The Lightner Museum

 The Lightner Museum

St. Augustine, Florida

March 10, 2022

Prior to being a museum, the Lightner Museum was a hotel created by Henry Flagler. Otto Curtis Lightner started out as a typer for The Daily Journal newspaper for Kansas City. He became the president of the Associated Trade Press Company which then led him to the start of his own company The Lightner Publishing Company. Lightner made a magazine named Hobbies where he showed off his collections of antique furniture, coins, rocks, minerals, glassware, autographs, stamps, and so much more. The Alcazar Hotel was bought by Lightner in 1947 as a place to store all of his collections. Currently it is a museum for people to see all of collectibles as well as a restaurant that elaborately stands in St. Augustine on King Street.

Lightner Museum Website: https://lightnermuseum.org

Exterior Picture 1

The Lightner Museum from the east side of the lawn.

Exterior Picture 2

Walking through the initial entrance brings you too an extravagant courtyard with a fountain, mini bridge, and plenty of vegetation. 

Artifact Picture 1

Lithography is an iconic printing process of the 1880s. The process is explained as printing from a flat surface where grease is placed on areas where the ink should stick and not placed where the the ink should not stick or the areas of open space. This is an example of a lithograph printed on parchment done by an unknown artist. The artifact is expected to have come from a Victorian home in Chicago where Lightner had lived. This piece was added to his collection around 1930 and it goes with many of his glasswork pieces.

Artifact Picture 2

Louis Comfort Tiffany was a significant man in the discipline of art, glasswork specifically. His discovery for his love of working with glass started in 1875 where he mainly focused on stained glass pieces. The unique designs and transformation of glass to art made him America's first, and best, glass creator. His business, Tiffany Studios, biggest customer was Louis Comfort Tiffany and he collected his artwork for years.

This piece named Prima is a lead glass window panel made in New York around 1924. It is part of the Aesthetic Movement in art which originated in Britain and swept across America in the mid 1860s. The movement focused on the flamboyant environment of art that allow more individuals to connect to the beauty of art. The environment of this piece includes the floral creations draping down the exterior of the panel, as well as a goddess who is beautifully wrapped in a white robe along with flowers draping around her head. Prima was expected to be made for a buyer who wasn't looking for something too expensive due to its smaller size, however the beauty captured is adored throughout the Aesthetic Movement. 

Image 1 In Conversation

https://visualculturelc.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20History%20of%20VC%20Chapter%202

Analyzing the first artifact pictured previously in the blog, there are numerous messages we can take from the clothing, to the scenery, to the color scheme. It is very similar to this piece of artwork named "Liberty Leading the People" by Eugene Delacriox. Both have characteristics that challenge the authority of male leadership. 

Delacriox's art pictures a women leading the France through the First French Revolution and the artifact in Lightner's collection is an Indian women holding an American flag. Both women are shown above the other individuals in the photo as if they are superior and in power. They hoist their heads high above the rest of the people pictured and they hold their flags high in the air showing their determination and fight for liberty. The women are also wearing red caps on their heads, originally worn by working class people, then changed to a symbol of liberty. Another similarity is the exposed breasts. Exposing of breasts in contemporary art symbolizes goddesses and power. 

In both works of art, the women are represented as a symbol of liberty. 

Image 2 In Conversation

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Dining_Hall_at_Flagler_College.jpg

Flagler College shares a lot in common with the Lightner Museum. The dining hall and the Ponce de Leon Hotel share one of the largest collections of Tiffany stained glass totaling nearly $3.5 million worth. These sites, being only 100 yards apart, both share a presence of Louis Comfort Tiffany and his art. Otto Lightner's fascination with Tiffany's stained glass led not only to the installation of the same glass into the Ponce de Leon Hotel, but he ended his life with his collection right next to another collection as remarkable as his. The Lightner Museum and the Ponce de Leon Hotel show the presence of Tiffany's art, making their structures significantly popular.

Literature In Conversation

Excerpt from "Sonnet XVII" by Pablo Neruda

"I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz / or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: / I love you as one loves certain obscure things,"

The speaker is convincing the subject of his writings that he doesn't love them in the generative way that people adore these precious things. A salt-rose, topaz, and the alluring arrow on fire, are all objects that catch the attention of common people. These are objects traditionally loved by everyone, however, the speaker is saying that his love isn't traditional or typical. His love for her is much deeper than the surface level of the beauty that is adored by these signs of love. 

This is contrary to what Otto Lightner and his museum represent. Otto Lightner is a collector of all things commonly admired by people. Lightner Museum is filled with incredible collections that are respected by everyone that visits and especially Lightner himself. In opposition to the way that the speaker of Pablo Neruda's sonnet expresses his affection for his lover, Otto Lightner is a collector of the typically cherished items that attract the eye of individuals.

Creative Component