Issue date: 7/10/08 Section: Arts

Media Credit: Chen, Jennifer Free and open to the public, the exhibition runs until Aug. 24. Museum curator Corinne Granof will host gallery talk on Aug. 7 at 6 p.m.

Media Credit: Chen, Jennifer

Besides revolutionizing science, Charles Darwin's 1859 "The Origin of Species" managed to inspire the design of a toast rack. The English naturalist's contribution to science is well-documented, but lesser known is his influence on 19th-century design. This summer, Northwestern art history professor Stephen F. Eisenman and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art intend to change that.

Shaped by Eisenman's curatorial hand, the Block Museum's latest exhibition, "Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright," explores Darwin's impact on English and American decorative arts in the half-century following the publication of "The Origin of Species."

"The work and writings of the British and American designers and architects highlighted in the exhibition - Christopher Dresser William Morris, C.F.A. Voysey, C.R. Ashbee, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright - were conceived and developed to a significant degree in response to the Darwinian challenge, if not explicitly to Darwin himself," Eisenman wrote in his curatorial introduction to the exhibition.

Darwinism rekindled the implicit debate between functionalism and formalism, and how evolution and natural selection fit into the practice and theory of decorative arts, Eisenman argues. English botanist and industrial designer Christopher Dresser, for instance, took the formalist route. Dresser believed designers should observe the external in order to formulate an ideal image (kind of like Plato's Forms) that is then translated into useful consumer products. But the conservative artist's bold, simple works are more modernist than anything else. His glass pitchers and silver teapots can be visually disassembled into geometric shapes, with pyramid-shaped spouts, spherical bodies and cylindrical handles. A visitor favorite is an 1880 teapot so jarringly modern-looking that it makes the latest IKEA catalogue look hopelessly dated.

In the pro-Darwin camp, domestic design bigwig William Morris and Chicago darling Frank Lloyd Wright adhered to the functionalist motto of "Form follows function." English designer C.R. Ashbee tinged his metal cigarette boxes, dishes and jars with a romantic delicacy, decorating them with slender vines and leaves and giving them nature-inspired figures, from webbed bases to cups that resemble opened flowers.

Additionally, special features of the exhibition include ceiling, wall and furniture installations from Wright and Louis Sullivan, as well as a full period room based on the designs of Englishman C.F.A. Voysey.

"Professor Eisenman wanted an exhibition that looked at nature and ornament, but one that people could approach with their own eyes," said Block Curator Corinne Granof. Eisenman, Granof added, also never meant to do an exhibition about Darwin.

When Eisenman and Granof started discussing doing an exhibition several years ago, they had an entirely different show in mind. The professor originally proposed an exhibition on industrial era decorative arts that would contrast handcrafted and industrially produced designs. However, after working on a paper connected to the upcoming Darwin anniversaries (Darwin turns 200 years old next year, and "Origin" turns 150), Eisenman suggested they look at design and Darwinism.

So far, more than 4,200 people have visited the exhibition, with most of the summertime crowd being locals such as 38-year-old photographer Bob Stefko, who came with a friend who had seen an exhibition ad on a CTA train.

"This isn't my favorite time in history, but it's interesting," Stefko said. "It's interesting how modern some of the pieces look, seeing as they were made in the 1880s; if I had this on my table, nobody would think twice," he said, nodding towards one of Dresser's minimalist teapots.

Fellow Evanstonian Holly Roeske said she never saw the Darwin connection with the artwork until the exhibition and thoroughly enjoyed it. "Lots of these pieces give you the feeling you get when you are out in nature, like the designers brought the outside into the inside," said the 41-year-old market researcher and designer. "I also liked the Chicago connection with Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan."

But as high-brow scientific as the exhibition thesis is, the exhibition is at the same time intensely relatable and almost personal in some senses. At times, the card tables, living room chairs, decanters, half-finished sketches and blueprints feel as if they were simply plucked from someone's dining table or an architect's sketchbook. On top of that, the works are, at the core of it, really very ordinary objects. The design of a toast rack may be abstract or complicated, but the visitor always knows its purpose, its function, its reason for being: It holds toast. Now, as for humanity….

"Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright" continues through Aug. 24 at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., and is free and open to the public; (847) 491-4000, blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.

jennifer-chen@northwestern.edu

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