Charles Herbert Moore

Background

Charles Herbert Moore was born on April 10, 1840, in New York City. He was the son of Charles and Jane Maria (Benson) Moore.

Education

Moore's early education was received in the New York public schools. He did not attend any college, but in 1890, he was given the honorary degree of A. M. by Harvard. In New York he received some training as a landscape painter, but while still a young man he moved to Catskill, where he lived for a number of years.

Career

In 1871, Moore was called to Harvard as instructor in freehand drawing and water color in the Lawrence Scientific School. Three years later he was invited by Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, who had just been appointed lecturer on the history of the fine arts, to offer to undergraduates in Harvard College a course on the principles of design, painting, sculpture, and architecture. This appointment marked the real beginning of his long career as a teacher, and also the beginning of the gradual establishment of fine arts on an equal footing with other subjects included under the general head of liberal education in American colleges and universities.

Norton believed that an educated man should know something of the history and principles of the fine arts (the visual arts), and Moore insisted that some actual practice in drawing and painting was necessary as a means of thorough understanding and appreciation of works of art. In developing this rather revolutionarymethod of teaching fine arts, Moore had the vigorous backing of President Eliot. From this time on Moore was primarily a teacher.

He was appointed assistant professor in 1891 and professor in 1896. When the Fogg Art Museum was built in 1895, he was made first curator, and the following year, director, a position which he held until he retired from active servicein 1909. Moore owed much to Ruskin as well as to Norton. The winter of 1876-77, he spent in Europe. He called on Ruskin at Brantwood with a letter of introduction from Norton, and later joined him in Venice. They worked together on Carpaccio's "Vision of St. Ursula, " which was put into a separate room for Ruskin's benefit. A small study of the whole picture by Ruskin is in the drawing school at Oxford, and a full-sized copy of the head by Moore is in the Fogg Museum. Moore visited Ruskin in Verona and saw him also in Florence; and it must have been at this period that they returned together over the Simplon.

In England, he continued his work on architecture, and in 1912 published The Medival Church Architecture of England. An interest in Swedenborg increased toward the end of his life and resulted in his publishing in 1918, Swedenborg: Servant of God.

Achievements

• The Fogg Museum owns a number of watercolors or scenes in and about the Simplon village done by Moore in this and later years. As a painter Moore was perhaps the most accomplished of those who may be thought of as Ruskin's pupils. His handling of body-color and his general point of view place him with the English painter Brabazon, only that he was usually much more precise. A few of his copies one especially of Botticelli's "Calumny" have hardly been surpassed. His copies of paintings and most of his studies of natural form were made for use in connection with his teaching, and they are mainly in the collection of the Fogg Museum. Moore's wide reputation came principally from his study of medieval architecture, to which he devoted much of his time from about 1885. The results of this study are embodied in a series of books, the best known of which is Development and Character of Gothic Architecture. Moore was an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Catalogue With Notes of Studies and Fac-Similes From Examples of the Works of Florence and Venice: And of Fac-Similies and Original Studies to Be Used ... of Harvard University ... Exhibited by The

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Development and Character of Gothic Architecture

    (Development and Character of Gothic Architecture by Charl...)

  • Character of renaissance architecture (1905)

Views

Moore was inspired more especially by Viollet-le-Duc, and he stands close to the latter as a pioneer in the study of the structural side of medieval architecture. Since he found this exemplified notably in the French architecture of the Ïle de France, he proposed that the term Gothic be employed exclusively in this connection. Such limitation in the use of the term, as well as some of his conclusions in regard to the development and character of English architecture, was objected to, particularly by English writers, but many of them have expressed their great appreciation of the clearness and conviction with which his opinions were stated and the necessity he put upon them of defining their own views with more precision.

Perhaps his most extreme statement of the case for expressiveness of function and structure is in Character of Renaissance Architecture, published in 1905. It has been said that the keynote of Moore's character was his hatred of sham, and that in art, as in life, he demanded above all things honesty and simplicity. It was this quality which attracted him to the study of medieval architecture and endeared him to many of his students and to his friends.

Membership

an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects

Personality

Moore's former pupils remember him as a picturesque figure, dressed usually in warm-colored tweeds and an English cloth hat. Regular exercise, principally in the sawing of wood for the fireplaces, kept him in good physical condition, and even when he retired from teaching his cheek showed a round and youthful outline through his full white beard.

Connections

On July 19, 1865, Moore married Mary Jane Tomlinson of Schenectady, New York, by whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth, who later assisted him in illustrating with pen-drawings his book on Gothic architecture. After the death of his first wife he married, December 30, 1881, Elizabeth Fisk Hewins. Upon retiring, in 1909, he built a house at Hartfield, Hartley Wintney, Winchfield, Hants, in England, where he lived with his wife and daughter until his death.

Father:

Charles Moore

Mother:

Jane Maria (Benson) Moore

Wife:

Mary Jane Tomlinson

Wife:

Elizabeth Fisk Hewins

Daughter:

Elizabeth Moore