Principles for a Complete Church and the Legacy of Owen Jones

by David Riccio and Hope Ensing, appearing in Volume 49

Effective integration of the major art of architecture with the various minor arts such as decorative painting, stained glass, and fine woodwork can produce a unified composition and a timeless interior. Owen Jones’ theory on the integration of architecture and the decorative arts in his seminal work The Grammar of Ornament defines what it means for an interior to be complete and continues to inspire the design of church interiors into the present day.

The Man from Wales

Welshman Owen Jones trained as a young man at the Royal Academy Schools and apprenticed under the architect Lewis Vuilliamy. In 1832, at age twenty-three, he embarked on the famed Grand Tour, beginning in Italy and Greece, then proceeding on to Egypt and Turkey.

During his trip, he encountered French surveyor Jules Goury who was assisting German architect Gottfried Semper in his investigation of polychroming in Greek architecture. This was a radical study at the time and one that intrigued Jones. At the tour’s conclusion, Jones stayed in Granada with Goury for several months to study the Alhambra palace.

This time in Granada proved quite influential. Jones returned to England full of ideas, determined to convey the complexity and beauty of the colorful designs he and Goury had chronicled.

His career eventually led him to the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, where he applied the theories of polychroming to the Crystal Palace’s  iron structure, dressing it in primary colors and patterns.

This decision led to much discourse and debate, but it thoroughly cemented Jones’ name in the design world.

In 1854, Jones and Matthew Digby Watt were given charge of designing the courts of the Crystal Palace, along with Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Jones took on the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman courts, as well as a court inspired by the magnificent Alhambra; Pugin contributed his famed Medieval court. By this time, Jones’ theories of color and design were already brewing. In his introduction to the guide for the Alhambra Court, Jones wrote:

When the British public shall have had time to study and profit by the marvellous art-collections here gathered under one roof, with the history of the civilization of the world before them, with an opportunity of examining side by side portions of buildings of every age, they will more fully recognize the good and the evil which pervade each form of art; they will more readily be convinced of the folly of attempting to adapt to new wants styles of architecture which have ever been the expression of the wants, faculties, and sentiments of the age in which they were produced, instead of seeking in every style for those general principles which survive from generation to generation to become stepping-stones for future progress. They will more clearly discern the absolute necessity of rejecting that which is local or temporary, holding fast only to that which is eternal. They will anxiously look around them for an art more in harmony with the wants, sentiments, and faculties of their own time…The decorative arts are of one family, and must go hand in hand with their parent architecture: the effort to raise the one will help the other.

Before the Great Exhibition and this commentary, Pugin held ideas similar to Jones’ and codified them in 1841 in The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture:

The two great rules for design are these: First, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety; Second, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building. The neglect of these two rules is the cause of all the bad architecture of the present time … the smallest detail should have a meaning or serve a purpose; and even the construction itself should vary with the material employed, and the designs should be adapted to the material in which they are executed.

To Pugin and Jones, ornament must serve a practical or architectural purpose. It is not merely for show, but an aid to the structure and an indicator of the place’s function and significance. A church ought to look like a church, a factory like a factory, and so on. Jones’ experience at the Great Exhibition and his ongoing articles, lectures, and formative dialogue with Pugin, Henry Cole, and other colleagues culminated in 1856 with the publication of The Grammar of Ornament, a record of his observations and expertise.

The Grammar of Ornament

Jones proposes thirty-seven principles synthesized from his study of decoration across history and cultures. These principles could be used in any decorative trade, be it wallpaper, ornamental painting, furniture, and carved architectural elements. For example, Jones believed that in all trades and crafts, “form without color is like a body without a soul.”

Like Pugin, Jones came to believe that ornament of any kind must be rooted in a building’s structure and purpose. Without this basis, the decorative elements are superficial and compete with the overall architecture. He was concerned that the collections from the Great Exhibition, housed in today’s Victoria and Albert Museum, would encourage students simply to copy designs. He wrote in the preface of the book:

I have ventured to hope that, in thus bringing into immediate juxtaposition the many forms of beauty which every style of ornament presents, I might aid in arresting that unfortunate tendency of our time to be content with copying, whilst the fashion lasts, the forms peculiar to any bygone age, without attempting to ascertain, generally completely ignoring, the peculiar circumstances which rendered an ornament beautiful, because it was appropriate, and which as expressive of other wants, when thus transplanted, as entirely fails.

This rather scathing critique of the state of the arts circa 1856 made clear the need for principles to guide the appropriate completion of contemporary interiors and make way for new patterns, architecture, and styles. Jones built on Pugin’s ideas and asserted that while the forms changed, the underlying formal elements guiding beauty, like geometry and color, are universal.

Like a good logician, Jones begins with his definitions and assumptions.

Proposition 1: The Decorative Arts arise from, and should properly be attendant upon, Architecture.

Proposition 2: Architecture is the material expression of the wants, the faculties, and the sentiments, of the age in which it is created.

Proposition 3: As Architecture, so all works of the Decorative Arts, should possess fitness, proportion, harmony, the result of all which is repose.

Proposition 4: True beauty results from that repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect, and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want.

Following these first propositions, he elaborates the modern basis for color theory and types of lines. In each point, Jones establishes immutable principles upon which traditional designs are to be based. Most of all, he stresses their ability to inform new compositions and forms of architectural expression.

Notably, he makes special reference to the study of nature and its existing order. Christopher Dresser, a botanist and designer under Jones’ tutelage, created Plate XCVIII for the book, showing the two-dimensional designs one can draw from nature.

God’s Kingdom at Rest

Jones’ definition of a complete design is one “satisfied from the absence of any want.” A complete church is one where all the elements complement one another and where the architecture and design have both harmony and balance, making it wholly at rest—a state of repose.

These principles found particular use in religious architecture in America and the United Kingdom, especially when the Aesthetic Movement gave way to Art Nouveau. Designers sought to create sacred spaces that combined God’s natural forms with our gifts of reason and intellect but that broke away from the styles of the past.

Jones’ definition inspired the likes of Richard Morris Hunt, Russell Sturgis, Christopher Dresser, and William Morris. These men led the Aesthetic Movement and created the Gothic Revival and Art Nouveau churches found across the United States today.

Battell Chapel

One example of Jones’ influence is Russell Sturgis Jr.’s Battell Chapel at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, built in 1874. Influenced by Jones’ design principles, Sturgis integrated architecture with stained glass, wood carving, painted decoration, and liturgical furnishings in a complete design for the church’s interior.

His initial design for this sacred building was a towering Victorian Gothic church, which included lancet windows, a pointed triumphal arch, and tall pilasters. Unfortunately, funding ran out too soon for the arched ceiling to be completed, leaving the would-be soaring chapel stunted with a flat, coffered ceiling.

Rather than implement the intended Gothic decoration, Sturgis and his designer George Fletcher Babbs opted for a scheme that would suit the shortened room and its impeded verticality. The ceiling is awash in a deep blue with red and gold beams. The same blue is carried through the coves and speckled in the diaper patterns on the walls. The pilasters, columns, and window pockets are a rich red that complements the natural wooden furnishings without clashing with the blue overhead.

Since the ceiling was lower than originally intended, Gothic designs that highlight elongation and verticality would only do the space a disservice. Instead, long bands of gold and red pass over and around the pilasters, walls, and even wrap around the chancel arch and window pockets. These bands break the space into expansive, horizontal registers, making it feel larger. The wooden wainscoting and tripartite wall on the lowest registers affect the perspective, giving the sense of dwarfing the inhabitants.

A number of elements directly reflect Jones’ principles and the shift toward natural forms. The patterns on the ceiling coves display damask patterns carefully outlined and colored—an application of Proposition 32: “Ornaments of any color may be separated from grounds of any other color by edgings of white, gold, or black.” Sturgis used contrasting colors intentionally and carefully, making sure the smallest border existed between opposing colors to avoid confusing the eye.

Elsewhere in the chapel, the stained-glass depicts figures such as Elihu Yale, Seneca, George Berkeley, and Jonathan Edwards, all of which reinforce the chapel’s identity rooted in the Trinitarian Congregationalist church.    

Sturgis desired a successful interior of sacred, eternal beauty, but Battell Chapel could not be a mere replication of Gothic interiors. The budgetary constraints and physical limitations demanded a unique interior and application of Jones’ principles of color, line, and materials.

The result is a masterful demonstration of the principles for a complete church. Today, despite the progression of interior design and styles away from Victorian tastes, Battell Chapel retains its interior rich in liturgical symbolism and history. It serves as a prime example that a dedication to beauty and admiration of God’s natural order should guide an artist’s hand.

Belmont Memorial Chapel

Another example of Jones’ principles in action can be found in George Champlin Mason Sr.’s Belmont Memorial Chapel in Newport, Rhode Island, built in 1886. This mortuary chapel was commissioned by August Belmont and his wife, Caroline Perry, to commemorate their daughter. The chapel designs we see today are the later work of Richard Morris Hunt, friend of Belmont and the first American allowed to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Though most of the interior today is lost to decades of damage and disuse, much of the stained-glass was miraculously intact and the chancel remained unscathed enough to restore the original designs in 2024.

Hunt selected designs and craftsmen that would bolster Belmont’s prestige and the building’s renown. The color palette is quite unlike what we may be accustomed to seeing in a church today.

The Audsely brothers, Scotsmen who helped decorate the interior, stressed the avoidance of gaudy colors that overpower designs and eliminate nuance. They, like Owen Jones, believed in a careful use of color and tone that created a unified, soft interior where colors did not compete with one another.

As the most intact section, the chancel offers a wealth of beauty. The diaper pattern of lilies on a field of blue complement the window depicting “Souls Carried into Heaven.” Their regular and tempered pattern contrasts with the window’s swirling, Romantic figures and tangle of foliage. The window is framed with three colored borders that repeat along the larger chancel arch.

The French and American stained-glass designers that Hunt introduced to the project were the same men that had worked for the Vanderbilts, Marquands, and other elite families of America. The chancel windows and the window to the immediate right of the nave entrance were designed by E.S. Oudinot. F. Gaudin was responsible for the three nave windows, those being the window above the front door and the two large windows on either side of the nave. Even Louis Comfort Tiffany completed a final nave window, unfortunately now lost.

Every window still intact shows a beautiful Biblical scene wreathed with flowers, marked by a Biblical verse, and set in a garden, evoking the Edenic qualities of this design period and the desire to return to nature for inspiration.

The woodwork, tiles, and stonework all add to the room as well. Each pew has a unique pew end showing a different species of plant—oak, ivy, or olive. The wooden arches in the chancel frame decorative flourishes and the small cherubim windows. Finally, the marble altar mixes architectural elements like colonnettes and trefoil arches with the organic beauty of ivy creeping behind the columns and over the crosses.

Such an integration of paint, wood, stone, and glass motifs support the simple structure and evoke the ambience of an orderly, quiet garden. If we only knew what the rest of the interior held, no doubt it would possess that repose and completion that Jones described.

Conclusion

Revival of traditional styles in new ways and the confidence to create new compositions fertilized the soil of the nascent Beaux-Arts, Arts and Crafts, and Art Nouveau movements.

The legacy of Owen Jones lies in his rejection of architecture as a mere “costume.” His work transformed the revival of traditional styles from a game of imitation into a rigorous pursuit of architectural honesty and authenticity. Jones provided the aesthetic roadmap to achieve this, using universal principles of geometry and color to create a sense of repose.

When the “major art” of architecture and the “minor arts” of decoration are integrated, they can produce an interior that is orderly and timeless. As seen in Battell and Belmont Memorial Chapels, physical or budgetary constraints do not preclude beauty; they do, however, demand honest compositions that transcend the fashion of a bygone age.

A complete church is one where the decoration acts as the soul to the building’s body, satisfied by the absence of any want.

Jones concludes The Grammar of Ornament with Proposition 37: “No improvement can take place in the Art of the present generation until all classes, Artists, Manufacturers, and the Public, are better educated in Art, and the existence of general principles is more fully recognized.” May his wishes and vision be fulfilled.