Geometry in Architecture and the Decorative Arts

J. Ritchie Garrison
University of Delaware

ABSTRACT:
This talk will discuss they ways in which artisans used geometry, perspective, and proportion to design architecture and decorative arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I will also look at the tools craftsmen used to establish relationships and layout designs. Finally, we will consider the relationships of objects to the geometry of the human body.

Dr. Garrison is the associate director of the Museum Studies program at the Unveristy of Delaware. He is an associate professor of History at UD and an associate professor of Early American Culture at the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library. He has an MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in American Civilization. Dr. Garrison was director of education at Historic Deerfield, Inc., Massachusetts, from 1976 to 1985.