Difference between revisions of "John Summerson"
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Summerson was born on November 25, 1904, in Darlington, England. This town in northeast England had been known for nearly a century by then as the birthplace of the English railroad, and John's grandfather Thomas Summerson served as director of the local steel foundry that played a leading role in making the first locomotives for public transport. But Summerson's father died in 1907, and he and his mother, Dorothea, moved frequently for the next few years around Europe. Many years later he would write of coming upon an abandoned garden near the Rhine River in Germany as a lonely child, and how from that point forward "the 'wilderness with a broken swing' has been a recurrent theme in my life," according to an article by Alan Powers in Building Design . It was then, Summerson continued, that he first understood "that mysterious sense of inspiration in the presence of forgotten, deserted, broken things: derelict houses, forlorn castles, overgrown gardens, neglected graves, blitz ruins.([https://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Sp-Z/Summerson-John.html#ixzz5fguBGdxH Source]) | Summerson was born on November 25, 1904, in Darlington, England. This town in northeast England had been known for nearly a century by then as the birthplace of the English railroad, and John's grandfather Thomas Summerson served as director of the local steel foundry that played a leading role in making the first locomotives for public transport. But Summerson's father died in 1907, and he and his mother, Dorothea, moved frequently for the next few years around Europe. Many years later he would write of coming upon an abandoned garden near the Rhine River in Germany as a lonely child, and how from that point forward "the 'wilderness with a broken swing' has been a recurrent theme in my life," according to an article by Alan Powers in Building Design . It was then, Summerson continued, that he first understood "that mysterious sense of inspiration in the presence of forgotten, deserted, broken things: derelict houses, forlorn castles, overgrown gardens, neglected graves, blitz ruins.([https://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Sp-Z/Summerson-John.html#ixzz5fguBGdxH Source]) | ||
| − | + | ==Books== | |
| + | * ''The Classical Language of Architecture'', 1963, rev. ed., 1980, [[Media:Summerson_John_The_Classical_Language_of_Architecture_rev_ed_1980.pdf|PDF]], PDF. | ||
| + | * ''The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century'', 1986. | ||
==Links== | ==Links== | ||
| − | * Summerson, John (Newenham), | + | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Summerson |
| + | * http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/summerson-sir-john-1904-1992 | ||
| + | * Summerson, John (Newenham), ''Dictionary of Art Historians'', http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/summersonj.htm (December 6, 2006). | ||
Revision as of 13:23, 16 February 2019
John Summerson was British art historian.
John Summerson (1904–1992) enjoyed a long and eminent career as an expert on London architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His 1945 work Georgian London has been termed "a masterpiece of British art history" by Simon Jenkins in a London Sunday Times review of the book's 1988 edition. Jenkins called the work "a great shout of clarity amid a postwar babble of destruction and stylistic confusion. See beauty and worth in the London all around us … before trying to improve on it.
Summerson was born on November 25, 1904, in Darlington, England. This town in northeast England had been known for nearly a century by then as the birthplace of the English railroad, and John's grandfather Thomas Summerson served as director of the local steel foundry that played a leading role in making the first locomotives for public transport. But Summerson's father died in 1907, and he and his mother, Dorothea, moved frequently for the next few years around Europe. Many years later he would write of coming upon an abandoned garden near the Rhine River in Germany as a lonely child, and how from that point forward "the 'wilderness with a broken swing' has been a recurrent theme in my life," according to an article by Alan Powers in Building Design . It was then, Summerson continued, that he first understood "that mysterious sense of inspiration in the presence of forgotten, deserted, broken things: derelict houses, forlorn castles, overgrown gardens, neglected graves, blitz ruins.(Source)
Books
- The Classical Language of Architecture, 1963, rev. ed., 1980, PDF, PDF.
- The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, 1986.
Links
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Summerson
- http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/summerson-sir-john-1904-1992
- Summerson, John (Newenham), Dictionary of Art Historians, http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/summersonj.htm (December 6, 2006).
