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You’ve heard of Orlando, Florida and no doubt your first thoughts will turn to Disney. But think beyond Disney. Instead, think beauty. And art. Right here at the Morse Museum of American Art for instance in Winter Park. Here you’ll find an incomparable, some might say, romantic, collection of work of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). Here there are also items of Tiffany jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass, leaded-glass windows and lamps.
The museum was founded by Jeannette Genius McKean (1909-1989) in 1942 and was named for her grandfather. The museum’s collections were built up over half a century by Mrs. McKean and her husband, Hugh F. McKean, the museum’s director until his death in 1995.
While you’re visiting the museum, be sure to check out the “Four Seasons” window in the museum. This window, actually made up of 4 windows, won an gold medal at the Exposition Universalle in Paris in 1900. Tiffany believed nature should be the primary source of design inspiration. This window became a signature piece of his work internationally.
Art Noveau (New Art) turned its back on classic values and familiar historical styles and instead took its inspiration from nature and such untraditional sources as Japanese prints. Begun in the 1890s, this was the passionate style of the West until war shattered the world in 1914.
The Four Seasons window is technically noteworthy since it introduced Tiffany’s new method of copper foiling. This process involved wrapping the edges of glass pieces with thin copper foil, allowing Tiffany greater freedom in designing the individual pieces of glass that went into the window.
Tiffany actually became one of the first American designers to be acclaimed abroad. Meantime, however, in the United States, he continued to make stained-glass and glass mosaics, mostly for churches, then started producing lamps, desk sets and chandeliers and, eventually in 1904, jewelry.
Another of the prize items on display is Tiffany’s Byzantine-Romanesque chapel interior which he created for the World’s Columbian exposition in Chicago in 1893. The chapel was a sensation, bringing the already successful designer to even greater heights of popularity both in his own country and abroad. Strangely enough, it was designed as an interior with no particular church in mind, but the effect on those who saw it was moving: men removed their hats in a sign of respect when they entered the area. In one window alone, there are more than 10,000 separate pieces of glass. And Tiffany himself declared that he’d used more than a million mosaic pieces in the chapel, all of them hand-cut.
The visitor to the Morse Museum is invited to examine what a critic in 1900 called Tiffany’s “dumbfounding versatility”: from the lamps that were made in the thousands to the unique windows executed for special commission or for the artists’ own use. Well worth the visit.
And when it comes to the correct place to stay while you’re in Orlando, look no further than the 891-room, luxury Peabody Hotel. It’s not for nothing this hotel has been called "the hotel of the arts and culture.” Not only does it practice the high art of hospitality, as you’d expect from a top class hotel, it vigorously supports the area’s performing and visual arts, as well as its history and heritage entities. It does this through the Orlando/Peabody Alliance for the Arts & Culture, (OPAAC). Founded in 1996, OPAAC's mission is to elevate cultural tourism to Orlando and its environs. In the words of Alan C. Villaverde, general manager of the award-winning hotel, "We want to let the traveling public know that in addition to our world-famous theme parks and attractions, Orlando has an outstanding cultural life. This cultural tourism is the fastest-growing segment of our national tourism product and by elevating Orlando as a cultural destination, we’re positioning our area as the world's most complete destination."
And a complete destination is everything the visitor could want. Don’t miss it.
Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art: 407/645 5311 Peabody Hotel: 1-800-PEABODY, overseas 407/352-4000, or visit their website. Sheila O'Connor is freelance travel writer and a member of the Bay Area Travel Writers Association. Back to TheTraveler.
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