Overview
In the late-nineteenth century the circulation of pattern books featuring medieval church architecture in England facilitated an unprecedented spread of Gothic revival churches in Canada. Engaging several themes around the spread of print culture, religion, and settlement, A Commerce of Taste details the business of church building. Drawing upon formal architectural analysis and cultural theory, Barry Magrill shows how pattern books offer a unique way of studying the relationships between taste, ideology, privilege, social change, and economics. Taste was a concept used to legitimize British - and to an extent Anglican - privilege, while other denominations resisted their aesthetic edicts. Pattern books eventually lost control of the exclusivity associated with taste as advances in printing technology and transatlantic shipping brought more books into the marketplace and readerships expanded beyond the professional classes. By the early twentieth century taste had become diluted, the architect had lost his heroic status, and architectural distinctions among denominations were less apparent. Drawing together the history of church building and the broader patterns of Canadian social and historical development, A Commerce of Taste presents an alternative perspective on the spread of religious monuments in Canada by looking squarely at pattern books as sources of social conflict around the issue of taste.
Full Product Details
Author: Barry Magrill ,
Barry Magrill
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Imprint: McGill-Queen's University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.363kg
ISBN: 9780773539839
ISBN 10: 0773539832
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 24 April 2012
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
"""Magrill's innovative methodology--sophisticated and richly textured--gives his study a distinctive niche in the literature. A Commerce of Taste provides the foundation for significant future research into Canadian historical architecture."" Peter Coffman, School for Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University ""Well written, well illustrated, and nicely produced. Summing up: Highly recommended."" Choice"
Magrill's innovative methodology--sophisticated and richly textured--gives his study a distinctive niche in the literature. A Commerce of Taste provides the foundation for significant future research into Canadian historical architecture. Peter Coffman, Well written, well illustrated, and nicely produced. Summing up: Highly recommended. Choice
Author Information
Barry Magrill is a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow and teaches art and architectural history at the University of British Columbia.
