Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T19:55:42.702Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction: the Gothic Aesthetic in Britain and British Furniture, 1730–1840

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2017

Get access

Summary

The Renewal, in this country, of a taste for Mediæval architecture, and the reapplication of those principles which regulate its design, represent one of the most interesting and remarkable phases in the history of art. Unlike the Italian Renaissance, which was intimately associated with, and in a great measure dependent on, the study of ancient literature, our modern English Revival fails to exhibit, even in its earliest development, many of those external causes to which we are accustomed to attribute a revolution in public taste.

(Charles Eastlake, 1872)

FURNITURE HISTORY IS often considered a niche subject area that is at considerable remove from the main discipline of art history, and one that has little to do with the output of painters, sculptors and architects in any given historical period. This book, however, connects the key intellectual, artistic and architectural debates that surfaced in the arts between 1730 and 1840 with the design of Gothic Revival architecture, interiors and furniture. Despite the expanding corpus of scholarly monographs and articles to date that deal with individual architects and cabinetmakers, little sustained attention has been paid to exploring the multidisciplinary expressions of Gothic Revival design in Georgian Britain. This early phase of the Gothic Revival is typically dealt with cursorily, as a prelude to what, it is implicitly suggested, is the ‘proper’ Gothic Revival of Victorian Britain spearheaded by A.W.N. Pugin (1812–52), Sir Charles Barry (1795–1860), Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–78) and George Frederick Bodley (1827–1907). The relationship between architecture and interior furnishing programmes between 1730 and 1840, moreover, has also received insufficient attention. This book fills this gap and addresses the connec tions between the design of Gothic Revival architecture, interiors and furniture, and their relationship with contemporary understandings of medieval architecture in the period 1730–1840. It presents a new reading of the early Gothic Revival, and explores the style's broad geographic reach and popularity among certain mideighteenth- century designers. A nuanced reading of the style's previously glossed over distinct phases of evolution and transformation is articulated through a range of case studies and examples that, when scrutinised, reveal the remarkably flexible and imaginative application of Gothic forms to contemporary fashions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Georgian Gothic
Medievalist Architecture, Furniture and Interiors, 1730-1840
, pp. 1 - 6
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×