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The New England Plain Style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Anthony Garvan
Anthony Garvan
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
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Extract

Purism represents the conscious effort of a culture to reject a commonly accepted iconography and the meanings implicit in its canons of proportion, taste and esthetic, and to substitute in their place a pragmatic solution of the artistic problem involved. What is not always recognized is that this solution must be the consequence of the terms of the problem; and the statement of these terms, indeed the selection of the problem itself, are both culturally determined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , October 1960 , pp. 106 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1960

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References

1 This statement represents a list of the characteristics of purism more than a definition. Webster's New International Dictionary (Springfield, 1959)Google Scholar defines “purism” as following a rule or strictness.

2 See Bucher, François, “Cistercian Architectural Purism”, CSSH, III, p. 89, note 1.Google Scholar

3 Greenough, Horatio, Form and Function, Remarks on Art (Berkeley, 1947)Google Scholar; Davis, Alexander Jackson, Rural Residences (New York, 1837)Google Scholar; Wright, Frank Lloyd, An Autobiography (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

4 Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial Connecticut (New Haven, 1951), p. 130ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Powell, Sumner C., “Seventeenth-Century Sudbury, Massachusetts”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XI, 3–15Google Scholar. Donnelly, M. C., “New England Meetinghouses in the Seventeenth Century”, Old Time New England, XLVII, 85ffGoogle Scholar. See also Garvan, , “Origin of the Plain Style”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (09, 1950)Google Scholar. Superb documentation of the continental movement is found in the paintings of Pieter Saerndam. Brinkgreve, Geurt, “Saerndam, le Peintre des Eglises”, Connaissance des Arts, XCV (01, 1960), 32–41.Google Scholar

6 This point was particularly brought home to the writer during World War II. “A Philippine Mission Church”, Liturgical Arts, XIV, 90ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Compare Kelly, J. Frederick, Early Meetinghouses of Connecticut (New Haven, 1948)Google Scholar; Forbes, Harriet M., Gravestones of New England (Boston, 1927)Google Scholar; Lockwood, Luke V., Colonial Furniture in America (New York, 1926)Google Scholar.

8 The profound effect of the Reformation upon intellectual history has tended to detract attention from its equally important impact upon material culture, and many areas remain undetailed. A provocative general discussion is Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (New York, 1934)Google Scholar. Dugmore, Clifford W., The Mass and the English Reformers (London, 1958)Google Scholar, is the most recent account of liturgical changes.

9 Although elements of the plain style have lingered until the present day the publication in 1841 by Pugin, Augustus W. of Contrasts (London)CrossRefGoogle Scholar marked its conclusion as a major architectural theory.

10 Dugmore, C. W., The Mass, pp. 111ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Bond, Francis, Screens and Galleries in English Churches (London, 1908), p. 126, 142–3, 149Google Scholar; Cobb, Gerald, The Old Churches of London (London, 1942), p. 18Google Scholar.

12 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Essex, III, 12–13, 24Google Scholar; Dugdale, William, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (London, 1730), p. 740ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Addleshaw, George W. and Etchells, Frederick, The Architectural Setting of Anglican Worship (London, 1948), pp. 22–36Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., pp. 68–84. Cox, John C., Pulpits, Lecterns and Organs in English Churches (London, 1915), p. 98ff.Google Scholar; Budden, Charles W., Old English Churches, Their Architecture and Furniture (Liverpool, 1925), pp. 134–135Google Scholar.

15 Jones, Edward Alfred, The Church Plate of the Diocese of Bangor (London, 1906)Google Scholar; Old Silver Sacramental Vessels of Foreign Protestant Churches in England (London, 1908)Google Scholar; The Old Church Plate of the Isle of Man (London, 1907)Google Scholar.

16 On the continent the persecution of the Huguenot in France and Catholic separation in the Low Countries created a real demand for complete church architectural designs. Ozinga, Murk D., De Protestantsche Kerkenbouw in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1929), pp. 12–19Google Scholar; Pannier, Jacques, Salomon de Brosse (Paris, 1911), pp. 86ffGoogle Scholar. Much of the continental attitude toward church design can be surmised from the paintings of topographical artists. See Brinkgreve, Geurt, “Saendram, le Peintre des Eglises”, Connaissance des Arts, XVC (01 1960), pp. 32–41Google Scholar.

17 Kelly, John Frederick, Early Meetinghouses of Connecticut (New York, 1948), II, 3–10Google Scholar.

18 Assembly of Divines at Westminster, The Directory for the Publick Worship of God (1645), Appendix; A Platform of Church Discipline… by the Synod of Cambridge (1640), Preface; A Confession of Faith… Saybrook, 1708 (New London, 1710)Google Scholar. — The Directory for the Public Worship of God, Westminster (Philadelphia, 1745), pp. 10–30Google Scholar; Kelly, , Early Meetinghouses, I, 20Google Scholar.

19 See John Brockett map of 1641, Ms. copy Yale University Library, and James Wadsworth Mss. Map of New Haven, 1748. The account of Harwinton is an eighteenthcentury example. Garvan, , Architecture and Town Planning, p. 69Google Scholar.

20 See Ezra Stiles plan of N ew Haven meetinghouse as it was in 1757, drawn in 1772: Ezra Stiles Mss. “Itinerary”, Yale University Library. Reproduced Garvan, Architecture and Town Planning, Fig. 67, 2 1. Kelly, , Early Meetinghouses, I, 49, 148, 270Google Scholar; II, 8, 157–9, 292. Ezra Stiles “Itinerary”, Ms. II, 414.

21 President Clap's chapel for Yale College (1776) illustrated the matured tradition perfectly. Bowen, Daniel, A Front View of Yale College and the College Chapel, New Haven, engraved 1786, New HavenGoogle Scholar.

22 In 1560 Elizabeth ordered “that the tables of the Commandments be comely set or hung up in the east end of the chancel”. Cardwell, , Documentary Annals, I, 262Google Scholar, quoted in Addleshaw, and Etchels, , Architectural Setting, 35Google Scholar.

23 Harriet M. Forbes, Gravestones of New England, is the standard authority. Allen Ludwig has undertaken a more extensive project and has completed an analysis of more than 300 such stones. My text follows his initial attributions and photographs. He has in preparation a serious and extended analysis of New England funerary symbols.

24 Ann Erinton, 1653, Cambridge, 19 1/2” x 18 1/4” slate.

25 Marcy Allin, 1678, Maiden slate, Dorcas Brokenberry, 1682, Charlestown, 20” x 17” slate, and many similar examples.

26 John, Elizabeth and Thomas Gill, c. 1671, Cambridge, slate. John Foster, 1681, Dorchester.

27 The Cutler children, 1680, Charlestown, 32 3/4” x 19” slate.

28 H. Forbes, Gravestones, touches on this interesting matter. The work of Ludwig should be definitive.

29 St. Paul's Church, Wickford, Rhode Island, 1707. Old Ship Meetinghouse, Hingham, Mass.

30 Nutting, Wallace, Furniture Treasury (Framingham, 1928), I, Fig. 444, 446, 448, 456, 458Google Scholar.

31 The New England Primer enlarged (Boston, 1727, 1938)Google Scholar. Ford, Paul L., The New England Primer (New York, 1897)Google Scholar.

32 Hamilton, Sinclair, Early American Book Illustrators and Wood Engravers, 1670–1870 (Princeton, 1958), pp. 1–4Google Scholar.

33 Crosby, Sylvester, The Early Coins of America (Boston, 1875), pp. 41ffGoogle Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 44.

35 Henfrey, Henry W., Numismata Cromwelliana (London, 1877), p. 167–8Google Scholar.

36 Great Britain Parliament, An Act for the Promoting and Propogating the Gospel of Jesus Christ (London, 1649)Google Scholar.

37 Garvan, Anthony, “The New England Porringer, An Index of Custom”, Smithsonian Institution Annual Report 1958 (1959), p. 547Google Scholar; Hayward, John F., Huguenot Silver in England, 1688–1727 (London, 1959), p. 55Google Scholar.

38 Garvan, , “New England Porringer”, Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report 1958, p. 549Google Scholar.

39 Willard, Samuel, Compleat Body of Divinity (Boston, 1726), pp. 679–680Google Scholar.

40 For illustrations of funeral achievements or hatchments see Encyclopedia: or a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Miscellaneous Literature (Philadelphia, 1798)Google Scholar. The arms of man and wife are both carried, those of the deceased on a black ground and the background of whole escutcheon being black. Rees, Abraham, The Cyclopedia or Universal Dictionary (London, 1819)Google Scholar, “Hatchment”. The diamond shape is generally indicated as the ground and frame for such hatchments in Holland, England and America.