The aesthetic opposites of the turn of the last century are now on view at the Flagler Museum.
“A Spirit of Simplicity” is a lovely exhibit of furniture, lamps, decorative tiles and other objects from the Arts and Crafts movement, which was a highly conscious reaction to the elaborate gilt and damask frou-frou of the Victorian age, of which the rest of Henry Flagler’s house-turned-museum is a particularly glorious example.
Arts and Crafts was about more than art. As the minister Charles Wagner wrote in 1901, it was part of a movement toward “sobriety and restraint” — the antithesis of the giddy decor of the Victorians. It was a return to the moral seriousness you can see in objects like Paul Revere’s pewter and silver, or, for that matter, Emily Dickinson’s poetry. This was art that was less about aspiration than it was about function — art to be used.
But the solidity was always beautiful as well as functional, and the medium was part of the message — the Arts and Crafts movement favored copper over silver, because it was cheaper as well as easier to work. More subtly, it was also a class-based movement, solidly middle-class on the part of most of its artists, and more or less affordable for its patrons. (One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition is the way it points out how the profusion of women artists who worked in the Arts and Crafts movement presaged the Suffragette movement.)
The 150-odd pieces in the exhibit, on loan from the Two Red Roses Foundation in Palm Harbor, make it clear that Arts and Crafts was, in fact, a bridge from then to now.
Some of the furniture and leaded glass on view are nearly identical to the work Frank Lloyd Wright was doing at the beginning of his career, before he evolved into a perpetual modernist. Likewise, the woodblocks of Gustave Baumann look ahead to the muscular proletarian artistry of the WPA and people like Thomas Hart Benton. Other woodblocks on view, by Edna Boies Hopkins, are plainly influenced by the delicate traditions of Japanese art.
The Arts and Crafts movement favored earth tones, so there’s a profusion of greens and browns, with perhaps a splash of orange for accents. The Van Briggle pottery in the exhibit has the matte finish that seems to have been preferred for Arts and Crafts, but the decorations are pure art nouveau.
It was, in fact, a movement that simultaneously looked backward and forward. An oak secretary from 1919 has heavy metal bands that would not be out of place on a 14th century Norman trunk; a desk set of hammered copper also has a slightly medieval vibe.
Arts and Crafts was the formulation of the proposition that anything that needs to be practical can also be beautiful without impairing its usefulness. This was art built to last, and it has.
~scott_eyman@pbpost.com