From Deco Cars to Deco Furniture

Streamlining influenced automobile design in the Deco age, and changed the appearance from the old rectangular transporters into sleek vehicles with sweeping lines, symmetry and V-shapes. It didn’t matter that the decorative elements could hardly influence speed and effic­iency; it was enough that these elements suggested speed and effic­iency. Muscular and forceful elements, like high prow hoods, art-deco speed lines for chrome grilles and parallel bar trims were the rage in Deco cars!

Two examples can show us how the exterior and interior of a deco classic appeared Examine the Cadillac Sedanette from the outside, then have a look at the interior. And see the walnut dashboard of the 1938 Bentley. 

desk, Louro Preto and chestnut burl veneer, Brights of Nettlebed. Date?

I liked the car reviewer who acknowledged that more than exciting dials and switches alone, the dashboard was (and is?) also an important statement of personal style. The best dashboards were works of art where engineering met styling, and fact balanced fantasy. In his 1934 MG PA Midget, for example, the Art Deco dashboard made a pronounced play of MG's famous octagon badge: dials and switches were encased in chunky chromed octagons. And the speedo and rev counter were combined in one delicious looking dial. Can we say boys with their toys?

But not just cars. Soon designers were including speed lines and V shapes in other, totally unrelated objects eg clock faces. Monumental architecture and small art objects alike adopted the use of stepped forms, geometric shapes, chevrons, ziggurats and other motifs of the Art Deco era.

Cadillac Sedanette exterior and dashboard, owned by Cars for Films

Brights of Nettlebed has photographed an amazing Louro Preto and chestnut burl veneered pedestal desk, shaped just like a classic car. Coming from Central and South America, especially southern Brasil and Venezuala, Louro Preto veneer was used for interior design, furniture pieces and boat building.

The angled sides encloses a vintage leather inlaid hood with a car clock inset into the dashboard and recesses, above a steel detailed drawer, push action draw­ers with engine turned fronts. Each pedestal has two drawers with steel handles, while the side and front have grille bases. I know the width (212 cm wide) but I wish I knew who the designer was and in which year this amazing desk was made.

If this pedestal desk, by itself, doesn’t inspire memories of the vintage racing era, classical cars and stylish timber dashboards, the collector could simply add a painting of a 1930s car on the nearest wall.

Dashboard of a 1938 Bentley

Hummer on 28 Inch Rims

Hummer on 28 Inch Rims

Napoleon gave it to Josephine! (The art object, I mean)

Princely taste, indeed. The Empress Clock, a spectacular ormolu mounted automaton singing bird vase clock, was made for the Empress Josephine in 1805.

The case of this clock is attributed to Claude Galle, (1759-1815), a bronzier and gilder working in Paris. No other bronzier in Paris obtained as many royal commissions as Galle. After the French Revolution, Galle continued to produce numerous pieces for Napoleon Bonaparte, including an order for the Chateau of Saint-Cloud. In the early C19th, Galle participated in the refurnishing of ALL the royal palaces, including Napoleon's residences in Italy.

By this time, the Galle firm had become one of the largest in Paris, with 400 workers. Their craftsmen made this sort of case for clocks of course, but also for ewers and vases.

The Empress clock, made in Paris in 1805, 82 cm high

The clock & automaton maker was Jean Francois DeBelle. DeBelle was a pupil of the great horologist Robert Robin and became a master in 1781. He seems to have been an unorthodox artisan, working outside the guilds, but popular for his fine work. He was court clock-maker to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until their 1793 execution. DeBelle apparently went into hiding during the revolution, but his life improved with the establishment of the First Republic.

Sotheby’s believes that DeBelle’s talents were bought to the notice of the Emperor Napoleon when he supplied two vase clocks to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples and Spain. Similar to Josephine’s clock except for the singing bird, the other two vase clocks are now in Madrid National Museum.

In any case, Napoleon and Josephine were married in 1796 and were crowned Emperor and Empress of France in 1804. In 1805 Napoleon asked DeBelle to make an automaton clock as a gift to the Empress and one year later the clock was delivered. She must have loved it since the clock remained with her at Malmaison, following her divorce from the Emperor. After her death in 1814, her property went to the children of her first marriage, Eugene and Hortense. And DeBelle supplied the Emperor Napoleon with many art objects for the Grand Trianon, where Napoleon later lived there with his next wife Marie Louise of Austria.

Clearly both artisans received commissions from European nobility.

The Empress Clock was tall (82cm) and made of a rich range of materials - the Sotheby’s catalogue mentions ormolu on the bronze, painted brass, steel, glass and stained peacock feathers. The tapered body was painted to resemble veined marble, the upper section and neck applied with finely chased mounts representing Arts and Science. The enamel dial within a frieze of rams and cornucopias was flanked by crisply cast eagles attacking serpents, which formed part of the scroll handles.

When the clock struck, an automaton bird appeared, flapped its wings and opened its beak - its breast feathers trembling - as it selected one of three tunes played by pipe organ. DeBelle ingeniously concealed the movement that operates both upper and lower automata sections of the clock.

No wonder the clock sold for £825,000 (USA $1.3 million) in July 2011.

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Now a lovely comparison, smaller but from the same era.

DeBelle mantel clock, made in Paris c1806, 37 cm high

Richard Redding Antiques in Zurich had a very fine Empire gilt and brown patinated mantle clock of eight day duration, signed on the white enamel dial Lefevre suc De Belle à Paris. The dial had Roman numerals and outer Arabic numerals for the days of the month and a fine pair of gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes. The blued steel pointer was used for the calendar.

The movement with anchor escapement, silk thread suspension, striking on the hour and half-hour with an outside count wheel. The architectural case had a stepped rectangular top with overlapping stiff leaf cornice and the dial was surmounted by an egg-and-dart moulded arch terminating in Apollo masks and stylised branch and dragon spandrels. The glazed panel was used for viewing the pendulum bob flanked by husk-festooned torchères, the sides with arched glazed panels surmounted by triangular pediment mounts and flanked below by amphora. The whole object was placed on a stepped base, centred by an applied mount with vase, dragons and flanking rosettes, on bun feet.

Free Museum Admissions on Canada Day: Time to Step Up Beyond the Holiday

I was happy this week to hear that the National Gallery of Canada would be providing free admission to its permanent collection on Canada Day. I was also glad to hear the Art Gallery of Alberta would be providing free admission to both the collection and temporary exhibitions on July 1. I haven't done much further research on other museums that normally charge admission providing free access on the upcoming holiday, but I can only presume there are others.

Yet, at the same time as I'm glad about these patriotic public-access gestures, I feel some disappointment or disbelief--definitely, at least, some ambivalence. The collection at the NGC belongs to all Canadians every day of the year, so trotting out free access as a one-off holiday "extra" tends, in my view, to reinforce the idea that public access is really not a something the public should expect in the long term. Ditto for Albertans vis a vis the Art Gallery of Alberta's collection.

It is also disappointing to me that our major public art museums in English Canada do not, by and large, even honour the tradition of free museum admission on or around International Museums Day. Montreal has a strong program of this kind, which is no surprise, some might say, given the different ethos and funding situations there. The NGC has also stepped up, offering free admission this year on May 20. But the AGO, the AGA, and the VAG don't seem to take part in this outreach effort, let alone non-art museums like the ROM and the Glenbow. (I could be wrong, and would be happy to be corrected!)

Perhaps this lack of International Museums Day isn't a surprise given that the Canadian Museums Association itself, though giving a nod to the possibility of free admission, suggests that for International Museums Day museums should invite in a local MP rather than the wider public.

I write this post with some trepidation given that it is unpleasant for me personally to focus on such disappointments. To state the obvious, it is not always fun to be a negative voice.

This is especially true when there is a lot to be proud of in the Canadian art community--like the fact that many galleries and museums, public, private or otherwise, do offer the public free access to art every day of the year. I simply continue to feel regret when the institutions charged with growing and maintaining "publicly owned" collections fail to provide the public with adequate free access to them. I also feel disappointed that many of our institutions can't seem to get it together to do at least something along the lines of New York City's Art Museums Day (another Intl Museums Day related event).

I do wish everyone a terrific holiday! I'll be headed to the beach, hopefully.

(Photograph taken by Jared Grove (Phobophile) and posted at Wikimedia)

World's Most Visited Art Galleries

According to the The Art Newspaper 's annual international survey published in April 2009, The Louvre in Paris took the top spot as the world's most attended mus­eum, as you might expect. Centre Pompidou in Paris was second, then the Tate Modern in London, British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria was the most visited art gallery in Australia. With 1.48 million visitors in 2007-08, it also ranked among the publication’s top 25 most popular art museums in the world. Since Melbourne (3.85 million) doesn’t have the population of Cairo-Tokyo-New York-London-Paris-Mexico City, nor the history of Vienna-Berlin-Paris-Rome-Jerusalem-London, this is an impressive feat.

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National Gallery of Victoria, front entrance

When it came to individual exhibitions, Nara National Museum (850 ks west of Tokyo) won the 13th annual survey with a display of items from Shoso-in, the imperial treasure house of the Todai-ji Temple. It had an average daily attendance of 12,700 people. The Tokyo National Museum ranked second with a display of national treas­ures from the Yakushi-ji Temple. In third place was the Grand Palais Nave in Paris, a large exhibition hall which reopened in 2005 after long renovations. The Nave saw an average of 10,350 people per day for a display of digital art including film, videos and instal­lations. Madrid's Reina Sofia (which exhibition?) came next and a large-scale exhibition of Van Gogh's works made the Albertina in Vienna the next most popular gallery programme.

William Hogarth at Vauxhall Gardens: sex, art, music

London was a dirty, chaotic city in the second half of the 17th century. Vauxhall was then a rural hamlet on the south bank of the Thames, and Vauxhall Gardens was merely a square plot fringed by trees. Nothing special, except that people came out of the city to breathe the fresh air, walk and amuse themselves.

The grand walk in the centre of Vauxhall gardens

The pleasure gardens that grew up, from 1661 on, asked a fairly modest fee for admittance and entertainment. Each evening there were organised entertainments which were clean cut and fun, unlike the horrendous bear baiting and other disgusting entertainments offered in the city. However some entertainment raised well plucked eyebrows - the popularity of Vauxhall, especially its secluded paths and gardens, made it an ideal place of business for the working girls of London.

Clearly Spring Garden, as it was first called, must have been a great place for entertainment. This was where Samuel Pepys made his choice of the Ladies of the Night and where King Charles II courted his mistresses (sequent­ial­ly?). It is not hard for us to imagine enthusiastic crowds, squashing onto the river boats every summer evening, holding the shilling entrance fee in their sticky hands.

My earlier post, on pleasure gardens and the society that frequented them, started in 1729 when the young businessman Jonathan Tyers (1702-67) took over the lease to Vauxhall Gardens. He wanted his pleasure garden to become an elegant, civilised and civilising environment.

Tyers transformed what was essentially a plantation of trees into a space for performance and display, with specially designed pavilions, grottoes, sculptures and illuminated serpentine walks. Masquerades, gymnasts and magicians were impressive. Fireworks displays apparently stopping street-smart Londoners in their tracks.

The octagonal Orchestra was a building designed for the performance of music in the open air that opened in 1735. Around it in colonnades, Tyers built rows of supper-boxes where people could enjoy the music while eating and drinking. With 100,000 visitors each season, the gardens offered musicians their first mass audiences.

With Hogarth's (1697-1764) help, these green, clean pleasure gardens became egalitarian spaces where the middle classes could mix with the intelligentsia and the minor nobility. And the not-so-minor nobility; Frederick, Prince of Wales and his entourage loved going to Vauxhall.

People could enjoy in supper alcoves, decorated with contemporary paintings and sculptures. Why did Hogarth make the art choices? Because Hogarth, who was a friend of Jonathan Tyers, had recently married and moved to lodgings in South Lambeth!  Hogarth wanted to help decorate Vauxhall Gardens, giving other artists invaluable public exposure. Tyers was delighted, and in return he presented Hogarth with a lifetime pass to the gardens.

The relationship seemed to work well. David Coke (History Today, May 2012) was convinced that Tyers became one of the greatest patrons of contemporary British art and music. He argued that Vauxhall Gardens were central to the dissemination of Rococo in the public mind, at least in London. Tyers selected architecture, paintings, sculpture, furniture, tableware, lighting and music such that his gardens actively promoted the British rococo style. The artist who most benefited from Hogarth's campaign was Francis Hayman, who had four rococo paintings commissioned by Tyers for the Prince's Pavilion.

For Londoners from 1730 on, it must have seemed like stepping into an ethereal dream world, with wafting music and 20,000 glittering oil-lamps in the trees. I like the saying: music, wine and moonlight. They should have added “sex”, both paid for and free.

Music room in Vaux Hall Gardens by H Roberts, 1752. Photo credit: History Today

Now comes the interesting part. Hogarth understood that art was became increasingly commercialised, viewed in shop windows and taverns, and sold in printshops. New customs were emerging. So Hogarth’s idea was to paint and engrave modern moral subjects; to treat the canvases as his stage and the models as his story's characters. It must have been successful since today Hogarth is best known for his modern moral subjects, of which he sold engravings on subscription.

I understand why Hogarth would want create series of tragic and funny moralising stories, but did the sexy and glittering society who frequented the pleasure gardens give a fillip to his popular Modern Moral series? If Vauxhall, the very place Hogarth had helped make popular and successful, was one of the sources of his vigorous satirising of the manners and values of the day, it seemed strangely like biting the hand that fed him. Nonetheless the dates of these “moral lectures” were intriguing. Harlot's Progress prints appeared for the first time in 1732. The Rake's Progress prints were delayed somewhat but appeared in 1735. Marriage à la Mode appeared a few years later.

one print from William Hogarth's series called Harlot's Progress

Tyer and Hogarth died almost at the same time (1767 and 1764 respectively), so their careers overlapped perfectly with the greatest decades of Vauxhall’s long existence.

The most useful reference is David Coke’s essay "Vauxhall Gardens" in Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum London, 1984. Also see Vauxhall Gardens: A History, written by David Coke and Alan Borg, and published by Paul Mellon Centre in 2011. The Works of William Hogarth: in a series of engravings, by John Trusler 2007, is wonderful.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally Read: An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

Prompted by my colleague David Balzer's excellent summer reading list generated for Canadianartschool.ca (Canadian Art's student and careers site), I have fiiiiiiiiiiiinally read Steve Martin's 2010 novel An Object of Beauty.

Set mainly in the commercial side of the New York art world from the 1990s to the date of publication, An Object of Beauty certainly does have a kind of light, gossipy dishiness to recommend it (though that's not all). I am quite unfamiliar with the commercial and auction parts of the art world—much, much less familiar than Martin, who is a prolific collector and, fortunately for the reader, a great observer and conveyor of human social dynamics—and it was entertaining to read scenes of a dealer sticking to her monied client like glue, for sure. He also does a great job of mapping out various strata of the NY art realm, as far as I can tell: uptown vs. downtown, East Side vs. West Side, modern vs. contemporary, etc.

(Publishers Weekly put this observation much better: "Martin (an art collector himself) is an astute miniaturist as he exposes the sound and fury of the rarified Manhattan art world.")

I also enjoyed the ways in which Martin conveys, in this book, the different ways that dealers, auction houses, collectors, and critics attribute or signal value in art. Is this value monetary, spiritual, acquisitive, social, human, humane? All of the above, or none, depending on the character and context of the individual.

Also, the fact that the narrator of the book is a critic prompted both a sense of thrill and embarrassment for me, as I empathized with his peripheral role to the art world (including the one of his own narrative), with his small, tiny publication triumphs, and most centrally, at least for this novel, with his need to get the himself the hell out of the way of the story, while also being enmeshed in it in a way.

In fact, I found this choice of narrator somewhat curious, whether a critic or not--it's rare that I read a novel (well, these days, it's rare I read at all, so I'm no expert) where the narrator has such a peripheral role to the narrative, and alternates between an individual perspective and a slightly more omniscient (or as he puts it at the beginning, a more imaginative) point of view. Could this be interpreted as a kind of reading of art criticism in general? I don't think Martin intended it as such, but criticism does tend to reach across that whole spectrum of voice, from first-person memoir to third-person "objectivity" or omniscience, so... fun to think about, I guess.

Finally, let me say that Martin is very good at conveying the dynamics in a courtship/relationship where one person is much more invested than another. It kind of made me think, man, who could really have turned down or burned Steve Martin so bad? Dude plays the banjo and has been attached to a bazillion famous things. Also, he prolly has a really nice art collection. A reminder that in matters of the heart, we are all vulnerable and imperfect, I suppose.

Overall, not a must-read, but very much a nice-to-read, especially if you are involved with art in some way, shape or form.

(Image: Image of the book's cover from Stevemartin.com)

Australian Bandstands in the Federation Era

Who in the blogging world might be interested in Victorian-era bandstands? Leaves of Grass blog has the most amazing coll­ection of Brasil’s bandstands I've seen. They had various shapes, colours and building materials, one more splendid than the next. Alas she did not include any building dates. Carol­ine's Miscellany examined the source of Taunton (1895) and Bridgwater (1908)’s late 19th century Bandstands. Her examination of British sites inspired my search for Australian equivalents. Clueless in Boston presented a truly lovely image of Parkman Bandstand 1912 in Boston Common.

The best collection of British Edwardian band stands is in Rose C'est La Vie blog. Rose loved the bandstands because "they're whimsical in design, sometimes oriental, sometimes wedding cakey, and evocative of the innocent pleasures of promenading on a fine day and settling down on a deckchair to listen to a very jolly brass band, a military orchestra, local musicians."

In my state, Victoria, Johnstone Park Geelong was created in March 1872. In December that year, the first band concert was held by a local military band. Then an octagonal wooden bandstand was built right in centre of the park as early as November 1873. As soon as WW1 ended, a war memorial was built in the centre of the park as a memorial to the fine young men killed in battle, and the old bandstand was modernised.

Geelong, Johnstone Park

The late 1870s saw the discovery of deep leads of gold in the Creswick region and these underground mines brought further wealth to the town. This enabled solid public buildings to be constructed, as well as the development of public open spaces, like Park Lake. Creswick Jubilee Bandstand 1879 was erected to celebrate Queen Victor­ia's Diamond Jubilee. It dominated the town's open area in the centre.

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Creswick Jubilee Bandstand

Oppos­ite the Beaufort gardens was an octagonal band rotunda 1903, build to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Reign. The Beaufort rotunda was crowned by an octagonal lantern with iron-grille décor­ation and a four-faced clock. Queen Victoria’s death created a virtual cottage industry. The rotunda built as her memorial and opened in Buninyong in 1901 was the earliest memorial in this state, and preceded the band­stands built in Beaufort 1903, Bendigo 1903, Geelong 1904 and Melbourne 1907.

An attractive and slightly differently shaped bandstand was built in Burra in 1911. This small South Australian town wanted to honour King Edward VII.

Beaufort Rotunda

Sturt St Ballarat already had beautiful blue gums, grown for 45 years before the first bandstand was designed. By 1905 the cent­re of Sturt St looked like an interlinked group of lovely gardens. The position was perfect. Queen Alexander Bandstand 1908 was named by the Duke of York after his mother, wife of King Edward VII. It was an innovative bandstand de­sign, using a polygonal form surmounted by a Moor­ish onion dome. The bandstand had very fine wrought iron decoration that, approp­riat­e­ly, included musical motifs. Built during the heyday of the band move­ment, it is now one of the few remaining examples of Edwardian band­stands in Victoria and reminds us of a popular form of outdoor entertainment.

For an amazing bandstand that looks like small Edwardian house, examine New Farm Park in Brisabne in Your Brisbane blog. The park was taken over in 1913 by the Council, and they added this handsome bandstand and a kiosk. It has more gables and more timber lace work than my grandmother's house.

Ballarat's Titanic Memorial Bandstand 1915 was another unusual example of creative bandstand design in rural Australia, an exotic composition with orientalist roofs. Designed by local architect, GW Clegg and man­u­factured at a local foundry, the Titanic Bandstand has survived well. It was created as a memorial to the SS Titanic disaster, in particular to those musicians who heroically continued playing as the unsinkable ship sunk.

Ballarat, Queen Alexander (left) and Titanic Memorial (right) bandstands *

Since the royals were 15,000 ks away and there were very few Australians lost on the Titanic, we might ask why there was a rush to spend community money on bandstands? Listening to music played by the town band was a popular form of amusement in the Edwardian period and most municip­alities thought the money would be well spent. And perhaps there was a pride in nationalism, in quietly and democratically uniting the Australian states into one Federation.

Or the connection to WW1. The Port Melbourne war memorial is an octagonal brick band stand with a metal roof and steps on the north side. An inlaid marble tablet from the Port Melbourne Women's Welcome Home Committee honours the gallant Australians who fought in the Great War 1914 - 1918.

The only bandstand and park image I have from the turn of the century was taken in Hyde Park Sydney.

Sydney, Hyde Park

These late Victorian and Edwardian structures, within their well-developed gardens, have now been given heritage protection. At the time, the bandstands, iron seating and garden displays must have given great pleasure to ordinary families, every summer.

Melbourne's Trams

Melbourne’s first form of public transport from the suburbs into the city centre, and vice versa, were the railways; they had started in 1854. This was quite impres­s­ive since Londoner Robert Hoddle had only arrived in the Port Phillip settlement in March 1837 and was appointed senior surveyor for the new town.

Another serious public transport system started up in 1885 when the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company grabbed a 30-year monopoly franchise for Melbourne’s new cable tram network. The first non-horse service ran from Spencer St/Flinders St in the centre of town, out to Haw­th­orn Bridge. It was a simple mechanism. The grip man/driver would grab one of the levers connected to the cable which in turn pulled the tram along the tram lines. When he want­ed to stop the tram, he’d let go of the grip on the cable and applied the brake.

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First cable tram, 1885

The network grew quickly and within six years of the first cable tram being on the road, 1891, the cable tramway network consisted of spoke lines running from the city out into all inner suburbs. However, as the population moved further away from the centre of town, it became clear that the cable tram system became could not reach further and further out, without any limit.

In 1906, the first electric trams were being built, not to replace cable cars but to extend the ends of cable tram lines to more distant suburbs. They “topped up” the cable car system. The initial monopoly ended in 1916 and, appropriately, the cable network was taken over by the State government. The newly formed Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board was now fully responsible. Almost immediately the MMTB started converting the old cable tram lines and the most famous of the new electric trams was the W class. From 1923 on, the W class was truly an Australian design, with compartments at either end closed by sliding doors and an open space in the middle. It was green, quiet, clean and wonderful.

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Melbourne's archetypal green tram

The final cable tram bowed out in 1940, only a year after World War 2 broke out. In time the entire population was serviced by tram lines that all started in town and extended as far as the outer suburbs. When most other cities in the world ripped out their trams and substituted smelly, smoke-filled buses, Melbourne kept her elegant, green ladies that were able to glide graciously through the tree-lined streets without petrol.

Of course Melbourne bloggers are very proud of their trams. I recom­mend you read “Review: Time-line history of Melbourne's Government Cable and Electric Trams and Buses” in melbourne on transit: April 2006.  And the beaut High Riser blog. Even foreigners unfavourably compare their own tram system to Melbourne's eg Poneke who wrote Bumblebee trams roll proudly through Melbourne while Wellington bumbles timidly on.

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Today Melbourne's trams are still petrol-free, but they are no longer green and are alas both ultra-streamlined and privatised. It feels like our city was taken over by foreign trams. In any case, there are other important public transport issues to be considered, as discussed by Hailing From Georgia blog in Guidelines for Effective Mass-Transit, discuss. However my favourite place to take overseas visitors is still a 3-hour tour in the splendidly refurbished 1927 Colonial Tramcar Restaurant.

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Colonial Tramcar Restaurant

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Undershaw story

In 1885 Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) married Louisa Hawkins, a quiet woman who seemed happy to support her very ambitious doctor-author husband. At that stage, Conan Doyle did not see himself as a full time detective story writer – presumably he wanted to write “respectable” literature like his successful historical novel, Micah Clarke 1889. He returned to short stories and detective novels only because the publishers irresistibly offered him more money and more overseas trips.

In 1889 and 1892 Arthur and Louis were delighted to welcome two children, but the pleasure soon turned to pain. In 1893, while their children were still toddlers, Louisa Conan Doyle was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease that was almost inevitably terminal. Another difficulty, although not necessarily a tragedy, was that Conan Doyle’s medical practice was failing dismally.

Undershaw in its garden setting

Conan Doyle had his new house, Undershaw, built in the small Surrey town of Hindhead because of Louise’s TB. It seems very likely that the fresh air, better climate and lack of city filth meant medical practitioners would recommend this beautiful but slightly remote region for the family home. If a TB patient had the energy, brisk country walks were warmly recommended.

Undershaw was built in 1897 to Conan Doyle’s own plan but it was the architect Joseph Henry Ball who created this very large and very handsome home. The red brick, three-storey home had eleven bedrooms, huge dining room, book-lined study, wood-panelled drawing room, billiard room, grand staircase and servants’ quarters. Also on the grounds were a power plant for electricity, stable for six horses, coach house, garage and an outdoor games area. The large south-facing windows were specifically designed to provide a light and cheerful indoor environment.

However he wasn’t in Surrey all the time. The Boer War began in Oct 1899 and by the end of that year, the British military was already suffering major military reverses at the hands of an army of farmers in South Africa. A sudden wave of patriotism impelled Conan Doyle to volunteer for South Africa. When he saw a chance for him to work as a military doctor, he was delighted to pay for his own ticket and for the medical equipment he would need in South Africa.

Conan Doyle’s war in South Africa ended with the capture of the Boer capital of Pretoria, three months later. He then wrote an eye witness report of the war called The Great Boer War, and had the book published when he eventually sailed home to Britain. It became very popular.

Conan Doyle reading in the Undershaw drawing room

This doctor-author-adventurer joined the conservative Unionist party because it was the party that had the policies most sympathetic to Conan Doyle’s views on Empire. He stood for Parliament in the 1900 and the 1906 general elections, choosing an Edinburgh seat because that was really his “home town”. And quite rightly, he focused on the issues that concerned him most - military reforms, national defence and the Empire. Conan Doyle did not get into Parliament, but my question actually concerns Louise and Undershaw. Where did his sick wife and their two small children live while Conan Doyle was in South Africa and in Scotland? If they remained in the Surrey home, did they have medical staff in the house to assist Louise and all the household staff?

Conan Doyle stayed in the Undershaw house until 1907, a year after Louise died. During his 10 year stay, he wrote thirteen Sherlock Holmes stories. This was the home in which the author brought Holmes back from the dead in The Adventure of the Empty House, published in 1903.

But he didn’t sell the four-acre property. From late 1907 until 1921 Conan Doyle rented out the home, hoping his son Kingsley would eventually use it for the next generation of Conan Doyles. Alas Kingsley died so Conan Doyle sold Undershaw, and in 1927 it became an hotel. The hotel finally closed for business in 2004 and the property was sold to a development company, in a dilapidated and tragic condition. Planning permission to demolish Undershaw in order to build a block of flats, and to destroy the gardens, was granted by Waverley Borough Council but was overturned in the High Court in London in May 2012.

Is that the final decision? As the Undershaw Alliance has argued, what more appropriate place could there be for a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing? A renovated Undershaw would affirm its cultural value and Conan Doyle's place in the literary heritage of Great Britain and Ireland. It would be open to the public all year round (incl school visits), with a library, conference facilities, crime writing courses and a writer in residence.

If only!

Artwatching vs. Birdwatching: A Highly Nonscientific Comparison

Over the past couple of months, I have been getting a teeny tiny little bit into birdwatching.

By this I mean that I have enjoyed biking to the Leslie Street Spit here in Toronto and keeping an eye out for different species. I also have purchased a laminated Ontario bird guide. And I enjoy excitedly telling friends and co-workers when I have spotted and identified a species that is new to me.

Now, from what I see out on the Spit, I understand I could be standing on the precipice of (or already beginning to slide down) a very slippery hobby slope. By the end of the summer I could just be the owner of a three-foot-long zoom lens, floppy Tilley hat and pricey binocs.

Which—you know what?—would actually be plenty fine because I really enjoy spending time in this slightly postapocalyptic pocket of nature taking back some of the wastes of humankind. (NB for the non-Torontonians: the Spit was originally built as a breakwater using landfill excavated from Toronto construction sites.)

Spending a little time on the Spit has also prompted me to think about the similarities and differences between Artwatching and Birdwatching. Here are some of my highly nonscientific observations:

1. Both Artwatching and Birdwatching are highly visual activities which one could argue engage an appetite for the spectacular.

2. Both Artwatching and Birdwatching can engage a visual analytics of identification. How many times have a stood in a gallery or stared at a page trying to identify an artwork without looking at the caption or wall label? That is, trying to identify a "species" of work purely through visual means? Or learning to do the same? Well, the same or similar skills are used in Birdwatching--just like a certain palette or texture identifies a certain painter, certain patternings or colours identify a bird.

3. However, Birdwatching can also regularly engage an aural component. Though I am not skilled (yet!) at identifying bird calls, I know there are guidebooks out there to this effect. Though there is such a thing as sound art, it is not usually necessary to tune in to an artwork's aural component in order to experience it or identify it. Canvas is pretty damn silent, ya'll!

4. Artwatchers have an advantage in that the objects of their focus typically do not move, or do not move with any great degree of speed or agility. This is quite different from the conditions that Birdwatchers encounter, where one might have only a few seconds to get a good look at the object of one's focus, or even less. This lends a kind of urgency to the birdwatching experience; artwatching allows for more lassitude, in a sense.

5. Both artwatching and birdwatching can be enjoyed as singular experiences and competitive/accumulative contests alike. In my experience, I have enjoyed looking at both objects of art and at birds as kinds of opportunities for transcendence—a way to move beyond the everyday. Yet I have also had experiences (often at the same time) where the looking can take on a competitive or accumulative quality. "Okay, I've seen a Killdeer/Olafur Eliasson work. While thrilled at first, I now find it familiar and kind of boring. I want to see something else next." There can be a kind of "onwards and upwards" or "I haven't seen that yet and I should" tendency. (I know both these qualities of looking have more to do with me than with art in general, but I thought it was worth noting.)

6. Both artwatching and birdwatching subcultures have their own distinctive customs and styles of dress. I am not indoctrinated fully into either subculture, I think, but I can say you don't see a whole lot of all-black outfits out on the Spit. A lot more earth tones and quick dry materials.

7. The cameras are a lot bigger in the birdwatching community. An iPhone just ain't gonna cut it!

If you want to find out more about bird species at the Spit, check out the Tommy Thompson Park website.

(Chickadee-riffic image via Birdwatchingclub.net. I would basically freak out, in a good way, I think, if I was the person in this picture.)

Commodious Furniture

In times when flushing toilets were rare and indoor plumbing even rarer, people used a close stool instead. This was an enclos­ed cab­in­et at chair-height with a hole in the top; then the entire unit was covered on top by a hinged outer lid. A ceramic chamber pot sat inside the close stool.

17th century close stool, oak

The close stool gave way to the night table or night commode, Vict­orian terms that readers will be more familiar with. The night commode, however, had two advantages over the close stool. Firstly it was a closed cabinet and chamberpot that sat next to the bed. This would have been particularly important in winter. Second­ly its marble or timber top served as a washstand for a basin and water pitcher. By Victorian times, hygeine was seen to be more important, as well as more pleasant.

Presumably families with access to good quality furniture in the rest of their home would have selected top quality close stools and commodes.

Georgian close stool, mahogany with leather book lid.

I have seen many close stools and night commodes over the years, but I have never seen one like a night stool that was on offer at Sotheby’s London in April 2009 (Classic English Furniture: The Norman Adams Legacy 1923-2009). The mahogany stool and hinged lid had a large, shaped apron on all sides to hide the enclosed pot, and stood on cabriole legs with pad feet. But the lid wasn’t timber or tapestry as we'd normally expect. Instead it had been crafted in the form of a large leather book with marbled pages.

Country Life, reviewing the piece 6/5/2009, said it "was perhaps intended for a bibliophile too immersed in his studies to leave the library for relief". I thought it was the most wonderful literary reference I've seen in furniture.

Victorian night table, walnut and marble top

A Connoisseur’s Corner discovered an 18th century chair that was originally the toilet of a cashed-up Philadelphia gent. The deep side panels along the seat frame concealed the chamber pot that would have been inserted in the well of the wood platform. The upholstered seat was placed on top, partially to hide the chamber pot and partially, I would imagine, to look attractive. In the inter-war period a dealer converted the object into a proper drawing room chair by reducing the length of the apron around the seat frame and by eliminating the platform into which the chamber pot would have been inserted.