num_pages: 224
description: För centuries people have looked to the English gentleman and his American and colonial counterparts as symbolizing the eptiome of a certain distinguished taste in such fields as architecture, the decorative arts, fashion and attire, sporting life, and country living and for displaying an impeccable - if somewhat eccentric - code of honor. Author Geoffrey Beard, emplying great wit and drawing on numerous quotations from historical sources, contemporary letters, and books of advice, weaves the story of the development of this isntitution, tracing the modern gentleman (and lady) from the Renaissance Tudor period to the Edwardian era, when he started to become, in today's parlance, and endangered species. Yet even today many of our standars and social conventions are based on the cultural heritage and traditions of this privileged class.Dividing the gentleman's life into a kind of idealized chronological order, Beard addresses such topics as noble birth and ancestry, education and the Grand Tour, the importance of marriage and the security of the landed estate, professional responsibilities, life in town and in the country, the building and organization of the great house, and the "panoply of Death" (or how gentlemen faced the final accounting and memorialized themselves).Gentlemen and their rituals have been immortalized by many great artists, from John Singer Sargent, Benjamin West, and John Singleton Copley to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Their celebrated portrayals of the perfect gentlemen and ladies are handsomely reproduced here, accompanying numerous other renderings of the life-style - from grand hunts to club life and from insignia and trappings to the great architectural achievements.
language: English
title: The Complete Gentleman
titlecomplete: The Complete Gentleman
publisher: Rizzoli