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103-572: Second Presbyterian Church organized in 1842 as an offshoot of the city's first Presbyterian congregation, which had formed in 1833. From 1851 until 1871, the congregation worshipped in a church at the northeast corner of Wabash Avenue and Washington Street in downtown Chicago. Known as the spotted church because of the tar deposits in its limestone blocks, this building was designed by the noted eastern architect, James Renwick Jr. Renwick later designed St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and

206-604: A M.A. three years later. After graduating from Columbia College, Renwick took a position as a structural engineer with Erie Railroad and subsequently served as supervisor on Croton Reservoir, serving as an assistant engineer on the Croton Aqueduct in New York City . Renwick received his first major commission at the age of twenty-five in 1843, in which he won a competitive bidding process to design Grace Church , an Episcopal Church in New York City, which

309-410: A "true society", where neither luxuries nor cheap trash were made, machinery could be improved and used to reduce the hours of labor. The cultural historian Fiona McCarthy said of Morris that "unlike later zealots like Gandhi , William Morris had no practical objections to the use of machinery per se so long as the machines produced the quality he needed." Morris insisted that the artist should be

412-477: A community of craftsmen called the Guild of Handicraft in east London, later moving to Chipping Campden . Those adherents who were not socialists, such as Alfred Hoare Powell , advocated a more humane and personal relationship between employer and employee. Lewis Foreman Day was another successful and influential Arts and Crafts designer who was not a socialist, despite his long friendship with Crane. In Britain,

515-483: A craftsman-designer working by hand and advocated a society of free craftspeople, such as he believed had existed during the Middle Ages. "Because craftsmen took pleasure in their work", he wrote, "the Middle Ages was a period of greatness in the art of the common people. ... The treasures in our museums now are only the common utensils used in households of that age, when hundreds of medieval churches – each one

618-507: A democratic art, and by the end of the 19th century, Arts and Crafts design in houses and domestic interiors was the dominant style in Britain, copied in products made by conventional industrial methods. The spread of Arts and Crafts ideas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries resulted in the establishment of many associations and craft communities, although Morris had little to do with them because of his preoccupation with socialism at

721-574: A dispute with the City Council, which then paid Renwick his $ 27,000 fee. The city then built the courthouse using his plans and reducing its dimensions to fit the local budget. Renwick went on to design St. Patrick's Cathedral , on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street , which is considered his most notable architectural achievement. He was chosen as architect for the Roman Catholic cathedral in 1853; construction began in 1858, and

824-582: A few years the original building was kept as a clubhouse for graduate members. At that time a newspaper account described it as a "perfect Bijou of tasteful decoration". Among his other designs were banks, the Charity and Smallpox Hospitals on Roosevelt Island , the main building of the Children's Hospital on Randall's Island , the Inebriate and Lunatic Asylums on Wards Island , and the former facade of

927-419: A heavenly rainbow. Above that is a celestial orchestra in medieval robes. Bartlett's care in blending decoration to the sanctuary's architecture is evident; his rainbow echoes the curve of the ceiling. Bartlett's work in the twelve bays of the balcony centers on the themes of praise, abundance, and sacred music. Texts from scripture are painted on the walls below the figures. Many of these murals were restored in

1030-517: A high stoop arrangement with the figure of an owl on the peaked roof and a plaque with the Greek letters Delta Psi over the windowless chapter room. In 1879, The New York Tribune called it French Renaissance , but the stumpy pilasters and blocky detailing suggest the Neo-Grec style then near the end of its popularity." In 1899, the fraternity moved to a new chapter house on Riverside Drive and for

1133-494: A lack of interest in easel painting as such. On his side, Ruskin dissented firmly from the idea that became Arts-and-Crafts orthodoxy, that decoration should be flat and should not represent three-dimensional forms. William Morris (1834–1896) was the towering figure in late 19th-century design and the main influence on the Arts and Crafts movement. The aesthetic and social vision of the movement grew out of ideas that he developed in

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1236-709: A leader in the Gothic Revival in architecture . For example, he advocated truth to material, structure, and function, as did the Arts and Crafts artists. Pugin articulated the tendency of social critics to compare the faults of modern society with the Middle Ages, such as the sprawling growth of cities and the treatment of the poor – a tendency that became routine with Ruskin, Morris, and the Arts and Crafts movement. His book Contrasts (1836) drew examples of bad modern buildings and town planning in contrast with good medieval examples, and his biographer Rosemary Hill notes that he "reached conclusions, almost in passing, about

1339-407: A masterpiece – were built by unsophisticated peasants." Medieval art was the model for much of Arts and Crafts design, and medieval life, literature and building was idealized by the movement. Morris's followers also had differing views about machinery and the factory system. For example, C. R. Ashbee , a central figure in the Arts and Crafts movement, said in 1888, that, "We do not reject

1442-403: A natural motif made to look as real as possible, whereas these writers advocated flat and simplified natural motifs. Redgrave insisted that "style" demanded sound construction before ornamentation, and a proper awareness of the quality of materials used. " Utility must have precedence over ornamentation." However, the design reformers of the mid-19th century did not go as far as the designers of

1545-495: A powerful denunciation of modern industrialism to which Arts and Crafts designers returned again and again. Distrust for the machine lay behind the many little workshops that turned their backs on the industrial world around 1900, using preindustrial techniques to create what they called 'crafts.' — Alan Crawford, " W. A. S. Benson , Machinery, and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain" William Morris shared Ruskin's critique of industrial society and at one time or another attacked

1648-503: A two-manual console and ten ranks. The organ today has 43 ranks and 2,600 pipes. Second Presbyterian Church occupies a prominent place in Chicago's social and industrial history and its artistic heritage. Its glorious interior is now being seen by a wider audience after decades of semi-obscurity. Tours featuring the art and architecture of the building are offered on a regular schedule. Friends of Historic Second Church , organized in 2006,

1751-469: A variety of Biblical scenes, landscapes, and ornamental designs. In the east end of the church is a boldly colored representation of the Ascension , designed by William Fair Kline. Below it are the five scourges or Arma Christi of Jesus. Other sanctuary windows were designed by Louis J. Millet and McCully & Miles. The two Edward Burne-Jones windows in the lobby tie Second Presbyterian directly to

1854-517: Is likely Russell contributed work to both his fraternity's first chapter house as well as the cathedral during his apprenticeship with Renwick. Russell departed in 1894 to co-found Clinton & Russell . After Renwick's death in 1895, the immediate successor organization was called Renwick, Aspinwall & Renwick, then Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen, with the addition of Walter Tallent Owen (1864-1902). In 1904, it became known as Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, then Renwick, Aspinwall & Guard by

1957-480: Is the incarnation of Art Nouveau in England. Others consider Art and Crafts to be in opposition to Art Nouveau. Arts and Crafts indeed criticized Art Nouveau for its use of industrial materials such as iron. And as for Art Nouveau artists, the Arts and Crafts utopia was intrinsically contradictory: "the paradoxical confinement of the Arts & Crafts movement in an artisanal practice was completely out of step with

2060-726: The Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago . Robert Todd Lincoln , the president's son, was also a church trustee. When the South Side emerged in the 1870s as the city's premier residential neighborhood, the business elite built imposing houses on South Prairie Avenue , South Michigan Avenue , South Calumet Avenue and other streets. As of 2023, the diverse church had about 125 members. The church "also serves many visitors seeking meals, music, and community" in addition to after-school tutoring, practice space for

2163-485: The Arts and Crafts ethos, Shaw and Bartlett designed every element of the new interior to work together to create a restful and harmonious whole. Attention was paid to every detail of pew carving, plaster casting, and fixture design. Leading Chicago area designers and craftsmen were employed for elements like the seven-armed electric candelabra flanking the pulpit (William Lau) and the four stately heralding angels standing atop

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2266-679: The Baptism of Christ in Paisley Abbey , (c. 1880). His followers included Stephen Adam and his son of the same name. The Glasgow-born designer and theorist Christopher Dresser (1834–1904) was one of the first, and most important, independent designers, a pivotal figure in the Aesthetic Movement and a major contributor to the allied Anglo-Japanese movement. The movement had an "extraordinary flowering" in Scotland where it

2369-673: The British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiated in reaction against the perceived impoverishment of the decorative arts and the conditions in which they were produced, the movement flourished in Europe and North America between about 1880 and 1920. Some consider that it is the root of the Modern Style , a British expression of what later came to be called the Art Nouveau movement. Others consider that it

2472-586: The Century Guild , a partnership of designers including Selwyn Image , Herbert Horne , Clement Heaton and Benjamin Creswick . In 1884, the Art Workers Guild was initiated by five young architects, William Lethaby , Edward Prior , Ernest Newton , Mervyn Macartney and Gerald C. Horsley , with the goal of bringing together fine and applied arts and raising the status of the latter. It

2575-459: The Cotswolds . The guild's work is characterised by plain surfaces of hammered silver, flowing wirework and colored stones in simple settings. Ashbee designed jewellery and silver tableware. The guild flourished at Chipping Camden but did not prosper and was liquidated in 1908. Some craftsmen stayed, contributing to the tradition of modern craftsmanship in the area. C.F.A. Voysey (1857–1941)

2678-581: The Gothic Revival in the United States. In 1849, Renwick designed the Free Academy Building at present-day City College of New York at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street in New York City. It was one of the first Gothic Revival college buildings on the U.S. East Coast . By 1852, he had come to Fredericksburg, VA -- a small city 50 miles south of Washington -- to design and build a courthouse building which still stands. He got into

2781-643: The Irish National War Memorial Gardens in Dublin) and Frederick 'Pa' Hicks ( Malahide Castle estate buildings and round tower). Irish Celtic motifs were popular with the movement in silvercraft, carpet design, book illustrations, and hand-carved furniture. In continental Europe, the revival and preservation of national styles was an important motive of Arts and Crafts designers; for example, in Germany, after unification in 1871 under

2884-770: The New York Stock Exchange . Renwick was the supervising architect for the Commission of Charities and Correction. A small group of Renwick's architectural drawings and papers are held by the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University . Renwick was also the designer of the bell tower of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine in Florida , which was commissioned by Standard Oil partner Henry M. Flagler who

2987-627: The original building of the Smithsonian Institution . Already in the late 1860s, downtown Chicago was becoming more commercial and less residential, and Second Presbyterian's leaders prepared plans to follow its membership to the near South Side . Just a few weeks before the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871, which destroyed the spotted church, the congregation had merged with another congregation and had relocated to

3090-467: The 1850s with the Birmingham Set – a group of students at the University of Oxford including Edward Burne-Jones , who combined a love of Romantic literature with a commitment to social reform. John William Mackail notes that "Carlyle's Past and Present stood alongside of [Ruskin's] Modern Painters as inspired and absolute truth." The medievalism of Malory 's Morte d'Arthur set

3193-491: The 1920s as the Mingei movement. It stood for traditional craftsmanship, and often used medieval , romantic , or folk styles of decoration. It advocated economic and social reform and was anti-industrial in its orientation. It had a strong influence on the arts in Europe until it was displaced by Modernism in the 1930s, and its influence continued among craft makers, designers, and town planners long afterwards. The term

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3296-407: The 2010s and early 2020s. When the sanctuary was rededicated in 1901, many of its arched openings contained simple windows with small, stylized floral designs by Shaw and executed by the firm of Gianini and Hilgart. Between 1894 and 1927, the bays began to be filled with specially commissioned memorial windows. Now, only the last bay on the north side of the church displays Shaw's work. Members of

3399-595: The Arts and Crafts Movement brought new appreciation to their work. Horace W Elliot, an English gallerist, visited the Ewenny Pottery (which dated back to the 17th century) in 1885, to both find local pieces and encourage a style compatible with the movement. The pieces he brought back to London for the next twenty years revivified interest in Welsh pottery work. A key promoter of the Arts and Crafts movement in Wales

3502-469: The Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland were in the stained glass revival of the 1850s, pioneered by James Ballantine (1806–1877). His major works included the great west window of Dunfermline Abbey and the scheme for St. Giles Cathedral , Edinburgh. In Glasgow it was pioneered by Daniel Cottier (1838–1891), who had probably studied with Ballantine, and was directly influenced by William Morris , Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin . His key works included

3605-454: The Arts and Crafts movement. They were more concerned with ornamentation than construction, they had an incomplete understanding of methods of manufacture, and they did not criticise industrial methods as such. By contrast, the Arts and Crafts movement was as much a movement of social reform as design reform, and its leading practitioners did not separate the two. Some of the ideas of the movement were anticipated by Augustus Pugin (1812–1852),

3708-523: The Arts and Crafts philosophy was perpetuated among British craft workers in the 1950s and 1960s, long after the demise of the Arts and Crafts movement and at the high tide of Modernism. British Utility furniture of the 1940s also derived from Arts and Crafts principles. One of its main promoters, Gordon Russell , chairman of the Utility Furniture Design Panel, was imbued with Arts and Crafts ideas. He manufactured furniture in

3811-617: The British Arts and Crafts Movement . Burne-Jones was a close associate of William Morris , founder of the Arts and Crafts in Britain. Morris and Co. crafted these two windows from the designs of Burne-Jones. The subjects are St. Margaret of Antioch , in robes of rich crimson, and St. Cecilia , in blue robes, a portable organ in her arms. These windows were displayed in the William Morris Memorial Room of Chicago's Tobey Furniture Co. before being purchased by

3914-608: The Cotswold Hills, a region of Arts and Crafts furniture-making since Ashbee, and he was a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. William Morris's biographer, Fiona MacCarthy , detected the Arts and Crafts philosophy even behind the Festival of Britain (1951), the work of the designer Terence Conran (1931–2020) and the founding of the British Crafts Council in the 1970s. The beginnings of

4017-751: The Franklin Darius Gray family and made into memorials. Burne-Jones windows are rare in the United States; these are the only ones known outside of the East Coast. In a multi-million dollar project, several windows have completed extensive renovation and repair and additional window repair was ongoing as of 2023. Notes James Renwick Jr. James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale in Upper Manhattan in New York City – June 23, 1895, in New York City)

4120-507: The Holy Sepulchre in New York City in 1869, and the former New York City Public Charities Building (since razed) at 66 Third Avenue (1868–1871). One constant in the firm was J. Lawrence Aspinwall (1854–1936), who started to work for Renwick in 1875, practiced in the firm more than 60 years, was a firm partner from 1880 to 1925, and became an AIA Fellow in 1914. Aspinwall was the cousin of Renwick's wife Anna. From 1878 to 1894,

4223-503: The South Loop Symphony Orchestra, and a basketball gymnasium. For its new building on South Michigan Avenue at 20th Street (now Cullerton), the congregation again turned to James Renwick. Renwick designed a church based on early English Gothic examples, with a high-pitched gable roof, a rose window in the east wall, and a corner bell tower. The exterior is clad in limestone with sandstone trim. Sculpture on

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4326-548: The South Side. Many wealthy Chicago residents attended Second Presbyterian, including members of the George Pullman , Silas B. Cobb , Timothy Blackstone , and George Armour families. These were men who moved to Chicago from New England or New York State in the mid-nineteenth century to make their fortunes and build a new metropolis on the prairie. Proud of their adopted city, they endowed cultural institutions like

4429-550: The artistic side Ruskin was influenced by his contemporary Viollet le Duc whom he taught to all of his pupils. In a letter to one of his pupils Ruskin writes : "There is only one book of any value and that is the Dictionnary of Viollet le Duc. Everyone should learn French". And according to some Ruskin's influence on Arts and Crafts was supplanted in 1860 by that of Viollet le Duc. His followers favoured craft production over industrial manufacture and were concerned about

4532-509: The assertion of national pride and the striving for independence, and, whereas for Arts and Crafts practitioners in Britain the ideal style was to be found in the medieval, in central Europe it was sought in remote peasant villages. Widely exhibited in Europe, the Arts and Crafts style's simplicity inspired designers like Henry van de Velde and styles such as Art Nouveau , the Dutch De Stijl group, Vienna Secession , and eventually

4635-875: The campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York (1861–1865), including the Main Hall (1860), Saint Bartholomew's Church (1871–1872) at Madison Avenue and 44th Street in New York City (since demolished), the All Saints' Roman Catholic Church (1882–1893) in Harlem in the Victorian Gothic style, and many mansions for the wealthy of the area, including the Peter Aims-Aimes house, known as "Martinstow", in West Haven, Connecticut . Renwick

4738-465: The catalogues of their exhibitions. Peter Floud, writing in the 1950s, said that "The founders of the Society ... never executed their own designs, but invariably turned them over to commercial firms." The idea that the designer should be the maker and the maker the designer derived "not from Morris or early Arts and Crafts teaching, but rather from the second-generation elaboration doctrine worked out in

4841-646: The cathedral opened in May 1879. The cathedral is the most ambitious Gothic-style structure, and includes a mixture of German, French, and English Gothic influences. Another of the prominent buildings Renwick designed was Corcoran Gallery of Art , now home to the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., which was designed in Second Empire style. Other works by Renwick include the first major buildings on

4944-401: The ceilings of the arches were done on canvas in his studio and then mounted in the church. Bartlett's figures have bold outlines and sumptuous robes of muted blue, crimson, and green. He used gold leaf extensively and supplied relief to features like haloes with a plaster technique known as pargeting . The majestic 40-foot-wide mural behind the altar represents the tree of life surmounted by

5047-430: The congregation gave the other windows in memory of departed loved ones. Nine of the windows are by Louis Comfort Tiffany ’s firm and display many of the innovative glass-working techniques that he pioneered. Tiffany looked to get artistic effects from the character of the glass itself rather than by painting on the glass. He used folded glass, confetti glass, striated glass, and multiple layers of glass. The windows portray

5150-625: The control of an old guard, was withdrawing from commerce and collaboration with manufacturers into purist handwork and what Tania Harrod describes as "decommoditisation" Its rejection of a commercial role has been seen as a turning point in its fortunes. Nikolaus Pevsner in his book Pioneers of Modern Design presents the Arts and Crafts movement as design radicals who influenced the modern movement, but failed to change and were eventually superseded by it. The British artist potter Bernard Leach brought to England many ideas he had developed in Japan with

5253-605: The decorative arts, including furniture and woodwork, stained glass, leatherwork, lacemaking, embroidery, rug making and weaving, jewelry and metalwork, enameling and ceramics. By 1910, there was a fashion for "Arts and Crafts" and all things hand-made. There was a proliferation of amateur handicrafts of variable quality and of incompetent imitators who caused the public to regard Arts and Crafts as "something less, instead of more, competent and fit for purpose than an ordinary mass produced article." The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society held eleven exhibitions between 1888 and 1916. By

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5356-415: The designer was a matter for debate and disagreement. Not all Arts and Crafts artists carried out every stage in the making of goods themselves, and it was only in the twentieth century that that became essential to the definition of craftsmanship. Although Morris was famous for getting hands-on experience himself of many crafts (including weaving, dying, printing, calligraphy and embroidery), he did not regard

5459-598: The encouragement of the Bund für Heimatschutz (1897) and the Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk founded in 1898 by Karl Schmidt; and in Hungary Károly Kós revived the vernacular style of Transylvanian building. In central Europe, where several diverse nationalities lived under powerful empires (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia), the discovery of the vernacular was associated with

5562-527: The esthetics of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Arts and Crafts movement emerged from the attempt to reform design and decoration in mid-19th century Britain. It was a reaction against a perceived decline in standards that the reformers associated with machinery and factory production. Their critique was sharpened by the items that they saw in the Great Exhibition of 1851 , which they considered to be excessively ornate , artificial, and ignorant of

5665-432: The evolution of the status of the artist-decorator, but also with the democratic will of an art 'for the people and by the people' proclaimed by William Morris". For example, while Henry van de Velde understood the social discourse of Arts and Crafts, he was not an unconditional disciple of the movement and ended up turning away from it, considering it as anachronistic and tinged with quixotism . In Japan, it emerged in

5768-446: The exhibits." Owen Jones, for example, complained that "the architect, the upholsterer, the paper-stainer, the weaver, the calico-printer, and the potter" produced "novelty without beauty, or beauty without intelligence." From these criticisms of manufactured goods emerged several publications that set out what the writers considered to be the correct principles of design. Richard Redgrave's Supplementary Report on Design (1852) analysed

5871-486: The exterior is limited; the Four Evangelists and the head of Jesus appear on the entry wall on Michigan Avenue and gargoyles loom from the bell tower. The interior was also thoroughly Gothic, with pointed arches leading to the side aisles, slender iron columns supporting the balcony, and extensive stenciling adorning the walls. The sanctuary in the new building was dedicated in 1874. In March 1900, fire gutted

5974-399: The firm was known as Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell, with the partnership of William Hamilton Russell (1856–1907), Renwick's grand nephew. Upon his graduation, Russell became a protégé of his great uncle, who designed the chapter house of Russell's fraternity, St. Anthony Hall, at 25 East 28th Street, New York in 1878, the same year Renwick completed St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York . It

6077-409: The first decade of [the twentieth] century by men such as W. R. Lethaby ". Many of the Arts and Crafts movement designers were socialists , including Morris, T. J. Cobden Sanderson , Walter Crane , C.R. Ashbee , Philip Webb , Charles Faulkner , and A. H. Mackmurdo . In the early 1880s, Morris was spending more of his time on promoting socialism than on designing and making. Ashbee established

6180-580: The first time one can measure a bit the change that has happened in the last twenty years". The society still exists as the Society of Designer Craftsmen. In 1888, C.R. Ashbee , a major late practitioner of the style in England, founded the Guild and School of Handicraft in the East End of London. The guild was a craft co-operative modelled on the medieval guilds and intended to give working men satisfaction in their craftsmanship. Skilled craftsmen, working on

6283-448: The importance of craftsmanship and tradition in architecture that it would take the rest of the century and the combined efforts of Ruskin and Morris to work out in detail." She describes the spare furnishings which he specified for a building in 1841, "rush chairs, oak tables", as "the Arts and Crafts interior in embryo." The Arts and Crafts philosophy was derived in large measure from John Ruskin 's social criticism, deeply influenced by

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6386-495: The interior is rich, but subdued, emphasizing brown, buff, dusky crimson, and dull gold. The church's figurative art, with dozens of angels in glass, wood, and plaster, and two brightly colored saints in the lobby windows, is perhaps surprising for a Presbyterian congregation. This congregation, however, was culturally sophisticated and well-traveled. Many members had seen the great cathedrals of Europe and wanted their home church to make an equivalent artistic statement. In line with

6489-599: The late 1920s. Renwick is buried with his wife and father in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn . Several of Renwick's employees protégés became influential architects, including: Arts and Crafts Movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across

6592-478: The loss of traditional skills, but they were more troubled by the effects of the factory system than by machinery itself. William Morris's idea of "handicraft" was essentially work without any division of labour rather than work without any sort of machinery. Morris admired Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice and had read Modern Painters , but he did not share Ruskin's admiration for J. M. W. Turner and his writings on art indicate

6695-404: The machine, we welcome it. But we would desire to see it mastered." After unsuccessfully pitting his Guild and School of Handicraft guild against modern methods of manufacture, he acknowledged that "Modern civilisation rests on machinery", but he continued to criticise the deleterious effects of what he called "mechanism", saying that "the production of certain mechanical commodities is as bad for

6798-400: The modern factory, the use of machinery, the division of labor, capitalism and the loss of traditional craft methods. But his attitude to machinery was inconsistent. He said at one point that production by machinery was "altogether an evil", but at others times, he was willing to commission work from manufacturers who were able to meet his standards with the aid of machines. Morris said that in

6901-490: The movement was associated with dress reform , ruralism , the garden city movement and the folk-song revival . All were linked, in some degree, by the ideal of "the Simple Life". In continental Europe the movement was associated with the preservation of national traditions in building, the applied arts, domestic design and costume. Morris's designs quickly became popular, attracting interest when his company's work

7004-645: The movement, was formed with Walter Crane as president, holding its first exhibition in the New Gallery , London, in November 1888. It was the first show of contemporary decorative arts in London since the Grosvenor Gallery 's Winter Exhibition of 1881. Morris & Co. was well represented in the exhibition with furniture, fabrics, carpets and embroideries. Edward Burne-Jones observed, "here for

7107-793: The nation's cultural development, a visual counterpart to the literary revival of the same time and was a publication of Irish nationalism. The Arts and Crafts use of stained glass was popular in Ireland, with Harry Clarke the best-known artist and also with Evie Hone . The architecture of the style is represented by the Honan Chapel (1916) in Cork city in the grounds of University College Cork . Other architects practicing in Ireland included Sir Edwin Lutyens (Heywood House in Co. Laois, Lambay Island and

7210-436: The national health as is the production of slave-grown cane or child-sweated wares." William Arthur Smith Benson , on the other hand, had no qualms about adapting the Arts and Crafts style to metalwork produced under industrial conditions. (See quotation box.) Morris and his followers believed the division of labour on which modern industry depended was undesirable, but the extent to which every design should be carried out by

7313-400: The organ case (Beil & Mauch). Electric lighting was used throughout the sanctuary, and Shaw embraced the naked bulbs as design elements in the circular chandeliers and the fixtures hanging over the side aisles. A number of recurring motifs tie the various interior elements together. The most obvious is that of the angel. Some 175 grace the interior, including the four heralding angels above

7416-497: The organ loft and those carved into the brackets from which the chandeliers hang. Another recurring motif is the grapevine, found in the pew ends, the light screen at the sanctuary's rear, many of Bartlett's murals, and the dull gold of the screen concealing the organ pipes. The congregation installed a Hutchins-Votey organ following the 1900 fire. The Austin Organ Co. reworked the instrument in 1917 as its Opus 767, providing it with

7519-693: The outbreak of war in 1914 it was in decline and faced a crisis. Its 1912 exhibition had been a financial failure. While designers in continental Europe were making innovations in design and alliances with industry through initiatives such as the Deutsche Werkbund and new initiatives were being taken in Britain by the Omega Workshops and the Design in Industries Association , the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, now under

7622-505: The principles of Ruskin and Morris, were to produce hand-crafted goods and manage a school for apprentices. The idea was greeted with enthusiasm by almost everyone except Morris, who was by now involved with promoting socialism and thought Ashbee's scheme trivial. From 1888 to 1902 the guild prospered, employing about 50 men. In 1902 Ashbee relocated the guild out of London to begin an experimental community in Chipping Campden in

7725-529: The principles of design and ornament and pleaded for "more logic in the application of decoration." Other works followed in a similar vein, such as Wyatt's Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century (1853), Gottfried Semper 's Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst ("Science, Industry and Art") (1852), Ralph Wornum 's Analysis of Ornament (1856), Redgrave's Manual of Design (1876), and Jones's Grammar of Ornament (1856). The Grammar of Ornament

7828-446: The project. Smith gratefully accepted, and the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell spent six months completing their contribution. In the late 1850s, already well-established, Renwick temporarily partnered with Richard T. Auchmoty. In the 1860s and 1870s, a few of Renwick's commissions are credited as Renwick & Sands. These indicate Renwick's short-lived partnership with architect Joseph Sands (? – 1879), and include Church of

7931-540: The qualities of the materials used. Art historian Nikolaus Pevsner writes that the exhibits showed "ignorance of that basic need in creating patterns, the integrity of the surface", as well as displaying "vulgarity in detail". Design reform began with Exhibition organizers Henry Cole (1808–1882), Owen Jones (1809–1874), Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820–1877), and Richard Redgrave (1804–1888), all of whom deprecated excessive ornament and impractical or badly-made things. The organizers were "unanimous in their condemnation of

8034-490: The sanctuary. The church turned to one of its members, Howard Van Doren Shaw , for the rebuilding. Shaw, 31 at the time, was a graduate of Yale University and the architecture program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . After working briefly in the office of Chicago's skyscraper pioneer William Le Baron Jenney , Shaw established his own practice. Shaw also had traveled extensively in Britain and

8137-400: The separation of design and execution was not only inevitable in the modern world, but also that only that sort of specialisation allowed the best in design and the best in making. Few of the founders of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society insisted that the designer should also be the maker, although they considered it important that the maker should be credited, which was the practice in

8240-452: The separation of designer and executant in his factory as problematic. Walter Crane, a close political associate of Morris's, took an unsympathetic view of the division of labour on both moral and artistic grounds, and strongly advocated that designing and making should come from the same hand. Lewis Foreman Day, a friend and contemporary of Crane's, as unstinting as Crane in his admiration of Morris, disagreed strongly with Crane. He thought that

8343-406: The side walls to visually increase the width of the space, and used warm stained oak and plaster panels throughout. He planned an auditorium-style sanctuary, with no central aisle that would seat 1200. This was appropriate for a congregation that emphasized preaching and musical worship. For the same reason, the pews are gently curved, providing good sight lines to the pulpit. The decorative program of

8446-409: The social critic Yanagi Soetsu about the moral and social value of simple crafts; both were enthusiastic readers of Ruskin. Leach was an active propagandist for these ideas, which struck a chord with practitioners of the crafts in the inter-war years, and he expounded them in A Potter's Book , published in 1940, which denounced industrial society in terms as vehement as those of Ruskin and Morris. Thus

8549-434: The standard for their early style. In Burne-Jones' words, they intended to "wage Holy warfare against the age". Morris began experimenting with various crafts and designing furniture and interiors. He was personally involved in manufacture as well as design, which was the hallmark of the Arts and Crafts movement. Ruskin had argued that the separation of the intellectual act of design from the manual act of physical creation

8652-604: The time. A hundred and thirty Arts and Crafts organisations were formed in Britain, most between 1895 and 1905. In 1881, Eglantyne Louisa Jebb , Mary Fraser Tytler and others initiated the Home Arts and Industries Association to encourage the working classes, especially those in rural areas, to take up handicrafts under supervision, not for profit, but in order to provide them with useful occupations and to improve their taste. By 1889 it had 450 classes, 1,000 teachers and 5,000 students. In 1882, architect A.H.Mackmurdo formed

8755-827: The vernacular or domestic traditions of the British countryside. Some were deliberately left unfinished in order to display the beauty of the materials and the work of the craftsman, thus creating a rustic appearance. Morris strove to unite all the arts within the decoration of the home, emphasizing nature and simplicity of form. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, most Arts and Crafts practitioners in Britain had strong, slightly incoherent, negative feelings about machinery. They thought of 'the craftsman' as free, creative, and working with his hands, 'the machine' as soulless, repetitive, and inhuman. These contrasting images derive in part from John Ruskin's (1819–1900) The Stones of Venice , an architectural history of Venice that contains

8858-543: The work of Thomas Carlyle . Ruskin related the moral and social health of a nation to the qualities of its architecture and to the nature of its work. Ruskin considered the sort of mechanized production and division of labour that had been created in the industrial revolution to be "servile labour", and he thought that a healthy and moral society required independent workers who designed the things that they made. He believed factory-made works to be "dishonest," and that handwork and craftsmanship merged dignity with labour. On

8961-413: The work of medieval church painters. He consciously rejected the post-Renaissance artistic tradition, with its emphasis on perspective and verisimilitude. Bartlett preferred to focus on expressiveness and spirituality, which he found in the flat and serene figures painted on the walls of medieval Italian churches. Bartlett painted directly on the dry plaster of the sanctuary's vertical walls. The paintings in

9064-583: Was Owen Morgan Edwards . Edwards was a reforming politician dedicated to renewing Welsh pride by exposing its people to their own language and history. For Edwards, "There is nothing that Wales requires more than an education in the arts and crafts." – though Edwards was more inclined to resurrecting Welsh Nationalism than admiring glazes or rustic integrity. In architecture, Clough Williams-Ellis sought to renew interest in ancient building, reviving "rammed earth" or pisé construction in Britain. The movement spread to Ireland, representing an important time for

9167-441: Was an American architect in the 19th century, noted especially for designing churches and museums. The Encyclopedia of American Architecture calls him "one of the most successful American architects of his time". Renwick was born in Upper Manhattan on November 11, 1818, to a wealthy and well-educated family. His mother, Margaret Brevoort, was from a wealthy and socially prominent New York City family. His father, James Renwick ,

9270-556: Was an Arts and Crafts architect who also designed fabrics, tiles, ceramics, furniture and metalwork. His style combined simplicity with sophistication. His wallpapers and textiles, featuring stylised bird and plant forms in bold outlines with flat colors, were used widely. Morris's thought influenced the distributism of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc . By the end of the nineteenth century, Arts and Crafts ideals had influenced architecture, painting, sculpture, graphics, illustration, book making and photography, domestic design and

9373-701: Was an engineer, architect, and professor of natural philosophy at Columbia College, which is now Columbia University . His two brothers went on to become engineers. Renwick was not formally trained as an architect, but his ability and interest in building design were nurtured through his cultivated upbringing, which granted him early exposure to travel, and through a broad cultural education that included architectural history. He learned most of his skills from his father, and then studied engineering at Columbia College, now Columbia University , in Manhattan. He entered Columbia at age twelve and graduated in 1836. He received

9476-556: Was both socially and aesthetically damaging. Morris further developed this idea, insisting that no work should be carried out in his workshops before he had personally mastered the appropriate techniques and materials, arguing that "without dignified, creative human occupation people became disconnected from life". In 1861, Morris began making furniture and decorative objects commercially, modelling his designs on medieval styles and using bold forms and strong colours. His patterns were based on flora and fauna, and his products were inspired by

9579-506: Was building luxury hotels in the historic city at the time. Renwick and his wife Anna Aspinwall lived and owned property in the lighthouse area on Anastasia Island in Florida. In Spring 1890, Renwick listened to Franklin W. Smith deliver a speech to garner support for his Design and Prospectus for a National Gallery of History of Art at Washington . Renwick endorsed the idea and offered to provide drawings, plans, and illustrations for

9682-924: Was built in English Gothic style. In 1846, Renwick won a competition to design of the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, D.C. Built between 1847 and 1855, the Smithsonian's many-turreted building, often referred to as "the Castle", was designed in Romanesque style, as requested by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, and was built with red sandstone quarried at Seneca Quarry in Seneca, Maryland . The Smithsonian Institution Building proved influential in inspiring

9785-512: Was concerned, Arts and Crafts was a revivalist campaign. But in Wales, at least until World War I , a genuine craft tradition still existed. Local materials, stone or clay, continued to be used as a matter of course. Scotland become known in the Arts and Crafts movement for its stained glass; Wales would become known for its pottery. By the mid 19th century, the heavy, salt glazes used for generations by local craftsmen had gone out of fashion, not least as mass-produced ceramics undercut prices. But

9888-463: Was directed originally by George Blackall Simonds . By 1890 the Guild had 150 members, representing the increasing number of practitioners of the Arts and Crafts style. It still exists. The London department store Liberty & Co. , founded in 1875, was a prominent retailer of goods in the style and of the " artistic dress " favoured by followers of the Arts and Crafts movement. In 1887 the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society , which gave its name to

9991-629: Was exhibited at the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Much of this work is directly inspired from the Dictionnaire of Viollet le Duc. Most of Morris & Co's early work was for churches and Morris won important interior design commissions at St James's Palace and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). Later his work became popular with the middle and upper classes, despite his wish to create

10094-427: Was familiar with the work of Arts and Crafts architects like Philip Webb and C.F.A. Voysey . Shaw, working with his friend, the painter Frederic Clay Bartlett , and several other designers and craftsmen, gave Second Presbyterian a sanctuary firmly rooted in Arts and Crafts principles. Abandoning the original neo-Gothic approach, Shaw lowered the pitch of the roof by 14 feet and moved the support columns closer to

10197-503: Was first used by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson at a meeting of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887, although the principles and style on which it was based had been developing in England for at least 20 years. It was inspired by the ideas of historian Thomas Carlyle , art critic John Ruskin , and designer William Morris . In Scotland, it is associated with key figures such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh . Viollet le Duc's books on nature and Gothique art also play an essential part in

10300-452: Was formed to guide the accurate restoration of the building and to oversee tours and events. Bartlett's pre-Raphaelite murals are one of the glories of the sanctuary, and they were widely published after their completion. From a well-to-do Chicago family, Bartlett had studied painting at Munich's Royal Academy and with masters in Paris . For Second Presbyterian, Bartlett sought inspiration in

10403-433: Was particularly influential, liberally distributed as a student prize and running into nine reprints by 1910. Jones declared that ornament "must be secondary to the thing decorated", that there must be "fitness in the ornament to the thing ornamented", and that wallpapers and carpets must not have any patterns "suggestive of anything but a level or plain". A fabric or wallpaper in the Great Exhibition might be decorated with

10506-637: Was represented by the development of the ' Glasgow Style ' which was based on the talent of the Glasgow School of Art . Celtic revival took hold here, and motifs such as the Glasgow rose became popularised. Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) and the Glasgow School of Art were to influence others worldwide. The situation in Wales was different from elsewhere in the UK. Insofar as craftsmanship

10609-643: Was the architect of Ascension Memorial Church in Ipswich, Massachusetts , whose cornerstone was laid in October 1869. Renwick also designed the St. Anthony Hall , the first chapter house for Delta Psi , the secret fraternal college society founded at Columbia University in 1847. Even though the 1879 structure at 29 East 28th Street is marred now by a street level storefront, Christopher Gray wrote in The New York Times in 1990 that, "Old photographs show

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