Illustration: A C Pugin. Stone stringcourses, Croydon Church, Surrey, and stone pateras, Salisbury Cathedral. Gothic Ornaments, 1831.
Gothic Ornaments, Selected from Various Ancient Buildings, both in England and France, During the Years, 1828, 1829, and 1830: by Augustus Pugin, Architect: Exhibiting Numerous Specimens of Every Description of Decorative Detail, from the Eleventh to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, to give it its full descriptive title, was published in 1831 by Auguste Charles Pugin, also known as Augustus Pugin, the father of the more familiar Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.
Pugin's father had been a refugee from the French Revolution, and was to make his permanent home in England for the rest of his life. He helped to produce a number of key architecturally based publications at the end of the Georgian era, many of which were heavily medieval in their content. Auguste Pugin was to play the part of opening up serious consideration and scholarly analysis of medieval decoration and ornament, which was to become a near obsession in the early to mid Victorian era. That he was also to inspire and influence his only child A W N Pugin, was a forgone conclusion even though the younger Pugin was, in later life, to distance himself somewhat from his father's Georgian inspired enthusiasm for the medieval which Pugin thought tainted with the surface and insincere quality of the Regency period, compared to the seriousness imbued by the Victorians to their medieval past.
Illustration: A C Pugin. Stone stringcourses from York Minster and Westminster Abbey. Gothic Ornaments, 1831.
Although Pugin's 1831 title refers to Gothic ornament derived from buildings in both England and France, the vast majority of the ninety-one plates are of English origin, with the examples from France being mostly made up of illustrations from Rouen. Most are excellent examples of English medieval decoration at its finest. They give a definite understanding of the carved element that was such an important part of the medieval craft world, whether through the medium of wood or stone. These particular five examples from the book give an inkling as to the inspirational origins of much of the ornamental and decorative work of the period.
Nature and the reflection of nature was always at the heart of the medieval decorative arts. The realistic and the stylised representation of the natural world was reproduced with a fine understanding and intimate knowledge of the flora and fauna that surrounded the craftsman in both England and France. This form of decoration was seen in both religious and secular buildings and was comfortably part of most forms of interior decoration. However, much of the remaining work from the era can be seen within an ecclesiastical context as, although many religious buildings on both sides of the Channel have suffered over the intervening centuries, many have still retained an element of internal decoration. Many domestic homes on the other hand, have suffered from repeated alterations and redecorations on such a fundamental scale as to make any medieval trace difficult to find, indeed many medieval homes have disappeared altogether.
Illustration: A C Pugin. Stone stringcourses from Winchester Cathedral and All Saints' College, Oxford. Gothic Ornaments, 1831.
The details involved in this 1831 publication, along with many others that were contemporary with it, and even more that followed in the next few decades, show the unbridled enthusiasm in Britain for the medieval period. The enthusiasm on its own would have been enough to secure the Gothic Revival as an interesting late Georgian and early Victorian decorative phase. However, the scholarly and technical approach that was increasingly taken towards these publications as the nineteenth century progressed made them much more than decorative templates and a vocabulary for an interior style. They were to form the foundation of an architectural, design, decoration and craft movement that was to prove to be both wide-ranging and fundamental in its nature. It was to form a bond with the English in particular, which went well beyond the Victorian penchant for Gothic Revival. It was the medieval connection with the natural world that in some respects helped to shift the nineteenth century perspective away from the classical and the studied internal world of the urban salon, to that of the medieval and external world of nature and the rural workers cottage.
Illustration: A C Pugin. Stone stringcourses from Winchester Cathedral. Gothic Ornaments, 1831.
The English Arts & Crafts movement is an obvious benefactor to the early enthusiasm for the medieval. It was the belief that medieval decoration and ornament followed the example set by nature, as well as the belief in the medieval craftsman's experience of truth and honesty to materials and working methods that helped to found and sustain the movement throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. This very English of movements is firmly held as a product of the career of William Morris. However, many now see Pugin's son as the driving force behind the later philosophy of the Arts & Crafts movement, which in turn was to influence Morris. In turn again, it could be said that the younger Pugin was influenced by his father and although Auguste Pugin was largely led to produce and collaborate in gothic and medieval inspired publications due to both fashion and financial concerns, it does not change the fact that he had a particular influence on the early ideas and philosophies that were to fundamentally change the focus and direction of the English decorative arts across the nineteenth century and into much of the twentieth. This in turn changed the perspective and direction of so many English crafts people along the way.
Illustration: A C Pugin. Wooden stringcourses from Aldenham Abbey, Ely Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Gothic Ornaments, 1831.
Auguste Pugin's Gothic Ornaments publication can be seen within a context that helped to form the English Arts & Crafts movement. It, along with many other publications, both large and small, professional and amateur, also helped to secure an understanding of and an attachment to the medieval fabric of England, whether that be through architecture, decoration or the many craft disciplines that had been such an important support system to the medieval world. It was the revival of traditional English crafts that ultimately secured the fortune and future of individuals such as Morris, Mackmurdo, Gimson, Ashbee and others. Gothic Ornaments helped ultimately to secure the individualistic approach of the English Arts & Crafts movement and to secure a lasting perceived association between craft and the naturally inspired rural world, as opposed to that of the urban and the machine.
Further reading links:
Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London, with Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each Edifice: Volume 1
Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London, with Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each Edifice: Volume 2
Examples of Gothic Architecture, Selected from Various Antient Edifices in England, the Literary Part by E.J. Wilson. (Vol.2, by A. and A.W. Pugin. Vol.3, by A.W. Pugin and T.L. Walker).
Specimens of Gothic Architecture, Accompanied by Historical and Descriptive Accounts [By E.J. Willson]. [With] a Glossary of Technical Terms Descriptive of Gothic Architecture, by E.J. Willson
A Series of Ornamental Timber Gables, from Existing Examples in England and France, of the Sixteenth Century, Drawn by B. Ferrey Under the Direction ... with Descriptive Letter-Press by E.J. Willson
Specimens of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy
Specimens of Gothic Architecture Consisting of Doors, Windows, Buttresses, ...Selected From Ancient Buildings At Oxford
Paris and its Environs, displayed in a series of two hundred picturesque views, from original drawings, taken under the direction of A. Pugin, Esq. ... of Mr. C. Heath.by L. T. Ventouillac, etc.
God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain
Victorian Gothic House Style: An Architectural and Interior Design Source Book for Home Owners
Pugin: A Gothic Passion
Pugin's Gothic Ornament: The Classic Sourcebook of Decorative Motifs
Recollections of A.N. Welby Pugin, and his father, Augustus Pugin;: With notices of their works
A History Of The Gothic Revival
