Reaction from the rococo style doubtless marched with the same gradual and certain steps in England as in France. The Louis XVI. style crossed the channel and brought with it all its bitter contempt for “rock and shell,” its passion for the straight line, and its love for mortuary urns and arabesque ornamentation. In English decorative art, this style is known as “Adam.”

Although Robert and James Adam had great influence in creating and strengthening the “taste for the antique,” they were not the only ones who made war upon the rococo, Gothic and Chinese. One of these was George Richardson, who, like Adam, travelled in Italy. He published A Book of Ceilings composed in the style of the Antique Grotesque, in 1776; A New Collection of Chimney-Pieces in the style of the Etruscan, Greek and Roman Architecture, in 1781; and A Series of Original Designs for Country Seats or Villas, containing Plans, Elevations, Sections of Principal Apartments, Ceilings, Chimney Pieces, Capitals of Columns, Ornaments for Friezes, and Other Interior Decorations in the Antique Style, in 1795.

Placido Columbani published A New Book of Ornaments, in 1775; and A Variety of Capitals, Friezes, Cornices and Chimney-pieces, in 1776. These are designs for the interior decoration of rooms, chiefly of panels to be made in wood, or stucco, or painting.

John Crunden was another. He issued Designs for Ceilings, in 1765; Convenient and Ornamental Architecture, in 1768; The Joiner and Cabinet-Maker’s Darling, in 1770; and, with Thomas Milton and Placido Columbani, The Chimney-Piece Maker’s Daily Assistant, or a Treasury of New Designs for Chimney-Pieces.

N. Wallis published, in 1771, A Book of Ornaments in the Palmyrene Taste, which was followed by The Carpenter’s Treasure and The Complete Modern Joiner, which contain designs for ceilings, panels, pateras, mouldings, chimney-pieces, door-cases, friezes, tablets for the centre ornaments, chimney-pieces, and door-cases and ornaments for pilasters, bases and sub-bases. The greater number were of allegorical subjects. Wallis was fond of the “Raffle” leaf (indented foliage, such as the acanthus). J. Carter was another designer in the Adam taste. His ceilings greatly resembled Richardson’s. The latter describes one of his own chimney-pieces as follows: “The plain ground round the pilasters and architrave may be of jasper, or antique green; and the ornaments of the frieze and pilasters might be done of scagliola,^[21] and should be executed in wood; the ornaments will produce a fine effect if painted in the Etruscan manner—in various colours.” A Triumph of Venus is a tablet of another chimney-piece, “suitable for an elegant gallery or Drawing-room. She is sitting in a shell drawn by Dolphins guided by Cupid, in the air and accompanied by a Triton blowing his shell trumpet, and holding Neptune’s trident. The plain ground round the pilasters with termes may be of variegated colours, but all the rest should be of plain white marble.” Of the ceiling for a dressing-room he says: “The oval picture represents Diana bathing attended by her Nymphs. The small circles contain figures representing hunting-pieces and sacrifices, which may be painted in chiaro-oscuro, or executed in stucco in the manner of antique bas-reliefs.” A chimney-piece, suitable for a Parlour or Dining-room, is thus described: “The ornaments of the frieze may be of white marble, laid on dark grounds. If the cornice, with the frieze and back pilasters, be carved in wood, the moldings of the architraves in marble, might be quite plain.”

It will therefore be seen that the “Adam style” was a fashion. Taste was running its natural course and the reaction to the antique, from the curve in favour of the straight line, had set in.

The social position of the Adam brothers helped them greatly in towering above the other English designers and decorative artists of the day. Their father, William Adam, was an architect of reputation in Scotland; and sent his second son, Robert, to the University of Edinburgh, where he formed important friendships. In 1754, he went to Italy with a French architect and made a careful study of the ruins of the Emperor Diocletian’s palace at Spalatro in Dalmatia. He was made F.R.S. and F.S.A. while abroad; and, on his return to England, in 1762, become royal architect. His brother James was closely identified with him in all his work. The nobility and gentry not only patronized them, but received them socially; and when Robert died in 1792, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the state of his funeral and the high rank of the persons who attended and officiated, prove the regard in which he was held. Adam, therefore, is of a very different class from Chippendale, Heppelwhite and Sheraton; and, although he designed much furniture to accord with the rooms that he altered and decorated, he never made any. The Adam brothers were purely designers: they employed special artists to work for them. These were Angelica Kauffman, and her husband, Antonio Zucchi, and Cipriani; also Pergolesi, whom they brought from Italy, and who Mr. Heaton says “beyond doubt was the unacknowledged author of most of the beautiful details of Adam’s book.”

Among their most important works that include interior decoration were: Sion House, the Duke of Northumberland’s seat in Middlesex; Kenwood, Lord Mansfield’s house near Hampstead; Osterley House, near Brentford; Shelburne (now Lansdowne) House, Berkeley Square, London; Keddlestone, Derbyshire; Luton House, Bedfordshire; and Compton Verney, Warwickshire.

“Whatever were the architectural defects of their works, the brothers formed a style, which was marked by a fine sense of proportion, and a very elegant taste in the selection and disposition of niches, lunettes, reliefs, festoons, and other classical ornaments. It was their custom to design furniture in character with their apartments, and their works of this kind are still highly prized. Amongst them may be specially mentioned their sideboards with elegant urn-shaped knife-boxes, but they also designed bookcases and commodes, brackets and pedestals, clock-cases and candelabra, mirror-frames and console tables of singular and original merit, adapting classical forms to modern uses with a success unrivalled by any other designer of furniture in England. They designed also carriages and plate, and a sedan-chair for Queen Charlotte. Of their decorative work generally it may be said that it was rich but neat, refined but not effeminate, chaste but not severe, and that it will probably have quite as lasting and beneficial effect upon English taste as their architectural structures.”^[22]

Like Chippendale, they claimed more originality than they were entitled to when they wrote in their preface:

“We have not trod in the path of others, nor derived aid from their labours. In the books which we have had the honour to execute we have not only met with the approbation of our employers, but even with the imitation of other artists, to such a degree, as in some measure to have brought about in this country, a kind of revolution in the whole system of this useful and elegant art. These circumstances induced us to hope that to collect and engrave our works would afford both entertainment and instruction.”

They paid much attention to colour, and remark:

“We have thought it proper to colour with the tints used in the execution, a few copies of each number, not only that posterity might be enabled to judge with more accuracy concerning the taste of the present age, and that foreign connoisseurs might have it in their power to indulge their curiosity with respect to our national style of ornament; but that the public in general might have an opportunity of cultivating the beautiful art of decoration hitherto so little understood in most of the countries of Europe.”

The Adams tell us they intended to prefix to their book a dissertation regarding the rise and progress of architecture in Great Britain, “to have pointed out the various stages of its improvements from the time that our ancestors relinquishing the Gothic style, began to aim at an imitation of the Grecian manner, until it attained that degree of perfection at which it has now arrived.”

Thus the Gothic had no more admiration from the Adams than it had when Evelyn denounced it.

It is interesting to let them exhibit their own taste and rating of British architects.

“Michael Angelo, Raphael, and other Italian architects of the Renaissance boldly aimed at restoring the antique. But in their time the rage for painting became so prevalent, that instead of following these great examples, they covered every ceiling with large fresco compositions, which, though extremely fine and well painted, were very much misplaced, and must necessarily, from the attitude in which they are beheld, tire the patience of every spectator. Great compositions should be placed so as to be viewed with ease. Grotesque ornaments and figures in any situation are perceived with the glance of an eye, and require little examination. Inigo Jones introduced them into England with as much weight, but with little fancy and embellishment. Vanburgh, Campbell, and Gibbs, followed too implicitly the authority of this great name. Kent’s genius for the picturesque, and the vast reputation he deservedly acquired, made him in some measure withstand this prevalent abuse; he has much merit in being the first who began to lighten the compartments and to introduce grotesque paintings with his ornament in stucco; his works, however, are evidently those of a beginner. Mr. Stuart, with his usual elegance and taste, has contributed greatly towards introducing the true style of the antique decoration; and it seems to have been reserved for the present times to see compartment ceilings, and those of every kind, carried to a degree of perfection in Great Britain that far surpasses any of the former attempts of other modern nations.

“Inigo Jones, who had long studied in Italy, rescued this art (architecture) in a considerable degree from the Gothicism of former times, and began to introduce into his country a love of that elegance and refinement which characterize the productions of Greece and Rome.

“Instructed and encouraged by his example, Sir Christopher Wren became more chaste; and having the felicity to be employed in executing the most magnificent work of English architecture, he was enabled to display greater extent of genius.

“Vanburgh understood better than either the art of living among the great. A commodious arrangement of apartments was therefore his peculiar merit. But his lively imagination scorned the restraint of any rule in composition; and his passion for what was fancifully magnificent, prevented him from discerning what was truly simple, elegant, and sublime.

“Campbell, Gibbs, and Kent have each their peculiar share of merit.”

From their own testimony we can, therefore, not agree with them, when they write elsewhere:

“Inferior to our ancestors in science, we surpass them in taste.” However, they insist that at the time they write, “greater variety of form, greater beauty in design, greater gaiety, and elegance of ornament are introduced into interior decoration.”

They were greatly in demand, as we have seen, and not only altered the interiors and exteriors of many English mansions, but designed the decorations. Chimney-pieces, ceilings, walls, niches, the handles of doors, locks, key-plates, cornices, draperies, furniture, gold and silver ware, and even damask for the table. Nothing seemed too great, nor too slight for their hands. The attitude they had towards their work may be appreciated by the following words:

“If we have any claim to approbation, we found it on this alone. That we flatter ourselves we have been able to seize, with some degree of success, the beautiful spirit of antiquity, and to transfuse it, with novelty and variety, through all our numerous works.”

The pictures on Plates L., LI., and LII. are taken from the book by the Adams. No. 1, on Plate L., is the curtain cornice of the Earl of Derby’s Etruscan Room; No. 2 on the same plate is another cornice with drapery, which, with the mirror below it, were made for Sion House. No. 4 is the leg of a table and No. 5 is the upper part of the frame of a pier-glass. The lower drawing is a sideboard table, under which, in the original drawing, a wine-cooler stands. No. 3 is a table, also from Sion House.

The sofa appearing on Plate LI. is of mahogany, the woodwork fluted and mounted with brass reliefs. The legs are characteristic of Adam. The cover is woolen work on canvas.

The table on the same plate is inlaid and has a border of inlaid brass and wood around the top. The two drawers under the top have borders of brass and are decorated with brass lions. In the centre of each crosspiece there is a decoration of leaves surrounding a rosette. The legs are gilded at intervals, and are ornamented with gilt lion’s heads and end in claw feet. This dates from about 1780.

The screen on the same plate is supported on a stand of wood fluted and gilded, out of which rises a brass rod. The oval frame encloses a piece of silk embroidery said to have been made by Queen Caroline. The little picture in the centre is painted. No. 1 is a curtain cornice, of which Adam says: “These curtains were intended as an attempt to banish absurd French compositions.” No. 2 is a ewer, that also appears in the Adam book. Plate XLIX. is a library after the Adam style. The full drawing on Plate LII. is a commode from the Countess of Derby’s dressing-room; it is richly decorated. No. 2 is a detail. No. 3 on the same plate from it is a girandole, made for a niche in the Earl of Derby’s Etruscan Room. The full drawing is “a design of a vase for candles to be fixed to the wainscoting of a room”; the central vase is a perfume-burner. No. 1 is a tripod of gilded wood, intended to support a base with candles.

Among the ornaments used by the Adam brothers were mythological subjects, lozenge-shaped panels, octagons, ovals, hexagons, circles, wreaths, fans, husks, medallions, draped medallions, medallions with figures, the sphinx, the faun, goats, drapery, ribbons, eagle-headed grotesques, griffins, sea-horses, the ram’s head, the patera, the rosette, caryatides and other Classic motives.

The ornaments of the ceilings and walls were stucco picked out with different tints, frequently pink and green. In handsome rooms, the chimney-piece was of statuary marble, the overmantel carved in wood and gilt, or painted. The drawing-room ceiling was coved and the compartments painted. Pilasters were often used to divide the rooms and the ornaments of these, like the arches and panels of the doors, were painted. The frieze was stucco. Ornaments in the niches were frequently gilt, as well as the girandoles and stucco ornaments of the ceilings. The Adams also recommended ornaments printed on papier machÉ and “so highly japanned as to appear like glass.” Damask and tapestry were used for hanging the drawing-room, but not the dining-room.

They assert that within the past few years there has been “a remarkable improvement in the form, convenience, arrangement and relief of apartments; a greater movement and variety, in the outside composition and in the decoration of the inside, an almost total change. The massive entablature, the ponderous compartment ceiling, the tabernacle frame almost the only species of ornament, formerly known in this country, are now universally exploded, and in their place we have adopted a beautiful variety of light mouldings, gracefully formed, delicately enriched and arranged with propriety and skill. We have introduced a great diversity of ceilings, frieze and decorated pilasters, and have added grace and beauty to the whole, by a mixture of grotesque^[23] stucco and painted ornaments, together with the flowing rinceau,^[24] with its fanciful figures and winding foliage.

“A proper arrangement and relief of apartments are branches of architecture in which the French have excelled all other nations; these have united magnificence with utility in the hÔtels of their nobility, and have rendered them objects of universal imitation.

“To understand thoroughly the art of living, it is necessary, perhaps, to have passed some time among the French, and to have studied the customs of that social and conversible people. In one particular, however, our manners prevent us from imitating them. Their eating-rooms seldom or never constitute a piece in their great apartments, but lie out of the suite, and in fitting them up, little attention is paid to beauty or decoration. The reason of this is obvious; the French meet there only at meals, when they trust to the display of the table for show and magnificence, not to the decoration of the apartment; and as soon as the entertainment is over, they immediately retire to the rooms of company. Not so with us. Accustomed by habit, or induced by the nature of our climate, we indulge more largely in the enjoyment of the bottle. Every person of rank here is either a member of the legislature, or entitled by his condition to take part in the political arrangements of his country, and to enter with ardour into those discussions to which they give rise; these circumstances lead men to live more with one another, and more detached from the society of the ladies. The eating-rooms are considered as the apartments of conversation, in which we are to pass a great part of our time. This renders it desirable to have them fitted up with elegance and splendour, but in a style different from that of other apartments. Instead of being hung with damask, tapestry, etc., they are always finished with stucco, and adorned with statues and paintings, that they may not retain the smell of the victuals.”

The Adam brothers now describe what seems to them a correct arrangement of a suite of apartments. These they themselves planned and decorated for the Duke of Northumberland’s estate, Sion House, near London. “The hall, both in our homes and in those of France, is a spacious apartment, intended as the room of access where servants attend. It is here, a room of great dimensions, is finished with stucco, as halls always are, and formed with a recess at each end, one square and the other circular, which have a noble effect and increase the variety.

“The ante-rooms on each side are for the attendance of the servants out of livery, and also for that of the tradesmen, etc. These are relieved by the back stairs in the towers. That on the side of the great apartment is square, and is decorated with columns of verd antique marble, which serve to form the room and heighten the scenery. The ante-room, on the side of the private apartment, is formed into an oval, a figure seldom or never used by the ancients, but has been sometimes introduced by the moderns with success, and was here in some respect necessary from the oblong shape of the room.

“Next to the ante-rooms are the public and private eating-rooms; the public one is a room of great extent, finished with stucco and adorned with niches and statues of marble; it is formed into a great circular recess at each end and decorated with screens of columns. The private one has also its recesses and stucco-finishing, and is relieved by a back-stair for the use of the servants.

“Next to the great eating-room lies a splendid withdrawing room, for the ladies, or salle de compagnie, as it is called by the French; this is varied from the other rooms by the form of its ceiling, which is coved and painted in compartments. It gives access into a gallery of great length, though rather too narrow and too low to be in the just proportion we could have wished. It is, however, finished in a style to afford great variety and amusement, and is, for this reason, an admirable room for the reception of company before dinner, or for the ladies to retire to after it: For the withdrawing-room lying between this and the eating-room, prevents the noise of the men from being troublesome; and for this reason we would always recommend the intervention of a room in great apartments to prevent such inconvenience.

“The little closets or cabinets, the circular one for china, and the other square one for miniatures, at each end of the gallery, serve only for an additional ornament. The gallery itself, as well as the private apartments, is relieved by the circular back stairs, and gives access to the ranges of apartments on both sides.

“The great circular saloon is a noble room entering from the hall, and leading into the gallery and great stairs, relieves all the other apartments: this serves also for a room of general rendez-vous, and for public entertainments, with illuminations, dancing and music. The form is new and singular; it is a circle within a circle, the smaller opening into the larger, by eight piercings adorned with columns and terminated with niches and statues, so that the scenery, like the decorations of a theatre, apparently increases the extent, and leaves room for the imagination to play.

“The private apartments are now the only part of the plan remaining undescribed; on one hand is the Duchess’s bed-chamber, an ante-chamber for the attendance of her maid; her toilet or dressing-room, her powdering-room, water-closet and outer ante-room, with a back stair leading to the intersols for the maids’ bedrooms and wardrobes, etc. On the other hand is a dressing-room for the Duke, a powdering-room, writing-room, with closet and stairs to intersols for His Grace’s valet-de-chambre, and wardrobe, etc.”

The Adams also made changes at Kenwood in 1774, introducing their plans and decorations into an addition. “The great room with its ante-room was begun by Lord Mansfield’s orders in 1767, and was intended both for a library and a room for receiving company. The circular recesses were therefore fitted up for the former purpose, and the square part or body of the room was made suitable to the latter. The whole is reckoned elegant in its proportions and decorations, and the ceiling in particular, which is a segment of a circle, has been greatly admired.”

This ceiling is in “imitation of a flat arch, which is extremely beautiful and much more perfect than that which is commonly called the coved ceiling,” and Adam thus continues to describe it: “The stucco-work of this ceiling and of the other decorations is finely executed by Mr. Joseph Rose. The paintings are elegantly performed by Mr. Antonio Zucchi, a Venetian painter of great eminence; and the grounds of the panels and friezes are coloured with light tints of pink and green, so as to take off the glare of white, so common in every ceiling till of late. This always appeared to me so cold and unfinished, that I ventured to introduce this variety of grounds, at once to relieve the ornaments, remove the crudeness of the white, and create a harmony between the ceiling and the side walls with their hangings, pictures and other decorations.”

The Adams were very fond of this combination of colour. Osterley Park, the seat of the Earl of Jersey and one of the finest specimens of the Adam style extant, had its dining-room similarly painted by Zucchi. It is thus described:

“The dining-room at Osterley Park, owned by the Earl of Jersey, was decorated by Zucchi in the Adam style. The walls of this apartment are in tints of the tenderest green and the very palest pinks, these colours being panelled by delicate scroll-work and artistic designs in the white composition which was known only to the Adam brothers. Three large pictures and several smaller ones, all being scenes and landscapes by Zucchi, are framed in this white scroll-work, while the same curving lines, with grapes and vine leaves, outline the pink and green panels of the ceilings, the design of which corresponds with the design of the neutral-tinted carpet. The tiny scroll patterns of the window mouldings are repeated in the ornamentation of the mahogany doors with their artistic brass locks and are again found in the designs of the buffets and side tables, where the ram’s head is introduced, which occurs more than once in both furniture and ornaments. Even the tablecloths were made to correspond in their woven pattern, and some are still in use bearing the date 1779. This careful and minute arrangement of detail is found only in an Adam House.”^[25]

W. Thomas was another designer in the Adam style; but of far greater importance was Michael Angelo Pergolesi, who was employed by the Adam brothers, and whose designs are equal to theirs. Pergolesi also employed Zucchi, Cipriani and Angelica Kauffman. His books of designs came out in parts from 1777 onward. One of Pergolesi’s rooms “has a low dado rail, plain plaster walls, panelled round with a moulding, a fine mantel-piece and a narrow ornamental compo frieze and plain ceiling.” Angelica Kauffman painted ceilings, table-tops, and furniture-panels, which, like Cipriani’s productions, represent cherubs, maidens, gods and goddesses, and amorini.