Wanamaker's Temple: The Business of Religion in an Iconic Department Store by Nicole C. Kirk

Author:Nicole C. Kirk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL000000 Religion / General, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), Christian Life, General, Religion, State & Local, History, United States
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2018-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

Moral Art

The idea of artwork as a moral instructor was a rather astonishing development in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the century, Protestantism was often at odds with art. A change took place in the early decades of the century when Protestants discovered that pictures were powerful helpmates in missionary efforts and in religious education, so they adopted images as a standard pedagogical tool.32 Historian David Morgan has traced how, from the 1820s through the 1890s, the use of images rapidly expanded, in part because of advances in technology that made the reproduction of quality images affordable.33 Wood-engraved illustrations first appeared in Bible tracts, almanacs, and school primers, followed by picture cards and books. Not only did church leaders quickly adopt images in their religious work, but they also sought cheaper and more efficient reproduction methods.34 The adoption of religious fine art reproductions in Protestant circles took longer.

Fine art was initially seen as a corrupting influence, with seductive qualities much like theater, sporting events, gambling, and other forms of entertainment. Religious art repulsed some Protestants with its depiction of Catholic iconography and practices. Gazing at a painting of Jesus was thought of as dangerous ground—it smacked of Catholicism. They feared that viewing Catholic art would cause them, inadvertently, to commit “idolatry,” one of the popular charges against Catholics.35 Anti-Catholic and nativist movements further sowed negative views.

Art began to gain reverence in Protestant circles in the 1840s when American clergy and their wealthy parishioners, especially Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Unitarians, flowed into Europe in larger numbers and experienced its famed museums, great cathedrals and their catacombs, roadside shrines, and ancient abbeys to take in the sumptuous Catholic images and spaces.36 Many of the churches and buildings were ruins, crumbling from the ravages of time and war. This gave the old buildings an alluring quality that drew American visitors, prompting European cities and towns to preserve and restore the edifices for the booming tourist trade.37 American Protestant tourists wrote about their experiences and produced a large corpus of travel journals that often relied on religious language to describe encounters with Catholic art and edifices, demonstrating a simultaneous romantic magnetism and fearful repulsion. To commemorate their tours, they brought home with them reproductions and engravings of art pieces.38

A curious tension appeared as Catholic immigrants poured into the country and Protestants vilified Catholic practices while at the same time being drawn to historic Catholic art and architecture.39 Many saw within medieval Christianity’s art and architecture a unity, simplicity, and cultural authority that they perceived to be slipping away.40 Helping to usher in this transformation were the writings of English art and culture critic John Ruskin; his American disciples James Jackson Jarves and Charles Eliot Norton; Elbert Hubbard, the founder of the Roycroft Arts and Crafts enclave in New York; and Congregationalist minister Horace Bushnell.41

Ruskin’s first book, Modern Painters, which deeply influenced British and American thinkers, reached American audiences in the summer of 1847 and was widely circulated by the 1850s. His book taught

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