Contrasts : or a parallel between the noble edifices of the middle ages, and corresponding buildings of the present day; shewing the present decay of taste. Accompanied by appropriate text
A reissue (Edinburgh, J. Grant, 1898) of A. W. N. Pugin's 1836 polemic, which sets medieval Gothic churches and civic buildings side by side with their nineteenth-century replacements to argue that taste had decayed, aimed at architects, clergy and Gothic Revival sympathisers. The plates are fine outline etchings in matched pairs — facades, altar screens, vaulted interiors and shop fronts drawn to the same scale, each captioned in engraved capitals — useful for linework elevations, hand-lettered labels and before-and-after comparative layouts.
