The Origins of the Gothic Revival by Michael McCarthy (review)

200 LETTERS IN CANADA 1987 post-medieval development is a widely heldifdebatable tenet ofthe New Historicism, but terms like 'self-consciousness' and 'interior furnishings of the mind' need a fuller definition than Rybczynski provides before the thesis can even be worthy of debate. Nevertheless, while the analogy between material and psychological furnishings is dubious as a historical principle, there is no doubt that the varied clutter of Rybczynski's study finds a match in his equally eclectic intellectual furnishings. The provocative content of Home will interest anyone concerned with the domestic life ofany period, and itwill provide a context for much of the scholarly work now being pursued in relation to vernacular architecture and the historical realities of everyday life. The book's friendly, personal tone serves to recreate the intimacy and comfort that its author ideally ascribes to his subject. (NANCY z. TAUSKY) Michael McCarthy. The Origins of the Gothic Revival Yale University Press. x, 212. us $45.00 The nineteenth-century Gothic revival has naturally received far more attention than its 'Gothick' counterpart in the eighteenth century. In contrast to the many books on the Victorian Gothic revival that have appeared since we began to free ourselves from prejudice against the age and its architecture, only a few have dealt with the eighteenth-century origins of that revival, among them Terence Davis's The Gothick Taste (1974) and James Macaulay's The Gothic Revival, 1745-1845 (1975)' This imbalance is natural because the Gothic style of architecture was much more important in the Victorian age than in the Augustan one, yet we have perhaps paid less attention to the early revival of interest in medieval architecture than it deserves, and so there is a place on the shelf for Michael McCarthy's The Origins of the Gothic Revival. The title implies a much broader subject than the book actually has, for McCarthy limits his study to the south of England and the Midlands between 1740 and 1770. Part of McCarthy's ·purpose is to show that Horace Walpole was not solely responsible for a renewed appreciation for the Gothic style and that there were a number of architects in this thirty-year period who share credit for the origin of the revival. These architects include three who made designs for Walpole's Strawberry Hill - John Chute, Richard Bentley, and Johann Heinrich Muntz - as well as Sanderson Miller, Sir Roger Newdigate, William Kent, Henry Keene, James Essex, and John Hobcraft. As with Strawberry Hill, most of the work done by these architects was a matter of redecoration and remodelling rather than of new building. McCarthy does, however, acknowledge the importance of Walpole, and, furthermore, he attempts to show that Walpole's contribution was HUMANITIES 201 more profound than has often been supposed. That is, even while recognizingWalpole's role as one ofthe first to revive Gothic architecture, many have dismissed him as a dilettante with little real understanding of the style. Early in the nineteenth century William Beckford belittled Strawberry Hill as a 'Gothic mousetrap,' and in 1873 Thomas Graham Jackson denied the influence of the house on the revival by saying that it was no more Gothic than the Brighton Pavilion was Indian. McCarthy believes that the importance of Walpole and the others whom he discusses is in their emphasis upon the principles of historicism (fidelity to precedents) and asymmetry, both of which were central to the nineteenth-century phase of the movement. Historicism was made possible by the availability of architectural pattern-books, notably those of Batty Langley, and asymmetry derived from the irregular designs of gardens and gardenbuildings. Of these two principles, historicism seems to have been the stronger, most ofthese architects preferring symmetrical plans and ornamentation for their buildings. McCarthy's treatment of his subject is descriptive rather than analytical . That is, he presents buildings through illustrations and detailed description ofselected features. He also gives many facts about architects, their patrons, and business dealings between the two. The book, then, is a documentation of the origins of the Gothic revival, and~ as such it is a beautiful and useful book. Handsomely produced by Yale University Press, it has over two hundred drawings and photographs. These...