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Large-format volume, measuring approximately 9.75" x 12.5", is bound in pale green paper spine and boards, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Edges of text block display scattered light foxing. Book is otherwise in fine condition, with solid binding, clean and bright pages. Dust jacket, with price of $30 on front flap, shows light wear at edges. Jacket is preserved in mylar. 184 pages. ""The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam" provoked a fierce reaction from the moment of the publication of its earlier sections in 1773. Personalities as divergent as George III and Horace Walpole found its assertively self-confident tone intolerable, but however hostile this initial reception may have been, the importance of the first volume, issued in complete form in 1778, soon became apparent to all unbiased observers. A second volume appeared in 1779, followed by a third, posthumous one in 1822. "The Works" set out clearly Robert and James Adam's aesthetic credo and stake their claim to having affected a revolution in the decorative arts of the late eighteenth century. First published after the completion of several staggeringly influential projects for English country houses, these volumes were at once a stunning summation of the Adam mode and a brilliant advertising ploy, designed to affirm the originality of the brothers's (sic) innovations against the initiative schemes of Wyatt and Chippendale. Following the tradition of the great Renaissance and Baroque architects, the Adam brothers codified their style and made their rich vocabulary of decoration available to designers in England and on the continent. Indeed, the publication of "The Works" gave a massive impetus to the Anglomania which swept French artistic circles at the time. Like many great modes of design, the Adam style was fundamentally eclectic ,drawing most heavily for inspiration upon the antique while borrowing also from the cinquecento and the French Rococo. Diverging from the sobriety of continental Neo-Classicism, Robert and James Adam reacted against the heavy Palladianism of their immediate English predecessors and developed an increasingly refined, elegant and even delicate translation of Greek and Roman forms which was unique and totally original. Their vision permeated every aspect of their designs, from the shape of the rooms to the smallest detail of ormolu beading, and the Adam mode became as integral a part of late eighteenth century style as the Reynolds portrait. Robert Oresko, who researches primarily in the fields of seventeenth and eighteenth century architecture, has produced the first complete edition of both the text and the engravings of "The Works" to appear for over seventy years. To this he added an introductory essay, bibliography, indexes of buildings and engravers and over forty-five photographs which illustrate the lasting achievement of the Adam brothers. This long overdue reappearance of the complete "Works" provides the scholar, the connoisseur and the layman with both an invaluable document of eighteenth century architectural and decorative thought and the essential primary material for understanding "the Adam revolution" in design.".
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