Gilded Age Architecture and Art: A Journey Through America’s Opulent Era

Just the name “The Gilded Age” invokes a sense of opulence and grandeur. And rightfully so; it was a vibrant period of American history that spanned the final decades of the 19th century. From the 1870s to 1900, the United States witnessed an incredible business boom that resulted in the creation of a new ultra-rich class. Correspondingly, this rise in wealth was reflected in both the art and architecture of the era, as patrons aimed to create increasingly lavish works of art and environments to reflect both their affluence and the magnificence of the age. Join us as we return to this golden era of American design and explore some of the context and core makers that contributed to its magnificence and enduring cultural impact. 

The Origins of the Gilded Age

The late 1800s were a period of dynamic growth and development around the globe thanks, in large part, to growing international industry. The United States led the charge; building on post-Civil War momentum, the country took its economy by storm with its rapid expansion of industry from factories to railroad networks. The exponential boost to the economy provided by this industrialization resulted in growing urban centers and wealthy families.

Socially speaking, this contrast between increasingly dense urban areas and affluent families resulted in significant disparities between social classes. This dichotomy continued to grow as living and working conditions in these city centers worsened in an effort for the rich to maximize their profits. The sharp disparity eventually fueled reforms and regulations for American workers.

The Gilded Age and Cultural Institutions

The industrial boom of the Gilded Age might have made the United States a global economic leader, but the country had yet to rival the cultural institutions boasted by the European continent. Accordingly, the Gilded Age also coincided with efforts to build this reputation. This included participating in the World’s Fair calendar, with the first such fair occurring in Philadelphia in 1876. Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, The Centennial Exhibition featured, among other marvels, portions of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty. 

One of the most significant contributions of the Gilded Age to the American cultural landscape was the creation of the first major museums. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art first opened its doors in 1870; the Art Institute of Chicago followed less than ten years later. This creation of world-class museums that rivaled those in Europe earned the United States a space on the international cultural stage. They also became a space for the major titans of industry to showcase their impressive personal collections. Henry Gurdon Marquand, the founder of the Metropolitan Museum, as well as Henry Osborn Havemeyer, both poured their considerable wealth into amassing exceptional works that would later be put on public view. The same could be said for Potter Palmer and his wife, Bertha, whose vast collection of French Impressionist works became a staple of the collection of the Art Institute.

America’s leading art academies also experienced growth and renewal. Coinciding with the launch of the Art Institute of Chicago were the foundations for a prestigious art school that blossomed in the closing years of the 19th century. In addition, renowned institutions like the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts became leading centers for artistic innovation in response to European painting trends. It was many of these talents that would prove to be the most iconic painters of the Gilded Age generation. 

Architecture of the Gilded Age

A survey of Gilded Age architecture reveals a varied array of styles that in some ways reflected the diverse demands of these elite patrons. Many chose to work with architects who specialized in the Beaux-Arts style, an aesthetic promoted by leading French academies from the early years of the 19th century and that revived the grand Renaissance architectural language of royal estates from generations past. Richard Morris Hunt was one of the American leaders in the field of Beaux-Arts architecture. In addition to contributing to the classical design of the Metropolitan Museum’s main façade and the elaborate base on which the Statue of Liberty rests, he is also credited with the lavish Biltmore Estate in North Carolina designed for heirs to the Vanderbilt family fortune. 

Stanford White was also a valuable contributor to the Beaux-Arts style, as exemplified in his design for the Washington Arch in New York’s Greenwich Village. Recalling the grandeur of triumphal arches of antiquity, White’s design aimed to celebrate the centennial of the inauguration of George Washington with a monument fit for a Roman emperor. Similarly Charles Follen McKim created some of the most iconic Beaux-Arts style buildings and eventually teamed with both White and William Rutherford Mead to form McKim, Mead, and White, one of the leading architectural firms in turn-of-the-century America whose project included the Boston Public Library. Even more sweeping was Daniel Burnham’s vision for the new American city centered in such Beaux-Arts elegance, which served as the basis for his design for the campus of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

At the same time that these wealthy barons were creating such palatial estates, others were seeking even more avant-garde designs. Frank Lloyd Wright’s early 20th-century “Prairie Style ” architecture fit the bill: re-envisioning architecture as a conversation between form and landscape, Wright redefined the forms and materials of modern architecture. One of the most cited examples of his style is the Robie House. Built around 1910 for Frederick Robie, Wright’s house design hugged the landscape with low and long vertical components that conveyed a streamlined, geometric yet organic façade. Inside, Wright experimented with an open floor plan that allowed living spaces to be used and experienced in new ways, with his designs so detailed that he even developed the furnishings therein. 

Gilded Age Sculpture

Sculpture created during the Gilded Age followed in step with the classicizing language that Beaux-Arts architecture espoused particularly since many sculptors working in this era were tasked with monuments to those who fell in Civil War battles. For example, Augustus Saint-Gaudens incorporated such themes throughout his career, from his delicate renderings of Classical goddesses like Diana to his memorable statue of Abraham Lincoln: The Man (1887) that shows the president in an imposing stance reminiscent of a Renaissance or Greco-Roman leader. Stanford White collaborated here as well with Saint-Gaudens to enhance Lincoln’s likeness with an enclosing exedra, or recess clad with marble. On a smaller but equally compelling scale, sculptures by John Quincy Adams Ward. His  The Freedman (1863; cast in 1891) invokes a sense of Greco-Roman antiquity while conjuring his new image of emancipation. 

Gilded Age Painting

Similar to the architecture, the art of the Gilded Age was also varied but perhaps better reflected American artists’ exchanges with contemporaneous European art movements. Rather than recall the past’s glory as did Beaux-Arts architecture, Gilded Age artists tended to look forward and sought ways to absorb and update current trends among European artists.

Prime examples are the artists of American Impressionism who took as their inspiration the French originators of the style. Painters like Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam channeled the loosened brushstrokes and playful palette of Impressionism while casting their artistic lens on unique scenes. Cassatt, for example, returned frequently to the theme of women in her painting, as is seen in both Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right and The Boating Party (1893). Additionally, these two works showcase Cassatt’s versatility, both in the contrast between soft and intense colors and her work in both media of oil and gouache. Hassam, meanwhile, applied the Impressionist technique to uniquely American views in visual conversation with European painters like Claude Monet or Pierre-August Renoir. For instance, his paintings, Rainy Day, Boston (1885) and Rainy Day, New York (1892), sought to converse visually with Gustave Caillbotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877) painted the previous decade.

Further intensifying this look to American daily life, painters like William Glackens and Thomas Eakins focused on the painterly realm of realism. Attempting to capture a more honest perspective on life in the United States, both Glackens and Eakins tempered the quotidian with quiet moments of intimacy with their subjects. Whether it’s the calm of the Schuylkill River in Eakins’ The Champion Single Sculls (1871) or the smog-laden horizon in Glackens’ East River Park (1902), these artists sought a great authenticity in their depictions of modern life.

Gilded Age innovation could also be sensed in the work of both John Singer Sargent and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose loosened style could be linked to Impressionism but who also pushed into the realms of Abstraction. In career-long pursuit of the principle of “art for art’s sake” Whistler advocated for the pure aesthetic experience of painting. Such can be seen in Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge (1872-1875), where Whistler conveys a powerful sense of the hazy, damp atmosphere with a carefully selected palette and a relaxation of brushstroke. He extended the same perspective to numerous portraits even when rendered in a gestural manner like Parasol (c. 1884). Sargent also specialized in portraits and similarly loosened his brushstroke to give his subjects a unique ideal yet refreshed feel. Such can be seen in one of Sargent’s most iconic (and controversial) works, Madame X (1883-1884), as well as lesser-known examples such as his Portrait of Mademoiselle Suzanne Poirson (1884). 

Gilded Age Decorative Arts

With these new grand homes in need of decoration, Gilded Age decorative arts grew exponentially. The opulence of the era was indeed captured in the designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose innovative glass and stained glass pieces added luminous color to interiors. Key to these designs was Tiffany’s development of favrile glass, a special formula inspired by the iridescent finish of ancient Roman glass that Tiffany devised by incorporating colors into the glass mix. He and his design team, Tiffany Studios, incorporated this novel iridescence across projects, from large-scale installations like the stained glass windows designed for the First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Erie, Pennsylvania, to lamps that dazzled the eye with their study of nature. 

Similarly, the Herter Brothers became one of the interior design firms of the day. Capitalizing on their expertise in furniture design, brothers Gustave and Christian Herter became adept at designing interiors catered to each patron’s architectural style. What all of their wares shared, however, was an incredible attention to craftsmanship, with many pieces comprising elegant materials and marquetry inlay. Their clientele included some of the most illustrious families in all of the country, including the Vanderbilt family and J. Pierpont Morgan.

The Legacy of the Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a critical moment in United States history that yielded indelible impacts still tangible today. On the one hand, it can be seen as an era of promise in the wake of a catastrophic war that resulted in a greater American presence on the global economic, cultural, and artistic stage. On the other hand, it established one of the most significant demographic divides between the super-rich and the poverty-stricken, leaving issues of social welfare and labor rights in turmoil.

Despite these pitfalls, perhaps the Gilded Age’s most valuable contribution to history is its art, architecture, and design. The extravagance of Gilded Age architecture created palatial estates akin to royal chateaux that still draw visitors from around the world today. At the same time, the sculptors and painters of the era worked to absorb and respond to European ideas in novel ways. From the Neoclassical styling of works by John Quincy Adams Ward to the almost abstract paintings of John Abbot McNeil Whistler, the sheer diversity of artistic production during the Gilded Age conveys American innovation in conversation with European trends.

One can also celebrate the Gilded Age foresight to create the first major American museums. These houses of history still stand today as core repositories of some of the finest art made over the past millennia that are accessible for public study and enjoyment. Thus, while The Gilded Age was not all golden, it did contribute to the enduring celebration of American culture and the artists, architects, and designers who enliven it.