cover image A. W. N. Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival

A. W. N. Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival

Paul Arterbury, Megan Aldrich, Margaret H. Floyd. Yale University Press, $95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-300-06656-2

English architect, designer, polemicist and convert to Catholicism, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) changed the course of Gothic Revival by linking it firmly to its medieval roots. No mere revivalist, he regarded Gothic as a living language, and his cathedrals, churches, colleges, seminaries, cottages and secular buildings are highly original and personal in their concern for context and texture. Pugin's design of the interiors of the Houses of Parliament reveals his mastery of pattern, color and ornament. He suffered periodic bouts of insanity and loss of eyesight, dying at 40 shortly after a complete mental breakdown, yet his legacy lived on in the Gothic movement in Europe and North America. The catalogue of an exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in New York City, this handsomely illustrated study includes essays by 10 American and English scholars who discuss his tragic life, his architectural theory and the full range of his work in ceramics, furniture, sacred vestments, metalwork, textiles, jewelry, stained glass, tiles and wallpaper. (Feb.)