It did not begin well for the gentry’s future arbiter of taste. Born in London, James Stuart lost his father (a Scottish sailor) when he was just a boy, and his family were left in poverty. He was saved by precocious artistic talent, finding work painting fans. Eventually, Stuart had enough money to travel to Italy to develop his classical learning and artistry – although only enough money to make the tough journey on foot.
In Rome, Stuart learned Latin, Greek, and Italian, and acquired sufficient expertise to work as a learned guide to Grand Tourists. This led to a chance meeting with Nicholas Revett, which proved the turning point in Stuart’s life. Together, they would visit first Naples and then, in the 1750s, Greece. Italy was well trodden by the Grand Tourists, but few dared to explore Greece. Stuart and Revett themselves only narrowly escaped murderous bandits – but, wherever they went, they made diligent drawings of the ancient architecture they found. This work secured both Stuart’s career and his soubriquet ‘Athenian’: with his first-hand knowledge of ancient Greek architecture, Stuart was commissioned soon after his return to England to design a Greek-style temple for Hagley Hall in Worcestershire.
Re-established in Britain, Stuart and Revett published the book that made their fame. The first volume of The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece (1762) had an impressive 500 subscribers, but its influence was most strongly felt only in the early 19th century, when Greek Revival became the dominant style of British architecture. The detailed illustrations established a new fashion for ornamentation based on classical models, serving as a pattern book for a new generation of designers. Even prior to publication, Antiquities of Athens was sufficiently well known for Hogarth to lampoon it.
