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Brideshead Revisited
2005.08.05 15:17
Virtual traveling is likely the closest I'll ever come to Castle Howard from now on.
As to the Mausoleum by Hawksmoor, here's what Smith writes beginning the "Acknowledgments": "I first became interested in the history of Castle Howard when, as an undergraduate, I wrote a dissertation on eighteenth-century mausolea: the mausoleum at Castle Howard was much the most significant, as well as the best documented." The final chapter of The Building of Castle Howard is entitle "The Mausoleum".
Returning to the notion of Vanbrugh as (Restoration/Baroque) playwright, and the way that Vanbrugh's personality is described by contemporaries, I was reminded of the main character of Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract.
I haven't read any of Vanbrugh's plays yet, but I might start with The Country House.
I forgot to mention this before--the Castle Howard-Ichnographia Campi Martii connection may also be found in some of Piranesi's individual plans within the large plan. For example, the Porticus Gratiani, Valentiniani et Theodosii somehow reminds me of the plan of Castle Howard (sorry there's no image to offer now)--the plans are not what you would call 'alike', but they both strive for maximum effect through minimum means.
Just for fun, did you know that when an image of Boullee is shown in Grennaway's The Belly of an Architect, the image shown is actually that of Piranesi?!
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