Born in 1887, Arms spent the early years of his life in Washington, D.C. Because of his father’s influence, he began studying law at Princeton, but in 1907 transferred to MIT to study architecture. While there, Arms came to know Desire Despradelle, later acknowledged as his greatest influence. After completing his studies at MIT, Arms went to work for many of the nation’s most prestigious architectural firms. He left the business soon afterwards, however, and following a short term in the navy, finally decided to make etching his life’s work.

Arms felt that art consisted of only two elements: spiritual meaning and technique. Naturally, Arms placed much higher value on the first. Throughout his career, he was attracted by subjects which were large in size, complex in shape, various in form and texture, and rich in contrasts of light and dark. Thus, his attraction to the grandiose spirituality of the Gothic style is understandable. This admiration led Arms in the early 1920’s to begin recording the Gothic cathedrals of Spain, Italy, and France. In collaboration with his wife, Dorothy, he produced Churches of France. She provided the descriptive text while he created the book’s illustrations. Both of the prints in the Wake Forest collection stem from this combined effort.

In keeping with his emphasis on spiritual meaning, Arms felt that Gothic architecture exemplified mankind’s highest achievement in bringing together both spiritual and aesthetic values. Thus, his art speaks of a past age unified by religious feeling and a desire to express its faith in God. Alarmed by such new concepts as "modernism" and "individualism", Arms felt as though humans should return to the idealistic values of this age of faith, and he believed that only the Gothic style created the proper setting for worship and learning.

Arms was completely fascinated by the patterns of light and dark created on weathered stone. Therefore, he paid strict attention to the textured surfaces of Gothic sculptures. This "patchwork" treatment of light and dark seems to be his own innovation. His perspective brings the buildings close enough for us to actually feel them. Notice for example, the intricate patterns of light and dark on the stone wall in the foreground can be seen. The lines used in the immediate foreground are etched very deeply and therefore, print very heavily, while those in the background are much lighter and achieve the airy quality which typifies much of Arms’ work. Both of these prints serve as examples of Arms’ later style, yet both demonstrate his most noted compositional device. By placing the focus of the print, the cathedral, behind a much closer object, its presence almost appears to be an incidental feature of his print.

Arms began by sketching his image by actual observation of his subject. "Sketch" may not be an appropriate term when it is considered that he often spent ten to fourteen days working on this preliminary step. Occasionally, he relied on photographs to supply the minute detail. Once the sketch was completed, he used a piece of rouge paper to trace the outline of his form onto the plate. Surprisingly, Arms only used ordinary sewing needles to draw his detail. Such detail was often so precise that he had to rely on a magnifying glass to add the dots and lines that suggest variation in shade. Once he even adjusted a compass to draw circles of 1/16" in diameter to create a floor of Florentine tile. According to Arms, of the 2,172 hours used to complete his print, 1,158 were spent actually drawing the image. On most of his artistic endeavors, he often worked as much as eighteen or more hours per day on his art.

Zachary Taylor (1994)

B. L. Bassham, John Taylor Arms, American Etcher, (Madison,1975).