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(fl 1715; d Munich, 1738).

French landscape designer and engineer, active in Germany. He trained under André Le Nôtre at Versailles, from where he was seconded by Louis XIV to serve Maximilian II Emanuel, the exiled Elector of Bavaria, who was then building the château of Saint-Cloud. On being restored to power, Maximilian II Emanuel took Girard back with him to Munich to oversee the landscaping of his estates; Girard was appointed Fountain Engineer and Inspector of Works in 1715. His principal work for the Elector was at Schloss Nymphenburg, where he and Charles Carbonet (fl 1700–15; also a pupil of Le Nôtre) replanned and enlarged the park, laying down a series of formal gardens, pavilions and spectacular fountains about the central axis of the Würm canal. Girard and Carbonet also worked for Maximilian II Emanuel at Schleissheim, Schloss. The Neues Schloss (1701–27) and gardens were designed together to enhance each other. The project was intended to supersede Schloss Nymphenburg as a symbol of princely ambition, but it was never completed. In ...

(b Venice, May 14, 1783; d Venice, May 8, 1852).

Italian architect, engineer and landscape designer. He was a prominent Neo-classical architect but was also a noted eclectic, much admired, for example, by Pietro Selvatico, and he introduced the taste for the romantic garden to Italy. He attended courses in architecture and figure drawing at the Accademia Clementina, Bologna (1789–9). This school, which was in the forefront of theatre design and technique, provided a stimulating and enlightened cultural environment; his teachers included Angelo Venturoli (1749–1821) and Francesco Tadolini (1723–1805). After obtaining his diploma in 1800, he moved to Padua, and in 1803 he entered the studio of Giovanni Valle, a mapmaker, where he became a qualified surveyor. He collaborated with the engineer Paolo Artico between 1804 and 1806 on defence works on the River Piave, and in 1807, with the architect Daniele Danieletti (1756–1822), he restored the old prison in Carrara Castle. The same year he was also appointed as an engineer in the Regio Corpo di Acque e Strade in the Brenta region. His works of this period included decorating the town hall (...

(b Woodstown, NJ, Nov 6, 1876; d New York, May 1, 1953).

American painter, illustrator, designer, playwright, and film director. He studied industrial design at the Spring Garden School in Philadelphia from 1888 to 1890. In 1893 he became an illustrator at the Philadelphia Press. Simultaneously he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where he met Robert Henri, John Sloan, William J. Glackens, and George Luks. Their style of urban realism prompted him to depict the bleak aspects of city life. In 1897 Shinn moved to New York and produced illustrations for several newspapers and magazines, for example Mark Twain (March 1900; see Perlman, p. 80), a frontispiece for The Critic. He also drew sketches for a novel by William Dean Howells on New York; although the novel was not published, Shinn’s drawings brought him national recognition.

Shinn’s work changed radically when, on a trip to Paris in 1901, he was inspired by the theatre scenes of Manet, Degas, and Jean-Louis Forain. He began to paint performers in action, from unusual vantage points, as in ...

(b Durham, bapt Feb 20, 1718; d London, May 17, 1765).

English architect, engraver and furniture designer. The son of a gardener, he was appointed Clerk of the Works at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, in 1736 and was clerk at a succession of royal buildings, notably at the London palaces of Whitehall, Westminster and St James’s (1746–54). In this capacity he became closely associated with William Kent, whose Horse Guards scheme he was responsible for executing and possibly modifying (1750–59). He engraved and published a number of Kent’s designs (notably in Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent, 1744). Not surprisingly, Kent’s influence is strongly felt in Vardy’s own work, such as the ‘New Stone Building’ adjoining Westminster Hall (begun 1755; destr. 1883) and the unexecuted scheme (1754) for a building for the new British Museum in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.

Vardy’s private commissions included the remodelling (1761–3) of Hackwood Park (destr. in later alterations, ...