Resplendent Ornament: Two Nineteenth-Century Approaches

December 22, 2022
Capturing Louis Sullivan: What Richard Nickel Saw exhibition installation view. Photograph by James Caufield.

Exhibiting the photographs of Richard Nickel and the ornamental fragments he salvaged in the galleries of the Driehaus Museum presents an interesting contrast between the foliated patterns developed by Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and the wide-ranging eclectic decoration of the Nickerson Mansion. Together, these divergent means of expression demonstrate design thinking and practice in the late nineteenth century, when the amount and type of ornament on architecture, and in all the decorative arts, changed drastically as a consequence of new aspirations, inventions, materials, and machine production.

Early nineteenth-century architecture conformed to a series of revival styles, requiring ornamental motifs to be accurately copied from the originals.  Ornamented goods were exclusive and expensive, since each item required considerable skill and time to complete by hand.  By mid-century, machine-production reversed this situation making carved and embellished objects plentiful and affordable.  At the same time, the rise of a new middle class created a ready market of consumers, eager to express their financial status through the display of extensive possessions.  To encourage and satisfy this demand, manufacturers richly decorated functional and decorative objects, borrowing motifs from the past or realistically copying designs from nature.

Some designers criticized this excessive and diverse use of ornament, citing a lack of originality, beauty, and refinement in the objects being produced.  In an attempt to correct this situation, a few designers developed theories to educate students, architects, and manufacturers in principles of good design.  One of the most important and influential of these theorists was the British architect, Owen Jones (1809-1874), who developed thirty-seven principles essential to achieving excellence in design.  Jones explained his philosophy in lectures, articles, and in the text of The Grammar of Ornament (1856), considered the bible of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century design. 

Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament.
(From left to right): Plate XVIII, Greek; Plate 78, Renaissance No. 5; Plate XLIII, Moresque No. 5,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jones advocated studying the work of earlier periods to learn about color, proportion, harmony, and the importance of understanding geometry and nature as inspirations for creating new designs. He condemned historicist revivals and the direct copying of earlier motifs, saying those patterns represented a specific culture at a particular moment in time and that, likewise, nineteenth-century designers needed to develop ornament appropriate to the new materials, scale, and techniques available. 

Many of the best nineteenth-century and twentieth-century designers, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Christopher Dresser, and Louis Sullivan, studied and applied Jones's principles, producing distinctive, masterful compositions.  For Sullivan, the application of Jones's ideas lead to the creation of rich, original patterns, which unified, enhanced, and decorated a building's construction (Jones's Fourth Proposition). 

   

Adler & Sullivan (American, 1883-1924)
Radiator Screen, Cyrus Hall McCormick Residence, circa 1899-1900
Bronze-plated cast iron. 40 x 39 1/16 inches.
Eric Nordstrom Collection

In contrast, Jones's principles and the examples of ancient and exotic styles illustrated in The Grammar of Ornament  inspired other designers to create "an intelligent and imaginative eclecticism."  By selecting and synthesizing motifs from diverse periods, these designers achieved a new style suggestive of wide-ranging knowledge, sophistication, and affluence.  These attributes were particularly appealing to the new Gilded Age entrepreneurs seeking to define themselves, including the Vanderbilts, Morgans and Samuel M. Nickerson.  They chose this new style of Eclecticism in outfitting the impressive mansions they commissioned in New York, in Newport, and in Chicago for Nickerson.

The decoration of the Nickerson Mansion is an excellent example of this late nineteenth-century attitude, where the scholarship and strictures of earlier revivals were replaced by choreographed compositions of color, costly materials and an array of disparate motifs combined to achieve a new appreciation of beauty and visual delight.  Previously, a great house would adopt a particular style to suggest the intentions and character of the inhabitants.  Gothic architecture was associated with moral improvement, classical styles with learning and grandeur.  Designers of great houses in the late nineteenth-century relied upon these familiar associations to suggest a particular mood or character in each room, and then added elements from other cultures to give the impression of greater experience and authority.

This change in intention and taste is immediately experienced upon entering the Main Hall of the Nickerson Mansion.

   

Nickerson Mansion Main Hall
Photograph by Steve Hall for Hedrich Blessing.

The tradition of providing a grand entry to impress visitors with the status and taste of the owners continues, but, instead of carefully recreating a Renaissance villa or Medieval chamber, the Main Hall commands attention through scale, opulent materials and symbols of power.  The authority of space was established in the room's dimensions: fifty-two by eighteen feet in footprint and two-stories in height.  The walls were paneled with richly veined and colored red and ochre marble and accented with engaged marble columns in green.  Imposing Corinthian columns emphasized the importance of the Grand Staircase and other classically-inspired details enhanced the space over doorways, bordered the ceiling and decorated the balustrade.

     

Main Hall: Marble cornice, column, Grand Staircase balustrade with carved alabaster panel

These symbols of preeminence were complemented by large, bronze dragon statues and cloisonné vases, symbols of Chinese power and luxury.  All of the elements combine to reveal a new attitude toward grand living: expansive, expensive and prestigious.

Symbols of wealth, power and sophistication are repeated in the other Main Floor rooms, providing a subtle, subconscious cohesiveness to the interior, which underscored the importance of the owners. The walls are divided in three sections: wainscoting panels at the lowest level, decorative friezes at the top and elaborated wall sections in between.  Classical details, such as columns, pilasters, rosettes, and coffers, achieve further coherence and suggest earlier Renaissance styles and their association with the financial success, patronage and enlightenment of the Medici merchant princes of fifteenth-century Italy. The decoration of the First Floor Drawing Room juxtaposes classical elements with a bold display of sunflowers, celebrating the quest for Beauty and love of art popularized in the new Aesthetic Movement. 

    

Drawing Room: Onyx fireplace and pressed metal sunflower frieze

Both of these themes of worldly success and appreciation of art and craft are repeated in the styles and ornament of the other public rooms, presenting a "discerning eclecticism" rather than meaningless decoration. The theme of prosperity or abundance is emphasized throughout the house, in both realistic and stylized representations of fruits, flowers, leaves and vines. Like the sumptuous ornamental schemes of Sullivan, the decorations of the Nickerson Mansion excel in engaging the eye and intellect, prompting viewers to consider whether the forms they are seeing exist in nature or are illusory.  Sometimes the viewer is rewarded, recognizing grapes, pomegranates and other vegetation but other motifs tease the mind with an elusive sense of familiarity but no actual attribution.

         

Dining Room: Quarter-sawn white oak wall carvings

The idea of prosperity and stature is further continued in other motifs.  For example, lions feature prominently in many of the rooms, beginning in the Main Hall's Grand Staircase balusters and reappearing in various guises in the Library, Reception Room, the Dining Room, and the Maher Gallery. In the West, the lion signifies power, strength, fortitude, and majesty, characteristics admired by the nineteenth-century's titans of business and commerce.   Sometimes lions take center stage...

    

Lions: (left to right) Main Hall alabaster baluster, Maher Gallery firebox detail, Maher Gallery mantel carving

...while others appear more subtly in the scene.  

       

Lions: (left to right) Dining Room wall carving, Library firebox, Reception Room fireplace wall glass mosaic

The fine and costly materials used in the Nickerson Mansion also make a major contribution to the overall impression of substance and prosperity, as well as helping define the character of each space.  Lavish marble and onyx panels and borders establish a sense of grandeur in the Main Hall, in the same way that the selection of quarter-sawn white oak—the most expensive oak—gives importance to the Dining Room. Mahogany and satinwood set the tone in the Front Parlor and Drawing Rooms, respectively, and artistic tiles and glass add character, texture, and color to the Smoking and Reception Rooms. 

             

Drawing Room: Satinwood pocket door and door frame detail

   

Smoking Room pinwheel glass lunette frieze and Reception Room passion flower tile wall

The treatment of the materials is also significant.  The highest level of carving adds elegance and interest to the Dining Room while refined marquetry embellishes the cabinets and doors in the Reception Room. 

           

Dining Room: Fireplace mantel carvings
        
Reception Room marquetry

Further, ebonized cherry promotes a somber English Renaissance air in the Library and a relatively new material, Lincrusta, adds embossed depth and dimension to the wall spaces between wainscoting and entablatures in the Smoking and Dining Rooms. 

      

Ebonized cherry wood Library: (left and right) Built-in bookcases and (center) ceiling detail 

 

Lincrusta wall fill in Smoking Room and Dining Room

In addition, luxurious fabrics were used for drapes and wall coverings in the Front Parlor and Drawing Room and supplemented with fabric ceiling panels painted to mimic similar rich fabrics. 

      

Hand-stenciled canvas ceiling panels in Front Parlor and Drawing Room

Other materials added a further sense of luxury. These included over thirty-six mirrors in the Front Parlor and seventy-six metal panels of stylized sunflowers in a gold patina in the Drawing Room.

The use of luxurious ornament, superior craftsmanship, and appropriate materials to create a new style of architecture is evident in Sullivan's work and the Nickerson interiors, designed by WIlliam August Fiedler, George A. Schastey, and W. R. Bates. Both display a new, exuberant decoration appropriate to the period. Their approaches and attitude toward ornmanet differ but, together, they represent examples of late nineteenth century design thinking and achievement in the United States.

About the Author:

Carol A. Hrvol Flores, Ph.D., is an architecture historian and professor emerita of Architecture in the R. Wayne Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State University, specializing in the history, theory, and criticism of British and American architecture in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Her publications include award-winning articles on American public housing and the use of inscriptions in architecture. She is the author of Owen Jones: Design, Ornament, Architecture and Theory in an Age in Transition (2006) and has published and lectured in the U.S. and abroad on aspects of his work.

Except where noted, all photography is by Alex Brescanu.



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