Gorgeous C19th synagogues in Melbourne

From the first European settlement in Australia, Jews were arriving with 1788’s First Fleet. The first settlement was in NSW, but soon spread to Tasmania and then Victoria. Along with explorer John Batman, founder of Melbourne, Jewish Joseph Solomon was a member of Port Phillip Society. It was in that society that Solomon with Batman received a grant of land from the local aboriginal community in 1835.

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Mikveh Yisrael Synagogue and School,

Exhibition St  Melbourne, 1859

architects Knight and Kerr.

National Trust Data Base

The 1841 census showed Melbourne had 57 Jews whose religious services were conducted in a Collins St drapery shop. It was decided to create the Jewish Congregational Society, seeking a governmental land grant to build the first synagogue. In 1844 they obtained a grant of land in Bourke St, consecrating the synagogue in 1848. Designed by Charles Laing & built by James Webb, the tiny congregation grew! In 1850 they applied for a government grant to build a bigger synagogue. It was approved and a new, larger synagogue designed by James’ brother Charles Webb: a rectangular building, gabled roof and columned portico!

Church Lane doesn’t have a church in it as it used to. And nearby Synagogue Lane doesn’t have a synagogue in it anymore, renamed Little Queen St in 1968. So why did only one of the two lanes not keep its name? Historian Robyn Annear* said that it was renamed as Bourke Lane in a civic cleansing ahead of the 1880 International Exhibition. The name change was recorded by Public Works Committee in June, suggesting the new name reduced annoyances directed at those attending Lt Bourke St. So was it an anti-Semitic move or one designed to stop problems for local Jews? Read Street names: Why was Synagogue Lane renamed? .

Bourke St Hebrew Congregation

opened 1848

By the time a separate Victorian state was established in 1851, Melbourne Jewry had their new classical Melbourne Hebrew Congregation and early congregational Presidents and Board members became aldermen and councillors of Melbourne City Council. Jews could go into both State Houses of Parl-iament, the Oaths of Office Simplification Bill in 1857 repealing the oath that parliamentarians swore: On the true faith of a Christian. 

The 2nd President Asher Hyman Hart asked Melbourne's Mayor to offer a reward for discovering gold, north of the city. Thankfully for Melbourne, the discoveries that led to the Gold Rush of 1851 slowed the emigration to NSW. These boom times and economic explosion gave Melbourne its marvellous Victorian heritage, and brought many European migrants. Since first Rabbi Moses Rintel in 1849, the congregation has been loyally served by a number of rabbis. A fine man was Rabbi Dr Israel Brodie, who went from St Kilda Rd pulpit to Chief Rabbi of British Empire pre-WW2.

Melbourne’s synagogue had been established in 1847 in Bourke St, but Rabbi Rintel & followers parted in 1857. A second congregation had formed in East Melbourne, mostly recently arrived German Jews after a doctrinal disagreement with the synagogue committee. They met in hired premises till a small synagogue was complete in 1860 in Lit Lonsdale St. They had no permanent meeting place for 20 years until the new East Melbourne Synagogue in Albert St opened Sept 1877. But the facade wasn’t finished till 1883. 

        

East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, front entrance (above) and interior (below)

The Melbourne Synagogue came from noted Melbourne architects Crouch and Wilson. It was inspired by Melbourne’s old Bourke St synagogue. East Melbourne is socially significant for its link with that Jewish community, mainly as a focal-point for religious facilities. It is also significant for its imposing Renaissance Revival facade with the addition of the 2 octagonal domes flanking the central pediment and the survival of the tabernacle and altar. The two-storeyed rendered brick building had a slate roof. The facade was also completed in the Renaissance Revival style with 5 bays, projecting slightly on the pedimented temple front. Star of David was set in bas-relief in the tympanum. A parapet was carried over the tympanum and the cornice. Twin octagonal domes flank the central pediment. The internal space had a gallery on 3 sides on cast iron columns and the main ceiling was panelled with cornices. Victorian Heritage added the site to its Register.

The original Bourke St Synagogue was sold in 1929 when it became and stayed a justice firm. When the new site was chosen, there was a strong Jewish presence in Toorak. So the congregation moved to the new site, designed by congregant Nahum Barnet in Toorak Rd, and the foundation stone of the building was laid in Ap 1929. The interior was inspired by the Bourke St synagogue, with a Corinthian portico, copper-clad dome and glass stained windows. Barnet's plan agreed with that of overseas synagogues of Interwar Academic Classical design: semi-circular seating and a ladies' gallery. Interior decorations include stained glass windows created by Karl Duldig. In 1930 the community moved to its present Toorak site, Toorak & Kilda Rds. St Kilda Rd is one of the world’s great boulevards where congregants could walk to the new synagogue on Sabbath. 

Melbourne Hebrew Congregation/Toorak synagogue, 

front steps (above); interior (below)

Melbourne Hebrew Congregation/Toorak synagogue, of a grand design with the best Tasmanian black-wood carving, now has 1350 seats and 900+ members. With a dome 100+ feet high, it is an iconic building with Heritage overlay. It’s seen as the Cathedral Synagogue, the primary synagogue that hosts state and national events.

After 180+ years, Melbourne had c50 orthodox congregations, plus a few Liberal-Reform congregations and a Conservative synagogue. Post-WW2 immigration boosted a Eurocentric Jewish community but soon European approaches combined in a more Australian outlook. Melbourne is very cosmopolitan and Jews have been able to succeed in this society since it began. There have been many successful academics, scientists, judges, engineers, medicos, lawyers and business people. Past members of the congregation have included two Governors-General: Sir Isaac Isaacs & Sir Zelman Cowen; Sir Benjamin Benjamin succeeded with Exhibition Building; Gen. Sir John Monash was the most effective WWI commander & superb civil engineer

Read J Aron & J Arndt, Enduring Remnant, history of the first 150 years of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation 1841–1991, Melb UP, 1992. 

And R Annear, City Lost and Found: Whelan the Wrecker’s Melbourne 2014*

 

Year that changed English literature: 1922!

The World Broke in Two: the Year That Changed Literature by Bill Goldstein, 2017 wanted to cover the intellectual achieve­ments and personal dramas in the life of famous British writers, Virginia Woolf, T.S Eliot, E.M Forster and D.H Lawrence, throughout 1922. These 4 writers were not unknown at that stage but the literature world was chang­­ing. This was the year straight after James Joyce’s Ulysses and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (published in English 1922) shocked the public. Goldstein included Proust because he’d had a vast impact on Woolf and EM Forster!

The World Broke in Two: the Year That Changed Literature
by Bill Goldstein

The History Reader

1922 was the birth year of modernism! It was a great year in which Woolf started one of her very popular novel Mrs Dalloway and Forster started one of his great successes, A Passage to India. Lawrence wrote Kangaroo, his Australian novel, and Eliot wrote his well respected The Waste Land.

Yet I started Goldstein's book with concerns. If 1922 ushered in a new English modernist lit­erature, would that down­play the value of my beloved late Victorian and Edwardian Liter­ature? What if Goldstein analysed and over-glorified The Rise of Modernism? As NPR explained well, Goldstein neatly avoided a dutiful chronicling of anything so weighty. He cleverly sacrificed historical depth for more intimacy.

It certainly was a year of new and exciting literature, but would we describe it as the invention of literary modernism? Bill Goldstein called them literary geniuses with interconn­ecting lives. Forster and Eliot lived in London and socialised with each other. And the Woolfs lived in London until 1919. The Joyces lived most of the 1920s in Continental Europe.

These writers might had ev­oked a nostalgia for a time when prec­is­ion and introspection were the guiding principles of liter­at­ure. No shock there, but there were great ex­cerpts from their own letters and their own diaries. So often their words were witty, gossipy and often critical. And not just their own diaries. Read the letters of poor Frieda Lawrence who struggled to live with her self-absorbed husband.

The problem was that 1922 was a huge year in world history. The War To End All Wars had ended in tragedy, young men were dead or wounded, economic catastrophes were created by the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, Gandhi was arrested in Bombay for sedition and gaoled, and Joseph Stalin became Gen­eral Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee.

We need to know the inspirations, self-doubts, financial strug­gles, love affairs, mental illness and personal rivalries between 4 important writers. But what I needed more was important historical context eg please ack­­now­ledge that the terrible influenza epidemic that swept Brit­ain just before 1922 had a very real and personal impact on our writers.

T.S Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Vivienne Eliot

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My longest blog posts are 1000 words, so I cannot say I know anything about the creative process for people writing com­plete books. Thus it was very interesting to read how Woolf, Eliot, Law­r­ence and Forster approached the writing process in very diff­erent ways. Goldstein closely described the process for each of these writers. Virginia Woolf was my type of woman! She allocated two hours every morning as sacred writing time, boosted by walking and journal writing. In fact each of the four writers nominated sacred times and sacred places to clear their minds and to boost their creativity.

The sharing of ideas while reading and discussing each other’s work was also important, with individuals or in writer groups. EM Forster admitted that he learned a great deal from reading Virginia Woolf’s writing.

That these clever writers had to overcome incapacitating phys­ical and mental illnesses was an anxiety-provoking part of the book for me. What happens if locking oneself in a study for hours on end damages all writers’ mental health and threatens their marriages? Eliot suffered from both anxiety and depress­ion, and his editor had great problems in getting Eliot to de­liver his poems in time for publication. Forster spent the year broken from grief over the death of his lover in Egypt. And the reigning theme of the book, according to The New York Times was writer’s block, treated as an anthropological constant. I'm fortunate; academics may not even know what writer’s block means.

Hogarth Press, the publishing house founded in 1917 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, succeeded. Still, Virginia & Leonard would not publish Joyce’s Ulysses. Large volumes were difficult for such a small press and worse still, they probably thought the book would be banned, leading to Hogarth Press being shut down. Neither DH Lawrence nor Virginia could read Ulysses!

Joyce with his loyal publisher Sylvia Beach,

12 rue de l’Odéon Paris, 1922

Los Angeles Public Library

 
DH Lawrence was very fortunate that travel did not disrupt his ability to write. Some of Lawrence’s books were banned in the UK, so instead of facing the obscenity laws at home, he saw his time abroad as voluntary exile. I will only mention two trips. In Feb 1922 Lawrence and his wife visited the famous patron of the arts Mable Dodge Luhan in New Mexico, from 1917 on. Copying Gertrude Stein’s cultural salon in Paris, Lawrence expected to socialise with influential artists and poets. Later that year Lawrence and wife went on a very successful tour of Australia for 3 months in 1922, then his novel Kangaroo was published.

Eliot and Forster were regulars at Virginia & Leon­ard Woolf’s home, but it was more personal than it was glitterati. And sometimes it was too personal; Gol­dstein let the 4 writers use their own witty, gos­s­ipy & cranky words. Woolf emerged as a patrician gossip, Forster a tragic romantic, Eliot formal and pretentious and Lawrence an irritant.

Were the main participants in this literary revolution highly conscious of being part of a shared enterprise? Prof John Mullan said yes; this was their historical moment. The alliances and rivalries between individual writers gave literary modernism a unique self-consciousness. A web of influences, friendships and sometimes collaborations was necessary to their literary innovations.

A Passage to India

by E.M Forster

Open Library

C19th landscape star: Eugene von Guérard

Vienna-born Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901) toured Italy with his father and teacher Bernhard von Guérard, painter of miniatures to Emperor Francis I of Aust­ria.

In 1830-2 Eugene lived in Rome, studying traditional landscapes under Giovanni Battista Batti. Any Poussin-type influen­ces in von Guérard’s mature work came from Bat­ti’s great pas­s­ions - Claude Lorrain, Nic­ol­as Poussin and Salvator Rosa. If there was a feeling of mystery, grandeur of nature and spir­itual values in his art, it probably came from the German Naz­arenes. If there was an interest in the natural world in Eugene’s art, con­sid­er the scientist-explorer Alexander von Humboldt. The most important landscape painter for the young Austrian was Johann Anton Koch.

In 1838 van Guérard studied at the Düsseldorf Kunst-akademie, where he was encouraged to paint directly from nature a la Dutch landscape painting. During his Düsseldorf studies, he absorbed the German art promoted by landscape lecturer Joh­ann Wilhelm Schirmer. The work of the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie was char­acterised by finely detailed landscapes, often with religious or allegorical stories set in the landscapes. Leading members of the Düsseldorf School advocated en plein air with subdued colours, part of the German Romantic movement.

 Aborigines Met on the Road to the Dig­gings, 1854

Attracted to Australia at the height of the Victorian gold rush, von Guérard moved to the Ballarat goldfields in 1852 and tried his luck.  But labouring in boiling hot summers and wet miserable winters did­ not make Eugene rich. So the artist sensibly left the dig­g­ings and acc­ept­ed com­missions to document wealthy landed estates. Only one copy of von Guérard's 1852–1854 goldfields diary remains, translated from Ger­man by his Australian-born daughter. And 10 sketches about camp life.

Ballarat goldfields, 1853-4

Von Guérard became fascinated with the Australian bush, trav­el­ling widely between 1852-82. In this time, he filled 22 sketch books with drawings that captured his sense of wonder. He travelled away from civilisation, carrying pencils and sketch books, then returned to the comfort of his own studio to transform his sketches into completed paintings.

A 2018 exhibition, Eugene von Guérard: Artist–Traveller, was at Ballarat Art Gallery. It examined von Guér­ard’s many adventures in the Western Dist­rict, his sketches and his best known and most sensitive paintings. Many of the drawings and sketchbooks from our most famous mid C19th col­on­ial artist came from the State Libraries of Victoria and NSW.

Geelong Gall­ery’s loan of three von Guérard works was much val­ued by the Exhibition, adding to a new re-examination of his Aust­ral­ian art. The 3 works were Aborigines met on the Road to the Diggings 1854, View of Geelong 1856 and View from Fritz Wilhelm­berg, Herne Hill Geelong 1860. Additionally there were paintings from the National Gallery of Australia, National Gal­lery of Vic­t­oria/NGV, Warrnam­bool Art Gallery, Benalla Art Gallery and from private collectors, some of which were never seen by the public before.

Examine von Guérard’s painting Aborigines Met on the Road to the Dig­gings 1854, normally at the Geelong Gallery. Note the rough, dry gum trees, the distant hills and sweeping plains which all “trans­late into Italian with warm distant clouds, a sweet sienna glaze and a lyrical composition”.

von Guérard had been train­ed to unify his pictures with an atmos­pheric restfulness, typically in a quiet moment, facing the peace of nature. The hills and clouds collected warm light on their west­ern side, from the Otway Ranges in Australia to Ves­uv­ius in Italy. Just think of the Italian grace that inspired Claude Lorraine and Salvator Rosa.

Mount Abrupt, The Grampians, Victoria, 1856

Of course Eugene von Guérard’s art had begun in Europe and carried with it two contrasting European traits: a] an affinity with class­icism and an air of noble serenity; and b] an attraction to the de­tail of nature, the exact scientific recording of flora, topog­raphies and peoples.

But then he deliberately went into the unfamiliar, depicting Aborigines in the bush. Far from the image of the Noble Savage, he showed the indigenous people con­front­ed with trade and European culture. Sometimes acad­em­ics expressed unease about the depict­ions of Aborigines, which may have been as­sociated with a fatalistic view of future extinction. But von Guérard was a painter who acknow­ledged the Abor­iginal presence, showing the land as their natural home. 

  John King’s Station, 1861

It was clear from his paintings that Aboriginals played an important role in daily life on the Victorian goldfields: Native Police, miners, route guides, diggers, wives, farmers and traders. In fact the goldrushes opened up NEW opportunities for Ab­or­iginal people to take part in the colonial economy. Their lab­our was in demand on pastoral stations when most of their men left for the goldrush. And because the Central Victorian goldfields were cold in winter, furs were traded.

The exhibition catalogue was filled with drawings, oil paintings and text by Dr Ruth Pullin. She focused on works, notable for their lighting, detail and scientific accuracy.

von Guérard’s 1861 painting John King’s Station seemed like a property portrait, painted in the tradition of the artist’s Western Dis­t­rict commissions. The composition came from classical European landscape tradition, and the contents may have reflected the social and economic concerns of the European landowner. But Pullin suggested that alternative realit­ies concerning this place became apparent. The dark history of war, massacre and dispossession associated with the European settlement of the region was both concealed and revealed in von Guérard’s landscape.

In 1870 von Guérard became the NGV’s first Master of the School of Painting, where he was a great teacher for Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts etc. But older age saw him adhering to picturesque qualities and de­tailed treatment, when the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style of art was demanding change. Von Guérard retired from his position at the National Gallery School in late 1881 and sailed for Britain, dying in London in 1901.

Gustav Stickley: arts & crafts furniture

Writing desk by Harvey Ellis and Gustav Stickley, 1903
Sheffield

Gustav Stickley (1858-1942) was 1st son of German migrants Barbara & Leopold Stoeckel Wisconsin. When his parents separ­at­ed in 1869, formal education ended and Gustave worked as a stone mason. They moved to Penn. in c1875 and the teen began working at an unc­le’s chair factory.

With brothers Albert & Charles Stickley, Gustav founded Stickley Bros in Susquehanna Penn in 1883. And he married Eda Simmons and they all moved to Binghamton NY.

In 1895 he travelled to Europe and saw the products of the English Arts & Crafts Move­ment and the French Art Nouveau. Twice! Arts & Crafts in Europe was prom­ot­ing well built, purely hand crafted and honest work, and in opposition to the poor treatment of workers in urban factories. Gustav warmly embraced many of the ideas of this new Movement, including for his own furniture business.

Stickley magazine stand, 1900

At home Stickley int­roduced new oak furniture: simple, funct­ional, sturdy and unVictorian. Working with architect-designer Hen­­ry Wilk­inson and de­signer LaMont Warner, he created his first Arts & Crafts products, exhib­iting them in the 1900 Grand Rapids Trade Show

The designs reflected Arts & Crafts ideals of simplicity, hon­es­ty in construction and truth to materials. Unadorned, plain surf­ac­es were enlivened by applied colours to reveal the wood grain. Expos­ed joinery emphasised the struc­tural qualities & hammered met­al hardware emphasised the furniture’s hand­made qualit­ies. Or machinery-made.

Stickley rented Crouse stables in Syracuse, renaming the showrooms as Craftsman Building. There he of­f­ered middle­­ class consumers prog­ressive furniture designs in quarter-sawn white oak. Perhaps because his firm did not receive the recog­nit­i­on he craved, Gustav changed the name of his firm to United Cr­afts. That year (1900) he launch­ed The Crafts­man Magaz­ine, focusing on the early British work of William Morris and John Ruskin. 

The Craftsman Magazine, 1910

He soon covered homes and crafts, literat­ure, music, ar­ch­itecture and city plan­ning. His equalitarian commitments led to exp­ressions of democratic values: social condit­ions, prog­ress­ive pol­it­ics, con­servation, Women’s movement and fair treatment of employees.

Stickley began pub­lishing house designs by different architects in 1902 and answering reader questions on Arts & Crafts style homes. His architectural ideas were delineated by his talented employees including Wilkinson, Warner and architect Harvey Ellis. Ellis had an immediate and profound effect upon the design of The Crafts­man magazine and the furnishings Gustav produc­ed, rein­forcing the conn­ections between Stickley’s work and that of En­g­lish and European de­signers. In 1903 Gus­tav’s furniture ev­olved from so­lid, monumental forms to some lighter shapes, softened by arches, tapering legs and decorative inlay. That year he marketed his product to 100+ retailers across the U.S.

Stickley moved his headquarters from Syracuse to NY, buying 650 ac­r­es along Morris Plains NJ to est­ab­l­ish a farm school. The focus was a large house made of round, hewn chest­nut logs that were cut from local woods and stone.        

Crafts­man Farms 

Houses had to be constructed in harmony with its landscape, using natural mat­er­ials and simp­lif­ied designs. Soft earth-toned colours predominated and inter­iors included simplified mouldings, stained wood, built-in cabinets and fireplaces with ingle­nooks. Although these homes weren’t always innov­ative, note his current approaches to open floor plans, economy of func­tion and use of novel materials for walls, roofs and surface treatments.

Stickley announced the Home Builders Club 1903 where each magazine subscriber was eligible to receive a free set of house plans, based on those designed and publish­ed in the magazine. By the time Crafts­man ended pub­lication in WW1, there were 222+ different home plans for the subscribers.

In 1905 brothers Leopold & John George began the firm of L & J. Stick­l­ey in Fayetteville NY and had become quite successful, mak­ing quality products that rivalled Gustav’s. Albert estab­lished St­ickley Brothers Co in Grand Rapids Mich, also off­er­ing Arts & Crafts furniture. Lastly brother Char­les also sold furn­iture from his Bing­ham­ton factory.

As a believer of the Arts & Crafts as a way of life, Gus­tav leas­ed a VERY expensive 12-storey Craft­sman Building Man­hattan from 1913. But then 3 difficult events occurred. 1] competition was increasing, 2] Gustav’s company began to lose money, and 3] interest in the Arts & Crafts movement was waning in WW1. Gus­t­av only lived at Crafts­man Farms until 1915, forced to file for bankruptcy. He stop­ped publish­ing his mag­az­ine in 1915 and he gave his workshops to two younger broth­ers, who cont­in­ued as L & JG Stickley in order to prod­uce Gust­av’s designs. Whereas 15 years earlier, people had embraced Crafts­man furn­it­ure’s clean strong lines, by WW1 tastes had changed again, this time towards the revival of early American style.

Gustav moved back to Syracuse, where his wife died in 1919, and stayed in Syracuse until his own death in 1942.

After Stickley left Craftsman Farms NJ, the Farny family maintained the farm as it was. When the property was threatened with develop­ment, Parsippany-Troy Hills township obtained the property and form­ed a partnership with the Stickley Museum at Craft­sman Farms for pr­eserv­ation and interp­ret­ation. It was honoured as a National Hist­oric Land­mark, as the photos show.

Stickley Museum at Craft­sman Farms, living room 

with copper hooded fireplace; Grueby lamp, hexagonal leather top table, Morris chair.

Summary
The country estate Craftsman Farms was a major display of Arts & Crafts decorative arts, home building and furn­ishing styles. Stick­ley combined the roles of designer and manuf­ac­turer, architect, pub­lish­er, philosopher and social critic. He was best known for his st­raightforward furniture aka mission or Craftsman furniture, made of sawn white oak in subtle, plain designs. In the late C20th there was a resurgence of interest in Stickley’s ouevre. Some of his furniture catalogues were reprinted, and ill­us­trated books of his works and monographs were published.