Annandale National Historic Site
Encyclopedia
Annandale National Historic Site is a National Historic Site of Canada located in Tillsonburg, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It was built in 1883 by Edwin Delevan Tillson (Tillsonburg's first mayor, son of the founder of Tillsonburg, George Tillson, and grandfather of adventurer Tillson Harrison
Tillson Harrison
Tillson Lever Harrison was a Canadian physician, army officer and adventurer. Moving to New York and enlisting in the United States Army at an early age, he later returned to Canada to attend the University of Toronto before practising as a physician in a number of dangerous positions, such as the...

) and his wife Mary Ann as part of Mr. Tillson's retirement project, Annandale Farm.

The site was designated a National Historic Site in 1997.

Aesthetic art movement

The Aesthetic art movement has its roots in England and it swept through North America during the 1880s. It remained quite popular for just over a decade. Followers of the movement included the architect John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

?, the designer William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

, the American painter James Whistler
James Whistler
James Whistler is the name of:* James Abbott McNeill Whistler , American-born, British-based artist, known for the painting colloquially known as Whistler's Mother...

 and the most vocal supporter, author and playwright Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

.
Within Annandale House, there is an abundance of decoration representative of the 1880s Aesthetic art movement. Aestheticism
Aestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...

 can be found in the wall coverings, painted ceilings, fireplaces, stained and etched glass and carved into the woodwork. Annandale House is one of the few surviving examples of homes decorated in this style in Canada.

Connection to Oscar Wilde

English author, poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 was the most vocal supporter of this movement and in 1882, gave his lecture The House Beautiful in Woodstock, Ontario
Woodstock, Ontario
Woodstock is a city and the county seat of Oxford County in Southern Ontario, Canada. Woodstock is located 128 km southwest of Toronto, north of Highway 401 along the historic Thames River...

in which he said And so I said, find your subjects in everyday life; your own men and women, your own flowers and fields, your own hills and mountains, these are what your art should represent to you. The flamboyant Oscar wore velvet knickers; lace cuffs and posed with a sunflower. Mary Ann Tillson attended his lecture and listened to this unusual man. Intrigued by what she heard, she put to practice much of what he had said when decorating her new home. She would use as he had suggested, subjects of her everyday life mixed with many traditional Victorian designs.

External links

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