Clotilde Brewster Graphic Designer American Expatriate Architect Wendy Midgett Laura Fitzmaurice Printed by Official Offset Corp
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
NiNeteeNth CeNtury VoluMe 34 NuMber 2 All-British Issue Magazine of the Victorian Society in America All-British Issue n in Honor of tHe 40 tH AnniversAry of tHe vsA L ondon summer scHooL m nineteentH contents century 3 Owen Jones and the Interior Decoration of the voLume 34 • n umber 2 London Crystal Palace Fall 2014 Carol Flores Editor William Ayres 9 “Dear Godwino...” the Wildes and e. W. Godwin Consulting Editor Sally Buchanan Kinsey create an Aesthetic interior Book Review Editor Jennifer Adams Karen Zukowski Advertising Manager / 17 Clotilde Brewster Graphic Designer American expatriate Architect Wendy Midgett Laura Fitzmaurice Printed by Official Offset Corp. Amityville, New York Committee on Publications 27 Tudormania: Chair tudor-period Houses “reconstructed” William Ayres in America and tudor-influenced Warren Ashworth Period rooms in the united states Anne-Taylor Cahill Christopher Forbes Jennifer Carlquist Sally Buchanan Kinsey Michael J. Lewis James F. O’Gorman A History of the VSA London Karen Zukowski 32 Summer School For information on The Victorian Gavin Stamp Society in America, contact the national office: 1636 Sansom Street 34 The Arts and Crafts Movement Philadelphia, PA 19103 in England (215) 636-9872 Alan Crawford Fax (215) 636-9873 [email protected] www.victoriansociety.org 40 Victorian Transfer-printed Ceramics Ian Cox Departments 42 The Bibliophilist 46 Milestones Jeannine Falino He stole the Queen’s Joyce Hill Stoner Knickers Gina Santucci cover: ellen L. clacy (1870-1916), Anne-Taylor Cahill The China Closet, Knole . Watercolor, 1880. victoria & Albert museum, London. the crystal Palace, London, 1851. rakow research Library, corning museum of Glass. Owen Jones and the Interior Decoration of the London Crystal Palace cAroL A. HrvoL fLores in an age characterized by revolutionary changes in industry throughout europe and the middle east (1830-1834). in and society, and the insecurity caused by those changes, 1834, Jones and the french architect Jules Goury spent six owen Jones (1809-1874) stands out as a figure of incredible months studying the Alhambra complex in Granada, spain. vision, intelligence and talent. unlike many of his to most of their contemporaries, the medieval palace built contemporaries, Jones understood the conditions and by the moors represented romance and exoticism, as problems of the nineteenth century and was undaunted by evidenced in the paintings of david roberts and eugène them. He embraced the potential and opportunities offered delacroix and in the novels of Washington irving and victor by the development of new materials and technology and Hugo, but Jones and Goury took a different approach. they called for innovation in architecture to adopt these advances studied the Alhambra as a built work, producing measured and solve the demands for new types of buildings at a larger drawings, documenting the plan, and identifying the scale. resources and methods used to create walls that denied Jones was born in London in 1809 and by age twenty-six materiality and domes that appeared to float overhead. distinguished himself with a lecture entitled “the influence they paid particular attention to the decoration and colors of religion upon Art.” in this presentation to the surviving in the complex, making plaster casts and tracings Architectural society, Jones introduced the idea of a strong of many of the ornamental details. bond between culture and architecture. using examples their investigation ended in August 1834, when Goury from antiquity, he demonstrated how earlier architecture died of cholera. Jones accompanied his friend’s body to had been dominated by the religious beliefs of the people france for burial and then traveled to england to publish who constructed it and how those beliefs were expressed in their findings, but found no publisher capable of producing every object produced by the society, from the colored illustrations he desired. colored the simplest utensil to the grandest images were possible, but cost prohibitive, monument. in contrast, he observed that the since each image had to be hand-engraved current age, having supplanted the worship upon a copper plate or carved on a wood of God by the worship of mammon, seemed block, imprinted on paper, and then colored incapable of developing an appropriate style by hand. experiments with multicolored to serve the needs or affirm the beliefs of a illustrations printed from lithographic dramatically changing society. He criticized plates had been conducted with some his colleagues for copying and misapplying success in france, Germany and england, historical motifs and for producing gin- but no London publisher was competent to palaces with temple fronts and workhouses render the volume and complexity of in the guise of medieval mansions. designs Jones desired. denouncing the artificiality and pretense determined to produce the work from of these buildings, Jones advocated a new engravings and chromolithographs, he style more appropriate to reflect the spirit decided to undertake the printing himself. and possibilities of the age. observing that He leased space, purchased presses and charles baugniet, Owen Jones , 1843. modern accomplishments were based upon hired draughtsman and lithographic science, rather than faith, he believed that the new style printers. After considerable expense and experiment, he should build upon modern advances in materials and produced two volumes: the Plans, Elevations, Sections, and technology enriched through aesthetics. His call for a new Details of the Alhambra , issued in parts between 1836 and style did not gain immediate acceptance, but his insight into 1845, and the second volume, Details and Ornaments from the strong bond between culture and architecture became the Alhambra , distributed in two parts in 1842 and 1845. the basis of most nineteenth-century architectural the beauty of the images in these texts drew immediate philosophy, including the theories later proposed by A.W.n. acclaim and critics began calling the young architect Pugin (1812-1852) and John ruskin (1819-1900). “Alhambra Jones” in recognition of his advances in Jones based his remarks on knowledge gained through publishing and in appreciation for his comprehensive five years of training in the architectural office of Louis research and the quality of his analysis. vuillamy (1791-1871) followed by several years of travel 3 Jones experimented with color printing to illustrate the color remaining in the Alhambra and to reconstruct his interpretation of the original colors. His use of strong, gouache- like, primaries opened up new possibilities for rich color in all types of publication and launched a new industry: the production of lavishly “illuminated” gift books intended for visual pleasure. He designed a range of these books, containing literary excerpts or quotations from the bible set within geometric or nature-inspired borders. the gift books appealed to the victorians’ fondness for objects displayed as symbols of taste and status, while the plates raised the level of color printing to a fine art. in 1841, Jones and the publisher John murray advanced british publishing further by integrating illustrations, decoration and text in a new edition of J. G. Lockhart’s Ancient Spanish Ballads . the book contained handsome woodblock prints by recognized artists and innovations by Jones in the design of the book’s cover, title pages, vignettes and borders. these additions introduced a new artistic unity in book publication. Jones followed these contributions to the graphic culture of victorian britain by demonstrating his advanced understanding of color and visual perception in the decoration of the most important building in mid-nineteenth century england: the building popularly known as the crystal Palace, constructed in 1851 to house the world’s first international trade fair. most accounts of the Great exhibition of the Works of industry of All nations focus on the events and individuals responsible for the enterprise, the design and construction of the innovative iron-and-glass building or descriptions of the items displayed, with slight acknowledgement, if any, to the contributions of the architect, owen Jones. Jones’s role is significant, however, since he was unique in envisioning the unprecedented space being created and in devising a scheme to transform the industrial materials of construction into an edifice worthy of representing the capabilities of britain. Jones’s official connection with the Great exhibition began when he, matthew digby Wyatt (1820-77) and the engineer, charles H. Wild (1819-1857), were hired to assist in preparing the building committee’s design for the exhibition’s structure. Jones is thought to be the delineator of the committee's proposal published in the Illustrated London News on June 22, 1850. 1 When the iron-and- glass scheme presented by Joseph Paxton (1803-65) was selected over the building committee’s brick design, Jones and Wild were named superintendent of the Works to collaborate with the contractors, fox and Henderson on the project. Wild was in charge of checking the specifications and testing the structural members and Jones was responsible for the decoration of the building and grounds and for planning the arrangement of the items to be displayed. 2 Jones revised Paxton’s plan, changing entrances, designing stairways and adding a six and one-half foot fence around the building. He also designed a unique twenty-four foot clock, the largest in england,