Decorative
Sunday
We return to our exploration of the
works of Batty Langley with his book Practical
Geometry Applied to the Useful Arts of Building, Surveying, Gardening and
Mensuration, Second Edition, printed in London for Aaron Ward at
the King’s Arm in Little-Britain, 1729. Previously we highlighted
Langley’s The City and Country Builder published
in 1745.
Batty Langley (1696-1751) was a prolific
British writer and garden designer. We hold four of his books in our
collections. Practical Geometry contains four parts related to the foundations
of art, the orders of architecture, the doctrine and rules of mensuration
(measuring), and exact tables of measuring. The title page notes that the whole
book is “exemplify’d with a large number of folio copper plates, curiously
engraven by the best hands.” The preface describes Langley’s goals for making his
subjects accessible:
“My design therefore is to treat of architecture, gardening,
mensuration and land-surveying, in a method as easy and intelligible as it is
new and generally useful. I shall begin with the fundamental of first
principles of these several arts, and gradually conduct my reader from the
easier parts of ‘em up the hardest, taking particular care all along to let him
see the utile as well as the dulce thereof; the fruitful
practice, and not the barren theory only.”
It is interesting that although Langley wrote about the
technical and precise aspects to architecture and design, he had a very lovely way
of designing gardens in irregular, winding mazes and shapes. My favorite
drawings in the book are of the “Green Man” sculptures.
View more posts about
Batty Langley.
View more posts about
decorative arts and pattern books.
– Sarah, Special
Collections Graduate Intern