Architecture, landscape, and liberty

Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824) was a distinguished connoisseur and critic who played a very significant role in the cultural life of his day. His outlook on life, inspired by Enlightenment ideas and liberal politics, seemed reasonable to some and scandalous to others, and he was involved in some fierce controversies. In the 1790s he denounced the practice of 'Capability' Brown, who remains Britain's most admired landscape designer. Before that he had written a tract on phallic worship in the Catholic church, and later, despite being the most passionate admirer of all things Greek, he failed to recognise the merits of the Parthenon sculptures when they were brought to England, from which oversight his reputation has never recovered. Nevertheless Knight has serious claims on our attention, not only as someone who was in many ways characteristic of his age, but also because he built himself a remarkable house and established not only a garden but a way of appreciating landscape. This study traces for the first time the way in which Knight's thought worked across the whole range of his interests, piecing together a coherent philosophical position, based on the sensibly regulated pursuit of pleasure, which, as the nineteenth century advanced, was increasingly out of step with the tenor of the times. The study shows how Knight's ideas mesh together with each other and how, when seen against the background of the culture of the day, landscape and architecture can take on potent and even inflammatory meaning.