Reading Houses and Building Books: Andrew Jackson Downing and the Architecture of Popular Antebellum Literature, 1835-1855University Press of New England, 1996 - 230 pages Andrew Jackson Downing's reputation as architect, landscape designer, and author spread far beyond his native Hudson River Valley during the first half of the 19th century. But as Adam Sweeting suggests in this elegantly written, illustrated account, Downing's real legacy lies in the philosophical statement he created by melding the literary and building arts with an intensely moralistic outlook. Along with such contemporaries as William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and Frederick Law Olmsted, Downing pursued what Sweeting calls genteel romanticism, an ideal that viewed the confluence of polite literature and graceful dwellings as not just an aesthetic statement, but an ethical imperative. This study of a unique coalescence of literature, architecture, and gardening illuminates "the widely held belief that efforts to reform the world began at home, that beautiful and clean houses produced morally beautiful and spiritually clean people." |
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American Scenery Andrew Jackson Downing antebellum architect Architecture of Country artistic associations authors beauty Beecher believed Boston building Calvert Vaux celebrated charm claimed contemporaries Cottage Residences Country Houses Cranch Crayon culture described designs discussion Donald Grant Mitchell Downing's Downing's books Downing's writings Downingesque early Edgewood Ellen English enjoyed example farm farmers fiction figure flowers Frederick Law Olmsted gables genteel aesthetic Genteel Romantics gentility Gothic Revival grounds Horticulturist Hudson River Valley Hudson Valley Idlewild Irving's James Kirke Paulding John Journal landscape gardening lawn Letters literary literature living Magazine moral N. P. Willis Nathaniel Parker Willis nation's nature Newburgh nineteenth century novel offered owners Park pattern books Paulding's pictorial popular readers Romanticism Rural Essays scape scene sentimental Sketch Book Socialized Picturesque space style Sunnyside surrounding taste Tatum terrain tion Treatise trees University Press urban villa visual Washington Irving Willis's writers York