Beauty and Power, Global Design, 1840-1914

By Steven M Leuthold

Beauty and Power serves as an accessible general introduction to the origins

of modern design and an original contribution to understanding the

role that cross-cultural processes have played in design's history. How did

modern design in its origins begin to transform lives globally? This is the

first history of t

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Renaissance Press
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986325910

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Steven M. Leuthold

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 979-8-9863259-0-3

ISBN: 979-8-9863259-1-0 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022909754

Cover image by Wikimedia Commons

Cover design by Jane Milkie. Book design by Kendall Plapp

First printing edition 2022.

Published by New Renaissance Press

169.5 E. Main St.

Marquette, MI 49855

Contents

PREFACE

The Directionality of Globalization

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: DESIGN IN AN AGE OF EMPIRE

Nations and Nationalism

The Context of Capitalism

Nations and Economic Competition

Action, Reaction

The Birth of the Avant-Garde

Indicators of Modernity

Progress as an Ideal

The Limiting Nature of Progress

Rationalizations for Unequal Progress

Artistic Realism and the Birth of the Radical Avant-Garde

Tradition and Bourgeois Taste

The Textile Industry in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Automation in Textiles

Ornament and the Display of Wealth

The Nineteenth Century’s Legacy in the Twentieth Century

CHAPTER 1:

A SPIRIT OF REVIVAL

Critique of Pugin

Gothic Revival and Nationalism

The Gothic Revival in the United States

Gothic Revival in Canada

Larger Context of Romantic Nationalism

Other Revival Movements in North America

CHAPTER 2:

THE REQUIREMENT OF REFORM

The Reform Cause

Henry Cole and the Great Exhibition

Owen Jones

Christopher Dresser

The Arts and Crafts Movement

John Ruskin’s Research and Social Theory

William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement

Morris & Co.

Morris as a Writer

Morris and the Kelmscott Press

Growing Increasingly Socialist

Design Reform in France

CHAPTER 3:

BOLD INITIATIVES

Impact on Circulation

Increase in Sheet and Font Size

Victorian Typography

Chromolithography

Criticism of Victorian Graphics

Design in America

Caricature in Print

Developments in Illustration

Harper’s Weekly, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Nast

Naturalist Illustration

CHAPTER 4:

ISLAMIC DESIGN

Calligraphy

Modernization and European Influence

Increasing Marginalization

Household Implements and Clothing

Ottoman Ceramics

Turkish Carpets

The End of the Ottoman Empire

Iranian Design

Enamel and Lacquer Work in Persia

Persia and France

Bourgeois Collecting of Persian and Other Islamic Decorative Arts

Persian Carpets

Persian Glass and Ceramics

Arabia

Morocco

Orientalism

CHAPTER 5:

AESTHETICISM AND ITS ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Great Britain and Capital

Imperialism’s Economic Motives

Two Directions in Design

The House Beautiful

Wilde and Whistler

Whistler’s Peacock Room

Sir Frederic Leighton

Morris’s Influence in England

Proto De Stijl

Charles Robert Ashbee

Charles Annesley Voysey

Charles Worth and the Rise of Couture

The Consumer and Design

The Department Store and the Spectacle of Shopping

Design of the Gilded Age

The Gay Nineties

Expanding Design Awareness in the United States

Aestheticism, Art Education, and Social Reform in the United States

CHAPTER 6:

DESIGN IN EAST ASIA

Literati Painting

Chinese Ceramics

Metal Work

Furniture

Lacquer

Ivory

Silk

Chinoiserie

Western Pressure on Traditional Chinese Society

Japan

Architecture

Sword Making and Accessories

Prints

19th-Century Ukiyo-e

Ando Hiroshige

Japanese Lacquer

Textiles

Men’s Fashions

Signage

Ceramics

Collecting

Japan and Japonisme in the context of Imperialism

CHAPTER 7:

THE CHALLENGE OF THE MODERN

Internationalization of Modern Design in the 1880s and 90s

Fin de siècle subtext

Innovation and Class

Art Nouveau’s ties to Symbolism

Origins of Art Nouveau in Japonism

Structural Elements of Japanese Influence

Calligraphic Line

Flat Coloration

Structure and Ornament

Sources of Art Nouveau in Western art

Rococo Sources of Art Nouveau

Émil Gallé

Hector Guimard

René Lalique

Henry Van de Velde

Gustave Eiffel

Jugendstil

CHAPTER 8:

INTERNATIONAL ART NOUVEAU

Thonet Furniture

Art Nouveau in Spain

Carlo Bugatti

Art Nouveau in South America

American Glass of the Aesthetic and Art Nouveau Movements

Loetz Witwe Glass

Candace Wheeler and Women in Design

The Art Pottery Movement

The British in India

CHAPTER 9:

DESIGN IN SOUTH ASIA

India and the West

Indian Architecture

Indian Textiles

Indian Metalware

Indian Stone and Ivory

Indian Furniture

Indian Graphics

Southeast Asia

CHAPTER 10:

INTERNATIONAL ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT

Gerhard Munthe

Georg Jensen

Finland

The Slavic Revival

Richard Riemerschmid

The Glasgow Four

The New Spirit in Austria

Czech Design

The American Arts and Crafts Movement

The Shakers

Greene and Greene

Rohlfs and Mercer

Chicago and the Origins of Functionalism

Frank Lloyd Wright

The Rise of the Modernist Worship of the Machine

Made in Germany

CHAPTER 11:

AFRICAN DESIGN

African Textiles

Beadwork

Leatherwork

Metalwork

Slavery

The Conquest of Africa

CHAPTER 12:

SHAPING DESIRE: DESIGN, GRAPHICS, AND THE RISE OF CONSUMERISM

A Distrust of Emotion

Desire and Defining Myths

Advertisement and Desire

Art Nouveau as a Graphic Style in France

The Image of Women in the Graphic Arts

Political Humor

American Chromolithography

American Typography

American Posters

The Golden Age of Illustration

The Dawn of the Billboard

Elbert Hubbard and Self-Promotion

The American System

The Turn toward Consumerism in the Early 20th Century

A Cataclysm

Looking Forward

NOTES

IMAGE CREDITS

GLOSSARY

TIMECHART

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Preface

Design history is a relatively new field in comparison to its sister discipline, the history of art. Whereas art historians shifted to a global approach in the late twentieth century, similar developments in design history have only recently occurred. Some excellent books have appeared in global design history in the last decade. They are welcomed scholarly additions to the field, but they address specialists and advanced students. I seek to offer an approach accessible to general readers that places the origins of modern design in its international economic and political context. This book is also more chronologically limited than earlier global offerings; it considers the origins of modern design in the era that spanned the 1840s to the beginning of the First World War.

Modern design is interwoven with the social dimensions of modern life: economics including industrial production and the rise of consumerism, marketing and communications, national identity and competitiveness, international relations, and globalization. Modern design has played a significant role in creating an interconnected social world. However, it also can stimulate individual desire and fantasy. This psychological dimension of design extends beyond its relationship to effective engineering, industry, economics, and modern management. Powerfully designed goods and messages speak to the non-rational parts of our selves. This book considers the linkage between the psychological mechanisms and the social effects of modern design to answer this question: How did modern design in its origins begin to transform lives globally?

This integrated history of modern design from the nineteenth century to World War I considers the relationship between several interrelated design disciplines, from architecture, craft, fashion, and furniture, to graphic, industrial, and transportation design. This is the first integrated history of the origins of modern design intended for general readers to include numerous examples from Africa, Asia, and the Islamic World, as well as to focus upon cross-cultural dimensions of design as primary to its early history.

I seek not only to take cross-cultural sources and effects into account but also to argue for their centrality, even during the origins of modern design. The relationship of design to globalization is complex, as the world consists of multiple flows of ideas and products. What is the story of how design practice came to play a significant role in the modern, interconnected world that we live in today? Design must have had the capacity to speak to some basic human desires for it to become so widespread in its effects. What are the desires that we seek to fulfill through design, and how do members of different cultures express them in varied ways?

While I seek to be inclusive of areas outside of Europe and North America, I strive to not slight the major contribution of design and economic activity in those important regions. Innovations in Great Britain, France, and Germany were driving forces in the early emergence of modern design; I seek to place them in a global context, not to diminish them. Where possible, this book considers the stated objectives of the modern designers themselves. In a social approach that focuses on the relationship of design to macro forces, it is possible to slight the specific intentions of individual designers. This book considers the stated objectives of the designers along with the writings of influential critical theorists.

Part of the concern of early designers and theorists was the nature of modernity itself. This book considers the relationship of modern design to the birth of the general idea of the ‘modern’; what distinguishes the modern from modes of the past? The idea and positive valuation of the ‘modern’ is a product of the same period that saw the rapid advance of industrialization. Specific industries, such as textiles and printing, cleared the path toward modernization. During this era, the rise of a mass market for goods and advertising involved major changes in typography and illustration. However, this concern for ‘the modern’ affected traditional areas of craft production as well; thus, I extend the discussion of modernity beyond the industrial context in which it is traditionally placed and reflect upon the global impact of the idea of modernity on many practices of making.

The book consists of twelve chapters that are alternately ordered by chronological themes or geographical areas. The combined chronological/geographical organization has become a standard format for general art history books that incorporate a global approach. Some might argue against a chronological approach altogether, but my experience has been that a chronological organizational structure helps increase clarity for readers, especially when engaging a broad range of products and ideas. The story of modern design’s origins is a historical narrative and one, perhaps, should not avoid a certain linear quality in its exposition.

I should acknowledge, though, that these chronological groupings are fairly broad. For a strictly chronological approach, it might be tempting to organize the narrative by decades. However, the challenge of addressing design ‘around the world’ multiple times (for each decade from the 1840s to the 1910s) would be significant. That is why I have settled upon alternating between larger themes, ordered chronologically, and regions. It is my hope that with the discussion in each chapter of a particular style period, region, or culture, a certain coherence emerges that helps organize the multiplicity inherent in a global history of design.

I depart from the much broader chronological account found in History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 in my ordering of the regions that I discuss, and this departure is a result of my early modern focus. To begin in Asia, as the authors of the earlier history did, makes sense because they began their account during a time when China was the largest and most powerful economy in the world.¹ Also, I believe the authors may have been attempting a de-centering approach to history, which I applaud. By the 1800s, however, Great Britain, France, and Germany were the central industrial and decidedly dominant economic powers of the world; out of the processes and economic structures found in their societies, modern design was born. My ordering of the varied regions reflects political and economic realities, including issues of power and influence in the nineteenth century.

If one is to take a global approach, a key concept that emerges is ‘globalization’. One historical moment that is difficult to pin down is the beginning of globalization; scholars are all over the map on this one, with some arguing that globalization was a feature of the ancient world, others locating its origins in the Age of Exploration (15th–17th centuries), others in the expansive reach of capitalism during the Age of Empire (the subject of the present account), and still others arguing that it is a very recent phenomenon. Each of these eras featured a globalizing impetus. However, with my focus on the nineteenth century, I emphasize national competitiveness in the context of empire as the key context of nascent globalization. While the Information Age of the late twentieth century—including the introduction of television, the development of modern computing, the subsequent introduction of the personal computer, the rise of the Internet, and the rise of multinational corporations—may have cemented the globalized nature of the world, my goal throughout the book is to explain the origins of globalization and the importance of global processes in relationship to design without taking away from the specificity of our own fascinating time.

The Age of Empire refers to an era of colonialist activity spurred on by a sense of intense competition between, and a desire for dominion over, other nations.² This competitiveness, spurred by nationalism, culminated in the violent clash of World War I. Modern design emerged in this context of nationalism, advancing industrialization, and colonialism. These factors affected craft and small manufacturing traditions outside of Europe too, both at local levels and at the level of the historical empires, which survived in China, Persia, Turkey and elsewhere into the early twentieth century.

Throughout the period and in all cultural contexts, a focus on the display of wealth and power through ornament helped distinguish social classes. Increasingly, citizens in the West borrowed ornamental motifs from non-Western cultures. However, in certain contexts, some ornamental tendencies were criticized. In response to concerns about superficiality in ornamentation, shoddy quality, and the urban ills of industrialization, a series of design reform movements emerged, beginning in England. These reform movements provided the basis of the critical self-consciousness of professional designers. But, even these self-reflective, reform-minded designers and theorists did not reject ornament. The authenticity of specific ornamental traditions—their role in creating a ‘true’ sense of beauty—was a matter of debate in the nineteenth century more than the legitimacy of ornamentation itself.

The desire for reform—for replacing false ornamental systems with those that are true and beautiful—often incorporated a romantic view of each nation’s historical past, and this further fueled national competitiveness. By the late nineteenth century, though, designers and artists began to emphasize the autonomy of the aesthetic as a distinct kind of experience, independent of its social uses such as social reform or the glorification of national identities. Once again, the nature and import of beauty became a matter of debate. Just before World War I, modernism grew in part out of this increased autonomy and the era of lavish ornamentation drew to a close. While this book presents the visual aspects of design, it also seeks the meanings associated with these visual elements. And, increasingly, those meanings emerged out of the economic interaction between nations.

In that light, design scholars are calling for an approach in design history that accounts for the role of globalization.³ Many agree that a global approach is necessary to understand the trajectory of modern design in particular; in this book, I seek to incorporate cross-cultural analysis into an understanding of the origins of modern design. But, what would be the theoretical underpinnings of this global approach? Have designers been successful due to their ability to engage universal features of human psychology such as desire? Does design have global implications because of its relationship to certain features of economic life? In what broad ways have designers shaped consumer desires and effected social transformation on a global scale? This book presents an account of the origins and early evolution of modern design, which lays the groundwork for a broader understanding of its present-day international significance.

A central theme of the book is the rise of design as part of the processes of modern manufacturing, marketing, and communications. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the discipline of design has coalesced as a social institution that has its norms and culture. Because the products of design pervade our lives, we may sometimes be unaware of both the personal and global effects of this social institution. Design arose in tandem with the emergence of mass communications. In the nineteenth century, this largely involved the growth of mass-circulation printed materials. With the expansion of visual media during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, design became increasingly central to economic life and human communication processes. Thus, graphic design is presented here as integral to the expansiveness of modern design in its social effects.

Expanding our understanding of design involves a delicate balance between considering the richness of specific traditions and identifying factors that affect all cultures. The specific descriptions of how and why things were made and valued tell us a great deal about the outlook of a particular group. However, one meaning of ‘globalization’ is that it involves processes and values that are trans-cultural, processes that involve many groups, even to the point of being universal in their effect. Design can involve the exchange of ideas and values that have no physical materiality per se but which are extremely influential. Often these values, such as the importance placed on consumption and status, are economic or ‘materialistic’ in nature.

Why not argue, then, that the theoretical basis of globalization, both in general and in relation to design, is solely economic? The origins of modern processes of globalization lie in the intensified global trade of the second half of the nineteenth which extended into the early twentieth century. Economic gain was the primary motivator of this era of expansion. However, the effects of globalization are not solely economic. These effects include the impact of global exchange upon identity, religious belief systems, political formations, personal behavior, and so forth. Increasingly, all aspects of experience are affected by and become motivating forces within the dynamics of globalization. Thus, while economic gain may have been and often still is the primary agent behind globalization, human values and desires, more broadly understood, define the larger sphere of globalization’s effects.

Even so, the specific economic context of the origin and development of globalization was capitalism; a constellation of desires and values that is complementary with that economic system has now impacted many, if not all, areas of the world. The psychological desire to consume must be stimulated and enabled; one must self-identify as a consumer, an aspect of identity that was neither common nor respected before the modern age. Much of this shaping of identity and values has occurred through media such as advertising, entertainment, and journalistic media, along with the stimulus of the physical goods themselves that have made up the traditional focus of trade. A material culture approach, while important, is not sufficient to address the field of desire and consumption that is expressed in these communication media. It is the heightened degree of the exchange of information, values, and ideas that characterize early modern globalization in tandem with the exchange of goods. However, design plays a role in both of these exchange processes. The goods that are exchanged in global trade have been designed and have the potential to appeal to consumers in disparate locales. The messages that promote these goods and other non-material ideas and values have been designed as well. Design is integral to globalization at all levels of experience.

This history will show that cross-cultural dynamics have been part of modern design from its origins, primarily because it was fueled by capitalism, which, as an economic system, transcends national borders. During the last three decades, there has been a reassessment of art history that has involved a re-definition of the canon in that discipline. (A canon is the body of key works that are considered in a discipline.) The history of world art now considers art from African, Asian, Latin American, Arabic and Islamic, Slavic, Pre-Columbian, Native American and other traditions in addition to the European and North American focus that was traditionally found in Western art history. Similarly, this book expands the canon of examples, designers, and traditions discussed in design history. This book is inclusive cross-culturally because global economic processes have ensured that no region of the world is unaffected by the market forces that underpin the development of modern design. At the same time, those groups who have opposed capitalism and its effects have also been internationalist in their aspirations.

The Directionality of Globalization

There is an evolution, a sense of a linear (or teleological) development inherent in the development of the idea of the ‘the modern’. Globalization refers to the increasing levels of interdependence and interconnection between the peoples of the world that have occurred in the modern era. Due to the nature of academic specialization, in which academic departments of history, economics, political science, sociology, and the history of art and design are located in separate disciplines, it is a challenge to attain the holistic perspective required for a thorough understanding of globalization. Globalization is cultural, economic, and political; a holistic approach considers the interrelationship between these causes and effects.

Because there have been previous instances of the global reach of governments, merchants, and products—think back, for instance, to the era of trade along the Great Silk Road, spanning China and Europe in the ancient world—it is tempting to claim that globalization has always been with us. But, because globalization is seen as a challenge to the autonomy of nation-states, the development of the nation-state functions as a necessary stage in its earlier development. It was in the nineteenth century that the international order based upon competitive nationalism fully emerged. A complete account of the rise and effects of globalization must address the ‘nation’ as a construct and design’s role in promoting national identities and aspirations.

Globalization cannot be accounted for simply by increasing inclusivity in our telling of world history, though inclusivity certainly helps. Rather globalization involves a series of flows that occur between nations in which all of the peoples of the world are significant players. It is in this sense that we will consider the early history of modern design as a phenomenon of globalization. Modern design arises from a set of desires that inform and affect relationships found in all parts of the world. It is more widespread than its origins in Western Europe and North America and has become a force for transforming social relationships globally. Industrialization began in specific locales, but it quickly enveloped all areas of the world including those that were not yet industrialized. In the last fifty years, however, modern design has become global through its impact upon consumption as well as production. Nineteenth-century industrialization foregrounded the global development of a consumerist mindset, both in the nineteenth century and into our era.

A similar directionality can be detected in the development of the nation-state. Initially arising from a concern for the sovereignty of the borders of specific locales, powerful industrialized nations then became capable of establishing colonial empires. At this point, nation-states were expansive in their economic reach but could not accept other nations as equals. Rather, their colonialist activity was spurred on by a sense of intense competition and a desire for dominion over other nations. This rivalry eventually erupted into the violent clash of World War I, after which there was an attempt to establish an international system that involved nations seeing one another as equals and accepting the rules of the transnational system. That initial attempt at global cooperation failed, as the old nation-as-empire formation reasserted itself, culminating in World War II. With the dismantling of the colonial system and the formation of the United Nations in the post-World War II era, there was again an attempt to create a system that was international in its reach. By the late twentieth century, however, the nation-state was in the process of being subverted by multinational forces. Economic forces–especially the global reach of finance and trade, modern communications, transportation, and global environmental issues—have increased the sense of interconnection between nations. Yet, closer to the present, we may be witnessing a return to the national competitiveness that marked the nineteenth century. Thus, the relationship of design to nations, empires, and national competition, observable in its origins, is still relevant in the present.

The sense of hyper-connectivity between peoples that resulted from modern developments in political life, economics, and design has affected people’s minds as well as their political realities. We live in a time when the most important processes affecting our lives are beyond the control of any individual government. Some seek to retreat to the comfort of sealed borders both politically and intellectually in an attempt to deny the reality of globalization. But, when we confront contemporary risks and dangers, we see that they are decidedly global. The environmental crisis that we have created and must solve together is called global climate change. If the problems that we face are global, we must acknowledge that the causes and the thinking required to solve the problems must be global as well.

The story of modern design’s relationship to globalization, then, has directionality as well. It has its origins in the nationalistic rivalries of the nineteenth century. Related occurrences, such as the intensification of economic colonialism and the dismantling of older dynasties and empires, accompany the rise of ‘the nation’ as the most important economic agent. Later, modern design plays a role in the cataclysmic wars of the first half of the twentieth century, but a fixation upon ‘the modern’ takes hold, in part, in reaction to the conservative forces that led to those wars. Design responded to the expansion of possibilities in the nineteenth century, but it also became an element of an ideological struggle between divergent worldviews.

One defining feature of the ideological and economic context related to the formation of modern design is capitalism. Trade has been a common feature of every era, but the manner and customs of trade have varied. In the modern era, trade has persistently and increasingly taken place in the economic context of capitalism. Therefore, design necessarily interacts with capitalism, which has become a near-universal feature of modern life. Capitalism has not been present in every age and every culture; rather, it is specific to our recent history, from the late eighteenth century to the present. The production of commodities is the defining feature of Western capitalism, but it is a matter of scale as well as production. Marx described capitalism as an immense accumulation of commodities.⁴

The nineteenth-century phase of capitalism, in which the laborer becomes an appendage of the machine, is industrial capitalism; industrialization accelerated all economic processes. From technological advances in agriculture to navigation to transportation, industrialization led to an enormous expansion in production. This explosion of technology occurred because of advances in scientific knowledge. Out of this expansion of the means of production grew what Marx called the international character of the capitalist system.⁵ Through the improvement of the machinery of production, capitalists accrued surplus-value, and this allowed them to be more powerfully competitive; the intense desire for raised productivity drove forward further technological invention. Competition allows for most small capitalist firms to be vanquished. As their capital is absorbed into the coffers of the more powerful, a centralization of capital occurs. Thus, giant firms—large corporations—came to control economic life through increases in mechanical modes of production. The economics of scale rooted firmly in place; the larger pool of capital controlled by the major corporations allows for greater investment in technology than is available to smaller competitors. Meanwhile, enormous output on the production side requires mass markets.

The importance of technological progress and an increase in the scale of production are ideas found in Marx that are agreed upon even by non-Marxist theorists. Of greater debate is the idea that these factors will lead to a series of cycles that will ultimately culminate in an economic breakdown of capitalism. Cyclical theories and the possibility of an eventual fundamental crisis in capitalism are controversial; the subject of capitalism’s ultimate success or demise is open to a broad range of conflicting analyses and claims. Though we cannot know the future, the economic context in which design emerged and continues to develop provides a framework for understanding its global impact. In the pages that follow, then, I consider the origins of modern design in the context of increasing global interdependence, driven forward by economic and cultural changes that still affect us today.

Acknowledgments

This book grows out of many years teaching general histories of design in the classroom. My broadest gratitude is extended to the community of students and faculty at Northern Michigan University who have shown a keen interest in design history for a period now extending toward two decades. In particular, Michael Cinelli was Dean of the School of Art and Design at the time that I applied for a research sabbatical to begin work on the project. I am indebted to his support and the endorsement of the project by my fellow faculty, which enabled the precious time needed for research, reflection, and writing. In the fall of 2014, I was invited to be a visiting research fellow at Bard Graduate Center, New York City. It was exciting to receive the encouragement of eminent scholars including the design historian Pat Kirkham and the Center’s director Peter Miller for the project in its beginning stages. While working at Bard, I had the opportunity to present some of the ideas found in the book in their formative stage. The response of the faculty and community there was a valuable contribution to the future shape of the manuscript. I also have benefitted from outstanding museum collections of design and the decorative arts. Many thanks to the staffs of these museums, from the large and comprehensive such as the V & A in London to the smaller and more specialized institutions including the Bröhan Museum in Berlin. Thanks as well to Leandra Dziesinski and to several students at Northern who helped organize and edit many of the images in the book. A talented former student who is now a practicing design professional, Kendall Plapp, is responsible for much of the look of the book; thanks to her for her eye for detail and outstanding design work. My colleague, Jane Milkie, provided valuable assitance in solving design challenges. Of course, a book is meant to be read; special thanks, then, are due to my father, Kenneth Leuthold, who took the time to read and critique much of the manuscript even though the material is distant from his home disciplines. Lastly, I have relied heavily on many fellow photographers who have shared their images in the public domain. These serve as one source of the book’s illustrations. Gathering illustrations for a book is no small task and these photographers’ collaborative sharing of images of historical works makes the task much less arduous; many thanks to each of you whose images appear in these pages.

Steven M. Leuthold

Marquette, Michigan

Introduction: Design in an Age of Empire

At the outset of the nineteenth century, six European powers accounted for less than a quarter of the world’s manufacturing output. By the end of the century, these six nations, along with the United States, accounted for almost eighty percent of production. ¹ This massive economic expansion resulted from an array of factors: industrialization, laws protecting contracts and corporations, the rise of free market capitalism, and competition between the industrial nations for resources outside of their borders. National competitiveness spurred nation-states into a lust for empires, whereas empire-building had been the pursuit of sultans and kings in previous eras. The production and design of beautiful, desirable goods within a country enhanced its global competitiveness, but the alluring products also signified the power, pride, and progress of the expansive, ambitious nation. In a new industrial and capitalist age, designers forged languages of beauty and power that enhanced national prestige.

Empire-building began long before the nineteenth century. From the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, European governments mapped and, soon after, conquered vast areas of the globe in the pursuit of wealth and converts. The global ambitions of Spain, Portugal, England, France, Russia, and Holland were ideological as well as economic. Their world consisted of competing belief systems, and these required economic strengths for their support. Before long, there were fruits of their effort; sugar, chocolate, coffee, and rum from the Americas along with beaver pelts and otter furs made their way back to Europe in abundance. At the same time that these republican and monarchical governments expanded into the Western Hemisphere, they sought to capture the resources and markets of the East to bring back a bounty of spice, tea, silk, and porcelain to consumers in Europe.

Imperialist governments were common outside of Europe as well. The Ottomans carved an empire (1299–1922) incorporating Turkey, parts of Arabia, and almost all of North Africa. Persian rulers, the Safavid dynasty (1502–1736), controlled much of Central Asia, and a son of Persia, Akbar, created the Mughal Empire (1526–1827), which controlled present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan. China embarked on expansionist policies under the leadership of the Manchu dynasty (also called the Qing dynasty or Empire (1644–1912), which led to its dominion of Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet. When the Spaniards arrived in numbers in Mexico and Peru in the early sixteenth century, they encountered two expansive and successful empires, the Aztec and the Incan. Spain itself controlled large areas of the Americas, parts of Africa and the East Indies for centuries (1492–1975). Africa, as well, was carved into empires including the Benin Empire (1180–1897), Oyo Empire (1400–1905), Kaabu Empire (1537–1867), Ashanti Empire (1701–1957), and Mali Empire (1230–1600); each involved centralized political rule over varied peoples. The Early Modern Period, lasting from approximately 1450 to 1750, overflowed with imperial ambition.

Why, then, situate nineteenth-century design in a specifically imperial context? Though imperialism had a long history, it expanded in scale during the second half of the nineteenth century and, due to the rise of new technologies and new economic and political formations, its character intensified. Peoples and states came into more frequent contact, and, at the same time, the inequality between them increased. Designers in many countries expressed traditions of national pride, encapsulated competing claims to privilege and power, and both defined and challenged the meanings of industrial modernity. While the relationship of nineteenth-century design to industrialization has been well documented, I will discuss design of the industrial-colonialist era within this framework of global competition and exchange.

Nations and Nationalism

As with the action and influence of empires, the idea of the ‘nation’ preceded the nineteenth century. One origin of the concept ‘nation’ is the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which outlined the principle of sovereignty (the inviolability of the borders of independent political entities). Searching for a balance of power to lessen the likelihood of future wars, the framers of the treaty envisioned a nation as a region with a clearly defined border and a strong centralized government. The countries needed the treaty because various parts of Europe had been at war over religious differences for decades. Each nation gained sovereignty over its lands and internal affairs. However, the Westphalian System was a political solution. The experience of national identity that we associate with nations today rests upon psychological and cultural affinity as much as political affiliation. By contrast, in earlier centuries disparate people from multiple linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups could occupy the same region and be ruled by a central ruler but not identify themselves as ‘Spanish’, ‘Indian’, or ‘French’. Family, town, ethnic, and regional identity mattered more than national identity.

The creation of national spirit springs from romantic expressions of one’s native land and one’s inner response to it. Romanticism developed as a tendency in poetry in the 1790s and in visual art by the early nineteenth century. A Romantic conception of the artist focuses on the artist’s discovery of deep, inner authenticity. In this process of self-discovery, the artist taps her or his creativity and imagination to explore the subjective dimension of experience. Feeling, passion, and emotional integrity as expressed in art imply a process of authentic introspection. An approach that emphasizes intuition and subjectivity risks generating extreme individualism, which may be reflected in art by characteristics of irregularity and exaggeration, but the Romantic sees this risk as worthwhile if a more profound and authentic realization of the self is attained. The Romantic search for authenticity involves the intensification of feelings of connection, whether to God, nature, friends, or even to country.

Nationalism, then, involves a psychological identification with the nation as a source of meaning and purpose in one’s life. It is only one of the forms of connection that form the basis of group cohesion, but, by the nineteenth century, it was increasing in importance. The concept ‘nation’ synthesized other forms of connection; religion, race, shared history, language, artistic expressions, daily customs, and rituals were all expressions of ‘the people’ who made up a nation. A bond between people constituted the core of national identity in contrast to the imposition of demands for loyalty from above. From a historical political perspective, one might have felt loyalty to a famous person (the king, sultan, emir), but a sense of commonality grew through attachment to a nation.

I.1 Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Mist, 1818.

Friedrich’s image captures the sense of a connection to place, an ingredient of the Romantic artist’s search for authenticity.

When dynamics emerge that affect the nation as a whole, such as national-level economic interests, one’s loyalty shifts from the individual leader to the country. The collective feeling of nationalism emerged at about the same time as the development of capitalism, each of these an outgrowth of eighteenth-century thought, and each maturing in the nineteenth century. The German intellectual, Johann Gottfried Herder, an early proponent of nationalism in the late eighteenth century, emphasized German language, folklore, dance, music, art, history, and Gothic architecture as genuine expressions of the German Volk or people. As a member of the Volk, the ordinary German was not just a part of an unformed rabble who happened to live near one another. Instead, the Volk shared a specific set of traditions, often artistic, that contained within them the seeds of the individual’s and the nation’s happiness. Modern concepts of design emerged into this context of the increased psychological importance of national identity.

I.2 Poster promoting the Italian dancer, Carlotta Grisi.

Dance was a nineteenth-century art in which regional costume, the expression of emotion, and a sense of national identity combined into a unified experience. Here, Carlotta Grisi dances in the role of Giselle, a young maiden from a village in the Rhineland.

Herder emphasized substantial cultural differences between nations rather than nationalism as a motive for competition between countries. Within its borders, each nation has its basis of happiness and success: No comparison to, or competition with, others is needed. Members of a society may know of other groups, but they needn’t compare themselves. Also, Herder de-emphasized race as a defining attribute of national identity, perhaps anticipating the negative consequences of blind, xenophobic, and racist nationalism as it later developed. Instead, he put forward the argument that nations, like individuals, differ, and that in this acceptance of difference lies our strength.

How, then, did nationalism become the basis for aggressive competition between peoples? In the nineteenth century, it became such a basis of competition that imperialist activities were invigorated far beyond their historical levels of vitality and destructiveness.

The Context of Capitalism

Competition became more aggressive because nationalism was just one of a complex set of factors that constituted the nineteenth-century model of imperialism. Though Herder argued that each society should celebrate its own unique culture without comparison, nations grew extremely competitive in economic life. Just as nationalism augmented the notions of nation-state and empire at the time, the idea of free competition sparked imperialist activity. The Scottish political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) advocated the approach of open markets in The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith contrasted free, open markets with the inhibiting effects of monopoly rather than with the consequences of over-regulation.

In a free market, economic actors of all sizes form contracts, protected from the unfair, manipulative actions of powerful monopolistic interests. Competition among producers of all sizes is healthy because a greater variety of products presents consumers a choice; since consumers are price sensitive, many will often choose the lowest priced products. An openly competitive environment stimulates producers to increase efficiency in their production and to price competitively. Sometimes, though, economic forces work against freedom of competition. The scale of particular industries or the complexity of their production and distribution processes can block the access of smaller economic actors and limit activity to the powerful few. Governments may have to step in to combat the rise of monopolies and maintain free markets. Governments also protect private property rights and contracts when they create legal frameworks for economic activity, and they preserve systems of currency regulation and taxation. A free market requires some supervision; without it, only the largest and most powerful economic actors flourish. However, lawmakers passionately debate the degree and kind of regulation. Still, it is clear that nineteenth-century designers functioned in an increasingly open commercial environment in which products competed for consumers’ attention and money. Consumerism in a capitalist economy re-framed the historical, social functions of design.

How did this new idea of free markets and the promotion of products to consumers intersect with the sense of nationalism? Though national governments liberated the economic actors inside their borders, they often saw those outside their borders as either competitors or as a source of resources ripe for exploitation. The first of these perceptions accelerated competition at the level of nation-states or national competitiveness. The second motivated nations to exploit less powerful people through colonialism.

Nations and Economic Competition

National competitiveness spurs governments to position their economic actors in advantageous positions on the international playing field. When a national economy is highly competitive, the general well-being of many of the nation’s citizens is enhanced. Governments form policies based on the perception of their own citizens, not the perception of the citizens of other nations. In the name of national self-interest, governments may engage in practices toward foreign governments and peoples that would not be accepted at home (though not all parties within a nation benefit equally from these policies of national competitiveness either). Competitiveness can accelerate at home through an increase in productivity. Highly productive countries are strongly competitive. However, the temptation to compete with other nations does exist and can sometimes become the basis of national strategies.

Regarding the enhancement of productivity, industrialism expanded throughout the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. New technologies heightened efficiency. Also, laborers migrated from agricultural to manufacturing settings and this increased productive output. Concerning the temptation to act competitively toward other nations, European colonialism broadened during the century. Colonialist nations exploited the natural and human resources of areas outside of their borders for economic gain.

Though the motives behind colonialism are economically exploitative, the practice increased cultural contact between the different regions of the world and sometimes fostered respect for those differences. Thus, the combination of nationalism, capitalism, and colonialism in the nineteenth century germinated the seeds of globalization, a process that has captured the attention of scholars since the 1990s. In the present, globalization involves the pursuit of power, prestige, and profit across borders. These same desires impelled European business and governmental interests in the nineteenth century. Design emerged as a distinct profession during the nascent stages of globalization and has evolved as globalization has expanded.

Action, Reaction

Each of these factors that set the stage for the growth of design (nationalism based upon the romantic conception of self, land, and culture; capitalism as an aspect of economic life; national competitiveness; colonialism) confronted a resistant formation or movement within its time. While design responded to the dominant social forces of the century, it was also shaped by and helped sharpen these counter forces. For instance, the Romantic’s emphasis upon individual exploration and feeling as a basis for his or her sense of connection (to nature, friends, nation) involved an abandonment of classical principles of art and design. These traditional principles encompassed a set of visual traits and related attitudes as well; the visual aspects and ideology of neoclassicism acted as a foil for the romantic impulse throughout the century.

I.3 Edward Linley Sambourne (1844–1910), The Rhodes Colossus, 1892.

Sambourne depicted the famous British colonizer Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) in the satirical journal Punch after Rhodes announced plans for a telegraph that would span the length of Africa in 1892. The title reinforces a visual pun. Rhodes, the colonizer, takes on the dimensions of a god; in this case, a giant statue or colossus representing the sun god, Helios, which was erected on the Aegean island of Rhodes in 280 BCE.

In another counter-movement, Marx and Engels swiftly challenged the idea of capitalism. They criticized the inequality of the benefits associated with the capitalist economy. Instead of laborers benefiting from profits, business proceeds accumulate to those who control capital (the bourgeoisie). However, the biggest percentage of the populace consisted of laborers. A high percentage of wealth produced within a capitalist economy benefited a small portion of the population. Marx and Engels argued that the malignancy of increased inequality spread to nation states. Some countries seemed to control capital, and these powerful nations exploited others for their resources (including labor). Thus, designs were produced and design philosophies were articulated based upon a socialist theory of reform as early as the mid-nineteenth century. This backlash against capitalism and the attraction of socialism grew even stronger in