Sweetsmelling
Helen Smith
Sweetness and Light: The 'Queen Anne' Movement in Architecture Mark Girouard (OUP £15)
The slightly frivolous sounding 'Sweetness and Light' of the title, coming after the invaluable works of reference The Victorian Country House and Victorian Pubs, might at first sight conceal the toughness and rigour of Mark Girouard's latest study, of the 'Queen Anne' style of architecture popular in the last forty years of the nineteenth century. But on examination the quotation from Matthew Arnold's Culture and Society seems entirely appropriate to a survey whose approach is as much sociological as architectural. The buildings, discussed with all the perception, accuracy and wit we have come to expect from this author, fall easily into type categories; houses for progressive and artistic town dwellers (sweetness), board schools and the occasional town hall (light), and the new higher education for women ('both sweetness and light gushed out of the buildings of Newnham College, Cambridge). Stylistic pigeon-holing is less easy in this complex period and Girouard is quick to point out
that the name is misleading, requiring inverted commas throughout. 'It was a kind of architectural cocktail, with a little genuine Queen Anne in it, a little Dutch, a little Flemish, a squeeze of Robert Adam, a generous dash of Wren and a touch of Francois Premier.' This heady mixture could prove a little slippery in the hands of a less gifted historian but Girouard holds it down firmly and savours it to the full. A touch more or less of any ingredient and he might have found himself toying with NeoGeorgian, or the vernacular revival, or Edwardian 'free classicism' but these are firmly eschewed. But, the author's greatest gift is not so much his accurate grasp of the general but the fact that this is always arrived at through an exhaustive study of the particular and the individual, avoiding the social determinism so tempting to historians of the period.
This lavishly illustrated book fills a long empty gap in architectural history and yet both its reasonable (well, fairly reasonable) price and its attractive appearance seem out to attract the non-specialist who will be amply rewarded. Girouard's command of the English language makes it a joy to read and his finesse and artistry are carried through to the design and layout (other nameless publishers of architectural books please note). The historian's greatest obstacle to literary merit can be the necessity of quotation but Girouard finds this no problem and effortlessly incorporates generous amounts of contemporary criticism and documentation into the text as well as providing ample and accurate footnotes for the scholar. No sector of his wide readership will be disappointed, The 'Queen Anne' style originated in the work of the Gothic Revival architects of the early 1860s but it required the independent development of an aspiring new middle class in search of a style commensurate with their new agnosticism and Hellenism to effect the successful and productive marriage that occurred in the arty 1870s. It appealed to them as much for its rejection of the cultural values of the previous generation as for its intrinsic qualities of relaxed gaiety, prettiness and flexibility, qualities added to the real Queen Anne style. One explanation of the willingness of the architect to abandon the rigid morality of the Gothic Revival is given as his growing consciousness of his new role as artist, but this was rooted in theparent movement. At about the same time as paintings began to be discussed frequently in terms of their architectural qualities, in the early 1860s, architecture became more widely criticised for its pictorial qualities. Godwin is perhaps given less credit here than is due to him for this attitude. 'Queen Anne' as it evolved embraced a whole new style of semicommunal living, of dress, of recreation, and of bringing up children. Chapters on book illustration (Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway) and on gardens, as well as on furniture and house decoration, demonstrate its far-reaching applicability.
Girouard is careful to distinguish 'Queen Anne' from the 'proto Neo-Georgian' style ofThackeray's house, taking as one of his criteria the picturesque asymmetry of the product of the Gothic stable. This is pre` sumably his reason for omitting mention of Crabbet Park (1873), long known t° Pevsner readers as 'the unexpected arid memorable case of a Neo-Queen-Anne "1 the true sense of the word at so early a date • The distinction here is clearly one of ellen.. tele and of conscious architectural imntol' ality — but should be drawn finer, I think, al order to explain omission of Cefn BrYr: ralch, Bodley's red brick country house 01 1869, with its potent mixture of Georgia" fenestration and vernacular revival gables, while Webb is giVen his full due for similtir buildings of the same date. The geq' raphical extent of the developed style Is interesting. Even in London success was, assured only in limited areas, Chelsea an° Bedford Park, and although the style male a hit in Cambridge (my favourite acadetble enclave of Grange Road is here given the consideration so readily afforded to the ear. her Gothic residential area of North Oxford) and at the seaside, it produced oillbY isolated examples in Hull, Oxford, Lee" and a few other towns, and very few countrY houses. Historians of American architeeture will be grateful for the lengthy P° ,s1; script on Queen Anne's highly succes' transatlantic voyage which should inspire renewed investigation in this area. In examining the social and cultural asPi" rations of a growing middle class, rejectin! the puritanism, morality and taste of thel; parents, parallels with modern times doll°1 have to be enumerated. We hardlyseer° !tj have changed since the 1870s when 'artlisd. tically it became progressive to be fashioned' — the rejection of Moder" Movement architecture, distrust of modefil technology, 'Small is Beautiful', the alt native left, cultivation of health and of countryside, domestic craft revivals and th`t eclectic tult of the 'ethnic', all parallel tilt period. But one is forced to disagree W11.5 the author's conclusions. A century ago tit," climate witnessed a new and attractive str'.. for a limited class and of limited ge°g,s raphical spread, while many architee'.. failed to emulate or exhibited signs of stY, listic or moral crisis. The whole and e°11, pleted 'Queen Anne' buildings of real Vas, ity are relatively few although the idea h,lcie, somed in interiors, far more under trlIclumi class control and often concealed bY older facade. Surely a retrospective view„d our '70s will exhibit a similar balance 3,41ht not merely a 'massive loss of confidence or may require a century and a social et3tft mentator of the genius of Girouard to St, the dross from the gold of the POs, Modernist era, but add together Hahlt7, Laura Ashley, and Third World EItteria prises, garnish with stripped Pine aes patchwork quilts, and a valid style emerte; requiring only a name. A rose by arlY name would smell as sweet, but cle".;t1 some sort of name is a good starting 1)01
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