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Vol37 No2 13 29.Pdf (1.038Mb) t hematic dossier | dossier thématique h umouring the humours an introduction to the comedic gothic of cram and goodhue in the united states and canada CM A eRON ACDONeLL is a doctoral candidate > caMeron in the history and theory of architecture at Macdonell McGill University’s School of Architecture. he is preparing to defend his dissertation on the interdisciplinarity of modern Gothic architecture and Gothic literature. Most recently, he (with his hen Kenneth Clark summarized doctoral supervisor, Martin Bressani) published an Whis landmark study of The Gothic article on the speculative diagnosis of Augustus Revival (1928), he argued that “Gothic depends on detail, and the individual Welby Northmore Pugin’s syphilis and its effect architect, however gifted, is powerless on Pugin’s conceptualization of architectural health without a body of good craftsmen.”1 and illness. he is also preparing articles on the Clark admitted, of course, that there Anglo-Catholicism of Ralph Adams Cram’s Gothic were some technically skilled artisans in literature, and a deconstruction of the gifts of the the Gothic Revival; but they could not, in magi as a Christian economy of salvation. his estimation, capture the “irrecoverable moods” of authentic Gothic ornaments that sprang “spontaneously from senti- ment.”2 Clark concluded of the Gothic Revival thusly: their detail never ceased to be tame and self-conscious. Their madonnas were always genteel, their saints always venerable, but- ter would not melt in their angels’ mouths; and the awful events of the Apocalypse were conducted with the decorum of a gar- den party.3 In other words, the tepid and all-too-sin- cere piety of the Gothic Revival doomed its architecture to lack the requisite moods of medieval sentiment: a sense of awe, on the one hand, and a sense of humour on the other—the same sense of humour, ironically, that Clark used to mock the “garden party” decorum of a modern Gothic Apocalypse. Perhaps, in an age of scientific enlight- enment and reasonable doubt, it is fair to say that modern Gothic architects and artisans could not hope to achieve the awful fear of hell that Clark deemed essential to apocalyptic medieval carv- ings. But, were Gothic Revival churches really so humourless? To be sure, there remains a posthumous perception that F tiG. 1. he new st. mary’s anGLiCan ChurCh, waLkerviLLe, on. | Cameron maCdoneLL. JSSAC | JSÉAC 37 > No 2 > 2012 > 13-29 13 caMeron Macdonell > t hematic dossier | dossier thématique medieval Christians took their religion too because Cram and Goodhue’s Gothic was a day when wives gave birth to babes seriously to allow comedy to sully their international, they designed and lectured / And nurtured them for heroes: not to churches.4 And thus, under the influence in both the United States and Canada, rats / That waxed to bloated vermin. Fat of that perception, some modern Gothic their sense of humour transcended the with spleen, / Yellow with jealousy, ye artists may have striven to revive the sin- national border. And, through the study barter life, / England and honour for your cerity of medieval faith at the expense of of ornaments from various American belching pride.”10 Implicitly, Cram was its comedy; but certainly not all of them. commissions, I shall contextualize the referring to the yellow bile of the chol- In a 1930 preface to a book on Gothic gar- comedic details in a Canadian church eric humour, originating in the spleen goyles, American architect Ralph Adams Cram and Goodhue designed: the new and causing jealousy and the indiges- Cram (1863-1942) specifically fought St. Mary’s Anglican Church (1902-1904) tion of “belching pride.” Furthermore, against that sombre perception: in Walkerville, Ontario (fig. 1).8 when Arthur accused the controlling Merlin of having an “o’erriding spleen,” Just because [the medieval faithful] were Long before his 1930 preface, Cram was Merlin retorted: “No wanton humour a sincerely religious people and involved in already celebrating the mirth of medieval leads me.”11 Likewise, when trying to the sacraments, services and practises of artisans. Concerning the construction of a stimulate the passions of his audience, their religion from the day of birth to that of medieval church, he wrote: “All over the Cram revelled in the chivalry of Arthurian death—and after—it is [wrongly] assumed exterior the stone masons, not unthink- romance, stating that Arthur and his that this must have knocked all the gaiety ing mechanics at so many dollars a day, knights “still stir our blood... still rouse out of life and that they must have been sad, wrought out their fancies, their ideals, in us answering humours.”12 Finally, con- terror-struck and morose.5 even their merry humors, through the cerning his comprehension of the med- stubborn but enduring medium of sand- ical humours and Gothic architecture, On the contrary, Cram insisted that, stone and marble.”9 This essay pursues Cram stated that English Gothic was a the pun implicit to Cram’s plural desig- “splendid record of the hopes and visions i n the Middle Ages religion was a natural nation of the humours. Cram was not and wholesome humours of a race of and a companionable and a familiar thing, being redundant when he celebrated active, enthusiastic, healthy Christian laughter was not averse from it, nor was the “merry humors” of medieval masons. men.”13 The wholesome humours of the joking, even sometimes of rather a broad Rather, he was calling attention to the Anglo-Gothic body were healthy. sort, out of the question in relation to what fact that our sense of the word humour we should consider “serious matters.” (meaning merriment) comes from the old As Cram’s references to the spleen, fat hence churches... broke out into delight- medical conceptualization of the human with choler, and the rousing humours of ful gaiety here and there under the hands body as a vessel for the four humours. the blood indicate, it was also believed of high-spirited or waggish workmen, and For Cram, humour and the humours were that a disproportionate amount of one they, and the religion they expressed, were interconnected. or more of the humours affected one’s the better for the wholesome sense of life.6 temperament. Hence, an excess of blood Stemming from a Latin designation for meant a passionate personality, an excess This essay consequently explores Cram’s wetness, the humours were categor- of phlegm meant an indolent personality, effort to bring a wholesome sense of ized in ancient, medieval, and early an excess of choler meant an irascible per- life to the décor of his Gothic Revival modern medical discourses as fluids in sonality, and an excess of black bile meant architecture via the use of comedy. He the human body. Accordingly, the four a melancholic personality. For instance, and his sometime architectural partner, humours were sanguine (blood), phleg- in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Bertram Goodhue (1869-1924), were matic (phlegm), choleric (yellow bile or the titular protagonist wore the antic founding members of the Society of Arts choler), and melancholic (black bile). As disposition of someone who had gone and Crafts in Boston; and thus, they had such, when Cram wrote his Arthurian mad with melancholy, and the king sum- aligned themselves with some of the most epic, Excalibur, he demonstrated his com- moned Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and technically skilled artisans of the day to prehension of humoral medical theor- Guildenstern, who were “so neighboured create modern Gothic ornaments that ies. His protagonist, Merlin, lamented to [Hamlet’s] youth and humour” that were not tepidly pious, but playful and, at the English barons who quibbled over they might “draw him on to pleasures.”14 times, playfully irreverent.7 Furthermore, Arthur’s royal coronation: “There was In other words, the king had hoped that 14 JSSAC | JSÉAC 37 > No 2 > 2012 caMeron Macdonell > t hematic dossier | dossier thématique F piG. 2. uLpit at ConCordia Lutheran ChurCh, F riG. 3. eLief CarvinGs of animaLs from the frieze (above) and pLinth (beLow) of the puLpit at ConCordia LouisviLLe, ky. | Cameron maCdoneLL. Lutheran ChurCh, LouisviLLe, ky. | CrystaL maCdoneLL. Hamlet’s melancholic temperament would humour. If the choleric humour is iras- necessity of the plinth. However, on closer be corrected if Hamlet kept company with cible, then it is sated with the vitriol of inspection, one such relief (a bounty of friends from his prior “humour,” from the satire. And, if the bilious humour is mel- oak leaves and acorns) includes a mouse days before he went mad. Indeed, when ancholic, then it dwells on the brink of that is found pausing on the branch Hamlet reunited with Rosencrantz and dark comedy. These humours, however, (fig. 3). Exploiting the rigidity of sculp- Guildenstern, they shared a bawdy joke are not to be treated as rigid categories. ture, the artisan depicted the mouse fro- that seemed to change Hamlet’s mood— I would rather suggest that we humour zen in animal caution, staring out at us albeit momentarily. And so, by that theory the humours by treating them as a series for all time, waiting to finish the acorn of the humours (though not to be limited of complexions that frequently flow from it plucked from the now visibly empty to Shakespeare), the modern use of the one to another. shell. Likewise, at the top of the pulpit, word humour arose—the idea that the the sculptor carved a continual frieze of “pleasures” of comedy could affect the s anguine humour vegetation (grapevines, this time) with a humour or mood of an individual or, by bird picking the vineyard clean of a cater- that same token, that a person’s humour Of all the different complexions avail- pillar.
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