American Folk Art Buildings
architectural imagination and storied places rendered small
TYPES
Three Grand
Tower & House & Formal Pavilion, Replete & Bold & Unexplained Too
Ambition, skill, technique, and imagination are on full display. You're to be impressed.
The three grand are late 19th century and full confident. The tower likely comes from Pennsylvania; the house is from New York or New England; the formally symmetrical pavilion -- or grand place of whatever intent -- is mid-Atlantic or new England and curiously serene
Strayed from the Veneto, the elegant decayed lost place, of metal, came from New England. It doesn't much look like New England. Except perhaps Newport RI.
One Lost Grand
37" high
1905
Highly staired and vaguely Escherian.
Undercroft ceiling
Look at this impressive place, surely the best in town or around, so likely the strong showy arrival notice of the local mill or bank owner. The architecture reads clearly and realistically: a richly assertive, Queen Anne here and Victorian there, towered, porte-cochered large house of the last third of the 19th century. Balusters and basement windows, doodads and trim, and everything in fact are carefully created, right in scale and building detail, suggesting that an actual building is conveyed. However, making the architectural clarity all the more striking, the rendering is so very not realistic. Artful intent triumphs over standard materials and elevations. Every bit and curve and surface shows layered horizontal chip arty patterns. Endless skill and unafraid imagination combine to craft architectural and visual affect everywhere on everything.
Who could have imagined it all working so well?
17" to tower top
Figure-ground resolution reveals
MB
embedded as elusively as deliberately.
The interior reveals meticulous and surely laborious construction. Each exterior row of varying pattern is a single crafted length, long or short, straight or curved or shaped, stacked and joined and hard to imagine from the outside.
A large pavilion-y place of high measured presence and unusual symmetry, with each elevation identical. Replete chip art layering adds strong impression and visual thrust. Each so small roof piece appears individually nailed. The artful maker had clear vision and somehow a point to make as well.
32" tall
Interior illumination gained from candle holders behind doors and within tower, some with wax residue even yet and each carefully positioned beside cigar box picture.
