- When I talk about the Gothic Revival movement,
I'm not referring to those teenagers who
dress in black with dark eyeliner
and an attitude of ennui.
The Gothic Revival was a stylistic movement that
reached its peak of popularity by the 1850s.
It paralleled Victorian design with a
preference for decorative elements and ornament,
but added, a spiritual element.
Looking toward Medieval Christian England and France,
as opposed to the Victorian preference for
the exotic and classical.
In architecture, the Gothic Revival style borrowed from
Gothic cathedrals and Medieval churches.
It was motivated by a desire to return to
morality of Anglo-Catholic beliefs,
and a restoration of English churches.
The Industrial Revolution was changing society quickly,
and as is typical,
people would prefer things to stay the same.
The Gothic style was a safe return to a
perceived simpler time.
The Gothic style was applied to all types of structures,
including houses, office buildings, and hospitals,
with the belief that the style would
reinvigorate Protestant and Catholic values.
Gothic literature is characterized with stories about the
fight between good and evil against
supernatural, often in Medieval settings.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and
Herman Melville's Moby Dick both
follow the struggle of the individual against the
monstrous or grotesque.
This is a metaphor representing man's experience
in an industrial world.
As life turned from the bucolic agrarian society,
to a chaotic urban experience.
There was a strong connection between Gothic Revival and
the desire to return to a nobler and simpler time
in the midst of the Industrial Revolution.
The writer, John Ruskin,
suggested that many of the social issues at the time
would be solved with moral regeneration
created by skill and craftsmanship.
Stepping away from the factory and
returning to a simple master and apprentice system
would restore order.
Many bookmakers adopted this philosophy,
attempting to imbue their books with
high-minded Medieval concepts and craft.
Typographers and printers have adopted the
Gothic style with elaborate patterns and
calligraphic black letter typefaces,
referencing illuminated manuscript.
The 19th century interest in Medieval chivalry
led to the incorporation of heraldic motifs found
in coats of arms.
Initial letters and typographic ornaments were
reintroduced as an antidote to the
gray pages of mass-produced books.
In the United States,
the beliefs and ideals of the Gothic Revival
could not translate.
After the Civil War,
the idea that a design style could
reform society seemed ridiculous.
But the style was adopted,
not in the belief that it would change society,
but purely as a style.
Colleges and high schools adopted Gothic Revival,
where it communicated the message of high learning.
By the 20th century,
the Gothic Revival represented a moralistic veneer.
One famous example is Grant Wood's American Gothic,
which uses a Gothic Revival house as the backdrop.
The Gothic Revival style could not be sustained
with its dense ornamentation and labor intensive forms.
Machine-made items began to replace the handcrafted forms,
and the quality diminished.
The movement was doomed to fail as a way to change society,
but it opened the door to the concepts of skill,
craftsmanship, the handmade, and
returned to a more idyllic and agrarian time.