The Aesthetic Movement, and Japanese and British influences on its development in the United States, is in every way a story of the Industrial Revolution. The cross-cultural, dynamic phenomenon that arose from the clash of craft with mass manufacturing simultaneously sparked the dilemmas that led to the “cult of beauty.” The Industrial Revolution that created the conundrum, however, also manufactured its own solutions. The answers that emerged for the pictorial, decorative and architectural arts were exquisitely beautiful. Those answers were also transformative. Hannah Sigur’s presentation will explore those dilemmas and how the arts of Japan provided some of the answers.

For much of the 20th century, critics dismissed the Aesthetic Movement’s mantra of beauty for beauty’s sake. Even the velvet-and-lace-clad Oscar Wilde criticized the Aesthetic Movement as a superficial matter of rapidly changing fashion. The Aesthetic Movement, however, is now considered an inevitable, and profound, outcome of a certain moment in history.

Oscar Wilde’s sparkling wit and flamboyance cloaked brilliant trenchancy. His famous American tour of 1882 was enthusiastically received by urban Americans, as well as isolated, but enraptured, frontier settlers, so that that his tour was extended to 140 engagements across the continent. Clearly, the “cult of beauty” satisfied a deep need for Victorian Americans to make sense of their rapidly changing world.

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The thought of American Victorian furniture usually conjures up visions of luxury, elaborately carved and inlaid rich woods crafted by upscale makers such as John Henry Belter or Herter Brothers. These costly products, however, were beyond the reach of most Americans. Cottage and wicker furniture offered style, ornament and often exoticism at a fraction of the cost of their lavishly carved or inlaid counterparts. Cottage and wicker furniture enjoyed widespread appeal and were affordable to nearly everyone.

American cottage furniture was a painted style that was fashionable from the 1840s to the end of the furniture. Edward Hennessey, a Boston manufacturer of cottage furniture, attracted the praise of landscape architect and style-setter Andrew Jackson Downing. A.J. Downing’s bestseller, The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), praised Hennessey’s furniture as being “remarkable for its combination of lightness and strength … It is very highly finished, and usually painted drab, white, gray, a delicate lilac, or a fine blue — the surface polished and hard, like enamel. Some of the better sets have groups of flowers or other designs painted upon them with artistic skill.”

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Enslaved and free craftsmen of color helped build and furnish antebellum Southern homes. The first step in recognizing the contributions of these otherwise nameless craftspeople is to identify them. The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (or “MESDA”) has spent more than four decades identifying the names — and crafts — of more than 6,000 slave-owning craftsmen, more than 3,000 enslaved craftsmen and more than a thousand free craftsmen of color. African-American craftsmen worked at dozens of trades, including pottery-making, silversmithing and cabinetmaking. Daniel Ackerman will tell us a few of their stories and show us their products.

David Drake (ca. 1781 – ca.1870), an Edgefield, South Carolina, potter is probably the best known enslaved craftsman. His large, utilitarian, alkaline-glazed pots literally speak to us through the words he inscribed on their sides. When it was illegal to teach a slave to read or write in South Carolina, Dave exhibited his education at the risk of severe punishment. Dave flaunted his accomplishments by signing, dating and inscribing pots with witticisms and poetry. The words of some of Dave’s inscriptions defy the slavery laws that held him in bondage and dispersed his family: “I wonder where is all my relation/friendship to all — and, every nation” (1857). Other jars, the following two examples dated 1859, articulate religious beliefs: “I made this out of number, & cross/if you do not lisen at the bible you’ll be lost” and Good for lard — or holding — fresh meats &/blest we were — when peter saw the folded sheets.”

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“Elegance, good taste, and luxury never go out of style.” Kenneth Jay Lane’s famous quotation perfectly captures the design philosophy of one of the most important American fashion icons of our time.

Kenneth Jay Lane, a native of Detroit, was educated at the University of Michigan and the Rhode Island School of Design. He started at the art department at Vogue and became a top shoe designer for Christian Dior. He added rhinestone buckles to Dior’s shoes and, in his spare time, created flashy baubles. His jewelry creations, branded as KJL, were an immediate success. Saks Fifth Avenue sold its entire initial inventory in one day! His fakes have been widely praised as being more beautiful and dazzling than the real things.

Mr. Lane’s dazzling creations have graced some of the best-dressed women of the 20th century, the Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Jacqueline Kennedy epitomized stylishness with the now iconic KJL three-strand faux pearl necklace that she wore during her husband‘s presidency. Mr. Lane’s jewelry is collected by sophisticated connoisseurs and worn by fashionable women around the world. Lou Reed, mentored by Andy Warhol, characterized Kenneth Jay Lane’s combination of bohemianism with chic in his 1974 song, “Sally Can‘t Dance”: “She knew all the really right people; she went to Le Jardin; She danced with Picasso’s illegitimate mistress and wore Kenneth Jay Lane jewels ….”

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