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HENRY CHAPMAN MERCER.
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Career of the designer and architect.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Career of the designer and architect. Influence of the Arts & Crafts Movement and William Morris. Mercer's early life. His architectural projects. Founding of the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in 1912 where he was chief designer. His artistic and commercial success. His design strategies. Use of his tiles/mosaics in public and private buildings.
Paper Introduction:
Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) is best known today as the founder of the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works (1912), where he was the chief designer for many years, and as the architect and builder of several unusual structures. Mercer was heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and became an important proponent of its style and ideas in America. The pottery works flourished and Mercer's designs for decorative tiles became popular. They were featured in a number of public buildings but the most notable installations of his tiles are to be found in his castle-like home, Fonthill, in Doylestown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This home, Mercer's museum, and his tile works all reflect the eclectic 'medievalism' that characterized much of Arts and Crafts architecture in England and the United States. And, although he drew on many sources of
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He took his lawdegree at the University of Pennsylvania but never practiced. available: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi271.htmIllustrations:1. Machinery Can't Make Art: The Pottery and Tiles of Henry Chapman Mercer [exhibition catalogue]. Although his tiles decorated many wealthy people's homes hisfavorites were those in public buildings such as the Museum of Fine Arts inBoston, Grauman's Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles, the chapel at WestPoint, and the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg. Today the Moravian Pottery and Tile Workscontinues to make new tiles, sells replicas of Mercer's designs, andprovides them for sites, such as the State Capitol, where restorers need torefresh parts of the originals. . And, as Kleinsasser notes, despite being made of concrete andbeing very large, the buildings adhere to Ruskin's prescription forarchitecture that blended, as that of the Middle Ages supposedly did, withthe "'woody and green country' as Ruskin described it," as well asfeaturing the "fantastic and rich detail," "traces of grotesqueness" and"assimilation with the intertwining of leaf and bough around it" thatRuskin saw as the mark of excellent architecture (quoted in Kleinsasser5 ). In the museum of over 5 , objectsof this type (including over 1,5 examples of tiles from around the world)Mercer developed a new approach to museology, with his novel displays,innovative classification system and principles of collecting. His designs were then "traced on moist clay, fromwhich a mold could be made . The pottery works flourished and Mercer's designs for decorativetiles became popular. Mercer's accomplishments in designhave never earned him wide fame, yet the work is very fine and an excellentexample of how the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement flourished inAmerica. In their inventive idealization of theMiddle Ages various members of the movement saw the period as a golden agefor the dignity of work and simplicity of life. Mercer's tiles, however, often reflected Morris' design strategies.The English artist drew heavily on medieval stained glass for inspiration,for example, and Mercer's designs show this influence. Instead heembarked on six years of travel in Europe and North Africa, looking at artand architecture and collecting whatever small pieces captured hisattention. Replicas of Round Tiles. His business succeeded and his designs inspired others--who wereusually less likely to take an interest in handcrafting and translated theminto industrial products. the idea occurred to [him] that thehistory of Pennsylvania was here and profusely illustrated and from a newpoint of view" (quoted in Albertson). He was noted as a"painstaking excavator [and was] among the first to understand theimportance of investigating stratified areas at dig sites" (Jackson 112). Although the movement included a widevariety of political and aesthetic ideas it was the vein of idealismregarding the value of work, the loss of craft traditions to industrialism,and the inherent superiority of handcrafted objects that exerted a greatappeal for Mercer. The Capitolbuilding project was one of Mercer's largest undertakings outside his ownhome and he produced 16, square feet of quarry tile and more than 4 mosaics that made up a huge area of interior pavement and depicted thehistory and natural wonders of the state. [Mercer site] available: http://www.thebee.com/aweb/archive/mercer.htm2. Theworks was named after the early German settlers in the region whose potteryindustry was an inspiration to him. Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-193 ) is best known today as the founderof the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works (1912), where he was the chiefdesigner for many years, and as the architect and builder of severalunusual structures. Perhaps because he was content to live inhis own small town and seldom wrote at length about his ideas Mercer willnever achieve the fame he deserves. Art needs the touch of a human hand, its failing as well as its skill (quoted in Albertson).The works flourished as Mercer's designs became an immediate commercial andartistic success. He also drew on numerous visual examples--sometimesborrowing very directly from other works of art such as the famous paintingof The Peaceable Kingdom by the early Bucks County artist Edward Hicks(178 -1849) for tiles that originally decorated the library of the BucksCounty Historical Society and have since been replicated for the BucksCounty Courthouse. He alsoinitiated "historical archaeology" in which one "work[ed] back fromartifacts of the near past rather than forward from the ancient past asconventional archaeology did" (Jackson 113). He employed hand-mixed cast concrete (a very unusual material forprojects of this kind at the time) and the projects were carried out byhimself, six workmen, and a horse. Mercer's archaeological instincts and his interest in preindustrialproduction were activated by a visit to a junkyard to find a pair offireplace tongs and suddenly, "from the midst of a disordered pile of oldwagons, gumtree salt boxes, flax breaks, straw beehives, tin dinner horns,rope machines and spinning wheels . . Experiential Design Considerations and Categories of Experiential Response. Being free of any obligation to earn a living liberated theHarvard-educated man to pursue whatever interested him. He was born in Doylestown and was awealthy man, courtesy of an aunt who supported him and left him her fortunewhen she died. . The mosaic consists of around 1 irregularly shaped tiles whosegrouted divisions, like the leading in stained glass, are not disguised atall. And, despite an apparently strong drawing technique, Mercercan be seen to deliberately evoke a medieval and a folk-art feeling withthe simplicity of the designs and the relative crudeness of thedraftsmanship. [Moravian Pottery and Tile Works] (someone's personal site w/ tour of Bucks County) available: http://reggae.rs.itd.umich.edu/~hanauer/tour/mercer.htmlNOTE TO CLIENT:THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK ON MERCER (CLEOTA REED'S BIOGRAPHY) WAS NOTAVAILABLE. Mercer found, as they had, that thelocal clay was ideal for the manufacture of tiles which he designed onpaper, drawing on a wide variety of visual and literary sources rangingthroughout history. The tile recalls, in a way, the brilliance andrich, flowing shapes of vegetative ornament that decorated illuminatedmanuscripts. It can make automobiles and radios and telephones, but it can't create art. The movement's interest in the handcrafted work of the past alsoabetted Mercer's first attempt to bring back pottery-making traditions.But his 1897 venture involving "the revival of the traditional Pennsylvania-German redware industry was ultimately not successful" (Albertson). available: http://www.thebee.com/aweb/archive/mercer.htmJackson, Donald Dale. Despite his belief in the superiority of handmade work and his loveof medieval visual sources Mercer's works flourished. Morris also wished to restore the decorative arts tothe same level as the "fine arts" of painting and sculpture, healing asplit that was largely the result of industry's new ability to mass-producesuch things as glass, ceramics, fabrics, and furniture. . Mercer himself was only interested in thehistoriographic designs and left the abstractly decorated or plain tiles toothers, even though they constituted the great bulk of the sales. Mercer was heavily influenced by the Arts and Craftsmovement and became an important proponent of its style and ideas inAmerica. Mercer took an unpaid position as Curator of American and Pre-Historic Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum (1894-97) andspent most of the early 189 s as a field archaeologist, a pursuit in whichhe made a modest but significant contribution. Fonthill tile. Mercer's designs were not, of course, limited to specific Arts andCrafts influences. It is interesting that sincemosaic was decidedly not a common craft in medieval England Mercer'smosaics continue to reflect the stained glass tradition rather than any ofthe mosaic traditions of other cultures. THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE NOT INDICATED IN THE TEXT BUT IT SHOULDBE OBVIOUS WHICH IS WHICH. But, taken as a group, hisachievements certainly produce admiration and wonder in any observer. UnlikeWilliam Morris, whose socialist ideals made him despondent when his owndesign firm became popular with "that section of society that had someresponsibility for perpetuating the social conditions he so hated," Mercerwas pleased with the success of his undertaking, especially because he sawhis tiles not just as a means of beautifying the world but as a means ofteaching as well (Adams 49). He patented a numberof tile-making processes and won a grand prize at the World's Fair in St.Louis. Works CitedAdams, Steven. Or, as with Morris and thearchitect Augustus Welby Pugin, they equated the appearance of medievalbuilding and crafts with the "spiritual refinement" of the medievalcenturies (Adams 19). The Arts and Crafts Movement. Eugene OR: Kleinsasser, 1975.Lienhard, John. In constructing the three buildings that made up his architecturallegacy Mercer was also responding to the imperatives of the Arts and Craftsideal. Dissatisfied with workingin a structured environment Mercer returned to Doylestown in 1897 with twoprojects foremost in his mind: tile making and the assembly of a"systematic collection of American preindustrial tools and utensils"(Jackson 112). Doylestown, PA: James M. [Pennsylvania State Capitol Building] available: http://cpc.leg.state.pa.us/projects/mercer/index.php33. An example is the mosaicdepicting an "Iron Miner" who kneels in the pit with his pick-ax raisedover his head. Thefollowing year he founded the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works at his home(but did not build the beautiful works building until 15 years later). London: Chartwell-Quintet, 1987.Albertson, Karla Klein. 271: Mercer's Museum." Engines of Our Ingenuity. Like stained-glass designs the features are not detailedand there is little subtlety to the range of colors or to effects such asshading. pressed with that mold, then glazed andbaked" (Jackson 114). Designs forcircular tiles in which he depicted figures at work, for example, displaythe high-gloss and deep, rich colors in segmented areas that resemblestained class. Mercer's career as a designer and an architect, however, is only oneaspect of a very accomplished life. "No. They not only held that "a well-designed environment--fashionedwith beautiful and well-crafted buildings, furniture, tapestries andceramics" would necessarily be more beautiful, they also held that itshould be "the result of contented labour in which the craftsman or womancould reject the drudgery and alienation of factory work and delight insimple handicraft" (Adams 9). Butover all these buildings it is the Gothic revivalist overtones, mostprominent in Fonthill, that speak to Mercer's debt to the Arts and Craftstradition. The structures reflect the Arts andCrafts interest in eclectic stylistic examples--ranging from thecombination of Spanish mission and English medieval cottage in the potteryworks to the French chateau style reflected in the eight-story museum. Ruskin and others had responded to the rise of theIndustrial Revolution and its effects on the working class by "writingabout the horror of industrialism and the idyll of rural medieval England"(Adams 9). Michener Art Museum, 1998. They were featured in a number of public buildingsbut the most notable installations of his tiles are to be found in hiscastle-like home, Fonthill, in Doylestown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.This home, Mercer's museum, and his tile works all reflect the eclectic'medievalism' that characterized much of Arts and Crafts architecture inEngland and the United States. His vast collections reflectthe Arts and Crafts movement's favorable view of the handmade past anddeploring view of industrialism. Other sources of inspiration included eighteenth-century cast-iron stove plates that were popular with Pennsylvania's Germansettlers (and of which Mercer had collected over 6 ). Both of these pursuits reflected his interest in the Arts and Craftsmovement which began in Great Britain in the second half of the nineteenthcentury under the influence of such men as the critic John Ruskin and thewriter and designer William Morris. Iron Miner. The objects he collected reflect "theperfected technologies of hand tools, carriages, and clocks [which are] amonument to the soaring human imagination just as surely as the wondersthat replaced them" (Lienhard). And, although he drew on many sources ofinspiration, his tiles often display themes and stylistic features similarto those of the movement's designers. Although the molds meant that the tiles could beproduced in large numbers, the entire process involved hand work at everystage, reflecting Mercer's firmly held belief that this was the only waythat fine art could be made: Machinery can't make it. On his return to Pennsylvania he became deeply interested inthe early American past and became an archaeologist. A design such asthe raised work on a tile from the exterior of Fonthill depicting a swanand a Latin motto along with a primitive drawing of Fonthill itself, showsMercer's debt to such sources and to the medieval love of fantastic,abstract ornamentation. "Henry Mercer Makes More Sense as Time Goes On." Smithsonian 19.7 (1988): 11 -16.Kleinsasser, William.
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