enormous book sets out to restore Kent to his rightful position as one of the greatest designers this country has ever produced. In that it succeeds magnificently. Published as part of an exhibition with the same title as the book, which was due to come to from NewYork to the Victoria and Albert Museum in March, it is a blockbuster. Nearly 700 pages long, it is lavishly illustrated in colour with what must be a complete portfolio of all the known Kent drawings and etchings, and a generous selection of relevant illustrations from other designers and contemporary publications. It includes a ravishing collection of modern and historic photographs of the houses that he worked on, his paintings, sculpture, furniture, book illustrations and metalwork. Simply in terms of opulent book production it is quite outstanding at a price that seems comparatively modest. If that were all that it offered it would be a wonderful treasure store of visual sources worthy of (a rather large) space on the bookshelves of anyone interested in the culture of the period. However, it is much more than that. SusanWeber has gathered together the most distinguished body of scholars working in the field, who have written no less than 21 essays, covering every aspect of Kent’s creative life.Weber herself contributes an informative introduction, which charts the gradual reassessment of his reputation and provides a full historiography. She has also written two chapters on his furniture. John Harris, who more than any other scholar has done so much to re-establish the importance of Kent, contributes a biographical chapter and two further chapters on his draughtsmanship and his garden buildings. The context within which Kent flourished is provided by separate chapters on political and court culture, his all-important patrons, and the profound significance of his decade in Italy, which is further explored in a perceptive chapter by John Dixon Hunt in analysing his acknowledged importance as a garden designer. Other chapters cover his town houses, his extensive country house practice and his royal commissions, including a barge for the Prince of Wales. There is a lengthy chapter by Frank Salmon on his public commissions, which is dominated by grandiose and abortive schemes for a new Parliament House, and there are fresh assessments of his role in promoting the early gothic revival and of his ability as a painter, sculptor, book illustrator and metalwork designer. All the essays are supported by a full scholarly apparatus and extensive footnotes. Inevitably with so many different authors covering overlapping disciplines there is a certain amount of repetition of choice quotations and known facts, which might have been eliminated by a more rigorous editorial control. However, this is not really a book to be read from cover to cover as a continuous narrative, but
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