The Church of Saint Francis and The Natizone, Cividale

John Taylor Arms

The Church of Saint Francis, or Chiesa di San Francesco, is located along the Natisone River in Cividale del Friuli, Udine Province, Italy. Now an event space, it was built by the Franciscan friars of Borgo di Ponte in 1285 and was used as a meeting place for the citizens of Cividale. After several iterations of use, including as an arsenal during World War I, it was deconsecrated. Shown here is the simple but nevertheless elegant Gothic structure’s south side, abutting a rocky hillside that slopes dramatically downward to meet the Natisone River. The water is low and calm in Arms’ depiction and the sky is mottled with clouds. The sense of peace is palpable.

Arms spoke of his love for architecture: “A building possesses truly as does a human being, a skeleton, a covering of flesh, and clothing with which both are in turn covered, so also, and most poignantly, does it possess a spirit,” ... “In the work of the great interpreters of architecture . . .Meryon, Piranesi, Canaletto, and Bone, it is this expression of the spirit of the subject . . . which makes them such enduring works of art.”

John Taylor Arms, printmaker, lecturer, illustrator, and administrator, was born in Washington, D.C. on 19 April 1887. He first studied law at Princeton University but transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture, earning a Master’s Degree in 1912. He studied with Ross Turner, David A. Gregg, and Felton Brown. For five years after his graduation Arms worked for the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings, before establishing his own architectural firm of which he was a partner.

A gift of an etching kit from his wife, Dorothy Noyes Arms, changed the course of his life. He produced his first etching in 1915 and he eventually produced 441 prints, mostly etchings. Arms became one of the most famous printmakers of the first half of the twentieth century. He is mostly noted for his etchings of medieval architecture but early subjects also included ships, sailboats, airplanes, rural landscapes, and the streets, buildings, and bridges of New York.

Arms’ exhibition history was lengthy beginning in 1927 and continuing to 1952. He was given an honorary M.A. degree from Wesleyan University in 1939, and he was a member of the National Academy of Design; the Canadian Painters, Etchers and Engravings; the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers; the Society of American Graphic Artists (served as the society's president); the National Institute of Arts and Letters; the American Federation of Arts; the American Artists Professional League; the Architectural League of New York; the Southern States Art League; the Southern Print Makers; the American Color Print Society; the North Shore Art Association; the Washington Water Color Club; the Chicago Society of Etchers; and the Print Club of Cleveland.

He authored 'Hand-Book of Print Making and Print Makers' in 1934 and illustrated 'Churches of France' and 'Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy' by Dorothy Noyes Arms. J.T. Arms was an activist for printmaking and assisted in assembling exhibitions of American graphic art that were shown in Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Rome; he was editor of the Print Department of Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, and he lectured on the techniques, history and value of original prints. Arms also served as the president of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 1940.

John Taylor Arms died in New York City on 15 October 1953.