The Art Of Gothic - Britain's Midnight Hour: Liberty Diversity Depravity Review

This was the first out of three series called The Art of Gothic, where Adnrew G. Dixon talks how the Gothic revival influenced architecture, art and literature in 18th century. Gothic as a style and way of thinking wasn't accepted until the mid 18th century and Georgian Era (1714 to 1830) - time of Britains greatest change. It was used to express deepest desires and fears. 

Writing gothic novels became popular, but gothic fiction was considered the fiction of shame. The authors published their work, claming that it was someone who wrote the story, as if they were ashamed to create such scenarios and scared people would judge their 'weird' minds. The first gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto (1764), written by Horace Walpole, but on the cover of the first edition it said that it is a story translated by William Marshal from an original italian. In the second edition he stated that he was, in fact, the author. With the elements of supernatural, haunted castles etc. the book became inspiration for many horror stories. Horace Walpole built a gothic castle in Strawberry Hill, London, which was a theatrical interpretation of the past, just like his story. The castle was built outside the center of London; outside the center of things, just like himself. He liked to be different, unusual and weird. 

The 18th century was the age of reason. English aristocracy built their enormous houses and palaces in clasical style; showing they were the real masters. Lord Cobham built a palace called the Stowe House in Buckinghamshire taking inspiration from Greek and Roman architecture. 
A ruin is a building overtaken by the great forces of the natural world and gothic ruins were all around England, reminding everyone of the english past, and how Henry VIII and the Protestant Church swept everything away. As gothic became popular, he decided to build a building in a style that was completely opposite to his palace, but showing respect to his Anglo Saxon roots, a building to create his ideas of freedom - a temple of liberty, a gothic folly.

Soon, they became fascinated with thrilling landscapes, such as clifs, waterfalls and the Alps. An english nobleman, Edmund Burke gave this fascinaton a new name - the sublime. He defined it as 'that which excites sensations of terror' and said that sublime nature is best enjoyed from a distance. This made the sublime nature perfect for painting, e.g. painted rocks can't crush us. Georgians were fascinated with witch craft, too, and that is why Salvador Rosa, an italian painter who lived in the 17th century. Rosa had predicted the sublime as his paintings contained mysterios creatures, witches, gloomy skies, sharp cliffs, etc. Another interesting painting was The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, taking his inspiration was a young girl that he was in love with. It is an oil painting from 1781, that shows a weird creature sitting on a womans chest. To this day many artists have recreated this painting in different ways.

"Witches at their Incantations"

now in Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Oil on canvas

c. 1646

Artist: Salvador Rosa

(source: http://50-87-56-118.unifiedlayer.com/heavymetalartwork.com/salvator-rosa.html)

The Nightmare

Oil on canvas

1781

Artist: Henry Fuseli

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare)

Interested in all things medieval, Georgians brought back a long forgotten poet and playwright William Shakespeare. His plays were full of the supernatural and magical. (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's dream etc.) and contained the lost world of the middle ages. They republished him and preformed, even dedicated festivals in his honour. Shakespeare had an interesting and different way of writting, turning his tragedies into comedies, and comedies into tragedies. He didn't follow the rulles and was his own master - every englishman's dream. 

Inspired by Shakespeare's work, Thomas Parnell wrote a gothic poem A Night-Piece on Death in 1721. From that poem, an entire 'cult' of Graveyard poets was created. Greaveyard poets used images of skulls, coffins, supernatural visions in their poems. Gothic became a way to speak the unspeakable and they found their inspiration at graveyards, and the world they feared. 

First teenage goth, Thomas Chatterton from Bristol, commited the biggest literary fraud of the 18th century. Apparently, he made up medieval poems and drawings and stained them with, what seems to be, tea, and claimed they were real. The worst thing about this is that he actually used medieval documents to draw on. Chatterton commited suicide in 1770, at the age of 17.

Gothic has a lot of sexual simbolism, too, but not all artists explored this subject like William Beckford. Son of the majer of London, inherited a huge fortune and spent it all like there was no tomorrow. He threw a big, oriental inspired, party for his 21st birthday, an orgy that lasted for three days. Beckford managed to seduce his cousins wife and a 13-year-old boy, William Courtney - Kitty as he liked to call him. Pushing the Gothic to the East and inspired by his party, he wrote a gothic (nasty) novel Vartek. The novel was disclaimed as a translation from an arabic original, but after a few years, Beckford wasn't ashamed of his novel. In fact, he was proud as he actually lived the gothic fantasy (or nightmare?). In his early 30s he built the Fonthill Abbey - a huge gothic house. It was his own way to show his uniquness, maddnes and status. Now the house is a ruin, as it collapsed under its own weight. 

Ann Radcliffe was the author of the best selling gothic novels at that time. Her stories were about brave heroines overcoming the evil and darkness. Georgians saw her novels as dangerous books, but young girls found the stories very interesting. 

Jane Austen wrote a novel Northanger Abbey in 1798, making fun of the gothic genre. The moral of the story was; why worry about the imaginery gothic horror, when real life is hard enough to manage. But Jane's plan failed and people were still fascinated with terror.

The French Revolution (1787 - 1799) brought the gothic horror to life, and worst nightmares became reality. They were violent, and the new killing machine - guillotine sliced people's heads, one after another. 

It is not a surprise that an earth shaking, awful event like that became inspiration for many artists in the future, including Matthew Lewis. Lewis was the author of the most shocking novel of the 18th century, The Monk. The novel was dark and dangerous, basically a vision of hell, containing murder, rape, and devil himself. 

I really enjoyed watching this, as it gave me a better understanding of what is gothic, different sides of gothic and how much it had infected all aspects of people's lives at that time.