AESTHETIC THINKING

Press, Volume C, Issue 29587, 9 August 1961, Page 17

AESTHETIC THINKING

Beginnings In Britain

Pure aesthetic thinking in, England began in the 18th; century, said the British, lec’.urer and artist, Mr John] Steegman. in a lecture on| “Taste in Eighteenth Century England” at the University of Canterbury last evening. Mr Steegman in the first| of two lectures gave some of the main trends in architecture and the decorative arts in England. He said he was not concerned with the goodness or badness of the trends as judged by today’s standards but purely with the accepted taste of the cultivated Englishman of that century. At the beginning of the 18t'h century England was one of the leading nations in Europe politically but compared with France she was backward in the art of thinking rationally. The country had long had the habit of emotion and to its considerable embarrassment had produced Shakespeare—which by the 18th century was something to blush about, he said. Mr Steegman said what were toay accepted socially as good manners had filtered down from the top over the years. So also aesthetic good manners in architecture, and industrial design had filtered down from the top from men such as Lord Burlington early in the 18th century, so that by late in the century or early in the 19th century it had become almost impossible for a person to produce; a bad design. Somehow, by the end of the century an instinctive feeling for proportion and an elegance was there in a humble way, he said. With the aid of slides, Mr Steegman illustrated some of the main influences in archi-l lecture during the century | He said the influence of Lord Burlington and the grand: Palladian age of architecture; had filtered down over 70 or, 80 years to arrive at town planning, not by an architect, but by a speculative builder. About 120 persons attended the lecture. This evening Mr Steegman will speak on "Victorian Criticism and Taste.”