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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Aesthetics Of Friends' Meeting Houses, Roger Homan
The Aesthetics Of Friends' Meeting Houses, Roger Homan
Quaker Studies
In an attempt to identify a Quaker aesthetic as it applies to English meeting houses, this article draws upon the physical evidence of English Meetings past and present, upon the records of discussions preceding the design and construction of meeting houses, upon interviews with Friends at some thirty meeting houses and upon the observational and interpretative literature. The main part of the discussion is structured around the moral principles of plainness, worthiness and simplicity. A distinction is made between the effect of plainness, which has in the past been regulated, and simplicity, which is here explored as a moral attribute …
Quaker Plaining As Critical Aesthetic, Peter J. Collins
Quaker Plaining As Critical Aesthetic, Peter J. Collins
Quaker Studies
In the first part of this paper I explore the possibility of identifying a Quaker aesthetic through the concepts 'plain' and 'plaining'. I begin with an examination of the importance of 'the plain' as product and practice to seventeenth-century Friends and briefly outline its enduring importance to Quakers. Friends, however, were not the first group to adopt the plain style which is better understood when located in its broader historical context. For Quakers, the plain is ethic as well as aesthetic, partially grounding all Quaker testimonies. Given the well-documented aestheticization of contemporary life, I argue that the Quaker plain and …
The Art Of Joseph Edward Southall, Roger Homan
The Art Of Joseph Edward Southall, Roger Homan
Quaker Studies
Joseph Southall (1861-1944) was an artist distinguished in his field, a political activist of considerable stamina and a Quaker greatly loved and honoured by some Friends, albeit not by all. His political involvement as chairman of the Independent Labour Party in Birmingham from 1914 to 1931 afforded an opportunity for witness that was in harmony with his religious affiliation. But his profession as an artist was pursued against a climate of ambivalence toward the arts within the Quaker community, which was diminishing in the early twentieth century but had not altogether disappeared. This paper illustrates the traditional disapprobation of the …
Aesthetics In Science, As Practised By Quakers In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries, Geoffrey Cantor
Aesthetics In Science, As Practised By Quakers In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries, Geoffrey Cantor
Quaker Studies
Drawing on examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it will be argued that the sciences - but particularly observational sciences such as astronomy, botany and meteorology - were highly acceptable to Quakers. Moreover, the study of nature was vested with an aesthetic that emphasised God as the Creator of nature and of order and beauty in the natural world. While many wealthy Quakers participated in these sciences, botany also provided employment for Quakers from less affiuent backgrounds. Hence a number Quakers made careers as botanical lecturers, writers, publishers and illustrators. The role of the botanical illustrator is explored to …