American Renaissance

American Renaissance painted decor: gilded stencilling on an olive green ground in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy in the Executive Office Building, 1879 (now the Vice President's Ceremonial Office)

Ennobled currency: The central vignette of the US$2 bill, Series 1896: Blashfield's Science presents Steam and Electricity to Commerce and Manufacture.

In the history of American architecture and the arts, the American Renaissance was the period from 1876 to 1917^[1] characterized by renewed national self-confidence and a feeling that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance humanism. The American preoccupation with national identity (or New Nationalism) in this period was expressed by modernism and technology as well as academic classicism. It expressed its self-confidence in new technologies, such as the wire cables of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. It found its cultural outlets in both Prairie School houses and in Beaux-Arts architecture and sculpture, in the "City Beautiful" movement, and "also the creation of the American empire."^[2] Americans felt that their civilization was uniquely the modern heir, and that it had come of age. Politically and economically, this era coincides with the Gilded Age and the New Imperialism.

The classical architecture of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, was a demonstration that impressed Henry Adams, who wrote that people "would some day talk about Hunt and Richardson, La Farge and Saint-Gaudens, Burnham and McKim and Stanford White when their politicians and millionaires were quite forgotten." (The Education of Henry Adams ^[3]).

In the dome of the reading room at the new Library of Congress, Edwin Blashfield's murals were on the given theme, The Progress of Civilization.

The exhibition American Renaissance: 1876–1917 at the Brooklyn Museum, 1979, encouraged the revival of interest in this movement.

The dates chosen for this era coincide with the Centennial Exposition, the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the United States entry into World War I.

Notable examples

Cuyahoga County Courthouse, 1906-1912

The exterior includes sculpture by Karl Bitter, Daniel Chester French, Herbert Adams, Isidore Konti and Herman Matzen while the interior contains murals by Frank Brangwyn, Violet Oakley, Charles Yardley Turner, Max Bohm and Frederick Wilson. A stained glass window was designed and executed by Frederick Wilson and Charles Schweinfurth.^[4]

Notes

↑ Wilson, Richard Guy, ‘’The American Renaissance: 1876–1917’’, The Brooklyn Museum 1979
↑ Wilson, Richard Guy, ‘’The American Renaissance: 1876–1917’’, The Brooklyn Museum 1979 p. 15
↑ http://www.classicreader.com/Adams_Henry/Education_of_Henry_Adams/23.html
↑ http://publicworks.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/OldCrtHousePaintingProject.aspx

References

Howard Mumford Jones, "The Renaissance and American origins," Ideas in America 1945.
Richard Guy Wilson, "The great civilization", forward essay to The American Renaissance 1876–1917. Exhibition catalogue, The Brooklyn Museum, 1979–1980.
Henry Hope Reed, The Golden City, (New York: Norton Library) 1971, Ch. 3:"The American contribution" pp 62–98.

Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. New York: Knopf, 1988; rpt., New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Historicism and Revivalism in Western architecture and decorative arts
International	Baroque Revival Beaux-Arts Byzantine Revival Carpenter Gothic Egyptian Revival Gothic Revival Greek Revival / Neo-Grec Moorish Revival Neoclassical New Classical / Neo-Historism Renaissance Revival Châteauesque Italianate Palazzo style Romanesque Revival Second Empire Spanish Colonial Revival Swiss chalet style Vernacular
France	French Renaissance Henry II style Louis Treize Louis Quatorze Louis Quinze Directoire style Empire style Second Empire Belle Époque Art Nouveau Art Deco
Germany, Austria-Hungary	Biedermeier Gründerzeit Nazi architecture Resort style Rundbogenstil
Great Britain	Adam style Bristol Byzantine Edwardian Baroque Indo-Saracenic Revival British India Jacobethan Queen Anne style Regency Scottish baronial style Tudor Revival / Black-and-White Revival
Greece and Balkans	Mycenaean Revival Serbo-Byzantine Revival
Italy	Stile umbertino
Mexico	Mayan Revival
Netherlands	Traditionalist School
Nordic countries	National Romantic style Dragon Style
Portugal	Pombaline Neo-Manueline Soft Portuguese style
Russian Empire and USSR	Byzantine Revival Russian Revival Stalinist architecture
Spain	Neo-Mudéjar
United States	Jeffersonian architecture American Renaissance Collegiate Gothic Colonial Revival Federal style Greco Deco Mediterranean Revival Mission Revival Polish Cathedral style Pueblo Revival Queen Anne style Richardsonian Romanesque Territorial Revival
Modern architecture »

Architecture of the United States
Colonial	American colonial architecture Colonial Georgian Dutch Colonial French Colonial German Colonial Spanish Colonial
Early Republic	Adam Federal Jeffersonian
Mid-19th century	Greek Revival Italianate Gothic Revival
Victorian	Richardsonian Romanesque Second Empire American Renaissance Folk Stick style Queen Anne Shingle Territorial
Late-19th to mid-20th century	Beaux-Arts Chicago School Colonial Revival Dutch Colonial Revival Mediterranean Revival Mission Revival Spanish Colonial Revival Tudor Revival Pueblo Revival Territorial Revival American Craftsman Prairie School American Foursquare California bungalow Art Deco Streamline Moderne PWA Moderne
Post-World War II to current	International style Usonian American ranch Modern Postmodern Neo-eclectic New Classical Architecture
Vernacular	Hall and parlor house Central-passage house Log cabin Cape Cod Saltbox Creole cottage Dogtrot house I-house Shotgun house Sod house Carpenter Gothic First Period

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.