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Activities: Context Activities Plain Style: Keeping it Simple  Back to Context Activities
The term plain style refers to a mode of expression characterized by its clarity, accessibility, straightforward simplicity, and lack of ornamentation. In early America, the plain-style aesthetic had broad cultural relevance, shaping the language of prose and poetry, the design of furniture and buildings, and the style of painting and other visual arts. Rejecting ornamental flourishes and superfluous decoration as evidence of sinful vanity, plain stylists worked to glorify God in their productions rather than show off their own artistry or claim any renown for themselves. As the Puritan minister John Cotton put it, "God's altar needs not our polishings." By shunning extraneous embellishment, practitioners of the plain style hoped both to make their messages easily understandable and to avoid any distractions that might divert their audience's attention from God. The simplicity, humility, and directness of the plain-style aesthetic appealed to both Quakers and Puritans, for despite profound theological differences, both groups sought religious purity through the rejection of worldly interests. Early Quaker and Puritan church architecture provide perhaps the clearest examples of the ideals of plain style, since these buildings are conspicuously free of the stained glass and carved and painted religious decorations we tend to expect in houses of worship. Instead, Puritan and Quaker meetinghouses are consciously spare, defined by their linear design, exposure of structural supports, and open lighting. The unpretentious interiors have no carvings or altars (Quaker meetinghouses would not even have pulpits), creating unadorned spaces that allow congregants to concentrate on their individual relationships with God. These structures express the ideals of plain style and serve as examples of a distinctly American architecture. Some seventeenth-century American paintings also reveal the influence of the plain-style aesthetic. The portraits of the Freake family painted by an unidentified Boston artist in the 1670s are characterized by a flatness of form and a precise linearity that render the human figures somewhat two-dimensional and deprive the subjects of sensuous, tactile qualities. While the portraits' depiction of the rich fabrics and expensive finery that mark the Freakes as a wealthy mercantile family is somewhat at odds with Puritan plain-style ideals, the flat, simple artistic style of the paintings shares in the plain-style aesthetic. Plain-style ideals also shaped the development of literature among Puritan and Quaker writers. Though many Puritans used elaborate, highly ornate metaphorical language to convey their religious ideals, some developed a more simplified literary style (most famously William Bradford). Characterized by the absence of rhetorical flourishes and limited use of figurative language, texts composed in the plain-style tradition focus on making their meanings straightforward and accessible. When metaphors appear within plain-style texts, they usually derive from the Bible or refer to homely, everyday objects rather than classical allusions. But the restraint of plain-style writing does not signify a lack of artistry; rather, it can be elegant, powerful, and persuasive in its very simplicity. Questions
[1223] Anonymous, John Freake (1671-74), courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. The unknown artist called the "Freake Painter" painted this likeness of John Freake, a Boston merchant. Like the other works attributed to the Freake Painter (scholars have identified a group of eight portraits painted in or near Boston in 1670-74), this painting is defined by its intricate detail, in combination with a rigidity in the subject's posture. John Freake's upright stiffness suggests his high moral stature as a public figure in the spiritual community of Boston. [1351] Anonymous, Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary (about 1671 and 1674), courtesy of Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. Between 1671 and 1674, an unidentified artist known as the "Freake Painter" painted this portrait of Elizabeth and Mary Freake, the wife and daughter of Boston merchant and lawyer John Freake. The original 1671 painting depicted Elizabeth alone with her hands in her lap, holding a fan. Baby Mary was added in 1674, an addition that accentuates Elizabeth's virtue as a wife and mother. [2793] The Quaker Meeting, courtesy of George Fox University. Quaker churches like this one are plain-style buildings defined by their linear design, exposure of structural supports, and open lighting. These unpretentious interiors have no altars or pulpits, creating unadorned spaces that allow congregants to concentrate on their individual relationship with God. Illustration from Sydney George Fisher, The True William Penn. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1899). [4475] Old Ship Church, 88 Main Street, Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Interior (1681), courtesy of the Library of Congress [HABS, MASS,12-HING,5-]. The Old Ship Church is named for the interior curve of the roof, which resembles a ship's hull. It is the oldest meetinghouse in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States. |
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