Making a Compleat Gentleman

West Wycombe Manor was set in a beautiful Park and the perfect setting for a man of means who also enjoyed the good life. Its colonaded west front is highly unusual, for a climate like England recalling perhaps many happy times spent lazing in the loggia of an Italian Palazzo. While smaller than most of his friends country houses today it is a perfect film set for eighteenth century period films because it encapsulates and reflects in architecture the society of a time when young men of privilege went in passionate pursuit of civilised life. Is it the perfect Temple to Taste of a Compleat Gentleman?

The Quest for Nature – William Kent

…’reflecting on ‘nature has done little or nothing; man a great deal, and time has improved his labours’ John Claudius Loudon
Author Carolyn McDowall
Alexander Pope was just one influential English poet contributing to the debate and climate of opinion that had an effect on societies mores and concerns, as well as the art of garden design [...]

Creating a Wonderful Room – English Style

author Carolyn McDowall
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works…Steve Jobs
The English style of interior has remained popular for over a century because it looks good, makes people feel comfortable, is wonderful to live with, nurtures your family and friends and is great for entertaining from four [...]

Creating the English style

interior that looked like it had evolved naturally over time…what constituted an ‘old money’ look.

Colour Considerations

People can have the Model T in any colour – so long as it’s black…Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Author Carolyn McDowall
All cultures on earth have particular perceptions of and about colour, which in its evolution has come to symbolize many things collectively and individually. It also has many variants so we could say it is neither [...]

Women of Influence – Empress Josephine, a rose for all time

And I will make thee beds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies…Christopher Marlowe
Author Carolyn McDowall
The very arresting beauty, and quite remarkable Marie Joséphine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie de Beauharnais (1763-1814) was imprisoned in the Bastille with her husband General Vicomte de Beauharnais during the French Revolution.
He and the men [...]

When Brisbane was governed from Sydney

Brisbane,  the city big enough to get lost in and small enough to feel at home …Carolyn McDowall

When Brisbane was governed from Sydney
Author Phillip Black
Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet, GCH, GCB, FRS, FRSE (1773-1860) was not content to rest on his fame as an astronomer and soldier.
With the assistance of his [...]

Women of Influence – Marquise de Pompadour, pleasure is a serious business

The pleasure of love is in loving.  Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)
Author Carolyn McDowall
French painter François Boucher (1703-1770) produced many of the images that we have of the enigmatic Jeanne Antoinette, Marquise de Pompadour, Maîtresse-en-titre, or the official Mistress of Louis XV of France.
The daughter of a local beauty, Louise-Madeleine de la Motte and [...]

Favourite Books…Andrea Palladio, The Architect in his Time

Professor Bruce Boucher’s scholarly and accessible work, Andrea Palladio, The Architect in his Time was first published in 1994  in a ‘user friendly version’…to fit comfortably into a suitcase or backpack for a quick trip to Vicenza, the scene of many of Palladio’s triumphant works in architecture.
Palladio, Boucher confidently tells us, ‘is arguably the most [...]

The Flight of the Egret

There are some in our society who are blessed with great creative gifts. Imagination is surely one, however it is one thing to have the ability to form images and ideas in the mind, especially of things never seen or never experienced directly, but quite another to connect those to the totality of real things in the world in order to convey knowledge or influence our perception of them.