The book could not have come from better hands then Russell Sturgies.
Russell Sturgis, an American architect and art critic of the 19th and early 20th centuries, was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. A leading authority on the history of architecture and art, Sturgis was editor for decorative art and medieval archaeology of the Century Dictionary, editor of architecture and fine art for Johnson’s Universal Cyclopaedia (1893–95); and compiler (for the American Library Association) of the Annotated Bibliography of Fine Art (1897). In January 1897 he became editor of The Field of Art, a department of Scribner’s Magazine, which he continued until his death.
He is best known as a writer on art and architecture, making many contributions to dictionaries, encyclopedias and periodicals. He was editor-in-chief of A Dictionary of Architecture and Building (3 vols, 1901–1902). Sturgis edited and revised the English version of Wilhelm Luebke’s Outlines of the History of Art (2 vols, 1904), and was editor on fine arts for the Encyclopedia Americana (1904–05). He wrote:
• European Architecture: A Historical Study
• The Etchings of Piranesi
• How to Judge Architecture
• The Appreciation of Sculpture
• The Appreciation of Pictures
• A Study of the Artist’s Way of Working in the Various Handicrafts and Arts of Design (2 vols)
• The Interdependence of the Arts of Design
• Ruskin on Architecture
• History of Architecture (4 vols) |
