Abstract

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, architecture was regularly celebrated as “the mother of the arts.” Though most users of the phrase rarely explicated its nuances, a close reading of the contexts and debates in which it was invoked reveals the complexity, nuance, and changing implications of the deceptively simple claim. In a period when the fine and applied arts grew increasingly distinct and the practice of architecture was progressively codified and professionalized, why did architects engage in rhetoric that emphasized architecture’s affiliation with and authority over the arts? To answer this question, I examine numerous instantiations of the phrase to trace an arc in which an earlier disciplinary affiliation between architecture and the fine arts transforms into an interpersonal relationship between architects and art-workers. In so doing, I suggest that the maternal metaphor was employed in response to collectively held anxieties to invert and project them as conceptual and historical claims of affiliation, authority, and identity—precisely those characteristics of the profession that were unstable at the time.

摘要

在 19 世纪下半叶，建筑经常被誉为“艺术之母”。尽管该短语的大多数使用者很少解释它的细微差别，但仔细阅读它被引用的背景和辩论会揭示出看似简单的声明的复杂性、细微差别和不断变化的含义。在美术和应用艺术变得越来越不同，建筑实践逐渐规范化和专业化的时期，为什么建筑师们要强调建筑与艺术的联系和对艺术的权威？为了回答这个问题，我检查了这个短语的许多实例来追踪一个弧线，在这个弧线中，建筑和美术之间的早期学科联系转变为建筑师和艺术工作者之间的人际关系。