Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/609

 ENGLISH (ELIZABETHAN) RENAISSANCE. 55I and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588, marked the declme of Spanish power m Europe. Charles I.'s attempts to develop art were mterrupted by the outbreak of Puritanism. Charles II. was m the pay of Louis XIV., and England was much under the mfluence of French art. The rise of Holland was taking place, and on the expulsion of James II. by William of Orano-e, Dutch influence made itself felt. With the accession of George l! (the Hanoverian dynasty) commenced an era of quiet domestic progress. The growth of London proceeded rapidly, but art in England slowly deteriorated, until the Exhibition of 185 1 marked the commencement of a revival in all forms of art. 2. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER. English Renaissance architecture may be divided into the following periods :— Elizabethan (a.d. 1558-1603), see below Jacobean (a.d. 1603-1625), page 561 ; Anglo-Classic (Seventeenth Century), page 567 ; Queen Anne and Georgian (Eighteenth Cen- tury), page 578 ; Early Victorian (Nineteenth Century) (a.d. 1800- 51), page 589; Late Victorian (Nineteenth Century) (iSsi-iqoi) page 593- ^ o ^ n THE ELIZABETHAN STYLE. Elizabeth (a.d. 1558-1603). Elizabethan Architecture was a transition style, which followed the Tudor style of the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. (page 536), for many Gothic features were retained and ornamented with Renaissance details which were at first applied only in a tentative manner. The style bears the same relation to Anglo-Classic, or fully-developed English Renais- sance, as the Francis I. style does to fully-developed French Renaissance. As during the Middle Ages a sufficient number of churches had been erected for the wants of the people, few were built in this period. This was also the case in France and Germany; whereas m Italy churches of this period were many and important. The examples of Elizabethan architecture, like those of the French Renaissance, were country houses erected by powerful statesmen, successful merchants, and newly-enriched gentry • contrasting with the palaces and churches of the Italian Renais- sance, principally erected in cities. The influence of landscape gardening was important, for in designing the house with fore- court, formal garden, arcades, fountains and terraces, a special and finished character was given to the buildings themselves. Many Gothic features, such as the tower, oriel, large mullioned " bay," and other windows (No. 251 b), gable, pierced parapet, and large chimney stacks were retained.