Educational Courts at the Crystal Palace

Illustration: A Handbook for the Medieval Court by Matthew Digby Wyatt and John Burley Waring, 1854.

After the Great Exhibition of 1851, it was felt that the popularity of the event, including the exhibition building itself, should be continued in some form. It was eventually decided to re-erect the building in a different format at Sydenham. The building itself, popularly known as the Crystal Palace, was officially named as such and became a strange combination of leisure and educational venue. A number of 'courts' were set up within the building. These courts were to largely take on an educational format, whereby decorative historic styles would be represented. Therefore courts were designated as Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Alhambra, Assyrian, Byzantine, Medieval, Renaissance, Italian and Pompeian. There were also courts for a range of diverse near contemporary and contemporary subjects such as fine art, sculpture and music. However, it was the historically themed courts that particularly caught the imagination. 

When the newly refurbished Crystal Palace reopened in 1854, it was still a period in British history whereby few of the population had ever been outside of the confines of the nation. Therefore, exotic appearing courts, although mostly constructed from plaster, giving an appearance of historical or geographical locations, must have appeared to many, to be bringing far flung locations of the world to their own near doorstep. 

Illustration: Medieval Court at the Crystal Palace, 1854.

Guidebooks were produced for each court written by a range of experts including Samuel Phillips, Philip Henry Delamotte, John Burley Waring, George Scharf Jnr, Austin Henry Layard, J Gardner Wilkinson, Owen Jones and Matthew Digby Wyatt. Wyatt was involved with four of the guides, two of which are illustrated in this article. The Byzantine and Romanesque Court and The Medieval Court, both co-written with John Burley Waring were perhaps not the weighty tomes that some might have preferred, but as they were aimed at a very broad cross-section of the general public, they were very popular.

The guides gave a good general introduction of the period and style of each court, concentrating on the architectural, fine and decorative art of the era. They also paid heed to what was actually included within each court, all of which were plaster copies of originals. In the case of the Medieval Court for example, it might well have caused a certain amount of confusion as decorative styles from both England and various parts of Europe were all placed within the confines of the court. However, most visitors seemed to find it both entertaining and educational, which no doubt was the purpose of the organisers.

Illustration: A Handbook to the Byzantine Court by Matthew Digby Wyatt and John Burley Waring, 1854.

Praise should go to Owen Jones himself who was intimately involved in the construction of many of the courts. Jones tried to achieve as close a resemblance to the originals as was possible. However, obviously some courts were going to be more exact than others. The Alhambra Court for example, was particularly praised for its superb decorative details. This would no doubt have something to do with the fact that Jones knew the Alhambra from personal experience and it was always considered to be an integral part of his belief in design and decoration reform. Other courts were perhaps less convincing, particularly those with few eyewitnesses to the real pieces. Suppositions concerning colour combinations had to be made with little archaeological evidence, but as few members of the public knew anything about the originals, it perhaps seemed more important to give an indication, rather than a strict detailed view of some aspects of world decorative and cultural history.

The two little guidebooks featured here are in themselves interesting snapshots of public entertainment and education in the mid-nineteenth century. Although there was a whole range of entertainment from music hall to opera, public entertainment in the mid-nineteenth century did seem very much to be concerned with enlightenment of the masses through art education. In some respects, it seems very little different from today in that institutions find themselves with the same difficult task of educating through entertainment. It would be hard to judge how successful the Crystal Palace was as an educational resource, compared to its entertainment value. This always seems to be the problem when turning a museum into an entertainment complex. Does everyone enjoy the interactivity but still go away with more information, or have they just had fun pressing buttons? A number of critics of the Crystal Palace made note that many of the crowds who descended at the weekend were outside, rather than inside the Palace, the outside areas being full of non-educational entertainment.

 Illustration: Entrance to the Byzantine Court at the Crystal Palace, 1854.

However, the courts themselves, as can be seen from the two illustrations of sections of the Medieval and Byzantine Courts, were impressive, considering they were mere plaster copies of original stone features. They must have made a particularly grand gesture towards ideas concerning the history of the architectural and decorative arts, and given an indication of what was available in the world outside of the island of Britain, as well as an inkling of the cultural history that we all have an equal share in.

Interestingly, there were no courts dedicated to Indian, Chinese or Japanese cultures, nothing concerning Africa, Native America or the Pacific. In some respects, lack of detailed information could be seen as an excuse for at least some of the omissions. However, this does not explain why for example a Nineveh Court was included and an Indian Court was not. With many of these nineteenth century well-meaning public educational formats, there were just as many underlying factors that had to do with issues largely concerned with the twin aspects of empire, colonialism and racism. The popular and standard Euro-centric world view, also gave a staggering lack of perspective of the world as a whole. 

However, despite its obvious faults, the Crystal Palace did try to open new vistas on the world for a British audience that was largely ignorant of any details, other than its own. For those with no knowledge of the historical placing of the decorative arts of Europe at least, the different courts would have proved a useful resource, particularly if there was little hope of being able to visit the medieval churches of France and Germany, the ruins of Pompeii, or the Alhambra of Granada.

Further reading links:

Waterfall

This lovely waterfall was taken on the day I explored the park at Crystal Palace. I loved the way the light caught the water as it hit the rock, matching the shape of the grass.

On the last leg of my journey home now. Next post I'll really be back in London.

Skywatch Friday - Dinosaurs

Who'd have thought you'd find dinosaurs in London! You'll find life size dinosaurs, bears, moose and crocodiles at Crystal Palace park.

Remember to visit all the other skywatchers

Skywatch Friday - A walk in the Park

London is one of the biggest cities in the world yet 60% of greater London is green space. No wonder I feel squeezed in against the neighbours.

No really it makes it one of the most amazing big cities to live in.

We are being treated to lovely blue skies at present.

Make sure you visit wonderful skies around the world today courtesy of all the skywatchers.

Guerilla Decor

We have had guerilla restaurants, guerilla shops and now guerilla DIY decor.

A series of makeovers of various sizes are to pop-up around the country as part of the Homebase advertising campaign. Last week the Carlisle Station was given a makeover that the locals are keen to keep.

The room in the park (at Crystal Palace) transformed this park bench (picture on the right) to the room above in only an hour or two. The idea being to show you what you can do yourself.

Watch out for more of these makeovers in coming weeks. I believe people in Bristol should be on the look out for a guerilla makeover somewhere soon.

Owen Jones and the Use of Colour in Classical Greek Ornament

Illustration: Greek Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Owen Jones was always passionately interested in new formulas and ideas concerning the history of decoration, ornamentation and the use colour played within each cultural format. Admittedly, although well intentioned he was not always as accurate with the facts as we are used to today. However, he was working with sometimes sketchy information that was available to him in the middle of the nineteenth century. He did pursue some particularly bold ideas of his own which for their time were relatively radical and did not always sit well with the critics and experts of the day.

One of these ideas was the concept of colour within the classical Greek world. Jones was convinced that Greek sculpture and architecture resembled the painted ceramics and mosaics of the period, as well as deriving colour palettes from neighbouring older cultures such as the Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians. He was not convinced that the cold white marble that was the accepted norm of the modern European use of the classical template was indeed the correct one. He felt that his contemporaries were doing the ancient Greeks an injustice by imposing their own aesthetics on a culture that was both vibrant and independent and had no need to be remembered as a stodgy imitation of that of modern Europeans.

Illustration: Greek Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

The debate was not of Jones making as it had been rumbling away since the eighteenth century, but a long line of critics and antiquarians were devoted to the concept of the purity of classical Greece for a number of reasons, not all of them being artistic, scholarly or aesthetic. Modern Europeans had commandeered the Greek culture as the forerunner of their own; they saw themselves as sole inheritors in fact, strongly implying that they were the true inheritors of the classical world, rather than being derived, as they truly were, from various nomadic and semi-nomadic bands that wandered across Europe at the end of the Roman Empire.

It was the perceived barbarity of the vibrant colours that really horrified critics. The painstakingly slow build up of the myth that modern Europeans were the apex of classical Greek culture, seemed to be threatened by the concept of the questioning of the ancient cultures use of vibrant colour in its art and architecture. If it could be proved that classical Greece was just as loud, vibrant and colourful as its contemporary neighbours, then there would no myth that Europeans were formed from a higher ordered culture, higher than those of their contemporary neighbours in Africa and Asia, which would give them no legitimacy to rule over others. This does not mean to say an argument over colour use in ancient Greece directly called into question the European colonial empires. However, it was one of the factors that questioned the legitimacy of the European belief in their own superiority, and perhaps more importantly how then others would perhaps judge that legitimacy, hence the aggressive opposition to the colour of theories of men like Owen Jones.

Illustration: Greek Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

However, Jones was so convinced that he was right that when the Crystal Palace was moved and refurbished after the Great Exhibition of 1851, he arranged for the Greek Court to use a full colour palette to represent the true nature of Greece, rather than that of the white marble favoured by the classically trained sculptors and architects of the nineteenth century.

The re-imagined Greek Court caused such a furore amongst most of the critics and experts of the day that Jones had to publish a public apology in book form. However, he only apologised for perhaps getting some of the colour combinations wrong, as he was working from supposition gained from classical Greek ceramic work and comparisons with other cultures that were contemporary with the period. He remained adamant that he was right to colour marble and not to leave it as an aesthetic white, and he produced written examples of Greek marble that still retained some of their vivid painted surface as evidence that he was correct in his assumption.

When Jones published his Grammar of Ornament in 1856, two years after his An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace, he was much more circumspect about colour ranges. Although he still firmly believed that a whole range of colours from bright to muted were used in the classical Greek world, as he explained in the text that went with the colour design plates for the chapter on Greek Ornament in his The Grammar of Ornament, he toned down the combinations and range of colours as can be seen in the illustrations shown in this article. However, the last plate shown here does give an impression of what Jones was trying to convey in his argument.

Illustration: Greek Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

The fact that today we are fully aware of the rich and often garish colour combinations that were used on classical Greek sculpture and architecture, even though still today many would rather that the true colours of the Greek world had never been found, puts an end to the misconception both conscious and unconscious, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries fantasy of a subtle, dignified, scholarly and largely modern European concept of the ancient Greek world. It was early activists like Jones, who argued for a Greek world that was just as vibrant, loud and extravagant as any of the other cultures of the period. He helped to alleviate, at least a little of the pomposity that the classical Greeks, who would probably never have recognised themselves through the eyes of many Europeans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have had to endure and still probably do to this day. It is still the accepted belief among many of European descent, that they are the inheritors of classical Greece. The fact that they have no more legitimacy than the various people and cultures of North Africa and the Middle East, who could also claim to be inheritors of the classical world, says much perhaps about some of the underlying complex needs of Europeans.

Illustration: Greek Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Further reading links:
The Grammar of Ornament: All 100 Color Plates from the Folio Edition of the Great Victorian Sourcebook of Historic Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
The Grammar of Ornament
Grammar of Ornament: A Monumental Work of Art
An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace: With Arguments by G. H. Lewes and W. Watkiss Lloyd, an Extract from the Report of ... to Examine the Elgin Marbles in 1836
The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture: Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi
Ancient Greek Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Prayers in Stone: Greek Architectural Sculpture (c. 600-100 B.C.E.) (Sather Classical Lectures)
The Origins of the Greek Architectural Orders
Hope's Greek and Roman Designs CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art)
Ancient Greek Art (Art in History/2nd Edition)
Pictorial Narrative in Ancient Greek Art (Cambridge Studies in Classical Art and Iconography)
Ancient Greek Art (Art in History)
Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context
The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (Yale Russian and East European Studies)
The History Of Ancient Art Among The Greeks (1850)