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According to our article Arthur Wagner "Wagner had a lifelong opposition to the consecration of Anglican churches, on the basis that this would "[give] an opening for the State to intervene in their affairs". This view was shared by many Tractarians. On one occasion he complained to Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester, that consecration was "a farce". Pusey supported Wagner in his attempts to leave his newly built churches unconsecrated, but to no avail". What opening to the State would consecration give, beyond that already provided by the established status of the Church? Are any CofE churches unconsecrated (as opposed to deconsecrated)? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 12:31, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy links: Church of England Consecration Consecration in Christianity Edward Bouverie Pusey Richard Durnford Tractarians
I saw a similar argument about Keble College chapel. According to The Encyclopaedia of Oxford, in a characteristic attempt to keep the college out of the grasp of those whose views might be alien, the council refused to have the chapel consecrated, much to the fury of the then BISHOP OF OXFORD; it remains unconsecrated to this day.[1]: 207 TSventon (talk) 13:12, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DuncanHill: The local bishop would have had more rights over a consecrated church than over an unconsecrated proprietary chapel. I haven't found any recent sources, but A Practical Treatise on the Law Relating to the Church and Clergy (Henry William Cripps, 1886) says as is said by Lord Coke , as the church is a place dedicated and consecrated to the service of God , and is common to all the inhabitants , it therefore belongs to the bishop to order it in such manner as the service of God may best be celebrated on page 400 and has a section on proprietary chapels on pages 153 and 154. TSventon (talk) 19:47, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So in historical artifacts and buildings you see a deep interlinking of art and function, bridges, light poles and buildings are brimming with art. Why did we heavily reduce this? My guess is that business contributed to art as a pr move and with the advent of the printing press it stopped making economic sense. What do you think? Bastard Soap (talk) 13:25, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Britain, outdoor advertising was based on hoardings (billboards): England 1835, by John Orlando ParryBillboard#History has a reference for flyposting in the late 15th century, reasonably hot on the heels of moveable type. Beyond that, the lag in moving to full-blown advertising is mysterious, but advances in printing must be relevant. History_of_advertising#16th–19th_centuries says "Advances in printing allowed retailers and manufacturers to print handbills and trade cards. For example, Jonathon Holder, a London haberdasher in the 1670s, gave every customer a printed list of his stock with the prices affixed. At the time, Holder's innovation was seen as a 'dangerous practice' and an unnecessary expense for retailers." But further down the page there's this nice picture of public artwork from 1835. Giant version here, because I couldn't read it all properly in our version. Card Zero (talk)22:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that PR is an adequate explanation. Consider Crossness Pumping Station (built 1859-1865) by local government in London. It wasn't a private business trying to drum up income, because it had a monopoly on everybody's sewage, and it didn't need PR because London was desperate to get rid of the stuff. It wasn't even a public building (in the sense that members of the public needed to visit it). Yet it was decorated on the outside, and crazy decorated inside.
This article, Ornament and Decoration, says that the Modernist movement of the first years of the 20th-century rejected ornamentation in architecture and other fields, taking the example of Viennese architect Adolf Loos and his 1908 essay, Ornament and Crime:
Adolf Loos campaigned to strip the ornament from language, from dress, and from dwelling. “I have freed mankind from superfluous ornament,” he bragged. “‘Ornament’ was once the synonym for ‘beauty’. Today, thanks to my life’s work, it is a synonym for ‘inferior’.” Espousing a middle-class ethos of functionalism, economic rationality, impersonality, and restraint, modernists redirected investment from luxury expenditures to factories, sanitary facilities, and municipal infrastructures. In place of individual expression they advocated standardized solutions, naked structures, white walls, and crisp geometric forms.
I wondered what the "crime" was. His article says:
"the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornamentation from objects of everyday use." It was therefore a crime to force craftsmen or builders to waste their time on ornamentation that served to hasten the time when an object would become obsolete (design theory). Loos's stripped-down buildings influenced the minimal massing of modern architecture, and stirred controversy.
I have some questions about this.
Does therefore really belong? It would make sense in the opposite direction, rational efficient building is removing ornament -> evolution of culture is removing ornament, but doesn't seem to follow the other way round, as presented.
I question his premises. If ornamentation really causes obsolescence (by adversely affecting the function of an object) it must therefore be more than mere decoration (which by definition is not functional). The only way I can understand ornamentation causing 'obsolescence' is by going out of fashion. The decoration of Tower Bridge is well out of fashion, but that does not make the bridge obsolete.
I couldn't guess with certainty, since Brutalism has its fans and protectors due to its historical interest (reminiscent of the scene in Futurama where there is a concert of classical hip-hop, and how "modern art" is now over 100 years old). Besides, out-of-date ornament may have caused buildings to look offensive in the past, before the notion of "heritage". Certainly in Georgian England there was great destruction of Tudor architecture because everything had to be "improved", meaning neoclassical or approximately Parisian. Card Zero (talk)16:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
