Stillness and Light: The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architecture

Introduction

intrOductiOn Shaker light•Building a State OF gr ace 2 The magnificent craftsmanship of the Shakers, who for two centuries were America’s most successful utopian society, gave visible form to a firm belief that usefulness and holiness are one and the same. There was no separation between practical and sacred values in this evangelical sect, which reached its height in 1840 with nearly six thousand members in eighteen communities, set in rural and isolated locations from Maine to Kentucky.1 Perhaps the purest expression of their unique way of living, in which down-to-earth common sense is permeated with rigorous faith, is the exquisite functional beauty of their architecture. A twofold striving for perfection, epitomized in the Shaker maxim, “put your hands to work and your hearts to God,” was manifested in everything they built—from a door to a window, a stair to a railing, a wall to a roof. Underlying this double vision was a desire to live in two different worlds—spiritual and natural—at the same time, and with equal intensity, for as Shakers believed, “heaven and earth are threads of one loom.”2 Beyond its solid outer form, as simple and handsome as it is, Shaker architecture displays another, more elusive dimension where utility and theology merge—a pragmatic, yet also sublime treatment of natural light. Although Shakers themselves were reticent about explaining this preoccupation, their buildings exhibit a love and care for managing light that is unique in American architecture.3 This mastery ranged from maximizing the penetration of daylight into buildings , to ethereal effects of atmosphere conducive to the spiritual life, suggesting architectural concerns that go well beyond the physical world. While good natural lighting was beneficial for everyday tasks, such as working and cleaning, the other, undoubtedly more profound source of Shaker passion for natural light was religious. Despite a contemporary bias toward emphasizing the material culture and social mores of Shakers, it must be kept in mind that Shaker ambitions were, at their core, divine rather than material or social.4 Spirit rather than matter was of the essence. The appealing images of Shaker forms that meet our rational eyes today—superbly crafted boxes and chairs, walls and cabinets, floors and stairs—belie a far deeper purpose, and spiritual intent, which has nothing to do with material aesthetics or adoration. Modeling their ways after Christ, Shakers were engaged, rather, in a constant attempt to cast off possessions and become free of objects, stripping away the artificial wrappings of worldly culture, in order to get back to an ultimate state of being. Shaker efforts to spiritualize matter, and consequently their attitudes toward light, were strongly influenced by millennialist beliefs. Calling themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, they were convinced that Christ had come again, initially in the person of founder Ann Lee, and later in all those within whom the “Christ Spirit awakens.”5 Since the millennium had already arrived , Shakers felt impelled to consecrate everything they touched and shaped by their labors, with the ultimate aim of establishing “a heaven here on earth”—reiterating the biblical vision of “a new heaven and a new earth.” To accomplish this task, Shakers organized their society into a new kind of American monasticism. Life was devoted to transforming the earth into paradise, requiring that every act be undertaken with transcendental intent, so as to “redeem” the world, make it new, and restore it to God. In doing so, the Shaker image of the heavenly sphere, as described in their own religious texts and journals, diaries and poems, but especially “spirit drawings” that envision paradise, imitated the traditional notion of a realm of space filled with light—a place aglow at every point, and, as portrayed in the book of Revelation, quoted often by Shakers, emitting a “radiance like a most rare jewel.”6 This biblical picture of heaven, interpreted in an 1845 spirit drawing as “mansions of light” that are “spotless” and “bright,” was prophetic, for it became embodied in virtually every work of Shaker architecture.7 Beyond identifying light with the place where God dwells, Shakers more generally equated light with a state of holiness, and spiritual perfection . Within the Bible, which was strictly interpreted by Shakers, 3 this emblem ranges from divine glory to the shining faces and bodies of saints, and culminates in the Gospel of John, which proclaims that “God is...