Gothic Revival

Gothic Revival. Conscious movement that began in England to revive Gothic forms, mostly in the second half of C18 and throughout C19. It was, arguably, the most influential artistic movement ever to spring from England, and from it grew the Domestic Revival, the Arts-and-Crafts and Aesthetic movements, and many other developments in art and architecture. Hawksmoor's All Souls' College, Oxford (1716–35) and western towers at Westminster Abbey (1734), were among the earliest Georgian examples, followed by Gibbs's Gothick Temple, Stowe, Bucks. (1741–4), Sanderson Miller's work (1740s), and Keene's designs (1760s). Miller and Keene both advised Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt. (1719–1806), about the Gothic work at Arbury Hall, Warwicks. (c.1750–2), which, with Horace Walpole's (1717–97) Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (c.1760–76), made the style fashionable, and it was adopted in Germany, France, Italy, Russia, America, and elsewhere. While many ‘Gothic’ churches were built in the early C19, they were often unconvincing in archaeological terms, and do not resemble medieval buildings: the Friedrich Werdersche Kirche, Berlin (1821–31), by Schinkel, is one example, and in England there were many simple Georgian Commissioners' churches with rudimentary Perpendicular or First Pointed windows that only purported to be Gothic. What might be called the archaeological phase of the Gothic Revival in which real medieval buildings provided the precedents for design began in England with Bloxam Rickman and Pugin, and was triggered partly by Ecclesiology and partly by the popular success of the Palace of Westminster by Barry and Pugin (from 1836). From that time a growing body of scholarship informed the Gothic Revival, and the ambitious programme of Victorian church-building was served by architects thoroughly immersed in the style. The building industry, manufacturers, and craftsmen had to be trained too, for all manner of artefacts, carvings, stained-glass, and the like had to be provided. In France the main protagonist of the Revival was Viollet-le-Duc, whose restoration of Sainte Chapelle, Paris (1840–9— with Duban and Lassus), had such an influence on Pugin. Indeed, the very considerable C19 programme of restoration of medieval buildings throughout Europe (especially in the UK, France, and Germany), prompted partly by national pride and partly by the religious revival after the Enlightenment experiment, had a powerful impact, encouraging scholarship, archaeological investigations, accurate surveys of extant buildings, and the production of illustrated books. Experience gained in restoration increased confidence in the use of the style for modern buildings. Very soon the Revival was embraced throughout Europe and America. The C19 main Gothic Revival in Britain began with a resurrection of Perpendicular; turned to Second Pointed (English first, then Continental) in the 1840s, largely due to the arguments of Pugin and the Ecclesiologists who perceived C14 Gothic as fully developed with advantages over both the ‘undeveloped’ lancet style and the ‘decadent’ Perpendicular; then embraced Continental Gothic, especially that of Italy, where the possibility of structural polychromy had attracted many commentators, the most effective of whom were Ruskin and Street. The ‘High Victorian’ Gothic Revival of the 1850s and early 1860s was thus often coloured, incorporating polished granites, marbles, many-coloured brick- and tile-work, becoming more free in expression and less archaeologically derivative in the process. As with Neo-Classicism's search for the primitive early forms, Gothic Revivalists also sought a more robust and ‘primitive’ Gothic, and so turned to the powerful First Pointed Burgundian precedents of C13, giving birth to the muscular Gothic of Brooks, Street, and Pearson. George Gilbert Scott drew on eclectic elements of Continental Gothic for his Midland Grand Hotel, St Pancras, London (1868–74), Waterhouse also paraphrased European precedents for Manchester Town Hall (1868–76), and there were many other examples. Towards the end of the British and American Revivals Bodley and other architects once more used Second Pointed sources, and Perpendicular was also restored to favour, as in Sedding's Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London (1888–90). Other major buildings of the Revival include Gau's and Ballu's Ste-Clotilde, Paris (1846–57), von Schmidt's Rathaus (Town Hall), Vienna (1872–83), Steindl's Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest (1883–1902), Giles Gilbert Scott's Liverpool Anglican Cathedral (from 1902), and Cram's Cathedral of St John the Divine, NYC (begun 1911).

Bibliography

M. Aldrich (1994);
W. Andrews (1975);
Baur (1981);
Blau (1982);
Bloxam (1882);
C. Brooks (1999);
K. Clark (1974);
B. Clarke (1958, 1969);
J. Curl (2002b);
Dinsmoor & and Muthesius (1985);
Eastlake (1970);
Frankl (1960, 2000);
Germann (1972);
Hersey (1972);
M. Lewis (1993, 2002);
Macaulay (1975);
M. McCarthy (1987)