First full-length study of the impact of the Gothic Revival across the
arts, from literature and architectural theory to houses, furniture and
interiors.
The Gothic Revival, rich, ambitious, occasionally eccentric, but
nonetheless visually exciting, is one of Britain's greatest
contributions to early modern design history, not least because for the
most part it contravened approvedtaste: Classicism. Scholars have tended
to treat Georgian Gothic as an homogenous and immature precursor to
"high" Victorian Gothic, and centred their discussion around Walpole's
Strawberry Hill. This book, conversely, reveals how the style was
imaginatively and repeatedly revised and incorporated into prevailing
eighteenth-century fashions: Palladianism, Rococo, Neoclassicism, and
antiquarianism. It shows how under the control of architects, from Wren
toPugin, Walpole and Cottingham, and furniture designs, especially those
of Chippendale, and Ince and Mayhew, a shared language of Gothic motifs
was applied to British architecture, furniture and interiors. Georgian
Britain was awash with Gothic forms, even if the arbiters of taste
criticised it vehemently. Throughout, the volume reframes the Gothic
Revival's expression by connecting it with Georgian understandings of
the medieval past, and consequently revises our interpretation of one of
the most influential, yet lampooned, forms of material culture at the
time.
Peter N. Lindfield is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the
University of Stirling.
