Colors

The Brown Decades

"The Brown Decades" was the nickname that American critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) gave to the three decades after the American Civil War in his book The Brown Decades: A Study of the Arts in America, 1986-1895 (1931).

The Civil War shook down the blossoms and blasted the promise of spring. The colours of American civilization abruptly changed. By the time the war was over, browns had spread everywhere: mediocre drabs, ding chocolate browns, sooty browns that merged into black. Autumn had come...

"While these changes [industrial and financial transformations of the American economy] were no doubt as important in their total consequences as the abolition of human slavery, the most visible transformation of all has been forgotten. The nation not merely worked differently after the Civil War: the country looked different—darker, sadder, soberer. The Brown Decades had begun."—Lewis Mumford. The Brown Decades: A Study of the Arts in America, 1986-1895. 1931. Reprint. New York: Dover Publications, 1955, p. 2.

How It's Used

"Colonial Boston was a city of brick and granite. Pinky-orange and silver, it must have looked cheerful in the rain and positively radiant under blue skies. Victorian Boston was brownstone, a good deal more sober, sermon not song, autumnal, smokey, and darkening under the soot of coal fires.

"Not that brownstone is dull. Its iron content makes it reddish, and that can range from copper beech and milk chocolate to the purpled beige called taupe.

"Brownstone is a soft and porous stone. Because it is a sandstone, it is easy to carve. Consequently, the brown decades were decorative as all get out."

"In his early books, Sticks and Stones (1924) and The Brown Decades (1931), he was instructing Americans to reconsider their own artistic heritage. Only gradually did he move on to more universal themes. His most influential early book was The Culture of Cities, published in 1938, which placed him at the centre of the international town planning debate.

"Mumford's particular gift was to synthesise his vast reading and learning in the fields of technology, the arts, history and philosophy, into a single volume. He saw the development of the city in terms of the activities of man, both social and intellectual. While he recognised the positive contribution of cities in history, his careful analysis forced him to conclude that the dehumanised industrial city led to spiritual impoverishment and social disorder."

"'Creek in a Meadow' feels slightly out of place here -- until one starts recalling all the silk kimonos and blue-and-white porcelain vases that cluttered Western drawing rooms during the Brown Decades. Though its style at first startles, it really isn't out of place here. 'Twelve Centuries,' in many ways, is a High Victorian show."

"By the middle of the 19th century, designers lost interest in Greek classicism and they turned to other periods for inspiration. This began with the Gothic Revival, then later slipped imperceptibly into the Italianate, Queen Anne, Shingle and Colonial Revival styles. All these are usually grouped under the umbrella term, American Victorian.

"These styles were marked by an interest in elaborate ornamental detail taken, often loosely, from motifs found in medieval, Asian and Renaissance architecture. Color and pattern became dark and solemn, even gloomy when seen through the eyes of modern viewers. Decorators in the two decades after the Civil War used deep olive, mauve and brown to such an extent that historians sometimes refer to this period as the 'brown decades.'"

"According to Lewis Mumford in The Brown Decades, 'Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.' In today's world, where conflicting values, interests and aims lead to problems at home, this could not be truer. Teens today feel victimised by their parents and parents in turn, feel that their children aren't making the most of their lives."

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