Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Timing is everything! As noted in Victorian Spiritualism: Arthur & George, I was totally mesmerised by Arthur & George, a novel by Julian Barnes. Now Heritage Magazine (May 2009) has presented an article called The Chronicles of Conan Doyle, based largely on work published by Doyle’s biographer, Andrew Lycett.

Doyle, Boer War doctor

Other than the importance of Sherlock Holmes as a character, several significant issues arose in the article that need attention. Firstly Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) drew upon his experiences as a phys­ician. Murder Mystery blog noted that just months shy of graduating, Doyle made the adventurous decision to accept a posit­ion as a surgeon on a whaling ship heading to the Arctic. Grist for his later mill.

Even when he gave up medicine to write full time in 1891, he was still committed to his concept of national duty. When the chance came for him to join a hospital unit that had been put together by a medical friend in the Boer War of 1900, Doyle jumped at the chance, even though he had to do so at his own expense. At least two significant books came out of his work as a military doctor: The Great Boer War and Great Britain and the Next War.

Doyle, spirit photo

Secondly Doyle turned to spiritualism during very trying periods in his life that were filled with loss and mourning. His first wife was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1893, forcing them to emigrate so she could receive top class treatment. As the very same time, his own father died. It is no coincidence that Doyle joined the British Society for Psychical Research in 1893.

Then in World War One, his family was again devastated by death. Doyle’s beautiful young son, Arthur, was killed, as was his brother and two of his nephews. The war was a nightmare for all families, but Doyle’s family seemed to lose more than its fair share of young men. Victorian Paintings noted that mediums could call the spirits of loved ones in to sit for a picture, so so-called spirit photos would have been precious.

I haven’t read The History of Spiritualism, a reference book that Doyle wrote in 1926. If he really did dedicate himself to the cause of spiritualism in later life, perhaps he feared he only had a few years of life left. Armchair Travel blog cites Conan Doyle in that that it really matters what people think. Conan Doyle believed that what people think is not just what occurs to them. They can actually direct their thoughts into creative and even inspirational channels.

Chocolate, Tea, Coffee I

I have read a number of fine histories (see below) of exotic hot drinks being brought to Europe. The dates, source countries and methods of trans­port differ somewhat but we can come to some approximate con­clus­ions. Chocolate was definitely the first exotic drink brought to Europe, by the Spanish from the Americas in 1528. Tea was first sold in Europe in 1610. The East India Company, under a charter granted by Elizabeth I to the Directors, had the monop­oly of import­ing goods from outside Europe; they recorded ships reaching Brit­ain in 1640. The first public coffee house probably opened in Venice until 1640, where the mer­chants imported it from Turkey. The first coffeehouse opened in Vienna in 1683 after a Turkish siege.

Great blogs are River Walk Inn for a history of tea and Gourmet Coffee Zone - Home /coffee history.

Chinese tea cup, handleless, C18th

What connection does the arrival of tea have with the growth of the British pottery industry? The des­ign source for teapots may have come from the Is­l­am­ic cof­fee pots, which were first seen in the popular coffee houses of Europe and England in this period. Earl Cad­ogan, whose estates were located in Stafford­shire, the fut­ure centre of English porcelain production, was the first Englishman recorded to have owned such a Chinese wine pourer. It was gl­obular, predicting the future design of most ceramic teapots produced in Europe. Silver teapots were for the wealthiest.

Lowestoft porcelain, 1762 (L) ..

                                         
(R) Silver teapot, ebony handle

Silver chocolate pot with rod (above) ....
(below) Staffordshire coffee pot, mid C18th

Tea was drunk in China from cups without handles. When tea became popul­ar in England, there was a great need for good cups with hand­les, to suit British habits. This made for tremendous growth in the pottery and porcelain industry, and the prosperity of companies like Wedgwood, Spode, and Royal Doulton. Worcester was founded in 1751 by a doctor and a chemist: Wall and Davis. They wanted a line of collectibles that would stand out, so they dev­eloped a soaprock porcelain that could tol­er­ate very hot fluids, especially important for cups, tea bowls, saucers and tea pots. Their love­ly blue under-glazing, sometimes combined with blue & white patt­er­ns.

Tea was at first a luxury, enjoyed only by the rich, and for a long time the government imposed a huge tax (up to 200%) on it. As a result, a thriving trade arose in tea smuggled from Europe. Caroline's Miscellany agreed in Tea smuggling in Deptford that England's harbours were rife with smuggling and stealing. Many goods were heavily taxed, meaning that if smugglers could sneak them into the city unofficially, they could undercut honest importers' prices. Except for the state, everyone was happy: the seller made good money and the buyer got a bargain.

Tea caddies were locked, so servants could not get to the precious tea leaves. In the C18th tea generally replaced the ale that had previously been the English people's basic drink. Finally in 1784 the tax was abol­ish­ed and smuggling ceased. Tea was in England to stay, with coffee only a pale second, at least until recent decades.

Locked tea caddy, mahogany, 1790s

The Chinese, who were making tea services, quickly added chocolate and coffee ceramics to their exports, and silver manufacturers also ad­apted their tea services to the new chocolate and coffee fashions. Chocolate pots quickly became popular. The silver chocolate pot had a hinged lid or a detachable finial through which a molinet/rod was in­ser­t­ed, to stir chocolate sediment. The molinet was generally made of wood, with terminal in silver or ivory. Coffee pots had no such rod. The earliest silver coffee pot I could find recorded was ordered by East India Co. in 1690.

Covered chocolate cup (L)............ (R) Coffee can, C18th

The hot drinks were poured into cups that differed slightly in shape and size. Coffee cans had straighter sides than tea cups which we saw earlier. Chocolate pots seemed to have derived from a custard pot with two-handles and a cover.

My favourite references are:
1.Coe, S and MD The True History of Chocolate, Thames & Hudson, 2007.
2.Cowan, Brian Social Life of Coffee: Emergence of the British Coffee-house, Yale UP, 2005.
3.Ellis, A Penny Universities: History of Coffee-Houses, Secker & Warburg, London, 1956.
4.Ellis, M Coffee-House: Cultural History, Phoenix Lond, 2005
5.Faulkner, Rupert Tea: East & West, Victoria Albert Museum, 1993.
6.Heiss, M & R Story of Tea: Cultural History, 10 Speed Press, 2007
7.Lillywhite, B London Coffee Houses of 17th, 18th & 19th centuries, George Allen Unwin, London, 1965.
8.Moxham, Roy Tea: Addiction, Exploitation & Empire, Constable Robinson, 2003
9.Pettigrew, Jane Social History of Tea, National Trust, 2002
10.Runcie, James Discovery of Chocolate, Harper, 2002

For a history of coffee in London, see the next post.

Gropius' Bauhaus: art & architecture goals

The Bauhaus, which opened for business in Weimar in 1919, was not created out of a vacuum. Like every other development in the long history of art, The Bauhaus had a history extending back into the C19th.

Walter Gropius

The Bauhaus-Archi Museum of Design noted that Ger­many had rec­og­nised that well-designed industrial products repres­ented a signif­ic­ant economic factor. The British educational system was analysed closely, with an eye to reforming the German schools for arts and crafts. An entire generation of painters understood applied arts to be the major assignment. The Dresdner Werkstätten 1898, with their machine furniture, were the best known examples for the setting up of workshops all over Germany. And 1903 marked the foundation in Austria of the Wiener Werkstätte. The list of precedents goes on.

The Belgian Henry van de Velde had founded the School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar in 1907. It was no coincidence that The Bauhaus event­ually based itself in van de Velde's school building. Also in 1907, artists and industrialists founded the Deutscher Werkbund in Munich, aimed at improving Germany's economy by enhancing craft work. Architects Peter Behrens, Adolf Meyer and Walter Gropius and others wanted to capture the spirit of change.

Typically any new style in art and architecture will either develop its own philosophical framework as the decades pass (eg Impression­ism), or will have a phil­os­ophical framework retrospectively thrust upon them by history (eg Art Deco). But in Walter Gropius’ case, the philosophy of his new school was explic­ated and distributed all over Europe, BEFORE the first student even enrolled.

Bauhaus in Weimer, 
designed by Henry van der Velde

Manifesto, 1919

"The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building! The dec­or­ation of buildings was once the noblest function of fine arts, and fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. Today they exist in complacent isolation, and can only be rescued by the conscious co-operation and collaboration of all craftsmen. Architects, painters and sculptors must once again come to know and comprehend the comp­osite character of a building, both as an entity and in terms of its various parts. Then their work will be filled with that true architectonic spirit which, as "salon art", it has lost.

The old art schools couldn't produce this unity; and how should they have done so, since art cannot be taught? Schools must return to the workshop. The world of the pattern-designer and applied artist, consisting only of drawing and painting, must become once again a world in which things are built. If a young person who rejoices in creative activity begins his career as in the older days by learning a craft, then the unproductive artist will no longer be condemned to inadequate artistry. His skills will be preserved for the crafts where he can achieve great things.

Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as professional art. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an ex­alted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of in­sp­iration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to ev­ery artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.

Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture and painting in a single form, and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith".

signed WALTER GROPIUS April 1919

In my opinion, Gropius’ aim was to bring all the arts together equally under one roof and have them merge together with a new architecture. Bauhaus, he promised, would:
1. unify all the arts so that the various craftsmen could work on cooperative projects in which their various skills would be combined.
2. raise all arts to the same honoured level, rather than tradit­ional division between the High Arts and the Decorative Arts and
3. establish close contact with the leaders of the nation’s in­dus­tries, so that all products of the school would be exposed and sold.

The expressionist style of Lyonel Feininger's woodcut on the front of the Bauhaus manifesto brochure, inviting potential students to part­ic­ipate in the new world of art and architecture, seemed appropriate.

Feininger's woodcut, Cathedral, 1919

The Admissions Policy, set out in the same brochure, seemed very attractive. "Any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex, whose previous education is deemed adequate by the Council of Masters, will be admitted, as far as space permits. The tuition fee is 180 marks per year (It will gradually disappear entirely with increasing earnings of the Bauhaus). A nonrecurring admission fee of 20 marks is also to be paid. Foreign students pay double fees. Address inquiries to the Secretariat of Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar".

Gropius sent these brochures to every city and country, advertising the new school in German, Polish and Russian. I would not have ex­pect­ed stud­ents to flock from all over central and Eastern Europe to defeated and depressed Germany, so soon after WW1. But flock they did; 100 fresh faced students arrived on the doorsteps of the Weimar building in 1919. The manifesto seemed like an insp­iring message for young Germans returning from war and for foreign students looking for better careers. They could work to create a new, more humane world.

Bauhaus students 1919

Slow Painting blog asked was it possible to make a viable institution out of a movement that had arisen out of conflict with institutional authority, and which drew its focus, vitality, and sense of purpose from that conflict? They concluded that The Bauhaus, by enforcing no aesthetic conformity and by promulgating no official style, proved to all that a modernist institution need not repeat the failings of its academic predecessors. Such a receptive stance was perhaps only possible in Germany. The Bauhau showed that modernism could function as a collective enterprise in an institutional setting, and still give the student the widest scope for individual expression. I wonder if that is so for all the students, but for the women in particular.

For very useful reviews of Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus and its manifesto, read: Last.fm Bauhaus - House of Building, and Christa Nwokedi at Helium

Wolfgang Sievers 1913-2007

Construction Site, 1955

Wolfgang was born into a very clever and creative family in Berlin. His father was an academic art historian and his mother was involved in the film industry. By the time he was old enough to work, The Bauhaus had long closed so he could not have been a student there. But in 1938, he stayed on as a teacher at a School for Modern Applied Arts, an educational organisation sympathetic to Bauhaus philosophy. Since his mother was Jewish, Wolfgang left Germany for ever in 1938 - luckily for photography and for Australia.

Safely in Melbourne, Sievers spent his long life recording industrial and architectural scenes. They covered the gamut from mining, office building, scientific proc­ess­es, light and heavy industries, Olympic stadia to schools. This prolific photographer seemed to find black and white a more fitting medium for his subjects than colour.

Olympic Swimming Pool, Melbourne, 1956

Let me insert a personal note here. My father was the filtration engineer for the swimming and diving pools in the 1956 Olympics, and might well have been aware of Sievers as he moved around the pools.

cedvernay.com blog showed that the ex-pat German citizens who lived in Melbourne tried to help each other out in their new country. In 1946, Helmut Newton set up a Melbourne studio and worked primarily on fashion photography. The exhibition of New Visions in Photography, which was held at the Federal Hotel in Collins St in May 1953, was shared with Newton, Sievers and Henry Talbot, another German ex-pat artist who had also been interned. Three creative, supportive men.

Cyberslacker wrote that in the 1950s, Wolfgang Sievers was hired by the Australian Government to help change the image of Australia from rural and agricultural, to industrial and manufact­uring. And he was clearly hired by private companies as well. What was he doing? Seeking out gritty photos to show progress, modernity and indust­rialisation on behalf of his patrons? Examine Mrs. Deane who has a wonderful wolfgang sievers’ archive

Pulp Mills, Burnie 1956

Apparently not. Alert and Alarmed (24/4/2005) wrote: The photography of Wolfgang Sievers allows us to become aware of ‘the dignity of man as a worker’. The dirt, noise and danger of the machinery may not always be visible but the worker is aware of his personal vulner­ab­ility. The nation might need to show physical exertion, skills and initiative; the nation might need the collective effort of the working population. But the worker himself is entitled to respect and industrial support.

Paint testing, 1961

Of course Sievers chose subjects that lent themselves to impressive and monumental photographs. He specialised in mining, geological exploration and the oil industry precisely because the tasks were bigger, more dangerous, more mechanised and more cutting edge. He could have photographed people gardening or waltzing, but neither of those occupations was gritty or cutting edge. Even his passive, sedate images had fascinating patterns within.

In Siever’s view, the Australian workplace was far more egalitarian and open than in other countries, allowing more scope for his determination to portray the dignity of labour. But how do we know about Sievers sympathy for the working people of this nation, other than by “reading” his images? Because he went outside his briefs, even at his own expense. “Often controversial, his strong beliefs, intolerance of racism and increasing concern at the dest­ruct­ive practices of capitalism also led him to question the morality behind many corporate entities, in many cases his clients.” And because Sievers donated $1 million worth of photographs to raise money for social justice.

Gears for Mining Industry, 1967

There are tens of thousands of Sievers photographs in the Digital Collection of the National Library of Australia. Sign Language reported that some of the best were shown at a major retrospective of Wolfgang Sievers’ work, held at the NGV. Thomas Ryan has superb Sievers photos of the Burnie Paper Mill, back in the days when the mill provided employment to so many Tasmanians.