This week was... Whew, let me catch my breath. I have a new favorite designer, but we'll get to that at the end.
To my relief, as the 1800s progress with Neoclassical, Federal, and Empire styles, we begin to see the fall of the notorious bombé-shaped commode. They used to be the bulbous showy centerpieces of a reception room, but over time, they get moved into the bedroom, where they shrink and morph into something smaller and more utilitarian, and that’s how we get the simple chest of drawers. Thank the furniture gods. Granted, not all commodes resemble their rococo ancestors, but we all know how even a whiff of rococo gets my goat. So as the commode takes its leave of me, to quote Hamlet, “You cannot take from me any thing that I will not more willingly part withal.”
Also, we see the emergence of some sexier pieces with which we are far more familiar: the sofa. Or the settee, the chaise, the daybed, the meridienne, the couch, the divan... they are all variations on a theme of recumbence. Up until now, the lack of bed-adjacent items in this book made it feel like people deign to lie down much in the past. But beds are not particularly difficult to make (they don’t tend to have drawers, pigeonholes, or any moving parts) and since they are relegated to the sanctum sanctorum, they weren’t made to be showpieces in the public parts of the home and were therefore secondary or tertiary in importance.
As revolutions and wars (War of 1812, Napoleonic, Civil, etc.) took place in this tumultuous century, wealth was starting to be redistributed, and the merchant/middle class started gaining ground in the general world population. The commoners started building houses that were superior to a mere hovel, reception spaces grew, and cushioned multi-person sitting/reclining devices came to the fore. Nobility were no longer the only folks concerned about creating a haven of comfort. These skirmishes also gave craftsmen and artisans reason to develop new styles that represented their own region or country’s aesthetic, as opposed to automatically meme-ing French shit all the time.
As mentioned already, the Federal style became a thing, and Americans could be proud of it. Clean lines, pretty paint colors, native woods, EAGLES. But have you seen some of the wild shit to come out of Spain and Portugal (and by association, Mexico)? Now that stuff is BOLD. It’s heavily influenced by the nearby Moroccan colonies and frequently employs fanciful and complex geometric tracery designs and ivory inlays inspired by Islamic culture. It’s eccentrically beautiful, like Hercule Poirot’s mustache. Tortured splendor.
The mid-1800s saw the long-awaited emergence of Japan on the artisan scene from hundreds of years of obscurity. The much-imitated and frequently faked lacquering and “Japanned” wood so prized by Europeans burst onto the scene, schooling the Westerners on authentic Japanese style. This meant clean rectilinear lines and squat forms meant to accommodate people who traditionally spent a lot of time kneeling or sitting on the floor for dining, writing, or reading. Influence went both ways, as Japanese people began to include “western-style” rooms in their homes for entertaining, featuring more chairs and higher tables. This was next level compared to the earlier French obsession with Chinoiserie.
Now for a few of the nuggets that made me drop everything and pry them out of the ore for more.
First up, the “Aaron Burr Desk.” It’s a clever little occasional table with casters on the feet that hinges open to reveal and single-person seat and desk with a little lockable drawer. It’s super cute. The story goes that Aaron Burr owned one and used it to write his cheeky missives to Alexander Hamilton. Designer Stephen Hedges was clearly only cashing in on the whole infamous duel between them because he patented the thing 18 years after Burr’s death. But the name stuck and I want one.
Next, German-Austrian cabinet maker Michael Thonet (pronounced “toe-net”) and his legendary “Chair no. 14.” After the steam-and-shape technique was debuted in 1851 at The Great Exposition in London, Thonet’s patented “Vienna bentwood” took the furniture world by storm, revolutionizing how elegant pieces could be mass-produced, disassembled, packed, and shipped with minimal fuss. No. 14 was patented in 1859 and to this day, this coffee shop “chair of chairs” accommodates butts on a global scale.
Finally, oh my god, hold on to your Gustavian griffin-shaped cushioned armrests, folks, because this will possibly upset you with the level of fastidiousness required to engage in this craft. I’m talking about MICROMOSAICS. Developed at the Vatican in the 1500s, these minuscule works of art became popular with the uber rich as they took their Grand Tours through Italy. They would be used for jewelry making, embellishing snuffboxes, or they were glued to tables and cabinets as a final “fuck you I’m fancy” kind of touch. Glass is mixed and melted to get the right color, pulled like taffy into long thin “canes,” and the artists cuts the canes into length a fraction of a centimeter. They plug these bits into a putty on a board to build up the picture (this takes months) and then polish the resulting surface to finalize the piece. Watch the video. Just watch video. I can’t even.
Straddling the turn of the century into the 1900s were both the Arts & Crafts and the Art Nouveau movements. These are… glorious. I am so glad to actually recognize many of the big names behind them.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, William Morris—all were heavies for the Arts & Crafts movement, each with their own spin on it. Morris was hardcore “I hate machinery because it’s killing the handcrafting guilds” (true) and Wright wrote a whole tract about making good quality furniture more democratic and using machinery for at least part of the process to help spread the aesthetic past the super-rich communities (thanks, buddy!). I mean, we do have old Uncle Frankie to thank for at least attempting to make his designs readily available to the masses with his utterly charming Usonian homes. Too bad those are still far too rare and beautiful to advertise on Curbed for anything less than millions.
Arts & Crafts, which originated in Britain from the 1880s-1920s, was a natural reaction to the plethora of low-quality factory-produced furnishings that flooded the market once the Industrial Revolution took hold. It emphasizes simplicity and durability of form, mostly eschewing ornate carvings and accoutrements for visible joins and locally sourced woods cut quartersawn (the “tigerstripe” grain effect is to die for) to highlight the natural beauty of the materials and the skilled handiwork. It also promotes the concept of an integrated, harmonious theme for a home, in opposition to the VICTORIANS and their obsession with fakakta tchotchkes and mismatched clutter.
Then we have the Art Nouveau style, mostly coming out of France, but one would be remiss to leave out the variations from Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. This "New Art," though priding itself on turning completely away from the revivalist bullshit, is just a touch inspired by *cough* rococo *cough* with its focus on asymmetrical designs. But this time the designers get it SO RIGHT. Major influences are curvy whiplash shapes from nature, as well as leaves, flowers, and insects. Obviously, there's very little gilding or ornate mounts, but fine marquetry and organic forms were everywhere.
The major players included Hector Guimard (famous for those Parisian Metro entrances), Emille Gallé (Nancy School), American Louis Comfort Tiffany (all the dragonflies), Spaniard Antoni Gaudi (yes he did furniture too!), Brit Leonard F. Wyburd (Liberty & Co., which also did Arts & Crafts), the Austrian school Gebrüder Thonet, German school Wiener Werkstätte, and Belgians Victor Horta and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy.
Where the French schools went all out with sinuous carvings, the Belgians, Austrians, and Germans leaned more heavily on geometric lines. The Glasgow school (of "The Four Macs" including Mackintosh) fell somewhere in between, and was very influential on the Continent. I remember reverently adoring the Mackintosh pieces they had on display at the Kelvingrove Museum when I visited Glasgow a few years back. Apparently, Mackintosh went a little too far with the whole "aesthetic" paradigm, which values ars gratia artis in any situation. His clean, sexy, especially erect chairs were less than structurally sound, but damn, were they CUTE.
Now excuse me while I go on a tangent about the idiosyncratic AF Italian Carlo Bugatti, whose vision of Art Nouveau looks like he was commissioned by Duke Leto Atreides to make shit for the palace on Arrakis and I am living for it. I cannot get enough.
I love a guy circa 1900 who looks at an armoire and says "You know what this is missing? TASSELS. TASSELS on everything, in fact. Very few people understand the sensuality of TASSELS."
This is from the future. It's definitely not from 120 years ago. I present as proof this screenshot from Alien: Covenent (2017):
That is Bugatti's fabulous throne chair. Perfect for robots butts.
I agree. Yes. More of this. It is batshit and I covet it so hard. It costs more than all the cars I ever owned.
Next week, things level up even further, as I see Art Deco on the horizon. Bring on the Gatsby shit.
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