William Kent

William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.

Kent introduced the

He complemented his houses and gardens with stately furniture for major buildings including Hampton Court Palace, Chiswick House, Devonshire House and Rousham.

Early life

Kent was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, and baptised on 1 January 1686, as William Cant.^[1] His parents were William and Esther Cant (née Shimmings).^[2]

Kent's career began as a sign and coach painter, and he was encouraged to study art, design and architecture by his employer. A group of Yorkshire gentlemen sent Kent for a period of study in Rome, and he set sail on 22 July 1709 from

In country house building, major commissions for Kent were designing the interiors of Houghton Hall, Norfolk (c.1725–35), recently built by Colen Campbell for Sir Robert Walpole, but at Holkham Hall (also in Norfolk) the most complete embodiment of Palladian ideals is still to be found; there Kent collaborated with Thomas Coke, the other "architect earl", and had for an assistant Matthew Brettingham, whose own architecture would carry Palladian ideals into the next generation. Walpole's son Horace described Kent as below mediocrity as a painter, a restorer of science as an architect and the father of modern gardening and inventor of an art.^[10]

A theatrically Baroque staircase and parade rooms in London, at 44 Berkeley Square, are also notable. Kent's domed pavilions were erected at Badminton House (Gloucestershire) and at Euston Hall (Suffolk).

Kent could provide sympathetic Gothic designs, free of serious antiquarian tendencies, when the context called; he worked on the Gothic screens in Westminster Hall and Gloucester Cathedral.

He worked on the house at

As a landscape designer, Kent was one of the originators of the English landscape garden, a style of "natural" gardening that revolutionised the laying out of gardens and estates. His projects included Chiswick House,^[12] Stowe, Buckinghamshire, from about 1730 onwards, designs for Alexander Pope's villa garden at Twickenham, for Queen Caroline at Richmond, and notably at Rousham House, Oxfordshire, where he created a sequence of Arcadian set-pieces punctuated with temples, cascades, grottoes, Palladian bridges and exedra, opening the field for the larger scale achievements of Capability Brown in the following generation. Smaller Kent works can be found at Shotover Park, Oxfordshire, including a faux Gothic eyecatcher and a domed pavilion. His all-but-lost gardens at Claremont, Surrey, have recently been restored. It is said that he was not above planting dead trees to create the mood he required.^[13]

Kent's only downfall was said to be his lack of horticultural knowledge and technical skill^[14] (compared to those such as Charles Bridgeman, whose impact on Kent is often underestimated).^[15] Nevertheless, his naturalistic style of design was his major contribution to the history of landscape design.^[16] Claremont, Stowe, and Rousham are places where their joint efforts can be viewed. Stowe and Rousham are Kent's most famous works. At the latter, Kent elaborated on Bridgeman's 1720s design for the property, adding walls and arches to catch the viewer's eye. At Stowe, Kent used his Italian experience, particularly with the Palladian Bridge. At both sites Kent incorporated his naturalistic approach.

Furniture designer

His stately furniture designs complemented his interiors: he designed furnishings for

In his own age, Kent's fame and popularity were so great that he was employed to give designs for all things, even for ladies' birthday dresses, of which he could know nothing and which he decorated with the five classical orders of architecture. These and other absurdities drew upon him the satire of William Hogarth who, in October 1725, produced a Burlesque on Kent's Altarpiece at St. Clement Danes.

Walpole tribute

According to Horace Walpole, Kent "was a painter, an architect, and the father of modern gardening. In the first character he was below mediocrity; in the second, he was a restorer of the science; in the last, an original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves nature. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, Kent created many."

List of works

Domestic work

• 
  Temple of Venus, Stowe
• 
  Temple of British Worthies, Stowe
• 
  The Temple of Ancient Virtue, Stowe
• 
  Holkham Hall, North Front
• 
  Holkham Hall, Marble Hall
• 
  Obelisk, Holkham Hall
• 
  Triumphal Arch, Holkham Hall
• 
  Badminton House
• 
  Worcester Lodge, Badminton House
• 
  Chiswick House, The Gallery
• 
  Dome of saloon, Chiswick House
• 
  Saloon, Chiswick House
• 
  Bedroom, Chiswick House
• 
  Chiswick House table
• 
  Chiswick House, ceiling of Blue Velvet Room
• 
  Chiswick House gardens
• 
  Chiswick House gardens
• 
  Chiswick House gardens
• 
  Rousham Cascade
• 
  Eyecatcher, Rousham
• 
  'Praeneste', Rousham
• 
  Houghton Hall stableyard
• 
  Temple, Shotover House
• 
  Temple, Euston Park
• 
  Devonshire House, London

Public buildings and royal commissions

• Chiesa di San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi
  , painted ceiling (c.1717)
• York Minster, marble pavement (1731–35)
• Royal Mews (1731–33), demolished 1830
• Royal State Barge (1732)
• Hampton Court Palace, gateway in Clock Court & rooms for the Duke of Cumberland (1732)
• Kensington Palace, interiors, including Cupola Room and several murals and painted ceilings (1733–35)
• former Treasury building Whitehall (1733–37)
• St James's Palace, the library (1736–37), demolished
• Westminster Hall, Gothic screen enclosing law courts (1738–39), demolished c.1825
• York Minster, Gothic pulpit and choir furniture (1741), removed
• Gloucester Cathedral, Gothic choir-screen (1741), removed 1820
• Horse Guards (1750–59)

• 
  Painted Ceiling Chiesa di San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi Rome, The Apotheosis of St Julian 1717
• 
  Royal Mews
• 
  Horse Guards
• 
  Horse Guards
• 
  Horse Guards
• 
  Plan, Horse Guards
• 
  Horse Guards Parade, Kent's Treasury is the stone building just beyond the Horse Guards building
• 
  Former Treasury Building, on left
• 
  Gateway (on right), Clock Court, Hampton Court Palace
• 
  Kensington Palace Cupola Room
• 
  Kensington Palace Cupola Room
• 
  painted ceiling, Presence Chamber, Kensington Palace
• 
  mural & ceiling, Great Staircase, Kensington Palace
• 
  Westminster Hall, with Kent's screen in place
• 
  Choir York Minster, showing Kent's black & white marble floor

Church memorials

• Chester Cathedral, to John & Thomas Wainwright
• Henry VII Lady Chapel, to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle
  (1730)
• York Minster, to Thomas Watson Wentworth (1731)
• Westminster Abbey to Sir Isaac Newton, sculpted by John Michael Rysbrack (1731)
• Kirkthorpe church, to Thomas & Catherine Stringer (1731–32)
• Blenheim Palace Chapel, to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, sculpted by John Michael Rysbrack (1733)
• Westminster Abbey, to James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope (1733)
• Westminster Abbey, to William Shakespeare, sculpted by Peter Scheemakers (1740)
• Ashby-de-la-Zouch, to Theophilus Hastings, 9th Earl of Huntingdon (1746)

• 
  Chapel, Blenheim Palace, Marlborough tomb on right
• 
  Sir Isaac Newton's memorial, Westminster Abbey
• 
  Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, with the Shakespeare memorial

References

Citations

Sources

• Chaney, Edward (2000) The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance, 2nd ed., 2000. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_evolution_of_the_grand_tour.html?id=rYB_HYPsa8gC
• Clegg, Gillian (1995). Chiswick Past. Historical Publications.
• Colvin, Howard, (1995) A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840. 3rd ed., 1995, s.v. "Kent, William"
• Hunt, John Dixon, (1986; 1996) Garden and Grove: The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination, 1600–1750, London, Dent; London and Philadelphia.
  ISBN 0-460-04681-0
• Hunt, John Dixon, (1987) William Kent, Landscape garden designer: An Assessment and Catalogue of his designs. London, Zwemmer.
• Jourdain, M., (1948) The Work of William Kent: Artist, Painter, Designer and Landscape Gardener. London, Country Life.
• Mowl, Timothy
  , (2006) William Kent: Architect, Designer, Opportunist. London, Jonathan Cape.
• Newton, N., (1971) Design of the land. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Ross, David, (2000) William Kent. Britain Express, 1–2. Retrieved 26 September 2004, from britainexpress.com
• Rogers, E., (2001) Landscape design a cultural and architectural history. New York:
  Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
• Sicca, Cinzia Maria, (1986) "On William Kent's Roman sources", Architectural History, vol. 29, 1986, pp. 134–147.
• Wilson, Michael I., (1984) William Kent: Architect, Designer, Painter, Gardener, 1685–1748. London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
  ISBN 0-7100-9983-5
  .

Further reading

• Amherst, Alicia (1896). A History of Gardening in England (2nd ed.). London: B. Quaritch – via Haithi Trust.
• Blomfield, Sir F. Reginald; Thomas, Inigo, Illustrator (1972) [1901]. The Formal Garden in England, 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan and Co.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Clifford, Derek (1967). A History of Garden Design (2nd ed.). New York: Praeger.
• ISBN 978-0-87817-008-1
  .
• Gothein, Marie. Geschichte der Gartenkunst. München: Diederichs, 1988
  ISBN 978-3-424-00935-4
  .
• Hadfield, Miles (1960). Gardening in Britain. Newton, Mass: C. T. Branford.
• Hussey, Christopher (1967). English Gardens and Landscapes, 1700–1750. Country Life.
• Hyams, Edward S.; Smith, Edwin, photos (1964). The English Garden. New York: H.N. Abrams.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Kent.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Kent, William".

• Short biography on gardenvisit.com
• Short biography on britainexpress.com
• Design examples on furniturestyles.net
• 14 artworks by or after William Kent at the Art UK site

Court offices
Preceded by Sir Godfrey Kneller	Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King 1723–1748	Succeeded by John Shackleton