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William KENT 1685-1748
"All gardening is a landscape painting" William Kent
"The father of modern gardening" Horace Walpole
Born in Bridlington, Yorkshire, in 1674, William Kent trained as a sign painter and apprenticed to a coach-painter. His ambition led him to London, where he began life as a portrait and historical painter. He found patrons, who sent him in 1710 to study in Italy; and at Rome he made other friends, among them Lord Burlington, with whom he returned to London in 1719.
There Kent designed and built furniture and temples on a classical theme for Burlington and his friends. He also continued with his painting, but at Burlington's urging, he branched into architecture. As an architect, he followed Neo-Palladian tenets and adhered to strictly symmetrical planning, especially in his finest architectural work, Holkham Hall, Norfolk which he begun 1734 for the Earl of Leicester. He is also known for his ceiling decorations in Kensington Palace and for planning the treasury building, in London.
As with Kensington Palace, where Kent’s focus was on the interior, his work on Holkham included more than just the house architectural design; he also created the Baroque interior fittings and furnishings. His interiors were of a style similar to that which would later be continued by
Robert Adam in the period of 1760 and 1780.
It is not as an architect that Kent is best known, but, as Horace Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting describes him: "the father of modern gardening". Kent was, however, no horticulturalist, using his training as an artist he saw the landscape as a classical painting, and carefully arranged his landscapes to maximize the artistic effects of light, shape, and colour and he was not unknown to plant dead stumps, such as in Kensington gardens, to create the mood he required. Kent view on horticulture was: "all gardening is a landscape painting".
His gardens were dotted with classical temples, taken from his experience of Italy, complete with philosophical associations, which would have been readily appreciated by his learned patrons. He greatly influenced landscape gardening by changing the prevailing artificial style to one based more closely on nature, as in the gardens at Rousham House, Chiswick House and Stowe, by smoothing away the rigid lines of the formal gardens to create sinuous shaded walks.
It is work noting that Rousham House, Oxfordshire has the finest surviving example of Kent's "natural" gardening style, and that visitors to Stowe will see much of Kent's gardening work now overshadowed by later additions, notably by his successor, Capability Brown.
William Kent died in 1748, two years before the building of his last architectural design, the Horse Guards building in London, was commenced (1750-58). It is his contribution to the natural gardening style which evolved into the English landscape garden that is his greatest legacy; he is truly “the father of modern gardening”.
Places associated with William Kent
Aske Hall, North Yorkshire
Badminton, South Gloucestershire
Barrington Park, Gloucestershire
Chatsworth, Derbyshire
Chiswick House, Greater London
Claremont, Surrey
Euston Park, Suffolk
Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, Greater London
Gunnersbury Park, Greater London
Highclere Park, Hampshire
Holkham Hall, Norfolk
Holland Park, Greater London
Houghton Hall, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
Hyde Park, Greater London
Kensington Gardens, Greater London
Oatlands, Surrey
Raynham Park, Norfolk
Richmond Park, Greater London
Rousham, Oxfordshire
Shotover, Oxfordshire
Stowe, Buckinghamshire
Werrington Park, Cornwall
Woburn Farm, Surrey
Wotton House, Surrey
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