Joseph Gandy

Joseph Michael Gandy (1771 – 1843) was an English artist, visionary architect and architectural theorist, most noted for his imaginative paintings depicting Sir John Soane's architectural designs. He worked extensively with Soane both as draughtsman and creative partner from 1798 until 1809 when he (ultimately unsuccessfully) set up his own practice.

He built little in his career, having the reputation as a difficult individual to deal with. However his work included the Phoenix Fire and Pelican Life Insurance Offices (1804–5; destr. c. 1920), London, and Doric House, Sion Hill, Bath (1818). Despite his commercial failure (he was to spend two terms in debtor's gaol) his published and exhibited work was largely a critical and popular success. In 1821 he published two articles in the Magazine of Fine Arts on "The Philosophy of Architecture". The subjects treated briefly there were to be expanded upon in an eight-volume work entitled "Art, Philosophy and Science of Architecture". His unpublished manuscript survives.

His paintings show a dramatic use of two-point perspective and architectural precision, and also reflect his (and Soane's) fascination with Roman ruins. His architectural fantasies owe a clear debt to Piranesi and play upon historical, literary and mythological themes with a feeling for the sublime that is the equal of his contemporaries Turner and John Martin.

He died in a private asylum in Devon where he had been placed by his family in 1839. Many of his paintings can be seen in the Pictures Room of the Soane Museum.

External links

* [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1744175,00.html Let there be light]
* [http://www.soane.org/archive.html#gandy The Tragic Genius of Joseph Michael Gandy]

Bibliography

*Joseph Gandy in the shadow of the Enlightenment: The annual Soane Lecture, Brian Lukacher, 2002
*Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England, Brian Lukacher, 2006.