Freemasonry and the Visual Arts from the Eighteenth Century Forward: Historical and Global Perspectives

Description

With the dramatic rise of Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, art played a fundamental role in its practice, rhetoric, and global dissemination, while Freemasonry, in turn, directly influenced developments in art. This mutually enhancing relationship has only recently begun to receive its due. The vilification of Masons, and their own secretive practices, have hampered critical study and interpretation. As perceptions change, and as masonic archives and institutions begin opening to the public, the time is ripe for a fresh consideration of the interconnections between Freemasonry and the visual arts. This volume offers diverse approaches, and explores the challenges inherent to the subject, through a series of eye-opening case studies that reveal new dimensions of well-known artists such as Francisco de Goya and John Singleton Copley, and important collectors and entrepreneurs, including Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Baron Taylor. Individual essays take readers to various countries within Europe and to America, Iran, India, and Haiti. The kinds of art analyzed are remarkably wide-ranging—porcelain, architecture, posters, prints, photography, painting, sculpture, metalwork, and more—and offer a clear picture of the international scope of the relationships between Freemasonry and art and their significance for the history of modern social life, politics, and spiritual practices. In examining this topic broadly yet deeply, Freemasonry and the Visual Arts sets a standard for serious study of the subject and suggests new avenues of investigation in this fascinating emerging field. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Notes 1 Freemasonry in Eighteenth-Century Portugal and the Architectural Projects of the Marquis of Pombal The Symbolism of the Baixa Mardel: Ideology in the Service of Freemasonry Pombal’s Oeiras and Lisbon Palaces: Freemasonic Aesthetics for the Marquis Notes 2 The Order of the Pug and Meissen Porcelain Notes 3 Goya and Freemasonry Part 1. The Italian Sojourn: A Masonic Network in Marseille? Part 2. “Your Brother Paco”: Masonic Symbols and Valedictions in Goya’s Letters Part 3. Goya’s Illness and the Masonic Connection in Cadiz Notes 4 Freemasonry’s “Living Stones” and the Boston Portraiture of John Singleton Copley Notes 5 The Visual Arts of Freemasonry as Practiced “Within the Compass of Good Citizens” by Paul Revere Notes 6 Building Codes for Masonic Viewers in Baron Taylor’s Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l’ancienne France Notes 7 Freemasonry and the Architecture of the Persian Revival, 1843–1933 Lodge Rising Star, Bombay Lodge Reveil de l’Iran , Tehran Notes 8 Solomon’s Temple in America Notes 9 Freemasonry and the Art Workers’ Guild The Art Workers’ Guild The Formation of the Arts Lodge No. 2751 The Arts Lodge, 1899–1935 Thomas Stirling Lee’s Masonic Jewels John Cooke’s Tracing Boards and Jewels Cecil Thomas, Henry George Murphy, and Panmure Lodge No. 715 Henry Victor Ashley and Francis Winton Newman’s Freemasons’ Hall Notes 10 Picturing Black Freemasons from Emancipation to the 1990s Notes 11 Saint Jean Baptiste, Haitian Vodou, and the Masonic Imaginary Saint Jean Baptiste Saint Jean Baptiste in Vodou Saint Domingue, Haiti, and the Masonic Atlantic Notes Selected Bibliography Index