Illustration: David Henry Arnott. Gothic chimney breast decoration, 1850.
It is sometimes interesting to look at decorative periods and their inspirational points, but perhaps more importantly it is interesting to look at the many connections that link creative eras, communities, as well individuals. The Victorian Gothic Revival for example, was directly influenced by the much earlier medieval period. Although some medieval enthusiasts hoped in some way to fold history in order to connect the nineteenth century directly with the thirteenth or fourteenth, or even earlier, it is obviously an impossibility. Intervening generations accrue and the chasm of time creates a seemingly impenetrable barrier that is forever between them and us. However, there are always more subtle means of connection over time and the Victorians found them through decoration.
The Victorians slowly discovered the faint network of influences through pattern and line that connected medieval decoration and ornament with that of their own contemporary work. This subtle and largely unused framework that had lain near-dormant since the end of the medieval through the renaissance and its progeny, the Baroque and Rococo, was reawakened and rediscovered, and more importantly reused in a nineteenth century contemporary setting.
Illustration: Wooden painted panel from the original rood screen, East Harling Church, Norfolk, England.
That is not to say that the Victorians devoured the original medieval style wholesale. They were particular, preferring some sections of medievalism, whilst leaving other areas to languish. They may well have resurrected, even reconstituted the framework of medieval inspiration, giving it a new vitality, yet they made sure in many respects that it reconstituted in their favour. The Victorians created a decorative domestic style that was entirely their own. It was not a pastiche and certainly not derivative, despite the many critics who state otherwise. It is very difficult to blend the two styles, original medievalism and the Victorian version, and not notice the differences. They are not meant to be the same; the differences are part of their separate creative journeys and part of their individual celebration.
Illustration: Wooden panelling from the original painted rood screen, Dickelburgh Church, Norfolk, England.
The Victorians in many respects took ownership of the medieval. In some form they saw themselves as modern custodians of the traditions of their ancestors. However, they also saw themselves as contemporary innovators and were more than happy to take ownership of the medieval and transform it into one of the central styles of their era. They showed, through their effective scholarship, critical evaluation and dynamic creativity that the medieval was not as many had seen it, a barbaric interval between the original classical world of Greece and Rome and the reconstitution of the classical world through the Italian renaissance. Instead they showed a medieval world that had vitality of colour, line, movement and harmony at its centre. It was indeed a sophisticated and ever renewing creative culture that belonged at the forefront of European creative history and not, as many had interpreted, within a backwater of crudity and artistic naivety.
The Victorians saw the original medieval world as one of the greatest of Europe's decorative achievements. A style that did not rely on the classical world for validation and dependency. Its uniquely creative dynamism was used as a projection by the Victorians so that creativity in the nineteenth century spurred on individualism amongst the design and craft disciplines, whether it be through textiles, ceramics, glass, metal, wood or stone.
Illustration: David Henry Arnot. Gothic door decoration, 1850.
The reconstructed connections that formed the long term foundation framework of the European decorative arts that was promoted by the Victorian version of medievalism, inevitably carried on with its subtle influence. So much so that it has been one of the central cores of craft history through the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. An intriguing and humbling thought. We are after all the accumulation of generation after generation of innovation and creative extension of style and pattern. We are not, as we often think, the sole construct of our contemporary creative era. We as individual creative people stand at the end of these countless connections, all of which are connected in their turn to our own unique and individualistic creativity. That does mean that we are mere automatons of the past, just as Victorians were not extensions of the medieval. We have inherited a world of connections whether that be for example, the long stretch from the original medieval or more recent one passed on to us by the enthusiasm of Victorian medievalists. Our inherited creative world will pass on along with our own innovative additions, to future generations, which to me is the great effortless beauty of human creativity, hands stretched forever across the generations linking us all with each other, both in our own era and all those that have been and all those yet to come.
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