Place-making for the Imagination: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill

Marion Harney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317080497
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Drawing together landscape, architecture and literature, Strawberry Hill, the celebrated eighteenth-century 'Gothic' villa and garden beside the River Thames, is an autobiographical site, where we can read the story of its creator, Horace Walpole. This 'man of taste' created private resonances, pleasure and entertainment - a collusion of the historic, the visual and the sensory. Above all, it expresses the inseparable integration of house and setting, and of the architecture with the collection, all specific to one individual, a unity that is relevant today to all architects, landscape designers and garden and country house enthusiasts. Avoiding the straightforward architectural description of previous texts, this beautifully illustrated book reveals the Gothic villa and associated landscape to be inspired by theories that stimulate 'The Pleasures of the Imagination' articulated in the series of essays by Joseph Addison (1672-1719) published in the Spectator (1712). Linked to this argument, it proposes that the concepts behind the designs for Strawberry Hill are not based around architectural precedent but around eighteenth-century aesthetics theories, antiquarianism and matters of 'Taste'. Using architectural quotations from Gothic tombs, Walpole expresses the mythical idea that it was based on monastic foundations with visual links to significant historical figures and events in English history. The book explains for the first time the reasons for its creation, which have never been adequately explored or fully understood in previous publications. The book develops an argument that Walpole was the first to define theories on Gothic architecture in his Anecdotes of Painting (1762-71). Similarly innovative, The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1780) is one of the first to attempt a history and theory of gardening. The research uniquely evaluates how these theories found expression at Strawberry Hill. This reassessment of the villa and its associated l

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‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’: Tropes of Taste

This chapter explores Addison’s theories of taste and association as expressed in his Spectator essays, in particular ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’ and their influence on Walpole, who was to extend and develop Addison’s theories and put them into practice in his project at Strawberry Hill. Writing in 1756 the social commentator, dramatist and essayist George Colman the Elder (1732–1794) decried the great fashion of his time:

Taste is at present the darling idol of the polite world and the world of letters. The fine ladies and gentlemen dress with taste, the architects whether Gothic or Chinese build with taste, the painters paint with taste, critics read with taste, and in short, fiddlers, players, singers, dancers and mechanics themselves are all the sons and daughters of taste.1

The eighteenth century heralded a cultural change which was to redefine social hierarchies and alter the appearance of exterior and interior architectural features, gardens and landscapes; even the dress codes of society were affected. The change was stimulated by a tide of new wealth flowing into the country through trade and manufacture, with Britain emerging as the leading commercial power. A more prosperous society became obsessed with propriety and the pursuit of ‘taste’ – a concept which came to define the eighteenth century. Taste was a metaphor for the senses and is closely linked to moral and intellectual judgement and the faculty to discriminate. Acquiring the ability to make judgments on the nature of beauty and perfection in the arts and literature and to demonstrate tasteful preferences signified morality and virtue.

Taste, according to Lord Shaftesbury (1671–1713) in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, which Walpole owned, was the province of the aristocracy.2 Shaftesbury played a leading role in the promotion of taste but for him the capacity to acquire taste could only be obtained by certain defined classes of society – it was an aristocratic, country-based faculty. Writing in 1989 Ronald Paulson comments, ‘Taste required the disinterestedness gained by distance, conferred by retirement in the country surrounded by ancient texts, and authorized by ownership of landed property.’3

1.1 Grown gentlemen taught to dance, M. Rennoldson

The idea of taste was also seen by some as a socially subversive idea that undermined the hierarchies of class because it suggested that anyone could acquire ordered, elegant gentility and behave in an appropriate manner in polite society, regardless of birth. Shaftesbury’s contemporary Joseph Addison was to become the leading proponent of the exercise of taste through his Spectator essays where he made it an absolute fundamental of being a modern citizen. Addison’s position on matters of taste was the opposite of Shaftesbury’s, being city-based and populist – his intention was to educate the new emerging middle-classes with moral standards and rules for social conduct. Addison’s purpose in his essays was clear:

It was said of Socrates, that he brought philosophy down from heaven, to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools, and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses.4

Walpole, a self-styled arbiter of taste, is a figure of primary importance in any discussion of eighteenth-century manners, taste and judgement, the latter two being synonymous and interchangeable at that time. He spent a lifetime promoting the supremacy of English taste in all its cultural aspects. The reader will recall that Walpole knew Addison’s works intimately and quotes liberally from The Spectator in his correspondence and other texts. As a young man Walpole aspired to emulate Addison in his own writing and he wrote a letter to Gray in 1735 ‘in the style of Mr Addison’s Travels’ and he owned the third edition of Addison’s Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1726).5 ‘I believe you saw in the newspapers that I was going to make the tour of Italy, I shall therefore give you some account of the places I have seen which are not to be found in Mr Addison, whose method I shall follow …’6

Walpole greatly admired Addison’s authorial style and writing to Mary Hamilton (1756–1816) (Mrs John Dickenson), he praises Addison’s ability to bring his subjects to life in, ‘a finished picture of a most amiable character drawn by the exquisite pencil of Mr Addison.’7 He adopted Addison’s style of writing both in his own essay writing and in larger authored works such as the Anecdotes of Painting in England and in the History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. Walpole’s texts are effortless and amusing and almost certainly based on Addison’s entertaining manner in his Spectator essays.

The subject of taste was evident in almost every issue of The Spectator. Addison continually extolled the benefits of the elegant and refined arts and educated the reader through literary examples, usually of false or bad taste. He defines taste as ‘that Faculty of the Soul, which discerns the Beauties of an Author with Pleasure, and the Imperfections with Dislike’ and attributes this pleasurable response to the imagination reacting to the perception of objects capable of providing delight.8

Addison continually inculcated his audience with the ability to distinguish correct taste and tried to ensure that they would not succumb to baser pleasures and appetites. The capacity of the individual to discern the qualities of taste would be the distinguishing mark of the cultivated, modern citizen. It would make the reading public receptive to topics that would enable participation in all forms of polite social engagement, from the ability to discuss appropriate subjects in the coffee houses to conversing with women in society. Addison delineated how social interaction could be used profitably, stating that: ‘Conversation with men of polite genius is another method of improving our natural taste.’9 The rules pertaining to taste permeated through all aspects of society and were used to oppose anything that was seen as excessive or licentious, including religious enthusiasm. The promotion of ‘true Taste’ in periodical literature was used to regulate and enrich every facet of life, from the philosophical to the practical. The Gentleman’s Magazine reports:

So much depends on true Taste, with regard to eloquence and even morality, that no one can be properly stil’d a gentleman who takes not every opportunity to enrich his own capacity, and settle the elements of Taste which he may improve at leisure. It heightens every science, and is the polish of every virtue; the friend of society, and the guide to knowledge …10

The trope of ‘taste’ was a term used to denote a way of behaviour that demonstrated appropriate values and virtues to all areas of life – the now deeply unfashionable concept of ‘propriety’.11 This theme became an essential tenet of Addison’s publication and his message was often conveyed through metaphors as he considered that figures of speech pleased the senses.

Addison had earlier expressed sentiments regarding the ability of poetry to stimulate the imagination. In an early ‘Essay on the Georgics’ published as a preface in the translation of The Georgics (1697) by John Dryden (1631–1700) he uses landscape metaphors to describe the effect of this style of poetry:12

But this kind of poetry, I am now speaking of, addresses itself wholly to the imagination; it is altogether conversant among the fields and woods, and has the most delightful parts of nature for its province. It raises in our minds a pleasing variety of scenes and landscapes, whilst it teaches us; and makes the driest of its precepts look like a description. A Georgic, therefore, is some part of the science of husbandry put into a pleasing dress, and set off with all the beauties and embellishments of poetry.13

In the ‘Pleasures of the Imagination’ Addison expands on poetic description and explains precisely how the poet triggers sensory responses in the reader:

… we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic … Thus, any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of water, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place that lie before him. Thus if there arises a Fragrancy of Smells or Perfumes, they heighten the Pleasures of the Imagination, and make even the Colours and Verdure of the Landskip appear more agreeable; for the Ideas of both Senses recommend each other.14

Addison affirms the sensory aspects of pleasure, as derived from Locke, where the apprehension of colour and scents produce an effect in the mind of the observer, sparking memory and moods and physiological response in the spectator, whether they are written or directly experienced.15 Smell and colour combined, the effect of one or more senses being stimulated simultaneously, serves to increase pleasurable sensations and enjoyment. The cumulative effect of many senses is highly evocative and enhances the experience through an overwhelming profusion of sensations that heighten gratification. Addison consistently uses tropes from poetry, art and landscape to delineate his concepts of taste and imagination. Walpole makes the same connections on taste as Addison with his apothegm: ‘Poetry, Painting, and Gardening, or the Science of landscape, will forever by men of taste be deemed the Three Sisters, or the Three New Graces who dress and adorn nature.’16

Addison applied association theory to ideas of taste which are fundamentally linked to imagination and these concepts were to be widely disseminated and creatively expressed in Addison’s Spectator essays. Addison firmly states that the pleasures of the imagination are only available to those who possess taste and refinement:

A Man of Polite Imagination is let into a great many Pleasures, that the Vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a Picture, and find an agreeable Companion in a Statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a Description, and often feels a greater Satisfaction in the Prospect of Fields and Meadows, than another does in their Possession.17

Addison further intimates that pleasurable emotions are an innate response that occur spontaneously and that a synergy exists between the object and the observer in men who possess breeding and education. He contends that it is not necessary to own or possess the entity or view that gives pleasure; you merely need to have the requisite ability to appreciate and enjoy it.

Addison’s theory of imagination is primarily a faculty of visual representation. He distinguishes between primary pleasures which ‘entirely proceed from such Objects as are before our Eyes’ and secondary pleasures that ‘flow from the Ideas of visible Objects, when the Objects are not actually before the Eye, but are called up into our Memories, or formed into agreeable Visions of Things, that are either absent or Fictitious.’18 Secondary pleasures are either recalled by the operations of the mind through memory, ‘or on occasion of something without us, as Statues or Descriptions.’19 The power of association then leads to an instantaneous train of thought that not only recalls the original, but embellishes and enhances the vision by conjuring up ‘a whole Scene of Imagery’ as it runs through a s...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface: Walpole moves from Strawberry Hill to Connecticut
• Introduction: ‘Things come to light’: Experiment and Experience – The Philosophical and Cultural Context
• 1 ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’: Tropes of Taste
• 2 ‘Giving an idea of the spirit of the times’: Anecdotes and Antiquarianism
• 3 ‘I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill’: Creation of a Seat – Part 1
• 4 ‘The art of creating landscape’: Creation of a Seat – Part 2
• Epilogue: ‘A genius is original, invents. Taste selects, perhaps copies with judgement’
• Select Bibliography and Further Reading
• Index