The Arts of a Uence

MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence Arthur J. Pulos Published on: Apr 22, 2021 License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence Daniel Henchman Takes this Method to inform his Customers in Town and Country, That he still continues to carry on the Gold and Silversmith’s Business at his Shop opposite the Old Brick Meeting House in Cornhill, where he makes with his own Hands all kinds of large and small Plate Work, in the genteelest Taste and Newest Fashion … equal in goodness and cheaper than any they can import from London. Advertisement, The Boston Evening Post, 1773 [116] In the new towns and young cities of America, a second stream of design consciousness emerged as the citizens sought to prove their cultural equality with the Old World. Wealth was understood in America as the only avenue by which one could achieve a degree of elegance equivalent to that ensured for the European aristocrats and nobles by inheritance and primogeniture. The rapid accumulation of wealth enabled the Americans to buy the best England had to offer or to commission work in the style of the moment by émigré and native artisans in America. Thus, the urban buildings and furnishings of the colonies took on the familiar or fashionable styles that were prevalent in England and Europe. The newcomer to a colonial town was confronted with a mixture of Dutch-style townhouses, English-style public buildings, and French furnishings that enhanced the quality of urban living in the New World, graced the social behavior of its citizens, memorialized their historic events, and flaunted a growing American affluence that presumed to be on a par with the best on the other side of the Atlantic. The greatest distinction in the drive for cultural status among the newly rich of America went to those who were able to display the latest styles from abroad. No colonial gentleman and no artisan seeking patronage wanted to be left behind in the fashion race. Even those who declared publicly that America had no time for such frivolities steeped themselves privately in English and continental fashions. No less a patriot than Benjamin Franklin wrote to his wife from Europe advising her to follow the latest fashions in home furnishings. Later, while George Washington was in the field against the British, workmen were busily renovating his home at Mount Vernon using English style books for reference. There is an interesting paradox in the fact that the colonial style of furnishings that today is considered a near-sacred standard of permanent excellence was, in its own day, readily discarded as soon as a fresher style could be unloaded at the dock. The paradox is compounded all the more by the fact that, as much as Americans today may compete for the latest fallout of high 2 MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence technology, even more do they hold tight to their collective (or assumed) colonial heritage. Some critics of American culture have maintained that, because the émigrés had renounced their national origins, they became culturally impotent and therefore unable “to produce a culture in which the arts could flourish.” ([77], vi) It has been suggested that the fine arts were reserved for the exclusive pleasure of the upper classes, who were obliged to display or distribute from time to time some small portion of their treasure as aesthetic alms to the lower classes. John Fiske proposed that Americans should accept the theory of the “transit of civilization”—that their culture had to come from abroad, and that they needed to develop “carriers” to bring the fine arts to America. Fiske contended that there was a “cultural lag” whereby an aesthetic fashion that emerged abroad would not become popular in America for some years after it had reached its zenith elsewhere, and that the length of the “lag” was determined by the clarity of the style, the cultural vigor of the movement, and the means of transport. During the colonial period, it was presumed that 20–30 years would lapse before a new European fashion would gain a foothold in America. Peaceful and prosperous times obviously quickened the flow, and, conversely, it seems that the greatest advances of original design in America have been made when the inflow of foreign cultural influence has been constrained by political and economic circumstances. In the beginning the colonial Americans were content to reproduce the treasures that had been carried over from Europe. Not only implements but also pieces of furniture, pottery, glass, iron, copper, and brass products, pewter and silver wares, and fabrics of all kinds were used as patterns for duplication. However, as time went on, such products became dated in fashion and the wealthier patrons began to seek out and commission those craftsmen who could assure them that they were knowledgeable of the newer styles from abroad and competent in their manufacture. In this context, the advantage lay with those artisans who had emigrated the most recently, bringing with them samples and templates and patterns from which they could reproduce objects in the latest fashion. Journeymen artisans in the crowded shops abroad realized that their knowledge and experience would be welcomed in America and that they would be free, away from Old World guild practices, to set up their own businesses. Moreover, they were certain that young apprentices would be readily available to help them in return for being taught their craft. 3 MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence For the most part the colonial craftsman did not consider himself to be a designer, but rather the instrument by which the desires of his patrons could be satisfied. To show his familiarity with the most recent styles, he imported examples that could be displayed to attract business and could also be copied. And he sought out and purchased special tools and patterns, or made his own from such samples as he could lay his hands on, that enabled him to work in the latest continental or English style. However, the artisan often found it necessary to modify a design—not only to suit a client’s whim, but sometimes because of inadequate tools or limited talents. And the scarcity of labor in the colonies made it necessary to husband carefully the amount of energy that was put into a product by simplifying its form and ornamentation or by developing tools and methods that would demand less time. As a result, the products of the colonial craftsmen often achieved a taut refinement of form and a restraint of ornament that placed them above and beyond the extravagant originals. This attention of the colonial craftsman to labor-saving forms and procedures helped to refine the principle of economy of means as another of the basic principles of American industrial design. It was expected in the colonies that a gentleman would be knowledgeable in culture and fashion as well as in science and philosophy. It was his obligation to see to the quality of his environment and to direct the character of the products made to his order by artisans. Educated men were presumed to know and understand architectural style and structure because they were often called upon to determine the forms of public buildings (as well as their own residences). Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, was designed in 1711 by the governor of the colony, Alexander Spotswood, and Thomas Jefferson took a particular interest in the subject (“Architecture is my delight”) and found time from a full career to design the main buildings of the University of Virginia as well as his own home, Monticello. The basic design sources for Jefferson and the other gentleman architects of the colonies were the popular books of architectural drawings and illustrations of the time, which provided both gentlemen and builders with a ready reference to English and continental styles. Jefferson is known to have had at least five books on Andrea Palladio, who made extensive measurements of ancient Roman buildings and published their basic proportions as early as 1570. Palladio’s flawless sense of proportion and sympathy for the classical style exerted a profound influence on Western architecture well into the nineteenth century, and Jefferson undoubtedly based Monticello on his work. The émigré Peter Harrison certainly followed the pattern book Andrea Palladio’s Architecture (London: Edward Hoppus, 1735) in designing the facade of the handsome 4 MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence Redwood Library built in 1750 in Newport, Rhode Island. Harrison’s main occupation at the time was in business in Newport and as a collector of customs at New Haven, Connecticut. However, he is sometimes identified as the first American architect because he was the first person on record known to have been paid a fee by a patron to design a structure to be erected by a builder. Harrison was paid 45 pounds for his plan for Christ Church Episcopalian (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1761. Before this he had designed King’s Chapel in Boston, for which he had been promised payment that was never made. It is believed that Harrison drew ideas for this church from the best-known architectural pattern book of the time, A Book of Architecture, by James Gibbs (second edition: London, 1739). 5 MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies • American Design Ethic The Arts of Auence The Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode island, planned by Peter Harrison (perhaps with the assistance of his brother Joseph), was in all likelihood based on a Roman Doric temple design derived from a book on Palladio.

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