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RICHARDSON, GEORGE

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 299 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RICHARDSON, See also:GEORGE , See also:English 18th-See also:century architect and designer. The See also:dates of See also:birth and See also:death of this distinguished contemporary and See also:rival of the See also:brothers See also:Adam are not ascertained, but he is conjectured to have been See also:born about 1736and to have died in 1817. Richardson spent three years—from 176o to 1763-travelling in See also:Dalmatia and See also:Istria, in the See also:south of See also:France and in See also:Italy. During that See also:period he imbibed the See also:inspiration of a lifetime, and acquired the material for its See also:practical application. He soon began to show remarkable skill in adapting classical ideals to the uses of his See also:time, and in 1765 he won a See also:premium offered by the Society of Arts for a See also:design of a See also:street in the classical manner. Richardson's See also:work is so closely allied to that of the brothers Adam that it is often difficult to distinguish between them, and if it possessed less freedom and variety, and See also:bore to a smaller extent the impress of an See also:original mind, it was in the See also:main exceedingly admirable and satisfying. Richardson was an especially successful designer of ceilings and chimneypieces. He published in 1776 a See also:Book of Ceilings in the See also:Style of the See also:Antique See also:Grotesque. Many of its drawings are of exquisite See also:taste. Nor is his fireplace work, as represented by his Collection of Chimneypieces Ornamented in the Style of the See also:Etruscan, See also:Greek and See also:Roman See also:Architecture (1781), less attractive. Richardson's chimneypieces are still to be found in considerable See also:numbers in See also:town and See also:country houses. They are mostly of See also:marble, but examples in See also:wood are not uncommon.

He made extensive use of coloured See also:

marbles, and the effect is constantly that of the sumptuous balancing the austere. Like the See also:Adams, Richardson often worked with See also:composition enrichments, and his New Designs in Architecture (1792) contains many drawings of interior friezes and columns to be executed either in this See also:medium or painted to suit the See also:wall hangings. His versatility ,was considerable, as the titles of his See also:works, a dozen in number, suggest. For many years he exhibited at the Royal See also:Academy as well as in the Galleries of the Society of Arts. Why such a See also:man should have fallen into penury in his old See also:age we have no means of ascertaining, but we know that his necessities were relieved by Nollekens. His See also:principal works in addition to those already mentioned were, in See also:chronological See also:order: Aedes Pembrochianae (1774); Iconology (2 vols.), with plates by See also:Bartolozzi and other engravers (1778-1779) ; New Designs sn Architecture (1792); Original Designs for Country Seats or Villas (1795) ; The New See also:Vitruvius See also:Britannicus, a sequel to See also:Colin See also:Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus, 2 vols. (1802) ; Ornaments in the Grecian, Roman and Etruscan Tastes (1816). He also published volumes dealing with vases and tripods, antique friezes and other architectural and decorative details.

End of Article: RICHARDSON, GEORGE

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