An intelligent interest in architecture a bibliography of publications about Thomas Jefferson as an architect, together with an iconography of the nineteenth-century prints of the University of Virginia |
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Introduction |
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 | An intelligent interest in architecture |  |
Introduction
No more appropriate tribute to Mr. Jefferson could be paid on the occasion
of the sesquicentennial of the Charter of the University of Virginia
than to issue a bibliography about him as an architect. Certainly the United
States had never before had an architect who had so great a respect for the
authority of books, and it is doubtful if there have been many since who
were so scholarly.
His reliance on books is seen especially well in a letter from Colonel Isaac
Coles of Enniscorthy to General John H. Cocke of Bremo. Colonel Coles
was reporting a conversation with Jefferson concerning a request from
General Cocke:
With Mr. Jefferson I conversed at length on the subject of architecture.
Palladio, he said, "was the Bible." You should get it and stick to it. He had sent
all his Books &c. to Washington, or he would have drawn yr. House for you—it
would have been a pleasure to him—but now he could not undertake to do it
before the fall, when he expected other Books from Paris.[1]
This respect for books is also reflected in the architectural scholarship
which has produced those publications comprising the present bibliography.
Statistics are not very interesting in large doses, but they are sometimes
useful as indicators of importance. There are articles in the citations here
from 88 journals published in seven different countries; and the journals
Revolution, from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
to the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, from the
Gazette des Beaux Arts to Apollo, and from the Saturday Evening Post to
the Art Bulletin.
They have been selected, together with the citations from books, not as
part of a comprehensive bibliography (which, in any case, is almost impossible
when Jefferson is the subject), but as a group to illustrate the widespread
interest in Jefferson as an architect, the best sources for an insight
into his practice of architecture, and the very broad associations which have
been worked out between Jefferson and other figures by subsequent writers.
In the annotations attached to this bibliography one finds his name
coupled with an amazingly wide range of names—the brothers Adam, Bulfinch,
Le Corbusier, Downing, L'Enfant, Goethe, Peter Harrison, Philip
Johnson, Inigo Jones, Latrobe, Ledoux, McKim, Mills, Olmsted, Ramée,
Richardson, Schinkel, Strickland, Stuart and Revett, Sullivan, Town, Upjohn,
and Frank Lloyd Wright.
In the same annotations he is called "father of our national architecture,"
"father of landscape gardening in America," "first great American architect,"
"first important American to have an intelligent interest in architecure,"
and a "genius-architect." It is also said that he wished to be at once
"novel and correct," that he "was a keen observer of natural form and
proportion," and that he "had the true architectural mind." It only remains
to point out that he was spoken of quite seriously as an architect as early as
1786, and then by a cultivated European.
Books and articles have yet another use in the study of Jefferson and the
buildings he created. Through the printed word it is possible to have firsthand
accounts of the man, his habits, his home, and his masterpiece, the
University of Virginia. One of the few references to Jefferson drawing is
contained in an account of his daily schedule during J. E. Caldwell's visit to
Monticello in 1808:
Mr. Jefferson is very regular and temperate in his mode of living; he retires to
his chamber about nine o'clock and rises before the sun both in summer and
winter. . . . Until breakfast (which is early) he is employed in writing, after he
generally visits his work-shops, labourers, etc. and then, until 12 o'clock, he is
engaged in his study, either in drawing, writing or reading; he then rides over
his plantation, returns at two, dresses for dinner and joins his company; he
retires from table soon after the cloth is removed, and spends the evening in
be with him.[2]
While the University was being built, Jefferson was described as he appeared
on the road on August 23, 1822, by a traveler who had missed him
at Monticello:
His costume was very singular—his coat was checked gingham, manufactured in
Virginia I suppose. The buttons on it were of white metal and nearly the size of
a dollar. His pantaloons were of the same fabric. He was mounted on an elegant
bay horse going with speed—and he had no hat on but a lady's parasol, stuck in
his coat behind, spread its canopy over his head, which was very white—his hair
is quite thick—his complexion sandy—and his eye, the eye of an eagle.[3]
Although the author says Jefferson was in his eighty-fourth year that
summer, he was, in actuality eighty on the date of the letter.
Monticello, which has gone through many transformations, is described
in its first version by the Marquis de Chastellux. Although the Marquis's
last phrase is one of the most quoted about Jefferson and architecture, the
earlier sentences of this passage cast considerable light on the late eighteenth-century
romanticism with which the Marquis was judging Jefferson's
achievement:
It was a debt Nature owed to a philosopher and a man of taste, that in
Jefferson's own possessions he should find a spot, where he might best study and
enjoy her. He calls his house Monticello. . . . This house, of which Mr. Jefferson
was the architect, and often one of the workmen, is rather elegant and in the
Italian taste, though not without fault; it consists of one large square pavilion,
the entrance of which is by two porticoes ornamented with pillars. The ground
floor consists chiefly of a very large lofty saloon, which is to be decorated
entirely in the antique style: above it is a library of the same form; two small
wings, with only a ground floor and attic story, are joined to this pavilion, and
communicate with the kitchen, offices, &c. which will form a kind of basement
story over which runs a terrace. My object in this short description is only to
shew the difference between this and the other houses of the country; for we
may safely aver, that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the
fine arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.[4]
In 1809, after Monticello was put into essentially the condition in which
we see it today, the dome room, unfurnished then as now, especially impressed
a visitor:
[Mr. Jefferson] afterwards took us to the drawing room, 26 or 7 feet diameter,
in the dome. It is a noble and beautiful apartment, with 8 circular windows and
a sky-light. It was not furnished and being in the attic story is not used, which I
thought a great pity. . . . When we descended into the Hall he asked us to pass
into the Library. . . . This suit of apartments opens from the Hall to the south.
It consists of 3 rooms for the library, one for his cabinet, one for his chamber,
and a green house divided from the others by glass compartments and doors; so
that the view of the plants it contains is unobstructed. He has not yet made his
collection, having just finished the room, which opens on one of the terraces.[5]
Jefferson, in addition to his work in architecture, had another aspect, too,
and that was his delight in the use of tools, a pleasure which he could and
did enjoy even in the White House:
When he took up his residence in the President's House, he found it scantily
furnished. . . . In the centre of his cabinet was a long table with drawers on
each side, in which were deposited not only articles appropriate to the place, but
a set of carpenter's tools in one and small garden implements in another from
the use of which he derived much amusement.[6]
When it was time to lay out the University, Captain Edmund Bacon, then
overseer at Monticello, remembered that the site
was a poor old turned-out field, though it was finely situated. . . . Afterwards
Mr. Jefferson bought a large tract near it. . . . It had a great deal of fine timber
and rock on it, which was used in building the University.
My next instruction was to get ten able bodied hands to commence the work
[on the University]. I soon got them, and Mr. Jefferson started from Monticello
to lay off the foundation, and see the work commenced. An Irishman named
Dinsmore, and I, went along with him. As we passed through Charlottesville, I
went to old Davy Isaac's store and got a ball of twine, and Dinsmore found some
shingles and made some pegs, and we all went on to the old field together. Mr.
Jefferson looked over the ground some time, and then stuck down a peg. He
struck the very first peg in that building, and then directed me where to carry
the line, and I stuck the second. He carried one end of the line, and I the other
in laying off the foundation of the University. He had a little rule in his pocket
that he always carried with him, and with this he measured off the ground, and
foundation was nearly completed, they had a great time laying the corner-stone.
The old field was covered with carriages and people. . . . Mr. Monroe laid the
corner stone. . . . He held the instruments and pronounced it square.[7]
By 1822 Jefferson was putting his love of tools into the service of the
University by instructing his workmen. There is a charming picture of this
sort of scene by Daniel P. Thompson, who was told by the superintendent
of works:
"That is Mr. Jefferson . . . whom you see yonder, taking the chisel from the
hand of an Italian sculptor and showing him how to turn a volute of the capital
on which he is engaged."
"Why, does Mr. Jefferson go into sculpture in so practical a manner as that?"
I asked in some surprise.
"Yes," was the reply; "yes, often, when he detects faulty work. Indeed we
consider him the best workman on the grounds."[8]
There are three early descriptions of the University, two of which are
uncomplimentary and one which has more to do with living conditions than
architecture. Today, when the original Jeffersonian group of buildings is an
acknowledged masterpiece, it is well to remember that at one time the universality
of these unique buildings was not yet established.
The first of these quotations is an 1820 report on the University's scheme.
It is, presumably, a criticism based on literary rather than firsthand knowledge,
since the buildings were as yet far from complete.
It appears to us that a provision of from two to four rooms is inadequate for a
professor and family. One room must needs be a study, one a parlour, and one a
kitchen; leaving but one lodging room for the professor and his family.
Moreover, though the college discipline would certainly gain, and that in a high
degree, by thus stationing the tents of the professors, at proper intervals, among
the camp of the students, yet the comfort of a family would suffer in an equal
degree; nor can a more unpleasant residence for its inmates be imagined, than a
pavilion thus surrounded and exposed. This is a matter of more consequence
than any circumstance which might tend to make it an ineligible family abode,
and thus throw it into the hands of young literary adventures, who would
regard it merely as a temporary resort, for a few preparatory years.
With respect to the one-story dormitories for the students, we are unacquainted
edifices comfortable. With us they would be likely to be cold in winter and hot in
summer. . . . We are also decidedly of opinion that, except in peculiar cases,
apartments for a single student, are far more favourable to "morals, order, and
uninterrupted study," than the common plan of putting two tenants into one
room.[9]
The second unfavorable report is contained in a letter written by John
H. B. Latrobe during a visit to Charlottesville in August, 1832:
Mr. Jefferson was certainly not a man of taste and [the University of Virginia],
which was built under his direction proves it. He has adopted the Roman order,
the system of Palladio, the style of the age of Louis XIV [sic], and has
studiously kept out of view the very idea of Grecian proportion or form. His
Doric is the worst Tuscan, his Ionic is from the worst models, his Corinthian is
tolerable only, and the composite pillars of the library complete a mélange
which has nothing to recommend it but its general effect, which is striking and
singular. The whole has a shabby genteel look, and is already showing marks
left by time on its frail materials. The columns are of stucco . . . the mortar is
peeling off in many places, showing the red bricks underneath. The wood is
yawning, with wide long splits. . . . Here is a wooden terrace, which is fast
taking rank among the "has-beens."[10]
Latrobe's editor adds that in his own student days thirty-six years after
Latrobe's visit the University still had "an air of neglect and incompleteness,
like a half-finished building, abandoned for want of funds."[11]
Two years later Harriet Martineau spent a few days in Charlottesville,
enough for her to gain a feeling for the University and for its academic
society:
The singular ranges of college buildings are visible from a considerable
distance, as they advantageously crown an eminence, presenting an appearance
of a piazza surrounding an oblong square, with the professors' houses rising at
regular intervals. We found that the low buildings connecting these large
dwellings were the dormitories of the students; ground-floor apartments, opening
into the piazza, and designed to serve as places of study as well as sleep. The
professors' houses are inconveniently small. . . . At one end of the quadrangle is
outside the other end, a gothic chapel was about to be erected. Well-kept
grass-plats and gravel walks fill up the quadrangle. . . . The students wear a
uniform, which is very becoming . . . being merely a coat of particularly simple
fashion, and dark color.
The frankness of the whole society was particularly winning; and so was the
cordiality among themselves; a degree of mutual good understanding which is
seldom found in the small society of a college, village-like in its seclusion and
leisure, with added temptations to jealousy and censoriousness.[12]
The Jefferson complex still "advantageously crowns an eminence," though
it is difficult to see it from a distance because the city and the University
itself have clustered around it. The rural character of the original University
is seen, however, in the prints which form the second part of this
volume. The assemblage of this iconography could not have been accomplished
without the pioneer work of the late Edwin M. Betts, whose collection
and whose notes were so generously put at my disposal by his widow,
Mary Hall Betts. They have never been published together before, but they
are the ideal visual material for this book.
1969
Feb. 23, 1816, in Fiske Kimball, "The Building of Bremo," Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography, LVII (Jan., 1949), 3-13.
Caldwell, A Tour through Part of Virginia in the Summer of 1808 (New York: The
Author, 1809), pp. 26-27.
François Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North-America (London: G. G. J.
and J. Robinson, 1787), II, 41-42.
Margaret (Bayard) Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New
York: Scribner, 1906), p. 71.
The Rev. Hamilton W. Pierson, Jefferson at Monticello: The Private Life of Thomas
Jefferson from Entirely New Materials (New York: Charles Scribner, 1862), pp. 21-22.
Green Mountain Boy at Monticello: A Talk with Jefferson in 1822, ed. Howard C.
Rice, Jr. (Brattleboro, Vt.: Book Cellar, 1962), pp. 19-20.
[Edward Everett], "Art. VII—Proceedings and Report of the Commissioners for
the University of Virginia, Presented the 8th of December 1818," North American Review
and Miscellaneous Journal, XXVI (Jan., 1822), 117-18.
| An intelligent interest in architecture | |