How to Study Architecture: An attempt to trace the evolution of architecture as the product and expression of successive phases of civilization

by Charles H. Caffin

This text includes studies of the following architectural primitive and pre-historic, Egyptian, Persian, Aegean, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hellenic, Roman, Early Medieval, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, and Post-Renaissance. The author gratefully acknowledges the critical assistance given to him on certain points by Professor William H. Goodyear, W. Harmon Beers and William Warfield; and his indebtedness to Caroline Caffin for compiling the index and to Irving Heyl for several architectural drawings. For some of the illustrations he has put himself under obligations to the following publications, through the courtesy of the Librarian of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—“Histoire de l’Art,” by Perrot et Chipiez; “Assyrian Sculptures,” by Rev. Archibald Paterson; “Monuments Modernes de la Perse,” by Pascal Coste; “Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato” by R. Adams, and “The Annual of the British School at Athens.”

639 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 9, 2009

About the author

Charles Henry Caffin (4 June 1854 – 14 January 1918) was an Anglo-American writer and art critic, born in Sittingbourne, Kent, England. After graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1876, with a broad background in culture and aesthetics, he engaged in scholastic and theatrical work. In 1888, he married Caroline Scurfield, a British actress and writer. They had two children, daughters Donna and Freda Caffin. In 1892, he moved to the United States. He worked in the decoration department of the Chicago Exposition, and after moving to New York City in 1897, he was the art critic of Harper's Weekly, the New York Evening Post, the New York Sun (1901–04), the International Studio, and the New York American. His publications are of a popular rather than a scholarly character, but he was an important early if equivocal advocate of modern art in America. His writings were suggestive and stimulating to laymen and encouraged interest in many fields of art. One of his last books, Art for Life's Sake (1913), described his philosophy, which argued that the arts must be seen as "an integral part of life....[not] an orchid-like parasite on life" or a specialized or elite indulgence. He also argued strenuously for art education in American elementary schools and high schools and was a frequent lecturer.

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