The Mavisbank Estate - the monument to the Scottish Enlightenment

Sevenyuk Natalia Alekseevna Postgraduate Student, Department of General Art History, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, Lomonosovskii prospekt, 27, korpus 4 seveniuknatalia.@mail.ru

 For many years, the study of the architecture of the Scottish Enlightenment was of no interest to researchers. Fundamental works devoted to the study of Scottish architecture of this time begin to appear only from the 60s of the XX century. Among the main authors should be noted John Dunbar, James Macaulay, Miles Glendinning, Ranald McInnes, Angus McKechnie. Since there are no works on the study of the architecture of the Scottish Enlightenment in Russian art criticism, we can talk about the relevance and novelty of this scientific work.

The author aims to show the changes that took place in the cultural life of Scotland during the era of the Scottish Enlightenment, namely in the Scottish architectural environment on the example of the Mavisbank estate. In this regard, the Mevisbank estate is considered in a cultural and historical context, since for its owner it is also a place of historical memory - the ancient Roman villa Urbana; methods of formal, stylistic, comparative analysis are used. To determine the architectural style of Mevisbank, the classification given in the poem "The Estate" was used, the works of Palladio and Inigo Jones, as well as monuments of English Palladianism were analyzed.

The Scottish Enlightenment, which stretched for almost a century (from the first decade of the XVIII century to the beginning of the XIX century), is a time of scientific and cultural flourishing, political and economic stability of Scotland ^{[1, pp. 1-5]}. The rapid transformation of Scotland, until recently considered a seedy, backward province, into the center of European intellectual life is explained by the following factors, none of which is decisive ^{[2, pp. 189-191]}: Union with England in 1707, progressive education system, reform of the university education system, softening of the religious climate, cosmopolitanism of the Scots, etc. ^{[3, pp. 319-356]}.

The economic boom caused by the Scottish Enlightenment caused a construction boom in Scotland in the XVIII century, especially in its second half. Representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment were looking for new architectural forms that would most fully reflect the reformist sentiments of their time ^{[4, pp. 51-79]}.

However, the restoration of Scotland did not happen immediately, and in the first decades of the XVIII century the country was still in distress. The union represented not only new opportunities for the economic recovery of the country, but to some extent was a painful process, because, having lost the parliament, the country lost its political sovereignty. In this regard, many representatives of the local elite left the country, and Edinburgh lost its former importance as a place where political and economic life was in full swing ^{[5, p. 162]}. Among those who left Scotland at the beginning of the XVIII century were Colin Campbell and James Gibbs – outstanding architects of Scottish origin who worked mainly in England and left a noticeable mark in the development of English architecture, while in their homeland their buildings are isolated and can hardly be attributed to significant architectural examples.

The first decades of the XVIII century are considered to be a very bright period in the development of English architecture: the English Baroque of Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor; the beginning of English Palladianism, marked by the projects of Colin Campbell; the individualism of architectural solutions by James Gibbs. If we draw parallels with English architecture, the Scottish architecture of the first decades of the XVIII century does not differ either in scale in relation to the emergence of new architectural trends, nor in big names. Meanwhile, one should neither exaggerate nor belittle the processes that took place in the architectural life of Scotland.

 Some architectural historians, for example, John Summerson, believe that the architecture of Scotland after 1710 – the date of the death of William Bruce, the last court architect – for half a century was in a state of hopeless provincialism. At the same time, Summerson notes that especially after 1745 there were more opportunities for the implementation of architectural projects, since the well-being of local landowners improved through the introduction of English farming methods ^{[6, p. 349]}.

 Other architectural historians, such as Miles Glendinning, Ranald McInnes, Angus McKechnie, are trying to find Scottish origins for the processes that took place in the English architecture of the XVIII century, referring to the Scottish architecture of the XVII century, in particular to the activities of the Scottish architect of the XVII century James Smith. Thus, they claim that it was Scottish architecture that influenced the development of English architecture ^{[7, p. 109]}.

Despite the fact that the construction boom in Scotland occurred only in the second half of the XVIII century, and the first half of the XVIII century is characterized as a time of political instability and economic recession, innovative architectural solutions fall just during this period. This is explained by the fact that in the first decades of the XVIII century, when the Scottish Enlightenment began, there was a search for architectural forms that would most fully correspond to the spirit of the new time – the time of reason, when education began to be valued above other merits.

Rationalism and practicality accompanying education have led to a rethinking of how a country house should look – compact architectural solutions are beginning to be appreciated. It is precisely such an ideal project of a country house – the quintessence of the Scottish Enlightenment - that the Mavisbank estate, located in the county of Midlothian, becomes a joint project of the amateur architect Sir John Clark Penicuik and William Adam.

Sir John, nicknamed the "Scottish Philanthropist" ^{[8, p. 81]}, was the brainchild of the era, the standard representative of the Scottish Enlightenment, advocating Union and supporting Whig mercantilism. Educated, well-rounded, Sir John was interested not only in music, literature and art, but also in innovations in industry and agriculture. He actively developed coal deposits on his land plot in Lonehead, and was also among the pioneers of the agricultural modernization movement, planting three million trees on his estates for thirty years ^{[8, p. 117]}.

It is with the study of architecture, classical literature and music in Rome that Sir John's interest in antiquity and in the work of Renaissance masters focused on antiquity begins. He said that reading classical literature helped shape his taste – a commitment to ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Therefore, he believed that the buildings based on ancient architecture by Palladio and other masters should become the standard for modern architects ^{[9, pp. 63-64]}.

Such trends as English Palladianism and the English Baroque preceding it were alien to the extraordinary and original Sir John. In this respect, he was outside the architectural trends of his time and often allowed derogatory statements about the works of leading masters. Castle Howard, Vanbrugh's architectural masterpiece, he characterized as architecture that can disappoint anyone; Vanbrugh Castle in Greenwich defined as a very strange structure, reminiscent of castles and prisons of the Goths and their predecessors; Burlington Chiswick House called "more unusual than convenient" ^{[8, p. 83]}, noting that everything concerning this villa has no prospects. However, Sir John admitted that Chiswick House was superior to Mavisbank in terms of an intellectually thought-out architectural solution and scale ^{[9, p. 63]}.

 In the second decade of the XVIII century, discussions begin about what a "villa" is; in particular, in 1728 Robert Castell's book "Villas of the Ancients" was published – a reconstruction of Roman houses and gardens based on literary sources ^{[10, pp. 10-11]}. Meanwhile, the term "villa" does not come into use immediately. As John Summerson points out. representatives of English Palladianism Campbell and Kent did not use this term in relation to small country houses. And Palladio himself called his country houses not villas, but case di villa – and this definition was introduced in order to indicate the difference between a city house and a country house, and had nothing to do with the size of the structure ^{[6, p. 346]}.

Meanwhile, since the 50s of the XVIII century, when talking about a villa, they mean a small house, often located in the suburbs; it was from this time that such a compact country house became common not only among middle-class representatives, but also aristocrats ^{[6, p. 346]}. In the 1720s, the size of an aristocratic dwelling was significant, the house had to be ceremonial, oriented to Wosted and Houghton Hall, the appearance talking about the wealth and nobility of its owners. Therefore, in the 20s of the XVIII century, cases of the construction of villas in an aristocratic environment were rare, and among such buildings should be noted Stourhead, Newby Park and Mereworth by Colin Campbell, as well as Chiswick House of Lord Burlington.

And here we can say that Sir John was to some extent a pioneer, since the construction of Mevisbank was already completed when the listed villas were just being built. The architecture of Mevisbank is original in the sense that it completely embodies its customer – a well–read and profound person who wrote the poem "The Estate", and is by no means similar to the examples of English Palladian villas that appeared a little later - and the scale is smaller, and the architectural solution of the facade is completely different. In the poem "The Estate", Sir John describes the ideal of a country house as follows: "... a small villa where anyone can taste every minute of blessed happiness and joy and, having retired, spend their days in silence" ^{[9, p. 63]}.

The genre of manor poetry became popular in the second half of the XVII century. Basically, these are poems dedicated to individual estates, where rural life is shown from the idealistic side – there is both a virtuous owner and natural landscapes that amaze with splendor. The poem "The Estate" is a phenomenon alien to this genre, since it is a kind of guide to the construction of country houses and the arrangement of land, showing Sir John's excellent knowledge of ancient texts: "Treatises on Architecture" by Vitruvius, "Georgikov" by Virgil. The poem also reflects Sir John's awareness of the activities of his contemporaries – Colin Campbell, Lord Burlington and William Kent.

In the poem, written shortly after the completion of the construction of the Mevisbank, the author describes all stages of the construction of a country house, starting with the selection of the right land plot and ending with the decoration of residential premises, and also creates his own classification of buildings, noting the distinctive features of each of these categories: royal palace, state house, house for convenience and use, villa.

According to John Gifford, despite the fact that Sir John calls the Mavisbank a villa, the appearance of the Mavisbank is at odds with Sir John's recommendations regarding the shape of the villa in the poem "The Estate" – "there should not be much thought about which form to choose, always the best one, which in its volume and beauty most resembles a pavilion the Persian king" ^{[8, p. 92]}. As Fleming correctly noted: "Clark was able to say more about the construction methods than about the appearance of the villa" ^{[11, p. 26]}. Therefore, researchers agree that if we proceed from Sir John's classification, then Mevisbank occupies an intermediate position between a villa and a "house for convenience and use", some moments in the architectural solution of the facade of which are present in Mevisbank ^{[8, p. 92]}.

Having inherited the Penicuik and Mavisbank property in 1722, Sir John initially wanted to reconstruct the ancestral house in Penicuik so as to give it more stylistic uniformity. As a result, he abandons this idea and builds a small house in Mevisbank, thereby continuing what his father once conceived, who developed several Mevisbank construction projects, but never decided to implement them, considering himself too old for this. Sir John, as an amateur architect, needed professional advice, so he invited architect William Adam to work on the Mavisbank project. As Sir John noted: "In May 1723, I not only completed the design of the house in Mavisbank, which was corrected by the experienced architect Mr. Adam, but also laid the foundation of the house" ^{[12, p. 115]}.

Sir John, who has extensive theoretical knowledge, and William Adam, a practicing architect, complemented each other perfectly, so their cooperation can be called successful and fruitful. Before Mevisbank, Adam built the Flores and Hoptoun estates, the scale and majestic appearance of which clearly testified to the high social status of their owners. But in the case of Mavisbank, everything was different: the most influential Scottish aristocrat and a large landowner, Sir John, suddenly chose a house for his permanent residence, the size of which did not correspond to the social status of its owner.

In 1723, Adam sent Sir John a draft of the Mevisbank, describing the house "as a very small and elegant box" ^{[8, p. 90]}. Perhaps, as Gifford notes, it is in relation to this project that Sir John rejects Adam's proposal to add a third floor: "If I agree, the whole structure will resemble a tower, which will spoil the project. However, architecture should either please or disappoint, and this mainly concerns only me" ^{[12, p. 115]}. The result of joint work on the project was a very compact five-axis building with two floors growing out of the basement. High, upward-reaching windows made this house unusually light and elegant, as if floating in the air, endowing the building with verticalism; and only rusticated pilasters flanking the corners of the building and the three-axis central part stopped this upward climb, reminding of the force of gravity. The central three-axis part of the building ended with a pediment that overlapped the balustrade framing the domed roof.

In 1724, Sir John decided to add pavilions to the already erected central part of the house, flanking the building from the north and south sides. Perhaps the construction of the pavilions was due to fear for the safety of the Mevisbank in the event of a fire: Sir John believed that if the central part of the house was destroyed as a result of the fire, his household would be able to find shelter in the surviving parts. Adam insisted on the octagonal shape of the pavilions and the location of the pavilions at some distance from the house; the latter was dictated by the fear of smoke from the pavilions at home ^{[12, p. 94]}. Despite Adam's recommendation regarding the octagonal shape, each of the pavilions was built in the form of a vertical rectangle covered with a gable roof with a serliana window on the main facade. Being at a reasonable distance from the house, the pavilions were connected to it by high curved quadrants, the walls of which were pierced by open arched openings: such an architectural solution not only endowed the facade with baroque lines, but also evoked associations with the cryptortic of the villa of Pliny the Younger in Laurentium, which served both as protection from cold winds and as a refuge from heat, and the air in it never stagnated due to open windows ^{[13, pp. 36-39]}.

 One can only guess what Sir John and Adam were starting from when they developed the concept of Mavisbank. It is known that during the work on the project Adam asked Sir John to provide him with a "Treatise on Architecture" by Palladio, as well as the works of Inigo Jones. John Gifford believes that the Mevisbank project refers to "A new Design of my own invention in the style of Inigo Jones" by Colin Campbell, published in the first volume of the British Vitruvius ^{[8, p. 92]}. Since, like the central part of Colin Campbell's house, the Mavis Bank has five axes and a platform-shaped roof with convex corners, such a roof design refers to the Palladio Basilica in Vicenza ^{[9, p. 64]}. Therefore, Sir John and Adam could be guided by the works of Palladio directly and the interpretation of Palladio through the works of Inigo Jones and Colin Campbell during the construction of the Mevisbank. The architectural design of the Mevisbank pavilions – a reminiscence of the side compartments of Villa Barbaro – could also have had its source in the Palladian pavilions of the Rainham estate in Norfolk, built a century earlier, with the owner of which Sir John was familiar ^{[9, p. 64]}.

The facade of the Mevisbank was richly decorated with stucco: above the portal of the house there was a cartouche with the family coat of arms of the owner, and above the windows of the first floor there were festoons; the windows of the second floor were crowned with decorated triangular and arched pediments; the bull's eye window framed by a relief in the form of foliage was located in the middle of the tympanum of the pediment, completing the central part of the building. This richness of scenery brought baroque notes to the Palladian architecture of Mavisbank, alien to the English Palladianism of Campbell and Kent. Sir John explained the desire for excessive embellishment in this way: "Since my house was supposed to be small, I decided to make the facade as beautiful as possible to imagine" ^{[9, p. 63]}.

In the poem "The Estate", Sir John gives recommendations regarding the correct location of a country estate. He writes that one should not choose a location based on the rules developed by Palladio, which are more suitable for countries with a warm climate than for Scotland. According to Sir John, a house in a cold climate should not be located on the top of a hill due to northern gusts of wind, but on the southern side of the slope, protected by tall trees from northern winds, and not in the lowlands due to the threat of dampness ^{[14, p. 41]}. In this respect, Mavisbank was very well located: the estate was not only located on the south-facing slope of the valley, but was also protected by trees and higher soil levels on the north and north-west sides.

The mounds of soil located at the back of the house, Sir John, who was fond of archaeology, considered the remains of an ancient Roman settlement. Therefore, the location of Mevisbank was of special historical value for Sir John, as it symbolized the connection with that ancient civilization, the architectural monuments of which he admired so much. Not only the location, but also the concept of the Mevisbank spoke of historical continuity, about the connection with the architecture of Ancient Rome: for Sir John, the Mevisbank was the same as the villa in Laurentinum for Pliny the Younger – the villa Urbana, where you could relax from the hustle and bustle of the city, where there was nothing accidental, and everything was thought out with great love for the estate, which embodied the rich spiritual world of its owner. "The villa is 17 miles away from Rome, so after finishing all the necessary things, having completely preserved the daily routine, you can live there... Do you think I have enough reasons to strive here, to live in this place, to love it? You're a slave to the city if you don't want to come. If I wanted to! Your stay will most recommend my little villa and its virtues. Be healthy" ^{[13, pp. 36-39]}.

In the 20s of the XVIII century, when the Scottish Enlightenment was just beginning, Sir John and Adam managed to create their own interpretation of the Palladian villa as an "elegant and compact building in terms of" ^{[15, p. 104]}, different from those architectural patterns that would later arise within the framework of English Palladianism. Therefore, Mevisbank is considered a landmark monument, its architecture, characterized by originality and individualism, suggests that the image of Scotland is beginning to change – from the periphery of the European world to a place that gave birth to a large number of representatives of the intellectual elite, to which both the owner of Mevisbank and its architect belonged.

Subsequently, focusing on Mavisbank, Adam will build several compact estates, such as Craigdarroch in Dumfriesshia, Sommersville House (Drum), as well as Dun House in Angus. And Sir John, who has a reputation as an expert in architecture, will advise friends and create projects for them, thereby popularizing his own vision of a country estate ^{[7, p. 119]}.