South Kensington Living
Classicism
Classicism was art based on the example of ancient Greece and Rome. The term includes Palladianism and Neo-Classicism. Architecture after the Renaissance was incredibly derivative. Architects either adopted Classicism and aped the Greeks and Romans, or they went Gothic and aped the great cathedral builders. Only in the much-maligned 20th century did they really strike out on their own.
Classicism was a reaction against the over-ornamentation of the Baroque period. Andrea Palladio's Renaissance villas were admired as reflecting the pure lines of Classical architecture.
The typical London house of the late-18th and early 19th century followed a fairly standard Palladian plan. The Greek columns of the ancient world were transposed to the facades of town houses. Where the freestanding Greek columns of the Parthenon had held up huge blocks of stone, the London town house rarely had actual columns; more likely decorative half columns pressed against the wall to make it look as if the brickwork had been constructed between them, or even flattened representations only a few inches wide. Beginning at ground level they ran up to above the second floor windows where they seemingly supported a wide and often elaborately decorated cornice. Above was usually an attic floor set slightly back.
