'Preferring plainness and utility to gaiety and ornament': understanding the New Georgian sensibility

On this last day of August, some words for New Georgians from Robert Morris' Rural Architecture (1750). Morris provides a quite wonderful exposition of why the New Georgian finds stolid, rational joy in the plain simplicity of the Georgian parish church. He begins by introducing the roots of such plain simplicity:

most who have wrote on this Subject, have raised nothing but Palaces, glaring in Decoration and Dress; while the Cottage, or plain little Villa, are passed by unregarded Gaiety, Magnificence, the  rude Gothic, or the Chinese unmeaning Stile, are the Study of our modern  Architects; while Grecian and Roman Purity and Simplicity are neglected. 

These classical roots may alert us to how such church architecture coheres with the theme of the posts of Jeremy Taylor Week, of the Ciceronian and Senecan humanism valued by Taylor and bequeathed to 18th century Anglicanism. Having praised the classical Greek and Roman simplicity, Morris continues:

As an Admirer of those last, mentioned, I place myself, and my following Designs, Before you. I have chose to copy the harmonious Dictates which  Nature and Science teach; preferring, Plainness and Utility to Gaiety and Ornament; those I leave to their Votaries ...

I think a Building, well proportioned, without Dress, will ever please; as a plain Coat may fit as graceful, and easy, on a well proportioned Man; it will not alter the Agreeableness of either: But if you will be lavish in  Ornament, your Structure will look rather like a Fop, with a Superfluity of gaudy Tinsel, than a real Decoration. 

'Preferring plainness and utility to gaiety and ornament': it could be a description of a New Georgian sensibility. As to "a superfluity of gaudy tinsel", I will leave the reader to think of how the Victorians provided us with an abundance of examples of such ecclesiastical tinsel.

Morris states, "My general Design has been to introduce Convenience, Proportion, and Regularity". Here we have, I think, why the New Georgian is attracted to the Georgian parish church. Convenience is the principle which recognises that a parish church is "to accommodate social beings". It is a profoundly significant insight. The box pews, the light through plain windows, the memorials: those very things which the 19th century Ecclesiologists despised are a reflection of the fact that it is social beings, not actors in a medieval fantasy, who gather in the parish church. 

Regarding proportion, this "is with Regard to Geometrical and Harmonic Magnitude; and these respect chiefly, Beauty, well regulated ... a disproportionate Building displeases the Eye: Proportion in Tone and Magnitude are the Cause". Georgian geometrical harmony speaks of a goodly, attractive, rational order, neither overwhelming nor disorienting us.

Then there is regularity:

the next essential Ingredient necessary in Building: Uniformity of Parts justly proportioned, and appropriated, will ... strike or affect the Mind, and this arises from a proper  Arrangement of the separate Divisions in the Fabric, which, as in Music, compose the whole ... the different Parts must answer in Dress and Proportion; a Sameness of Ornament, or Plainness, should run through the Range, and be adapted to the Uses of the Fabric, or the Dignity of the Inhabitant; but even in this, Profuseness of  Ornament, especially external, is carefully to be avoided.

A pleasing, plain "uniformity of parts", an expression of peace and concord, that we may not be distracted by the disorderly or the gaudy.

Morris again states how such convenience, proportion, and regularity is received from classical Greece and Rome, with a pleasing swipe at the Gothic:

I have now shewn the Purity and Perfection of the Grecian Architecture, which Vitruvius and other great Geniuses practised in Rome, and transmitted  down to us, through all the Impediments of Novelty, and Barbarity, through the Devastations of Gothic Wildness, and which still shines superior in Beauty, and Excellence, to every other chimerical Innovation. 

Such Greek and Roman characteristics speak of how reason and piety, order and liberty, are to be held together, opposed to both atheism and enthusiasm, tyranny and anarchy. 

Here, Morris declares, "grace and beauty shine forth in perfection": 

Simplicity, Plainness, and Neatness, with just Proportion, is now all that is necessary to be understood by the Designer ... rather appropriating the Structure to Use and Convenience, than to Shew and Ornament.

Again we could very easily take Morris' words and apply them straightforwardly to that in which a New Georgian sensibility delights - simplicity, plainness, neatness, just proportion. They are words that can also apply to the rational piety of the Book of Common Prayer. Indeed, there is a sense in which Morris' words can be read as providing the most fitting architectural context for Cranmer's declaration that "Christ's Gospel is not a ceremonial law ... but it is a Religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the spirit".

Morris in this work provides two drawings which are of particular interest. The first - seen at the outset of this post - is of "A plain Church for a Village, 30 Feet long in Clear, and 45 Feet wide in the broadest Part, and from the Pavement to the Ceiling 23 Feet high". Two features on the exterior of this church should receive our attention. The clock on the spire was a bête noire of the Ecclesiologists, who regarded such clocks as secular, modern intrusions, ruining the sacred symbolism of Christian architecture. As for the weather-vane, the Ecclesiologists here too saw the dark influence of secular authority, insisting that the triumph of Christ should be symbolised by a cross at the top of the spire.

Both the clock and weather-vane, however, are pleasing and fitting reminders that the parish church serves 'social beings', whose activities are shaped by the passing of the hours and the weather - not the Ecclesiologist fantasy of a neo-medieval community whose time and activity are defined by the monastic offices. Both clock and weather-vane, therefore, will be recognised by a New Georgian as wise and good signs of a church within, rather than lording it over or standing aloof from, a community.

An "Altar-Piece" is also provided for this church, with Lord's Prayer, Commandments, and Creed:

A plain Altar-Piece of the Tonick [i.e. Ionic] Order, and suitable to the preceeding Design, the Pedestal to the Order serves also, (by containing the Dado and Mouldings round,) as a Table Ornaments of Festoons; and Carving might be added, but the pure Order without Decoration is more agreeable, and better appropriated to the Structure, where a natural Simplicity has been endeavoured to be preserved from an Innundation of Dress and Gaiety. 

'A plain altar-piece ... without decoration ... a natural simplicity ... preserved from an inundation of dress and gaiety': here is the 'simplicity, plainness, and neatness' known to the Greeks and Romans, setting before us the foundational texts of Christian piety, and adorning the place of the Christian sacramentum.

Why do those of us who are New Georgians prefer 'plainness and utility to gaiety and ornament'? Why do we seek the convenience, proportion, and regularity of the Georgian parish church? Why are the norms of classical Greek and Roman styles in Georgian churches understood to be a sign of rational piety rather than a cause for Ecclesiologist lament? Robert Morris' work answers these questions and in doing so contributes to a New Georgian sensibility.