Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815-1852Apostle of taste is the first full-length biography of Downing, the horticulturist, landscape gardener, and prolific writer on architecture who, more than any other individual, shaped middle-class taste in the United States in the two decades prior to the Civil War. Through his books and the pages of the Horticulturist, Downing preached a gospel of taste that promoted the modern or natural style of landscape design over the formal and geometric arrangements that were the hallmark of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century gardens. Together with his longtime collaborator, architect Alexander Jackson Davis, he contributed to the revolution in American architectural taste from the universality of the classical revival to Gothic, Italianate, bracketed, and other romantic or picturesque styles. Downing celebrated this progression from classic to romantic not simply as a change in stylistic preference but also as a reflection of the nation's evolution from a pioneer condition to a more advanced state of civilization. In this compelling new biography, illustrated with more than 100 drawings, plans, and photographs, David Schuyler explores the origins of Downing's ideas in English aesthetic theory and his efforts to "adapt" English designs to the different climate and republican social institutions of the United States. Schuyler traces the impulse toward an American architectural style in Downing's work, demonstrates the influence of Downing's ideas on the appropriate design of homes and gardens, and analyzes the complications of class implicit in Downing's prescriptions for American society. |
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A. J. Davis agricultural AJD to A. J. Alexander Jackson Davis Andrew Jackson Downing apostle of taste architect Architecture of Country beauty building Calvert Vaux Cemetery Charles Downing City Cottage Residences Country Houses Courtesy of Shadek-Fackenthal Courtesy of Special Cultivator cultural Curtis Davis Collection/MMA Downing wrote Downing's dwelling English farm farmers farmhouse Figure Franklin & Marshall Frederick Law Olmsted Fredrika Bremer Fruit Trees George George William Curtis Henry Horticultural Society Horticulturist House and Garden Houses New York ibid improvement John July Landscape Gardening Loudon Luther Tucker Magazine of Horticulture Morris Library New-York Newburgh Telegraph nursery Olmsted ornamental picturesque plants porch Practice of Landscape Prophet With Honor public grounds published readers reprinted Review Richard Jenrette Rural Architecture Rural Essays Sept Shadek-Fackenthal Library Smith Papers Special Collections style Tatum tion Treatise United University of Delaware Villas and Cottages Washington Wilder